Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 4:17
Ephraim [is] joined to idols: let him alone.
17. joined to idols ] The cognate noun is used in Mal 2:14 of a wife in her relation to her husband, and in Isa 44:11 of an idol-worshipper in his mystic relation to his god (comp. 1Co 10:20).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ephraim is joined to idols – that is, banded, bound up with them, associated, as the word means, with them so as to cleave to them, willing neither to part with nor to be parted from, them. The idols are called by a name, denoting toils; with toil they were fashioned, and, when fashioned, they were a toil and grief.
Let him alone – Literally, give him rest, i. e., from all further expostulations, which he will not hear. It is an abandonment of Israel for the time, as in the prophet Ezekiel, As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, go ye, serve ye every one his idols Eze 20:39. Sinners often long not to be tormented by conscience or by Gods warnings. To be left so, is to be abandoned by God, as one whose case is desperate. God will not, while there is hope, leave a man to sleep in sin; for so the numbness of the soul increases, until, like those who fall asleep amid extreme cold of the body, it never awakes.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Hos 4:17
Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
Beware of unholy companionships
These words do not mean that nothing was to be done for Ephraim. The prophets again and again pleaded with that people. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help. Our text is addressed to Judah. Let Ephraim alone. The best thing to do is not to associate with that people, keep clear of them, let them alone.
I. This applies to companionship. If you want to keep your own life pure, be careful with whom you associate. Ephraim was more prosperous and wealthy, and consequently Judah might be allured and led to offend (Hos 4:15). We are influenced by those with whom we keep company. You may think you are strong enough to stand against the insidious influence of the world, but it touches you before you are aware. If Judah associates with Ephraim, the contact must prove baneful, and Judah will become corrupt. Come out from among them, and be ye separate.
II. It applies also to places we visit and frequent. Come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-aven. There sacrifices were offered to Baal, and the golden calf adored. Are there not Beth-avens (house of vanity) which we had better avoid? (J. Hampden Lee.)
Influence of companions
When visiting a gentleman in England, Mr. Moody observed a fine canary. Admiring his beauty, the gentleman replied, Yes, he is beautiful, but he has lost his voice. He used to be a fine singer, but I was in the habit of hanging his cage out of the window; the sparrows came round him with their incessant chirping; gradually he ceased to sing and learned their twitter. Oh, how truly does this represent many Christians! They used to delight in the songs of Zion, but they came into close association with those whose notes never rise so high, until at last, like the canary, they can do nothing but twitter, twitter.
Dangers of carnal security
Jeroboam made Israel to sin. From one sin they passed into another, and each succeeding year plunged them deeper in the mire of sensuality, idolatry, and corruption. At last Divine judgment came. It is expressed in the text. Because Ephraim repaid all the offers of God to receive him back to Himself with anger, therefore henceforth he was to be left to his own devices–alone, without God, to ward off or to alleviate the coming destruction. From the fate of Ephraim we draw a lesson for ourselves. Gods dealings with nations and with individuals are the same in principle, though differing necessarily in form and extent; and therefore there are the same fearful signs of Gods wrath to be traced when we are let alone in a course of known sin, without troubles, without warnings to stay us, as when a nation is suffered to run its course of accustomed riot unrestrained. In both cases this state of unnatural quiet is but the calm before the thunderstorm–the cessation of pain in some mortal disease, which marks that nature is exhausted and death at hand. He who is accepted in Jesus, the child of God, is never let alone, but, forgetting those things that are behind, he is constantly pressing forward to those things which are before. We can never be forced into sin. Our danger is that we be deceived into supposing that we have no enemies, that there is peace when there is no peace; lest we imagine that all is well with us when, it may be, God is in fact letting us alone in bitter indignation and overhanging vengeance. Anything is better than that God should leave us–let us alone in our sin. The grave is a remedy for all earthly woe, but there is no remedy for this either in time or in eternity. Consider then, all you who are living in any known sin–who are quenching the Spirit of life by not acting or striving to act up to what you know well is required from Christians–the horrible danger of settling upon your lees; of thinking no evil shall come nigh you, that your sin shall not find you out, that God will always strive with you. But the words of the text whisper strong consolation to the man of a broken spirit and contrite heart. Grant that he be afflicted and mourn, that he is in heaviness through manifold temptations, that he go mourning all the day long by reason of his sin, that he is heart-broken; yet, God be thanked, these very feelings show that he is not let alone. He is not considered as joined unto idols; and therefore, if he persevere, and be not weary in well-doing, he may rightly expect his God will turn, and leave a blessing behind Him. (H.I. Swale, M. A.)
The sin of Ephraim
As in the days before the flood, Gods Spirit does not always strive with man: even long-suffering itself has been exhausted, and the despisers and mockers have been either suddenly destroyed, or given over to impenitence and insensibility. The precise period, or closing of what has been called the day of grace, being mercifully concealed from man, its existence can form no rule or guide for his procedure.
I. The sin of Ephraim. Joined to idols. Idolatry is represented in Scripture as being twofold; it is both outward and inward, public and retired. It does not consist chiefly in acts of religious homage. There are idols in the heart, the family, the Church. Loving and serving the creature more than the Creator is idolatry. It is a present and existing evil, and a prevailing, constitutional, besetting, and most abhorrent sin. It falls in easily with our inbred and corrupt propensities.
II. The judgment upon Ephraim. The punishment of his crime. The text is an admonition to Judah not to hold any familiar intercourse with idolatrous and backsliding Israel. We, however, regard it as a sentence of dereliction. Let him alone. The phrase is elliptical. It is addressed to some one, but we do not know to whom. May be angels, providences, ministers of the sanctuary, conscience, ordinances. We may therefore wisely pray, Say anything of or to Thy servant, rather than let him alone. (W. B. Williams, M. A.)
God abandons the incorrigible
While anything detains the heart from God, the man is in a state of perdition. He is joined to his idols. There is something very dreadful in this declaration–
I. If you distinguish this desertion from another, which may befall even the subjects of Divine grace. God sometimes leaves His people when they are becoming high-minded, to convince them of their dependence upon Him. He leaves them to their own strength to show them their weakness, and to their own wisdom to make them sensible of their ignorance. But this differs exceedingly from the abandoning of the incorrigible.
II. This leaving of the sinner is a withdrawing from him everything that has a tendency to do him good. Ministers, saints, conscience, providence–let him alone, Ye afflictions, say nothing to him of the vanity of the world. Let all his schemes be completely successful. Let his grounds bring forth plentifully. Let him have more than heart can wish.
III. Consider the importance of the being who thus abandons. It would be much better if all your friends and neighbours, if all your fellow-creatures on whom you depend for assistance in a thousand ways, were to league together and resolve to have nothing to do with you, than for God to leave you. While God is with us we can spare other things. But what is everything, else without God?
IV. What will be the consequences of this determination? It will be a freedom to sin; it will be the removal of every hindrance in the way to perdition. When God dismisses a man, and resolves he shall have no more assistance from Him–he is sure of being ensnared by error, enslaved by lust, and led captive by the devil at his will. It is as if we had taken poison, and all that is necessary to its killing us is not to counteract its malignity. Such is the judgment here denounced. Notice–
1. The justice of this doom. All the punishments God inflicts are deserved, and He never inflicts without reluctance. Your condemnation turns upon a principle that will at once justify Him and silence you. Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life.
2. Let me call on you to fear this judgment. And surely some of you have reason to be alarmed. With some of you the Spirit of God has long been striving, and you have done despite unto the Spirit of grace. Now you know what He has said, and you know what He has done. If you say you have no forebodings, the symptoms are so much the worse. Spiritual judgments are the most awful, because they are insensibly executed.
3. Perhaps some of you say, I am afraid this is my doom already. My convictions seem to have been stifled. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps it is a groundless apprehension. Remember, it is a blessed proof that God does not let you alone, if you cannot let Him alone. (William Jay.)
Ephraim abandoned to idols
one of the consequences and proofs of our depravity is that we are prone to turn every blessing into a curse. We are too apt to despise the forbearance of God, and to draw encouragement from it to continue in sin. Because God is slow to punish, we conclude that He never will punish. The consequence is, we become more fearless and hardened. No conduct can be more base than this, none more dangerous, and yet there is none more common. There is a propensity to it in our very nature. But Gods time of patience will have an end.
I. Ephraims sin. The tendency of the Israelites in the early ages of their history to idol-worship almost surpasses belief. It is seen in their making a calf at Horeb, and in Solomons licence to surrounding idolaters. The evil became ruinous in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. So it is said of Ephraim, they were joined to idols. They sinned against light and knowledge, they transgressed the plainest and most unequivocal declaration of the Divine will; and this they did in the face of the most peremptory threatenings, the most solemn warnings, and the most affectionate entreaties. It is painful and humiliating to reflect that human beings possessed of reason and understanding should have been capable of acting in a manner so unworthy of their high origin and their exalted privileges. We are not liable to the charge of gross outward idolatry, but are there no idols set up within the temple of our hearts? Are we free from the guilt of spiritual idolatry? What is idolatry? The rendering to any creature whatever that worship, honour, and love which belong to God alone.
1. Covetousness is declared in Scripture to be idolatry. The intemperate and lovers of pleasure are idolaters. Pride is only another form of idolatry. Those are idolaters who are inordinately attached to any earthly comforts. On what things then are our affections placed? Few of us are there who have not yielded that love, fear, and confidence to the creature, which are due to God alone.
II. Ephraims punishment. Let him alone. Some regard this as the language of caution addressed to others, rather than as a threatening against Ephraim. We regard it in the latter sense. It is expressive of the severest judgment that could be inflicted on any nation or individual. It imports Gods final abandonment of them, and delivering them up to final impenitence, never more to be visited with salutary compunction or regret. The awful state in which Ephraim was thus left resembles that of incorrigible sinners in every age, especially those who appear to be given up to final impenitence and unbelief. Instances in which this threatening is carried into effect may be given.
1. When the usual means of instruction and reproof are no longer employed or afforded.
2. When the conscience becomes seared, and the Spirit of God ceases to strive with the sinner.
3. When afflictions are withheld, and providence no longer frowns upon the sinner, but suffers him to take his course unreproved. Whom the Lord loves He rebukes and chastens; but He manifests His displeasure against the impenitent by letting them alone. (R. Davies, M. A.)
A call to separation
These words are not intended as a threatening of the cessation of the Divine pleadings with an obstinate transgressor–there are no people about whom God says that they are so wedded to their sin that it is useless to try to do anything with them, and they are not a commandment to Gods servants to fling up in despair or in impatience the effort to benefit obstinate and stiff-necked evil-doers. This Book of Hosea is one long pleading with this very Ephraim, just because he is joined to idols. Hosea was a prophet of the northern nation, but it is the southern nation, Judah, that is here addressed. What is meant by letting alone is plainly enough expressed in a previous verse,–Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, let not Judah offend. The calf-worship of Israel is held up as a warning to Judah, which is commanded to keep clear of all complicity with it, and to avoid all entangling alliances with backsliding Israel. The prophet with his Let him alone is saying the very same thing as the apostle with his Come out from among them, and be ye separate. Ephraim is wedded to his idols, as parasite to elm-tree, and so if you are joined to it you will be joined to its idols. Translate this into plain simple English, and it means this–It is a very bad sign of a Christian man when his chosen companions are people that have no sympathy with him in his religion. A great many of us will have to plead guilty to this indictment. There are many things–such as differences of position, culture, and temperament which cannot but modify the association of Christian people with one another, and may sometimes make them feel more near to un-Christian associates who are like themselves in these respects than to Christians who are not. What deadens so much of our Christianity to-day, and makes it fail as an aggressive power, is that Christian people get mixed up in utterly irreligious association with irreligious men and women, and sink their own Christianity, or at all events hide it. The sad thing is that their religion is so defective that it takes no trouble to hide it. The other sad thing is that so many Christians, so called, have so little Christianity that they never feel they are out of their element in such associations. We cannot be too intimately associated with irreligious people, if only we take our religion with us. A lesson may be learned from the separate existence of the Jews since their dispersion. They mix in the occupations of common life, and yet are as absolutely distinct as oil from the water on which it floats. So should the Church be in the world; mixing in all outward affairs, and exercising a Christianising influence on all with whom its members come in contact; and yet, by manifest diversity of sympathies and desires and affections, keeping itself absolutely distinct from the world with which it is to blend. The primitive and fundamental meaning of holy is set apart. You Christian people are set apart for the Masters use. Let it be every man to his own company. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The disturbing effects of Divine discipline
Sin essentially consists in a determination to have our own way–a determination planted behind the movements of thought and action, and directing them steadily to its own ends. To live, no matter what special turn our course may take, without having the main current of our life controlled by anything superior to itself, to push it all on before the energy of our own will–this is the very essence of sin. Accordingly, the action of the Divine Spirit upon the human heart is almost always, in the first instance, one of disturbance. You can detect His presence by the discomfort it creates. He awakens new thoughts, begets the suspicion that all is not within as it ought to be, and that our own way, if followed to the end, will terminate in bitterness. Because our own way is wrong, and will, if persisted in, lead to loss, Gods first endeavour is to make us uneasy in it, and, if possible, turn us out of it. With this view all His dealings are planned, and planned so wisely as to suit each successive stage of our growth and progress. In childhood we are surrounded by Gods gentle ministries. It would not be strange if God should use rougher means when His gentle ministry fails. He has recourse to the more potent voice of conscience which He seeks to rouse and to make articulate. As life advances He throws into the heart the light of His revelation. He alarms us, too, with the guilt of past sin till our heart is troubled and its peace is gone. Or He stirs up a longing for a nobler life. Unutterably sad it is when all this notwithstanding, a man moves on unchanged, still following his own way, still disobedient to the heavenly vision. It seems as if one other means, of discipline, and only one, were left. An avenue to conscience must be opened by some resistless stroke. So in middle age God oftentimes in mercy sends judgments. He breaks suddenly into the midst of life and snatches away the idol of your heart. He visits you with reverses in trade, and disappointment after disappointment, till your bewilderment grows into agony. Strange it is there should be those who have been thus emptied from vessel to vessel, still ignorant of what it means, still cleaving with a dull or desperate blindness to their own way. There is a point at which His discipline ends, just because it is useless to continue it farther. He never squanders the means of grace. He always looks for a return. It is a terrible thing that we should possess such a power of resistance as to be able to withstand God; that after He has done His best He should be obliged to leave us alone. But so it is.
I. The point at which the withdrawal of Divine discipline takes place. It is a point which is gradually reached, and not by the casual commission of a single sin, even of unusual gravity or guilt. Being joined to idols is a state of sin in which some wickedness is deliberately adhered to. It describes not an isolated act, but a habit which has grown easy, natural, fixed. Now a habit is not formed at once. It is the result of the repetition of an act which has become so ingrafted into a man it has grown to be part of himself. Being joined to idols describes a state or habit of sin that constitutes pre-eminent danger. One may be hurried into some trespass; but no one was ever hurried into a habit. Whatever excuse a man may have for a solitary evil act, he can have next to none for an evil habit. It is of such sins as those of the Pharisees we have most need to beware. They moved and breathed in an atmosphere of insincerity and self-righteousness. And this being joined to idols also describes a condition which we refuse to renounce. A man may have contracted a habit which he would willingly surrender if he could. But its grasp may have become too strong to be shaken off, his will too weak to rouse itself to the effort. But the desire for deliverance is the only door of escape. Let that depart, and there is no avenue open to your heart.
II. The manner in which the withdrawal of Divine discipline is here described. It is represented as a letting alone. This is marked by the cessation of all those disturbing effects which had hitherto appeared. Restraints are removed. The remonstrances of friends are given up. Truth relaxes its hold. Conscience is silent. Hence outward prosperity and ease are not by any means always a sign of Gods favour. Sometimes they may be quite the reverse. When outward prosperity co-exists with an utter indifference to Divine things, and a resolute pursuit of selfish ends, there can be no state more hazardous. But the terrible thing about this letting alone is that it may go on so silently. Even religious duties may be scrupulously maintained, though the heart will long since have ceased to enter into them. So God may even let a man alone when to all seeming He has as fast a hold of him as ever, or faster. There is only one preventive against our reaching this terrible condition, but it always proves effectual. Be loyal to the light within you, and obey the truth. Shun every compromise with evil. Make no tarrying on debatable ground. Our supreme aim as Christians is not comfort, but holiness; not to make things easy all round for ourselves, but to grow in clearness of spiritual vision, and readiness to hear the voice Divine. And to be let alone, even though it may not be to be joined to an idol, is to become drowsy and heavy-hearted, and when the Bridegroom comes, to be found slumbering and asleep. (C. Moinet, M. A.)
Warning to Judah
The Lord has given Ephraim up to his idols. The curse of God rests on him, and says, Let him alone. O Judah, take heed then what you do. These words are introduced as an argument to persuade Judah not to do as Israel had done. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Can man sin himself out of all saving possibilities
The words of the text are a dire spectre to some.
1. The view of it taken by the alarmed sinner. Ephraim is understood by him to represent the sinner at a supposed point in his career, at which he has exhausted all the resources of Gospel grace, and sinned himself out of hope into doom. He is still a living man, and enveloped in the showers of spiritual influence; but only seemingly, so far as he is concerned. The Spirit has abandoned him for ever. All saving agencies and influences are commanded to do the same. This view still lamentably prevails. It is often preached, in austerest terms, from the pulpit, and found grimly enshrined in our popular commentaries. There are indeed some awful truths which God forbid that we should blink. A sinner may harden himself into insensibility till he is twine dead, last feeling, defiant of God, and even regardless of man. And his is a very hopeless case. More over, if we misuse privileges and opportunities, God may withdraw some of them in His judicial wisdom,–as, in the contrary case, He may enlarge them. But the vicious view so often taken of the prophets words is quite another thing. That view is rooted in certain dogmas of absolute predestination and partial grace, which agree as ill with the Gospel as fire does with water.
2. Look at the common view critically. Scripture contradicts it. The Gospel contradicts it. Hosea himself, throughout this book, emphatically contradicts it.
(1) Scripture contradicts it. Where is it taught? Give and criticise the passages relied on (Gen 6:3; 1Pe 3:18-20; 1Sa 28:15; Luk 19:42).
(2) The Gospel contradicts it. The Bible is one thing, the Gospel is another. The Bible is the collection of inspired records: the Gospel is the good news therein contained of salvation through Christ crucified for every creature under heaven. But good news to every man this Gospel cannot be, if some living men are already sealed up for perdition. A limited atonement is absolutely irreconcilable with a universal Gospel, and no less so is a limited provision of the Spirit. The section we are examining is one way of limiting the Spirit, and it is one which takes the great living heart out of the Gospel. But as God is true, the Gospel is good news, and brings salvation to every living man.
(3) Hosea himself contradicts it. Ephraim means, not an individual, but a nation. Desolation is to befall Israel, but the valley of Achor is to be to her a door of hope (Hos 2:14-23; Hos 5:15; Hos 6:1-3; Hos 10:12; Hos 11:1-9; Hos 12:1-14).
3. What is the true view to be taken of the text? The key to it is to be found in the context. While Ephraim had become hopelessly wedded to idolatry, Judah, the adjoining kingdom of the two tribes, had not yet plunged into that foul and ruinous abyss (Hos 11:12). Judah was, however, in imminent danger of drifting after Ephraim into that terrible vortex. Hence the twofold warning in the passage now before us–the formal warning to Judah, and the yet more awful undertone of warning to Ephraim. Ephraim is joined to idols. Let not Judah offend; that is, Judah, hold aloof; let Ephraim alone. Ephraim is the consociate of idolatries; Judah, be not Ephraims associate. Partake not Ephraims sins, lest ye partake Ephraims plagues. The very expression, Let him alone, is used by our Lord in this same sense, when warning His disciples against the Pharisees–They be blind leaders of the blind; let them alone. The meaning is–beware of their companionship. Have nothing to do with them. Gilgal and Bethel, which Judah was warned not to visit, were on the very border between the rival kingdoms. This conterminous position, and the sacred associations of the places made them specially perilous. The moral is obvious.
1. Beware of freedom, falsely so called. There is a liberty which means libertinism, and which always genders to bondage.
2. Beware of evil company. It has been the ruin of myriads (1Jn 2:15-17; 2Co 6:14-18). Faithful Judah, however strong in purpose, ran a terrible risk if he associated with treacherous Ephraim.
3. Let us beware of doubting the fulness and freeness of Gods pardoning mercy, as revealed in the Gospel, to all men everywhere. Nothing but a desperate bent in this direction can account for the perversion of such simple texts as the one we have been investigating. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Ephraim let alone
These words give us this important instruction, that God may be so provoked, and become finally so full of wrath, as to leave the guilty creature to himself, and remonstrate with him no more.
I. Ephraims conditions. Joined to idols. That is, as having withdrawn and transferred his allegiance; as having resisted the means used with him for his recovery; and as having come into close affinity with that which was antagonistic to God. It was the curse of Israel that it loved strange gods, and was ever ready to leave the Lord and join itself to them. And what is Ephraim but a counterpart of many a one in the present day? The sin which seemed so terrible in him is common enough if mens eyes were only opened wide enough to see. Worldly men will repudiate the idea of being under the same circumstances as Ephraim. Because the outward symbols arc not the same, men argue that the main principles are distinct; but in the eyes of God covetousness is idolatry, and a man can be an idolater without worshipping a god of wood or stone. A wife or child may be the finely sculptured idol; or gain anticipated or acquired may be the great image, like Nebuchadnezzars, all overlaid with gold. Remember that a practical withdrawal from Christ is abundantly enough to prove the ruin of a soul. The transfer of allegiance may be a silent reality. The position of an idolater may be assumed without ones attracting even the attention of his fellows. But Ephraim had added sin to sin, by resisting all the means which were used to bring him back. God did not lightly part with Israel. The hand of justice long lingered on the hilt before it drew the sword. The hand of mercy long trembled before it let go its grasp. A dull, inactive, heavy resistance to the means of grace is a fearful proof of the state of practical idolatry in which some men are. The work of a souls ruin is carried on quietly. Many a gracious influence has been resisted. Many a teaching providence has been thrown away. The heart has become, by the very order of nature, harder and harder; the conscience has become less impressible; the soul has become more habituated to being away from God. Then the sentence may go forth, Let him alone.
II. Ephraims curse. The words are as fearful as any which ever passed from the lips of God. To secure their ruin, and to bring down full vengeance upon them, all that was required was that they should be left to themselves. It involved–
1. A withdrawal of enlightening influence. This may occur gradually or suddenly. It is possible for this curse to be in operation, and yet for no outward change of any kind to be detected in the man upon whom it is laid.
2. Disturbing influences are also purposely withheld. The cutting dispensations under which some of us now smart so much, are perhaps the only means to keep us away from that fatal ease whose end is death. When Gods work is done in us, all trial will be taken away, but woe betide the man who gains freedom from trial by being let alone. Beware, then, how you trifle with the present, how you continue unmoved beneath the gracious influences which are now being brought to bear on your soul. (P. B. Power, M. A.)
Let him alone
In a sense, all men are idolaters. Since man by nature is, in spirit although not in fact, as much an idolater as the pagans of any heathen land, it may be justly said of all who have been converted by the grace of God, that He has taken them from among the heathen. Whatever comes between the soul and God, whatever supplants His love in the heart is an idol. It may be the love of what is unlawful to be loved, or it may be the unlawful love of what in itself is allowed.
I. The sinful alliance. Joined to idols. There are several particulars characterising this union.
1. It is illegal. All the inhibitions of God are but the voice of perfect love and wisdom enforcing the perfect laws of parental government. In a properly regulated family there are laws, and these have a threefold purpose–
(1) The good of each individual member.
(2) The preservation of one member from the injuries of another.
(3) The good, or honour, of the parental head.
The Divine laws are illustrated by the human. To be joined to idols is to be allied with claims which are foreign to the nature and opposed to the claims of God, and such an alliance is illegal.
2. It is unnatural. Redeemed and justified man is among the sublime confederacy of loyal subjects of the Creator. But the sinner has allied himself with the dark forces of hell–he is an alienated being.
3. It is degrading. For a member of a large and noble family to become united with guilt and ignominy would be to entail upon himself utter disgrace, to cast a shade over the honour of his family name, and to forfeit all claims to the love of kindred or respect of friends. And every sinner, in the eye of purity, is a walking plague, a moral Cain.
4. It is irrational. Sin is a disease producing madness.
II. The ruinous alliance.
1. The soul may be said to be let alone when it seeks satisfaction apart from God.
2. When the blood of the atonement is set at nought,
3. When the truth of God loses its wonted power to convince of sin, righteousness, etc. The Bible speaks, ministers speak, providence speaks, as usual, but conscience hears not.
4. The sentence, let him alone, will have a future application to the sinners state. Let him alone is the burning inscription on the walls of hells prison-house. (G. Hunt Jackson.)
Spiritual abandonment
I. The sin of Ephraim–idolatry. We are apt to be surprised at the proneness of the Israelites to the sin of idolatry. Yet it may be doubted whether we have not a great deal in common with idolaters. The same vice is apt to show itself in different forms–forms produced by circumstances of age and country. There is the same heart in the man and the boy; but the result of the same passions is different at the two different periods of life. And so we may not worship idols, and yet we may be partakers of the iniquity of those who did. Tim fountain-head and origin of Israels sin was their own wilfulness, Wilfulness and impatience of old took the shape of idolatry; they now wear the form of heresy, and separation, and divisions. It was a zeal for religion which prostrated Israel at the footstool of idols; it is zeal without knowledge which makes men forsake the Catholic faith for crude theories of their own.
II. The punishment of Ephraim–let alone. God did not, in so speaking, design to let idolatry go unpunished. Let him alone proclaims that idolatry would prove its own punishment; so sure, so inevitable, so miserable would be the consequences of forsaking the true God, that it would need no further outbreak of wrath to vindicate the honour of the Almighty. To forsake God is to forsake our own mercies. You cannot drop a single doctrine of the Catholic faith, without that doctrine, sooner or later, avenging itself. Truth neglected will make itself felt. God lets matters take their course, saying of those who follow their own devices, He is joined to idols: let him alone.
III. What is it for an individual to be let alone of the Almighty? God has implanted in the heart of every man something which chides him whenever he rejects the right and chooses what is wrong. Very wonderful is our mental organisation. More sublime seems conscience on her judgment seat, weighing and balancing every idea which memory or invention suggests; and if her judgment be not adopted, if we will not act by her verdict, chastising with a whip of scorpions. If, although remonstrated with as we are by our natural consciences and by the Eternal Spirit, we still fall into presumptuous sin,–what should we become? The judgment threatened in the text is one which would reduce us to the position of Satan himself. For what will follow God letting a man alone? That man will experience no further promptings and warnings, but be left unrestrained by any secret reluctance to work all manner of iniquity. Assure me that a man is troubled when he has done wrong, that he feels disquieted and restless, that after indulging his passions, he is sensible of disgust and loathing, and I have hope that the day will come when he will throw off the bondage of his lusts. But assure me that he is happy in his iniquity, that he can rob and cheat, and lie and be drunken without being miserable afterwards, and I shudder lest indeed he has come to such a point as to be left alone of God. (J. R. Woodford, M. A.)
A sin and its punishment
This passage exhibits against this people a charge and a threatening.
I. A charge. He is joined to idols.
1. All true believers are said to be joined to the Lord. Faith not only forms an union, but, as it were, an identity with the Saviour, so that they are no longer twain, but one, one mystical person, one spirit.
2. The prodigal son is said to have joined himself to a citizen in a far country. He fastened himself to him.
3. Of Israel it is said, he has joined himself unto Baal-peor, an impure idol of the Ammonites. Christianity has abolished idolatry from the nations of Europe: yet the world is still full of mental idolatry, not less sinful or less dangerous, though not equally degrading in the eye of reason. To trust in an arm of flesh, to love the creature more than the Creator, is to be joined to idols. The sin of idolatry appears in such variety of forms that perhaps no one in the present life is entirely free from it. It exists in every inordinate affection, in every undue attachment to created good.
II. A threatening. This may be the language of caution–Do not enter into any friendship with such an idolatrous people. It may, however, be regarded as a warning and threatening against Ephraim. The sinner is delivered up to final impenitence, never more to be visited with compunction or regret. God suffers the sinner unchecked to pursue his own way, and take the consequences. The instances in which this awful threatening may be inflicted are the following–
1. When the usual means of instruction and reproof are no longer employed or afforded.
2. When conscience becomes seared, and the Spirit of God ceases to strive with the sinner, then also may he be said to be given up.
3. This fearful state may be apprehended when afflictions are withheld, and providence no longer frowns upon the sinner s way, but suffers him to take his course unreproved. When a physician ceases to administer his bitter potions, or a surgeon to search the wound, it is a sign that they look upon the case as desperate.
(1) If God let us alone, we shall be sure to let Him alone, and become prayerless, unfeeling, and incorrigible. We then cast off fear, and restrain prayer before God.
(2) Though God should let us alone, Satan will not.
(3) If God let us alone it is the prelude of our destruction. We are left in our sins, surrounded with enemies and dangers.
(4) Should God let us alone now, He will not do so hereafter. Learn–
1. The wretched state into which sin may have brought us.
2. The necessity of constant watchfulness and prayer, that none of these evils come upon us. It is better to endure the deepest distress than to enjoy a false and delusive peace. Let us dread nothing so much as a state of insensibility; a being past feeling is the certain sign of perdition. (B. Beddome, M. A.)
The derelict
I. The meaning of the verse and the kernel-truth contained in it. Under the seductive influence and example of Ahab and his queen Jezebel, the revolt of Israel had become complete. From the false worship of the true God they had turned further aside to the worship of false gods, and were as really idolaters as the heathen nations around them. But it was not all at once, or without many measures aimed at their reformation, that God finally abandoned them. The spirit of His dealings with them, for a long period, was expressed in those tender words, as if spoken by a father over a prodigal son, How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? A succession of prophets, like Elijah and Elisha, was sent to remonstrate with them; severe chastisements, such as famine and other national calamities, were commissioned to hedge up their way with thorns, to bring their sins to their remembrance, and to lead them to a penitent return to God. But while individuals were thereby recovered, any good effects upon the nation were temporary and partial. And then, at length, the patience of a long-suffering God becoming exhausted, He declares His holy purpose to suspend all further measures for their recovery. This unfolds the meaning and presents the remarkable central doctrine of the verse. Some have indeed understood it to bear a different sense, and to convey a seasonable warning to the neighbouring kingdom of Judah, rather than to announce the final rejection of Israel. As if it were said: He is joined to idols; beware of following his evil example; keep aloof, yea, at a far distance from him. You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. When the dove associates with the raven, it soon begins to smell of carrion. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, hut rather reprove them. And this is a most seasonable thought in itself, which has been anticipated in a previous verse; but it is not the immediate truth expressed in these solemn words. Their general meaning is, that when individuals or a nation continue and obstinately persist in sin, especially in the face of providential chastisement and means of grace, it is not an uncommon thing with God at length to give up His gracious dealings with them, and to abandon them to ruin. The same doctrine, declaring one of the laws of the Divine procedure, comes out with startling distinctness in other passages of Scripture. Thus in Ezekiel: As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, Go ye, serve ye every one his idols. And in the Book of Psalms: My people would not hearken to My voice, and Israel would none of Me: so I gave them to their own hearts lusts, and they walked in their own counsels.
II. And this doctrine or law of Gods moral government has written itself in many retributive facts on the history of not a few of the nations of the earth. Thus, when a people have shown a disposition, in the mass of their population, to reject and persecute the religion of Christ, and they have persisted in this even when lengthened opportunities for repentance have been given them and they have been tried by various agencies to bring them to a right state of mind, they have at length been abandoned and given over to the error and darkness which they preferred. It would be easy to name more than one nation in Europe which, at the great Protestant reformation three centuries ago, drove away the Gospel from their gates, and turned its messengers into martyrs, and which have been sinking lower and lower in the scale of nations ever since. The same thing holds true of individuals, only with a depth of meaning which, from the nature of the case, is not applicable in its full extent to organised communities. When men persist, in indifference and unbelief, and in following after their hearts idols, and all this in the face of measures to break them off from their forbidden attachments, God at length withdraws every means of recovering them, and gives them over to their merited doom. This terrible experience is not indeed to be confounded with that temporary withdrawal of the light of His countenance with which the Father sometimes punishes those children who have partially wandered from Him. This form of Divine dealing is wise, merciful, and paternal, and is referred to in a subsequent verse: I will go, says Jehovah, and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offence and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early. But the dealing of which this verse speaks is judicial and punitive. And so it also was with the miserable, blighted, heaven-deserted Saul, like his own mountain of Gilboa, with no dew resting on it. It is a melancholy thing to see a physician leaving the sick-chamber, and declaring that he can do no more for his patient. It is sad to hear of a crew leaving a wrecked ship, escaping from the doomed thing, and making no more efforts to keep it from sinking. But what is this to Gods abandoning an incorrigible human spirit! Lord, afflict me with chastisements, bereave me with strokes, do anything to me rather than say, He is joined to idols: let him alone. (A. Thomson, D. D.)
.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 17. Ephraim] The ten tribes.
Is joined to idols] Is become incorporated with false gods.
Let him alone.] They are irreclaimable, leave them to the consequences of their vicious conduct.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The children of Ephraim were numerous and potent among the ten tribes, a principal part of them, and out of which tribe the first idolater and usurper did arise, 1Ki 11:26; and therefore the whole body of the ten tribes, and the rulers among them, are here particularly pointed at.
Is joined to idols; associated as friends to friends, or joined as lovers are joined to lovers; married to idols, and will not be taken off.
Let him alone; he is indeed obstinately bent on his old courses, and as such throw him up; he will not return; let him wander, but let it be alone, O Judah, be not his companion, his friend, go not with him.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. Ephraimthe ten tribes.Judah was at this time not so given to idolatry as afterwards.
joined toclosely andvoluntarily; identifying themselves with them as a whoremongerbecomes one flesh with the harlot (Num 25:3;1Co 6:16; 1Co 6:17).
idolsThe Hebrewmeans also “sorrows,” “pains,” implying the painwhich idolatry brings on its votaries.
let him aloneLeave himto himself. Let him reap the fruits of his own perverse choice; hiscase is desperate; say nothing to him (compare Jer7:16). Here Ho 4:15 showsthe address is to Judah, to avoid the contagion of Israel’sbad example. He is bent on his own ruin; leave him to his fate, lest,instead of saving him, thou fall thyself (Isa 48:20;Jer 50:8; Jer 51:6;Jer 51:45; 2Co 6:17).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Ephraim is joined to idols,…. That is, the ten tribes of Israel, frequently so called after their separation from the rest, because that Jeroboam, by whom the revolt was made, was of that tribe; and because that tribe was the principal of them, and Samaria, the metropolis of their kingdom, was in it: and so the Targum here renders it,
“the house of Israel are joined to idols;”
to the calves at Dan and Bethel; to Baal, and other idols, they worshipped: the phrase expresses their strong affection for them, their constant worship of them, and their obstinate persisting therein, and the difficulty there was of bringing them off of it; they cleaved to their idols, were glued, and as it were wedded unto them, and there was no separating of them; as men are, who are addicted to the lusts of the flesh, to the mammon of unrighteousness, or to their own self-righteousness, or to any idol they set up in their hearts as such: hence it follows,
let them alone: which are either the words of the Lord to the prophet, enjoining him to prophesy no more to them; to reprove them no more for their sins, since it was all to no purpose, there was no reclaiming them, so Jarchi and Kimchi; and therefore let them alone, let them go on in their sins, and in their errors, and in their superstition and idolatry; see Eze 3:26. God was determined to let them alone himself, and therefore bids his prophet to do so likewise: and sad is the case with men when he lets them alone, and will not disturb their consciences any more by jogs and convictions, but gives them up to a seared conscience, to hardness of heart, and to their own lusts; when he will not hedge up their way with thorns, or distress them with afflictive providences, and hinder them from going on in a course of sin and wickedness; nor give them restraining grace, but suffer them to go on in the broad road, till they drop into hell; and says of them,
let him that is filthy be filthy still, Re 22:11 or else they are the words of the prophet to the men of Judah, to have nothing to do with Israel, since they were such backsliders and idolaters; to have no communion and conversation with them, but let them be alone, and worship alone for them; since what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness, light with darkness, Christ with Belial, a believer with an infidel, or the temple of the living God with idols and idolaters? 2Co 6:14, some take them to be the words of the prophet to God concerning Israel, approving of his righteous judgments, in threatening to feed them as a lamb in a large place; dismiss him thither, suffer and leave him to feed there. The Targum interprets it of their sin, and not their punishment,
“they have left their worship;”
the service of God.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Ephraim is joined to idols, let it alone.” , bound up with idols, so that it cannot give them up. Ephraim, the most powerful of the ten tribes, is frequently used in the loftier style of the prophets for Israel of the ten tribes. , as in 2Sa 16:11; 2Ki 23:18, let him do as he likes, or remain as he is. Every attempt to bring the nation away from its idolatry is vain. The expression hannach – lo does not necessitate the assumption, however, that these words of Jehovah are addressed to the prophets. They are taken from the language of ordinary life, and simply mean: it may continue in its idolatry, the punishment will not long be delayed.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
As if wearied, God here bids his Prophet to rest; as though he said, “Since I prevail nothing with this people, they must be given up; cease from thy work.” God had set Hosea over the Israelites for this end, to lead them to repentance, if they could by any means be reformed: the duty of the Prophet, enjoined by God, was, to bring back miserable and straying men from their error, and to restore them again to the obedience of pure faith. He now saw that the Prophet’s labour was in vain, without any success. Hence he was, as I have said, wearied, and bids the Prophet to desist: Leave them, he says; that is, “There is no use for thee to weary thyself any more; I dismiss thee from thy labour, and will not have thee to take any more trouble; for they are wholly incurable.” For by saying that they had joined themselves to idols, he means, that they could not be drawn from that perverseness in which they had grown hardened; as though he said, “This is an alliance that cannot be broken.” And he alludes to the marriage which he had before mentioned: for the Israelites, we know, had been joined to God, for he had adopted them to be a holy people to himself; they afterwards adopted impious forms of worship. But yet there was a hope of recovery, until they became wholly attached to their idols, and clave so fast to them, that they could not be drawn away. This alliance the Prophet points out when he says, They are joined to idols
But he mentions the tribe of Ephraim, for the kings, (I mean, of Israel,) we know, sprang from that tribe; and at the same time he reproaches that tribe for having abused God’s blessing. We know that Ephraim was blessed by holy Jacob in preference to his elder brother; and yet there was no reason why Jacob put aside the first-born and preferred the younger, except that God in this case manifested his own good pleasure. The ingratitude of Ephraim was therefore less excusable, when he not only fell away from the pure worship of God, but polluted also the whole land; for it was Jeroboam who introduced ungodly superstitions; he therefore was the source of all the evil. This is the reason why the Prophet now expressly mentions Ephraim: though it is a form of speaking, commonly used by all the Prophets, to designate Israel, by taking a part for the whole, by the name of Ephraim.
But this passage is worthy of being noticed, that we may attend to God’s reproofs, and not remain torpid when he rouses us; for we ought ever to fear, lest he should suddenly reject us, when he is wearied with our perverseness, or when he conceives such a displeasure as not to deign to speak to us any more. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(17) Ephraim . . . idols.The prophet calls on Judah to leave Ephraim to himself. The Jewish interpreters Rashi and Kimchi understand this as the appeal of Jehovah to the prophet to leave Israel to her fate, that so perhaps her eyes might be opened to discern her doom.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.’
Indeed all are to recognise that Ephraim (Israel) is conjoined with idols (like mistresses to their lovers, or men bound by a covenant) and is therefore to be avoided. It is to be left alone. Alternately the word ‘conjoined’ can have a magical significance and may signify ‘bound by enchantment’. The command to ‘let him alone’ comes as something of a shock. The prophets would be expected to call for the uniting of Israel and Judah. But now Israel are seen as having gone so far along the downward path, that they are to be avoided at all costs.
This is his first use of the term ‘Ephraim’ which will from now on become a regular feature of the prophecy. It is not always easy to distinguish between Hosea’s use of ‘Israel’ (always used up to this point) and his use of ‘Ephraim’ (the largest and most influential tribe in northern Israel). There are a number of places where the names appear simply to signify the same thing (e.g. Hos 5:3; Hos 5:9 and often), but at other times the impression given is that Ephraim represents a distinction in Israel (e.g. Hos 5:5), possibly what is most sinful in Israel. It may further be that we are to see that once the Assyrians had decimated Israel (2Ki 15:29), the mountains of Ephraim were almost all that was left to Israel, clustered around Samaria, with the result that what remained of Israel became known as Ephraim (the largest of the tribes of ancient Israel along with Judah) and sank into ever worse behaviour (Hos 5:11-14; Hos 6:4; Hos 6:10; Hos 7:1; Hos 7:8; Hos 7:11; etc). Compare Isa 7:2; etc. But the usage is regularly wider than that. Thus the significance of the term must always be decided in context, and in many cases either interpretation will be possible.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
DISCOURSE: 1148
THE DANGER OF SPIRITUAL IDOLATRY
Hos 4:17. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.
THERE is a day of grace, wherein God strives with men by his Spirit: this past, he abandons them to impenitence and obduracy [Note: Luk 19:42.]. The precise period of its termination is, in mercy, concealed from us; but we are all concerned to deprecate the judgment denounced against Ephraim in the text:
I.
The sin of Ephraim
Ephraim, to which Jeroboam belonged, comprehends all the ten tribes. These were devoted to the worship of the idols that were in Dan and Bethel. Nor could they be drawn from it by any of the means which God used
Though we do not imitate them in this, we are not free from spiritual idolatry
[Idolatry is described to be a loving and serving of the creature more than the Creator [Note: Rom 1:25.]. Hence covetousness and sensuality are spoken of under that term [Note: Col 3:5. Php 3:19.]. Now who has not yielded that love, fear, and confidence to the creature, which are due to God alone? Who can say, I am pure from this sin? ]
We have, in truth, been joined to idols
[Many are the means which God has used to bring us to himself. Yet we have not been wrought upon effectually by any of them. Neither mercies vouchsafed, nor judgments threatened, have been able to prevail. We rather have held fast deceit, and refused to return to the Lord our God [Note: Jer 8:5; Jer 44:16-17.] ]
But this sin must of necessity provoke God to anger.
II.
Their punishment
The text may be understood as an advice to Judah, not to hold intercourse with the idolatrous Israelites. Our Lord gives a similar direction to his followers [Note: Mat 15:14.]
But it rather imports a judicial sentence of final dereliction
[This is a just punishment for turning away from God. Nor can there be a more awful punishment inflicted even by God himself. It is worse than the severest afflictions which can come upon us in this life. For they may lead to the salvation of the soul [Note: 1Co 11:32; 1Co 5:5.]; whereas this must terminate in our condemnation. It is worse than even immediate death and immediate damnation. For the greater our load of sin, the greater will be our treasure of wrath [Note: Rom 2:5.].]
And there is reason to fear that God may inflict this punishment upon us
[In this way he punished the Gentiles who sinned against their light [Note: Thrice mentioned, Rom 1:24; Rom 1:26; Rom 1:28.]. In this way he visited also his once-favoured people the Jews [Note: Psa 81:12. Mat 23:32-35.]. Why then should we hope for an exemption, if we imitate their conduct? God has repeatedly warned us that impenitent sinners shall have this doom [Note: Pro 1:30-31; Pro 5:22. 2Th 2:10-12.].]
Infer
1.
What reason have we to admire the patience and forbearance of God!
[He has seen us cleaving to idols from the earliest period of our lives [Note: Eze 14:3.]; and though we have changed them, we have never turned unto him. In the mean time we have been deaf to all his expostulations and entreaties. What a mercy is it that he has never yet said, Let him alone! Yea, he has even restrained us from perpetrating all that was in our hearts [Note: Gen 20:6; Gen 31:29. 1Sa 25:34.]. How gracious is he in yet striving with us by his Spirit! Let then his goodness, patience and forbearance, lead us to repentance [Note: Rom 2:4.]; and let us say, like Ephraim, in his repenting state [Note: Hos 14:8.]]
2.
How evidently is salvation entirely of grace!
[If left to ourselves we never should renounce our idols [Note: Jer 13:23.]. We should act rather like that obstinate and rebellious people [Note: Zec 7:11-12.]. The case of Judas may shew us what we may do, when once abandoned by God. God must give us a will, as well as an ability, to turn to him [Note: Php 2:13.]. Let us then entreat him never to leave us to ourselves. Let us be thankful if, in any way, he rend our idols from us. If we have never yet resembled the Thessalonian converts [Note: 1Th 1:9.], let us now cry unto him [Note: Jer 31:18. Hos 14:2-3.]. If we have, let us bear in mind that affectionate exhortation [Note: 1Jn 5:21.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Hos 4:17 Ephraim [is] joined to idols: let him alone.
Ver. 17. Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone ] Ephraim, that is, the ten revolted tribes, who are called Ephraim in opposition to Judah: 1. Because that tribe was the greatest of the ten; 2. Jeroboam, the ringleader of that revolt, was of that tribe; 3. They rebelled at Shechem, which was in that tribe, and from thenceforth was joined or glued to idols, as the fornicator is to his harlot, with whom he becometh one flesh, and from whom there is no dissuading him. Some fetch the metaphor from enchanters; who by their conjuring art have society and fellowship with the devils; so had Ephraim with idols; and like an enchanted person, he could not stir from them, but stood fastened to them as to a stock or stake. The Tyrians, when besieged by Alexander, fearing the departure of their god Apollo from them, laid chains upon his statue, and fastened him to his temple. Ephraim was so fastened to his idols ( terriculis so Junius renders this text) that there is no likelihood of his being sundered from them: he had taken fast hold of deceit, Jer 8:5 , and would not loose his hold. Let him alone, therefore, saith either God to the prophet (lay out no more words, lose no more labour upon him) or the prophet to Judah; let them even go, have nothing to do with them, though they be your brethren, meddle not with them; let Christ alone, to deal with them at his coming: Maranatha, the Lord cometh. Meanwhile, they lie under a dreadful spiritual judgment, worse than all the plagues of Egypt; even a dead and dedolent disposition, whereunto they are delivered. This is worse than to be delivered to Satan: for so a man may be, and recover out of his snare by repentance, as the incestuous Corinthian did: but when God shall say, Let such a man alone, let him take his course, I have done with him, and let my ministers trouble themselves no more about him, there is thenceforth but an inch between him and hell, which even gapes for him, where he shall rue it among reprobates. Well he may flourish a while, and feel no hurt; as Saul did not of many years after his rejection; and as the Pharisees, after Christ had said of them, “Let them alone, they are blind leaders of the blind,” Mat 15:14 ; but they shall pine and swelter away in their iniquities, Lev 26:39 , which is the last of those dismal plagues there, threatened; they shall not be purged till God s wrath hath rested upon them, Eze 24:13 , so that now they may go and serve every one his idols, since they have such a mind to it, Eze 20:39 , and since they have made a match with mischief, they may take their belly full of it. Oh let us fear, lest this should be any of our cases; that God should say, Let him alone, be is resolved of his way, and I of mine; he will have his swing in sin, and I am bent to have my full blow at him. “I am fully persuaded” (saith a reverend man, now with God) “that in these days of grace the Lord is much more quick and peremptory in rejecting men than heretofore: the time is shorter, neither will he wait so long as he used to do.” See for ground of this, Heb 2:8 , God is often quick in the offer of his mercy: Go and preach the gospel, saith Christ (go, and be quick: tell men what to trust to, that, as fools, they may not be semper victuri, always conquerers, ever about to be better, but never begin to set seriously to work), “He that believeth shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned”: I shall not longer dally with him. “Destruction cometh, and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients,” Eze 7:25-26 ; when men are even dropping into hell, and have a hell beforehand in their consciences, then they will send hastily for the minister, as they did in the sweating sickness here, so long as the ferventness of the plague lasted. Then the ministers were sought for in every corner, you must come to my lord, you must come to my lady, &c. But what if God had said of such a one, Let him alone, as he reproved Samuel for mourning for Saul, and as he forbade Jeremiah to pray for the Jews, and his apostles to take care for the Pharisees? Oh how dreadful is that man’s condition! and what can a minister say more than what the king of Israel said to the woman that complained to him of the scarcity of Samaria, “If the Lord help thee not, whence shall I help thee? out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?” 2Ki 6:27 . If any dram of comfort be applied to a wicked man, the truth of God is falsified, and that minister will be reckoned among the devil’s dirt daubers and upholsterers, that daub with untempered mortar and sew pillows under men’s elbows, Eze 13:18 . Let such alone, therefore, and let God alone to deal with them.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Hosea
‘LET HIM ALONE’
Hos 4:17
The tribe of Ephraim was the most important member of the kingdom of Israel; consequently its name was not unnaturally sometimes used in a wider application for the whole of the kingdom, of which it was the principal part. Being the ‘predominant partner,’ its name was used alone for that of the whole firm, just as in our own empire, we often say ‘England,’ meaning thereby the three kingdoms: England, Scotland, and Ireland. So ‘Ephraim’ here does not mean the single tribe, but the whole kingdom of Israel.
Now Hosea himself was a Northerner, a subject of that kingdom; and its iniquities and idolatries weighed heavily on his heart, and were ripped up and brought to light with burning eloquence in his prophecies. The words of my text have often, and terribly, been misunderstood. And I wish now to try to bring out their true meaning and bearing. They have a message for us quite as much as they had for the people who originally received them.
I. I must begin by explaining what, in my judgment, this text does not mean.
It is clear enough, too, that such a meaning as that which has been forced upon the words of my text, and is the common use of it, I believe, in many evangelical circles, cannot be its real meaning, because the very fact that Hosea was prophesying to call Ephraim from his sin showed that God had not let Ephraim alone, but was wooing him by His prophet, and seeking to win him back by the words of his mouth. God was doing all that He could do, rising early and sending His messenger and calling to Ephraim: ‘Turn ye! Turn ye! why will ye die?’ For Hosea, in the very act of pleading with Israel on God’s behalf, to have declared that God had abandoned it, and ceased to plead, would have been a palpable absurdity and contradiction.
But beyond considerations of the context, other reasons conclusively negative such an interpretation of this text. I, for my part, do not believe that there are any bounds or end to God’s forbearing pleading with men in this life. I take, as true, the great words of the old Psalm, in their simplest sense-’His mercy endureth for ever’; and I fall back upon the other words which a penitent had learned to be true by reflecting on the greatness of his own sin: ‘With Him are multitudes of redemptions’; and I turn from psalmists and prophets to the Master who showed us God’s heart, and knew what He spake when He laid it down as the law and the measure of human forgiveness which was moulded upon the pattern of the divine, that it should be ‘seventy times seven’-the multiplication of both the perfect numbers into themselves-than which there can be no grander expression for absolute innumerableness and unfailing continuance.
No, no! men may say to God, ‘Speak no more to us’; or they may get so far away from Him, as that they only hear God’s pleading voice, dim and faint, like a voice in a dream. But surely the history of His progressive revelation shows us that, rather than such abandonment of the worst, the law of the divine dealing is that the deafer the man, the more piercing the voice beseeching and warning. The attraction of gravitation decreases as distance increases, but the further away we are from Him, the stronger is the attraction which issues from Him, and would draw us to Himself.
Clear away, then, altogether out of your minds any notion that there is here declared what, in my judgment, is not declared anywhere in the Bible, and never occurs in the divine dealings with men. Be sure that He never ceases to seek to draw the most obstinate, idolatrous, and rebellious heart to Himself. That divine charity ‘suffereth long, and is kind’ . . . ‘hopeth all things, and beareth all things.’
Again, let me point out that the words of my text do not enjoin the cessation of the efforts of Christian people for the recovery of the most deeply sunken in sin. ‘Let him alone’ is a commandment, and it is a commandment to God’s Church, but it is not a commandment to despair of any that they may be brought into the fold, or to give up efforts to that end. If our Father in heaven never ceases to bear in His heart His prodigal children, it does not become those prodigals, who have come back, to think that any of their brethren are too far away to be drawn by their loving proclamation of the Father’s heart of love.
There is the glory of our Gospel, that, taking far sadder, graver views of what sin and alienation from God are, than the world’s philosophers and philanthropists do, it surpasses them just as much as in the superb confidence with which it sets itself to the cure of the disease as in the unflinching clearness with which it diagnoses the disease as fatal, if it be not dealt with by the all-healing Gospel. All other methods for the restoration and elevation of mankind are compelled to recognise that there is an obstinate residuum that will not and cannot be reached by their efforts. It used to be said that some old cannon-balls, that had been brought from some of the battlefields of the Peninsula, resisted all attempts to melt them down; so there are ‘cannon-balls,’ as it were, amongst the obstinate evil-doers, and the degraded and ‘dangerous’ classes, which mark the despair of our modern reformers and civilisers and elevators, for no fire in their furnaces can melt down their hardness. No; but there is the furnace of the Lord in Jerusalem, and the fire of God in Zion, which can melt them down, and has done so a hundred and a thousand times, and is as able to do it again to-day as it ever was. Despair of no human soul. That boundless confidence in the power of the Gospel is the duty of the Christian Church. ‘The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth!’ They laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. But He put out His hand, and said unto her ‘ Talitha cumi , I say unto thee, Arise!’ When we stand on one side of the bed with your social reformers on the other, and say ‘The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth,’ they laugh us to scorn, and bid us try our Gospel upon these people in our slums, or on those heathens in the New Hebrides. We have the right to answer, ‘We have tried it, and man after man, and woman after woman have risen from the sick-bed, like Peter’s wife’s mother; and the fever has left them, and they have ministered unto Him. There are no people in the world about whom Christians need despair, none that Christ’s Gospel cannot redeem. Whatever my text means, it does not mean cowardly and unbelieving doubt as to the power of the Gospel on the most degraded and sinful.
II. So, the text enjoins on the Christian Church separation from an idolatrous world.
Then, besides these thoughts of necessary union and association upon common ground, there is the other consideration that absolute separation would defeat the very purpose for which Christian people are here. ‘Ye are the salt of the earth,’ said Christ. Yes, and if you keep the meat on one plate and the salt on another, what good will the salt be? It has to be rubbed in particle by particle, and brought into contact over all the surface, and down into the depths of the meat that it is to preserve from putrefaction. And no Christian churches or individuals do their duty, and fulfil their function on earth, unless they are thus closely associated and intermingled with the world that they should be trying to leaven and save. A cloistered solitude, or a proud standing apart from the ordinary movements of the community, or a neglect, on the plea of our higher duties, of the duties of the citizen of a free country-these are not the ways to fulfil the exhortation of my text. ‘Let the dead bury their dead,’ said Christ; but He did not mean that His Church was to stand apart from the world, and let it go its own way. It is a bad thing for both when little Christian c?ies gather themselves together, and talk about their own goodness and religion, and leave the world to perish. Clotted blood is death; circulated, it is life.
But, whilst all this is perfectly true-and there are associations that we must not break if we are to do our work as Christian people-it is also true that it is possible, in the closest unions with men who do not share our faith, to do the same thing that they are doing, with a difference which separates us from them, even whilst we are united with them. They tell us that, however dense any material substance may seem to be, there is always a film of air between contiguous particles. And there should be a film between us and our Christless friends and companions and partners, not perceptible perhaps to a superficial observer, but most real. If we do our common work as a religious duty, and in the exercise of all our daily occupations ‘set the Lord always before’ us, however closely we may be associated with people who do not so live, they will know the difference; never fear! And you will know the difference, and will not be identified with them, but separate in a wholesome fashion from them.
And, dear brethren, if I may go a step further, I would venture to say that it seems to me that our Christian communities want few things more in this day than the reiteration of the old saying, ‘Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.’ There is so much in this time to break down the separation between him that believeth in Christ and him that doth not; narrowness has come to be thought such an enormous wickedness, and liberality is so lauded by all sorts of superficial people, that Christian men need to be summoned back to their standard. ‘Being let go, they went to their own company’-there is a natural affinity which should, and will, if our faith is vital, draw us to those who, on the gravest and solemnest things, have the same thoughts, the same hopes, the same faith. I do not urge you, God knows, to be bigoted and narrow, and shut yourselves up in your faith, and leave the world to go to the devil; but I do not wish, either, that Christian people should fling themselves into the arms and nestle in the hearts of persons who do not share with them ‘like precious faith.’
I am sure that there are many Christian people, old and young, who are suffering in their religious life because they are neglecting this commandment of my text. ‘Let him alone.’ There can be no deep affection, and, most of all-if I may venture on such ground-no wedded love worth the name, where there is not unanimity in regard to the deepest matters. It does not say much for the religion of a professing Christian who finds his heart’s friends and his chosen companions in people that have no sympathy with the religion which he professes. It does not say much for you if it is so with you, for the Christian, whom you like least, is nearer you in the depths of your true self than is the non-Christian whom you love most.
Be sure, too, that if we mix ourselves up with Ephraim, we shall find ourselves grovelling beside him before his idols ere long. Godlessness is infectious. Many a young woman, a professing Christian, has married a godless man in the fond hope that she might win him. It is a great deal more frequently the case that he perverts her than that she converts him. Do not let us knit ourselves in these close bonds with the worshippers of idols, lest we ‘learn their ways, and get a snare into our souls.’ ‘Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers. What fellowship hath light with darkness? Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing, and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and My daughters.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
joined = mated, or united to.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Ephraim: Hos 11:2, Hos 12:1, Hos 13:2
let: Hos 4:4, Psa 81:12, Mat 15:14, Rev 22:11
Reciprocal: Exo 14:12 – Let us alone 1Ki 11:33 – they have forsaken Eze 3:26 – and shalt Eze 20:39 – Go ye Hos 4:14 – punish Hos 5:3 – thou Hos 6:10 – there Hos 7:1 – the iniquity Mat 16:4 – And he Mar 8:13 – General Act 7:42 – and gave Act 14:16 – suffered Rom 1:24 – God 1Co 14:38 – General
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 4:17. Ephraim, refers to the 10-tribe kingdom, which was so closely attached to idolatry that it was useless to hope for improvement while in his own country. For this reason the prophet was told to le him alone or not to try reforming him. Jeremiah was given similar instruction in Hos 7:16 of his hook.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Hos 4:17-18. Ephraim, &c. The Ephraimites were numerous and potent, and are here put for the whole ten tribes. Is joined to idols The word , here rendered idols, properly means, sorrows and pains, idols being the cause of much misery to their worshippers. Bishop Horsley reads the verse, A companion of idols is Ephraim; leave him to himself. Leave him undisturbed in his idolatrous course. He is irreclaimable. Their drink is sour Hebrew, is gone, turned, or vapid. The allusion is to libations made with wine grown dead, or turning sour. The image represents the want of all spirit of piety in their acts of worship, and the unacceptableness of such worship in the sight of God; which is alleged as a reason for the determination, expressed in the preceding clause, to give Ephraim up to his own ways. Leave him to himself, says God to the prophet, his pretended devotions are all false and hypocritical. I desire none of them. Horsley. They have committed whoredom continually. They have gone on in a course of idolatry: or carnal whoredom may be intended. Her rulers with shame do love, Give ye Their rulers, to their shame be it spoken, are continually asking or expecting bribes, or are greedy of gifts. The Hebrew word translated rulers, properly signifies shields: it is taken for rulers in Psa 47:9, as well as here.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Since Ephraim (lit. fruitful), the largest tribe in the Northern Kingdom that stood for the whole nation, had abandoned her Shepherd for idols, He called others to leave her alone also. He would abandon her to the judgment that would come inevitably from pursuing sin (cf. Rom 1:18-32). Ephraim had become incorrigible.
"By referring to the North as Ephraim Hosea reminds Israel that, as we saw in the story of Jeroboam I, it owed its very existence to Ephraim’s jealousy of Judah with its God-given institutions of the Jerusalem temple and the Davidic monarchy." [Note: Ellison, p. 115.]