Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 4:11
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
11. Whoredom, &c.] ‘The heart’, not ‘their heart’ (as the Targum and Peshito). It is a moral adage, showing that Hosea was not more inclined than Isaiah to abandon simple moral teaching to the class of ‘wise men’, who ‘sat in the gate’ and conveyed practical lessons in the form of proverbs. It is literal whoredom that is meant, as, even apart from Hos 4:13-14, the juxtaposition with ‘wine and new wine’ shows. The impure rites of nature-worship had destroyed the reverence for the marriage-bond. Heart here means ‘the spiritual understanding’, ‘a heart to know Me’ (Jer 24:7); ‘sons of Belial’ cannot ‘know Jehovah’ (2Sa 2:12). For the drunkenness of Samaria comp. Isa 28:1.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
11 14. Thus the priests have led the way, and the people follow. They have lost the spiritual faculty; a wild impulse to the most sensual idolatry has carried them away.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart – (Literally, takes away). Wine and fleshly sin are pictured as blended in one, to deprive man of his affections and reason and understanding, and to leave him brutish and irrational. In all the relations of life toward God and man, reason and will are guided by the affections. And so, in Gods language, the heart stands for the understanding as well as the affections, because it directs the understanding, and the understanding, bereft of true affections, and under the rule of passion, becomes senseless. Besides the perversion of the understanding, each of these sins blunts and dulls the fineness of the intellect; much more, both combined. The stupid sottishness of the confirmed voluptuary is a whole, of which each act of sensual sin worked its part. The Pagan saw this clearly, although, without the grace of God, they did not act on what they saw to be true and right. This, the sottishness of Israel, destroying their understanding, was the ground of their next folly, that they ascribed to their stock the office of God. Corruption of manners and superstition (it has often been observed) go hand in hand.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 11. Whoredom and wine] These debaucheries go generally together.
Take away the heart.] Darken the understanding, deprave the judgment, pervert the will, debase all the passions, &c.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Whoredom; unlawful converse with wanton women, the forbidden pleasures of an adulterous bed.
And wine and new wine; excess of drinking, and indeed all immoderate pleasures; one kind being put for all.
Take away the heart; besot men, and deprive them of the right use of their Understanding and judgment. By these courses both priests and people here have disabled themselves to discern aright between good and bad, between safe and dangerous.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. A moral truth applicable toall times. The special reference here is to the licentious orgiesconnected with the Syrian worship, which lured Israel away from thepure worship of God (Isa 28:1;Isa 28:7; Amo 4:1).
take away the heartthatis, the understanding; make men blind to their own true good (Ec7:7).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Whoredom and wine, and new wine, take away the heart. Uncleanness and intemperance besot men, deprive them of reason and judgment, and even of common sense, make them downright fools, and so stupid as to do the following things; or they take away the heart from following the Lord, and taking heed to him, and lead to idolatry; or they “occupy” z the heart, and fill it up, and cause it to prefer sensual lusts and pleasures to the fear and love of God: their stupidity brought on hereby is exposed in the next verse; though it seems chiefly to respect the priests, who erred in vision through wine and strong drink, and stumbled in judgment, Isa 28:7.
z “occupant cor”, so some in Calvin and Rivet; “occupavit cor”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The allusion to whoredom leads to the description of the idolatrous conduct of the people in the third strophe, Hos 4:11-14, which is introduced with a general sentence. Hos 4:11. “Whoring and wine and new wine take away the heart ( the understanding”). Z e nuth is licentiousness in the literal sense of the word, which is always connected with debauchery. What is true of this, namely, that it weakens the mental power, shows itself in the folly of idolatry into which the nation has fallen. Hos 4:12. “My nation asks its wood, and its stick prophesies to it: for a spirit of whoredom has seduced, and they go away whoring from under their God.” is formed after , to ask for a divine revelation of the idols made of wood (Jer 10:3; Hab 2:19), namely, the teraphim (cf. Hos 3:4, and Eze 21:26). This reproof is strengthened by the antithesis my nation, i.e., the nation of Jehovah, the living God, and its wood, the wood made into idols by the people. The next clause, “and its stick is showing it,” sc. future events ( higgd as in Isa 41:22-23, etc.), is supposed by Cyril of Alexandria to refer to the practice of rhabdomancy, which he calls an invention of the Chaldaeans, and describes as consisting in this, that two rods were held upright, and then allowed to fall while forms of incantation were being uttered; and the oracle was inferred from the way in which they fell, whether forwards or backwards, to the right or to the left. The course pursued was probably similar to that connected with the use of the wishing rods.
(Note: According to Herod. iv. 67, this kind of soothsaying was very common among the Scythians (see at Eze 21:26). Another description of rhabdomancy is described by Abarbanel, according to Maimonides and Moses Mikkoz: cf. Marck and Rosenmller on this passage.)
The people do this because a spirit of whoredom has besotted them.
By ruach z e nunm the whoredom is represented as a demoniacal power, which has seized upon the nation. Z e nunm probably includes both carnal and spiritual whoredom, since idolatry, especially the Asherah-worship, was connected with gross licentiousness. The missing object to may easily be supplied from the context. , which differs from (Hos 1:2), signifies “to whore away from under God,” i.e., so as to withdraw from subjection to God.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
The verb לקח lakech, means to take away; and this sense is also admissible that wine and wantonness take possession of the heart; but I take its simpler meaning, to take away. But it is not a general truth as most imagine, who regard it a proverbial saying, that wantonness and wine deprive men of their right mind and understanding: on the contrary, it is to be restricted, I doubt not, to the Israelites; as though the Prophet had said, that they were without a right mind, and like brute animals, because drunkenness and fornication had infatuated or fascinated them. But we may take both in a metaphorical sense; as fornication may be superstition, and so also drunkenness: yet it seems more suitable to the context to consider, that the Prophet here reproaches the Israelites for having petulantly cast aside every instruction through being too much given to their pleasures and too much cloyed. Since then the Israelites had been enriched with great plenty, God had given way to abominable indulgences, the Prophet says, that they were without sense: and this is commonly the case with such men. I will not therefore treat here more at large of drunkenness and fornication.
It is indeed true, that when any one becomes addicted to wantonness, he loses both modesty and a right mind, and also that wine is as it were poisonous, for it is, as one has said, a mixed poison: and the earth, when it sees its own blood drank up intemperately, takes its revenge on men. These things are true; but let us see what the Prophet meant.
Now, as I have said, he simply directs his discourse to the Israelites, and says, that they were sottish and senseless, because the Lord had dealt too liberally with them. For, as I have said, the kingdom of Israel was then very opulent, and full of all kinds of luxury. The Prophet then touches now distinctly on this very thing: “How comes it that ye are now so senseless, that there is not a particle of right understanding among you? Even because ye are given to excesses, because there is among you too large an abundance of all good things: hence it is, that all indulge their own lusts; and these take away your heart.” In short, God means here that the Israelites abused his blessings, and that excesses blinded them. This is the meaning. Let us now go on —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
ISRAELS INGRATITUDESPIRIT OF IDOLATRY
TEXT: Hos. 4:11-14
11
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding:
12
My people ask counsel at their stock, and their staff declareth unto them; for the spirit of whoredom hath cause them to err, and they have played the harlot, departing from under their God.
13
They sacrifice upon the top of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks, and poplars and terebinths, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters play the harlot, and your brides commit adultery.
14
I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and they sacrifice with the prostitutes; and the people that doth not understand shall be overthrown.
QUERIES
a.
What are the stocks from which the people ask counsel?
b.
Why were the people burning incense under the trees?
c.
Why would God not punish the woman for harlotry and adultery?
PARAPHRASE
Licentiousness and debauchery is robbing men of their reason and understanding. My people seek wisdom and religious revelations from their divining sticks. The spirit of promiscuity and sensuality in their hearts has caused them to depart from Jehovah and the truth and to worship idols. They indulge in the immoral and vain pagan worship on the mountain tops and in the pleasant groves. Their daughters and wives have become prostitutes and priestesses in such heathen worship services. But why should I punish them when you men are so reprobate and, as leaders of society, have corrupted the women by your own indulgence in sexual immorality and idolatry. So this people which has allowed its understanding to be taken away by drunkenness and paganism will be cast headlong into destruction.
SUMMARY
In one quick stroke, Hosea tells the nation why they have no knowledge of God. They have allowed debauchery to take away their understanding.
COMMENT
Hos. 4:11 WHOREDOM AND WINE . . . TAKE AWAY THE UNDERSTANDING . . . Licentiousness and debauchery robs man of his reasoning power and of his will-power. Sexual excess and alcoholic addiction will reduce any self-assured man or woman to abject, whimpering, slobbering slavery, The Bible has a great deal to say about self-control in both sex and alcohol (cf. 1 Corinthians 7; Pro. 20:1; Pro. 23:20; Pro. 23:31; Isa. 5:11, etc.). Many an individual, home and nation has been destroyed because of one or both. Belshazzar lost an empire because of this; Alexander the Great died a debauched profligate at the apex of his power; the Roman empire of the Caesars disintegrated because of thisand in our day the British empire is about to fade away because men in high places betrayed their country after they had become enslaved to such excesses. And let Americans tremble when they think of the drunkenness, the partying, the carousing and whoring that goes on in high levels of government, business and the arts in her own fair land! How can we trust men with such tremendously cataclysmic responsibilities in places of political leadership to make the true, good and right decisions when their minds are sated with sensual excess?! These two excesses are demons! They literally possess men and women! Men who are so possessed will compromise and surrender, they will pervert and poison, they will even steal and kill to satisfy their lusts. They become senseless (cf. Rom. 1:18 ff).
Hos. 4:12 MY PEOPLE ASK COUNSEL AT THEIR STOCK . . . AND THEIR STAFF . . . This is a demonstration of the preceding statement. Men who lose their reason by allowing themselves to be overcome with sensual excess turn to falsehood to deliberately shield themselves from the truth! It sounds impossible but it is true nevertheless (cf. Joh. 3:19-21). The people of Israel turned deliberately to dumb, speechless, powerless idols in order to rationalize their lust for licentiousness. Men today are not any wiser. Men who delight in sensual indulgence will turn to dumb or dead gods of scientism, psychology, philosophy, liberal theology, or some pagan cult in order to rationalize and find credence for their indulgences. Many form their own philosophy or system of ethics (all relative, of course) and turn to fate or the stars to ask counsel. Some have made love a god (their definition of love, of course, precludes any discipline or moral responsibility). God is love, but love is not God! People will turn to every source under the sun for counsel but the divine revelation of God propositionally delivered and inerrantly recorded in human language in the Bible. This is too objective for people, too restrictive for those with the spirit of whoredom.
The spirit of whoredom is that spirit of promiscuity, license, libertinism or anarchy which desires to be free of all reasonable, moral and physical restraint. It is a totally selfish spirit for it considers only its own pleasure or satisfaction. It is a spirit of envy, greed and covetousness for it desires to possess that which does not rightfully belong to it. It is a spirit of rebellion, a spirit of pride which says, I know better than God and His law. It is the spirit which is susceptible to being led astray into ignorance, lie, and spiritual death by the devil.
This describes the people of Israel in Hoseas day. So they were turning to their sticks for revelations and wisdom. Cyril of Alexandria says this refers to a practice which was an invention of the Chaldeans where two rods were held upright and then allowed to fall while forms of incantation were being uttered; and the oracle or message was inferred from the way in which they fell, whether forwards or backwards, to the right or left, or (if they had inscriptions) which inscription was facing upward, (cf. also Isa. 44:9-20; Isa. 45:20; Jer. 10:3-11). What foolishness men will succumb to when they allow their minds to be thus darkened!
Hos. 4:13 THEY SACRIFICE UPON THE TOPS OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND BURN INCENSE UPON THE HILLS . . . AND YOUR BRIDES COMMIT ADULTERY . . . The sacrificing upon . . . the mountains refers, of course, to Israels practice of pagan idolatry. They were infected with the paganism of Jezebel, the heathen wife of Ahab (1Ki. 16:32; 1 Kings 18-19), early in their history as a nation. Earlier than this though, Jereboam I started the nation in idolatry when be built golden images for the nation to worship. In the pleasant, shady, cool groves they indulged themselves in the grossly immoral religious rites of Baalism (cf. Jer. 2:20; Jer. 3:6; Jer. 3:13; 2Ki. 16:4; 2Ki. 17:9-18). According to Henry H. Halley, in the Pocket Bible Handbook, in the religion of the Cananites, Priestesses were temple prostitutes. Sodomites were male temple prostitutes. The worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, and other Canaanite gods consisted in the most extravagant orgies; their temples were centers of vice . . . Under the debris, in one of the High Places, Macalister (of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 190409) found great numbers of jars containing the remains of children who had been sacrificed to Baal. The whole area proved to be a cemetery for new-born babes. Another horrible practice was what they called foundation sacrifices. When a house was to be built, a child would be sacrificed, and its body built into the wall, to bring good luck to the rest of the family, Many of these were found in Gezer. They have been found also at Megiddo, Jericho, and other places. Also, in this High Place, under the rubbish, Macalister found enormous quantities of images and plaques of Ashtoreth with rudely exaggerated sex organs, designed to foster sensual feelings.
The literal meaning of the word baal, is possessor, husband. Very lascivious rites accompanied the worship (1Ki. 14:23-24). Sometimes priests, dancing around the altar in a state of frenzy, slashed themselves with knives (1Ki. 18:26-28), When people commit themselves to worship (which really means to adore, to practice and believe in something or someone as the reason for existence and the motivating center of life) in such immoral, fleshly indulgence, one can understand why the society became politically corrupt and falls apart.
J. N. D. Anderson, in The Worlds Religions states (from his own knowledge as a missionary) that in India today young girls are still provided in Hindu temples to serve as religious prostitutes. If a worshiper visits the temple prostitute he is doing only what is customary and taking advantage of what is provided for him by his gracious gods.
Hos. 4:14 I WILL NOT PUNISH YOUR DAUGHTERS . . . AND THE PEOPLE THAT DOTH NOT UNDERSTAND SHALL BE OVERTHROWN . . . God does not mean to say that He will not ever punish the adultery and harlotry of the women of Israel, What is meant is evident from the last phrase of this versenamely that God is going to leave the people in their deliberate, rebellious ignorance to choose their own course. God has spoken. God has sent calamity after calamity, but the people refuse to hear. There is nothing left for a merciful God to do but give them up (cf. Rom. 1:18 ff). So, because this is the way Israel wants it, the presence of Jehovah has left themthey are left to their own devices. They are given up in their headlong plunge into utter ruin.
QUIZ
1.
How does whoredom and wine take away the understanding?
2.
What is the spirit of whoredom?
3.
Describe the worship of Baal. Where did it come from?
4.
Does such gross immorality occur in the name of religion today?
5.
How does Hos. 4:14 compare to Rom. 1:18 ff?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(11) Heart.The whole inner life, consumed by these licentious indulgences.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11-14. The religious corruption. In Hos 4:1-2 the prophet emphasizes moral corruption, here religious impurities, though the latter are not and cannot be separated entirely from the former. The section begins with what may be a proverb expressing the thought that sin blinds the spiritual faculties (Isa 5:12; compare Joe 1:5).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
11. Whoredom The juxtaposition of the word with wine shows that it is to be interpreted literally.
Wine new wine The former is a general term; on the latter see on Joe 1:5; Joe 1:10. Heart [“understanding”] See on Joe 2:12. The weakening of the understanding manifests itself in the conduct described in the following verses.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding.’
Israel are here described as being lacking in understanding both because of their whoredom and licentiousness, and because they indulge themselves in abundance of wine, each of which is a consequence of their religious activities. Illicit sex and drink are thus dulling their minds and preventing them from thinking straightly.
Some would bring ‘my people’ from being the first words in Hos 4:12 to being the last words in Hos 4:11. The Hebrew text can be read either way (it has no punctuation). We would then read ‘whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding of My people’. Hos 4:12 would then read ‘They ask counsel at their tree –’. It makes no difference to the overall sense.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Strong Wine and Illicit Sex Have Turned The People’s Minds So That They Look To Bits Of Wood Concerning Their Future And Play The Harlot On The Tops Of Mountains And Under Sacred Trees Rather Than Looking To YHWH ( Hos 4:11-19 ).
The strong wine and illicit sex which are a part of their religious activities have taken away their understanding, so that their minds are befuddled and they seek to pieces of wood for their divination, and to the tops of mountains and under sacred trees for their worship. YHWH therefore intends to punish Israel for their ways and forbids them any longer to use His Name, a consequence of which will be that they will be put to shame for the behaviour.
Analysis of Hos 4:11-19 .
a
b My people ask counsel at their tree, and their staff makes declaration to them, for the spirit of whoredom has caused them to err, and they have played the harlot, departing from under their God (Hos 4:12).
c They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because its shadow is good. Therefore your daughters play the harlot, and your brides commit adultery (Hos 4:13).
d I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery, for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and they sacrifice with the prostitutes, and the people who do not understand will be overthrown (Hos 4:14).
c Though you, Israel, play the harlot, yet let Judah not offend, and do not come to Gilgal, nor go you up to Beth-aven, nor swear, “As YHWH lives” (Hos 4:15).
b For Israel has behaved himself stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer. Will YHWH now feed them as a lamb in a large place? Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone (Hos 4:16-17).
a Their drink has become sour, they play the harlot continually, her shields dearly love shame, the wind has wrapped her up in its wings, and they will be put to shame because of their sacrifices (Hos 4:18-19).
Note that in ‘a’ lasciviousness and wine have taken away their understanding, and in the parallel their drink has become soured, and their behaviour will cause them to be ashamed. In ‘b’ seek to wooden things and spiritual harlotry, and in the parallel they have behaved stubbornly and are joined to idols. In ‘c’ they sacrifice in high places and commit spiritual harlotry, and in the parallel they are seen as playing the harlot and Judah are therefore not to go to Gilgal or Bethaven to sacrifice with them. Centrally in ‘d’ the overthrow of the people is determined because of their illicit sexual and religious behaviour.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Second Part of the Accusation
v. 11. Whoredom, v. 12. My people ask counsel at their stocks, v. 13. They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, v. 14. I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery, v. 15. Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, v. 16. For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer, v. 17. Ephraim, v. 18. Their drink is sour, v. 19. The wind hath bound her up in her wings,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Hos 4:11 Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
Ver. 11. Whoredom and wine and new wine have taken away the heart ] i.e. Have robbed my people of themselves, and laid a beast in their room. Any lust allowed and wallowed in will eat out the heart of grace; and, at length, all grace out of the heart. Hence temporizers grow in time so sapless, heatless, and heartless to any good; some unmortifled lust or other there is, that, as a worm, lieth grubbing at the root, and makes all to wither; that, like a drone in a hive, proves a great waster; that, as a moth in fine cloth, consumes all; or, as the light of the sun, puts out the light of the fire: so here. But, above all others, sensual sins and fleshly lusts (such as are here instanced, whoredom and drunkenness) do war against the soul, 1Pe 2:11 , do take away the heart; they besot and infatuate a man, they rob him of his reason, and carry away his affections, &c. Grace is seated in the power of nature. Now these carnal sins disable nature; and so set it in a greater distance from grace. They make men, that formerly seemed to give light as a candle, to become as a snuff in a socket, drowned in the tallow; or as a quagmire, which swallows up the seed sown upon it, and yields no increase. Who are void of the Spirit but such as are sensual? Jdg 1:18-19 . And who are they that say unto God, Depart from us, but those that dance to the timbrel and harp, &c., Job 21:11 . “They saw God, and did eat and drink,” Exo 24:11 ; that is, say some, though they had seen God, yet they turned again to sensual pleasures: as if it had reference to that eating, and drinking, and rising up to play, upon the dedication of their calf, which was presently after. Aristotle writeth of a parcel of ground in Sicily that sendeth forth such a strong smell of fragrant flowers to all the fields and grounds thereabouts, that no hound can hunt there; the scent is so confounded with the sweet smell of the flowers. Let us see to it that the pleasures of sin take not away all scent (and sense too) of heavenly delights; that the flesh, as a siren, befool not Wisdom’s guests, and get them away from her, Pro 9:16 ; as Aelian tells of a whore that boasted that she could easily get all Socrates’ scholars from him, but he could not recover one again from her. Indeed, none that go unto her return again, saith Solomon, Pro 2:19 , for she gets their hearts from them: as David found, and Solomon complained. David was never his own worthy again, after he had fouled himself with that beastly sin. And Solomon, when he gave himself to wine and women (though his mother had sufficiently warned him, Pro 31:3-4 ), he quickly took hold of folly, Ecc 2:3 , his sensualities drew out his spirits and dissolved him, and brought him to so low an ebb in grace, that many question his salvation. Bellarmine reckons him among reprobates: but I like not his judgment. Let ministers of all men (this is spoken of the priests chiefly, as some think) see to it that they flee fleshly lusts: that they exhort the younger women with chastity, as St Paul did Timothy: and drink (if any, yet but) a little wine for their health’s sake: remembering that the sins of teachers are teachers of sins; and that their evil practices flee far upon those two dangerous wings of example and scandal. Ministers should be no winebibbers or ale stakes, 1Ti 3:3 , ne magis solliciti de mero quam de vero, magis ament mundi delicias quam Christi divitias, lest being “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,” that should befall them that Solomon foretelleth, Pro 23:33 , thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Venter aestuans mere spumat in libidinem, a belly filled with wine foameth out filthiness, saith Jerome. Wine is the milk of Venus, saith Aristotle. Vina parant animos Veneri, saith Ovid. Whoredom is usually ushered in by drunkenness: hence they stand so close together in this text.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Hos 4:11-14
11Harlotry, wine and new wine take away the understanding.
12 My people consult their wooden idol, and their diviner’s wand informs them;
For a spirit of harlotry has led them astray,
And they have played the harlot, departing from their God.
13They offer sacrifices on the tops of the mountains
And burn incense on the hills,
Under oak, poplar and terebinth,
Because their shade is pleasant.
Therefore your daughters play the harlot
And your brides commit adultery.
14I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot
Or your brides when they commit adultery,
For the men themselves go apart with harlots
And offer sacrifices with temple prostitutes;
So the people without understanding are ruined.
Hos 4:11 This is obviously a proverb. Sin robs people of moral sight and they grope in darkness as drunk, blind men (cf. Isa 28:1-4). See Special Topic: Biblical Attitudes Toward Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse .
Hos 4:12 Israel was seeking to know the future and control it by improper means (cf. Deu 18:9-13).
NASBwooden idol
NKJVwooden idols
NRSV, TEVa piece of wood
NJBa block of wood
This term (BDB 781) means tree or wood. A slightly different form is used in Hos 4:17; Hos 8:4; Hos 13:2; Hos 14:8 and means idols. Since this is paralleled with rod/wand/staff it may refer to a tree oracle or a reference to the Asherah pole/carved stake and not a humanoid-shaped wooden idol.
NASBdiviner’s wand
NKJVstaff
NRSVdivining rod
TEV, NJBstick
This term (BDB 596) means a tree, a staff, or a rod. Some of its uses are:
1. a wooden weapon (cf. 1Sa 17:40; 1Sa 17:43; Eze 29:9)
2. a walking stick (cf. Gen 32:20; Exo 12:11)
3. a stick to control an animal (cf. Num 22:27)
4. young trees (e.g., Gen 30:37-39; Gen 30:41; Jer 1:1)
5. a shepherd’s staff (cf. Zec 11:7; Zec 11:10; Zec 11:14, see NIDOTTE, vol. 2, p. 1088)
a spirit of harlotry The term spirit has nothing to do with demon possession here, but it is used in the OT for mindset, character or energizing center. Here is a list of how this term is used to express human characteristics or feelings:
1. bitterness of spirit, Gen 26:35
2. shortness of spirit, Exo 6:9
3. oppressed in spirit, 1Sa 1:15
4. sullen in spirit, 1Ki 21:5
5. impatient in spirit, Job 21:4; Pro 14:29
6. haughty in spirit vs. humble in spirit, Pro 16:18-19; Isa 66:2
7. faithful of spirit, Pro 11:13
8. staggering in spirit, Isa 19:14
9. grieved in spirit, Isa 54:6
This describes Israel’s lust after the fertility gods of Canaan (cf. Hos 5:4). The interpretive issues were these cultic sexual acts (cf. Hos 4:3-14) or it could be a metaphor of unfaithfulness (e.g., Exo 34:15-16; Lev 20:5; Jdg 2:17; Jdg 8:27; Jdg 8:33; 1Ch 5:25; Psa 73:27; Psa 106:39).
departing from their God Literally this is from under God (BDB 1065), implying their deserting God’s authority.
Hos 4:13 They offer sacrifices. . .burn incense These could refer to two separate cultic acts or just incense burning. No sacrificial altars are connected to local Ba’al worship.
on the top of the mountains. . .on the hills This could refer to two things: (1) the highest part of the topography was the site of the local Ba’al altar or (2) the altars of Ba’al/Astarte were made of cut stones with a central phallic symbol (raised pillar) and an Asherah carved pole (cf. Deu 12:2; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Eze 6:13).
oak, poplar, and terebinth Trees marked sacred sites because they reflected the presence of underground water, which was extremely important for desert people. There is no record of Israel ever worshiping trees, although they held them to be sacred sites (e.g., Gen 13:18; Jdg 4:5). In this context the trees were used as shade for the fertility practices of Ba’al.
Hos 4:14 It is possible that these statements are really questions expecting a yes answer. There is no double standard with God. Both men and women are condemned for their promiscuous fertility rites (cf. Deu 23:17-18). There are three types of women involved: (1) new brides; (2) cultic prostitutes; and (3) other local women.
It is also grammatically and contextually possible to see the priests as the recipients of the cultic acts of Hos 4:14. The priests who should have known better, also participated in the sexual activities and set a disastrous pattern for the community! If this is accurate, then the women mentioned in Hos 4:13 may be the priests’ own families!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
wine. Hebrew. yayin. App-27.
new wine. Hebrew. tirosh. App-27.
heart. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for understanding. See Isa 28:6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Hos 4:11-14
ISRAELS INGRATITUDE-SPIRIT OF IDOLATRY
TEXT: Hos 4:11-14
In one quick stroke, Hosea tells the nation why they have no knowledge of God. They have allowed debauchery to take away their understanding.
Hos 4:11 WhoredomH2184 and wineH3196 and new wineH8492 take awayH3947 the heart.H3820
Hos 4:11 WHOREDOM AND WINE . . . TAKE AWAY THE UNDERSTANDING . . . Licentiousness and debauchery robs man of his reasoning power and of his will-power. Sexual excess and alcoholic addiction will reduce any self-assured man or woman to abject, whimpering, slobbering slavery, The Bible has a great deal to say about self-control in both sex and alcohol (cf. 1 Corinthians 7; Pro 20:1; Pro 23:20; Pro 23:31; Isa 5:11, etc.). Many an individual, home and nation has been destroyed because of one or both. Belshazzar lost an empire because of this; Alexander the Great died a debauched profligate at the apex of his power; the Roman empire of the Caesars disintegrated because of this-and in our day the British empire is about to fade away because men in high places betrayed their country after they had become enslaved to such excesses. And let Americans tremble when they think of the drunkenness, the partying, the carousing and whoring that goes on in high levels of government, business and the arts in her own fair land! How can we trust men with such tremendously cataclysmic responsibilities in places of political leadership to make the true, good and right decisions when their minds are sated with sensual excess?! These two excesses are demons! They literally possess men and women! Men who are so possessed will compromise and surrender, they will pervert and poison, they will even steal and kill to satisfy their lusts. They become senseless (cf. Rom 1:18 ff).
Zerr: Hos 4:11. The word wine occurs twice and is from altogether different Hebrew originals. The first means the fermented kind and the second is the juice of the grape newly pressed out. The first would intoxicate and the second would tend to satiate or glut. Heart means the mind or intellectual part of man. The whole verse is a picture of the corrupt practices of the people, especially in their disorderly assemblages where they gave themselves up to revelry and lust and drunkenness.
Hos 4:12 My peopleH5971 ask counselH7592 at their stocks,H6086 and their staffH4731 declarethH5046 unto them: forH3588 the spiritH7307 of whoredomsH2183 hath caused them to err,H8582 and they have gone a whoringH2181 from underH4480 H8478 their God.H430
Hos 4:12 MY PEOPLE ASK COUNSEL AT THEIR STOCK . . . AND THEIR STAFF . . . This is a demonstration of the preceding statement. Men who lose their reason by allowing themselves to be overcome with sensual excess turn to falsehood to deliberately shield themselves from the truth! It sounds impossible but it is true nevertheless (cf. Joh 3:19-21). The people of Israel turned deliberately to dumb, speechless, powerless idols in order to rationalize their lust for licentiousness. Men today are not any wiser. Men who delight in sensual indulgence will turn to dumb or dead gods of scientism, psychology, philosophy, liberal theology, or some pagan cult in order to rationalize and find credence for their indulgences. Many form their own philosophy or system of ethics (all relative, of course) and turn to fate or the stars to ask counsel. Some have made love a god (their definition of love, of course, precludes any discipline or moral responsibility). God is love, but love is not God! People will turn to every source under the sun for counsel but the divine revelation of God propositionally delivered and inerrantly recorded in human language in the Bible. This is too objective for people, too restrictive for those with the spirit of whoredom.
Zerr: Hos 4:12. Stocks and staff refers to the wooden idols which they had made. They had become so confused by their debased manner of life that their judgment was deranged. This whoredom was both fleshly and spiritual, for when the people became merged with the heathen in their worship of idols, they also took up with the immoral practices that was a part of their religion.
The spirit of whoredom is that spirit of promiscuity, license, libertinism or anarchy which desires to be free of all reasonable, moral and physical restraint. It is a totally selfish spirit for it considers only its own pleasure or satisfaction. It is a spirit of envy, greed and covetousness for it desires to possess that which does not rightfully belong to it. It is a spirit of rebellion, a spirit of pride which says, I know better than God and His law. It is the spirit which is susceptible to being led astray into ignorance, lie, and spiritual death by the devil.
This describes the people of Israel in Hoseas day. So they were turning to their sticks for revelations and wisdom. Cyril of Alexandria says this refers to a practice which was an invention of the Chaldeans where two rods were held upright and then allowed to fall while forms of incantation were being uttered; and the oracle or message was inferred from the way in which they fell, whether forwards or backwards, to the right or left, or (if they had inscriptions) which inscription was facing upward, (cf. also Isa 44:9-20; Isa 45:20; Jer 10:3-11). What foolishness men will succumb to when they allow their minds to be thus darkened!
Hos 4:13 They sacrificeH2076 uponH5921 the topsH7218 of the mountains,H2022 and burn incenseH6999 uponH5921 the hills,H1389 underH8478 oaksH437 and poplarsH3839 and elms,H424 becauseH3588 the shadowH6738 thereof is good:H2896 thereforeH5921 H3651 your daughtersH1323 shall commit whoredom,H2181 and your spousesH3618 shall commit adultery.H5003
Hos 4:13 THEY SACRIFICE UPON THE TOPS OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND BURN INCENSE UPON THE HILLS . . . AND YOUR BRIDES COMMIT ADULTERY . . . The sacrificing upon . . . the mountains refers, of course, to Israels practice of pagan idolatry. They were infected with the paganism of Jezebel, the heathen wife of Ahab (1Ki 16:32; 1 Kings 18-19), early in their history as a nation. Earlier than this though, Jereboam I started the nation in idolatry when be built golden images for the nation to worship. In the pleasant, shady, cool groves they indulged themselves in the grossly immoral religious rites of Baalism (cf. Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Jer 3:13; 2Ki 16:4; 2Ki 17:9-18). According to Henry H. Halley, in the Pocket Bible Handbook, in the religion of the Cananites, Priestesses were temple prostitutes. Sodomites were male temple prostitutes. The worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, and other Canaanite gods consisted in the most extravagant orgies; their temples were centers of vice . . . Under the debris, in one of the High Places, Macalister (of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1904-09) found great numbers of jars containing the remains of children who had been sacrificed to Baal. The whole area proved to be a cemetery for new-born babes. Another horrible practice was what they called foundation sacrifices. When a house was to be built, a child would be sacrificed, and its body built into the wall, to bring good luck to the rest of the family, Many of these were found in Gezer. They have been found also at Megiddo, Jericho, and other places. Also, in this High Place, under the rubbish, Macalister found enormous quantities of images and plaques of Ashtoreth with rudely exaggerated sex organs, designed to foster sensual feelings.
Zerr: Hos 4:13. Fleshly and spiritual adultery seem to have been closely associated in Biblical times. The forepart of this verse describes the latter form of the abomination, for the hills were used as desirable spots for idolatrous practices, and trees of all kinds were brought into it because the idolaters like the attractiveness of the large plants for such performances. The last part of the verse refers to fleshly adultery, and it is a prediction with a suggestion of threat. Since fleshly unfaithfulness is no worse than spiritual (if as bad), and these leading men of the nation were guilty of the latter, it will serve them justly If their own wives prove unfaithful to them by committing the former.
The literal meaning of the word baal, is possessor, husband. Very lascivious rites accompanied the worship (1Ki 14:23-24). Sometimes priests, dancing around the altar in a state of frenzy, slashed themselves with knives (1Ki 18:26-28), When people commit themselves to worship (which really means to adore, to practice and believe in something or someone as the reason for existence and the motivating center of life) in such immoral, fleshly indulgence, one can understand why the society became politically corrupt and falls apart.
J. N. D. Anderson, in The Worlds Religions states (from his own knowledge as a missionary) that in India today young girls are still provided in Hindu temples to serve as religious prostitutes. If a worshiper visits the temple prostitute he is doing only what is customary and taking advantage of what is provided for him by his gracious gods.
Hos 4:14 I will notH3808 punishH6485 H5921 your daughtersH1323 whenH3588 they commit whoredom,H2181 nor your spousesH3618 whenH3588 they commit adultery:H5003 forH3588 themselvesH1992 are separatedH6504 withH5973 whores,H2181 and they sacrificeH2076 withH5973 harlots:H6948 therefore the peopleH5971 that doth notH3808 understandH995 shall fall.H3832
Hos 4:14 I WILL NOT PUNISH YOUR DAUGHTERS . . . AND THE PEOPLE THAT DOTH NOT UNDERSTAND SHALL BE OVERTHROWN . . . God does not mean to say that He will not ever punish the adultery and harlotry of the women of Israel, What is meant is evident from the last phrase of this verse-namely that God is going to leave the people in their deliberate, rebellious ignorance to choose their own course. God has spoken. God has sent calamity after calamity, but the people refuse to hear. There is nothing left for a merciful God to do but give them up (cf. Rom 1:18 ff). So, because this is the way Israel wants it, the presence of Jehovah has left them-they are left to their own devices. They are given up in their headlong plunge into utter ruin.
Zerr: Hos 4:14. It is true that two wrongs do not make one right, but God sometimes suffers certain things that are wrong in order to teach a lesson. In the. present instance the Lord declared he would not punish the women folk of the men of Israel for their immorality. Themselves is a pronoun that stands for these men, and they also were guilty of a like sin. Separated with whores means they were associated with them, not only in their immorality, but also in their idolatrous worship. Doth not understand refers to the men and women in general, and reminds us of the statement in verse 6, also the statement of Isaiah in Isa 1:3.
Questions
1. How does whoredom and wine take away the understanding?
2. What is the spirit of whoredom?
3. Describe the worship of Baal. Where did it come from?
4. Does such gross immorality occur in the name of religion today?
5. How does Hos 4:14 compare to Rom 1:18 ff?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Joined to Idols
Hos 4:11-19
The prophet does not mince his words in describing the morals of his time. We are reminded of Bunyans words: My original and inward pollution was my plague. It was always putting itself forth in me, and I was more loathsome in my own eyes than a toad, and I thought I was in Gods eyes also. Corruption bubbled up in my heart as naturally as water in a fountain, and I thought that everyone had a better heart than I. Of course in Christ we have redemption through His blood, and that means more than forgiveness; it implies the deliverance of the soul from the love and power of evil. But if the soul of man refuses this, obstinately and persistently, a time arrives when God gives him up to reap as he has sown.
The greatest gift we can make to our generation is that of unblemished character. Sir Leslie Stephen, the brilliant agnostic, in his mature life, went back to the grave of an undergraduate, who had been his pupil and had died in early life without having distinguished himself in his studies or athletics, but had lived the Christian life with transparent simplicity and lovableness.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
take: Hos 4:12, Pro 6:32, Pro 20:1, Pro 23:27-35, Ecc 7:7, Isa 5:12, Isa 28:7, Luk 21:34, Rom 13:11-14
Reciprocal: Gen 38:18 – gave it her 1Ki 11:8 – all his strange wives 1Ki 11:9 – his heart 1Ki 20:16 – Benhadad Pro 5:14 – General Pro 5:22 – His Pro 17:16 – seeing Pro 23:28 – increaseth Pro 31:3 – strength Pro 31:4 – General Isa 28:1 – drunkards Isa 56:12 – I will Isa 57:5 – Enflaming Hos 2:8 – wine Hos 3:1 – love flagons Hos 6:10 – there Hos 7:11 – without Amo 2:6 – For three
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 4:11. The word wine occurs twice and Is from altogether different Hebrew originals. The first means the fermented kind and the second is the juice of the grape newly pressed out. The first would intoxicate and the second would tend to satiate or glut. Heart means the mind or intellectual part of man. The whole verse is a picture of the corrupt practices of the people, especially in their disorderly assemblages where they gave themselves up to revelry and lust and drunkenness.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
4:11 {m} Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
(m) In giving themselves to pleasures, they become like brute beasts.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The guilt of Israel’s idolatrous citizens 4:11-14
The following section is a general indictment of the people of Israel for their idolatry.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The practice of idolatry (spiritual harlotry), with its emphasis on drinking wine, had turned the heart of the Israelites from Yahweh. With their heart for God went their realistic understanding of what was best for them, which He had revealed.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
11; Hos 2:1-23; Hos 3:1-5
THE SIN AGAINST LOVE
Hos 1:1-11; Hos 2:1-23; Hos 3:1-5; Hos 4:11 ff.; Hos 9:10 ff.; Hos 11:8 f.
The Love of God is a terrible thing-that is the last lesson of the Book of Hosea. “My God will cast them away.” {Hos 10:1-15}
“My God”-let us remember the right which Hosea had to use these words. Of all the prophets he was the first to break into the full aspect of the Divine Mercy to learn and to proclaim that God is Love. But he was worthy to do so, by the patient love of his own heart towards another who for years had outraged all his trust and tenderness. He had loved, believed and been betrayed; pardoned and waited and yearned, and sorrowed and pardoned again. It is in this long-suffering that his breast beats upon the breast of God with the cry “My God.” As He had loved Gomer, so had God loved Israel, past hope, against hate, through ages of ingratitude and apostasy. Quivering with his own pain, Hosea has exhausted all human care and affection for figures to express the Divine tenderness, and he declares Gods love to be deeper than all the passion of men, and broader than all their patience: “How can I give thee up, Ephraim? How can I let thee go, Israel? I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger. For I am God, and not man.” And yet, like poor human affection, this Love of God, too, confesses its failure-“My God shall cast them away.” It is Gods sentence of relinquishment upon those who sin against His Love, but the poor human lips which deliver it quiver with an agony of their own, and here, as more explicitly in twenty other passages of the book, declare it to be equally, the doom of those who outrage the love of their fellow men and women.
We have heard it said: “The lives of men are never the same after they have loved; if they are not better, they must be worse.” “Be afraid of the love that loves you: it is either your heaven or your hell.” “All the discipline of men springs from their love-if they take it not so, then all their sorrow must spring from the same source.” “There is a depth of sorrow, which can only be known to a soul that has loved the most perfect thing and beholds itself fallen.” These things are true of the Love, both of our brother and of our God. And the eternal interest of the life of Hosea is that he learned how, for strength and weakness, for better or for worse, our human and our Divine loves are inseparably joined.
I.
Most men learn that love is inseparable from pain where Hosea learned it-at home. There it is that we are all reminded that when love is strongest she feels her weakness most. For the anguish which love must bear, as it were from the foundation of the world, is the contradiction at her heart between the largeness of her wishes and the littleness of her power to realize them. A mother feels it, bending over the bed of her child, when its body is racked with pain or its breath spent with coughing. So great is the feeling of her love that it ought to do something, that she will actually feel herself cruel because nothing can be done. Let the sick-bed become the beach of death, and she must feel the helplessness and the anguish still more as the dear life is now plucked from her and now tossed back by the mocking waves, and then drawn slowly out to sea upon the ebb from which there is no returning.
But the pain which disease and death thus cause to love is nothing to the agony that sin inflicts when he takes the game into his unclean hands. We know what pain love brings, if our love be a fair face and a fresh body in which Death brands his sores while we stand by, as if with arms bound. But what if our love be a childlike heart, and a frank expression and honest eyes, and a clean and clever mind. Our powerlessness is just as great and infinitely more tormented when sin comes by and casts his shadow over these. Ah, that is Loves greatest torment when her children, who have run from her to the bosom of sin, look back and their eyes are changed! That is the greatest torment of Love-to pour herself without avail into one of those careless natures which seem capacious and receptive, yet never fill with love, for there is a crack and a leak at the bottom of them. The fields where Love suffers her sorest defeats are not the sick-bed and not deaths margin, not the cold lips and sealed eyes kissed without response; but the changed eyes of children, and the breaking of the “full-orbed face,” and the darkening look of growing sons and daughters, and the home the first time the unclean laugh breaks across it. To watch, though unable to soothe, a dear body racked with pain, is peace beside the awful vigil of watching a soul shrink and blacken with vice, and your love unable to redeem it.
Such a clinical study Hosea endured for years. The prophet of God, we are told, brought a dead child to life by taking him in his arms and kissing him. But Hosea with all his love could not make Gomer a true, whole wife again. Love had no power on this woman-no power even at the merciful call to make all things new. Hosea, who had once placed all hope in tenderness, had to admit that Loves moral power is not absolute. Love may retire defeated from the highest issues of life. Sin may conquer Love.
Yet it is in this his triumph that Sin must feel the ultimate revenge. When a man has conquered this weak thing, and beaten her down beneath his feet, God speaks the sentence of abandonment.
There is enough of the whipped dog in all of us to make us dread penalty when we come into conflict with the strong things of life. But it takes us all our days to learn that there is far more condemnation to them who offend the weak things of life, and particularly the weakest of all, its love. It was on sins against the weak that Christ passed His sternest judgments: “Woe unto him that offends one of these little ones; it were better for him that he had never been born.” Gods little ones are not only little children, but all things which, like little children, have only love for their strength. They are pure and loving men and women-men with no weapon but their love, women with no shield but their trust. They are the innocent affections of our own hearts-the memories of our childhood, the ideals of our youth, the prayers of our parents, the faith in us of our friends. These are the little ones of whom Christ spake, that he who sins against them had better never have been born. Often may the dear solicitudes of home, a fathers counsels, a mothers prayers, seem foolish things against the challenges of a world calling us to play the man and do as it does; often may the vows and enthusiasms of boyhood seem impertinent against the temptations which are so necessary to manhood: yet let us be true to the weak, for if we betray them, we betray our own souls. We may sin against law and maim or mutilate ourselves, but to sin against love is to be cast out of life altogether. He who violates the purity of the love with which God has filled his heart, he who abuses the love God has sent to meet him in his opening manhood, he who slights any of the affections, whether they be of man or woman, of young or of old, which God lays upon us as the most powerful redemptive forces of our life, next to that of His dear Son-he sinneth against his own soul, and it is of such that Hosea spake: “My God will cast them away.”
We talk of breaking law: we can only break ourselves against it. But if we sin against Love, we do destroy her: we take from her the power to redeem and sanctify us. Though in their youth men think Love a quick and careless thing-a servant always at their side, a winged messenger easy of dispatch-let them know that every time they send her on an evil errand she returns with heavier feet and broken wings. When they make her a pander they kill her outright. When she is no more they waken to that which Gomer came to know, that love abused is love lost, and love lost means Hell.
II
This, however, is only the margin from which Hosea beholds an abandonment still deeper. All that has been said of human love and the penalty of outraging it is equally true of the Divine love and the sin against that.
The love of God has the same weakness which we have seen in the love of man. It, too, may fail to redeem; it, too, has stood defeated on some of the highest moral battle-fields of life. God Himself has suffered anguish and rejection from sinful men. “Herein,” says a theologian, “is the mystery of this love that God can never by His Almighty Power compel that which is the very highest gift in the life of His creatures-love to Himself, but that He receives it as the free gift of His creatures, and that He is only able to allow men to give it to Him in a free act of their own will.” So Hosea also has told us how God does not compel, but allure or “woo,” the sinful back to Himself. And it is the deepest anguish of the prophets heart, that this free grace of God may fail through mans apathy or insincerity. The anguish appears in those frequent antitheses in which his torn heart reflects herself in the style of his discourse. “I have redeemed them-yet they have spoken lies against Me. {Hos 7:13} I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness-they went to Baal-Peor. {Hos 9:10} When Israel was a child, then I loved him but they sacrificed to Baalim. {Hos 11:1-2} I taught Ephraim to walk, but they knew not that I healed them. {Hos 9:4} How can I give thee up, Ephraim? how can I let thee go, O Israel? Ephraim compasseth Me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit.” {Hos 11:8; Hos 12:1}
We fear to apply all that we know of the weakness of human love to the love of God. Yet though He be God and not man, it was as man He commended His love to us. He came nearest us, not in the thunders of Sinai, but in Him Who presented Himself to the world with the caresses of a little child; who met men with no angelic majesty or heavenly aureole, but whom when we saw we found nothing that we should desire Him, His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form than the sons of men; Who came to His own and His own received Him not; Who, having loved His own that were in the world, loved them up to the end, and yet at the end was by them deserted and betrayed, -it is of Him that Hosea prophetically says: “I drew them with cords of a man and with bands of love.”
We are not bound to God by any unbreakable chain. The strands which draw us upwards to God, to holiness and everlasting life, have the weakness of those which bind us to the earthly souls we love. It is possible for us to break them. We love Christ, not because He has compelled us by any magic, irresistible influence to do so; but, as John in his great simplicity says, “We love Him because He first loved us.”
Now this is surely the terror of Gods love-that it can be resisted; that even as it is manifest in Jesus Christ we men have the power, not only to remain as so many do, outside its scope, feeling it to be far-off and vague, but having tasted it to fall away from it, having realized it to refuse it, having allowed it to begin its moral purposes in our lives to baffle and nullify these; to make the glory of Heaven absolutely ineffectual in our own characters; and to give our Savior the anguish of rejection.
Give Him the anguish, yet pass upon ourselves the doom! For, as I read the New Testament, the one unpardonable sin is the sin against our Blessed Redeemers Love as it is brought home to the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Every other sin is forgiven to men but to crucify afresh Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. The most terrible of His judgments is “the wail of a heart wounded because its love has been despised”: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate!”
Men say they cannot believe in hell, because they cannot conceive how God may sentence men to misery for the breaking of laws they were born without power to keep. And one would agree with the inference if God had done any such thing. But for them which are under the law and the sentence of death, Christ died once for all that He might redeem them. Yet this does not make a hell less believable. When we see how Almighty was that Love of God in Christ Jesus, lifting our whole race and sending them forward with a freedom and a power of growth nothing else in history has won for them; when we prove again how weak it is, so that it is possible for millions of characters that have felt it to refuse its eternal influence for the sake of some base and transient passion; nay, when I myself know this power and this weakness of Christs love, so that one day being loyal I am raised beyond the reach of fear and of doubt, beyond the desire of sin and the habit of evil, and the next day finds me capable of putting it aside in preference for some slight enjoyment or ambition-then I know the peril and the terror of this love, that it may be to a man either Heaven or Hell.
Believe then in hell, because you believe in the Love of God-not in a hell to which God condemns men of His will and pleasure, but a hell into which men cast themselves from the very face of His love in Jesus Christ. The place has been painted as a place of fires. But when we contemplate that men come to it with the holiest flames in their nature quenched, we shall justly feel that it is rather a dreary waste of ash and cinder, strewn with snow-some ribbed and frosty Arctic zone, silent in death, for there is no life there, and there is no life there because there is no Love, and no Love because men, in rejecting or abusing her, have slain their own power ever again to feel her presence.