Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 6:5
Therefore have I hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments [are as] the light [that] goeth forth.
5. Similar fitful repentances have already forced Jehovah to interpose, like a severe but kind physician who will cut out the diseased part rather than suffer the evil to spread.
hewed them by the prophets ] i.e. warned them of the fatal consequences of their conduct. The divine or prophetic word has a destroying power ascribed to it (Isa 11:4; Isa 49:2; Jer 1:10; Jer 5:14; 1Ki 19:17).
thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth ] ‘Thy judgments,’ i.e. those pronounced upon thee. According to this reading we have to supply ‘as,’ and suppose a sudden change of pronoun. The Septuagint, however, with the Peshito, and even the Targum, reads differently my judgment shall go forth as the light (this simply involves a slightly different grouping of the letters). ‘My judgment’, viz. that upon Israel; ‘shall go forth’, for we are no longer in the imagined future (as in Hos 6:1-3); ‘as the light’, that all may see it and tremble.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets – Since they despised Gods gentler warnings and measures, He used severer. He hewed them, He says, as men hew stones out of the quarry, and with hard blows and sharp instruments overcome the hardness of the stone which they have to work. Their piety and goodness were light and unsubstantial as a summer cloud; their stony hearts were harder than the material stone. The stone takes the shape which man would give it; God hews man in vain; he will not receive the image of God, for which and in which he was framed.
God, elsewhere also, likens the force and vehemence of His word to a hammer which breaketh the rocks in pieces Jer 23:29; a sword which pierceth even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit Heb 4:12. : He continually hammered, beat upon, disquieted them, and so vexed them (as they thought) even unto death, not allowing them to rest in their sins, not suffering them to enjoy themselves in them, but forcing them (as it were) to part with things which they loved as their lives, and would as soon part with their souls as with them.
And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth – The judgments here are the acts of justice executed upon a man; the judgment upon him, as we say. God had done all which could be done, to lay aside the severity of His own judgments. All had failed. Then His judgments, when they came, would be manifestly just; their justice clear as the light which goeth forth out of the darkness of night, or out of the thick clouds. Gods past loving-kindness, His pains, (so to speak,) His solicitations, the drawings of His grace, the tender mercies of His austere chastisements, will, in the Day of Judgment, stand out clear as the light, and leave the sinner confounded, without excuse. In this life, also, Gods final judgments are as a light which goeth forth, enlightening, not the sinner who perishes, but others, heretofore in the darkness of ignorance, on whom they burst with a sudden blaze of light, and who reverence them, owning that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether Psa 19:9.
And so, since they would not be reformed, what should have been for their wealth, was for their destruction. I slew them by the words of My mouth. God spake yet more terribly to them. He slew them in word, that He might not slay them in deed; He threatened them with death; since they repented not, it came. The stone, which will not take the form which should have been imparted to it, is destroyed by the strokes which should have moulded it. By a like image Jeremiah compared the Jews to ore which is consumed in the fire which should refine it; since there was no good in it. They are brass and iron; they are all corrupted; the bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them Jer 6:28-30.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets] I have sent my prophets to testify against their fickleness. They have smitten them with the most solemn and awful threatenings; they have, as it were, slain them by the words of my mouth. But to what purpose?
Thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth] Instead of umispateycha or yetse, “and thy judgments a light that goeth forth,” the versions in general have read umishpati keor, “and my judgment is as the light.” The final caph in the common reading has by mistake been taken from aur, and joined to mishpati; and thus turned it from the singular to the plural number, with the postfix cha. The proper reading is, most probably, “And my judgment is as the light going forth.” It shall be both evident and swift; alluding both to the velocity and splendour of light.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Therefore; because I would do for you whatever might be done, because I would cure you of your obstinacy and hypocrisy, and make you upright and constant. I have hewed them; I have severely, continually, and unweariedly by the prophets reproved, warned, and threatened. Your hearts have been like knotty trees, or hardest stones: I have made my prophets like labourers, and, my words like axes or hammers to cut off the knots, and to hew off the roughness which make unfit for use; but all to no purpose, the desired effect hath not been attained.
By the prophets; some that were before Hosea. Jeroboam the First was by a prophet reproved and threatened for this idolatry, in which Israel persisted, and to which Judah did too often fall; and through the space of two hundred years, from Jeroboam the First to Hoseas time, many other prophets were sent, whose names, and some memoirs of them, we have, as Ahijah, Jehu, Hanani, Elijah, and Elisha. These and such like were the prophets that did hew crooked and knotty Israel.
I have slain them: some say the false prophets are the persons meant here, whom God did slay for their sin, seducing Israel to, and confirming them in, idolatry; indeed Elijahs sincere zeal did cut off so many, 1Ki 18:22,40, and Jehus counterfeit zeal cut off so many, 2Ki 10:21,25, that it could never be forgotten among that people. So the thing is true, many false prophets were slain for this sin; yet the persons in our text were not these false prophets, but they were the people of Israel and Judah, the idolatrous, refractory hypocrites among them, whom God threatened with death, and that by the sword of enemies.
By the words of my mouth; as he did by his word foretell, so he did effect too in due time.
Thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth, i.e. the punishments threatened, the miseries foretold, which fell upon this people, did so fully answer the prediction, that every one might see them clear as the light, and as constantly executed as the morning. So Zep 3:5.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. I hewed them by the prophetsthatis, I announced by the prophets that they should be hewnasunder, like trees of the forest. God identifies His act with thatof His prophets; the word being His instrument for executing His will(Jer 1:10; Eze 43:3).
by . . . words of my mouth(Isa 11:4; Jer 23:29;Heb 4:12).
thy judgmentsthejudgments which I will inflict on thee, Ephraim and Judah (Ho6:4). So “thy judgments,” that is, thoseinflicted on thee (Zep3:15).
are as the light, c.likethe light, palpable to the eyes of all, as coming from God, thepunisher of sin. HENDERSONtranslates, “lightning” (compare Margin, Job 37:3Job 37:15).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Therefore have I hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth,…. Sharply reproved them for their sins by the prophets, who were as lapidaries that cut stone, or us hewers of timber that cut off the knotty parts; so these by preaching the terrors of the law, which is a killing letter, and by delivering out the threatenings of the Lord, and denouncing his judgments upon them for their sins, cut them to the heart, and killed them; for their foretelling and prophesying of their being slain, ruined, and destroyed, was a slaying of them; see Jer 1:10. The Targum is,
“because I admonished them by the message of my prophets, and they returned not, I will bring upon them those that slay, because they have transgressed the word of my will.”
But the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and so Aben Ezra and Joseph Kimchi, understand these words, not of hewing, and cutting, and slaying of the people by the prophets, but of the cutting and slaying the prophets themselves, and read the words, “therefore have I cut off the prophets, and slain them c.”, either the false prophets, some of them that caused the people to err, that they might not repent, as Aben Ezra as the prophets of Baal in the times of Elijah, and the Scribes and Pharisees in Christ’s time, who were in the way of the people’s repentance, reformation, and reception of Christ; these he cut off, and their doctrine, and condemned by his own, and the doctrine of his apostles, the words of the Lord’s mouth; see Zec 11:8; and this he did for the good of his people, in answer to the question put by himself in Ho 6:4; so Schmidt interprets it: or else the true prophets of God, who were exposed to death, to be cut off and slain, for the messages they were sent with: or those messages were such as were killing to them to carry them, and deliver them; and they were so constantly employed, early and late, in such service, that for the work of the Lord they were often nigh unto death: but our version, and the sense agreeable to it, scent best;
and thy judgments [are as] the light [that] goeth forth; that is, their judgments, the people’s, a sudden change of person: meaning either the statutes and judgments prescribed them by the Lord, and to be observed by them; which were clear and plain as the light at noon day, and therefore could not plead any excuse of ignorance of them, that they did not observe them: or the judgments of God upon them for their sins; which were open and manifest to all, and increasing like the light, more and more, and no more to be resisted than that; and the righteousness of God in them was very conspicuous; his judgments were manifest, and the justice of them. Some understand this of the judgments or righteousnesses of the saints, both imputed and inherent, Ro 5:16; which appear light and clear, the darkness of pharisaism being removed by Christ. The Targum is,
“my judgment goes forth as the light.”
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
“Therefore have I hewn by the prophets, slain them by the words of my mouth: and my judgment goeth forth as light.” Al – ken , therefore, because your love vanishes again and again, God must perpetually punish. does not mean to strike in among the prophets (Hitzig, after the lxx, Syr., and others); but is instrumental, as in Isa 10:15, and chatsabh signifies to hew, not merely to hew off, but to hew out or carve. The n e bh’m cannot be false prophets, on account of the parallel “by the words of my mouth,” but must be the true prophets. Through them God had hewed or carved the nation, or, as Jerome and Luther render it, dolavi , i.e., worked it like a piece of hard wood, in other words, had tried to improve it, and shape it into a holy nation, answering to its true calling. “Slain by the words of my mouth,” which the prophets had spoken; i.e., not merely caused death and destruction to be proclaimed to them, but suspended judgment and death over them – as, for example, by Elijah – since there dwells in the word of God the power to kill and to make alive (compare Isa 11:4; Isa 49:2). The last clause, according to the Masoretic pointing and division of the words, does not yield any appropriate meaning. could only be the judgments inflicted upon the nation; but neither the singular suffix for (Isa 10:4), nor , with the singular verb under the simil. omitted before , suits this explanation. For cannot mean “to go forth to the light;” nor can stand for . We must therefore regard the reading expressed by the ancient versions,
(Note: The Vulgate in some of the ancient mss has also judicium meum, instead of the judicia tua of the Sixtina. See Kennicott, Diss. gener. ed. Bruns. p. 55ff.)
viz., , “my judgment goeth forth like light,” as the original one. My penal judgment went forth like the light (the sun); i.e., the judgment inflicted upon the sinners was so obvious, so conspicuous (clear as the sun), that every one ought to have observed it and laid it to heart (cf. Zep 3:5). The Masoretic division of the words probably arose simply from an unsuitable reminiscence of Psa 37:6.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
God shows here, by his Prophet, that he was constrained by urgent necessity to deal sharply and roughly with the people. Nothing, we know, is more pleasing to God than to treat us kindly; for there is not found a father in the world who cherishes his children as tenderly: but we, being perverse, suffer him not to follow the inclination of his nature. He is therefore constrained to put on, as it were, a new character, and to chide us severely, according to the way in which he here says, he had treated the Israelites; I have cut them, he says, by my prophets, and killed them by the words of my mouth
Some render the words otherwise, as though God had killed the Prophets, meaning thereby the impostors, who corrupted the pure worship of God by their errors. But this view seems not to me in any way suitable; and we know that it was a common mode of speaking among the Hebrews, to express the same thing in two ways. So the Prophet speaks here, I have cut or hewed them by my Prophets, I have killed them by the cords of my mouth. In the second clause he repeats, I doubt not, what we have already briefly explained, namely, that God had cut or hewed them by his Prophets.
But we must see for what purpose God declares here that he had commanded his Prophets to treat the people roughly. Hypocrites we indeed know, however much in various ways they mock God, are yet tender, and cannot bear any rebuke. Their sins are gross, except when they disguise themselves; but at the same time, when God begins to reprove, they expostulate and say, “What does this mean? God everywhere declares that he is kind and merciful; but he fulminates now against us: this seems not consistent with his nature.” Thus then hypocrites would have God to be their batterer. He now answers, that he had been constrained, not only for a just cause, but also necessarily, to kill them, and to make his word by the Prophets like a hammer or an ax. This is the reason, he says, why my Prophets have not endeavored mildly and gently to allure the people. For God kindly and sweetly draws or invites to himself those whom he sees to be teachable; but when he sees so great a perverseness in men, that he cannot bend them by his goodness, he then begins, as we have said, to put on a new character. We now then under stand God’s design: that hypocrites might not complain that they had been otherwise treated than what is consistent with God’s nature, the Prophet here answers in God’s name, “Ye have forced me to this severity; for there was need of a hard wedge, as they say, for a hard knot: I have therefore hewed you by my Prophets, I have hewed you by the words of my mouth; that is, I have used my word as an ax: for ye were like knotty and tough wood; it was therefore necessary that my word should be to you like an ax: and I have killed you by the words of my mouth; that is my word has not been sweet food to you, as it is wont to be to meek men; but it has been like a two-edged sword; it was therefore necessary to slay you, as ye would not bear me to be a Father to you.”
It then follows Thy judgments are light that goes forth Some understand by “judgments” prosperity as if God were here reproaching the Israelites, that it was not his fault that he did not win them: “I have not neglected to treat you kindly, and under my protection to defend you; but ye are ungrateful.” But this is a strained exposition. The greater part of interpreters explain the passage thus, “That thy judgments might be a light going forth.” But I do not see why we should change any thing in the Prophet’s words. God then simply intimates here, that he had made known to the Israelites the rule of a religious and holy life, so that they could not pretend ignorance; for the Hebrews often understand “judgments” in the sense of rectitude. I refer this to the instruction given them: Thy judgments then, that is, the way of living religiously, was like light; which means this, “I have so warned you, that you have sinned knowingly and willfully. Hence, that you have been so disobedient to me, must be imputed to your perverseness; for when ye were pliant, I certainly did not conceal from you what was right: for as the sun daily shines on the earth, so my teaching, has been to you as the light, to show to you the way of salvation; but it has been with no profit.” We now then understand what the Prophet meant by these words. It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) The LXX. render, Therefore I have mowed down their prophets; but this would destroy the parallelism, in which prophets correspond to words of my mouth. The sense is, I have slain them by the announcement of deserved doom.
Thy judgments . . .An error has crept here into the Masoretic text from which the LXX. and other ancient versions are free. The mistake consists in misplacing an initial letter as a final one. Translate, My judgment shall go forth as the light, clear, victorious, and beneficent. (Comp. the language of Psa. 37:6 and Isa. 62:1-2.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets,
I have slain them by the words of my mouth.’
It was because of this shallowness revealed in their attitudes that God had in the past sent His prophets (Moses, Samuel, Elisha, Elijah, Micaiah, Jonah, Amos, etc) to ‘hew them down’ like trees falling before the lumberjacks. And because of that same shallowness He had slain them with the words of His mouth, both by making them shudder before Him (compare Exo 20:18-19; Deu 4:10-13; Deu 4:33; Deu 4:36; Deu 5:4-5; Deu 5:22-27) and by His word of power bringing disasters upon them.
For it had been necessary for Him in the past, having provided His covenant with its demanding stipulations, to send His fiery prophets to seek to apply that covenant permanently to the people, but now He wanted them to know that, as their own history demonstrated, His efforts had failed. And it left Him not knowing what He could do next. Of course, as He will go on to point out, He did know, for things had reached a situation where the only solution was devastation and exile. So by bringing out the past by these words the current situation in Israel was being connected with the failures of that past.
Some, by pointing the consonants in a different way, would translate the first line as, ‘therefore have I hewed them by My fear-inspiring speech’ on the basis of linguistic discoveries at Ugarit. This would possibly provide a better parallel, but the overall emphasis is the same.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
‘And my judgment will go forth as the light (or ‘as the sun’, the ‘greater light’ of Gen 1:15-16).’
Using the same consonants as the MT but repointing (the pointing is not a part of the original text) YHWH now points out that because of their failure in covenant faithfulness and covenant love He is about to send forth His judgment which will come on them in the same way as the sun (or the morning light) causes the night to disappear. Thus like their covenant love, they themselves will soon ‘go early away’. Unlike the morning mist the sun (or period of light) lasts throughout the day, an indication of the certainty of God’s purposes. For the Hebrew word for ‘light’ being used to denote the ‘sun’ compare Jdg 5:31, and see also Hab 3:4.
The MT (Masoretic Text) reads, ‘your judgments are as the light (sun) which goes forth’. In that case ‘your judgments’ speaks of ‘the judgments which have come upon you’, and sees them as being as permanent and effective as the sun. But the original Hebrew text was simply composed of consonants with no joins between the words, and the reading suggested above is a translation of the MT consonants divided up in a slightly different way, using different vowel sounds. (The vowel signs were provided by the Masoretes some centuries after the coming of Christ and are therefore not an essential part of Scripture).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Hos 6:5. Therefore have I hewed them Or, Therefore have I cut them down. Houbigant reads, Certainly I have done what it pleased me to your prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth; and light shall arise from my judgments upon thee: “That light which you hoped for, of the approaching morning, or of recovered liberty.” See Houbigant.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Probably the hewing by the words of the Prophets, hath a reference to the powerful effects of preaching. We have a striking instance: Act 7:51-54 . And the Lord compares his word to a fire, and to an hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces. Jer 23:29 . See also Heb 4:12 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Hos 6:5 Therefore have I hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments [are as] the light [that] goeth forth.
Ver. 5. Therefore have I hewed them by my prophets ] Therefore? wherefore? because there is so little stability and solidity in them; because they are so off and on, so light and false-hearted; therefore I have spared for no pains (though all to small purpose), but have sharply rebuked them that they might be sound in the faith, Rev 2:16 yea, I have fought against them with the sword of my mouth, and slain them by powerful convictions of conscience; so that they are self-condemned, and the judgments are written as it were with a beam of the sun, they are so clear to themselves and others. This is the coherence, and the reason of the illative particle “therefore.” It is the sad complaint of a late reverend writer, when we have spent all our wind on our people their hearts will be still apt to be carried away with every wind of doctrine. They are won, saith another, with an apple, and lost with a nut; no man knows where to find them in one mind for a month’s time; such a generation of moon calves never appeared in the world before. Our giddy hearers (saith a third), after all our pains taken with them, have no mould but what the next teacher casteth them into; being blown, like glasses, into this or that shape at the pleasure of his breath.
I have hewed them by the prophets
I have killed them with the words of my mouth
And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Therefore have I hewed them, &c. = This is why I hewed them. Hebrew idiom, by which the declaration that a thing should be done is spoken of the personal act of doing it. See note on Jer 1:18; and compare Jer 1:10; Jer 5:14.
by the prophets: i.e. declared by the prophets.
thy judgments are. A regrouping of the letters of the Hebrew word agrees with the Aramaean, Septuagint, and Syriac, and reads “My judgment is”. Hos 6:5 speaks of Jehovah’s acts (see Structure, above). Reference to Pentateuch (Deu 33:2). App-92.
the light = light.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
have I: 1Sa 13:13, 1Sa 15:22, 1Ki 14:6, 1Ki 17:1, 1Ki 18:17, 2Ki 1:16, 2Ch 21:12, Isa 58:1, Jer 1:10, Jer 1:18, Jer 5:14, Jer 13:13, Eze 3:9, Eze 43:3, Act 7:31
I have: 1Ki 19:17, Isa 11:4, Jer 23:29, Heb 4:12, Rev 1:16, Rev 2:16, Rev 9:15, Rev 9:21
and thy judgments are as: or, that thy judgments might be as, etc. Gen 18:25, Job 34:10, Psa 37:6, Psa 119:120, Zep 3:5, Rom 2:5
Reciprocal: 1Sa 16:4 – trembled 2Sa 23:4 – as the light Neh 9:29 – testifiedst Son 5:7 – they smote Son 6:10 – looketh Isa 28:13 – precept upon precept Isa 49:2 – he hath made Jer 9:7 – shall Eze 11:4 – General Eze 11:13 – when Eze 23:45 – the righteous Eze 32:18 – cast Hos 5:2 – a rebuker 2Th 2:8 – the spirit Rev 11:5 – fire
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 6:5. Sewed them by the prophets is figurative and means that when God decreed to punish his people he would warn them about it by the voice of the prophets. See Jer 1:10 and Eze 43:3 for similar statements, and note the marginal reading at the latter place. Thy is a pronoun that stands for the wayward people of God, and their judgments are described to be as fickle as their goodness is in verse 4.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Hos 6:5. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets Severely reproved and threatened them; or cut them off, as the word, , may be properly rendered: that is, I have denounced against them great destruction. The prophets, and God by the prophets, are said to do those things which they foretel, or denounce: see notes on Jer 1:10; Jer 5:14. I have slain them by the words of my mouth that is, I have declared, or denounced, the slaughter of them. Gods word is described as sharper than a two-edged sword, because his judgments, denounced by his messengers, are like the sentence of a judge, which shall certainly be followed with execution. And thy judgments are as the light when it goeth forth These may be considered as the words of the prophet addressing God, and signifying that his judgments against the people were, though gradually, yet as certainly approaching as the morning light; and that the justice of them would appear as clear as the light of the rising sun. Or they may be considered as addressed to Israel, and then the meaning of them must be, The punishment which shall come upon thee, O Israel, will clearly appear to be perfectly just; nor shall any thing happen to thee, but what thou hast been fully and repeatedly warned of. Bishop Horsley, however, connecting these words with the following, gives them a different sense. Taking the word , here rendered thy judgments, to signify thy precepts, he renders the clause, And the precepts given thee (namely, given to the people) were as the onward-going light, &c., that is, as light, of which it is the nature and property to go forth, to propagate itself infinitely, and in all directions; a most expressive image of the clearness of the practical lessons of the prophets. The word, adds he, in his Critical Notes, signifies a fixed principle, or rule, in any thing, to which principle and rule can be applied. Here I take it for the practical rules of a moral and godly life, as delivered by the prophets; and so Calvin expounds it: Judicia tua, hoc est, ratio pi vivendi, Thy judgments, that is, the method of living piously. Significat hic Deus se regulam pi et sancte vivendi monstrsse Israelitis, God here signifies that he had shown to the Israelites the rule of a pious and holy life.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:5 Therefore have I {d} hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy {e} judgments [are as] the light [that] goeth forth.
(d) I have still laboured by my prophets, and as it were prepared you to bring you to correction, but all was in vain: for my word was not food to feed them, but a sword to slay them.
(e) My doctrine which I taught you, was most evident.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Therefore the Lord had sent messages of condemnation through His prophets that had the effect of mowing His people down. These messages had been as destructive as lightning bolts (cf. Amo 4:6-11).