Hosea 6:10

I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel,.... Idolatry, the calves set up at Dan and Bethel, which God saw with abhorrence and detestation; or the prophet saw it, and it made his hair

I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled. I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel - (Jeremiah 5:30; Jeremiah 18:13; Jeremiah 23:14).

I have seen: it may be understood of the prophet speaking what he had seen; or of God, who seeth now, and hath seen, an horrible thing, a very horrible thing, as some observe from the word, in the house of Israel, the ten tribes. The whoredom, idolatry, of Ephraim; which was brought in by an Ephraimite, by Jeroboam the First, two hundred years ago, and it is there still. Israel is defiled; it hath overspread all Israel, none free, but all defiled greatly with it.

Hosea 6:10 I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there [is] the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.Ver. 10. I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel] Now a very den of thieves, as Hosea 6:9, a pantheon of all sorts of idols, a chamber of imagery, an Egyptian temple, gay and goodly without, but within an ox or calf, with "women weeping for Tammuz," Ezekiel 8:12; Ezekiel 8:14, that is, for Osiris, king of Egypt, whose image (under the shape of an ox) his wife, Isis, had advanced to be idolatrously there adored. This kind of abomination Jeroboam had learned in Egypt (whither he fled from Solomon, his master), and brought into the house of Israel. And whereas those idolaters said, "The Lord seeth us not, the Lord hath forsaken the earth," Ezekiel 8:12; "I have seen it," saith God, and been sore troubled at it, and even frightened; so as a man is quando horripilatur, when his hairs stand on end; as when the devil appeareth to him like a hairy satyr. See Leviticus 17:7. Certain it is that God hateth sin (but especially idolatry, that abominable thing, as he calleth it, Jeremiah 44:4) worse than he hateth the devil himself; for he hateth the devil for sin’ s sake, and not sin for the devil’ s sake. Idolatry must needs be so much the more odious to him, because therein the devil sets up himself in the place of God; and requires men (as once he did Christ himself) to fall down and worship him. See Deuteronomy 32:17 1 Corinthians 10:20 Revelation 9:20. So he dealeth by the poor Indians of this day, compelling them to worship him with bodily worship, and tormenting them, if they do not, worse (if worse may be) than the cruel Spaniards; who suppose they show the wretches favour, when they do not, for their pleasure, whip them with cords, and day by day drop their naked bodies with burning bacon. The Hebrew word here used hath some letters more than ordinary in it, to increase the signification, and to show what a very horrible thing idolatry is ( שׁςψιψιδ). It is spurca pollutio, as Jeremiah 23:14, and worse. See Jeremiah 2:11-12; Jeremiah 18:13, and know that God doth not use to aggravate things beyond truth, as men do, witness Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 3:14, "Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?" Or is it of set purpose? Num de industria? so Buxtorf rendereth it. Is it for the nonce, to provoke me? Or Nunquid desolatio? so Arias Montanus; as if he should say, What! you to oppose the command of a king? If this be suffered, what desolation must needs follow! But this is not God’ s way; he lays no more words upon a thing than the matter amounteth to. If he call idolatry filth, fornication, abomination, a horrible thing, such as a man would start or stand aghast at, we may be sure it is so.

(10) House of Israel.—This phrase means Ephraim and Judah subsequently discriminated. The “horrible thing” refers to polluting idolatry. This peculiar word occurs again in Jeremiah. According to the punctuation of the Hebrew the reciter hesitates before pronouncing the “horrible thing” which grated through his teeth.

Verse 10. I have seen a horrible thing] That is, the idolatry that prevailed in Israel to such a degree that the whole land was defiled.

10, 11. Jehovah is still the speaker. From his heavenly ‘place’ he points indignantly (as Hosea 6:7) to the abominations practised ‘there’, i.e. in the whole land of Israel, for even Judah has not escaped the infection. The structure of the verses becomes more symmetrical, if we attach the concluding words of Hos 6:10 to Hosea 6:11, and turn Hosea 6:11 thus, altering one vowel-point, Israel is defiled; for thee also, Judah, a harvest is appointed. The Septuagint partly favours this, rendering ἐμιάνθηἸσραὴλκαὶἸούδα. The concluding words of Hos 6:11 should rather be attached to Hosea 6:1 of chap. 7.

I have seen a horrible thing - Literally, “what would make one shudder.” God had seen it; therefore man could not deny it. In the sight of God, and amid the sense of His presence, all excuses fail.

Hosea 6:10-11 sum up the accusation. Wherever the eye of Jehovah falls, he sees a horrible thing… whoredom — The former signifies abominations and crimes of every kind (Jeremiah 18:13); the second,