Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 6:10
I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: there [is] the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.
10, 11. Jehovah is still the speaker. From his heavenly ‘place’ he points indignantly (as Hos 6:7) to the abominations practised ‘there’, i.e. in the whole land of Israel, for even Judah has not escaped the infection. The structure of the verses becomes more symmetrical, if we attach the concluding words of Hos 6:10 to Hos 6:11, and turn Hos 6:11 thus, altering one vowel-point, Israel is defiled; for thee also, Judah, a harvest is appointed. The Septuagint partly favours this, rendering . The concluding words of Hos 6:11 should rather be attached to Hos 6:1 of chap. 7.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I have seen a horrible thing – Literally, what would make one shudder. God had seen it; therefore man could not deny it. In the sight of God, and amid the sense of His presence, all excuses fail.
In the house of Israel – o: For what more horrible, more amazing than that this happened, not in any ordinary nation but in the house of Israel, in the people of God, in the portion of the Lord, as Moses said, the Lords portion is His people, Jacob is the lot of His inheritance? In another nation, idolatry was error. In Israel, which had the knowledge of the one true God and had received the law, it was horror. There is the whoredom of Ephraim, widespread, over the whole land, wherever the house of Ephraim was, through the whole kingdom of the ten tribes, there was its spiritual adultery and defilement.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 10. I have seen a horrible thing] That is, the idolatry that prevailed in Israel to such a degree that the whole land was defiled.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I have seen: it may be understood of the prophet speaking what he had seen; or of God, who seeth now, and hath seen,
an horrible thing, a very horrible thing, as some observe from the word, in the house of Israel, the ten tribes.
The whoredom, idolatry,
of Ephraim; which was brought in by an Ephraimite, by Jeroboam the First, two hundred years ago, and it is there still.
Israel is defiled; it hath overspread all Israel, none free, but all defiled greatly with it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. horrible thing (Jer 5:30;Jer 18:13; Jer 23:14).
whoredomidolatry.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel,…. Idolatry, the calves set up at Dan and Bethel, which God saw with abhorrence and detestation; or the prophet saw it, and it made his hair stand on end as it were, as the word g signifies, that such wickedness should be committed by a professing people:
there [is] the whoredom of Ephraim; in the house of Israel is the whoredom of Jeroboam, who was of the tribe of Ephraim, and caused Israel to sin, to go a whoring after idols; or the whoredom of the tribe of Ephraim, which belonged to the house of Israel, and even of all the ten tribes; both corporeal and spiritual whoredom, or idolatry, are here meant:
Israel is defiled; with whoredom of both kinds; it had spread itself all over the ten tribes; they were all infected with it, and polluted by it; see Ho 5:3.
g a “pilus”.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Here God declares that he is the fit judge to take cognizance of the vices of Israel; and this he does, that he might cut off the handle of vain excuses, which hypocrites often adduce when they are reproved. Who indeed can at this day persuade the Papists that all their worship is a filthy abomination, a mere profanation? We see how furiously they rise up as soon as any one by a whisper dares to touch their superstitions. Whence this? Because they wish their own will to stand for reason. Why? Good intention, they say, is the judge; as if this good intention were, forsooth, the queen, who ought to rule in heaven and earth, and God were now excluded from all his rights. This fury and this madness, even at this day, possess the Papists; and no wonder, for Satan dementates men, when he leads them to corrupt and degenerated forms of worship, and all hypocrites have been thus inebriated from the beginning. This then is the reason why the Prophet now says in the person of God, I have seen, or do see, infamy in the kingdom of Israel. God does here by one word lay prostrate whatever men may set up for themselves, and shows that there remains no more defense for what he declares he does not approve, however much men may value and applaud it. “What! you think this to be my worship; and in your imagination, this is most holy religion, this is the way of salvation, this is extraordinary sanctity; but I on the contrary declare, that it is profanation, that it is turpitude, that it is infamy. Go now,” he says, “pass elsewhere your fopperies, with me they are of no value.”
We now understand the meaning of the Prophet, when he says, In the house of Israel have I seen infamy: and by the house of Israel the Prophet means the whole kingdom of the ten tribes. How so? “Because there is the fornication of Ephraim”; that is, there idolatry reigns, which Jeroboam introduced, and which the other kings of Israel followed.
Thus we see that the Prophet spared neither the king, nor his counselors, nor the princes of the kingdom; and he did not spare before the priests. And this magnanimity becomes all God’s servants, so that they cast down every height that rises up against the word of the Lord; as it was said to Ezekiel,
Chide mountains and reprove hills,’ (Eze 6:2.)
An example of this the Prophet sets before us, when he compares priests to robbers, and then compares royal temples to a brothel. Jeroboam had built a temple in which he thought that God would be in the best manner worshipped; but this, says the Prophet, is a brothel, this is filthy fornication.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(10) House of Israel.This phrase means Ephraim and Judah subsequently discriminated. The horrible thing refers to polluting idolatry. This peculiar word occurs again in Jeremiah. According to the punctuation of the Hebrew the reciter hesitates before pronouncing the horrible thing which grated through his teeth.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Hos 6:10-11 sum up the accusation. Wherever the eye of Jehovah falls, he sees a horrible thing whoredom The former signifies abominations and crimes of every kind (Jer 18:13); the second, the one outstanding sin, spiritual and literal whoredom.
Israel is defiled Compare Hos 5:3. In Hos 6:11 the prophet turns to Judah. This verse and Hos 7:1 a, are thought by some to be a later addition; so that Hos 7:1 b, “uncovered is the iniquity of Ephraim,” would be the continuation of Hos 6:10. The omitted words might, indeed, be left out without affecting seriously the thought of the prophet, but that is not sufficient reason for rejecting them. LXX. differs from the Hebrew, and in some respects is to be preferred. Following LXX. part of Hos 6:11 should probably be connected with Hos 7:1, chapter vi, closing, “Also, O Judah, there is a harvest appointed to thee.”
Harvest Figure of judgment (Joe 3:13; Jer 51:33). Judah, as corrupt as Israel, must share the latter’s fate. 11b, in the same construction as the opening words of Hos 7:1, should be taken with the latter and rendered, “When I would turn the fortune of my people, when I would heal Israel.”
Returned [“bring back”] the captivity The Hebrew phrase which is frequently thus rendered in the Old Testament is literally turn a turning. In some cases the turning involved is the restoration from exile; in others a more general idea is expressed, a turning in the fortunes of the people, of calamity into prosperity; and this latter meaning is suitable in every place where the phrase occurs (Amo 9:14; Zep 2:7, etc.). So here, “When I would turn the fortunes of my people.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Hos 6:10 I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there [is] the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.
Ver. 10. I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel ] Now a very den of thieves, as Hos 6:9 , a pantheon of all sorts of idols, a chamber of imagery, an Egyptian temple, gay and goodly without, but within an ox or calf, with “women weeping for Tammuz,” Eze 8:12 ; Eze 8:14 , that is, for Osiris, king of Egypt, whose image (under the shape of an ox) his wife, Isis, had advanced to be idolatrously there adored. This kind of abomination Jeroboam had learned in Egypt (whither he fled from Solomon, his master), and brought into the house of Israel. And whereas those idolaters said, “The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth,” Eze 8:12 ; “I have seen it,” saith God, and been sore troubled at it, and even frightened; so as a man is quando horripilatur, when his hairs stand on end; as when the devil appeareth to him like a hairy satyr. See Lev 17:7 . See Trapp on “ Lev 17:7 “ Certain it is that God hateth sin (but especially idolatry, that abominable thing, as he calleth it, Jer 44:4 ) worse than he hateth the devil himself; for he hateth the devil for sin’s sake, and not sin for the devil’s sake. Idolatry must needs be so much the more odious to him, because therein the devil sets up himself in the place of God; and requires men (as once he did Christ himself) to fall down and worship him. See Deu 32:17 1Co 10:20 Rev 9:20 . So he dealeth by the poor Indians of this day, compelling them to worship him with bodily worship, and tormenting them, if they do not, worse (if worse may be) than the cruel Spaniards; who suppose they show the wretches favour, when they do not, for their pleasure, whip them with cords, and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon. The Hebrew word here used hath some letters more than ordinary in it, to increase the signification, and to show what a very horrible thing idolatry is ( ). Hebrew Text Note It is spurca pollutio, as Jer 23:14 , and worse. See Jer 2:11-12 ; Jer 18:13 , and know that God doth not use to aggravate things beyond truth, as men do, witness Nebuchadnezzar, Dan 3:14 , “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?” Or is it of set purpose? Num de industria? so Buxtorf rendereth it. Is it for the nonce, to provoke me? Or Nunquid desolatio? so Arias Montanus; as if he should say, What! you to oppose the command of a king? If this be suffered, what desolation must needs follow! But this is not God’s way; he lays no more words upon a thing than the matter amounteth to. If he call idolatry filth, fornication, abomination, a horrible thing, such as a man would start or stand aghast at, we may be sure it is so. The Septuagint here render it , things to be trembled at, or shrieked at. In Barbary it is death for the Xeriff’s wife, when she seeth a man, though but through a casement, not suddenly to shriek out. God is a jealous God, and allows not his to look toward an idol. If they do he will soon see it, and visit for it. “I have seen,” &c.
There is the whoredom of Ephraim
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
whoredom = idolatry. See note on Hos 1:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Jer 2:12, Jer 2:13, Jer 5:30, Jer 5:31, Jer 18:13, Jer 23:14
there: Hos 4:11, Hos 4:17, Hos 5:3, 1Ki 12:8, 1Ki 15:30, 2Ki 17:7, Jer 3:6, Eze 23:5
Reciprocal: Exo 32:9 – I have seen Deu 9:13 – I have Isa 28:1 – the crown Eze 23:7 – with all their Hos 7:1 – they commit Mic 1:1 – concerning
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 6:10. Both fleshly and spiritual whoredom were practiced in the Jewish nation, but the latter is evidently whaL the Lord has especially in mind here. Ephraim and Israel are named separately, because the capital of the latter was located in the possessions of the former.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Hos 6:10-11. I have seen a horrible thing Such an apostacy from God as cannot be mentioned without horror. There is the whoredom of Ephraim Or rather, there, namely, in the house of Israel, BY the whoredom of Ephraim, that is, by the idolatry of Jeroboam, who was of that tribe, and first began the worship of the golden calves; Israel is defiled The whole ten tribes are corrupted: for they soon all followed the example of Jeroboam in this idolatrous worship. Also, O Judah, he That is, Ephraim; hath set a harvest for thee For Ephraim, or Israel, had corrupted Judah by leading them into idolatry, and into the vices connected therewith, in consequence of which they were made ripe for destruction: for that the harvest is often a type of judgment is evident, among many other passages that might be adduced, from those quoted in the margin. When I returned the captivity of my people Or rather, the Hebrew being in the future tense, when I shall turn, &c., (so the Vulgate,) or, more literally, and as the Seventy render it, in my turning the captivity of my people. According to this interpretation, the phrase of turning the captivity of Gods people is not to be taken in the sense in which the same phrase is generally understood in the Scriptures, namely, for bringing them out of captivity; punishment, and not a blessing, being supposed to be predicted: but the sense of the expression will be, When I shall return to make captives of my people; or, as Archbishop Newcome proposes rendering it, When I lead away the captivity of my people; that is, after I have again caused the Israelites to be carried into captivity. Tiglath-pileser first carried a part of them into captivity; then Shalmaneser carried away the remainder; and after this came Sennacherib, who wasted Judea, and laid siege to Jerusalem. Some eminent commentators, however, are of opinion, that not a judgment, but a blessing, is predicted to be conferred on Judah in this passage. They therefore translate the verse thus: But for thee, O Judah, a harvest is prepared; then when I shall bring back the captivity of my people: see Houbigant and Horsley. Mr. S. Clarks note on the verse takes in both interpretations, thus: And as Israel has been drawn to idolatry by Jeroboam, (Hos 6:10,) so hast thou, Judah, too: and therefore God has prepared a harvest of sorrow and sufferings for thee too, by sending thee into captivity; which yet afterward shall be turned into a harvest of joy, when thou shalt be returned out of captivity again.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Lord had observed a horrible thing. The Israelites as a whole had practiced harlotry by going after pagan gods and had thus made themselves unclean. Religious apostasy involved sexual immorality, so both forms of harlotry are doubtless in view.