Hosea 10:1

Israel [is] an empty vine,.... The people of Israel are often compared to a vine, and such an one from whence fruit might be expected, being planted in a good soil, and well taken care of; see Psalms

Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.

HOSEA CHAPTER 10 Israel is reproved and threatened for their impiety and idolatry, and exhorted to repentance. Israel and Ephraim are terms our prophet doth ordinarily use, and they signify the same people, the ten tribes revolted from the house of David, and from the true worship of God. Is an empty vine; a vine wasted and spoiled, that hath lost its strength to bring forth any fruit, or that is robbed and pilled of the fruit it doth bring forth; this partly for want of the Divine protection and benediction, which they were wont to have, and partly from an inherent barrenness and weakness in this vine. He bringeth forth fruit unto himself; whatever fruit was brought forth by its remaining strength was not brought forth to God, for his service and honour; but for themselves, for their own use, for service of a state interest, to make presents, and to pay tribute; or, which is yet worse, to maintain the worship of idols. According to the multitude of his fruit: when the land yielded more plentiful increase, this plenty was impiously employed on multiplied idols, or on multiplied altars, built to the same idols. He hath increased the altars of their idols, either by adding to the number of altars, or else adding to the numbers of sacrifices offered to the idols on their altars. According to the goodness of his land: idolaters sottishly imagined that the goodness of their land was a blessing on them from their idols; thus sacrilegiously they robbed God, and on this mistake they proceed to further impiety. He hath made goodly images; more stately, more curiously wrought, more richly adorned, and it is most likely more for number too, accounting it a great devotion to have many and rich statues of their idols.

Hosea 10:1 Israel [is] an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.Ver. 1. Israel is an empty vine] Heb. an emptying vine, αεχχ losing her fruit, and so deceiving the owner. How can Israel but be empty of all good, of all fruits of the Spirit, when he will not hearken unto God, nor dwell under the droppings of a powerful ministry? when he is cast off by God, Hosea 9:17, who fills his people with the fruits of righteousness, Philippians 1:11 : and is not a wilderness a land of darkness unto them? Jeremiah 2:31, when his root is dried up, and all his juice and strength runs out into leaves, so that is frondosa vitis (as the Vulgate renders it), a leafy vine; such as are our profligate professors, and carnal gospellers, and such as was St James’ s solifidian, that empty fellow, as he calleth him, κενε, James 2:20, when, lastly, the Holy Spirit (those two golden pipes, Zechariah 4:12) empties not into his candlestick the golden oils of all precious graces, as from two blessed olive branches. The vine and the olive, two of the best fruit trees, grow best together, saith Melancthon. If Israel’ s heart be divided from God, as Hosea 10:2, and hath not his fruit found in him, as Hosea 14:8, what marvel if he prove empty and void and waste; and though the Lord turn away the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the emptiers have emptied them out, and married their vine branches? He beareth fruit to himself] As he beareth fruit in and from himself (like the ivy, which, though it clasp about the oak, and sometimes kills it, yet brings forth all its berries, by virtue of its own root) so he beareth fruit for himself, or to himself. Profit, pleasure, and preferment is his Trinity; and corrupt self is all these in unity. He fasteth to himself, as those hypocrites, Zechariah 7:5; he prays, hears, confers, giveth alms, &c., out of sinful self-love. In all that he doth, sibi soli velificatur, he seeks his own ends only; as the eagle, when he flieth highest, hath his eye on his prey. In parabola ovis capras suas quaerit; in the parabol of the sheep, he sought for his own sheep; like the fish in the Gospel, either he is dumb, or hath nothing but silver in his mouth, he is a notorious self-seeker, he bears fruit to himself, he sacrificeth to himself, as Sejanus did. As Prometheus is fabled to have stolen fire from Jupiter, so the false Israelite would defraud God of heaven, if he could tell how. Spira confessed that he used prayer only as a bridge to bring him to heaven; and therefore he despaired of acceptance, as well he might: for how should God relish such sorry hedge-fruits?

X. (1) Empty in the English version is wrong, being inconsistent with what follows. (Comp. LXX. and Vulg.) Read luxuriant. The metaphors of the vintage (comp. also Genesis 49:22, and Introduction to Hosea 9) are still prevalent in the mind of the prophet. Wünsche has powerfully illustrated this wild strong growth of Israel as compared with Judah. Joash prevailed over Amaziah, and plundered Jerusalem (2 Kings 14:12-14). Jeroboam II. extended his power as far as Hamath (2 Kings 14:23-25). The kingdom had resisted the attacks of Syria, and had become insolent as well as idolatrous. The last clause should be rendered, The more abundant his fruit, the more he increased altars; the fairer his land, the fairer the Baal-pillars. On “Baal-pillars,” see W. R. Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church, pp. 248, 425. (Comp. 9:1 and 2:5.) Misapprehending the cause of their temporal prosperity, and wilfully ignoring Jehovah’s forbearance and love, they attributed their mercies to the grace of Baal, and multiplied idolatrous shrines (see Romans 2:4.)

CHAPTER X This chapter treats of the same subject, but elegantly varied. It begins with comparing Israel to a fruitful vine but corrupted by too much prosperity, 1. It next reproves and threatens them for their idolatry, 2; anarchy, 3; and breach of covenant, 4. Their idolatry is then enlarged on; and its fatal consequences declared in terms full of sublimity and pathos, 5-8. God is now introduced complaining of their excessive guilt; and threatening them with captivity in terms that bear a manifest allusion to their favourite idolatry, the worshiping the similitude of a calf or heifer, 9-11. Upon which the prophet, in a beautiful allegory suggested by the preceding metaphors, exhorts them to repentance; and warns them of the dreadful consequences of their evil courses, if obstinately persisted in, 12-15. NOTES ON CHAP. X Verse 1. Israel is an empty vine] Or, a vine that casteth its grapes. He bringeth forth fruit] Or, he laid up fruit for himself. He abused the blessings of God to the purposes of idolatry. He was prosperous; but his prosperity corrupted his heart. According to the multitude of his fruit] He became idolatrous in proportion to his prosperity; and in proportion to their wealth was the costliness of their images, and the expensiveness of their idol worship. True is the homely saying of old Quarles: - "So God's best gifts, usurp'd by wicked ones, To poison turn, by their con-ta-gi-ons." Another poet, of a higher order, but worse school, says: - Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum. - OVID. Of which the words of St. Paul are nearly a literal rendering, - Ῥιζαγαρπανθωντωνκακωνεστινἡθιλαργυρια. "For the love of money is the root of all these evils" 1 Timothy 6:10. Pity that this beautiful metal, on which God has bestowed such a large portion of mineral perfection, and then hid in the earth, should, on its being digged up by man, become the incentive to so many vices, and draw away his heart from the Creator of all things, and the fountain of ineffable perfection and goodness.

Israel’s guilt and its punishment, each shown by examples. But even in this dark chapter there is a short gleam of hope (Hosea 10:12) 1. Israel is an empty vine …] Rather, Israel was a luxuriant vine, which freely put forth fruit. A development of the suggestions in Hosea 9:10; Hosea 9:16; compare with it the fuller description in Psalms 80:8-11. The ‘fruit’ spoken of is not moral, but material. The bounties of Providence were lavished upon northern Israel (comp. chap 2.), and gave ground for the expectation of Israel’s grateful obedience. The allusion will be to the prosperous reign of the second Jeroboam. according to the multitude, &c.] Rather, as his fruit increased, he increased his altars; the better it was with his land, the better he made his (sacred) pillars. The material wealth of the country only served to strengthen and extend the idolatrous system of worship (comp. Hosea 2:8, Hosea 8:4, and note on Hosea 8:11). ‘Altars’ and (sacred) ‘pillars’ are naturally mentioned together, the ‘pillar’ (maçççbah) or consecrated stone being the recognized token of a ‘high place.’ Not only did Jacob set up such pillars at Bethel and elsewhere (Genesis 28:18; Genesis 31:45; Genesis 35:14; Genesis 35:20), but Moses himself is recorded to have built an altar with no less than twelve sacred pillars (Exodus 24:4). They were forbidden no doubt, absolutely and entirely, in Deuteronomy 16:21, but, besides the pillars of Baal (2 Kings 3:2; 2 Kings 10:26; 2 Kings 17:9), there is reason to think that those great stones spoken of in the narrative books (Joshua 24:26; 1 Samuel 6:14; 1 Samuel 7:12; 2 Samuel 20:8; 1 Kings 1:9) were really sacred pillars, though the narrator, to avoid startling his readers, denies them the name. Isaiah himself, too, speaks of a ‘pillar’, or sacred stone, as a sign, together with an altar, of the worship of Jehovah in Egypt (Isaiah 19:19). If then pillars, sacred to Jehovah, were tolerated in Judah in Isaiah’s time, much more must we suppose that they were tolerated in Israel. But why does Hosea refer to them as signs of infidelity? Because the worship of Jehovah at the high places was purely formal, and produced no moral effect upon the character (see on Hosea 8:11). In short, he is more consistent, more outspoken than Isaiah himself, who never says that the high places are occasions of sin. True, Hosea speaks of the north; Isaiah of the south.

Israel is an empty vine - Or, in the same sense, “a luxuriant vine;” literally, “one which poureth out,” poureth itself out into leaves, abundant in switches, (as most old versions explain it,)

1, 2. Empty vine — Or, emptying vine, that is, the vine that “pours forth its internal strength in abundance of growth and fruit”; therefore R.V., correctly, “luxuriant” (compare Hosea 9:10).