Hosea 9:1

Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as [other] people,.... But rather mourn and lament, since such a load of guilt lay upon them, and they had so highly provoked the Lord to anger by their sins, and

Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor.

HOSEA CHAPTER 9 The distress and captivity of Israel for their sins, especially their idolatry. Rejoice not: this might seem a morose humour of a discontented, sullen preacher: what! forbid a people to rejoice when things prosper with them? when should a people rejoice if not then? The prophet, who had a deeper reach, and took a larger prospect of things. had good cause to advise, or warn, or forbid as he doth, for he saw more cause to grieve than to rejoice, and to mourn than to be merry; the reason you will have presently. O Israel; you of the ten tribes. For joy; for any thing that is counted just matter of joy; though at present you prosper either under Jeroboam the Second’ s victorious arms, or under Menahem, and the safety he hath procured by a confederacy with Assyria, though at other times these might be matter of rejoicing, now in thy circumstances, O Israel, it is not meet thou shouldst show any gladness. As other people; with feastings, public games, and triumphs, or with solemn sacrifices of thanksgiving, or with erecting statues to the memory of your great and brave commanders, or for continuing the remembrance of their achievements. For thou hast gone a whoring from thy God; with thee, O Israel, it is as unseemly as it is for an adulterous wife to rejoice and be jovial, whilst the guilt of her adulteries, and the shame of her lewdnesses, and the displeasure of her husband, fly in her face and whisper reproofs in her ear. Thou hast loved a reward, such as is given by adulterers to lewd women, on every corn-floor; thou hast loved to see thy floor full, and hast thought, and said thy idols had so furnished thee, and therefore thou didst love them. Though mirth might become an honest woman, it doth not so well suit with a dishonest adulteress; the very place, the Company and occasion, do upbraid such a one rejoicing with her lewd adulterers: besides, this adulteress’ s joys will be short, and end in sorrows and shame; so will thine, O Israel.

Hosea 9:1 Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as [other] people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor.Ver. 1. Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people] Not as good people, for they have reason to rejoice, and are called to it in both Testaments; joy is the just man’ s portion, but thou art naught all over, thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, who will shortly meet thee as a bear robbed of her whelps, or as the jealous husband doth his adulteress. Again, not as other bad people, for they may revel (rejoice indeed they cannot) and be merry, after a sort; rejoice they may in the face, as the apostle phraseth it, and from the teeth outward; some kind of frothy and flashy mirth they may have (and let them make them merry with it, it is all they are like to have), but so mayest not thou; because thou hast had warning sufficient, and hast known thy Master’ s will, but not done it; yea, thou hast done that abominable thing that other nations never yet did, Jeremiah 2:11-12, thou hast changed thy God for those that are no gods; thou hast forsaken the fountain, and run to the cistern, &c.; which is such a prodigious wickedness, as the very heavens are astonished at, and are horribly afraid, yea, desolate; mourning, and, as it were, melting at this horrid act. Shall the heavens mourn, and wilt thou rejoice? yea, fetch a frisk, or dance a galliard for joy, as the word signifies ( βιμ, in Graec. αγαλλιαν, to dance a galliard): what if other nations do so, when they have got the better of their enemies, or gathered in their harvest, Isaiah 9:4, or otherwise have all things go well with them? yet revolted Israel had no such cause, unless they were upon better terms with God. Say that this were the time when Joash beat Benhadad thrice over, and recovered the cities of Israel, 2 Kings 13:15-19; or say it was at the time when he took Amaziah, and brought all the spoil of Jerusalem to Samaria, 2 Kings 14:13; or else when Pekah slew in Judah a hundred and twenty thousand in one day, and carried captive two hundred thousand, with much spoil: these were times of great mirth and jollity, it is confessed, 2 Chronicles 28:6-8. "But are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord your God" (as the prophet Oded there bespeaks them), and should not those sins be bewailed? Besides, are they not your brethren whom you have slaughtered and captivated? and can you have any joy of such a conquest, of civil wars that are - nullos habitura triumphos, about to have no victory, that are such a misery as all words (however wide) want compass to express?

(1) For joy.—Better, to exultation. “The harlot’s hire on every corn-floor” expresses in bold imagery the prophet’s scorn for the idolatrous corruption of the people. The bounteous yield of the harvest is called the “harlot’s hire,” which lures Jehovah’s faithless bride to worship the false deity from whose hands these gifts were supposed to come. The people’s momentary prosperity is attributed to their idols. (See Hosea 2:12; Jeremiah 44:17-19.)

CHAPTER IX The prophet reproves the Israelites for their sacrifices and rejoicings on their corn-floors, by which they ascribed to idols, as the heathen did, the praise of all their plenty, 1. For which reason they are threatened with famine and exile, 2, 3, in a land where they should be polluted, and want the means of worshipping the God of their fathers, or observing the solemnities of his appointment, 4, 5. Nay more; they shall speedily fall before the destroyer, be buried in Egypt, and leave their own pleasant places desolate, 6-9. God is then introduced declaring his early favour for his people, and the delight he took in their obedience; but now they had so deeply revolted, all their glory will take wing, God will forsake them, and their offspring be devoted to destruction, 10-16. NOTES ON CHAP. IX Verse 1. Rejoice not] Do not imitate the heathens, nor serve their idols. Do not prostitute thy soul and body in practicing their impurities. Hitherto thou hast acted as a common harlot, who goes even to the common threshing places; connects herself with the meanest, in order to get a hire even of the grain there threshed out.

1–9. A vivid picture of the bitterness of the calamity in prospect. It does but equal the Gibeah-like wickedness of Israel.

Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people - Literally, “rejoice not to exultation,” so as to bound and leap for joy (as in Job 3:22).

1. Rejoice not — The occasion of the exhortation is probably the noisy celebration of a harvest festival.