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Hos_12:2 The LORD hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him.
Ver. 2. The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah] Lest the prophet should be thought partial in the law, Mal_2:9, {See Trapp on "Mal_2:9"} and lest Ephraim should say of Judah, as once Oded did of Israel, "Are there not with them, even with them also, sins against the Lord?" 2Ch_28:10. The prophet answers by way of concession, that there were so indeed; and that therefore God had a controversy with them, a litigation, or disceptation: he was expostulating with them by words, and some lighter strokes, notwithstanding he had commended them before, as ruling with God, and retaining his pure worship. God would take his time to deal with them too for their many impieties, and especially for running to Egypt for help, as they did in the days of Ahaz and Zedekiah, see Isa_30:2; Isa_31:1; but because they were not yet so bad as the ten tribes, nor so desperately wicked, therefore the Lord was yet but pleading with them; he had not passed sentence, he was not resolved upon their ruin and utter extirpation, Hos_4:15; Hos_5:5-14; Hos_6:11; as he was for the ten tribes, those foul apostates and shameless covenantbreakers; concerning whom he saith, and is set upon it,
I will punish Jacob according to his ways] See the like words Hos_4:9. {See Trapp on "Hos_4:9"} He calls them Jacob, because they gloried much in him, their progenitor; as did likewise the Samaritans that succeeded them, Joh_4:12. So did the Jews in Mic_2:7. But the prophet Hosea answereth them in effect (as there) by proving a disparity. "O thou that art named the house of Jacob" (that wilt needs be named so, and therein pridest thyself), "is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" (ye are not surely straitened in him, but in your own bowels, that ye express Jacob no better, that ye resemble him no more). "Are these his doings?" was Jacob a man of your practices? No; {a} for he left no means unattempted that he might attain the blessing; he strove for it with his brother in the womb, âñåöïò , afterwards with the angel, against whom with much wrestling and raising of dust he prevailed, as it followeth in the two next verses.
{a} Odiosum et impium dogma Anabaptistarum, qui ideo pueris baptismum negant, quia sensu ac mente careant. Luther in loc.