Hosea 13:9

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself,.... Though the Lord was a lion, a leopard, and a bear to them, yet their destruction was not owing to him, but to themselves; he was not chargeable with it, but

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me. Thou and ME stand in contrast.

Thou hast destroyed thyself; after these menaces it might seem I had destroyed thee, but thou thyself hast done it by thy sins. It is the rebel that destroys himself, though he fall by the sword of his provoked sovereign: thou art the cause and author of thine own ruin. But in me is thy help; or, for I was always ready and able to help thee, and would certainly have saved thee; but thy sins, thy wickedness carried thee toward other helps, which were lies, and have disappointed thee; and now thou dost perish under thine own choice, whereas hadst thou chosen me I would have helped and saved thee. Or else thus the whole verse: This hath destroyed thee, O Israel, for thou hast rebelled against me, against thy help: and so Sol. Jarchy.

Hosea 13:9 O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me [is] thine help.Ver. 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself] Heb. He, or, It hath marred thee, O Israel; that is, either thy sin of self-exaltation and forgetfulness of me, as Hosea 13:6; or thy king, in whom thou trustest, as Hosea 13:10; or thy calf, whom thou worshippedst, hath been the cause of thy confusion. Or thy feigned comforts, as Aben Ezra will have it; thy soothing up thyself in sinful practices. Or, one hath destroyed thee; or; somewhat hath undone thee, but not without thee. Whatever it is that hath done it, it is not I, what hard thoughts soever thou mayest have of me, because I appear thus dreadful to thee, as in the former verse. Fury is not in me, but thou mayest thank thyself, and fault thy sin as the mother of thy misery, as the cause of thy calamity, Sφησινατασθαλιησινυπερμοροναλγεεχοντες (Hom. Odyss.), thou hast destroyed thyself, and thine own heart may say to thee, as the heart of Apollodorus seemed in a dream to say to him, when he was tortured by the Scythians; It is I that have drawn thee to all this, εφωσοιτουτωναιτια. It is the observation of a great politician: England is a mighty animal, which can never die except it kill itself. Answerable whereunto was the speech of the Lord Rich to the justices in the reign of Edward VI. Never foreign power could yet hurt, or in any part prevail, in this realm but by disobedience and disorder among ourselves; that is the way wherewith God will plague us if he mind to punish us. We use to say, No man is hurt but by himself. "Ye have not injured me at all," saith St Paul to the Galatians, Galatians 4:12; you cannot do it unless I will. The devil can do nothing at us if we give not way to him. And though there were no devil, yet our corrupt nature would act Satan’ s part against itself; it would have a supply of wickedness (as a serpent hath of poison) from itself; it hath a spring of its own to feed it. Nemo igitur sibi palpet de suo: quisque sibi Satan est, saith an ancient. And it was no ill wish of him that begged of God to deliver him from that naughty man, himself ( Domine, libera me a malo heroine, meipso), for he knew, that as in that first chaos, Genesis 1:2, were the seeds of all creatures (πανσπερμα), so in man’ s heart, of all sins and miseries that follow thereupon. "God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions," Ecclesiastes 7:29, many shifts and sharking tricks. Sin and shifting came into the world together; Genesis 3:12, "The woman whom thou gavest me," &c. God must bear the blame of Adam’ s sin; so must his decree of reprobation still be alleged as the cause of man’ s perdition.

(9) In me . . . Help.—The close of this verse is rhetorically abrupt, which is altogether missed in the English version. Render, but against Me thy help. We must supply “Thou hast rebelled,” the construction being the same as in Hosea 13:16. “Thy captivity, O Israel, is from thee; thy redemption is from Me; thy perishing is from thee: thy salvation is from Me” (Pusey).

Verse 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself] These evils come not by my immediate infliction; they are the consequences of thy own crimes. In the above terrifying figures of the ferocious beasts, the prophet only shows what they would meet with from the hand of the Assyrians in the war, the famine, and the captivity; God being represented as doing what he only permits to be done. But in me is thine help.] "Though thou hast destroyed thyself, yet in me alone can thy help be found" - Newcome. And others read, And who will help thee? reading מי mi, who, for בי bi, in me. Though this is countenanced by the Syriac, yet there is no evidence of it in any of the MSS. yet collated, nor do I think it to be the true reading.

9–15. An alternation of cries expressive of the contending thoughts and emotions of the tender-hearted but truthful prophet. The punishment is inevitable; yea, it is begun. Yet—if Israel would only repent! Indeed, his Father must interpose. And yet, on the other hand, rebellion must be punished.

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help - This is one of the concise sayings of Hosea, which is capable of many shades of meaning.

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.