Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Hosea 5:13 - 5:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
When, Heb. And, after that. Ephraim; the king, and council, and kingdom of the ten tribes; Menahem is surely meant: see 2 Kings xv.
Saw his sickness; weakness, like a consumption, threatening death. Though Menahem had killed Shallun, and got into the throne, yet he found himself unable to hold it against the opposite faction, and therefore sent for assistance from Assyria, 2Ki_15:19, or at least purchased the friendship of Pul, who was come out as an enemy.
Judah, the other kingdom of the two tribes, saw his wound; a deep and festering wound; or a corrupting imposthume, which needs be opened, cleansed, and bound up: such was the state of the two tribes at that day, ulcerous and full of danger, for Ahaz had done very wickedly, and wounded the kingdom.
Then went, made application,
Ephraim to the Assyrian; particularly to Pul, as 2Ki_15:19,20. Not one word of their going to God, he was not in all their thoughts: he did afflict leisurely that they might seek him, but they forgot him still.
And sent ambassadors and presents to entreat and procure his help,
to king Jareb: whilst interpreters agree not who this Jareb was, while some will have it be a proper, others an appellative name, of a person or place, I think it will be a surer course’ to compare times, who was king of Assyria when Ephraim was sick and Judah was wounded, and both felt it, for whoever this will prove to be, he it is that is meant by Jareb: Pul in Menahem’s time, Tiglath-pileser in Ahaz’s time. Or what if Jareb be the sum of what Ephraim and Judah desired of this Assyrian king; they complained of wrong received, and sent to this foreign king their complaint, and requested that he would judge, or, in our modern terms, be arbitrator; so the word will bear.
Yet could he not heal you; Ephraim’s sickness grew worse by it, Israel was sicker for it.
Nor cure you, Judah, Ahaz, and his wounded state, of your wound; the Assyrian king was either unable or unwilling to heal the wound, which he knew would as much profit him as hurt his patient.