Hosea 2:13

And, I will visit upon her the days of Baalim,.... That is, punish them for all the idolatries committed by their forefathers, in the days that the several Baals, as Baalpeor, and Baalberith, and

And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.

I will visit; punish, for the prophet threatens them with this visitation, by which it evidently appears to be a visiting in wrath. Upon her; the kingdom of Israel. The days; the sins of those days past. Of Baalim: Baal was the great idol of the ten tribes, the chief of their idols, their lord (as the word signifieth) and patron; here it is plural, Baalim, either to denote the multitude of idols which they worshipped, all called by this one name, or perhaps because of the multitude of his statues or images, and of his altars and temples, erected to Baal in all places of the land. Burnt incense to them; sacrificed and worshipped, for this one kind of religious observance is put for all the rest. She decked herself with her earrings and her jewels; to put the greater honour upon the idol, they put on their richest and best attire, or it may be they blindly thought this rich habit would make them the more acceptable to their senseless idol. And she went after her lovers; decked thus, strumpet like, she went on by her spiritual adultery to provoke me. And forgat me; and slighted me, if she did at all think of me, adulteress like.

Hosea 2:13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.Ver. 13. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim] That is, I will punish the sins committed in those days wherein they went after those multitudes of heathenish gods: 30,000 of them Hesiod reckons up in his days. And Servius upon Virgil tells us, that for fear of offending any of them they used to close up their petitions with Diique Deaeque omnes, All ye gods and goddesses. Some of the Hebrews by Baalim understand Dominos domuum, the lords of the houses: for the planets are said to have their houses. Oecolampadius understands it to be those idols which they worshipped under the name of the stars, called elsewhere the queen of heaven, or the heavenly constellations. Others by Baal conceive to be meant their chief god; called also by them Baal-samen, or the lord of heaven: by Baalim their undergods, medioxuma numina inter mortales caelicolasque vectores. This was Plato’ s Demonology. (See the note above, upon Hosea 2:8 of this chapter.) St Paul is thought to have been well read in Plato’ s writings (his αναζωπυρειν, 2 Timothy 1:6, is verbum Platonicum), and to have alluded to him in that passage, 1 Corinthians 8:5-6 : "Though there be that are called gods" (Baalim signifieth lords), "whether in heaven or in earth (as there be gods many and lords many), but to us there is but one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ," that is, but one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who indeed in regard of his human nature is inferior to the Father, but yet such a Lord by whom are all things, and we by him. The Papists acknowledge but one God, but they have many Baalims, many lords and mediators, both of intercession and of redemption too. But this is a heathenish opinion, as indeed many of theirs are: whence they are called Gentiles, in opposition to the holy city, the Church, Revelation 11:2. Wherein she burnt incense to them] Which typified prayer, both in the sweet savour and ascending property; elationibus fumi, with pillars of smoke, Son 3:6. This should have been done to God alone, He is the proper object of prayer, as being omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent; and besides in covenant with his people: he never said to the seed of Jacob, "Seek ye me in vain." No: he scorns that, and leaves that to the heathen idols to do, Isaiah 45:18-19. "Our Rock is not as their rock, our enemies themselves being judges," Deuteronomy 32:31. He is not like Baal, that, pursuing his enemies, could not hear his friends.

(13) The days of Baalim.—The plural Baalim refers to the worship of the same deity in different places, with distinguishing local characteristics. Thus there was a Baal-Zephon, a Baal-Hermon, a Baal-Gad, &c. (See W. R. Smith, Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 229.) “The days of Baalim” mean the whole period during which Baal has been worshipped by the faithless Israel.

Verse 13. Days of Baalim] To visit signifies to inflict punishment; the days are taken for the acts of idolatrous worship committed on them; and Baalim means the multitude of false gods worshipped by them. Baal was a general name for a male idol, as Astarte was for a female. Baalim includes all the male idols, as Ashtaroth all those that were female. But the species of idol was often designated by some adjunct; as Baal-Zebub, Baal-Peor, Baal-Zephon, Baal-Berith, &c. Her earrings] נזמה nizmah, signifies rather a nose jewel. These are worn by females in the East to the present day, in great abundance. And her jewels] וחליתה vechelyatah, rings, armlets, bracelets, ankle-rings, and ornaments of this kind.

13. I will visit upon her the days of Baalim] To ‘visit’ is to examine or take notice of, whether in a favourable sense or the reverse. ‘Baalim’ should rather be the Baalim (the various local Baals). Hosea has referred to the holydays of Jehovah (Hosea 2:11); now he complains of the holydays of the Baalim, which, there is reason to think, are, in name at least, the same holydays as those of the more spiritual worshippers of Jehovah (new moons, sabbaths, and festal assemblies), but differing from these in the total absence of a spiritual element. They are in fact nothing better than sensual merry-makings and displays of finery such as the heathen loved at the turning-points of the agricultural year. But what does Hosea mean by ‘the Baalim’? Certainly not, as some have supposed, statues of a god distinct from Jehovah called Baal—a view which is opposed by Hosea 2:19, ‘I will take away the names (not, the name) of the Baalim out of thy mouth’. The comparison of another Semitic religious vocabulary will here, as so often, facilitate our exegesis. With the Ph�nicians the word Baal, ‘lord’, was an appellative term for a god, and was used as well for any local as for the national deity. It occurs in the phrase ‘Melkart, Baal of Tyre’ in the bilingual inscription on two candelabra known as Melitensis prima; and if we only had Canaanitish and Israelitish inscriptions we should doubtless find that the Canaanitish and popular Israelitish usage was identical with that of the Ph�nicians. What Hosea does mean by ‘the Baalim’ is the varieties of the one national deity specially worshipped in different Israelitish localities, such as Baal-Hamon, Baal-Hazor, Baal-Shalisha, Baal-Tamar, &c. In spite of the name Baal (see on Hosea 2:16) it was Jehovah who was worshipped at the ‘high places,’ just as in Mohammedan Syria it is Allah who, in name at least, receives the adoration of the fellβhξn. But the worship was, from Hosea’s point of view, a purely nominal one, just as the worship of Allah by the fellβhξn is mixed up with many most un-Mohammedan elements. The Israelites of the north looked upon the Baalim as the givers of their bread and their water, their oil and their ‘drinks’; in short, as in no essential respect different from the heathen Baalim of the Canaanites. This was, no doubt, a backsliding from the spiritual truths which seem to be involved in the revelation of Sinai. But it was a backsliding which can be accounted for; it is not to be traced, as the older writers on the Old Testament naοvely traced it, to a peculiar wickedness in the primitive Israelites.

I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, or Baals - When men leave the one true God, they make to themselves many idols.

13. The conclusion of this section of the prophecy. All the judgments threatened are the result of Israel’s faithlessness. I will visit — As frequently in the Old Testament, equivalent to punish.