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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king. The persons here addressed comprise all the estates of the realm—priests, people, and princes. The house of Israel is the northern kingdom; and the house of the king is the members of the king's family, of his court and of his government. Thus the rulers and the ruled, the spiritual teachers and the taught, are comprehended in this address. Neither priestly office, nor popular power, nor princely dignity was to be exempted. But, though all are summoned to give audience, the heads of the people, the men of light and leading, are first arraigned. For judgment is toward you, as the clause is correctly rendered; not, "it devolves on you to maintain judgment," as some understand it. It had, indeed, been the province of the priest to teach, and of the king to execute the judgments of God in Israel; but now they are themselves the subjects of judgment. Judgment was now to begin at the house of the king and of the priest; God was about to execute judgment upon them—the judgment from that judgment-seat where justice never miscarries, and where no mistake is ever made. The cause of this is assigned. Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor. Instead of being safeguards of the people, they had been a snare to them; instead of being true leaders, as God had intended them, they had misled them; instead of contributing to their security, they had seduced them to sin and so helped to prepare them for destruction; they had been a snare to entrap and a net to entangle. East as well as west of the Jordan their evil influence had wrought ruin. Mizpah, now es-Salt, was on the east of the river among the hills of Gilead, where Jacob and Laban entered into covenant; Tabor, like a solitary cone or sugar-loaf, rises up from the plain of Jezreel, or Esdraelon, on the west of the river. On the wooded slopes of Tabor and the beacon-hill of Mizpah game, no doubt, abounded and found covert, and hence the origin of the figure here used; but they had probably become scenes of idolatry or wickedness.
Hos_5:2
And the revolters are profound to make slaughter (or, profuse in murders or in sacrifices, or in dealing corruptly), though I have been a rebuker of them all (rather, but I am [bent upon] chastisement for them all). The literal rendering of the first clause is, slaughtering they have made deep, which is an idiom analogous to "they have deeply revolted;" literally, "they have made revolting deep" (Isa_31:6). The slaughtering, though understood by Wunsche of sacrifices, is rather meant of the destruction and carnage which the revolters caused to the people. Rashi explains it literally in this way: "I said, Every one that goes not up to the stated feasts transgresses a positive precept; but they decree that every one who goes up to the stated feasts shall be slain." This seems to imply that liers-in-wait were set probably on Mizpah and Tabor, the places mentioned in the preceding verse, to slay the Israelites that were found going up to the feasts at Jerusalem. Aben Ezra, taking this second verse as continuing the sentiment of the first, interprets as follows: "Ye have been a snare on Mizpah that ye might not allow them to go up to the feasts to the house of the Lord; and to slay (victims) in the usual way." The revolters or apostates he takes to be the worshippers of Baal. "They made deep," he adds in his exposition, "the snares, those that are mentioned, that passers-by might not see them; but I will chastise all of them for this evil which they have done, since it is not hidden from me why they have hid (made) it so deep." The slaughtering is thus understood by Aben Ezra of slaying the sacrificial victims. Similarly Kimchi interprets thus: "He says that the revolters who are the worshippers of idols, who depart from the ways of God—blessed be he!—and kern his service, like a woman who is a revolter from under her husband, have made deep their revolt, slaying and sacrificing to idols." lie would understand the slaughtering neither of victims with Kimchi and Aben Ezra; nor of literally slaying Israelites to prevent persons going up to Jerusalem, the proper seat of Jehovah's worship; but of the destructive consequences which the conduct of these apostates brought on the people. The work of chastisement God now takes in hand in good earnest. Droppings of the coming shower there had been; but now the full flood is to descend, for God presents himself to misleaders and misled alike under the sole aspect of rebuke. "I," he says, "am chastisement" (give myself to it). A like form of expression occurs in Psa_109:4, "I am prayer;" that is, am a man of prayer, or give royal. If to prayer. Thus Kimchi explains the idiom: "The prophet says, Say not that no man shall correct and reprove them, therefore they sin; for I am the person who reproves them all, and day by day I reprove them, but they will not hearken to me. But raani moser wants the word ish, man, as (in Psa_109:4) raani tephilah, which we have explained raani ish tephilah."
Hos_5:3
I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me. All attempts at concealment are vain, though sinners try ever so much to hide their sins from the Divine Majesty. However deep they dig downward, God will bring their evil doings up and out to the light of day and punish them. For now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled. Israel is the northern kingdom, and Ephraim, being the most powerful tribe, is often identified with Israel; here, however, they are distinguished—Israel is the kingdom as a whole, and Ephraim is its leading tribe. This powerful tribe, ever envious of Judah, was the ringleader in the calf worship of Jeroboam and other idolatries; and through Ephraim's evil influence the other tribes, and so all Israel, were defiled.
Hos_5:4
In this verse their evil doings are traced to an evil spirit of whoredoms that is, of idolatries, which impels them blindly and resistlessly to evil, while at the same time it expels the knowledge of God. The first clause is differently rendered. The textual rendering of the Authorized Version, viz. they will not frame (literally, give, direct) their doings to turn unto their God, denotes their total and absolute refusal to repent or to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. The actions are an index of the state of the heart, but neither the thoughts of Israel at this time, nor their deeds which indicated these thoughts, were in the direction of repentance. In heart and life they were impenitent. This rendering is supported by most of the Hebrew commentators. Rashi says, "They forsake not their evil way;" Aben Ezra," They perform not works so as to turn." Kimchi also gives an alternative sense: "Or the sense of the words is thus: They cling so closely to their evil works, that even should they for once conceive in their heart the idea of turning, they immediately repent them of it." The marginal rendering also yields a good sense; it is, Their doings will not suffer (allow) [them] to turn unto their God. The pronominal suffix for "them" is wanting, yet it may be dispensed with, as the appending of it to "doings" and "God" makes the sense sufficiently explicit. It is favored by Ewald, Keil, the Targum, and Kimchi, who explains: "Their evil works do not allow them to return to their God, as if he said, To such extent have they multiplied transgression that there is no way left them to return, until they receive their punishment." Such and so great was the power of their evil habits that they could not break them off or break away from them by repentance; or so intimately connected is a change of heart with a change of life that, in the absence of the latter, the former is impossible. According to either rendering, the reason assigned is contained in the next clause: For the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord. So overmastered were they, as though by some fiendish spirit that held them in check and exercised despotic power over them, that they rushed headlong down the steep incline, like the Gadarene herd of swine, which, when the unclean spirits entered into them, ran violently down a steep place into the sea. Neither was there any counteracting force to turn them back or reverse their course. Such a force might have been found in the knowledge of God, of his covenant mercy, of his power, love, grace, and goodrich. But this was wanting, and the absence of this knowledge at once increased their impenitence and aggravated their guilt. It was Israel's privilege and Israel's duty to know the Lord; for he had revealed himself to them as to no other nation; he had given them his Law, he had made them depositaries of his truth and the conservators of his living oracles; their ignorance, therefore, was altogether inexcusable, while it evinced greatest ingratitude to Jehovah, who had taken them into covenant with himself, and declared himself to be their God.
Hos_5:5
And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face. This may be understood
(1) of Jehovah, who was Israel's glory, as we read in Amo_7:7 of "the excellency of Israel." This explanation suits at once the sense and the context. They knew not God, notwithstanding the special advantages they enjoyed for that knowledge; they had no liking to the knowledge of' Go,], they did not concern themselves about it; and now Jehovah, who should have been their excellency and glory, but who had been thus slighted by them, will testify against them and bear witness to their face by judgments. But
(2) another interpretation recommends itself as equally or more suitable. This interpretation understands "pride" more simply to mean the prosperous state and flourishing condition of which Israel was proud, or rather, perhaps, the haughtiness of Israel, owing to those very circumstances of worldly wealth and greatness. This vain pride and self-exaltation was the great obstacle in the way of their turning to the Lord. If this sense of the word be accepted, the verb had better be rendered" humbled," a meaning which it often has; thus, "humbled shall be the pride of Israel to his face" (that is, in his own sight). Such is the translation of the LXX.: Ταπεινωθήσεται ἡ ὕβρις του Ἰσραήλ εἰς πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ , "The pride of Israel shall be brought low before his face;" while the Chaldee translates similarly, "The glory of Israel shall be humbled while they see it;" the Syriac has, "The pride of Israel shall be humbled in his presence," or before his eyes. Aben Ezra also takes the idea of the verb to be humiliation or depression; while Kimchi takes gaon not so much in the sense of the inward feeling, as of those outward circumstances that promoted it—their greatness and grandeur and glory; and, alluding to the words of the Chaldee rendering, "in their sight," he says, "While they are still in their land before their captivity, they shall perceive their humiliation and degradation, instead of the glory which they had at the beginning." Kimchi, however, as well as most other commentators, seems to have understood the verb in the sense of "testify;" thus, "Israel's pride will testify to his face, when he shall take upon him its punishment." Therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity; Judah also shall fall with them. Pride usually goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. The consequence of Israel's pride was the fall here mentioned. The ten tribes composing the northern kingdom fell into gross and grievous sin, and therefore also into long-suffering and sore sorrow. Even Ephraim, that tribe pre-eminent for power as for pride, and the perpetual rival of Judah, shall fall as well as and with the rest. Judah also, that is, Judah proper, and Benjamin, participating in the same evil course, fell like Israel into sin, and, though more than a century later, into ruin.
In verses 6-10 the prophet details the unavailing and ineffectual efforts of Israel to avert, or at least escape from, the threatened judgments.
Hos_5:6
They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord. In this way they attempt to break, if not pro-vent, their fall. With numerous and costly sacrifices they endeavor to propitiate Jehovah. With sheep and goats out of their flocks, and with bullocks and heifers out of their herd, they try to make reparation for the past or to secure present and future favor. But in vain. Israel might go to Bethel and Judah to Jerusalem; but to no purpose. They shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself. Their repentance came too late; or when it did come it wanted sincerity; or it was a wrong motive which prompted it—fear of approaching calamity and not love to their Creator; or their sins ran parallel with their sacrifice. Forgetting that obedience is better than sacrifice, they cherished a disobedient spirit or continued in their course of disobedience notwithstanding their outward sacrificial service. For one cause or other they fail in their efforts to find him; for, instead of being a present help in time of trouble, he has withdrawn beyond their reach; he has removed the Shechinah-glory of his presence from among them; or he has loosed himself from all those ties that once bound him in mercy to them, just as a husband frees himself from all responsibilities and disarms all liabilities on behalf of a faithless partner whom he has been forced to divorce. And such is the specific reason assigned in the next verse.
Hos_5:7
They have dealt treacherously against the Lord: for they have begotten strange children. This may refer to inter. marriages with idolaters, when the offspring of such forbidden unions departed still further from the worship of Jehovah; or the children of godless Jewish parents reflected yet more the wicked works and ways of such parents. In consequence of the infidelity of the wife, the children were not the offspring of lawful wedlock or conjugal union; in other words, they were children of whoredom—an adulterous generation. Lord's infidelity to the holy covenant had as its result a graceless, godless race—children strange and supposititions in the spiritual sense. Now shall a month devour them with their portions. If
(1) "month" be the right rendering, it is a note of time like "the day of the Lord;" and the sense is that a short time shall see the end of them—not only of their persons, but their properties, that is, their hereditary portions in Palestine. But
(2) if "new moon" be the correct translation, the new moon, or sacrificial feasts celebrated at that season, will only rut,, not relieve, them. Their sinful sacrifices and vain oblations, on which they now placed their reliance, will procure, not their salvation, but perdition.
Hos_5:8, Hos_5:9
Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah. Intimation had been given in the preceding verse that the period of their fast-approaching destruction was at hand; that, as Kimchi expresses it, the now moon would soon come at which their enemies would destroy them. Now he pictures them as already on the march, and just advancing to execute the work of destruction; while the terror and alarm consequent thereon are here presented with great vividness, but at the same time with much brevity. A similar scene is depicted at full length by Isa_10:28-32, where the line of the Assyrians' march seems to be indicated, if, indeed, it be not a poetic representation of it, which the prophet gives. Thus from Aiath (el-Tell) to the pass of Michmash, now Mukmas, where he lays up his baggage; forward to Gobs, where they quarter for the night; then on to Nob, where he halts in sight at the holy city, and scarce an hour's march distant. The alarm was to be sounded with the shophar, or far-sounding cornet, made of curved horn, and the chatsotserah, or straight trumpet, made of brass or silver, used in war or at festivals. This signal of hostile invasion was to he sounded in Gibeah, now Tuleil-el-Ful, some four miles north of Jerusalem, and in Ramah, now er-Ram, two miles further distant. Both these towns, situated on eminences, as the names denote, belong to the northern boundary of Benjamin. The overthrow of the northern kingdom is rims presented as an already accomplished fact; while the invading host has already reached the frontier of the southern kingdom. Cry aloud at Beth-avon, after thee, O Benjamin. This cry is the sound at' the war-signals already mentioned, and the repetition intensifies the nature of the alarm and the urgency of the case. Beth-avon was either Bethel, now Beitin, on the border of Benjamin, or a town nearer Michmash, belonging to Benjamin. The meaning of the somewhat obscure words in the concluding clause can give little trouble, when read in the light of the context. The sounding of the alarm of war indicates with tolerable plainness what was coming behind Benjamin; nor is there need to supply the words, "the enemy rises behind thee," with same, or" the sword rages behind thee," with others. The signals announce the foe as arrived at the frontier of Judah. The enemy is close behind thee, Benjamin, in close pursuit after thee, upon thy very heels. Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke. The day of rebuke is the season when God rebukes sin by punishment; the punishment in this case is no slight rebuke or temporary chastisement. On the contrary, it is extreme in severity and final in duration. Famine, or pestilence, or war might lay a country desolate for a time, and yet relief might soon ensue and recuperative power be vigorously developed. Not so here. Ephraim is made more than desolate partially and for a short period; it becomes a desolation—"an entire desolation," as the words literally mean. In this desolation the other tribes would be involved. Nor was the menace lightly to be regarded or treated as meaningless; it was firm—well grounded as the word of the Eternal, and irreversible as his decree.
Hos_5:10
The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound. The individual who had the temerity to remove his neighbor's landmark was not only guilty of a great sin, but obnoxious to a grievous curse. Thus Deu_19:14, "Thou shall not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance;" and again Deu_27:17, "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen." The removal of the landmark characterizes the conduct of men entirely regardless of the rights of others—utterly reckless. The Jewish nobles, the king's ministers and high officers of state, are compared to those who remove the landmark, disregarding alike what was due to their fellow-men and to their God. The Jewish commentators differ in their exposition between tact and figure—some of them taking the removal of the boundary as a matter of fact, the caph being for confirmation; thus D. Kimchi; while I. Kimchi explains it of the rejection of the appeal for justice against removers of landmarks; others understanding it figuratively, and the whole as expressing general lawlessness, thus Rashi: "Like a man who removes his neighbor's landmark, just so they hasten to hold fast the ways of Israel their neighbors … according to the literal sense, They grasped at the fields; but this, in my opinion, is harsh, for then the prophet must have written merely îñéâé , and not ðîñéâé ." Similarly Aben Ezra: "They exercise violence towards those who are in their power, whilst they are like those who secretly remove the landmark." The people of Judah had also sinned, and, like Israel in sin, they resemble them in suffering. Therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water. The word "wrath" here is from a root which signifies "to overflow;" it is thus the overflowing of Divine indignation; while the outpouring thereof denotes the full flood of wrath that will overwhelm those lawless leaders of a misguided and misgoverned people. The execution of the threatening was reserved for the Assyrians. who, under Tiglath-pileser and Sennacherib, invaded and laid waste the land. And yet those judgments, though so severe and plentiful, were not to end in total and lasting devastation as in the case of Israel. The following verses 11-15 teach the inevitable nature of the judgments that were coming upon both Israel and Judah, and from which no earthly power could deliver them. The only relief possible depended on their seeking God in the day of their distress.
Hos_5:11
Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment. The expression retsuts mishpat is
(1) by some explained, "crushed by the judgment," that is, of God, according to which mishpat would be the genitive of the agent as mukkeh Elohim. But "crushed of judgment" or in judgment is justly preferred by others, the genitive taking the place of the accusative. Again, though the combination of ‛̄ with rutsuts is frequent, occurring as early as Deu_28:33, the latter is the stronger term. The oppression is
(2) not that which their own kings and princes practiced upon their subjects, according to Aben Ezra, "Their kings oppressed and cheated them;" nor the injustice practiced by the people of Ephraim among themselves, as implied by the LXX; "Ephraim altogether prevailed against his adversary, he trod judgment underfoot." The reference
(3) is rather to Ephraim being oppressed and crushed in judgment by the heathen nations around; thus Rashi explains, "Oppressed is Ephraim ever by the hand of the heathen—chastised with chastisements;" so also Kimchi, "By the hand of the heathen who oppressed and crushed them through hard judgments." The construction is asyndetous, like So Ezr_2:11, "The rain is over, is gone." Because he willingly walked after the commandment. This clause assigns the reason of Ephraim's oppression. They evinced ready willing-hood in following
(1) the commandments of men instead of the commandments of God. Tsav is thus understood by Aben Ezra, and in like manner Ewald explains it to mean an arbitrary or self-imposed precept. The LXX.
(2) seem to have read ùÈÑå , equivalent to ùÈÑåÀà , vanity, translating, "for he began to go after vanities ( τῶν ματαίων );" which the Chaldee and Syriac fellow. But
(3) it is rather the commandment of Jeroboam about the worship of the calves which lay at the root of the nation's sin. It is welt explained by Kimchi: "Although the word 'Jeroboam' is wanting, so that he makes no mention of it after tsav, such is the scriptural usage in certain places, i.e. to omit a word where the sense is plain. For it was a well-known fact that in that generation they walked not after the commandment, but after that of Jeroboam; therefore he has abbreviated the word to indicate the worthlessness, and used tsav instead of mitsvah." Perhaps it may have the concrete sense of the object of idolatrous worship.
Hos_5:12
Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness. This verse is well explained by Calvin as follows: "The meaning of the prophet is by no means obscure, and that is, that the Lord would by a slow corrosion consume both the people; and that, though he would not by one onset destroy them, yet they would pine away until they became wholly rotten." The two agents of destruction here named—the moth which eats away clothes, and the woodworm which gnaws away wood—figuratively represent slow but sure destruction. They are found together in Job_13:28. Kimchi explains the sense in like manner: "Like the moth which eats away garments, and like the woodworm which consumes bones and wood, so shall I consume you." The pronoun at the beginning of the verse is emphatic: "I your God, who would have been your protector and preserver, whom you have sinfully forsaken, and whose commandments you have arbitrarily set aside—even I am to you as the source of rottenness, and of slow but sure ruin."
Hos_5:13
Then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb. Both kingdoms became conscious of their disease and decline; Ephraim felt its sickness or internal consumption, Judah its wound or external corruption (mazor, a festering wound, from zur, to squeeze out); they were both conscious of rottenness in their condition. That diseased condition was rather spiritual apostasy than political adversity, though these were connected as cause and effect. But, instead of applying to Jehovah, Ephraim had recourse to Assyria and its king for health and help, but in vain; for no earthly power could avert the Divine judgments. The punishment threatened in the twelfth verse prompts the efforts to obtain succor mentioned in this. The general sense of the verse is given by Kimchi as follows: "When Ephraim and Judah saw that the enemies were constantly invading and plundering them, they seek help from the King of Assyria; but turn not back to me, nor seek help from me, but from flesh and blood, which, however, cannot help them when it is not my pleasure."
(1) Some, as the Jewish interpreters, refer the first clause as a matter of course to Ephraim, but the second to Judah; thus, Jerome in like manner understands Ephraim's visit of that to Pul, recorded in 2Ki_15:1-38; and the message of Judah to Tiglath-pileser (2Ki_16:1-20); but an interval of thirty years lay between the two events thus described as synchronous. Rashi explains the former clause of Hoshea's visit to Shalmaneser the King of Assyria, and the second of Ahaz's to Tiglath-pileser; Kimchi, again, refers the former to Menahem visiting Pul, and the second of Ahaz to Tiglath-pileser. But
(2) Ephraim is the subject in both clauses, so that there is no need of a supposed reference to Judah in the second. Calvin correctly restricts them both to Ephraim, and accounts for the restriction as follows: "Why, then, does he name only Ephraim? Even because the beginning of this evil commenced in the kingdom of Israel; for they were the first who went to the King of Assur, that they might, by his help, resist their neighbors, the Syrians; the Jews afterwards followed their example. Since, then, the Israelites afforded a precedent to the Jews to send for aids of this kind, the prophet expressly confines his discourse to them." He admits, however, that the accusation had respect to both in common; or Ephraim may have applied on behalf of Judah as well as for herself. There is much diversity of opinion with regard to the word "Jareb." Some take it
(1) for a proper name, either of an Assyrian king or of some place or city in the country of Assyria. as the LXX; Aben Ezra, and Kimchi; but the absence of the article is opposed to this, neither is Jer_37:1, "and Zechariah reigned as king" (vayyimloch melech), a proper parallel. Others
(2) more correctly explain as a qualifying epithet to "king," that is, "pleader," "striver," or "warrior," in ether words, a warlike or champion king, like the epithet of σωτήρ among the Greeks. The indefiniteness in this case gives the idea of majesty or might, as in Arabic; thus, "a champion king, and such a king!" Yet could he not (yet shall he not be able to) heal you (plural, and so Ephraim and Judah), nor cure you of your wound. Whatever the distress was, whether arising from hostile invasion or domestic troubles, those degenerate kings had recourse to foreigners for aid. With the profitlessness as well as the sinfulness of such attempts they are hero sharply rebuked. Thus Calvin: "Here God declares that whatever the Israelites might seek would be in vain. 'Ye think,' he says, ' that you can escape my hand by these remedies; but your folly will at length betray itself, for he will avail you nothing; that is, King Jareb will not heal you.'"
Hos_5:14, Hos_5:15
These verses assign a reason for the powerlessness even of the mighty Assyrian monarch to help; and that reason is the Divine interposition. The irresistible Jehovah himself (the addition of the pronoun intensifies, yet more its repetition) now interferes for the destruction of the apostate and rebellious people. For I am unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah. As we are taught in these words, Jehovah's mode of procedure is now changed. Before it had been slow and silent, though sure destruction, as signified by the moth and woodworm; but now it will be public and patent to the eyes of all, as wall as decisive and powerful, as intimated by the comparison of a lion and young lion. Nor is that all: lion-like, lie will rend before removing the prey—a tearing in pieces and then a carrying away. This well-known habit of the lion finds its counterpart in the subsequent facts of Hebrew history. The northern kingdom was first rent or broken up by Shalmaneser; subsequently the population were carried away into captivity; in like manner the southern kingdom suffered at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. I will go and return to my place. The figurative comparison with a lion is continued in the first clause of Hos_5:15 also. The lion tears his victim and carries it away, then he retires into his cave or den; so Jehovah, after bringing calamity upon Israel, withdraws from the scene and retires to his own place in heaven, though the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. There, in that unapproachable ether, he is inaccessible to and beyond the reach of the guilty nation that knew not nor valued the former times of merciful visitation. One remedy, and only one, is left and that is found in penitence and prayer. Once they find out their guiltiness and humble themselves in repentance, they may hopefully seek his face and favor. Turning away from human help, and supplicating the gracious help of the Divine presence, they are encouraged by the prospect of relict' and revival; while the means to that end are, no doubt, painful, yet profitable. In the school of affliction they learnt penitence and were brought to their knees in prayer.
I. ALL CLASSES ARE ADDRESSED BY THE DIVINE WORD. It is directed to the high and to the low alike; to the rich and to the poor; it speaks to every grade in society and every rank in life; there is none so high as to be above its teaching, and none so lowly as to be beneath its notice. To sovereigns as to the meanest subjects of their realm; to magistrates and men in authority, as well as to those under their jurisdiction, the warnings and admonitions of Scripture reach. To all, of every class and condition, of every caste and clime, the Divine Word is offered as a light to their test and a lamp to their path.
II. ALL CLASSES ARE AMENABLE TO THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS. The judgments of God are denounced against all workers of iniquity—from the poorest and meanest of the people to the priests who should be their instructors and examples, and to the princes and principal men, who should not only rule and guide, but protect and preserve them to the utmost of their power. And yet there is a distinction; for those who, through their exalted position or extensive influence, seduce others to sin, expose themselves to sorer condemnation. But, while those who entrap others into sin are doubly guilty, the persons entrapped are not on that account guiltless. Subjects sometimes suffer through the mistakes of their sovereigns; but when subjects and sovereigns are both involved in guilt, they must expect to have their respective share in punishment. When God has a controversy with a people, and his judgments are approaching, it is a time for serious consideration and solemn reflection. Hence we have a triple call to attention in this first verse: "Hear ye this, hearken ye, give ye ear." It was an earnest time and an emphatic call; for God "will at last force audience and attention from the most stubborn."
III. ALL CLASSES HAD PERVERTED THE WAY. The revolters seem to have belonged to all ranks and to have comprehended all classes. If the "slaughter" which they made refers to the slaying of sacrifices, it is spoken of with contempt, because those sacrifices, whether from defects in their own nature, or imperfection in the manner in which they were offered, or the wrongness of the motive with which they were presented, were unacceptable to God. Accordingly he speaks of them disparagingly; for "though the prophet spake of sacrifices, he no doubt called sacrificing in contempt killing; as though we should call the temple the shambles, and the killing of victims slaughtering." If, on the other hand, the slaughter referred to be understood literally of actual murder, the criminality is still greater, and they bear the brand of red-handed assassins. In either case, the idiom employed is a very energetic mode of expression "The slaughter they have made deep," or, "they have gone deep in slaughtering," conveys the idea of the great length to which they had gone, either in sacrifices to idols and contrary to legal appointment, or in murderously shedding blood, or even in the more modified sense of causing destruction. They had gone to an extreme in the direction indicated, whichever sense is assigned to slaughtering. It is not so much that they hid their doings deep, as that they went deeply into their works, or sunk deeply in their sin. Further, the aggravation of their sin consisted in its being without excuse. They could not plead ignorance, for they had had line upon line, and precept upon precept. They could not say that they had been left to themselves without let or hindrance, for had they not enjoyed the instructions and admonitions of those prophets of God whose sphere of labor lay in the northern kingdom? Warnings they had had from Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, and others; corrections moderate in measure and salutary in design they had, no doubt, been favored with. Yet all had been to no purpose; they sunk deeper and deeper in the slough of sin, so that their sin had become exceeding sinful.
IV. ALL DISGUISES OF SINNERS ARE TRANSPARENT TO THE EYE OF OMNISCIENCE. Many are the pretences men make to cover their sins, and artful the pretexts by which they seek to hide them. But however men may strive to conceal their sins from their fellow-men, however they may gloss them over so as to deceive their own souls, and however they may cloak them, as though it were possible to cheat the Almighty; yet all such artifices, by which they try to deceive their neighbors, or blind themselves, or even escape the eye of Omniscience, will prove miserable evasions, leaving them at last—even the inmost thoughts and intents of their hearts—open and naked before the eyes of him with whom they have to do. "The Lord seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." The sin of Ephraim, the premier tribe of Israel, was known to God, and he pronounced it whoredom, spiritual whoredom, that is, idolatry. The effect of that sin, which, originating with Ephraim, infected all the other tribes of Israel, was not hid, and could not be hid, from the omniscient One, and he denounced it as defilement—pollution loathsome as sinful. Many a specious excuse had been offered, we cannot doubt, for the worship of the calves. Did it not originate with Jeroboam, that patriot king who came to the rescue of the people, and delivered them from unjust and grinding taxation? Was not Jerusalem too far distant from the center of the country to be the gathering-place of the tribes? Was not Bethel a consecrated place—a holy spot from that early time when Jacob had his wondrous vision of the ladder connecting earth with heaven? Was not Dan conveniently situated for the northern and remoter tribes? These, and such arguments as these, might serve to palliate the will-worship of Ephraim and the idolatry of Israel. But no; the eye of God saw through it all; for now, whatever excuse might be alleged; now, whatever plausibilities might be employed; now, whatever veil might be thrown over their procedure;—it stood out in its true colors, and in the sight of Heaven, idolatry, defilement—sin in inception and sin in execution, sin in act and sin in effect. Thus Omniscience is proof against all the plausible pretexts with which men surround their sins by way of excuse, apology, or palliation.
V. SINS, LIKE SORROWS, LOVE A TRAIN. How often one sin leads to another, and that, again, to many more! Sins not infrequently are linked together. Israel by this time was bound by the chain of their own sins; and the links of that chain were many. Beginning our enumeration with idolatry, we find in its wake impenitence, ignorance, insolence, and iniquity in general.
1. It is bad enough when men fall into sin, but worse when they persist in it; nor is there any real repentance unless there are fruits meet for repentance. But when men will not have recourse to any of those outward means that might tend toward repentance, the obduracy of their heart is extreme and their condition desperate. Thus was it with Israel when they would not" frame their doings to turn unto their God."
2. The alternative rendering of these words shows us the slavery of sin. Never was there a more cruel bondage than that of iniquity. "Their doings will not suffer them to turn;" they have put the yoke on their neck, and having worn it long they are loath to part with it; and if they would they could not. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." So in Peter we read of persons "having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin."
3. When men continue long in a course of sin, hardening themselves against remonstrance and reproof, and holding out against all inducements and invitations to repent, God may, and sometimes does, give them up to judicial blindness of one kind or other. An evil spirit of idolatry or impunity, or both, had taken possession of the people's heart at this period. "A strong man armed keepeth his palace—his goods are in peace;" so the infatuation of a particular course of sin, like a Satanic spirit and with Satanic power, completely overmastered and dominated them.
4. Profession without practice is both hypocritical and vain. The Israelites at this time had a profession of religion, for God is called "their God," which could only be by their profession, or owing to the original covenant engagement, the conditions of which they had fallen away from, or by reason of his long-suffering mercy waiting for their return. It is, rather, the first of these that justified the use of the possessive in this case. And that being so, they claimed to possess knowledge of God; but "as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind," or, as the margin has it, "to a mind void of judgment." Continuance in sin proves men's ignorance of the true character of God, of the beauty of holiness, of the hatefulness of sin, and of the dreadful consequences of backsliding. The custom of sinning deprives men of whatever knowledge of such things they had or seemed to have, so that "he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath."
5. This ignorance was evidence of their ingratitude. "The prophet," says Calvin, "extenuates not the sin of the people, but, on the contrary, amplifies their ingratitude, because they had forgotten their God who had so indulgently treated them. As they had been redeemed by God's hand, as the teaching of the Law had continued among them, as they had been preserved to that day through God's constant kindness, it was truly an evidence of monstrous ignorance that they could in an instant adopt ungodly forms of worship, and embrace those corruptions which they knew were condemned in the Law."
VI. PROOFS AND CAUSES OF ISRAEL'S PRIDE. Ephraim's pride and envy of Judah produced the disruption and perpetuated it. Two privileges of the birthright forfeited by Jacob's firstborn had been shared by these tribes. Joseph got the double portion in connection with Ephraim and Manasseh; and Judah gained the pre-eminence. Though Judah was superior both numerically and by largeness of territory in the land of promise, Ephraim enjoyed countervailing advantages. All along from the blessing of Jacob Ephraim was inspired with the hope of great things for himself and tribe. The Ephraimites had the choicest of the land, and a central position contributing to their influence over the other tribes. Joshua, the chosen chief who had led the people into the land of promise and settled them in it, sprang from Ephraim; Samuel, the last of the judges, was a native of Mount Ephraim; for three centuries and a hair' the national sanctuary remained at Shiloh, within the confines of the tribe of Ephraim; the men of that tribe had highly distinguished themselves in the war with Midian, securing the fords of Jordan and beheading the two Midianite princes, Oreb and Zeeb, who had escaped at the head of fifteen thousand men. Igor were they slow to assert their claims; such was their pride, that they could not brook a subordinate position, but insisted on pre-eminence. Their self-assertion and even unreasonable petulance were severely chastised by Jephthah. For a time the superiority inclined or actually belonged to Ephraim; but the preponderance given to Judah by the elevation of David, and Solomon his son, completely turned the scale. Moreover, the transference to Jerusalem, both of the seat of ecclesiastical authority from Shiloh and of the civil capital from Shechem, deeply wounded the pride of Ephraim, and greatly increased the rivalry with Judah. To the slight thus put upon Ephraim there is a distinct reference in several verses of the seventy-eighth psalm; thus, "God was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel: so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men;" and again, "He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved." For seven years they held out against David; they were the strength of the Absalomic rebellion; they abetted the usurpation of Jeroboam, and accepted the idolatrous worship which, for political purposes, he commended to them; and all from their pride and overweening estimate of themselves, and envy towards their brethren of Judah.
VII. THE HUMILIATION OF PRIDE, OR ITS TESTIMONY.
1. This overbearing spirit of Israel as a nation, and of Ephraim its kingly tribe, was sorely crushed, and the pride of both sadly humbled, when, as had been foretold, they first went into captivity.
2. The other rendering of testify is well explained by the following observations of Pusey: "They could not give up this sin of Jeroboam without endangering their separate existence as Israel, and owning the superiority of Judah. From this complete self-surrender to God their pride shrank and held them back. The pride which Israel thus showed in refusing to turn to God, and in preferring their sin to their God, itself, he says, witnessed against them, and condemned them."
3. It must have been an addition to Israel's calamity that they had been a snare to Judah, and helped to drag them down into the same slough of sin, and eventually into the same catastrophe with themselves.
4. But how are we to account for the seeming contradiction between the safety previously promised Judah and the calamity now denounced? Calvin's reply to a similar inquiry is pertinent and plain. "The prophet," he says, "speaks here not of those Jews who continued in true and pure religion, but of those who had with the Israelites alienated themselves from the only true God and joined in their superstitions. He thus refers here to the degenerate, and not to the faithful Jews; for to all who worshipped God aright salvation had been already promised."
Hos_5:6-10
I. IT IS IMPORTANT TO REALIZE THE NATURE OF SUCH WITHDRAWAL. The loss of earthly friends or their estrangement from us is much to be deplored; how much sadder it is when we forfeit the favor of Heaven, and God withdraws himself! On earth friends may, from misconduct on our part, or misconception on their part, or misrepresentation on the part of some intermeddler, or misapprehension of one kind or other, shut the door against us, or we may shut the door against ourselves. But however such an event is to be regretted, still a proper understanding may reopen the once friendly door, or time may unbar it, or the kindly interposition of mutual friends may again open it; or, failing all this, another door may be opened in its stead, and other friends replace those whose friendship has been lost, or even better friends may be raised up in their room. But when the Lord shuts to the door and withdraws himself, no interposition shall unbar it, no time reopen it, no explanation ever fling or force it back; nothing shall ever be able to remove the bar that closes it. Once shut, it is shut forever; once closed, it never opens; once locked, no key can enter its wards; once bolted, that bolt remains an everlasting fixture.
II. IT IS WELL TO REFLECT ON THE TIME WHEN GOD WITHDRAWS HIMSELF AND IS NO LONGER TO BE FOUND. There may be some difficulty in ascertaining the precise times when God withdraws himself and is no longer found.
1. One thing, however, is abundantly certain, that in the case of sinners who live and die in sin, impenitent and unpardoned, this withdrawal takes place at death; for there is neither knowledge nor device in the grave. Then the day of grace is concluded, then the time of probation ends, then the means of salvation terminate, then the space for repentance is past, and God has forever withdrawn himself. Death seals the sinner's doom irreversibly; the last opportunity is gone, and for ever; prayer is then powerless and penitence hopeless. There remains only the dooming, damning sentence, "I know you not whence ye are." Hollow-hearted hypocrites ye must have been, workers of iniquity, and nothing more and nothing better, false professors, fruitless fig trees, cumbering and cursing the rich vineyard soil. Children of God ye never were; I never owned you as such; I cannot do so now. And thus he withdraws, leaving them to their fate.
2. But even before death this withdrawal may take place, at least in a certain sense. We are warned in Scripture that the Spirit will not always strive. To the Israelites of old he swore that they would never cuter into his rest, and so a whole generation of them was excluded from the land of promise; in reference to which the inspired penman utters the solemn warning, "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall alter the same example of unbelief". In this very book God's abandonment of Ephraim and consequent withdrawal are affirmed. "Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone." Let us, then, beware of provoking God to withhold or withdraw the gracious influences of his Spirit, and thus leave us to judicial blindness. Let us beware of sinning away our day of grace, and in this respect outliving it.
3. We would not venture to limit the mercy of God, or set bounds to his sovereign grace.
"While the lamp holds out to burn
The vilest sinner may return."
But God at any moment may withdraw the breath of his Spirit, or withhold the oil of his grace, and the lamp go out in everlasting darkness! Pusey makes a very interesting distinction, as follows: "The general rule of his dealings is this: that when the time of each judgment is actually come, then as to that judgment it is too late to pray. It is not too late for other mercy, or for final forgiveness, so long as man's state of probation lasts; but it is too late as to this one."
III. IT IS OF MOMENT TO ASSIGN SOME REASONS WHY GOD WITHDRAWS HIMSELF. This frequently takes place, we doubt not, in consequence of men silencing conscience and stifling convictions. Conscience may become callous or seared, and convictions may wear gradually weak, nay: at length cease altogether. The same result may be brought about by allowing any sin to have the mastery, and in consequence of not seeking grace to resist it, or not summoning up resolution to break its yoke.
1. The people particularly referred to by the prophet had not sought the Lord in time. It was only when ruin stared them in the face that they bethought themselves of seeking God; it was fear drove them to his service.
2. They were only half-hearted in his service, and it was a divided allegiance they rendered; but God claims the whole heart of his worshippers, otherwise he will not be found of them.
3. Their repentance was not genuine; it appears to have been outward sacrifice, not inward service. They brought their herds, not their hearts; their flocks, not the feelings of their souls.
4. Their faithlessness had a prospective as well as present evil influence. Their children, instead of being trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, inured to idolatry and irreligion both by the precept and example of their parents, would, as a matter of course, prove as faithless and godless, or more so than they.
5. No wonder God set a time to ease him of his adversaries and avenge him of his enemies. That time, a month, was certain, short, and sudden.
IV. GOD SPEAKS BEFORE HE STRIKES. God suffereth long with the provocations of sinners. He warns them of the evil of their ways; he apprises them of the ruinous consequences of their sinful courses.
1. He threatens before he inflicts the blow; he gives notice of his judgments before they arrive. Dark clouds precede the coming storm. Milder judgments are sent as precursors of more severe visitations. It is of God's mercy that men are not only informed of their duty, but apprised of their danger. Ministers of the gospel are to sound the alarm, that men may flee from the wrath to come.
2. When God's judgments are near at hand, their approach has a startling effect. Those who made light of them, or thought them far off, are confounded and amazed; while this confusion may be reflected in the very abruptness of the expression, "After thee, O Benjamin;" at thy back comes the enemy—disaster, destruction, desolation.
3. The judgments of God, thus announced as near, at the very door, are represented as sure. They are no mere menaces or make-believes; they are not meant merely to alarm; they are dread realities, which impenitent sinners can by no means escape or evade. "Among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be." To all notice had been given, so that no one could urge the plea of ignorance on his own part, nor charge precipitancy on the part of God. In his mercy he had made it known to all without exception, in his truth he will make it sure. They had been warned, called to repentance, chastened paternally; but they had despised all this. And the day of mercy is now past; the time of judgment is come; the final doom, fixed and irreversible, is denounced. When princes, making their will law, trample on the privileges of their people, or infringe the Law of God, or in any way set aside sacred and solemn obligations, they incur a fearful responsibility. When, not only by their edicts but by their example, they set aside the enactments of Heaven, and encourage their subjects to do likewise, they open upon themselves the flood-gates of Divine wrath which God pours out upon them, like the waters of the deluge on the guilty antediluvians. Pusey supposes that the reference to the princes of Judah being "like them that remove the bound," contains some such allusion as the following: "Since the prophet had just pronounced the desolation of Israel, perhaps that sin was that, instead of taking warning from the threatened destruction and turning to God, they thought only how the removal of Ephraim would benefit them by the enlargement of their borders. They might hope also to increase their private estates out of the desolate lands of Ephraim their brother."
Hos_5:11-15
I. THE DESIGN AND NATURE OF MINOR AND MILDER JUDGMENTS. The moth and woodworm may symbolize lesser judgments. Such visitations frequently have for their object the repentance and reformation of the people or persons so visited. God's design in sending them is gracious; his purpose is merciful. The process, notwithstanding, is painful and the affliction grievous. It goes on silently, so that little alarm is made; noiselessly, so that little apprehension is felt; hence it is that grace is needed for men to know the time of such visitation. It proceeds slowly, so that time is allowed men to mend their ways, and space given them for repentance. The judgments here spoken of proceed gradually, and are designed to prevent greater. Thus mercy is mingled with judgment; for judgment is God's strange work, while mercy is his darling attribute.
II. THE IMPOTENCY OF MERE HUMAN HELPERS. They felt their sickness, they suffered from their painful wound, and became conscious of rottenness in their state. They did not discern with equal clear-sightedness the cause of that sickness, nor perceive the source whence that rottenness proceeded. They were equally blind to the right way of relief. Had they seen their sin in their suffering, God's hand in their stroke, and his justice in its infliction, they would have been nearer the right way to the remedy. They sought help from the creature, not from the Creator; from the monarch of Assyria, not from the King of kings, and yet he only distressed them and helped them not. So with men too often in time of their distress. They put confidence in human means, but find at last that they are leaning on broken reeds; they hew out for themselves cisterns, but find too late that they are broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Not only so, by such sinful expedients they are in no way bettered, but rather get worse, and increase thereby at once their sin and their sorrow.
III. WHY THE SORER AND SEVERER JUDGMENTS ARE RESORTED TO. The lion and the young lion are emblematical of the severer judgments. God threatens to deal with the people of Israel and Judah more rigorously than heretofore. "I will not be any longer like a moth and a worm; I shall come like a lion to you, with an open mouth to devour you.... I will rage against you as a fierce wild beast: your grievance shall not now be from moths and worms; but you shall have an open and dreadful contest with the lion and the young lion.... Men, when they attempt to oppose vain helps to the wrath of God, gain only this, that they more and more provoke and inflame his wrath against themselves. After God has first gnawed, he will at length devour; after he has pricked, he will deeply wound; after he has struck, he will wholly destroy." But why are these severer visitations had recourse to? The answer is very well given by Cyril as follows:
"As in human bodies such affections as are violent and do not yield to gentle remedies are frequently overcome by fire and sword, in like way and manner affections occurring in human souls, if they do not give way to mild words, and are overcome by prudent reasoning, are expelled by labor and chastisement and severe calamities."
IV. A RESPITE RESULTING IN REPENTANCE. The infliction of punishment is represented as executed in lion-like fashion: he is not forced to retreat, nor is there any possibility of rescue, nor does he retire stealthily and with fox-like secrecy and cunning, but openly, powerfully, and victoriously. When God visits with judgments, he comes forth out of his place and men are forced to feel his presence; when his corrections are completed, he returns to his place, and there, though he seems to take no notice of, and to be far removed from, his people, he has taken his place on the mercy-seat and is waiting to be gracious. God here speaks after the manner of men; "for he neither so hides himself in heaven that he neglects human affairs, nor withdraws his hand but that he sustains the world by the continued exercise of his power, nor even takes his Spirit from men, especially when he would lead them to repentance; for men never of their own accord turn themselves to God, but by his hidden influence." Thus, when God had punished both Israel and Judah by exile, he seemed to hide his face from them, as though unmindful of them, and having neither care nor regard for them. This hiding of his face allowed time for repentance. His purpose was to induce them to repent and return to him. This was the true and only remedy.
V. MEN RETURN TO GOD BY REPENTANCE AND FAITH. The first step men take as they return to God is confession of sin—"they acknowledge their offence;" the first part in the process of healing is the correct diagnosis of the disease and discovery of its cause. The second thing required for reconciliation with God is to "seek his face." Thus repentance and faith go hand in hand; not that either of them is the meritorious cause of pardon. The one is a condition—a suitable condition or proper qualification for pardon; the other is the cordial acceptance of pardon, or rather of that righteousness which is the true ground of pardon. The mercy of God is transparent throughout the entire process, while a practical realization of persons acknowledging their offence and seeking the tare of God is found in the case of Daniel, as may be seen by a perusal of the ninth chapter of the book of that prophet.
VI. AFFLICTION SERVES AS A SPIRITUAL RESTORATIVE. During the long and dreary period of the seventy years' captivity in Babylon the captives had a convenient season to repent of their sins and return to the Lord; nor did they ever after backslide into idolatry. During the present prolonged dispersion of that wonderful people, many of them will repent of their national rejection of Messiah and return to God, looking unto him whom their forefathers pierced with tearful eyes; and at the close of the period in question, though" blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, all Israel shall be saved."
APPLICATION. "When," says a godly Puritan expositor, "we are under the convictions of sin and the corrections of the rod, our business is to seek God's face.... And it may reasonably be expected that affliction will bring those to God that had long gone astray from him, and kept at a distance. Therefore God for a time turns away from us, that he may turn us to himself and then return to us."