Hosea 7
PATThe prophet reproves the sins of the princes and grc&t men of Israel, and denounces judgments against the people in general for their hypocrisy..
Hosea 7:1
W HEN I would have, healed Israel, Jhen the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria. When God was just averting his judgment from Israel, the people gave him new provocations, especially the inhabitants of Samaria, the principal seat of the kingdom. (Sec ver. 5.) For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, &c] Both great and small seize other men’s properties by the secret methods of fraud, and the open violence of rapine and oppression. (See v. l.vi. 10.) >
Hosea 7:2
Now their own doings have beset them about. They shall be taken in their own wickedness, (sec Psal. ix* 16. Prov. v. 22.) and their sin shall bring its own punishment with it.
Hosea 7:3
TJiey make the king glad with their wickedness, &c. They study to please their kings and great men by complying with the idolatry they have set up. The LXX; read, kings, in the plural number, meaning the succession of kings of Israel from Jeroboam. And their princes with lies.] Which they speak to pleaso and flatter them. But the word lie, sometimes signifies an. idol, and the practice of idolatry, as being set up in direct opposition to the true God., (Compare vcr. 13. ii. 4. x. 13. xi. 12. Habak. ii. 18. Rom. i. 25. Rev. xxii. 15.) This sense agrees very well with.the scope and design of the* place.
Hosea 7:4
TJiey are all adulterers. The expression may be metaphorical, implying that they were apostates from God, to whose service they were engaged by the most solemn bond and covenant. (Compare Jcr. ix. 2. Matt. xiv. 4. James iv. 4.) If the words be understood literally, tho prophet compares the heat of their lust to the flame of an oven; as it follows. Who ceasethfrom raising after he hath kneaded the dough, &c] When an oven is sufficiently heated, the baker doth not raise any more fire, but thinks what he has made enough to keep the oven hot, till the dough be fit to put into the oven. Some render the latter part of the sentence thus,- WIio ceaseUifrom waking, oxtvatching (his oven): to the* uiyiiizeu uy ivucrosun CHAP- VII.] XJFOtf HOSEA, same sense with that of yer. G. TJieir baker sleepeth alt the night. v
Hosea 7:5
In the day of our king the princes have made him sicktvithbottlesofwine. Or, JVith being overheated through wine: so the word chamath signifies, Habak. ii. 15. The day of the king’s birth or inauguration was kept with riot arid excess; • * He stretched out his hand to scorners.] He encouraged mean and loose people to converse too familiarly with him, forgetting his rank and dignity.
Hosea 7:6
For they have made^ ready their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait, &c. This verse pursues the" metaphor begun in, ver. 4. As the baker when he has thoroughly heated his oven, if he lays himself to sleep in the night, finds all in a flame in the morning: so the great men of the land kindle evil desires in their hearts, and at the first opportunity their hidden designs break out like a flame into open action.
Hosea 7:7
They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges: all their kings are fatten. The flame of civil discord is spread among the people in general: this hath been the destruction both of the inferior magistrates and of their kings too; an anarchy continuing for eleven years after the death of Jeroboam the Second; and afterward his son Zechariah, and his successors Shallum and Pekahiah, being slain by conspiracies formed against them. (2 Kings xv. 10. 14.25.) There is none among them that calkth uponme.~] And yet these confusions have not brought either kings or people to a due humiliation for their sins.
Hosea 7:8
Ephraim hath mixed himself among the people. Whereas Israel was by God’s institution to be his peculiar people, Deut. vii. 6. he has mixed or joined himself with idolaters; (see Psal. cvi. 35.) and he shall have a just punishment for his sins, he shall be carried away captive to dwell among them. (See ix. 3. Jer. xvi. 12, 13.) Ephraim is a cake not turned.] Baked only on one side: i. e. serving God by halves, and halting between his service and the worship of idols. The Chaldee paraphrast interprets it, Before it is baked on both sides, it is devoured by its greedy enemies; the metaphor being taken from the raveriousness of a hungry stomach. This sense agrees very well with what follows.
Hosea 7:9
Strangers have devoured his strength, and (or yet) he knoweth it not. The Syrians, in the time of Jehoahaz, reduced them very low: (see 2 Kings xiii. 7.) afterward they became tributaries to Pul king of Assyria, (2 Kings xv. 20.) and at length were carried captive by Shalmaneser,(2 Kings xvii.) And yet all these afflictions do not make them sensible of the ill state of their affairs, and that the hand of God is against them. (See ii. 8. and the following verse: Isa. xlii.25.) Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him.] He gtill declines in strength and power, like a man worn out with age, and ready to give up the ghost.'
Hosea 7:10
And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face. Sec v. 3. And they do not return to the Lord their God, &c] See ver. 9.
Hosea 7:11
Ephraim is a silly dove tvithout a heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. Like an unwary doVe which falls into the snare that is laid for it; so the Israelites betake themselves for refuge to their enemies: sometimes they apply themselves to the king of Egypt for succour; at other times they trust to the aid of the Assyrians. (See 2 Kings xv. 19. xvii. 4.)
Hosea 7:12
When they shall go, I will spread a net for them; I will bring them down as the fowls of heaven. Whithersoever they betake themselves for safety, they Shall no more escape than birds can escape the snares of the fowler. (See the foregoing verse.) J will chastise them as their congregation hath heard.] I will bring those calamities upon them, which I have denounced in my laws against the whole people of Israel, whenever they forsake me. v (See Lev. xxvi. Deut. xxviii. compared with 2 Rings xvii. 13, 14.) The Chaldee paraphrast renders the latter part of the verse thus, I will chastise them because they have followed their own counsels: as if he had read in the original La Asatham, instead’of Laadatham. (Compare x. 6. xi. 6.)
Hosea 7:13
Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. Though I have redeemed them out of Egypt, (see Micah vi. 4.) and afforded them many other signal deliverances, yet they have not given me the glory; but have represented me by their golden calves, and changed my truth into a lie, Rom. i. 25. (See the note upon ver. 3.)
Hosea 7:14
And they have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds. When they were bemoaning their calamities, as sick men bewail themselves upon a bed of sickness, yet they did not call upon me heartily and sincerely. (Compare Jer. iii. 10. Psal. Ixxviii. They assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me.] When they assembled themselves to deprecate a famine, they still retained the same disobedient temper towards me.
Hosea 7:15
Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. Though I have bound up their wounds, and given them new strength and vigour, yet they arc continually devising some new idolatrous invention, whereby they may dishonour me.
Hosea 7:16
They return, but not to the Most High; they are like a deceitful bow. Their conversion is only outward, not inward and sincere: they are like an ill-contrived bow, which never directs the arrow to the mark. (Compare Psal. Ixxviii. 57.) Their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage oftheir x tongue.] For the dishonour they have done me by blasphemous speeches against me. (See ver. 13.) This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.] Their blasphemies and other enormities shall be a just cause of their reproach to them, when they aro exiles in Egypt, whither many of them fled or were carried away captive. (See ix.3.G. CQmpare viii.13. and see the notes upon Ezck* xxxvi.20.)