Hosea 3:5

Afterward shall the children of Israel return,.... The ten tribes of Israel, and also the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which are included in the name of Israel, as Aben Ezra interprets it; and

Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.

Afterward; after these long and sore troubles have broken their hearts and opened their eyes. Return; repent; it is not a promise of return into their own country. Seek the Lord their God, to know his way, and to live under his protection and blessing, to worship him, and they shall pray to him, depend on him, consult with him, with ardency and earnestness of desire. David their king; not son of Jesse, who was long since dead; nor Zerubbabel; but Messiah, who is elsewhere called David, 37:24,25, which see; and . Shall fear the Lord; with reverence shall pray, depend on, and consult their God, and worship his Son the Messiah, whom the Father sent out of his infinite goodness and kindness towards us. And his goodness; God and his goodness, i.e. the good and gracious God, such to us in Christ; God in Christ and with Christ shall be worshipped. In the latter days; in the days of the Messiah, in gospel times, and perhaps the last of these latter days.

Hosea 3:5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.Ver. 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return] They shall come out of the furnace more refined than ever. "By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder; the groves and images shall not stand up," Isaiah 27:9. Then indeed hath Jacob the right fruit of his sufferings, when he makes all the stones of the altar as chalkstones, crumbling them to crattle; when he pulls down the groves and images, those Balaam’ s stumbling blocks that lay in his way to God, and now resolves to return. And seek the herd] From whom they had deeply revolted; to seek his face and favour, to seek his ordinances and true worship, and lastly, to seek to know and do what is well pleasing in his sight. "Their hearts shall rejoice that thus seek the Lord"; and these are true converts indeed, these are those seekers, Psalms 24:6, yea, this is Jacob (as there), Israelites indeed, such as cannot be (wherever they are cast) without God in the world, without Christ, who is here called David by a patronymic (as also elsewhere), not without allusion to the apostasy of the ten tribes from the house of David, and so from the true God; which now also they shall bewail as the root of their sin and ruin, Jeremiah 30:9 Ezekiel 34:24 1 Kings 12:26. And David their king] Called by Daniel, Messiah the Prince, Daniel 9:25; and by Peter, Christ the Lord, Acts 2:36. See Luke 1:32. Some think he is here called the goodness of God. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness] Which also is his glory, Exodus 33:19. The Hebrew is, they shall fear to the Lord ( pavebunt ad Dominum); trepidabunt, that is, trembling they shall make haste to him (as frightened doves do to their columbaries, see Hosea 11:11); they shall kiss the Son with a kiss of homage, and with reverential fear submit to his kingdom.

(5) David their king.—Meaning the predicted representative of the Davidic dynasty. Thus Rehoboam and his house are spoken of as “David” (1 Kings 12:16). The phrase “latter days” is used indefinitely of the distant future, the horizon of the seer’s gaze. It occurs in Genesis 49:1 (Authorised version, “last days”). We can only see the fulfilment of this anticipation in the Messianic reign. (Comp. Ezekiel 34:23; Ezekiel 37:24.)

Verse 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return] Shall repent of their iniquities, and seek the Lord; lay aside their mock worship, and serve the true God in spirit and in truth. And David their king] Or as the Targum, "They shall obey the Messiah, the Son of David, their King;" and thus look believingly upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn. And then shall their long spiritual darkness and dismal captivity have an end; but not before. The Messiah, as David, is promised in Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 24:23; Ezekiel 37:22; Ezekiel 37:24-25, (where see the notes,) and in this place of Hosea. Some think that the family of David is intended; but if we go to the rigour of the letter, the house of Israel was scarcely ever perfectly submissive to David. And we know that after the death of Solomon they never acknowledged the house of David till they were all carried away captive; and certainly never since. And to say that Zerubbabel is here meant, is not supportable, as the very short and imperfect obedience of the Jews to Zerubbabel can never comport with the high terms of this and similar prophecies. We are obliged, therefore, from the evidence of these prophecies, from the evidence of the above facts, from the evidence of the rabbins themselves, and from the evidence of the New Testament, to consider these texts as applying solely to JESUS CHRIST, the promised MESSIAH, who has been a light to lighten the Gentiles, and will yet be the glory of his people Israel. There is a strange propensity in some men to deny these evidences of Christianity, while they profess to believe its doctrines.

5. return] i.e. from their evil courses of disobedience to their God and to the legitimate royal house. David their king] There is a great body of authority for regarding this as an expression for the Messiah. So the Targum took it, so Aben Ezra, and other Jewish writers cited by Pococke. The interpretation rests on the undoubted fact that in Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23-24; Ezekiel 37:24-25 ‘David’ means the ideal king of the future who should prove as it were a second David. In all these passages however there is something in the context to determine the reference to a person, and all these passages belong to a later period in the development of the Messianic revelation. The analogy of Amo 9:11 suggests that what is in Hosea’s mind is, not the person of the king, but the dynasty. In short, ‘David’ = the representative of David. Precisely so Rehoboam is still ‘David’ in 1 Kings 12:16, and the high priest ‘Aaron’ in Psalms 133:2. Hosea does not sanction the usurping dynasties (see on Hosea 1:11). and shall fear the Lord and his goodness] Rather, and shall come eagerly to Jehovah and to his goodness (or, ‘to His good things’). ‘Come eagerly to’ is literally, ‘tremble to’, but the idea is not that they will tremble at their own unworthiness, but rather ‘trement præ gaudio’ (as the same verb means in Isaiah 60:8). Comp. the similar expression in Hosea 11:10, where however the idea of speech is included. The parallel passage in Jeremiah 31:10 proves that the revived love of the Israelites for Jehovah will have ‘cast out fear’. in the latter days] Rather, in the days to come (lit., ‘in the sequel of the days’); see on Micah 4:1. Hosea does not mean to say that this will be the last áἰὼ ?í in the course of history; but only that after Israel’s captivity, nothing will arise to break the harmony between Jehovah and his people.

Afterward shall the children of Israel return - Elsewhere it is said more fully, “return to the Lord.” It expresses more than “turning” or even conversion to God.

5. The judgment will bring the people to their senses and prepare them for intimate fellowship with Jehovah. Afterward — After the judgment has exercised its salutary effect. Return, and seek — Not necessarily from exile.