Hosea 1:7

But I will have mercy on the house of Judah,.... The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which retained the true worship of God among them; see Hosea 11:12 and though they often sinned against the

But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah.

But, or And, or Yet. I; the Lord, who threateneth Israel, proud, flourishing, secure, and sinful Israel: he promiseth mercy to poor, oppressed, and impoverished Judah. Will have mercy on the house of Judah; prolonging that kingdom one hundred and thirty-two years after Israel ceased to be a kingdom; preserving them from the combined powers of the king of Syria and the king of Israel, who combine to destroy them; raising them up to greatness and glory in the reign of Hezekiah, in whose days the house of Judah was saved by a miracle: beside all these, Judah’ s captivity was for seventy years, Israel’ s for ever; Judah returned to their own land, Israel never did. By this, as the prophet would abate the pride of Israel, so possibly he would secretly direct the best among Israel whither to go to find mercy. Judah; including Benjamin, and such of the Levites as adhered constant to God’ s law and worship, and as many of the other tribes as renounced the calves, Baal, and all idolatrous worship, and worship God alone as he required, all these, in this case, are included in Judah, and so we find many such returning with Judah. And will save them; preserve, that violence do not swallow them up, nor length of captivity wear them out; and this preserved remnant shall return and be planted in their own land, and there kept in safety. This promise does seem to point out such temporal salvation, but as a type of a far better and more glorious salvation. By the Lord their God; either by Messiah, who is the Lord and their God, or by God himself, as their God, whom they did not, as Israel, forsake utterly. This passage bids us look to that extraordinary miraculous deliverance of Hezekiah and Jerusalem: see . Will not save them by bow, & c.: here God removeth all force and might, whether their own or their allies’ , all that might eclipse the glory of God in this salvation. Now this was very fully performed in Hezekiah’ s time, when Sennacherib’ s army was cut off in one night by an angel, ,36: and in Cyrus’ s time and Darius’ s the captive Jews saw it was not by power nor by might, but the Lord saved them; so should it be here, as ,6 Isaiah 43:7,15 Zechariah 4:6.

Hosea 1:7 But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.Ver. 7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah] The ark and the mercy seat were never separated. Judah had not utterly cast off God, as Israel had; but worshipped God in the temple (how. corruptly soever), therefore they shall have mercy, because they kept the right way of worship. See the Church’ s plea for mercy to this purpose, Jeremiah 14:9. Again, Judah was now in a very great strait, having been lately beaten and plundered by Israel, 2 Kings 14:12, therefore they shall have mercy. God heard Hagar’ s affliction and relieved her. "I have seen, I have seen the sufferings of my people in Egypt, saith God, and am come to ease them," Exodus 3:7. "Because they have called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man looketh after, therefore I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord," Jeremiah 30:17. He will repent for his people when he seeth their power is gone, Deuteronomy 32:36, when there is dignus vindice nodus, an extremity fit for Divine power to interpose. He knows that mercy is never so seasonable and sweet as when misery weighs down, and nothing but mercy turns the scale; therefore Judah shall have mercy, when Israel shall have none. True it is, that Judah was not at this time much better than Israel, Aholibah than Aholah: they were scarce free from sodomy and many such like foul abominations. But what of that? if God come with a non obstante, as Psalms 106:8, "Nevertheless he saved them for his name’ s sake," &c., who shall gainstand him? if he will show mercy for his name’ s sake, what people is there so wicked whom he may not save? See Isaiah 57:17 Ezekiel 20:8; Ezekiel 20:14; Ezekiel 20:22; Ezekiel 20:44. Add hereunto that Israel and Syria were confederate against Judah, and thought to have made but a breakfast of them, Isaiah 7:5; but God here promiseth Judah mercy; and lets them know, to their comfort, that there is more mercy for them in heaven than there can be misery in earth or malice in hell against them. True it is, that even after this gracious promise made to Judah, it went very hard with them. See 2 Chronicles 28:6, there 120,000 of them were slain in one battle, and 200,000 of them carried captive: yea, and all this by these Israelites here rejected from that mercy that Judah is promised; besides abundance more misery that befell them by Edomites, 2 Chronicles 28:17, Philistines, 2 Chronicles 28:18, Assyrians, 2 Chronicles 28:20 &c. Ecclesia haeres Crucis, saith Luther, The Church, as she is heir of the promises, so is she of the cross: and the promises are always to be understood with condition of the cross.

(7) Will save them . . .—We may consider this verse to have been literally fulfilled in the destruction of Sennacherib’s army. The prophetic outlook anticipates the fact that when Judah is captive and exiled, her restoration by the divine hand would take the form of mercy and forgiveness. (Comp. Psalms 76, Isaiah 40:1-2.)

Verse 7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah] I will spare them as a kingdom after Israel has been carried away into captivity by the Assyrians. And will save them by the Lord their God] Remarkably fulfilled in the supernatural defeat of the army of the Assyrians, see 2Kg 19:35; and so they were saved not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen. The former expression may mean, not in war by horses, i.e., yoked to war chariots, nor by horsemen-nor by cavalry, however efficient such troops might have then been deemed.

7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah] Grave as are the charges brought against Judah by the prophets, it appears to have been some degrees better off religiously than Israel; probably, as it was a poorer country, its nature-worship was less extravagantly sensuous than that of the north. Hosea elsewhere counsels Judah not to offend to the same extent as Israel (Hosea 4:15), and later on accuses Judah rather of inconstancy than of absolute rebellion (Hosea 11:12). by the Lord their God] Tautologically, as Genesis 19:24. Or, ‘as Jehovah their God’ (i.e ‘in the character of’ &c., comp. Exodus 6:3 ‘as El Shaddai’, Psalms 68:4 ‘his name is, essentially, in Jah’). Observe Hosea recognizes Judah’s higher religious ideal. not … by bow] Judah, then, was in danger of trusting in warlike equipments, as Isaiah afterwards describes it as doing (Isaiah 2:7). And yet, if Israel, with all its natural strength, could not resist the Assyrian attack, it was clear that the weaker kingdom could only do so by supernatural aid. Comp. Isaiah 31:8; Isaiah 37:33. ‘Battle’ should be equipment of war.

I will have mercy on the house of Judah - For to them the promises were made in David, and of them, according to the flesh, Christ was to come.

7. While Jehovah will not interfere in behalf of Israel, he will have mercy upon the southern kingdom. Judah — The prophet seems to think that Judah is in better religious and moral condition than Israel (Hosea 4:15).