Hosea 10:13

Ye have ploughed wickedness,.... Contrived it, and took a great deal of pains to commit it; by ploughing sowed it, and which sprung up in a plentiful crop: it may denote their first sins, from whence

Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men. Ye have plowed wickedness.

You, O Israelites, subjects of the kingdom of the ten tribes, have ploughed wickedness; instead of repentance, and a life of righteousness, you have lived in wickedness, and propagated it, you have increased all manner of impieties; thus you have abused and perverted the fruits of God’ s goodness. Ye have reaped iniquity; the wickedness you have sown hath sprung up and ripened into iniquity; or, you have met with a recompence worthy of this your labour, God hath punished you for your wickedness; the first seems most agreeable to the text. Ye have eaten the fruit of lies; fed yourselves with vain hopes, maintained yourselves upon a carnal, sinful confidence, forsaking the fountain of living waters; and these lies the prophet doth in the following words reduce to two heads. Thou didst trust in thy way; dependence on idols, worshipping them, and seeking to them; their way was their idolatry committed with the calves. In the multitude of thy mighty men; the next lie on which they lived was the wisdom and valour of their great men, their king, nobles, captains, and counsellors; in confidence of sufficient help by them, they held on in a way of sin and wickedness.

Hosea 10:13 Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.Ver. 13. Ye have plowed wickedness] The former exhortation was even spilt upon them; for they went on to plot and plough wickedness; they had their necks in the devil’ s yoke, and promoted his kingdom with sides and shoulders; they let out the strength of their spirits for the furtherance of sin, and were at no small pains to go to hell, as being the devil’ s hinds and horses to draw his plough, Proverbs 21:4. "Even as I have seen," saith Eliphaz, "they that plough iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same," Job 4:8. Ye have reaped iniquity, saith our prophet, that is dignum factis praemium, the reward of your wickedness. And her iniquity is opposed to mercy in the former verse, as wickedness also is to righteousness; or wickedness may be taken for their apostasy, idolatry, and creature confidence; and iniquity for the rest of their enormities, proceeding from those former; for these wicked ones are never out of action. Arant, serunt, errant, scelera, they plough, sow, and harrow mischief (Plaut. Capt. Acts 3:1-26. sc. 5); so that would they but take the like pains for heaven that they do for hell, they could not lightly miss it. Ye have eaten the fruit of lies] That is, ye have been deceived by your false prophets and state politicians; whose fetch it is to formalize and enervate the power of truth, till at length they have left you a heartless and sapless religion. Ye have fed hungerly upon the murdering morsels of sin; and that is the reason that there is so much ill blood among you. Your bread is that panis mendacii bread of falsehood, Solomon speaks of Pro 20:17, full of grit and gravel, made up with sawdust (as they served the martyrs) and mixed with lime, as the treacherous Greeks dealt by the Western Christians, marching towards the Holy Land. Because thou didst trust in thy way] In thy calf worship. Way is often put for religion; and every action men do is a step either to heaven or to hell: he that walketh uprightly walketh safely. These idolaters were very confident of their way; so are our Papists, and other heretics; as David George, that pestilent Libertine, was fully persuaded that the whole world would submit to him. And Campian, Coster, and other zealous Papists tell us to our heads that our religion is error, ourselves heretics, our end destruction; that one heaven cannot hold us hereafter, one Church now, &c. Thus "the way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth to counsel" (as no confident fool will) "is wise," Proverbs 12:15.

(13) Thy way.—By a slight change of the Hebrew word thus rendered it acquires the sense, thy chariots, a reading followed by the LXX. and Ewald, Kuinöl, and Nowack. It establishes a good parallelism, and harmonises with prophetic teaching (Hosea 14:3; Isaiah 2:7). The Masoretic text gives, however, a fine meaning.

Verse 13. Ye have ploughed wickedness] Ye have laboured sinfully. Ye have reaped iniquity] The punishment due to your iniquity. Ye have eaten the fruit of lies] Your false worship and your false gods have brought you into captivity and misery. Because thou didst trust in thy way] Didst confide in thy own counsels, and in thy mighty men, and not in the God who made you.

13. How necessary is this exhortation! For hitherto the Israelites have done the exact opposite. plowed wickedness] i.e., formed wicked plans (as Job 4:8). The word for ‘to plough’ has in fact another meaning ‘to plot.’ reaped iniquity] Better, reaped injustice—i. e. the injustice of oppressors, which, being retributive, is, from the higher point of view, substantial justice. The tense is the prophetic perfect. the fruit of lies] To ‘lie’ is sometimes = to disappoint (as Hosea 9:2), and probably this is the meaning here, viz. that the consequence of Israel’s present policy shall be the disappointment of all his expectations. ‘Fruit’ implies that that policy has been one of ‘lying’, i.e. treason both to earthly kings and to Jehovah (comp. Hosea 11:12, Hosea 12:1; Isaiah 28:15). in thy way] i.e. in thy policy. But there is a reading of earlier date than the Massoretic, viz. in thy chariots (comp. Hosea 14:3; Isaiah 2:7) which, as it harmonizes better with the rest of the clause, is undoubtedly preferable. For few scholars will maintain that the ἐνἁμαρτήμασι of the Vatican MS. of the Septuagint is more original than the ἐνἅρμασι of the Alexandrine and other MSS. (confirmed by St Jerome and the Syro-Hexaplar text). The Vatican reading can easily be explained; the scribe wished to harmonize the translation with the reading ‘in thy way’ found by him in his Hebrew Bible.

Ye have plowed wickedness - They not only did not that which God commanded, but they did the exact contrary. They cultivated wickedness. They broke up their fallow ground, yet to sow, not wheat, but tares.

ISRAEL’S HISTORY — ONE CRIME; ISRAEL’S DESTINY — DEATH AND , Hosea 10:9-15.With Hosea 10:9 the prophet begins a new presentation of Israel’s guilt.