Hosea 13:16

Samaria shall become desolate,.... With this verse the fourteenth chapter begins in the Hebrew copies, and in the Targum, and in many versions; but seems better to conclude the present chapter; since

Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. Samaria shall become desolate.

Samaria, the chief or royal city of the kingdom of Israel, shall become desolate; besieged, taken, plundered, and sacked, probably it was razed to the foundation, by the Assyrians, provoked by the treachery first, and by the obstinacy next, of Hoshea, maintaining the siege against Shalmaneser three years, . Rebelled against her God; both cast off his worship and set up idolatry, and also shook off the yoke of David’ s house and set up new kings, and maintained both long against God. They, the inhabitants of Samaria, and also the subjects of the kingdom of Israel, shall fall by the sword; be cut off in war by the prevailing arms of the king of Assyria. Their infants shall be dashed in pieces; a most barbarous piece of cruelty, yet usually practised in those countries when they were enraged against a people. Their women with child shall be ripped up; another kind of like or greater inhumanity. Thus Shalman raged against Arbel in the day of battle, and this confirms what the prophet saith . And this was no doubt executed upon Samaria when it was taken, so their springs (women and children, which are as fountains) were all dried up.

Hosea 13:16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.Ver. 16. Samaria shall become desolate] Here many begin the fourteenth chapter, but not so well; for this verse evidently cohereth with the former, and showeth that Ephraim shall not only be plundered, but butchered by the Assyrian by their own default. "Samaria shall become desolate," or be found guilty, rea peragetur, (as the Chaldee hath it, and the words may bear). How can she be otherwise, whereas she hath rebelled against her God] She hath embittered him, or bitterly provoked him to wrath, who therefore sent in the Assyrian to desolate her: "that bitter and hasty nation, to march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that were not theirs," Habakkuk 1:6. This was a bitter affliction, but behold a worse: They shall fall by the sword] They shall lose not their land only, and the treasure of all their pleasant vessels, as Hosea 13:15, but their dearest lives, which to save a man will gladly part with all that he hath, Job 2:4, or submit to any servile employment, as the Gibeonites in Joshua’ s days did; who were willing to take hard on as slaves and underlings rather than to be cut off with the rest of the Canaanites. Their infants shall be dashed in pieces] Sept. ταυποτιτθιααυτων, their sucklings, that are ordinarily spared for their innocence, ignorence, &c. See Hosea 10:14, with the note; and consider that infants are not so innocent (though they have yet done neither good nor evil) but that God may justly inflict upon them all torments here, and tortures in hell, for the guilt of original sin that cleaveth to their natures. Howbeit this excuseth not the barbarous cruelty of his executioners, who shall be surely and suitably punished, Psalms 137:8. And their women with child shall be ripped up] Of this kind of savage inhumanity, see Amos 1:13 2 Kings 8:12; 2 Kings 15:16, where you shall find that the tyrant Menahem ripped the infants of Tiphsah out of their mothers’ bellies, because their fathers opened not the gates unto him. The like cruelty was exercised in the Sicilian Vespers and Parisian Massacre, by those Romish Edomites; maugre whose malice Ephraim is yet fruitful, the Church flourisheth. Sanguine fundata est Ecclesia, sanguine crescit. By blood the church is established, by blood she thrives.

(15, 16) Fruitful.—Observe the play on Ephraim’s name. Wind of the Lord stands in apposition to east wind. Render a wind of the Lord rising from the wilderness. The armies of Assyria are referred to. Become desolate.—Or rather, suffer punishment. Thus rolls the thunder of Divine judgment in one last tremendous crash of doom, beyond which scarce anything worse can be thought or said. It is not until the awful silence is reached, after the blast of denunciation, that the prophet hopes that his appeal may not be in vain. In the last chapter, uttered in gentlest mood, he shows a bow of promise painted on the darkness of the storm-cloud.

Verse 16. Samaria shall become desolate] This was the capital of the Israelitish kingdom. What follows is a simple prophetic declaration of the cruelties which should be exercised upon this hapless people by the Assyrians in the sackage of the city.

16. become desolate] Rather, be dealt with as guilty (as Hosea 10:2). their infants, &c.] Rather, their children (those of an age to play, comp. Jeremiah 6:11; Jeremiah 9:20). The same barbarities were predicted in Hosea 10:14. Such a fate would be simply retributive justice (see 2 Kings 15:16).

Samaria shall become desolate - Or “shall bear her iniquity.” Her iniquity should now find her out, and rest upon her. Of this, “desolation” was, in God’s judgments, the consequence.

Utter destruction the just punishment for Israel’s guilt, Hosea 13:9-16.This discourse closes with another description of the hopelessness of Israel’s condition.