Hosea 9:7

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come,.... In which the Lord would punish the people of Israel for their sins, and reward them in a righteous manner, according as their

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come: the prophet doubleth the same thing, both to confirm the certainty of it, and to awaken the stupid Israelites: the days of God’ s just displeasure, in which he will punish, and render to these incorrigible idolaters and abominable debauchees as their wickedness deserveth, are come, they are very near, within four years at most. Israel shall know it; Israel will not believe it, though God hath often told them of it, but when it is come, and they feel it, they shall then know indeed, as fools know when they smart for their folly. The prophet is a fool; their false prophets were all, to a man of them, fools and rash, judging by present greatness or alliances of Israel, not observing what were their sins and God’ s wrath. Now when Hosea preached what was contained in this 9th chapter, Israel had made a league with So king of Egypt, cast off the Assyrian, and not sought to God, but vainly trusted to the Egyptian succours; now any wise man might imagine that likely which the prophet Hosea did foretell as certain, that the Assyrian with all his power would fall upon the revolters; none but fools would promise such a people a time of safety when the war was falling upon their heads. The spiritual man, that pretends to be full of the Spirit of prophecy, and foretells good to them, whom we thought a true prophet; but. now find by sad experience that we believed a madman, one much out of his wits; yet were we more, to believe what he promised. For the multitude of thine iniquity: God was highly displeased with the multitude of their iniquities, and began his punishments in giving them over to believe the lies of their false prophets, and to expect what peace these prophets did promise. And the great hatred which God had against your sins and ways: you would walk in ways which God hated, yet would have prophets to foretell peace and plenty; such you have had as described , and you believed them; and God, out of his just dislike, suffered this to be, left you to your choice.

Hosea 9:7 The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know [it]: the prophet [is] a fool, the spiritual man [is] mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.Ver. 7. The days of visitation are come] A visitation that is like to prove a vexation; for every transgression and disobedience, that is, omission and commission, shall receive a just recompense of reward from the God of recompenses (so he is called, Jeremiah 51:56), whose eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men, Psalms 11:4; the former points out his knowledge, the latter his judgment, or his critical descant in his visitation or inquisition, the days whereof are set, Stat sua cuique dies, and Israel’ s days are come, are come, it is repeated for more assurance, as "Babylon is fallen, is fallen," certo, cito, penitus; and as Ezekiel 7:5-7, the prophet tells them, "The end is come, is come, is come"; and so some ten or twelve times, that he might beat it into them, and awaken them out of the snare of the devil. The wicked’ s happiness will take its end surely and swiftly; but it is hard persuading them so; and the Jews, as they were ever noted for obstinate and overweening, so to this day they are light, aerial, and Satanical, apt to work themselves into the fool’ s paradise of a sublime dotage. But they shall know it to be so as I have said, by woeful experience, that mistress of fools. Israel shall know it] sc. To his sorrow, he shall pay for his learning, buy his wit, open his eyes (as the mole doth) when death is upon him, oculos incipit aperire moriendo (Plin.); roar and look upward, Isaiah 8:21, as the hog doth when the knife is at his throat. O Lord (saith the same prophet, Isaiah 26:11), "when thy hand is lifted up" (and thy hand is a mighty hand, James 4:10, it falls heavy), "they will not see," they wink wilfully, or seek straws to put out their eyes with, as Bernard hath it, Festucam quaerunt unde oculos sibi eruant; " but they shall see," will they nill they, "and be ashamed" of their former oscitancy, or rather obstinacy, when that hand of God, which was lifted up in threatening, shall fall down in punishing, and the "fire of thine enemies shall devour them"; how much more at that last and great visitation, that terrible day of retribution, when they shall answer for all, with the flames about their ears.

(7) The latter part of the verse should be translated Crazed is the prophet, mad the inspired one, because of the multitude of thy iniquity, while persecution is increased. The prophet is crazed either in the depraved public opinion that Hosea scornfully describes, or, he is driven mad, distracted, by the persecutions to which he is subjected. The latter is more probable. (Comp. the following verse.) Other commentators, including Maurer and Hitzig (preceded by Jerome and many Jewish as well as Christian expositors) take the words for prophet in this verse as signifying “false prophet,” and would connect the clauses thus:—“Israel shall recognise that the prophet (who prophesied good to them) is a fool, the inspired one a madman, because of,” &c. But it is doubtful whether the Hebrew for “inspired one” (îsh harûach) can bear this unfavourable sense, with the definite article affixed (comp. 1 Kings 22:21, Heb.); so Nowack. The passage is very difficult, and no decisive superiority can be claimed for any rendering yet proposed.

Verse 7. The days of visitation] Of punishment are come. The prophet is a fool] Who has pretended to foretell, on Divine authority, peace and plenty; for behold all is desolation. The spiritual man] איש הרוח ish haruach, the man of spirit, who was ever pretending to be under a Divine afflatus. Is mad] He is now enraged to see every thing falling out contrary to his prediction.

7. are come] Rather, come. The sense is that the days of punishment shall surely come (the tense is the prophetic perfect). shall know it] i.e. by experience; as Isaiah 9:9. Another view of these words (in connexion with the following clause) is, ‘Israel shall perceive (but too late) how it has been deceived by its prophets.’ But a false prophet would never be called a ‘man of the spirit’, but rather ‘one that followeth his own spirit’ (Ezekiel 13:3); and neither ‘a fool’ nor ‘mad’ suggests the idea of falsehood or hypocrisy. the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad] These words evidently convey a reproach, for though ‘mad’ might be taken in a good sense (= frenzied with sorrow, as Deuteronomy 28:34), ‘a fool’ could hardly be. But if so, introductory words must have dropped out of the text, such as ‘who say in their pride.’ ‘The spiritual man’ is, literally, ‘the man of the Spirit’, i.e. ‘the inspired man’, Sept. ἄνθρωποςὁπνευματοφόρος. ‘Mad’, or ‘a madman’, ‘a fanatic’, is a term applied disparagingly to a prophet’s disciple in 2 Kings 9:11, and to Jeremiah by an opponent in Jeremiah 29:26. The expression was doubtless received from those early times, in which the acts performed by prophets were often strange and startling. for the multitude …] Rather, for the greatness of thine Iniquity, and because the enmity hath been great. These words are to be connected with the preceding. Israel spoke thus because its iniquity was great, and great also the enmity which certain classes (probably) felt towards the higher prophets. The priests and the lower class of prophets would be at one in their hostility to Hosea. More is said of this feud in the next verse.

The days of visitation are come - The false prophets had continually hood-winked the people, promising them that those days would never come. “They had put far away the evil day” Amos 6:3. Now it was not at hand only.

6. Already the prophet sees the people leaving the land of Jehovah to experience the deprivations of the exile pictured in Hosea 9:4-5. They are gone — The prophetic perfect in Hebrew.