098. LXX. Jehovah’s Charges Against Guilty Israel
§ LXX. JEHOVAH’S CHARGES AGAINST GUILTY ISRAEL 1. General arraignment of the nation (Hosea 4:1-3).
Hear the word of Jehovah, O Israelites, For Jehovah hath a charge against the inhabitants of the land, For there is no fidelity nor true love Nor knowledge of God in the land; But perjury, lying and murder, Stealing, committing adultery and deeds of violence, And acts of bloodshed quickly follow each other.
Therefore the land mourns, And all its inhabitants languish, Together with the wild beasts and the birds of the heavens;
While even the fish of the sea are swept away.
2. Responsibility of the priests (Hosea 4:4-5).
Yet let none bring charges, And let none reprove, Since my people are but as their priestlings.
O priest, thou shalt stumble by day, And the prophet also shall stumble with thee; By night I will destroy thy people.
Thy people are being destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because thou hast rejected knowledge I reject thee from being priest to me.
Since thou hast forgotten the instruction of thy God, I also will forget thy children.
3. Priests and princes betrayers of the people (Hosea 5:1-3).
Hear this, O priests! And hearken, O house of Israel!
O house of the king, give heed!—
Since for you is the judgment. A snare have you become at Mizpeh, And a net spread out on Tabor, And a deep pit have they dug at Shittim, And there is no correction for any of them.
I indeed know Ephraim, And Israel is not hid from me. For thou, O Ephraim, hast played the harlot;
Israel is defiled.
4. Israel’s fitful, superficial repentance (Hosea 5:15toHosea 6:3).
I will return to my place, Until they are confounded and seek my presence. When they are in distress they will quickly seek me, Saying, ‘Come let us return to Jehovah, For he hath torn and he will heal us, He hath smitten and he will bind us up, He will revive in a couple of days, On the third he will raise us up again, That we may live in his presence.
Yea, let us know, let us eagerly seek to know Jehovah; As soon as we quickly seek him, Then he will come to us as the winter rain, As the spring rain that waters the earth.’
5. The fatal lack of true love and knowledge (Hosea 6:4-6).
What can I make of you, O Ephraim!
What can I make of you, O Israel!
Since your love is like a morning cloud, Yea, like the dew which early goes away.
Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth. And my judgment is like the light that goes forth, For it is love that I delight in and not sacrifice, And knowledge of God and not burnt-offerings.
6. Israel’s hideous crimes (Hosea 6:7-10). But they after the manner of men have transgressed the covenant;
There they have played me false.
Gilead is a city of evil-doers Tracked with bloody footprints; And as bandits lie in wait for a man, So a band of priests murder on the way to Shechem;
Verily they commit deliberate crime! In Bethel I have seen a horrible thing, There Ephraim plays the harlot;
Israel is defiled.
7. Crimes that preclude forgiveness (Hosea 6:11b–Hosea 7:2). When I would turn, when I would heal Israel, Then Ephraim’s guilt is revealed, And Samaria’s crimes are seen:
How they practice fraud and the thief enters in, While abroad bandits plunder. But they never think in their hearts That all their wickedness I remember.
Now their deeds have encompassed them;
They are ever before my face.
8. Corruption of the court (Hosea 7:3-7). In their wickedness they anoint kings And in their falsehood princes, Since they are all of them adulterers.
They make our king sick, And the princes with fever from wine;
He stretches forth his hand with dissolute fellows. For like an oven their heart burns with treachery;
All night their anger slumbers; In the morning it blazes into a flame of fire.
All of them glow like an oven, And they devour their rulers;
All their kings have fallen, There is none among them who calls to me.
9. Israel’s sad degeneracy and stupidity (Hosea 7:8-10).
Ephraim—he lets himself be mixed among the peoples.
Ephraim—he has become a cake unturned.
Strangers have devoured his strength, but he does not know it;
Also gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, but he knows it not, And Israel’s pride has testified to his face.
Yet they do not return to Jehovah their God, And in all this they seek him not.
10. Its foolish, faithless foreign policy (Hosea 7:11-11).
Ephraim is like a simple, silly dove; To Egypt they call, after Assyria they go. As often as they go away, I will spread over them my net, Like birds of the heavens I will bring them down;
I will chastise them because of their wickedness.
Woe to them, that they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, because they have been untrue to me!
11. Its treachery and rebellion (Hosea 7:14-15).
Although it was I who redeemed them, they spoke lies about me, And they have never cried to me with their heart. But they are ever howling beside their altars for corn and new wine;
They cut themselves, they rebel against me, Although it was I who trained and strengthened their arms;
Concerning me they plan only evil, they turn to Baal, They have become like a bow that swerves.
12. Its men made kings and idols (Hosea 8:4-5b, c, a,Hosea 8:8b, c).
They themselves have made kings but without my consent;
They have made princes but without my knowledge.
Out of their silver and gold they have made idols to their destruction!
Mine anger is kindled against them.
Thy calf, O Samaria, is distasteful; A workman made it and it is no god.
Like splinters shall Samaria’s calf become.
13. Its fatal foreign relations (Hosea 8:7-9b). For they sow the wind and reap a whirlwind; A shoot which has no stalk and yields no fruit!
If it should yield, strangers would devour it.
Israel is devoured; already it is among the nations As a vessel in which there is no pleasure. For by themselves they have gone up to Assyria As a wild ass which goes apart by itself.
14. Early nobility and later idolatry of the Israelites (Hosea 13:1-2). When Ephraim used to speak there was trembling; A prince was he in Israel. But he incurred guilt through Baal and died. And now they go on sinning;
They make for themselves molten gods— From their silver, idols according to their own model;
Smiths’ work, all of it! To such they speak!
Men who sacrifice, kiss calves!
15. Sudden fate impending (Hosea 13:8).
Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud, Like the dew that early disappears, Like the chaff which blows away from the threshing-floor, And like the smoke from the window.
16. Their forget-fulness of Jehovah’s care (Hosea 13:4-6).
Yet it was I, Jehovah, thy God, Who brought thee up from the land of Egypt, And a God beside me thou knowest not, Nor has there been any saviour except me.
It was I who shepherded thee in the wilderness, In the land of burning heat. As they fed, they were filled to the full;
They were filled to the full so that their heart was lifted up;
Therefore they forgot me!
17. Jehovah’s vengeance (Hosea 13:7-8). And so I will be to them like a lion, Like a leopard will I lie in wait by the way;
I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of its young, And will tear open that which encloses their hearts, And there the lions of the forest shall devour them, And the wild beasts shall tear them in pieces.
18. None to deliver (Hosea 13:9-11). In the time of destruction, O Israel, who will help thee? Where is thy king now, that he may deliver thee? And all thy princes that they may secure for thee justice?
Those of whom thou hast said, ‘Give me kings and princes.’
I give thee kings in my anger And take them away in my wrath.
19. Unfitted to meet the coming crisis (Hosea 13:12-13).
Ephraim’s iniquity is gathered up, his sin is laid by in store. The pangs of childbirth come upon him, but he is an unwise child; For this is no time to stand in the mouth of the womb.
20. Left by Jehovah to their fate (Hosea 13:14). Shall I deliver them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from death?
Come, on with thy plagues, O death! On with thy pestilence, O Sheol!
Repentance is forever hid from mine eyes.
21. The prey of foreign invaders (Hosea 13:15).
Though he is flourishing in the midst of the reed grass, There shall come an east wind, Jehovah’s wind, Coming up from the wilderness; And his fountain shall dry up, And his spring shall be parched;
While the foe shall strip the treasure Consisting of all precious things.
22. Guilty Samaria’s fate (Hosea 13:16).
Samaria shall bear her guilt For she has rebelled against her God.
They shall fall by the sword, Their children shall be dashed to pieces And their women with child shall be ripped up.
I. The Background and Literary Form of Hosea’s Later Prophecies. When the strong hand of Jeroboam II was relaxed by death, there came a sudden and radical change in the character and fortunes of Northern Israel. Zechariah, Jeroboam’s son, was killed by an assassin after a reign of only six months. Within a month the assassin was in turn put to death by a certain Menahem who instituted a reign of terror, ignominiously buying immunity from Assyrian attack by the payment of an enormous tribute which he extracted from the wealthy men of his kingdom. Almost instantly the evils which Amos had detected and denounced became glaringly apparent: the lack of a broad and consistent national policy, class hatreds, the oppression of the weak by the strong, and a form of religion which was but a cloak for loathsome acts of cruelty, oppression and immorality.
It is not strange that Hosea’s sermons during this period are filled with bitter denunciations. His words are those of a patriot whose heart was breaking as he saw rulers and people deliberately committing crimes which were rapidly hurrying the nation on to its final destruction. One recognizes in the abrupt, epigrammatic, almost explosive style of these sermons the pent up emotion and the intense feeling under which they were uttered. The great thoughts that filled his soul were expressed most naturally in abrupt, jagged, forceful figures, which call for keenest attention and thought on the part of the reader, but leave an impression on the mind that never vanishes. In his use of literary figures, as well as in his message, Hosea is the most original of all the Hebrew prophets, and yet he is to-day one of the least read and understood. This neglect is partially due to the ruggedness and obscurities of his style. The text of the prophecy has also suffered greatly in the process of transmission. Many of his allusions are to events otherwise unrecorded in Israel’s history, so that the modern reader constantly finds himself baffled by his ignorance of the facts to which the prophet alludes. And yet of all the prophets Hosea best rewards careful study. In the text adopted above most of the passages containing the obscure allusions have been omitted, and those which represent best the prophet’s teachings and activity during the years of Israel’s rapid decline have been selected.
II. The Guilt of Israel’s Prophets, Priests and Rulers. Hosea, like Amos, opens the main body of his addresses with a sweeping arraignment of the nation. The prophet, as the spokesman for the plaintiff, Jehovah, states in detail the crimes of which the people of Israel are guilty. Honesty, love and the knowledge of God are lacking, and in their place are hideous crimes condemned by the moral code of any race or age. With true insight Hosea states that the responsibility for Israel’s guilt lies, however, not primarily with the common people but with the leaders of the nation, the priests and the prophets, who in failing faithfully to instruct the people have proved their misleaders. The political leaders, also, are intent only on luxury and debauchery. Little wonder, therefore, that the people who follow their example are corrupt. Priests, prophets and rulers prey upon the people and are so blind to all warnings or corrections, that they make it impossible for Jehovah to deliver the guilty nation.
III. The Fatal Lack of True Repentance and Character. In his own private experience, Hosea had learned how necessary was repentance, and that true repentance meant far more than mere words and a shrinking from the consequences of one’s evil acts. With pathetic sarcasm he describes, in the form of a dialogue between the people and Jehovah, the false popular conception of repentance. To the prevailing belief that no fundamental reform is required, but that all that is necessary in a time of disaster is to turn for help and deliverance to the God of their nation, comes Jehovah’s pathetic rejoinder:
What can I make of you, O Ephraim, What can I make of you, O Israel?
Israel’s love and repentance are, alas, like the fleecy morning clouds, utterly lacking in content and permanence. By the fearless, unsparing words of his prophets Jehovah has endeavored to instil in the minds of the people a true conception of his demands and to make clear to them the crime and folly of their acts. By severe and startling judgments he has endeavored to impress upon them his supreme teaching:
It is love I delight in and not sacrifice, And knowledge of God and not burnt-offering.
Yet through all their history the Israelites have disregarded their most solemn obligations. Falsehood, murder, highway robbery, instigated by the very priests who were charged with the task of guarding the law and of teaching the people what is right, unspeakable crimes, even at the ancient sanctuary of Bethel, apostasy and gross immorality, testify to the need of a fundamental change of heart and reveal the insufficiency of that superficial repentance with which the people think to win Jehovah’s favor. Jehovah is eager to forgive; but how can he when he is confronted at every turn by public and private crimes. In commercial and civic life men defraud and steal under the guise of law or authority, while on the throne of Israel itself there sits a dissolute, drunken king (probably Menahem or his son Pekahiah), surrounded by a group of cutthroats, sharing his debauchery and shame, seeking only a favorable opportunity to wield the sword of the assassin; while not one of them thinks for a moment of turning to Jehovah in penitence or for guidance.
IV. The Evidences of National Degeneracy. In a series of remarkable passages, Hosea, with the intimate knowledge of a patriot and the inspired insight of a prophet, diagnoses Israel’s malady. His favorite designation of Northern Israel is by the name of the larger and leading tribe, Ephraim. With deep yearning and sorrow he pronounces the name of his beloved nation, and then with unshrinking courage and thoroughness proceeds in a few epigrammatic words to characterize the evils which are proving its destruction. As a clear-eyed, fearless statesman, he declares that one of the fundamental mistakes in Israel’s policy is its vacillating foreign alliances. Ephraim is like a cake unturned—burnt on the one side, raw on the other. No consistent policy nor trust in Jehovah binds together all parts of the nation. Instead, it is so dominated by foreign customs and ideas that its true character and strength remain undeveloped. Already the signs of national decay are beginning to appear; but, saddest of all, the nation is ignorant of its actual condition. Like a silly dove, they make alliances, first with their betrayers, the Egyptians, and then with the Assyrians, their deadliest foes; but they never turn with true faith and contrition to the God who has tenderly cared for them through all their past. Thus they compel Jehovah, whose heart burns to deliver them, to become instead their harsh judge and to execute the sentence which he is forced to pronounce upon them. Instead of trusting Jehovah, they put their faith in the kings whom they have raised up without the divine approval, and in the idols of silver and gold which they have set up as the objects of their worship. Thus in their blindness they are sowing the wind and shall soon reap a whirlwind.
V. Hosea’s Attitude Toward the Kingship and Idolatry. Hosea puts himself on record as absolutely condemning the kings of Northern Israel, not because he was opposed, as were certain of his later spiritual disciples, to the institution of the kingship itself, but rather because he realized that the type of men who ruled over Northern Israel were foes to its best interests. With his clear spiritual and ethical vision, he also saw that the images of wood overlaid with silver and gold, which had been tolerated by the earlier prophets even in the temple at Jerusalem and in the sanctuaries of Dan and Bethel, were harmful rather than helpful to the cause of true religion. He therefore openly declared that the sooner they are chopped up by the hands of foreign conquerors the better for Israel’s faith.
VI. The Inevitable Fate Awaiting the Nation. Hosea, like Amos, after his searching diagnosis of the maladies of Northern Israel, saw no hope of the nation’s ultimate recovery. Already the process of dissolution had begun. The strong and influential position which Israel enjoyed in the days of Jeroboam II had been lost. Saddest and most significant of all, the nation had no strong virile religious faith to give strength and consistency to its political policy, to bind together all classes in the community, to arouse the rulers to unselfish and patriotic activity, and to guide the nation through its present and future perils. Thus, Jehovah, who stood ready and eager to deliver a truly penitent people, was compelled to become the agent of Israel’s destruction. Hence, as a prophet who faithfully interpreted existing conditions and tendencies, Hosea, though with breaking heart, was forced to proclaim to this nation, while it remained in its attitude of defiant unrepentance, an unmitigated message of doom.