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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Hosea 5:9 - 5:9
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“Ephraim will become a desert in the day of punishment: over the tribes of Israel have I proclaimed that which lasts. Hos 5:10. The princes of Judah have become like boundary-movers; upon them I pour out my wrath like water.” The kingdom of Israel will entirely succumb to the punishment. It will become a desert - will be laid waste not only for a time, but permanently. The punishment with which it is threatened will be נֶאֱמָנָה. This word is to be interpreted as in Deu 28:59, where it is applied to lasting plagues, with which God will chastise the obstinate apostasy of His people. By the perfect הֹודַעְתִּי, what is here proclaimed is represented as a completed event, which will not be altered. Beshibhtē, not in or among the tribes, but according to עָנָה בְ, in Deu 28:5, against or over the tribes (Hitzig). Judah also will not escape the punishment of its sins. The unusual expression massı̄gē gebhūl is formed after, and to be explained from Deu 19:14, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark;” or Deu 27:17, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark.” The princes of Judah have become boundary-removers, not by hostile invasions of the kingdom of Israel (Simson); for the boundary-line between Israel and Judah was not so appointed by God, that a violation of it on the part of the princes of Judah could be reckoned a grievous crime, but by removing the boundaries of right which had been determined by God, viz., according to Hos 4:15, by participating in the guilt of Ephraim, i.e., by idolatry, and therefore by the fact that they had removed the boundary between Jehovah and Baal, that is to say, between the one true God and idols. “If he who removes his neighbour's boundary is cursed, how much more he who removes the border of his God!” (Hengstenberg). Upon such men the wrath of God would fall in its fullest measure. כַּמַּיִם, like a stream of water, so plentifully. For the figure, compare Psa 69:25; Psa 79:6; Jer 10:25. Severe judgments are thus announced to Judah, viz., those of which the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser and Sennacherib were the instruments; but no ruin or lasting devastation is predicted, as was the case with the kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed by the Assyrians.