Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Trapp Complete Commentary - Hosea 8:2 - 8:2
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Hos_8:2 Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee.
Ver. 2. Israel shall cry unto me] It is their course and custom to do so; they will needs do it, though I take no delight in it. Hypocrisy is impudent, as Hos_5:6 Jer_3:4-5. No, nay, but it will despite God with seeming honour; and present him with a ludibrious devotion. Israel, though revolted and degenerated into Jezreel, Hos_1:4, shall cry, yea, cry aloud, vociferabuntur, cry till they are hoarse, as criers do; and unto me, but not with their heart, Hos_7:14. It is but clamor sine fide fatuus, an empty ring, that God regards not. For, "not every one that saith unto him, Lord, Lord," &c., Mat_7:21. Many lean upon the Lord and say, "Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come unto us," Mic_3:11, who yet shall hear, Discedite, Avaunt, ye workers of iniquity; I know you not. Woe then to all profligate professors, carnal gospellers; their prayers shall not profit them, neither shall they be a button the better for their loud cries to the most High, Pro_1:28, and odious fawnings.
My God, we know thee] When their hearts are far from him. Of such pretenders to him and his truth it is that the apostle speaketh, Tit_1:16, "They profess that they know God" (which yet God denies, Hos_4:1; Hos_5:4), "but in works they deny him; being abominable, and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate." To come and call God Father, the guide of our youth, and then to fall to sin, this is to do as evil as we can; we cannot easily do worse, Jer_3:4-5. To cry, "The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord," and then to "steal, murder, and commit adultery.," &c., this is painted hypocrisy, Jer_7:4; Jer_7:9. When men shall take sanctuary, and think to save themselves from danger by a form of godliness (as the Jews fable that Og, king of Bashan, escaped in the flood by riding astride upon the Ark) when they are perfect strangers to the power of it, this is to hasten and heap up wrath, Job_36:13. Religion, as it is the best armour, so the worst cloak; and will serve hypocrites as the disguise Ahab put on, and perished. Castalio maketh this last clause to be the speech of the blessed Trinity, We know thee, O Israel: q.d. Though thou collogue and cry, My God; yet we know thine hypocrisy and the naughtiness of thy heart. But the former sense is better, though the placing of the word Israel in the end of the verse seem to favour this; for thus it runs in the Hebrew, "To me they shall cry, My God, we know thee, Israel."