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Hos_13:4 Yet I [am] the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for [there is] no saviour beside me.
Ver. 4. Yet I am the Lord thy God, &c.] Yet for all the sorrow; and though I thus threaten thee: "for since I spake against thee, I do earnestly remember thee still," &c., Jer_31:20. It is easy to observe all along this chapter, an interchange of menaces and mercies, as in the preceding verse and this, so Hos_13:8-9; Hos_13:13-14; Hos_13:16; Hos_14:1, to show how soon the Lord repents him of the evil, and how ready to show mercy to the worst that return. If men could but find a penitent heart, he would easily find a pitying heart; like as David would have been friends with Absalom after all the unkindness, would he have been but better at last. To reduce Ephraim it was, that this chapter, like checquer work, is made up of promises and threatenings; that the tartness of the one might make him the better to taste the sweetness of the other.
Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt] See the note on Hos_12:9. He was their God before, Gen_17:7, but then he mainly manifested himself so to be, when he brought them thence with a strong hand, and so declared himself to be Jehovah, Exo_6:2; yea, I am ready to show thee the like mercy still; for "I remember" (saith he) "the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown," Jer_2:2.
And thou shalt know no God but me] i.e. Effectually acknowledge, worship, serve, love, none save me, Deu_13:2 Gal_5:9. Thou shalt experience none other. It is a blessed thing to be ignorant of false worship; and not to be insighted into, or versed in, the depths of Satan, Rev_2:24. Thou shalt not inquire how these nations worshipped their gods, Deu_12:30. Ahaz got hurt by seeing the altar at Damascus: many that will needs see the Popish service are insnared thereby.
For there is no Saviour beside me] This is a title that God much glorieth in; see Isa_60:16; Isa_63:1 Act_5:31; and we should go often to him in this name, as Jer_14:8, since "he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto him," Heb_7:25, to save them perpetually, and perfectly, åéò ôï ðáíôåëåò . He is a sole Saviour, a thorough Saviour, a Saviour in solidum; and doth not his work to the halves, as Papists make it. How blasphemous is that direction of theirs to dying men, to say, Join, Lord, mine obedience with those things which Christ suffered for me.