Hosea 9
Butler12. For the hypothetical rendering preferred by the English revisers, “Though I write My law in ten thousand precepts, they are counted as a strange thing,” the American Company substitutes the more affirmative, “I wrote for him the ten thousand things of My law, but they are counted,” etc., which is in the English margin. Chambers.
The prophet, to mark Israel’s inexcusableness, refers to the multiplied communications of His will which God had made to His people (Jer. 7: 25), and that too in writing; having in view, perhaps, not only “the book of the law” (Deut. 28: 61; Josh. 1: 8), but also instructions given through prophets, and by them, even before Hosea’s time, committed to writing. B. C.
God had sent to him in writing the great things of His law—its great truths, principles, and rules of life; yet he had practically accounted them as foreign and unworthy of his thought or care. This is the monster sin of all those in Christian lands who repel the light of God’s Word, and sin on as if no Bible had ever been given them. Jesus said (John 15: 22), “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak [excuse] for their sin.” H. C.—How many have we, men of great estates, and claiming to be of great minds, that scarce regard the law of God; they look upon His law as beneath them. Books of history and war they will peruse with diligence; but for the Scripture, it is a thing that has little in it. It is a special means to obedience to have high thoughts of God’s law. That is the reason why the prophet speaks thus, “I have written to him the great things of My law, but they were counted as a strange thing.” As if he should say, if they had had the things of My law in their thoughts, they would never so have acted. J. Burroughs.
Once it was, do and live; now it is, believe and live. And yet the law has not been dedestroyed. It has not been changed. Until heaven and earth shall pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law. What, then, is our relation to it? What end does it serve for us, seeing that we cannot be saved by keeping it? It exists for us as the rule of our life. We must have some rule, and this is the one by which, as Christians, we must walk. We are saved by grace through faith. But the only satisfactory evidence of our being in a state of grace is conformity of life to the law of God. “If ye love Me,” says Christ; “keep My commandments.” And again He says, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words.” This obedience to the Divine rule is one of the infallible evidences of true discipleship. D. Winters.
My law. Goguet, in his elaborate and learned treatise on the “Origin of Laws,” observes, that “the more we meditate on the laws of Moses, the more we shall perceive their wisdom and inspiration. They alone have the inestimable advantage never to have undergone any of the revolutions common to all human laws. There has been nothing changed, nothing added, nothing retrenched from the laws of Moses for above three thousand years.” Milman.—The Hebrews struck so deep, and they struck so utterly the great moral laws of God in their relation to human life, and in their associated action, that in its development the world has more and more built itself upon that which was disclosed by them. H. P. L.
Chap. 9. Ephraim is still the subject; the strain of rebuke for sin is more and more mingled with announcements of near impending judgment.
5. A rendering more true to the original, and giving better the exact sense, would be, “What will ye do for the day of solemn assembly, and for the day of the feast of the Lord?” They could no more have them in the remote land of their captivity. They would sadly miss those seasons of great public rejoicing. H. C.
6. The general sense of this passage is very clear. It describes the extreme devastation of the country by the Assyrian conquest, under the image of weeds growing up in the dwellings, deserted by their owners, and stripped of their costly and elegant furniture of silver. Ep. Horsley.
7. The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad. The days are at hand which shall make the Israelites sensible, that not a word of God shall want its effect, and that His prophets were true prophets, but their false prophets, to whom the Israelites hearkened, were indeed “fools” and “madmen.” And this should come to pass “for the multitude of their iniquity,” whereby they showed themselves to “hate” God, and made themselves hateful to Him. Pocock.—Because men receive not the love of the truth, but conceive a hatred of it, and bid defiance to it, therefore God shall send them strong delusions to believe a lie, so strong that they shall not be undeceived till the day of visitation and recompense comes, which will convince them of the folly and madness of those that seduced them, and of their own folly and madness in suffering themselves to be seduced by them. They shall know then whether the true prophets, that were really spiritual men guided by the Spirit of God, were such as they called and counted them, fools and madmen; and they shall be convinced that they were the wise men of their times, and God’s faithful ambassadors to them. H.
7. This and the two following verses form one paragraph: “the visitation for . . . iniquity” of this verse reappearing in verse 9, “He will remember their iniquity and visit their sins,” while again verse 7 is linked to verse 8 by the repetition of the word “hatred,” the Hebrew noun for which occurs nowhere else in the Bible. The general purport of the whole is to express the deep resentment which the inspired prophet felt at the scorn and malignity with which God’s messengers were received by the people, and his satisfaction at the vindication which their mission would receive when the Divine judgments which they had denounced should come to pass. B. C.
8. Despite of his great sin, Ephraim was full of hope and expectation of good from Jehovah—probably with reference to help against their foreign enemies—which help might have come had not the false prophet been as a snare of a fowler over his ways. Repeatedly is this grievous apostasy of the people ascribed largely to the terribly pernicious influence of corrupt priests and false prophets. Truly there can be no power for evil so active and so fatal as a corrupt ministry—as flagrant sin in those who speak for God and of Him to men.
9. The sin of Gibeah at the time referred to may be seen (Judges 19: 22-25). An appalling history! Alas for the dreadful corruption of the land of Ephraim, if it was fitly compared to those scenes in Gibeah of Benjamin! Good reason why God should remember their iniquity and visit retribution upon the whole land!
10. The true light for seeing their sins can be had only through contrast with the bright days of their early national history. Hence this historical sketch. As one finds grapes in the wilderness, himself weary and hungry, and not expecting luscious fruit amid such barrenness, and therefore is filled with joy at the discovery, so the Lord found Israel. The first ripe figs in their first bearing year furnish the next beautiful figure. But the fatal mischief was, they went after idol gods, and plunged into the vices associated with idol worship. First at Baal-peor, in the wilderness (see Num. 25). The last clause thus, “They became abominable, like their paramours, lovers;” referring to the idol gods to whom they gave their homage. So evermore men become like the God they worship; abominable and vile like their idols, or pure-minded and loving, like Him whose nature is purity and whose name is love. H. C.
11-17. In the foregoing verses we saw the sin of Israel derived from their fathers; here we see the punishment of Israel derived to their children; for as death entered by sin at first, so it is still entailed with it.
12. He departs from them. When they revolt from Him, and withdraw from their allegiance to him, how can they expect but that He should depart from them, and withdraw both His protection and His bounty? And well may His threatening be enforced as it is, and made terrible. Woe also unto them when I depart from them! Those are in a woeful condition indeed whom God has forsaken. Our weal or woe depends upon the gracious presence of God with us; and if He goes, all weal goes with Him, and all woes come upon us. H.
“Let him alone,” is the sentence which has gone forth, and the man is lost. Thenceforward his career is one of growing sinfulness. Thenceforward his state is one of spiritual sleep, profound as that of the grave, undisturbed by any Sabbath argument, unbroken by any threatening omen, unaffected by the approaching realities of another world; and though he may live amid scenes of spiritual beauty, and though the refreshing showers of heavenly grace may brighten and give new verdure to the moral landscape around him—there he is—a spot blasted by heaven’s fire, which can never be cultivated, a tree scathed by heaven’s lightning, ready to be cut down as fuel for the burning. But oh! how lame and feeble are words to give expression to the sentiment which God has ut-
tered, “Woe unto them when I depart from them.” E. M.