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Hos_10:14 Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Betharbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon [her] children.
Ver. 14. Therefore shall a tumult arise among the people, &c.] Even among those mighty men, wherein ye trusted, shall there be seditious tumults, that shall soon bring all into a miserable confusion. Intestine commotions may undo a people, as a man may die of an inward bleeding. (Virg. Aeneid. lib. 1),
“ Ac veluti in magno populo cum saepe coorta est
Seditio, saevitque animis ignobile vulgus. ”
When the multitude is in a rage they are like to a tiled house that is on fire (saith one), there is no coming near the house, the tiles do so fly about your face; so it is in tumults, there is no coming near to talk to them, to convince them; but they are ready to fly presently upon you. In Ket’s sedition, Dr Parker, in his sermon before the rebels, near Norwich, touched them for their misliving so near that they went near to touch him for his life. The rude rage of the rebels was such, that some, being disabled almost to hold up their weapons, would strive what they could to strike their enemies; others being thrust through the body with a spear, would run themselves farther, to reach those that deadly wounded them. Yea, boys were observed to be so desperately resolved, as to pull arrows out of their own flesh, and deliver them to be shot again by the archers on their side. There are none so insolent and cruel as the vilest of the people, when they are got together in a head. What havoc made the seditious in Jerusalem a little before the last destruction of it! the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy! Wat Tyler and his accomplices here! That rebel, held up by the many headed multitude, dared to say, that all the laws of England should come out of his mouth. The Hebrew word ( שׁàåï ) here used signifieth an inundation, or multitude of waters, which overran their banks with violence and roaring. The people are a most dangerous and heady water, when once it is out; it is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food, Pro_28:3. The Septuagint render it, Destruction. Sal. Jarchi saith, it signifieth the voice of those that cry, Fugite, Fugite, Away, Away, the enemy is at hand, &c. Some say, to the same purpose, that it signifieth clamorem meticulosorum, the crying of those that are scared, as when there is luctus ubique paver, et plurima morti imago. See Amo_2:2 Zep_1:15.
And all thy fortresses shall be spoiled] Yea, though they be munitions of rocks. "Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine own heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord," Jer_49:16. And again, "All thy strongholds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs; if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater, who shall devour them at a bite," Nah_3:12.
As Shalman spoiled Betharbel] Shalman signifieth peaceable (saith an interpreter), a man of a calm spirit; but he answered not his name; for he exercised greatest cruelty. There is not a more troublesome sea than that which is called Mare pacificum, Pacific Ocean. There is often aliud in titulo, aliud in pyxide Different in name from practice. Absalom signifieth the Father’s peace; but he proved otherwise than was hoped.
“ Fallitur augurio spes bona saepe suo. ”
But this Shalman is by the best interpreters thought to be Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, in this prophet’s time. Shalman is vex truncata, a name cut off to the halves; a thing very ordinary in all the learned languages, as were easy to instance. See Isa_15:2. Bamoth for Bamoth-Baal, Jos_13:17. Chamath for Chamath-Dor. Hesiod puts Bñé for Bñéáñïé , Ennius hath Fabric for Fabricius. This Shalmaneser (or, as Luther will have it, some other great warrior called Shalman, not elsewhere mentioned in Scripture, but not unknown to the ten tribes) did cruel execution, it seems, upon Betharbel, a city beyond Jordan, /Apc 1Ma 9:2, like as Tamerlane (for a terror to the Greek empire, much whereof he afterwards subdued) did at Sebastia; where he made a merciless slaughter of all sexes and sizes; whereby he held the whole East in such awe, as that he was commonly called The wrath of God, and terror of the world. There are those who think this Arbel to be the same as that Arbela, where Alexander defeated Darius, and won the Persian monarchy. They make it a city or country of Assyria, beneath Arpad, and hinted at by Rabshakeh, 2Ki_18:34. "Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?" sc. Shalmaneser hath utterly destroyed them. See 2Ki_15:29; 2Ki_17:24; 2Ki_19:13. Arbel is by some interpreted the city of Bel, where Belus or Baal was worshipped. By others Betharbel is interpreted as the house of the ensnaring god, the god of policy or subtilty. It seemed to them that the people of this place had a god that they thought would ensnare and ensnarl all their enemies; but it proved much otherwise.
For, the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children] Dashed against tbe ground (so the word signifieth), against the walls, or pavements. See Gen_32:11 Psa_137:9 Isa_13:16 ( øèשׁ åäáöéæåéí . Sept.). Such is the savage cruelty of war, when God lets it out. Such was the barbarous dealing of the French in the Parisian massacre, such the Sicilian Vespers, and at Merindoll, where the paps of many women were cut off, which gave suck to their children; which, looking for suck at their mother’s breasts being dead before, died also for hunger. Was not this to "kill the mother with the children?" which God forbade by a symbol of taking the dam with the young, Deu_22:6, and again of killing the ewe and the lamb both in one day, Lev_22:28. The Spaniards murdered fify million Indians in forty-two years, as Acosta, the Jesuit, testifieth. Arsenoe was killed upon her children by her bloody brother, Ptolemy, king of Egypt. And another of that name killed thirty thousand Jews, and compelled the living to feed upon the flesh of the dead. When the Switzers vanquished the Thericenses in battle, they banqueted in the place where they won the victory; using the dead bodies of their adversaries instead of stools and tables. The sight of such like cruelties, common in war, might well make Zwinglius say, when he had been abroad with the army, that he had found more wickedness and bad counsels and courses therein than ever he had known before, either by experience or out of books. This passage in God’s book (and the like, Hos_13:16, "their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up") he could not be ignorant of. The prophet refers his hearers to a sad example of fresh bleeding cruelty, well known to them; that they might relent, repent, and prevent the like misery upon themselves. This is the use we should all put such examples to. Luk_13:2-3; Luk_13:5; Luk_17:26; Luk_17:28 1Co_10:6-8; 1Co_10:11.