“Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.
The rebels are deep in slaughter; but I discipline all of them.
I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now, Ephraim, you have played the prostitute. Israel is defiled.
Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know Yahweh.
The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity. Judah also will stumble with them.
They will go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Yahweh; but they won’t find him. He has withdrawn himself from them.
They are unfaithful to Yahweh; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.
“Blow the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!
Ephraim will become a desolation in the day of rebuke. Among the tribes of Israel, I have made known that which will surely be.
The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark. I will pour out my wrath on them like water.
Ephraim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgment; Because he is intent in his pursuit of idols.
Therefore I am to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness.
“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.
For I will be to Ephraim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I myself will tear in pieces and go away. I will carry off, and there will be no one to deliver.
I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–15 The Prophet here again preaches against the whole people:…
The Prophet here again preaches against the whole people: but he mainly directs his discourse to the priests and the rulers; for they were the source of the prevailing evils: the priests, intent on gain, neglected the worship of God; and the chief men, as we have seen, were become in every way corrupt. Hence the Prophet here especially inveighs against these orders, and at the same time, records some vices which then prevailed among the people, and that through the fault of the priests and rulers. But before I pursue farther the subject of the Prophets something must be said of the words.
When he says, To you is judgment, some explain it, “It is your duty to do judgment,” to maintain government, that every one may discharge his own office; for judgment is taken for rectitude; the word משפט, mesgepheth, means a right order of things. Hence they think that the priests and rulers are here condemned for discharging so badly their office, because they had no care for what was right. But this sense is too strained. The Prophet, therefore, I doubt not, summons here the priests and the king’s counselors to God’s tribunal, that they might give an answer there; for the contempt of God, we know, prevailed among the great; they were secure, as though exempt from judgment, as though released from laws and all order. To you, then is judgment; that is, God addresses you by name, and declares that he will be your avenger, though ye heedlessly despise his judgment.
Read full note →
Some again take מצפה, metsephe, for a beacon, and thus translate, “Ye have been a snare instead of a beacon.” But this mistake is refuted by the second clause, for the Prophet adds immediately, a net expanded over Tabor: and it is well known that Mizpah and Tabor were high mountains, and for their height celebrated and renowned; we also know that hunting was common on these mountains. The Prophet, then, no doubt means here, that both the priests and the king’s counselors were like snares and nets: “As fowlers and hunters were wont to spread their nets and snares on mount Mizpah and on Tabor; so the people also have been ensnared by you.” This is the plain meaning of the words. Some conjecture, that robbers were there located by the kings of Israel to intercept the Israelites, when they found any ascending into Jerusalem, as we now see everywhere persons lying in wait, that no one from the Papacy may come over to us. But this conjecture is too far fetched. I have already explained the Prophet’s meaning: he makes use, as we have said, of a similitude.
Let us now return to what he teaches: Hear this, he says, ye Priests, and attend, ye house of Israel, and give ear, ye house of the king The Prophet, indeed, includes the whole people in the second clause, but turns his discourse expressly to the priests and the king’s counselors; which ought to be specially noticed; for it is indeed, as we shall hereafter see, the general subject of this chapter. He did not without reason attack the princes, because the main fault was in them; nor the priests, because they were dumb dogs, and had also led away the people from God’s pure worship into false superstitions; and so great was their avidity for filthy lucre that they perverted the law and every thing that was before pure among the people. It is no wonder then that the Prophet, while treating a general subject, suitable to all orders indiscriminately, should yet denounce judgment on the priests and the king’s counselors. With regard to these counselors, they, in order to confirm the kingdom, had also approved of false and spurious forms of worship, as it has been before stated; and they had also followed other vices; for the Prophet, I doubt not, condemns here other corruptions besides superstitions, and those which we know everywhere prevailed among the people, and of which something has been already said.
And to show his earnestness, he uses three sentences: Ye priests, hear this; then, house of Israel, attend; and in the third place, house of the king, give ear; as though he said, “In vain do they seek subterfuges, for the Lord will execute on them the judgment he now declares:” and yet he gives them opportunity and time for repentance, inasmuch as he bids them to attend to this denunciation.
Now this passage teaches, that even kings are not exempted from the duty of learning what is commonly taught, if they wish to be counted members of the Church; for the Lord would have all, without exception, to be ruled by his word; and he takes this as a proof of men’s obedience, their submission to his word. And as kings think themselves separated from the general class of men, the Prophet here shows that he was sent to the king and his counselors. The same reason holds good as to priests; for as the dignity of their order is the highest, so this impiety has prevailed in all ages, that the priests think themselves at liberty to do what they please. The Prophet therefore shows, that they are not raised up so much on high, but that the Lord shines eminently above their heads with his word. Let us know, lastly, that in the Church the word of God so possesses the highest rank, that neither priests, nor kings, nor their counselors, can claim a privilege to themselves, as though their conduct was not to be subject to God’s word.
This then is a remarkable passage for establishing the word of God: and thus we see how abominable is the boast of the Papal clergy of this day; for they spread before us the mask of the priesthood, when the word of God is brought forward, as though they would outshine by the splendor of their dignity the whole Law, all the Prophets, and the very Gospel. But the Lord here upholds his word against all degrees of men, and shows that both kings and priests must be brought down from their eminence, that they may obey the word. Yea, we must bear in mind what I have before said, that though the whole people had sinned, yet kings and priests are here in a special manner reproved, because they deserved a heavier punishment, inasmuch as by their depraved examples they had corrupted the whole people.
When he compares them to snares and nets, I do not then confine this to one thing; but as the contagion among the whole people had proceeded from the priests and the king’s counselors, and also from the king himself, the Prophet compares them, not without reason, to snares; not only because they were the authors of superstitions, but also because they perverted judgment and all equity. Let us go on —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 The Priests and Princes caught the poor people in…
The Priests and Princes caught the poor people in their snares, as the fowlers did the birds, in these two high mountains.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Hos 5:1 Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken,…
Hos 5:1 Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment [is] toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.
Ver. 1. Hear ye this, ye priests] For you are not so wise but that ye may "hear and increase learning," Pro 1:5 Hos 4:6; and besides, from you is profaneness gone forth into all the land, Jer 23:15. For you, therefore, in the first place, I have a citation to appear before God’s tribunal to hear your sin and your sentence, your crime and your doom. God cited Adam immediately and by himself, Gen 3:9, "Adam, where art thou?" so he did Cain, Laban, Nabal, and others, when he sends for them by death, saying as once to that pope, Veni miser in iudicium, Come away, and hear thy sentence. Centum revolutis annis Deo respondebitis et mihi. Mediately he citeth men by the mouth of his ministers; as he did the Council of Constance by his faithful martyr, John Huss, and his word stood: and as he doth here the three estates of the kingdom, priests, people, and princes, by the prophet Hosea. That was very strange and extraordinary, that Mr Knox reporteth in his history of Scotland, of one Sir John Hamilton, murdered by the king’s means; that he appeared to him in a vision with a naked sword drawn, and strikes off both his arms with these words, Take this before thou receive a final payment for all thine impieties: and within twenty-four hours two of the king’s sons died. It is, indeed, but part of their punishment that wicked men here receive, seem it never so grievous, when God entereth into judgment with them, as here it is said.
Read full note →
For judgment is toward you] That is, I am about to pronounce sentence against you, and to do execution: and therefore hear, hearken, and give ear, the first, second, and third time I admonish you, that ye may know that my citation is serious and peremptory: and that your damnation sleepeth not. Priest and people are set before the house of the king; because theirs was sedes prima, et vita ima, a high place but a low life (Salvian). And besides, courtiers and great men, though they be in other cases forward enough to take the places of others, yet in point of punishment they slink back, and are well content that others should go before them. God regards none for his greatness ( potentes potenter torquebuntur), neither spareth he any for his meanness, or because they were borne down either by the laws or lives of their superiors. The people are here placed between the priests and princes, and with them appealed and impreached, to show how frigid and insufficient their excuse is, who plead that they did but as they were taught by their ministers, and as they were commanded by their governors. "Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment," as it is in Hos 5:11. {See Trapp on "Hos 5:11"}
For judgment is toward you] Vengeance is in readiness for the disobedient, be he what he will, Caesar or captive, lord or losel, priest or people; every whit as ready in the Lord’s hand as in the minister’s mouth, 2Co 10:6, neither shall multitudes privilege or secure them. Though they be quiet or combined, and likewise many, yet thus shall they be cut down, when he shall pass through, Nah 1:12, yea, though they be briers and thorns that set against him in battle (and those never so much strengthened and sharpened), yet God will "go through them, and burn them together," Isa 27:4, he will cut off the spirit of princes, and destroy a whole rabble of rebels that rise up against him.
Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah] That God may be justified and every mouth stopped, a reason is here rendered of his most righteous proceedings, and the same recited (after the manner of men) in the preamble to their condemnatory sentences.
Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor] These were two very high hills, much haunted by hunters, and frequented by fowlers, to whom these idolaters (striving to catch people, ritibus suis velut retibus et laqueis, with their nets and snares of errors and superstitions) are fitly compared. For they lie in wait for men’s souls, and catch many of them either by persuasions or punishments, by allurements or by causing fear, as Julian the apostate did of old, and as the Papists do at this day. That Jeroboam and his counsellors set watchers in these two mountains, to observe who would go from him to Judah to worship, that he might intercept them and punish them, is a plausible opinion, but lacks proof. I know what is alleged, viz. 1Ki 12:28 Hos 6:8, according to the Vulgate translation. I confess also that it is not unlikely that such things should be done then (as lately wait was laid by the Papists for such as had a mind to betake themselves to Geneva, Tygur, Basil, &c.) for conscience’ sake. It is more probable that upon those high hills idolatry was committed, {Hos 4:13} {See Trapp on "Hos 4:13"} and thereby people insnared, as birds and wild beasts are in the mountains; and so made slaves to the devil, and even fatted for his tooth. Hence in the next words,
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Hear ye this, O priests: proclamation is made, and…
Hear ye this, O priests: proclamation is made, and the criminals are cited to appear, and attend their charge; amongst which the priests are first summoned: not of the tribe of Levi, not God’s priests, but Baal’s priests, priests of the high places; such they called themselves, so accounted by the people, and priests they were as good as their constitution by Jeroboam son of Nebat could make them.
Hearken, ye house of Israel; all the people of Israel, hearken and consider duly.
Read full note →
Give ye ear, O house of the king; all you of Menahem’s court, and all you that are of the royal family. It is very probable, if not plainly certain, that Menahem was king at this time over Israel, and that Hosea points him out with his whole family.
For judgment is toward you; for to you it appertained to execute judgment, and do right, so some; but the most read it, as we do,
judgment is toward, i.e. against you; you have sinned, and God will punish. God’s controversy, Hos 4:1, is with you all, but first with priests who neglected to instruct the people, next with the body of the people, and lastly with the king, court, and his family.
Ye have been a snare; you, O priests and princes, nobles and judges, have insnared the people by your examples and practices, which have been idolatrous, and the people have imitated you: it may possibly refer to that the Jews say was done, spies set to watch who went to Jerusalem to worship and to inform, that they might be punished: or else thus. By commending the calves, and palliating the idolatry committed in worshipping them, by persuading the people they might as well worship there as at Jerusalem, you have been a snare unto them, and drawn them into idolatry.
On Mizpah; either taken comparatively, as fowlers and hunters have taken many birds and beasts, by gins and snares, on Mizpah, so you have insnared many souls in idolatry; or, by idolatries acted at Mizpah you have insnared many: so at Mizpah there was a high place, and idolatrous worship performed there; whether at Mizpah in Judah, which is not very likely, or Mizpah part of Libanus, which is the more likely, I determine not.
And a net spread upon Tabor; a very famous mount for its exact roundness, and the height thereof, and as famous for the pleasantness thereof, which easily persuades me to think this hill must needs have some high place on it, and that where high places were so much in fashion, Tabor could not be omitted. Here, as in Mizpah, idolatry caught men as birds or wild beasts are taken in a net: or briefly thus. The priests and secular power did make religion and the civil government a snare for men, both so managed the laws of each as to entrap all they could; as if men were fowls and beasts, and governors civil and ecclesiastical hunters and fowlers, and their laws nets and gins set to catch men, and make a prey of them. Thus it was in Israel at that day.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 Here, I. All orders and degrees of men are…
Here, I. All orders and degrees of men are cited to appear and answer to such things as shall be laid to their charge (Hos 5:1): Hear you this, O priests! whether in holy orders (as those in Judah, and perhaps many in Israel too, for in the ten tribes there were divers cities of priests and Levites, who, it is probable, staid in their own lot after the revolt of the ten tribes and did so much of their office as might be done at a distance from the temple) or pretending holy orders, as the priests of the calves, who, some think, are included here. "Hearken, you house of Israel, the common people, and give ear, O house of the king!" let them all take notice, for they have all contributed to the national guilt, and they shall all share in the national judgments. Note, If neither the sanctity of the priesthood nor the dignity of the royal family will prevail to keep out sin, it cannot be expected that they should avail to keep out wrath. If the priests, and the house of the king, though they bear such noble characters, sin like others, their noble characters will not excuse them, but they must smart like others. Nor shall it be any plea for the house of Israel that they were misled by their priests and princes, but they shall receive their doom with them, and neither their meanness nor their multitude shall be their exemption.
II. Witness is produced against them, one instead of a thousand; it is God's omniscience (Hos 5:3): I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me. They have not known the Lord (Hos 5:4), but the Lord has known them, knows their true character however disguised, knows their secret wickedness however concealed. Note, Men's rejecting the knowledge of God will not secure them from his knowledge of them; and when he contends with them he will prove their sins upon them by his own knowledge, so that is will be in vain to plead Not guilty.
Read full note →
III. Very bad things are laid to their charge. 1. They had been very ingenious and very industrious to draw people either into sin or into trouble: You have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor (Hos 5:1), that is, such snares and nets as the huntsmen used to lay upon those mountains in pursuit of their game. When the worship of the calves was set up in Israel the patrons of that idolatry, and sticklers for it, contrived by all possible arts and wiles to draw men into it and reconcile those to it that at first had a dread of it. Note, Those that allure and entice men to sin, however they may pretend friendship and good-will, are to be looked upon as snares and nets to them, and their hands as bands, Ecc 7:26. But to those whom they could not seduce into sin they were as a net and a snare to bring them into trouble. Some think it was their practice to set spies in the road, and particularly upon the mountains of Mizpah and Tabor, at the times of the solemn feasts at Jerusalem, to watch if any of their people who were piously affected went thither, and to inform against them, that they might be prosecuted for it, thus doing the devil's work, who disquiets those whom he cannot debauch. 2. They had been both very crafty and very cruel in carrying on their designs (Hos 5:2): The revolters are profound to make slaughter. Note, Those who have themselves apostatized from the truths of God are often the most subtle and barbarous persecutors of those who still adhere to them. Nothing will serve them but to make slaughter (it is the blood of the saints that they thirst after): and with the serpent's sting they have his head; they are profound to do it. O the depth of the depths of Satan, of the wickedness of his agents, of those that have deeply revolted! Isa 31:6. Now that which aggravated this was the many reproofs and warnings that had been given them: Though I have been a rebuker of them all. The prophet had been so, a reprover by office. He had many a time told them of the evil of their ways and doings, had dealt plainly with them all, and had not spared either the priests or the house of the king. God himself had been a rebuker of them all by their own consciences and by his providences. Note, Sins against reproof are doubly sinful, Pro 29:1. 3. They had committed whoredom, had defiled their own bodies with fleshly lusts, had defiled their own souls with the worship of idols, Hos 5:3. This God was a witness to, though secretly committed and artfully palliated. Nay, the piercing eye of God saw the spirit of whoredom that was in the midst of them, their secret inclination and disposition to those sins, the love they had to their sins, and the dominion their sins had over them, how much they were under the power of a spirit of whoredom, that root of bitterness which bore all this gall and wormwood, that corrupt and poisoned fountain. 4. They had no disposition at all to come into acquaintance and communion with God. The spirit of whoredoms, having caused them to err from him, keeps them wandering endlessly, Hos 5:4. (1.) They have not known the Lord, nor desire to know him, but have rather declined, nay dreaded, the knowledge of him, for that would disturb them in their sinful ways. (2.) Therefore they will not frame their doings to turn to their God, by which it appeared that they did not know him aright. This intimates their obstinate persistence in their apostasy from God; they would not turn to God, though he was their God, theirs in covenant, by whose name they had been called, and whom they were bound to serve. They would not return to the worship of him, from which they had turned aside. Nay, they would not frame their doings to turn to God. They would not consider their ways, nor dispose themselves into a serious temper, nor apply their minds to think of those things that would bring them to God. It is true we cannot by our own power, without the special grace of God, turn to him; but we may by the due improvement of our faculties, and the common aids of his Spirit, frame our doings to turn to him. Those that will not do this, that prepare not their hearts to seek the Lord (Ch2 12:14), owe it to themselves that they are not turned; they die because they will die; and to those that will do this further grace shall not be wanting. (5.) They were guilty of notorious arrogancy, and insolence in sin (Hos 5:5): The pride of Israel doth testify to his face, doth witness against him that he is a rebel to God and his government. The spirit of whoredoms which was in the midst of them showed itself in the gaiety and gaudiness of their worship, as a harlot is known by her attire, Pro 7:10. The wantonness of her dress testifies to her face that she is not a modest woman. Or their pride in confronting the prophets God sent them and the message they brought (Jer 43:2), or a haughty scornful conduct towards their brethren and those that were under them, witnessed against them that they were not God's people and justified God in all the humbling judgments he brought upon them. His pride testifies in his face; so some read it, agreeing with Isa 3:9, The show of their countenance doth witness against them. They have that proud look which the Lord hates. (6.) They departed from God to idols, and bred up their children in idolatry (Hos 5:7): They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, as a wife, who, in contempt of the marriage covenant, forsakes her husband, and lives in adultery with another. Thus those who are guilty of spiritual idolatry, whose god is their money, whose god is their belly, deal treacherously against the Lord; they violate their engagements to him and frustrate his expectations from them. Note, Wilful sinners are treacherous dealers. They have begotten strange children, that is, their children which they have begotten are estranged from God, and trained up in a false way of worship; they are a spurious brood, as children of fornication (Joh 8:41), whom God will disown. Note, Those deal treacherously with God indeed who not only turn from following him themselves but train up their children in wicked ways.
IV. Very sad things are made to be their doom. In general (Hos 5:1), "Judgment is towards you. God is coming forth to contend with you, and to testify his displeasure against you for your sins." It is time to hearken when judgment is towards us. In particular,
1. They shall fall in their iniquity. This follows upon their pride testifying to their face (Hos 5:5) Therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity. Note, Pride will have a fall; it is the certain presage and forerunner of it. Those that exalt themselves shall be abased. The face in which pride testifies shall be filled with confusion. They shall not only fall, but fall in their iniquity, the saddest fall of any. Their pride kept them from repenting of their iniquity, and therefore they shall fall in it. Note, Those that are not humbled for their sins are likely to perish for ever in their sins. it is added, Judah also shall fall with them in her iniquity. As the ten tribes were carried captive into Assyria, for their idolatry, so the two tribes, in process of time, were carried into Babylon for following their bad example; but the former fell and were utterly cast down, the latter fell and were raised up again. Judah had the temple and priesthood, and yet these shall not secure them, but, if they sin with Israel and Ephraim, with them they shall fall.
2. They shall fall short of God's favour when they profess to seek it (Hos 5:6): They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord, but in vain; they shall not find him. This seems to be spoken principally of Judah, when they fell into their iniquity, and when they fell in their iniquity. (1.) When they fell into their iniquity they sought the Lord; but they did not seek him only, and therefore he was not found of them. When they worshipped strange gods, yet they kept up the show and shadow of the worship of the true God; they went as usual, at the solemn feasts, with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord; but their hearts were not upright with him, because they were not entire for him, and therefore he would not accept them; for then only shall we find him when we seek him with our whole heart, not divided between God and Baal, Eze 14:3. (2.) When they fell in their iniquity, or found themselves falling by it, they sought the Lord; but they did not seek him early, and therefore he will not be found of them. They shall see ruin coming upon them, and shall then, in their distress, flee to God, and think to make him their friend with burnt-offerings and sacrifices; but it will be too late then to turn away his wrath when the decree has gone forth. Even Josiah's reformation did not prevail to turn away the wrath of God, Kg2 23:25, Kg2 23:26. Those that go with their flocks and their herds only to seek the Lord, and not with their hearts and souls, cannot expect to find him, for his favour is not to be purchased with thousands of rams. Nor shall those speed who do not seek the Lord while he may be found, for there is a time when he will not be found. They shall not find him, for he has withdrawn himself; he will not be enquired of by them, but will turn a deaf ear to their sacrifices. See how much it is our concern to seek God early, now while the accepted time is, and the day of salvation.
3. They and their portions shall all be swallowed up. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, and have thought to strengthen themselves in it by their alliances with strange children; but now shall a month devour them with their portions, that is, their estates and inheritances, all those things which they have taken, and taken up with, as their portion; or by their portions is meant their idols, whom they chose for their portion instead of God. Note, Those that make an idol of the world, by taking it for their portion, will themselves perish with it. A month shall devour them, or eat them up - a certain time prefixed, and a short time. When God's judgments begin with them they shall soon make an end; one month will do their business. How much may a body be weakened by one month's sickness, or a kingdom wasted by one month's war! Three shepherds (says God) I cut off in one month, Zac 11:8. Note, The judgments of God sometimes make quick work with a sinful people. A month devours more, and more portions, than many years can repair.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Hear ye this, O priests,.... Though idolatrous ones, who…
Hear ye this, O priests,.... Though idolatrous ones, who called themselves priests, and were reckoned so by others, though not of the tribe of Levi, but such as Jeroboam had made priests, or were their successors; and there might be some of the family of Aaron and tribe of Levi, that might continue in the cities of Israel, and who gave in to the idolatrous worship of those times. Some render it "princes" (c) and the word signifies both:
and hearken, ye house of Israel; not the kingdom of Judah, as Kimchi, for this is manifestly distinguished from Israel in this chapter; nor the sanhedrim, to which sense Aben Ezra seems to incline; but the ten tribes, the whole kingdom of Israel, the common people in it:
Read full note →
and give ye ear, O house of the king; of the king of Israel, who, at this time, is thought to be Menahem; the royal family, the princes of the blood, and all that belonged to the king's court; all of every office, priestly or kingly, of every rank, high and low, are called upon to hearken to what is about to be said, both concerning their sin and punishment:
for judgment is toward you: either to know and do that which is just and right; it belonged to the priests to know and teeth divine judgment, to instruct the people in the knowledge of the judgments, statutes, and laws of God; and it belonged to, the king to execute human judgment, to do justice and judgment according to the laws of God, and of the realm; and it belonged to the people to attend to both: so the Targum,
"does it not "belong" to you to know judgments?''
or rather this is to be understood of punitive justice and judgment, of the sentence of condemnation, or denunciation of punishment for sin: the reasons of which follow,
because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor; these were two high mountains in the land of Israel; the former was near Hermon and Lebanon, and the same with Gilead, Jos 11:3; the latter was a mountain in Galilee, between Issachar and Zebulun, six miles from Nazareth: it was, according to Joseph ben Gorion (d) almost four miles high, had on the top of it a plain of almost three miles; the true Josephus (e) says is was three and a quarter miles; See Gill on Jer 46:18; the Jews (f) have a tradition, that Jeroboam set spies upon these mountains at the time of the solemn feasts, to watch who went to them out of Israel, and to inform against them; but these could not command all the roads leading to Jerusalem. It may be these mountains were much infested with hawkers and hunters, to which there may be an allusion; and the sense be, ye priests, people, and king, are like to those that set snares and nets on those hills, as they to ensnare and catch creatures, so ye to ensnare and draw men into idolatrous practices; or rather, since there is no note of comparison, the meaning is, that they set up altars, and offered sacrifices on these hills, and thereby ensnared not only those of their own tribes, but drew and enticed many of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to fall in with the same idolatrous practices.
(c) "significat sacerdotes et principes", vid. 2 Sam. viii. 18. "Sacerdotes ac domum regis", i.e. "regem cum principibus et aulicis", Liveleus. (d) Hist. Heb. l. 4. c. 25. p. 635. (e) De Bello Jud. l. 4. c. 1. sect. 9. (f) Jarchi ex Tanehuma, Abendana ex Midrash.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 The scope of this chapter likewise, is to discover…
The scope of this chapter likewise, is to discover the sins of Israel and Judah, and to denounce the judgments of God against them, ver. 1-15.
For judgment - God's controversy is with you all. A snare - You, O priests and princes, have ensnared the people by your examples. Mizpah - By idolatries acted at Mizpah, a part of Libanus. On Tabor - Here, as in Mizpah, idolatry catched men as birds are taken in a net.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–15 This chapter begins with threatening the Israelites for
CHAPTER V
This chapter begins with threatening the Israelites for
Read full note →
ensnaring the people to idolatry by their sacrifices and other
rites on Mizpah and Tabor, 1-5.
Their sacrifices, however costly, are declared to be
unacceptable, 6;
and their substance is devoted to the locust, 7.
Nor is judgment to stop here. The cities of Judah are called
upon, in a very animated manner, to prepare for the approach of
enemies. Benjamin is to be pursued; Ephraim is to be desolate;
and all this is intimated to Israel, that they may by
repentance avert the judgment, 8, 9.
The following verses contain farther denunciations, 10-13,
expressed in terms equally terrible and sublime, 14.
The Lord afflicts not willingly the children of men; he visits
them with temporal calamities that he may heal their spiritual
malady, 15.
NOTES ON CHAP. V
Verse 1. Hear ye this, O priests] A process is instituted against the priests, the Israelites, and the house of the king; and they are called on to appear and defend themselves. The accusation is, that they have ensnared the people, caused them to practise idolatry, both at Mizpah and Tabor. Mizpah was situated beyond Jordan; in the mountains of Gilead; see Jdg 11:29. And Tabor was a beautiful mountain in the tribe of Zebulun. Both these places are said to be eminent for hunting, &c., and hence the natural occurrence of the words snare and net, in speaking of them.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15 Hos 5:1. Hear this, O ye priests — Or…
Hos 5:1. Hear this, O ye priests — Or rather, princes, as Dr. Waterland renders כהנים, a reading which agrees better with the house of the king that follows, and the word admitting of both significations. For judgment is toward you — Or, denounced against you, as Archbishop Newcome renders it, a translation favoured by the LXX., προς υμας εστι το κριμα; by Houbigant, who reads, adest vobis judicium, judgment is at hand to you, or hangs over you. Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and upon Tabor — Mizpah (a name derived from צפה, to watch, namely, from an eminence) was a mountain, and probably a city too, of Gilead. Tabor was a beautiful and fruitful mountain in the tribe of Zebulun. These places being much frequented by hunters and fowlers, many snares and nets were laid in them to catch birds and beasts: and with an allusion to this the Israelites are here described as insnaring men on these places into idolatry, because many of the tribe of Judah had been seduced, or drawn into idolatry, by their bad example.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Hear ye this, O ye priests - God, with…
Hear ye this, O ye priests - God, with the solemn threefold summons, arraigns anew all classes in Israel before Him, not now to repentance but to judgment. Neither the religious privileges of the priests, nor the multitude of the people, nor the civil dignity of the king, should exempt any from God’s judgment. The priests are, probably, the true but corrupted priests of God, who had fallen away to the idolatries with which they were surrounded, and, by their apostasy, had strengthened them. The king, here first mentioned by Hosea, was probably the unhappy Zechariah, a weak, pliant, self-indulgent, drunken scoffer , who, after eleven years of anarchy, succeeded his father, only to be murdered.
For judgment is toward you - Literally, “the judgment.” The kings and the priests had hitherto been the judges; now they were summoned before Him, who is the Judge of judges, and the King of kings. To teach the law was part of the priest’s office; to enforce it, belonged to the king. The guilt of both was enhanced, in that they, being so entrusted with it, had corrupted it. They had the greatest sin, as being the seducers of the people, and therefore have the severest sentence. The prophet, dropping for the time the mention of the people, pronounces the judgment on the seducers.
Read full note →
Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah - Mizpah, the scene of the solemn covenant of Jacob with Laban, and of his signal protection by God, lay in the mountainous part of Gilead on the East of Jordan. Tabor was the well-known Mountain of the Transfiguration, which rises out of the midst of the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, one thousand feet high, in the form of a sugar-loaf. Of Mount Tabor it is related by Jerome, that birds were still snared upon it. But something more seems intended than the mere likeness of birds, taken in the snare of a fowler. This was to be seen everywhere; and so, had this been all, there hath no ground to mention these two historical spots. The prophets has selected places on both sides of Jordan, which were probably centers of corruption, or special scenes of wickedness. Mizpah, being a sacred place in the history of the patriarch Jacob Gen. 31:23-49, was probably, like Gilgal and other sacred places, desecrated by idolatry. Tabor was the scene of God’s deliverance of Israel by Barak Judg. 4. There, by encouraging idolatries, they became hunters, not pastors, of souls Eze 13:18, Eze 13:20. There is an old Jewish tradition , that lyers-in-wait were set in these two places, to intercept and murder those Israelites, who would go up to worship at Jerusalem. And this tradition gains countenance from the mention of slaughter in the next verse.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 Depth, or pits of fire, where victims were sometimes…
Depth, or pits of fire, where victims were sometimes thrown. (Iphigen.) (Grotius) --- By substituting th for t, we might read, "they have dug pits to take them," chap. ix. 9., and Josue xxiii 13. (Calmet) --- Idolatry leads to the abyss. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 B. An Accusation especially against the Priests and the…
B. An Accusation especially against the Priests and the Royal House. The untheocratic Policy of the Kingdom of Israel in seeking for Help to Assyria and Egypt is denounced
Hosea 5-7
Read full note →
I. Mainly against the Priests
Hos_5:1-15
1 Hear this ye Priests,
And give ear, thou House of Israel,
And listen, thou House of the King,
Because the judgment is for you,
And you have been a snare for Mizpah,
And a net spread upon Tabor,
2 And the apostates make slaughter1 deep [are deeply sunk in slaughter],
And I am a chastening for them all.
3 I know Ephraim,
And Israel is not hidden from me;
For even now hast thou committed whoredom, Ephraim,
Israel is defiled.
4 Their deeds will not suffer2 (them)
To return to their God.
Because the spirit of whoredom is in their inward parts [their inmost heart]
And they do not know Jehovah.
5 And the pride of Israel testifies to its face,
And Israel and Ephraim will totter, through their guilt,
And Judah will totter with them.
6 With their sheep and cattle
They will go to seek Jehovah,
But will not find Him;
He hath withdrawn Himself from them.
7 They have been faithless to Jehovah,
For they begot strange children;
Now the new moon will consume them
Together with their portions.
8 Blow the horn in Gibeah,
The trumpet in Ramah!
Cry out in Beth-Aven3
“Behind thee, O Benjamin!”
9 Ephraim will become a waste
In the day of chastisement,
Among the tribes of Israel
Have I made known what is sure.
10 The princes of Judah have become
Like the removers of land-marks:
I will pour out upon them
My wrath like water.
11 Ephraim is oppressed,
Shattered by judgment,4
For it thought good
To follow idol-images.4
12 And I (am) like the moth to ephrann.
And like rottenness to the house of Judah.
13 And Ephraim saw its disease,
And Judah its wound,
And Ephraim went to Assyria,
And sent to the warlike monarch;
But he will not be able to heal for you,
And will not remove your wound.
14 For I am like the lion to Ephraim,
And like the young lion to the house of Judah,
I, I will rend and go on (rending)
Will carry away and there will be no deliverer.
15 I will go again to my place,
Until they make expiation (by suffering),
And seek my face;
In their distress they will seek me.
Hos_6:1-2
1 “Come let us return5 to Jehovah!
For He hath torn, and will heal us,
He hath smitten and will bind us up.
2 He will revive us after two days,
On the third day He will raise us up,
That we may live before Him.
3 Let us know, follow on to know, Jehovah:
Like the dawn his coming is sure,
And He shall come like the rain for us,
Like the latter rain (which) waters the earth.”
4 What shall I do to thee, Ephraim?
What shall I do to thee, Judah?
For your love is like the morning cloud,
And like the dew, vanishing soon away.
5 Therefore I have smitten6 (them) through the Prophets,
And slain them with the words of my mouth,
And my judgment goes forth like light.6
6 For I delight in love and not sacrifice,
And in the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
7 Yet they, like Adam, have broken the covenant,
They were faithless to me then.
8 Gilead is (like) a city of evil-doers,
Besmeared with blood.
9 And as the robber lurks,7
So (does) a band of priests.
Upon the highway they murder (those going) to Schechem,
Yea they commit wickedness.
10 In the house of Israel
I beheld an abomination, a horror:
Ephraim committed whoredom,
Israel (is) defiled.
11 For thee, also, Judah, a harvest is prepared,8
When I turn the captivity of my people.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The beginning in Hos_5:1 (corresponding to the opening of chap. 4.) shows that the discourse here commences anew. Though connected with chap. 4, this chapter contains an accusation and threatening more definitely directed against the priests along with the king and his counsellors and princes, yet without being confined to this, for the discourse again becomes general, applying to the whole people. Along with idolatry which here again becomes prominent as the sin of Israel (especially in chap. 5) and gross sins among the people (deceit, robbery, murder, chap. 6), the conduct of the court is afterwards specially reproved, but particularly the false policy of seeking help in Assyria and Egypt (which itself presupposes the beginning of the kingdom’s decay). Chap. 6 is inseparably connected with chap. 5. But chap. 7 is also related to both of them, for a new section begins only with chap. 7. (See Introduction.) A single central and controlling idea, however, can hardly be indicated in these two chapters, or in the second part of the book generally. The discourse is too excited, moving suddenly from one thought to another, especially from accusation to threatening, and vice versa.
Hos_5:1. Hear this, ye priests. It is doubtful whether זֹאת refers to the foregoing, but it is not improbable that it does. The solemn discourse just ended would now be applied to the hearts of those specially addressed here, and the continuation of the discourse would then be attached to it. House of the king = the royal family, or possibly those who surrounded him ordinarily. The king referred to cannot be with certainty determined. Keil conjectures Zachariah or Menahem, or both. According to 2Ki_15:19 f. the resort to Assyria would suit Menahem better than Zachariah. For the judgment is for you. This refers specially, according to the sequel, to the Priests and the Court. [“The judgment” is that announced in the preceding chapter; the special application is made here.—M.] The rulers of the people are compared to a snare and net. The birds whom they have taken or allured to destruction, are the people. Mizpah cannot be the Mizpah strictly so called in the tribe of Benjamin, but must be= מִצְפֶּה and that= מִצְפֵּה גִלְעַד an elevated place in Gilead, perhaps identical with רָמַת מִצְפֶּה in the tribe of Dan. Tabor, on this side the Jordan, would correspond to the elevated point on the other side. These two places are probably selected as prominent points to represent the whole country; for it is not known that they were places of sacrifice. Keil conjectures that they are chosen in this image because they were places suitable for bird-catching.
Hos_5:2. הֶעְֶמִ ק, to make deep. Literally: they have made slaughter deep=they have sunk deep in it. Slaughter might of itself be understood as murder, but the thought is carried further. שָׁחַט is usually employed of the slaughter of beasts for sacrifice, and thus is most suitable here according to the foregoing, where the evil influence of the rulers upon the nation is spoken of, and this consisted in the idolatry which they saw them practice. But this sacrificing is intentionally called only slaying, and suggested by it. שֵׁטִים a ἁπλεγ is uncertain. The most probable explanation makes it= סֵטִים, apostates. This is then the subject of the sentence, which would be rendered: the apostates are deeply sunk in murder. Keil, with others, takes it quite differently: transgressions, more literally: deviations. He explains שַׁחְַטָה after שָׁחוּט, 1Ki_10:16 f.: to stretch, stretch along; therefore: deviations; they have made deep to stretch out=they have carried their transgressions very far. But what a tortuous mode of expression: to stretch out deviations! [The Anglo-American Commentators generally adopt the former view, rendering: revolvers, or: apostates.—M.]
Hos_5:3. The second half of this verse tells what God discerns in Ephraim and Israel. עַתָּה: now, at this very moment, pointing out, as an actual fact, that which at present lies open to the eye of God. [Henderson: “To express an assertion more strongly, the Hebrews put it first in the form of an affirmative, and afterwards in the form of a negative.”—M.]
Hos_5:4. Their deeds will not allow, etc. Their works stand in the way of their returning to God; for they are not isolated things, but are the expression of their inner nature, and that is held securely by the spirit of whoredom (Hos_4:12), as by a demoniacal power which has stifled the knowledge of God. They are therefore not free—not lords over themselves, but slaves. [The rendering adopted here is that given in the margin of the English Bible, and approved by the majority of the Expositors of Continental Europe, ancient and modern, and by Horsley among the English ones. But there he stands alone, all other Anglo American translators adopting the rendering: they will not frame their doings to return to the Lord. They have been led to this view by the mistaken notion that the other translation involved a grammatical impossibility. See Gram. Note.—M.]
Hos_5:5. The pride of Israel according to some, denotes God, as One in whom Israel might have pride. The sense would then be that God, by his judgments testifies in the very face of Israel. But such an explanation is forced. The natural impression, on reading the words, is rather that Israel and its conduct is spoken of Therefore the words are to be taken as they stand; the pride of Israel testifies to its face, namely, when the punishment of such pride is being suffered. It will be then felt what it is to reject Jehovah in presumptuous self-reliance (Wünsche). Judah also totters with them. In Hos_4:15 Judah is warned not to be partaker in Israel’s guilt; but this must have been done because such participation was already begun, or foreseen as about to be assumed. On the other hand in Hos_1:7 Judah’s destiny is distinguished definitely from that of Israel. [Henderson and others account for this seeming discrepancy by assuming that this chapter was written at a period considerably subsequent to that of the utterance of the last. But the evidence of the connection between them is too strong to admit of this supposition. The solution given above is therefore probably the correct one.—M.]
Hos_5:6. They shall go with their flocks and with their herds. The fruitlessness of Israel’s sacrifices without a mind answering to the offering, is here shown (comp. Hos_6:6; Isa_1:11 ff.; Jer_7:21 ff.; Psa_40:7; Psa_1:6 ff.).
Hos_5:7. בָּגַד, to act faithlessly, especially of the infidelity of a wife to her husband. The proof (כִּי) of such unfaithfulness of Israel to Jehovah, the Husband, is then given. Instead of bearing children to God in covenant with Him, they had rather, by their illicit intercourse with idols, begotten strange, illegitimate children, children not belonging to the household, i.e., children whom the Lord cannot acknowledge as his own. The punishment is then announced: The new moon will devour them. “The new moon is the festal season on which sacrifices were offered, and is here employed for the sacrifices themselves. The meaning is: your festal sacrifices are so far from bringing deliverance as rather to induce your ruin” (Keil). The sentence must, at the same time, be understood in a temporal sense=the time will soon come when they will perish, as also appears clearly from Hos_5:8. Their portions are their possessions, part of which they brought as offerings.
Hos_5:8. The judgment is seen in the Spirit as being already inflicted. The invasion of the enemy is to be announced by the horn and the trumpet. Gibeah and Ramah were most suitable for giving signals on account of their lofty situation. Both were on the northern boundary of Benjamin. Thus Judah is already menaced (see Hos_5:5), and Israel actually occupied. הֵרִיעַ, to raise a shout=to sound the alarm in danger. Beth-aven again=Bethel; בְּ is to be supplied. Behind thee, Benjamin. The danger which is signaled, the enemy, is coming. He is already close behind thee.
Hos_5:9. Israel shall assuredly be destroyed, and permanently also: נֶאְֶמָנָה=enduring, that is, lasting misfortune (comp. Deu_28:59). Others make it=true, what will surely he fulfilled. [The latter view is preferable, and is approved by most expositors.—M.]
Hos_5:10. Like the removers of landmarks. Is this to be taken literally ? It is certain that we are not to think of hostile seizures of the territory of Israel, but the tertium comp. is the curse which, according to Deu_27:17, is laid upon the removal of a neighbor’s landmark=they have done something worthy of cursing. The curse attending the removal of the landmarks must therefore regarded here as something well known. The question then arises: what is it that they have lone incurring a curse. ‘Keil and Hengstenberg think that a spiritual removal of boundaries is indicated, a subversion of the bounds of justice, lamely, by participating in the guilt of Ephraim which they did by breaking down the barriers between Jehovah and the idols. And it is true that the princes of Judah are to be regarded as in a special sense divided off as against Israel and its idolatry, by virtue of the true faith which still prevailed in Judah as contrasted with Israel. The sense would then be: The princes of Judah, by their favoring idolatry, by this transgressing of spiritual limits, have become like those who remove the land-marks of fields, and thus become subject to the curse. God’s anger will seize upon them like a full stream of water. Comp. Psa_69:25; Psa_79:6; Jer_10:25.
Hos_5:11-15 declare that even Assyria cannot help, and that the vanity of all help outside of God, drives Israel to Him.
Hos_5:11. עָשׁוּק and רָצוּץ are “united also in Deu_28:33 to denote the complete subjugation of Israel under enemies in the event of apostasy from God” (Keil). צַו occurs only here and in Isa_28:10. In the latter case, at all events, it= מִצְוַה, command. So many here also: a human statute [“in contrast to the ordinances of God”] alluding to the worship of calves (Keil). [See Textual note.]
Hos_5:12. A moth and rottenness are symbols of destroying influences. The moth is alluded to in the same way in Isa_1:9; Isa_51:8; Psa_39:12; both united in Job_13:28. Such influences also destroy slowly but surely: Certa Dei judicia (Calvin).
Hos_5:13. חְָלִי and מָזוֹר, injury and wound, hardly denote religious and moral depravation (Keil); for it would scarcely have been said that Ephraim perceived this, but the judgment of God mentioned in Hos_5:12, which according to the image there employed is not one which brings sudden ruin, but a more secret corruption, of which, indeed, moral depravation forms a part, but only as a judgment of God. That a divine judgment is intended, is clear from what is said of the vanity of help that is sought, especially in the sequel, and from the ground assigned for its insufficiency in Hos_5:14. Assyria is here named for the first time. In the subsequent chapters the Prophet frequently recurs to the false policy of seeking help from Assyria. Only Ephraim is named because Israel is the main subject. Judah is referred to only incidentally. יָרֵב, a contender, an epithet devised by the Prophet to denote the Assyrian king.
Hos_5:14. They can as little defend themselves from God’s judgments as they can from the attack of lions. (Comp. Hos_13:7; Isa_5:29; Deu_32:39).
Hos_5:15. The figure of the lion is continued. As the lion, without fear of being attacked, withdraws into his lair, so the Lord withdraws into heaven; none can or dare call Him to account. Until they make expiation = suffer. The suffering shall drive them to God. שַׁחֵר=seek earnestly. Comp. Hos_2:9 and Deu_4:29-30, where comp. also the expression בִּצַר לִךָ.
Hos_6:1. Come let us return to Jehovah. The words are plainly connected with the last words of chap. 5. where a seeking of God on the part of the people is mentioned as the aim and consequence of the divine judgment. The opinion is, therefore, the most natural (so already the LXX) that they are just the expression of that seeking, that in them Israel announces its resolve, and immediately thereafter the hope of favor on the ground of the return. The view of Keil is less suitable, that we have here an exhortation addressed by the Prophet in the name of God to the people whom God has smitten. The words are only and naturally put in the mouths of those who, punished for their sins, would return to God. [The Anglo American Commentators, generally, adopt the view here advocated. Henderson gives the additional plea that the bearing of Hos_6:5 favors the hypothesis.—M.] For He hath torn, etc. (comp. Hos_5:14). Strong faith. The Lord who had spoken with such threatenings, and such implacable severity, would yet give salvation (and not Assyria, 6:13). This would also be true if the words וירפּאנו, ויחבשׁנו are taken as expressing a wish, which is readily suggested by a frequent usage of ו with the future: and may He heal us, etc. (so also in the following sentences).—כי. The resolve to return would then be strengthened by the calamity which God sends. If דיחבשׁנו be taken not as expressing a wish but simply a hope the determination to return would rather be strengthened by this hope, as the healing, etc., would be the fruit of the return. [On the grammatical and logical connection of the different clauses of the first three verses, see Gram. note.—M.] An allusion to Deu_32:39 can hardly be mistaken, especially if we look to Hos_6:2.
Hos_6:2. He will revive us again, etc. The definite limits: two days, and: on the third day, hold out the prospect of the speedy and sure revival of Israel. “Two and three days are very short periods of time; and the linking of two numbers following the one upon the other, expresses the certainty of what is to take place within the period named, just as in the so-called number-sayings in Amo_1:3; Job_5:19; Pro_6:16; Pro_30:15; Pro_30:18, in which the last and greatest number expresses the highest or utmost extent of the matter dealt with” (Keil). Both the Rabbinical interpretations of these numbers (e.g., that they relate to the three captivities, the Egyptian, the Babylonish, and the Roman) and the Christian, according to which Christ’s resurrection on the third day is indicated, are naturally inadmissible. The latter is excluded even by the words themselves. Israel is the subject of discourse: “it is torn, smitten, slain”; nothing is said of the exile itself, but in general there is set forth the termination of its existence as a people through the divine judgment (which to be sure was brought to pass by means of the exile). Israel expects, in the event of conversion, to be delivered from this situation and to be restored, and that speedily. It is naturally not the awakening of the physically dead that is announced; but it is a significant fact, that such an awakening is employed to illustrate the restoration of Israel, for it may lead us to infer that such a belief lay not far from the Prophet’s mind. Comp. for our verse, Isa_36:19 ff. (and for the whole section, Isa 6:16–21), and especially the well-known vision in Eze_37:1-14. (See further No. 4 in the Doctrinal section.) [Comp. the remarks of Delitzsch on Job_19:25 ff. in his Commentary on that book, which contain the true principle of interpretation in such cases, and substantially agree with the method approved by Schmoller here. Henderson and Cowles agree in excluding any but an historic allusion, while Horsley and Pusey maintain the allegorical interpretation, the former seeing a “no very obscure, though but an oblique, allusion to our Lord’s resurrection on the third day,” the latter repudiating any other application, and carrying out the analogy to the extreme possibilities of fanciful conjecture. The explanation of the two and three days given above is probably the true one. With it Newcome and Henderson agree. Cowles suggests an allusion to the duration of the pestilence in Israel after David’s census of the people, and thinks that besides there “may be a tacit allusion to the fact that three days is about the extent of human endurance under extreme privations and hardships.”—M.] That we may live before Him: “under his protecting shelter and favor, comp. Gen_17:18” (Keil).
Hos_6:3. Let us know, pursue the knowledge of Jehovah. Keil rightly makes the verse parallel with Hos_6:1, as a further appeal. The expression נִרְדְּפָה especially indicates an appeal, or, according to our view, a self-exhortation. The zeal and earnestness of the return is thus presented. “Know” must be taken in the sense of Hos_4:1; Hos_4:6. Jehovah had become an unknown, a strange God to the (idolatrous) people. Such knowledge has thus a practical aim, to acknowledge, to serve Him. The following words declare what is hoped for as the fruit of that knowledge: His coming forth is sure like the dawn, etc. Jehovah will appear bringing salvation. This is set forth under the figures of the daybreak and a fertilizing rain. The appearing of Jehovah is denoted as a rising by the image of the dawn (יַצַא, usually employed of the sun). The transition from night to day is set forth. Comp. Isa_58:8. And He will come as the rain for us, etc., i.e., reviving and refreshing. “In Deu_11:14 (comp. Deu_28:12 and Lev_26:4-5), the rain, or the early and latter rain, is mentioned among the blessings which the Lord will bestow upon his people if they shall serve Him with the whole heart. This promise the Lord will so fulfill in the case of his newly-revived people, that He himself will refresh them like a fertilizing rain” (Keil).
Hos_6:4. What shall I do to thee, Ephraim? It is common to break off the discourse here, wrongly, with Hos_6:3. It is supposed that there is here a first section containing a promise, to which the promise in chaps. 11. and 14. correspond, and that a new section begins in Hos_6:4 with a new objurgatory discourse (Keil). But, in the first place, Hos_6:1-3 do not really contain a promise of the Prophet, or of God through the Prophet, but only a hope of the people themselves. And, in the second place, Hos_6:4 is too closely connected with the preceding (not as a promise of God attached to the foregoing), according to Luther’s translation: how will I do thee good, etc. ? For עשׂה does not mean: to do good, and חַסְדְּכֶם is not=the mercy which I will show you, and, especially, the comparison of God’s favor to the morning cloud and the vanishing dew would be unsuitable. The words rather contain a bitter complaint of Israel’s inconstancy, and that suggested just by the preceding words. A good and joyful feeling was there expressed. If Israel only had now such a feeling as was expressed in the words which the Prophet puts in their mouth, all would be well! But Israel is as inconstant as God is constant. Its goodness is as the morning cloud and the swiftly vanishing dew. Both the dew and the morning cloud are figures of evanescence. The dew has an allusion to the rain, with which Jehovah is compared by way of contrast; and the morning cloud disappearing so soon, points back to the dawn which surely brings the day. חסד, love, is naturally, on account of God’s complaint against the inconstancy of the people, to be understood of love towards God. Yet it may also be taken generally, and made to include man’s love to his neighbor as well. What shall I do to thee?=how shall I further punish thee? Then follows what God would yet do.
Hos_6:5. Therefore—because the character of Israel was such as was described in Hos_6:4. The words of my mouth is parallel to the Prophets, because the latter proclaimed God’s purposes; and the חצב was performed by the prophets just so far as they uttered the words of God. הָצַב, to hew out or off. The figure is that of hard stone or wood to which, by hewing, the right shape is given, and obdurate Israel is conceived of as having been subjected to such treatment for its good through the objurgations of the prophets. Similarly Luther after Jerome: to plane off.—The expression of the second member is stronger still: I slew them. A slaying influence is ascribed to God’s word. He gives to the prophets to announce death and ruin. In the words that follow we are probably to change the reading, and translate=and my judgment (goes forth) as light. [See Textual note.—M.] The image may have been chosen with reference to Hos_6:4 : Since your love is like the morning cloud and the dew, vanishing quickly, when the sun rises, I will make such a sun rise as you do not wish. The judgment is here compared to a sunrise, which is elsewhere rather an image of a gracious visitation (comp. Hos_6:3), perhaps in the sense that judgment reveals sins, the works of darkness, in their true light (comp. Eph_5:13).
Hos_6:6 and the following ones confirm more definitely what is said in Hos_6:5. What God wishes is love and the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God (=piety here) goes back to the essential idea of חֶסֶד as embracing in its general sense, love to God and man, though the latter here preponderates. In this sense Jesus cites it in Mat_9:13; Mat_12:7. On the meaning, comp. No. 5 in the Doctrinal and Ethical section.
Hos_6:7. Yet the conduct of the people is just the opposite of what God desires. But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. The reference is to Ephraim and Judah, not to the priests. And, therefore, כְּאָדָם does not express a contrast to these=ordinary men. It would rather indicate a contrast to Ephraim and Judah as the people of God. But this thought is quite remote. Viewing the passage without prejudice, the usual explanation is seen to be the most natural: like Adam Allusion is thus made to Genesis 3. Adam’s sin was the violation of a covenant: for with the command laid upon Adam, God entered into a relation with him, which, in accordance with the analogies of later agreements made with mankind, might be called a covenant. Such covenant-breaking is a בגד, a breach of fidelity. Then they were unfaithful to Me, as it were, pointing with the finger to the well known places of idolatrous worship, e.g., Bethel. Israel’s position, therefore, is one of apostasy from God. Israel contradicts its destiny, which was, to be God’s people. In fact, the verse expresses the want of that one thing which God desires, the want of the “knowledge of God.” Being a condition of intimacy with God, it is lost in apostasy from Him. Therefore, also, there is no חֶסֶו Hos_6:8 ff. [Newcome, Pusey, and Cowles prefer the interpretation that understands Adam to be meant. Henderson rejects it, and prefers the rendering: they (are) like men (who) break a covenant. To this it might be objected, first, that this, which is in any case, a paraphrase, is not the natural translation of the words. If it were the author’s meaning, every reader, contemporary with him or otherwise, would have mistaken it, on the first view, at least. In the second place, such a periphrastic expression would be a very feeble, as well as unusual, way of conveying the notion that they had broken God’s covenant, in marked contrast to the directness of the charge in the second member of the verse. He objects to the other view that nowhere is there mention made of God’s entering into a covenant with Adam. But this objection is not valid if it appears that the transaction in which God and Adam were the parties was really of the nature of a covenant. And that term “is a concise and correct mode of asserting a plain Scriptural fact, namely, that God made to Adam a promise suspended upon a condition, and attached to disobedience a certain penalty. This is what in Scriptural language is meant by a covenant.” (Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2. p. 117.) His other objection is trivial, that with the exception of three doubtful passages, of which the present is one, Adam is not used in the Old Testament after the first chapter of Genesis (he probably meant the fifth) as a proper name, nor is any reference made to our first parents. The nearest parallel to our passage is Job_31:33 : if I have concealed my transgression like Adam; of the correctness of which rendering there can be no reasonable doubt. Comp. Delitzsch on that passage in his Commentary on Job.—M.].
Hos_6:8. Gilead might be taken here as the name of a city. But it never occurs as such, only as the name of a district on the east of the Jordan. It must therefore be assumed that the name of the district is applied here to the chief city, Mizpah. Or we might remain by the notion of the district, and the expression would then be a comparison=All Gilead is, as it were, a city of evil-doers, as full of them as a city is of men.—עָקֵב .עַקֻבָּה is a foot-mark, therefore: tracked with blood, full of bloody tracks. Here murderous actions are indicated without being definitely named.
Hos_6:9. But the most shameful transactions occur in the west of the Jordan. Even priests act like robbers. גְּדוּד is a predatory band, a band of freebooters or robbers, therefore אִישׁ גְּדוּדּים=a companion of such bands, a robber. Like the lurking of robbers = as robbers lurk, so lurk a company of priests, they murder on the way to Shechem. Travellers are surprised by them on the way to Shechem. Shechem was a City of Refuge. Perhaps those are meant who sought refuge there. The priests are by many thought to be residents of Shechem. But Shechem was a Levitical, not a sacerdotal, city. The expression would then refer not to those dwelling within the city, but to those without, who fall upon persons going to Shechem. Bethel was rather the seat of the priests. Keil therefore supposes: “The way to Shechem is mentioned as a place of murders and bloody deeds, because the road to Bethel, the principal seat of worship belonging to the ten tribes, from Samaria the capital, and in fact from the northern part of the kingdom generally, lay through this city. Pilgrims to the feasts for the most part took this road; and the priests, who were taken from the dregs of the people, appear to have lain in wait for them, to rob, or, in case of resistance, to murder.” More strictly speaking, it must have been done on the return from Bethel to Shechem. The allusion is evidently to a definite event unknown to us. The same remark applies to the following words. כִּי is climactic. זִמָּה=shame, perhaps, unchastity. [This word does not mean shame or dishonor. It is primarily a device or plan either evil or good (comp. Job_17:11), though usually the former. The next meaning is wickedness; then specially a crime resulting from unchastity. For the connection between the two meanings see Lev_18:11.—M.]
Hos_6:10. The consequences of the preceding. Probably both corporeal and spiritual whoredom are included.
Hos_6:11. A threatening is appended against Judah also. “Judah also” is guilty. The harvest is as elsewhere an image of judgment, a cutting down (comp. also Isa_28:24 ff.) When I shall turn the captivity of my people. This appears, on the contrary, to refer to a deliverance, and therefore to be a promise. But it must be remembered that the judgment has for its aim the deliverance of God’s people (עַמּי) as a whole. But such deliverance is effected only through the judgment that falls upon the several parts first upon Israel and then upon Judah. The meaning therefore is, when Israel, the Ten Tribes, shall have received its punishment and been restored, Judah also will be punished. [This paraphrase of the passage does not agree with historical fact, and must therefore be rejected. The true view seems to be that of Keil: “שׁוּב שְׁבוּת never means: to bring back the captives, but in every passage where it occurs simply: to turn the captivity and that in the figurative sense of restitutio in integrum. ‘My people,’ i.e., the people of Jehovah is not Israel of the Ten Tribes but the covenant nation as a whole. Consequently ‘the captivity of my people’ is the misery into which Israel (of the twelve tribes) had been brought through its apostasy from God, not the Assyrian or Babylonian Exile, but the misery brought about by the sins of the people. God could avert this only by judgments, through which the ungodly were destroyed and the penitent converted. Consequently the following is the thought which we obtain from the verse: When God shall come to punish that He may root out ungodliness, and restore his people to their true destiny, Judah will also be visited with the judgment.”—] The whole is, not to be regarded as a promise, or the harvest as a harvest of joy. Nor is it necessary to attract the second hemistich of Hos_6:11 to the first verse of chap. 7. (e.g., Meier).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Prophetic rebuke does not merely not spare rulers and kings: it is specially directed against them. This follows from the conviction of the high vocation the monarchy had to fulfill. It is the bearer of the magisterial office, and as such must administer and guard the divine law, and must therefore care both for the purity of God’s worship and the administration of justice. And if it neglects or directly violates its obligation, despises the divine law, and even introduces idolatry, perverts justice, exercises injustice or leaves it unpunished, it becomes recreant to God, from whom it receives its authority, and incurs his punishment. This, the Prophet, as God’s messenger, announces, and his voice is therefore at first a voice of warning in order to bring it back to the true path. But the Prophet arraigns not merely neglect or violation of the obligations entailed by the office a such, but also the personal conduct of the bearers of the office, with a due appreciation of the influence which they exercise by word and still more by deed, in virtue of their high position.
2. “In all inroads of sin and corruption we are to look not merely at the outward work, but at the power of darkness, the spirit, that lies behind as their most dexterous and astute controlling influence, which will maintain most craftily its right and cause; comp. Hos_6:4” (Rieger).
3. Rieger: “So long as man under divine chastisement, supposes that he can find help and mitigate his misfortunes by trust in the creatures, he wanders off as though in a trackless wilderness, from the living fountain, and might preclude himself from the most essential self-humbling, the knowledge of his guilt. But when God presses upon him with his hand and he has no deliverer then is quickened in his heart a little seed implanted there before by God’s good hand; and thus the love of God is like a man who has sown seed in his land; he goes away to his place, and depends on that which the seed will produce it time and after the rough winter.” Most beautiful is the believing assurance with which the Prophet makes the chastened express their hope of favor if they should return to God. (This same hope is expressed in Deu_32:29.) Thus restoration after past destruction is hoped for, and the blessedness of this restoration is further and happily described by comparing the returning favor of God to the rising dawn and the descending rain of harvest, as beneficent and refreshing as the one, as fertilizing and fraught with as rich blessings as the other, it spreads its influence. Such a visitation of mercy was most fully vouchsafed through the Messiah; He was the Day-star from on high; in Him came to us the Son of God in the flesh to diffuse upon us the Holy Spirit like fertilizing rain. He brings, therefore, the true healing for the bruised, the true binding up of the wounds for the smitten, the true reviving for the slain—all under the condition (presupposed by the Prophet) of a penitent returning to God. That the Prophet himself, in putting these words into the mouths of the penitent, thought of the Messiah, can not be maintained. We must apply here also canon laid down at chaps 1–2. that the fulfillment took place under the Messiah, but in another and higher sense than the Prophet fancied, that the words inspired by the Spirit of God had a further range than the Prophet knew. The “revival” and the “upraising” imply primarily a restoration of Israel, and we have in Eze_37:1-14 the completed picture of which our short sentence affords the outlines. But if the true restoration of God’s people has been and is now being accomplished only through Christ, we can go a step further, and show that the revival, proceeding from Him, which is essentially a partaking in a new spiritual life, finds its completion only in the awakening even from corporeal death to the enjoyment of eternal life, of those who have been spiritually quickened by Him. If we, therefore, from the stand-point of the New Testament, find in the words of our Prophet here an allusion to this, we are not really so far wrong as might seem. Nay, as the Prophet certainly speaks of a reviving in a spiritual sense, so he must take that image from an actual revival of the dead, as he took the preceding ones in Hos_6:1 from the binding and healing of a wound, and this idea cannot be so remote from his language, even if we can say no more (Isaiah in Isa_26:19 evidently goes further). As regards the specification of time: on the third day, which so naturally suggests Christ’s resurrection,—the coincidence is certainly not accidental so far as the resurrection on the third day is to be regarded as a rising in “a very brief space of time.” He was, indeed, to die, but not to remain in the state of the dead any longer than was necessary, so to speak, in order to make his death an indubitable fact; rather, as the “First Fruits,” He should be soonest brought out of death by the mighty working of the Father, and it would thus be shown how completely God’s wrath, borne by Him, was quenched, and God’s favor restored. On the third day the sun of mercy thus rose even here. And upon this revival of the Messiah on the third day, is conditioned the revival of sinners, proceeding from Him, in time and eternity. We must, therefore, regard this passage of prophecy as at least significant from a New Testament stand-point, nor do we err if we say, that there is here contained more than the Prophet could conceive; it is a divine word resembling a seed of corn which does not simply represent what it actually is (even the most precious stone does no more than this), but conceals in itself something else far higher, the germ which it enfolds.
4. Hos_6:5. There is expressed here a clear consciousness of the aim and lofty position of prophecy. It is above all not something inciDeutal, but is embraced organically in the divine economy. Its special mission is fulfilled when the people of God forget their calling, and disregarding the voice of their own conscience, no longer seize the true path, and, having already inwardly apostatized, attain only to weak resolves, which are never fulfilled (Hos_6:4). Then God appears before his people, and sends them the prophets, who are, so to speak, a conscience standing outside of them. Through them He speaks the “words of his mouth” and rebukes his people. He announces through them his judgment; their words of rebuke themselves are a punishment to the people, at all events, a punishment by words before the punishment by deeds is sent, but yet essentially identical with it, inasmuch as it was intended to produce deep sorrow, to touch the inner man, and to bring painfully to the consciousness criminal apostasy from God, and has thus the same aim as actual punishment has. Thus the sending of the prophets appears in one passage as a punishment; therefore also the expression which speaks of God’s hewing and slaying through them is employed, and there is conjoined with it in one line the “rising of judgment like the sun,” which may be understood of the efficiency of the prophets themselves. It is declared in such passages as Hos_12:11 that prophecy had in itself a more general significance, as it effected God’s revelation to the people, and brought Him into close relations with them, and was, in so far, an element of his dispensation of mercy. And, apart from this, as Hosea directly shows, it had not only a legal but also an evangelical aspect by its vocation as proclaiming God’s faithfulness, in virtue of which He had not rejected his people but had destined for them a great deliverance. Here, however, it is occupied with the race for which it was specially designed, and for them it preached punishment by holding up before them the law they had so contemptuously violated; it became a chastening rod through the Word, and it was to hold out to the people the prospect of the future salvation only through the medium of punishment, and must as its main duty “cut to pieces” and “slay.” The preaching of the New Covenant has, on the other hand, as its main duty, an evangelical mission, which must never be ignored. But still it cannot dispense with the preaching of the Law. It must, even there, recur to that as its next duty; for the Law is the true παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν.
The worthlessness of sacrifice as a mere opus operatum is most distinctly emphasized by prophecy in opposition to the false esteem in which it was held, which was a token of religious and moral ruin, going hand in hand with an empty service forms and outward works. Sacrifice, in general was, as it seems, regarded as a good because a religious work, even when it was not performed in the strict legal manner, but was associated with calf and idol-worship, and therefore with a transgression of the Law (as in our context it is not legal sacrifice that is spoken of the address being to the kingdom of the ten tribes). In this they wishes to honor Jehovah, or pretended to do so. Comp. Hos_6:6. In that passage the worthlessness of the outward sacrifice, which was only in form a seeking of Jehovah, and could not be a seeking from the heart (Hos 6:15), is strongly expressed. Comp. Mic_6:8; Isa_1:11-17; Psa_40:7; Psa_40:9; Ps. 1:8 ff.; Psa_51:18 ff.; 1Sa_15:22.
To infer, however, from this polemic of prophecy against the opus operatum of sacrifice (sacrifice to an idol is to the Prophet only slaughter), that it values sacrifice in itself but little, and stands as to the Law, etc., upon a freer stand-point, is assuredly wrong. If the prophets were the stern guardians of the Law, and especially of the worship of Jehovah, and directed their rebukes against every depreciation of the law and every apostasy from Johavath, and if they also placed the ceremonial clement in worship in contrast to the ethical and internal, they did so because the latter was absent, and because it alone gave to sacrifice its real worth. And in our passage it is not to be overlooked that Hosea turns first to the sacrifices of the ten tribes, to the places of unlawful sacrifice, and denounces them as worthless, not merely on account of the absence of the inner qualities, but because he saw the people engaged in a course of conduct illegal and therefore displeasing to God, rejects their sacrifices and therefore so much the more opposes to these the inner qualities, and amongst these, the knowledge of God, which would lead back to God and thereby also to the legal worship of Jehovah with its sacrifices. On the relation of the sacrificial service to the future time of salvation, see on chap. 14
5. Hos_6:7. “They have, like Adam, broken the covenant.” The passage is important as being the only, but a clear, reference to the Fall in the Old Testament. This is presented as a transgression of the Covenant, and God is therefore conceived of as standing to the first man in a covenantrelation. Adam’s sin appears, therefore, to the Prophet, not as something trifling, but as a great transgression, just as Paul speaks of it in the Epistle to the Romans, though there is nothing said of the consequences of this sin upon mankind. And while this transgression is thought of as a (the first) violation of the covenant, there is also ascribed to it a significance as influencing the destiny of the world.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Hos_6:1. Würt. Summ.: Preachers should rebuke the sins of rulers as well as those of subjects, so that they bear not the guilt of the souls that are lost, whose blood God will require at their hands.
Hos_6:2. Great zeal, even though it be in the cause of religion, is not the chief thing. It is of itself mere bigotry and has no merit, but is rather to be rejected if it is against the truth.
[Matthew Henry: Those that have apostatized from the truths of God are often the most subtle and barbarous persecutors of those that still adhere to them.—M.]
Hos_6:4. The longer thou continuest in sin the more difficult is the return. He who commits sin is the servant of sin. At first he will not return, at last he cannot. The heart is hardened. The spirit of whoredom: not single sins that are committed, but an evil spirit rising up and taking possession of the soul. The more men sin against God, the more they lose the knowledge of Him, and the more difficult it is for them to return; and so the chastisement of God must be more severe to bring them back to Him.
Hos_6:5. God spares not even his own, when they sin.
Starke: He who mingles with the ungodly will be punished with them.
[Pusey: In the presence of God there is needed no other witness against the sinner than his own conscience.—M.]
Hos_6:6. Starke: God will not be slighted with the outward appearance of godliness. In distress men should indeed seek God, though not in hypocrisy, but in sincerity. Our most acceptable sacrifice to God, is the surrender of ourselves, body and soul, to Him.
Hos_6:7. Würt. Summ.: Godless parents usually bring up godless children, whom God regards not as his, but as strange children, children of whoredom. They shall suffer a like punishment with their parents. But God will require their blood at the hands of their parents, from whom a heavy reckoning will be demanded. Therefore bring up your children in the chastening and admonition of the Lord, and they will not be strange children, but God’s, and heirs of eternal life.
Hos_6:9. Starke: In time of war men should not be troubled so much about the cruelty and tyranny of their enemies, as they should lament and bewail their sins.
Hos_6:10. Pfaff Bibelwerk: God has set firm bounds even to the great ones of this earth, and prescribed to them laws which they must observe. But when they remove these limits God pours out his wrath upon them like water.
Hengstenberg: If those are cursed who remove a neighbor’s landmarks, how much more they who remove those of God!
[Scott: When princes break down the fence of the divine law by their edicts, decisions, or examples, they open the flood-gates of God’s wrath: and when subjects willingly obey ungodly and persecuting statutes, they may expect to be given up to grievous exactions and oppressions; for God will disregard the interests, liberty, and security of those who disregard his honor and renounce his service.—M.]
Hosea 6:12. Luther: There is nothing more delicate than a moth. One can scarcely touch it without killing it, and yet it eats through cloth, and so destroys our clothing. And the wood-worm eats little by little through the hardest wood. So the wrath of God is despised by the ungodly, as though it were without power; yet whatever contends with it must come to destruction, and cannot be restored to its former condition by any might or influence. We are thus warned not to live on in such security, but to fear the Lord and walk in all his ways. All strength and force without this, will not defend us from his wrath.
[Pusey: So God visits the soul with different distresses, bodily or spiritual. He impairs, little by little, health of body or fineness of understanding; or He withdraws grace or spiritual strength, or allows lukewarmness or distaste for the things of God to creep over the soul. These are the gnawings of the moth, overlooked by the sinner, if he persevere in carelessness as to his conscience, yet bringing in the end entire decay of health, of understanding, of heart, of mind, unless God interfere by the mightier mercy of some heavy chastisement, to awaken him.—M.]
Hosea 6:13. Seek not thy consolation in the world, when the consequences of sin make themselves felt. It helps thee indeed, but only to drag thee completely into its power, and to certain ruin. If men would have the wounds of sin healed, they must hasten to the true Physician, and not to false ones, whose help is of no avail.
[Matthew Henry: Those who neglect God and seek to creatures for help shall certainly be disappointed; that depend upon them for support, will find them not foundations but broken reeds; that depend upon them for supply will find them not fountains but broken cisterns; that depend upon them for comfort and a cure will find them miserable comforters and physicians of no value.—M.]
Hosea 6:14. Starke: Those who have an angry God, concern themselves to no purpose about resisting their enemies or other misfortunes.
Hosea 6:15. [Matthew Henry: When men begin to complain more of their sins than of their afflictions, there begin to be some hopes of them. And this is that which God requires of us when we are under his correcting hand, that we own ourselves to be in fault, and to be justly corrected.—M.]
Chap. 6. Hos_6:1. The language of the repenting sinner. How often does it come so late as this! But O that it would always come! How much must intervene before it comes (much use of the Lord’s chastening rod)! but how great also is the gain! Alas that it is so hard for men to decide so! but what a blessed decision it is!—M.]
Hos_6:2. God revives us not only that we may live before Him, i.e., to his glory and service, but also live in the enjoyment of his presence and blessing.
Hos_6:3. Delay is more disastrous in nothing than in turning to God. [Pusey: We know in order to follow: we follow in order to know. Light prepares the way for love. Love opens the mind for new love. The gifts of God are interwoven. They multiply and reproduce each other, until we come to the perfect state of eternity.—M.]
Hos_6:4. Transient heats in religion do not accomplish the work which steadfastness must crown.
[Matthew Henry: God never destroys sinners till He sees there is no other way with them.—M.]
Hos_6:5. Cramer: The Law is the ministry which, through the letter, kills. He, therefore, who is not slain and does not die to sin, cannot be made alive through the voice of the Gospel.
[Pusey: God’s past loving kindness, his pains (so to speak), his solicitations, the drawings of his grace, the tender mercies of his austere chastisements, will, in the day of judgment, stand out as clear as the light, and leave the sinner confounded, without excuse. In this life also God’s judgments are as a light which goeth forth, enlightening not the sinner who perishes, but others, in the darkness of ignorance, on whom they burst with a sudden blaze of light.]
Hos_6:6. Würt. Summ.: The means by which we become partakers of the mercy of God, are not our works and desert, but the true knowledge of God and faith in Christ which works by love, in which God has more delight and satisfaction than in all outward works. And this is the sum of the whole Christian religion, that we believe in the name of the Son of God and have love toward one another.
Hos_6:7. Pfaff. Bibelwerk. Beware of transgressing, by presumptuous sin, the covenant which thou hast made with thy God. He is a great God and not a man, with whom thou hast entered into obligations.
[Pusey: There, He does not say, where. But Israel and every sinner in Israel know full well, where. God points out to the conscience of sinners the place and the time, the very spot, where they offended Him. …The sinner’s conscience and memory fills up the word there. It sees the whole landscape of its sins around.—M.]
Hos_6:10. Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Woe to the land, the city, or the church, where God sees nothing but abominations and sins!
Hos_6:11. Each one reaps what he has sown. If thou dost become partaker in other men’s sins, thou wilt meet with their punishment. If the captivity of God’s people is certain, so is also deliverance But, on the other hand also, the promise presupposes the threatening: no deliverance without judgment upon sin; salvation comes, but only after a long and dark night.
Footnotes:
[1]Hos_5:2.—שַׁהֲטָה is probably the Inf. Piel from שָׁחַט. [It is the inf. absol. with ה paragogic. The regular form would be שָׁחָטָה, but the Kamets-Hhatuph is changed to Patach. See Green, Gr., § 119, 3. Its construction with the finite verb follows a peculiar idiom, common in Hebrew. The literal translation is: they have made deep to slaughter. Comp. Isa_31:6. Ewald, comparing with Hos_9:9, holds that our word is a false reading for שׁחתה, but there is no reason why the Prophet should not have used both expressions.—M.]
[2][Hos_5:4.—E. V. and most Anglo-American expositors adopt another construction in the first hemistich, rendering: they will not frame their doings. Horsley, with the best Continental critics, prefers the rendering which is given in the margin of E. V. and adopted by Schmoller. Pusey is undecided, and indeed it is difficult to determine which is the true view; for no importance is to be attached to the objection of Henderson, that יִתְּנוּ would require an object expressed if the construction last referred to were the correct one.—M.]
[3]Hos_5:8.—Before בֵּית אָוֶן supply בְּ.
[4]Hos_5:11.—רְצוּץ is in the construct, state before מִשְׁפָט. It is not=broken, harassed in law, which is unsuitable here, but we have a genitivus efficient is, and משׁפט=judgment, as in Hos_5:1 : crushed by judgment. On the combination הוֹשִׁיל הָלַךְ, see Ewald, § 285, 6. The words are coördinate. [See Green, § 269. This construction is frequent in Hosea; comp. Hos_1:6; Hos_6:4—M.] Fürst takes צַו in our passage= צִוּוּן, a pillar, especially a fingerpost. He, however, has the conjecture that= צוֹא, צוֹאָה filth, dirt, and this= שִׁקּוּצִים, גִּלּוּלִים, idols, and would then take דואיל from יאל, to be foolish (of which the Niphal occurs)=he was foolish, and followed after filth (filthy idol-worship). A further conjecture is that it may be an Ephraimitish mode of writing שָׁו (Job_15:31) =nothing, vanity. LXX.: ὀπίσω τῶν ματαίων.
[5][Chap. 6 Hos_5:1-3.—The true construction of the various sentences in these verses is probably as follows: The first line of Hos_5:1 contains an exhortation, the remainder of that and the following verse consisting of arguments in support of it; and the first line of Hos_5:3 contains a parallel exhortation, followed in the remainder of the verse, by parallel arguments. A glance at the verses in their connection will show the appropriateness of this general view. That the opposite is true of the construction adopted in E. V. and by the English expositors generally, according to which the opening of Hos_5:3 is regarded as a continuation of the reasons for returning, is evident both from the unfitness of that line as an argument, and from the consideration that all the pleas adduced in all three verses are drawn from expectations of favor from God Himself. The form of the Heb. pret. (with ה paragogic) here employed, also confirms this view. But there is no need of holding, according to the view preferred by Schmoller, that any of the intermediate verbs introduce an exhortation. This both weakens the force of the array of pleas successively adduced and mars the regular and beautiful structure of the section. נָשׁוּבָה (Hos_5:1), נֵדְעָה and נִרְדְּפָה, (Hos_5:3), therefore, being paragogic futures (Green, §§ 97, 1, 264), are cohortatives, and the only cohortatives in the section.—M]
[6]Hos_5:5.—The object of חָצַבְתִּי is to be supplied by anticipation from הֲרַגִתִּים. Instead of אוֹר וּמִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ, the punctation and division of the words is probably to be changed according to the ancient versions, and וּמִשְׁפָּטִי כְאוֹר to be read. The Masoretic reading is encumbered with too many difficulties.
[7]Hos_5:9.—חַכֵּי is for חַכֵּה = דַכּוֹת [constr. inf. Piel, equivalent to a participial noun. It is an imitation of the Chaldee. Henderson conjectures that the form is for מְהַכּי, Piel. Part.—שֶׁכְמָה. The translation of E. V.: by consent, has arisen from the Targum rendering, כְּתַף הַד: one shoulder. This view is now almost altogether abandoned—M.]
[8]Hos_5:11.—שָׁת is used impersonally, being equivalent to a passive sense [one sets, prepares a harvest=a harvest is prepared.—M.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–15 profound--deeply rooted [CALVIN] and sunk to the lowest depths,…
revolters--apostates.
profound--deeply rooted [CALVIN] and sunk to the lowest depths, excessive in their idolatry (Hos 9:9; Isa 31:6) [HENDERSON]. From the antithesis (Hos 5:3), "not hid from me," I prefer explaining, profoundly cunning in their idolatry. Jeroboam thought it a profound piece of policy to set up golden calves to represent God in Dan and Beth-el, in order to prevent Israel's heart from turning again to David's line by going up to Jerusalem to worship. So Israel's subsequent idolatry was grounded by their leaders on various pleas of state expediency (compare Isa 29:15).
Read full note →
to . . . slaughter--He does not say "to sacrifice," for their so-called sacrifices were butcheries rather than sacrifices; there was nothing sacred about them, being to idols instead of to the holy God.
though--MAURER translates, "and (in spite of their hope of safety through their slaughter of victims to idols) I will be a chastisement to them all." English Version is good sense: They have deeply revolted, notwithstanding all my prophetical warnings.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 13 Rebuke of Israel’s apostasy, Hos_5:1-7.
Rebuke of Israel’s apostasy, Hos_5:1-7.
Hos_5:1 opens with a summons.
Read full note →
Priests — Already condemned in chapter 4.
House of Israel — The people.
House of the king — The king and his courtiers. Toward [“unto”] — Not all three classes, but only the leaders, as 1b indicates.
Judgment — Not judicial powers, but the sentence of judgment about to be uttered. So, margin, “against you is the judgment.”
Because — The reason for the judgment. They have caused the people to stumble. The latter are compared to unsuspecting birds, which fly to the places where they may expect to find shelter; instead they are cruelly trapped.
Mizpah — Probably Mizpah in Gilead (Jdg_10:17; Jdg_11:11), the same as Ramoth-gilead (Jos_20:8; 2Ki_9:1, etc.) now es-Salt.
Tabor — The well-known mountain of that name, east of Nazareth, in Galilee. Some have thought that these localities represent the territory east and west of the Jordan respectively, the combination of the two indicating that the wrongdoing of the leaders covered the whole land. It is more likely, however, that the two places are mentioned because there the immoral practices connected with the cult were most dangerously seductive.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–15 1. O priests] Hosea addresses the priests of the…
1. O priests] Hosea addresses the priests of the high places in N. Israel.
O house of the king] i.e. the king and his courtiers, whether of the royal family or not.
Read full note →
judgment is toward you] Rather, the judgment is for you.
a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor] Tabor is the well-known mountain of the name in Galilee (see Jdg_4:6), and may be taken as the representative of the region on the west of the Jordan (as Psa_89:12); Mizpah (a common name = place of watch) is most probably Mizpah in Gilead (Jdg_10:17; Jdg_11:11; Jdg_11:29), also called Ramoth-Gilead (Jos_20:8; Jos_21:36; 2Ki_9:1; 2Ki_9:4; 2Ki_9:14), and consecrated by Jacob (Gen_31:45-54). Probably these places (comp. next note) are mentioned because the idolatrous worship was most dangerously seductive there. The worshippers were like the deluded birds who sought shelter in the woods and ravines (comp. Gen_26:20; Psa_11:1).
1–7. A personal arraignment of the priesthood (accused less directly in chap. 4) and of the court, who, instead of warning the people, have led them into the snare of sin. So entangled are they in it that they cannot repent, and Judah too has fallen. They may seek to propitiate Jehovah by sacrifices, but in vain: the judgment is close at hand.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (1) House of the king refers to his following…
(1) House of the king refers to his following on both sides of the Jordan—Mizpah on the east side, in Gilead, and Tabor on the west. They are singled out as being military strongholds, where the princes of the royal house, with the apostate priests, exercised their deadly hold upon the people, waylaying them, as birds and beasts are snared in the mountains of prey. (Comp. Hos_6:8-9.)
Judgment is toward you.—More accurately, is meant for you.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house…
Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king. The persons here addressed comprise all the estates of the realm priests, people, and princes. The house of Israel is the northern kingdom; and the house of the king is the members of the king"s family, of his court and of his government. Thus the rulers and the ruled, the spiritual teachers and the taught, are comprehended in this address. Neither priestly office, nor popular power, nor princely dignity was to be exempted. But, though all are summoned to give audience, the heads of the people, the men of light and leading, are first arraigned. For judgment is toward you, as the clause is correctly rendered; not, "it devolves on you to maintain judgment," as some understand it. It had, indeed, been the province of the priest to teach, and of the king to execute the judgments of God in Israel; but now they are themselves the subjects of judgment. Judgment was now to begin at the house of the king and of the priest; God was about to execute judgment upon them the judgment from that judgment-seat where justice never miscarries, and where no mistake is ever made. The cause of this is assigned. Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor. Instead of being safeguards of the people, they had been a snare to them; instead of being true leaders, as God had intended them, they had misled them; instead of contributing to their security, they had seduced them to sin and so helped to prepare them for destruction; they had been a snare to entrap and a net to entangle. East as well as west of the Jordan their evil influence had wrought ruin. Mizpah, now es-Salt , was on the east of the river among the hills of Gilead, where Jacob and Laban entered into covenant; Tabor, like a solitary cone or sugar-loaf, rises up from the plain of Jezreel, or Esdraelon, on the west of the river. On the wooded slopes of Tabor and the beacon-hill of Mizpah game, no doubt, abounded and found covert, and hence the origin of the figure here used; but they had probably become scenes of idolatry or wickedness.
Vers. 1-5. God here arraigns the sins of princes, priests, and people.
Read full note →
Their degeneracy had been very great and their sins very grievous. Though there is no formal catalogue given of those sins, yet they are incidentally exhibited in the reproofs and rebukes which follow.
I ALL CLASSES ARE ADDRESSED BY THE DIVINE WORD. It is directed to the high and to the low alike; to the rich and to the poor; it speaks to every grade in society and every rank in life; there is none so high as to be above its teaching, and none so lowly as to be beneath its notice. To sovereigns as to the meanest subjects of their realm; to magistrates and men in authority, as well as to those under their jurisdiction, the warnings and admonitions of Scripture reach. To all, of every class and condition, of every caste and clime, the Divine Word is offered as a light to their test and a lamp to their path.
II ALL CLASSES ARE AMENABLE TO THE DIVINE JUDGMENTS. The judgments of God are denounced against all workers of iniquity from the poorest and meanest of the people to the priests who should be their instructors and examples, and to the princes and principal men, who should not only rule and guide, but protect and preserve them to the utmost of their power. And yet there is a distinction; for those who, through their exalted position or extensive influence, seduce others to sin, expose themselves to sorer condemnation. But, while those who entrap others into sin are doubly guilty, the persons entrapped are not on that account guiltless. Subjects sometimes suffer through the mistakes of their sovereigns; but when subjects and sovereigns are both involved in guilt, they must expect to have their respective share in punishment. When God has a controversy with a people, and his judgments are approaching, it is a time for serious consideration and solemn reflection. Hence we have a triple call to attention in this first verse: "Hear ye this, hearken ye, give ye ear." It was an earnest time and an emphatic call; for God "will at last force audience and attention from the most stubborn.
III ALL CLASSES HAD PERVERTED THE WAY. The revolters seem to have belonged to all ranks and to have comprehended all classes. If the "slaughter" which they made refers to the slaying of sacrifices, it is spoken of with contempt, because those sacrifices, whether from defects in their own nature, or imperfection in the manner in which they were offered, or the wrongness of the motive with which they were presented, were unacceptable to God. Accordingly he speaks of them disparagingly; for though the prophet spake of sacrifices, he no doubt called sacrificing in contempt killing; as though we should call the temple the shambles, and the killing of victims slaughtering." If, on the other hand, the slaughter referred to be understood literally of actual murder, the criminality is still greater, and they bear the brand of red-handed assassins. In either case, the idiom employed is a very energetic mode of expression "The slaughter they have made deep," or, "they have gone deep in slaughtering," conveys the idea of the great length to which they had gone, either in sacrifices to idols and contrary to legal appointment, or in murderously shedding blood, or even in the more modified sense of causing destruction. They had gone to an extreme in the direction indicated, whichever sense is assigned to slaughtering. It is not so much that they hid their doings deep, as that they went deeply into their works, or sunk deeply in their sin. Further, the aggravation of their sin consisted in its being without excuse. They could not plead ignorance, for they had had line upon line, and precept upon precept. They could not say that they had been left to themselves without let or hindrance, for had they not enjoyed the instructions and admonitions of those prophets of God whose sphere of labor lay in the northern kingdom? Warnings they had had from Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, and others; corrections moderate in measure and salutary in design they had, no doubt, been favored with. Yet all had been to no purpose; they sunk deeper and deeper in the slough of sin, so that their sin had become exceeding sinful.
IV ALL DISGUISES OF SINNERS ARE TRANSPARENT TO THE EYE OF OMNISCIENCE. Many are the pretences men make to cover their sins, and artful the pretexts by which they seek to hide them. But however men may strive to conceal their sins from their fellow-men, however they may gloss them over so as to deceive their own souls, and however they may cloak them, as though it were possible to cheat the Almighty; yet all such artifices, by which they try to deceive their neighbors, or blind themselves, or even escape the eye of Omniscience, will prove miserable evasions, leaving them at last even the inmost thoughts and intents of their hearts open and naked before the eyes of him with whom they have to do. "The Lord seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." The sin of Ephraim, the premier tribe of Israel, was known to God, and he pronounced it whoredom, spiritual whoredom, that is, idolatry. The effect of that sin, which, originating with Ephraim, infected all the other tribes of Israel, was not hid, and could not be hid, from the omniscient One, and he denounced it as defilement pollution loathsome as sinful. Many a specious excuse had been offered, we cannot doubt, for the worship of the calves. Did it not originate with Jeroboam, that patriot king who came to the rescue of the people, and delivered them from unjust and grinding taxation? Was not Jerusalem too far distant from the center of the country to be the gathering-place of the tribes? Was not Bethel a consecrated place a holy spot from that early time when Jacob had his wondrous vision of the ladder connecting earth with heaven? Was not Dan conveniently situated for the northern and remoter tribes? These, and such arguments as these, might serve to palliate the will-worship of Ephraim and the idolatry of Israel. But no; the eye of God saw through it all; for now, whatever excuse might be alleged; now, whatever plausibilities might be employed; now, whatever veil might be thrown over their procedure; it stood out in its true colors, and in the sight of Heaven, idolatry, defilement sin in inception and sin in execution, sin in act and sin in effect. Thus Omniscience is proof against all the plausible pretexts with which men surround their sins by way of excuse, apology, or palliation.
V SINS, LIKE SORROWS, LOVE A TRAIN. How often one sin leads to another, and that, again, to many more! Sins not infrequently are linked together. Israel by this time was bound by the chain of their own sins; and the links of that chain were many. Beginning our enumeration with idolatry, we find in its wake impenitence, ignorance, insolence, and iniquity in general.
1. It is bad enough when men fall into sin, but worse when they persist in it; nor is there any real repentance unless there are fruits meet for repentance. But when men will not have recourse to any of those outward means that might tend toward repentance, the obduracy of their heart is extreme and their condition desperate. Thus was it with Israel when they would not" frame their doings to turn unto their God.
2. The alternative rendering of these words shows us the slavery of sin. Never was there a more cruel bondage than that of iniquity. "Their doings will not suffer them to turn;" they have put the yoke on their neck, and having worn it long they are loath to part with it; and if they would they could not. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." So in Peter we read of persons having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin.
3. When men continue long in a course of sin, hardening themselves against remonstrance and reproof, and holding out against all inducements and invitations to repent, God may, and sometimes does, give them up to judicial blindness of one kind or other. An evil spirit of idolatry or impunity, or both, had taken possession of the people"s heart at this period. "A strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are in peace;" so the infatuation of a particular course of sin, like a Satanic spirit and with Satanic power, completely overmastered and dominated them.
4. Profession without practice is both hypocritical and vain. The Israelites at this time had a profession of religion, for God is called "their God," which could only be by their profession, or owing to the original covenant engagement, the conditions of which they had fallen away from, or by reason of his long-suffering mercy waiting for their return. It is, rather, the first of these that justified the use of the possessive in this case. And that being so, they claimed to possess knowledge of God; but "as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind," or, as the margin has it, "to a mind void of judgment." Continuance in sin proves men"s ignorance of the true character of God, of the beauty of holiness, of the hatefulness of sin, and of the dreadful consequences of backsliding. The custom of sinning deprives men of whatever knowledge of such things they had or seemed to have, so that "he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
5. This ignorance was evidence of their ingratitude. "The prophet," says Calvin, "extenuates not the sin of the people, but, on the contrary, amplifies their ingratitude, because they had forgotten their God who had so indulgently treated them. As they had been redeemed by God"s hand, as the teaching of the Law had continued among them, as they had been preserved to that day through God"s constant kindness, it was truly an evidence of monstrous ignorance that they could in an instant adopt ungodly forms of worship, and embrace those corruptions which they knew were condemned in the Law.
VI PROOFS AND CAUSES OF ISRAEL"S PRIDE. Ephraim"s pride and envy of Judah produced the disruption and perpetuated it. Two privileges of the birthright forfeited by Jacob"s firstborn had been shared by these tribes. Joseph got the double portion in connection with Ephraim and Manasseh; and Judah gained the pre-eminence. Though Judah was superior both numerically and by largeness of territory in the land of promise, Ephraim enjoyed countervailing advantages. All along from the blessing of Jacob Ephraim was inspired with the hope of great things for himself and tribe. The Ephraimites had the choicest of the land, and a central position contributing to their influence over the other tribes. Joshua, the chosen chief who had led the people into the land of promise and settled them in it, sprang from Ephraim; Samuel, the last of the judges, was a native of Mount Ephraim; for three centuries and a hair" the national sanctuary remained at Shiloh, within the confines of the tribe of Ephraim; the men of that tribe had highly distinguished themselves in the war with Midian, securing the fords of Jordan and beheading the two Midianite princes, Oreb and Zeeb, who had escaped at the head of fifteen thousand men. Igor were they slow to assert their claims; such was their pride, that they could not brook a subordinate position, but insisted on pre-eminence. Their self-assertion and even unreasonable petulance were severely chastised by Jephthah. For a time the superiority inclined or actually belonged to Ephraim; but the preponderance given to Judah by the elevation of David, and Solomon his son, completely turned the scale. Moreover, the transference to Jerusalem, both of the seat of ecclesiastical authority from Shiloh and of the civil capital from Shechem, deeply wounded the pride of Ephraim, and greatly increased the rivalry with Judah. To the slight thus put upon Ephraim there is a distinct reference in several verses of the seventy-eighth psalm; thus, "God was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel: so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men;" and again, He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved." For seven years they held out against David; they were the strength of the Absalomic rebellion; they abetted the usurpation of Jeroboam, and accepted the idolatrous worship which, for political purposes, he commended to them; and all from their pride and overweening estimate of themselves, and envy towards their brethren of Judah.
VII THE HUMILIATION OF PRIDE, OR ITS TESTIMONY.
1. This overbearing spirit of Israel as a nation, and of Ephraim its kingly tribe, was sorely crushed, and the pride of both sadly humbled, when, as had been foretold, they first went into captivity.
2. The other rendering of testify is well explained by the following observations of Pusey: "They could not give up this sin of Jeroboam without endangering their separate existence as Israel, and owning the superiority of Judah. From this complete self-surrender to God their pride shrank and held them back. The pride which Israel thus showed in refusing to turn to God, and in preferring their sin to their God, itself, he says, witnessed against them, and condemned them.
3. It must have been an addition to Israel"s calamity that they had been a snare to Judah, and helped to drag them down into the same slough of sin, and eventually into the same catastrophe with themselves.
4. But how are we to account for the seeming contradiction between the safety previously promised Judah and the calamity now denounced? Calvin"s reply to a similar inquiry is pertinent and plain. "The prophet," he says, "speaks here not of those Jews who continued in true and pure religion, but of those who had with the Israelites alienated themselves from the only true God and joined in their superstitions. He thus refers here to the degenerate, and not to the faithful Jews; for to all who worshipped God aright salvation had been already promised.
HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN Vers. 1-10. National sin and punishment.
The general strain of this chapter is similar to that of the preceding. "The judgment" (ver. 1) which has already been pronounced there is still continued. In Ho 4, however, Judah was addressed as occupying a different position, morally and religiously, from Israel; whereas here the southern kingdom is represented as sharing in Israel"s guilt and condemnation. It would appear, therefore, that when the warning of Hos_4:15 was uttered, Judah"s defection was already beginning.
I THE NATURE OF SIN. It is a "dealing treacherously against Jehovah" (ver. 7), the rightful Spouse of the soul, who expects from his people that faithfulness which a wife owes to her husband. It is also "whoredom" (ver. 3); for infidelity to the marriage covenant leads to the cherishing of many objects of sinful desire. It is also "pride" (ver. 5) that deeply rooted self-will which is the secret spring of idolatry. Sin in all these forms dishonors God and grossly defiles the soul.
II THE ROOT OF SIN. Sin is not merely an outward work. It is not confined to acts of the will. The root of it is "the spirit of whoredoms" (ver. 4). This spirit has its seat at the very center of man"s being. The Apostle Paul calls it "the law of sin". (Rom_7:23, Rom_7:25) It is the controlling principle of the unregenerate life, and it often leads the believer captive even in spite of his renewed nature. "The spirit of whoredoms" dominates the soul like a demon, and the sinner serves it as its slave. Satan lays hold upon this spirit as his helper in his constant assaults upon the minds of men. And only the Holy Spirit can impart adequate strength to prevail against it.
III THE CONTAGIOUSNESS OF SIN. The condition of Israel at the time to which the prophet here refers graphically illustrates this. Hosea saw that the national life was leavened with iniquity. The pyramid of the commonwealth, from apex to base, was honeycombed with idolatry and impurity. The national sin was shared by:
1. The priests. Instead of being the spiritual guardians of the people, they were as snares and nets to entrap them. Ministers of religion become such:
(1) By neglecting teaching, as the priests of the ten tribes had done. (Hos_4:1)
(2) By preaching unsound doctrine. So, in "The Pilgrim"s Progress," the Flatterer, "a black man clothed in white," led Christian and Hopeful into his net.
(3) By living inconsistent lives. So the wickedness of Eli"s sons made many unbelievers.
1. The courts. The princes, too, were men-trappers rather than watchmen" (Jerome). Jeroboam L had been such. He "drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin". (2Ki_17:21) Ahab had been such, in introducing the worship of Baal and Asbtaroth. (1Ki_16:30-33) Menahem was such, for his reign was steeped in cruelty, and he laid his help upon King Pul of Assyria rather than upon the God of Israel. (2Ki_15:19) Even the princes of Judah were becoming such; they were removing the landmarks between the worship of Jehovah and idolatry (ver. 10). Our rulers in like manner entrap the British nation into sin, when they promote immoral legislation upon pleas of expediency or state policy (e.g. the attempted state regulation of vice in the army, and the patronage of the opium trade between India and China).
2. The entire Hebrew nation. The people of both kingdoms foolishly fell into the snares and nets which were spread for them. They were full of "pride" (ver. 5) and vain confidence. They despised prophetic instruction, and became contumacious and refractory in their sin.
IV THE HEREDITY OF SIN. Had Israel continued faithful to the national covenant with Jehovah, he would have begotten children to God, instead of "strange children" (ver. 7), who did not belong to the home, and did not spring from the marriage union. But a godless nation is composed of godless parents, who bring up godless children. Infants who have done no evil yet inherit evil, and may bring with them into life terrific predispositions towards it. The iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children. It is comforting, however, to remember that good traits descend by inheritance as well as bad ones. God"s way of regenerating the world is to maintain his Church in it, and to cultivate thereby the heredity of holiness. There is a sense in which grace does run in the blood. (Psa_112:2 2Ti_1:5) The children of Christian parents are not "children of wrath". (1Co_7:14 Act_16:31)
V THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN. Ephraim"s "whoredom" was detected (ver. 3). It lay exposed every moment to the eye of God. He penetrated all the fair excuses which the people made to themselves for it. "The pride of Israel doth testify to his face" (ver. 5), i.e. he shall be openly convicted of it, and condemned for it. The punishment is to be:
1. Immediate. (Ver. 7) "A month shall devour them." Destruction shall overtake them as swiftly, so to speak, as the moon shall wane. Already the sword of vengeance is hanging over their beads by a single hair.
2. Sudden. (Ver. 8) The invasion of the Assyrian power as the rod of the Divine anger is announced with an injunction to sound horn and trumpet. For the prophet already sees the drawn sword of Jehovah in the conqueror"s hand.
3. Certain. (Ver. 9) The punishment "shall surely be." God is as true to his threatenings as to his promises.
4. Terrible. "Israel and Ephraim shall fall (ver. 5). "A month shall devour them" (ver. 7). "Ephraim shall fall (ver. 5). "A month shall devour them" (ver. 7). "Ephraim shall be desolate " (ver. 9). "I will pour out my wrath upon them like water" (ver. 10). The whole nation became wasted with misery and was plunged headlong into destruction. The story of the decline and fall of the Hebrew monarchies illustrates very vividly the doom of sin.
VI HOW THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN MAY BE AVERTED. Even this dark passage is not altogether without some hopeful suggestion.
1. A false expedient. (Ver. 6) The festivals and worship of the Mosaic Law were still observed at the idol-shrines of Bethel and Dan. So Ephraim, when his doom began to overtake him, endeavored to pacify the Divine anger by bringing costly sacrifices of Socks and herds. But, although the people sought the Lord thus, they did "not find him;" for they came in a spirit of slavish fear, and did not bring the sacrifice of a contrite heart and an obedient will.
2. The eight way. (Ver. 4) God is waiting to be gracious; but he requires of sinners a willingness to "frame their doings to turn unto their God." We must gladly allow the Holy Spirit to regenerate and purify our souls. The only use of the external sacrifices of the Law was to typify the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Sacrifice for sin; and to symbolize the "living sacrifices" which men offer to God when they yield themselves wholly to his service. C.J.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Vers. 1-3. National depravity.
"Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor. And the revolters are profound to make slaughter, though I have been a rebuker of them all. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled." "With the words, "Hear ye this," the reproof of the sins of Israel makes a new start, and is specially addressed to the priests and the king"s house, i.e. the king and his court, to announce to the leaders of the nation the punishment that will follow their apostasy from God and their idolatry, by which they have plunged the people and kingdom headlong into destruction" (Keil and Delitzsch). These words lead us to consider the depravity of a nation.
I PRIESTS AND PEOPLE ARE INVOLVED IN IT. "Hear ye this." All orders and degrees of men are here cited to appear before the Almighty on account of the sin of the country. Both priests and rulers, clergy and kings, ought, not only to be unimplicated in the moral corruption of a country, but to be evermore the most zealous and efficient agents in purifying the spirit and elevating the moral character of a nation. In their elevated positions they should not allow a breath of general depravity to touch them, but pour down evermore upon all grades of people sentiments and influences that shall purify and bless. Alas! it has been otherwise; both have, for ages, proved the greatest contaminators and curses of their race. Priests have oftentimes been fiends in sacerdotal robes, and kings beastly voluptuaries in royal garb and stately gait. No man is a real priest of God, and no man a true king, who is not the most distinguished exemplar and promoter of those heavenly virtues which alone can confer peace, stability, and honor upon a country.
II UNFAITHFULNESS TO GOD IS A PROOF OF IT. "For judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor." "As hunters spread their net and snares upon the hills Mizpah and Tabor, so ye have snared the people into idolatry, and made them your prey by injustice." As Mizpah and Tabor mean a "watch-tower" and a "lofty place," a fit scene for hunters; playing on the words, the prophet implies, "In the lofty place in which I have set you, whereas ye ought to hare been the watchers of the people, guarding them from evil, ye have been as hunters entrapping them into it." The meaning is "These kings and priests use their elevated positions in turning men away from the true God." "And the revolters are profound to make slaughter, though I have been a rebuker of them all." "Revolters" means apostates, and these apostates were "profound," deeply rooted, sunk into the lowest depths of idolatry. "To make slaughter." Their offerings were not sacrifices, they were mere slaughters, butcheries; there was nothing sacred about them. Here, then, is a proof of the general depravity of a nation. A nation that is unfaithful to its true God is a tree rotten in its roots, a river poisoned in its spring. Philosophically there can be no morality where there is no fidelity to him whose existence is the foundation and whose will is the rule of all virtue.
III THE JUDGE OF THE WOULD IS COGNIZANT OF IT. "I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me." No covering can conceal it, no argument will disprove it. It lays bare to the eye of Omniscience. "I know Ephraim." Though they were ignorant of him, he knew them and read them through and through. Nations often cover over their depravity By the promotion of benevolent institutions by encouraging the ordinances of public worship, and by a public profession of religion. But there is an eye that penetrates through the thick covering he sees the devil in the angel; "He searcheth the heart, and trieth the reins of the children of men.
CONCLUSION. Suppose not that national depravity is something distinct from the depravity of the individual. It is but the aggregation of individual depravities. Nor suppose that, because priests and kings may be the mightiest agents in promoting national immorality and irreligion, each individual in the nation is less accountable for his sins on that account. No priest or king can compel us to sin. Sin is an act of freedom, and for it each man is held responsible to the Most High. Daniel Webster was once asked, "What is the most important thought you ever entertained?" He replied, after a moment"s reflection, "The most important thought I ever had was my individual responsibility to God. D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-7. God and man.
All classes are addressed by the prophet priests, king, nobles, the whole house of Israel. The prophecy makes an advance. In the previous chapter judgment is threatened; in this it is announced as imminent. Judah also is menaced with punishment (vers. 5, 10, 12).
I GOD WILL ENSNARE THE ENSNARERS. (Ver. 1) The dignitaries-priests, kings, and nobles had led the people astray. They had put stumbling-blocks in their way. They had become a snare to them. Mizpah and Tabor may be referred to as conspicuous centers of wickedness. The figure is taken from the ensnaring of birds. We may ensnare:
1. Through evil example. The example of a court, of the aristocracy, of ministers of religion, of the wealthy, has a powerful influence on the tone of morals and religion. If evil, it gives an immense impetus to corruption. The multitudes think nothing wrong which they see in their betters (cf. Massillon"s sermon on "Des Exemples des Grands").
2. Through traps set for virtue. The idolatrous festivals patronized by the great were direct temptations put in the way of the people. What shall we say of the countenance given by many in high positions in our own land to the turf, to demoralizing sports, to gambling institutions, to Sunday festivals, etc.? The toleration and licensing of vice by public authorities is the spreading of a "snare." Every effort should rather be made to remove stumbling-blocks from the midst of a community.
3. By direct solicitation to evil The vicious take a wicked delight in seducing others. They gloat in seeing the innocent brought down to their own level. They are active and unremitting in compassing men"s destruction. They cannot bear that any should remain to be a rebuke to them. Hence the ensnaring influence of evil companionships. God, however, declares that the ensnarers in Israel shall not escape his judgment. "Judgment is toward you." He will dig a pit for those who are digging pits for their fellows. He will take them in their own net, and destroy them suddenly. (Psa_7:11-16 Psa_9:15, Psa_9:16)
II GOD IS MORE PROFOUND THAN THE PLOTTERS. (Vers. 2, 3) The revolters in Israel were "profound to make slaughter." They laid their plots deep. They concocted conspiracies (Hos_7:3-7) and planned deeds of blood. (Hos_6:8, Hos_6:9) They thought that no one knew of their doings. But God was more profound than they were. "I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me." They would find him "a rebuker" of them all. All their sins were "naked and open" to him their plottings, their "whoredom," and everything else.
1. The wicked pride themselves on their deep cunning. They imagine that their deeds are wrapped in impenetrable darkness. They are strong in a fancied security. They think no one can find them out.
2. They forget about God. All the while God is watching their doings; he is privy to their most secret counsels; he knows how to counterwork and defeat their plots; he will at last "bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil". (Ecc_12:14)
III GOD IS NOT REGARDLESS OF THOSE WHO REFUSE TO KNOW HIM. (Vers. 4, 5)
1. The sinner puts God out of his thoughts. Israel had turned its back on Jehovah. It would not know him. "They will not frame their doings," etc. The cause of this was the evil heart of unbelief in the people, leading them to depart from the living God. "The spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them." The alternative rendering of the clause first suggests that, once the sinner has embarked on evil courses, he finds it difficult again to leave them: "Their doings will not suffer them to turn unto their God." The "spirit of whoredoms" binds the transgressor in love to ways that are not, right. These fix themselves as habits, customs. The latent sense of wrongdoing in the mind will not allow of further debate with conscience. The sinner, in this condition, is apt to think that, because he has succeeded in forgetting God, God has forgotten him as well.
2. God, however, is not forgetful of the sinner. With the latter it may be out of sight, out of mind; " but there is neither" out of sight" nor "out of mind" with God. The "pride of Israel" here (ver. 5) and in Hos_7:10 is best interpreted after the analogy of the similar expression, "excellency pride of Jacob," in Amo_8:7 of God himself, Israel"s glory. Israel had forgotten God, but God remembered Israel, and testified against it "to its face." He testified now
(1) by reproofs; and would testify afterwards
(2) by judgments. "Therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity." What applied to Israel applied also to Judah also shall fall with them;" and applies to every sinner. God testifies to the sinner of his sins, of his ingratitude, of his folly, and of his certain punishment. This, through conscience, in the Word, by the Spirit, by the reproofs of his servants.
IV GOD CAN WITHDRAW HIMSELF WHEN MEN SEEK. (Vers. 6, 7)
1. The time would come when, convinced of its folly, Israel would begin to seek eagerly after God. "They shall go with their flocks and with their herds," etc.
2. But it would then be too late. "He hath withdrawn himself from them." The reason why God would thus withdraw himself would be that there was no sincerity in their approach. They would come with flocks and herds, but not with the essential sacrifice the contrite spirit. The character of Israel was not such as held out any hope of genuine repentance. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord," etc. (ver. 7). The right time to seek the Lord is while he "waits to be gracious." After that it is too late. (Pro_1:24)
3. They would be cut off in a short time, and in the very midst of their sacrifices. A month shall devour them with their portions". J.O. (cf. Zec_11:8)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15 Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house…
Hos_5:1
Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you.
Read full note →
God in ways of judgment
Here is a summons to all sorts of judgment. Three classes are named, priests, people, house of the king. All sorts are cited to judgment, for corruption was gone over all.
1. When God comes in ways of judgment, He expects we should seriously incline our minds to what He is doing. We should not only hear, but hearken, and give ear. We are bound to hearken and to give ear to Gods commanding word; but if we refuse it, He will have us to hear and give ear to His threatening word; and if that be refused, He will force us to hear and give ear to His condemning word.
2. Generality in sins is no means to escape Gods judgments. With men one and all is a word of security. Men think, I do but as others do, and I shall escape as well as they. With men this is somewhat, with God it is nothing; though all sorts offend, yet there is never a whir the more security thereby unto any.
3. The priests have usually been the causes of all the wickedness in, and judgments on, a nation.
4. The people will usually go the way the king and priests go. But they are not to be excused on this ground.
5. Kings and princes must have sin charged upon them, and be made to know that they are under the threats of God, as well as others. The charge is not on evil counsellors, but on the house of the king itself. Evil princes may be as great a cause why there are evil counsellors, as evil counsellors why there are evil princes. Evil counsellors usually see what the design of a prince is, and what is suitable to his disposition, and they cherish that with their wicked counsels.
6. Though kings are to be reproved for sin, some due respect ought to be shown to them.
7. When God pleads against us, let us not disregard. If we do so when He begins to plead His cause with us, if we neglect it because judgment is not upon us, it will proceed to a sentence. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.
Nets to catch souls
How cunningly have men laid such nets! They say it is but yielding a little to a thing enjoined by authority; besides, it is really unimportant, and is countenanced by the example of many learned and godly men; yea, and why should you hinder yourself of the good you may do? It is after all a mere matter of circumstance connected with decency and order, and consistent with much devotion, and by yielding as far as we can, we may gain papists; none but a company of simple people oppose these ancient customs, which can plead the precedent of the fathers of the Church, yea, of many martyrs who have shed their blood. Thus many souls have been caught, as a bird in a snare, with these lines and twigs thus cunningly twisted together; and so caught that they could not tell how to get out, but being once involved in the meshes were ensnared more and more: as a bird once caught in the net, by its very flutterings is the more entangled; so men, when they yielded a little, could not tell where to stop, but at last have gone so far, and been so completely ensnared as to be wholly unable to extricate them selves, but by their very efforts have become more deeply involved. And the truth is, at length even their consciences have ceased to disquiet them: as a bird, that is perhaps at first alarmed when the net is but stirred, after a while loses its fear. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Mizpah and Tabor
Mizpah, the scene of the solemn covenant of Jacob with Laban, and of his signal protection by God, lay in the mountainous part of Gilead on the east of Jordan. Tabor was the well known (traditional) mountain of the Transfiguration, which rises out of the midst of the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, about a thousand feet high, and in the form of a sugar loaf. Of Mount Tabor it is related by St. Jerome that birds were still snared upon it. But something more seems intended than the mere likeness of birds taken in the snare of the fowler. This was to be seen everywhere. The prophet has selected places on both sides of Jordan, which were probably centres of corruption, or special scenes of wickedness. Mizpah, being a sacred place in the history of the patriarch Jacob, was probably, like Gilgal, and other sacred places, desecrated by idolatry. Tabor was the scene of Gods deliverance by Barak. There, by encouraging idolatries, they became hunters, not pastors, of souls. There is an old Jewish tradition that liers in wait were set in these two places to intercept and murder those Israelites who persisted in going up to worship at Jerusalem. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Gods judicial process and sentence
The plain meaning is, that as fowlers and hunters lay snares and nets for birds and beasts on the mountains of Israel; so their priests and rulers, by their erroneous doctrine, fraudulent counsels, subtle edicts, and profane example, and countenancing of sin, deceived the people, and ensnared them to follow idolatry. Doctrine--
1. There is no rank, but they will be found to have guiltiness to lay to heart, in a time when God pleads a controversy with a land.
2. As the Word of God doth reach and oblige all ranks of persons, be in what eminency they will; and as the Lords faithful servants must preach against the sins of all, without respect of person; so the general overspreading of sin is no way to escape judgments, but rather to hasten them.
3. When God is coming against a people in judgment, it concerns them to be very serious in considering what He saith from His Word; and He will at last force audience and attention from the most stubborn.
4. The Lords contending with His people by His Word is not an ordinary challenge, as of one displeased only, but the judicial procedure and sentence of the Supreme Judge.
5. God may testify much of His anger against a people, in the teachers and rulers He gives them, as being fit means to ripen them for judgment.
6. Subtle snares and insinuations are more dangerous for drawing men wrong than open violences.
7. It is a great sin in men when they prove a snare to others, or by their insinuations, example, or policy, draw them to sin against God. (George Hutcheson.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 15 The line followed in this paragraph is almost parallel…
2. PRIESTS AND PRINCES FAIL
Hos_5:1-14
Read full note →
The line followed in this paragraph is almost parallel to that of chapter 4, running out to a prospect of invasion. But the charge is directed solely against the chiefs of the people, and the strictures of Hos_7:7 ff. upon the political folly of the rulers are anticipated.
"Hear this, O Priests, and hearken, House of Israel, and House of the King, give ear. For on you is the sentence!" You who have hitherto been the judges, this time shall be judged.
"A snare have ye become at Mizpeh, and a net spread out upon Tabor, and a pit have they made deep upon Shittim; but I shall be the scourge of them all. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me-for now hast thou played the harlot, Ephraim, Israel is defiled." The worship on the high places, whether nominally of Jehovah or not, was sheer service of Baalim. It was in the interest both of the priesthood and of the rulers to multiply these sanctuaries, but they were only traps for the people. "Their deeds will not let them return to their God; for a harlot spirit is in their midst, and Jehovah," for all their oaths by Him, "they have not known. But the pride of Israel shall testify to his face; and Israel and Ephraim shall stumble by their guilt-stumble also shall Judah with them." By Israels pride many understand God. But the term is used too opprobriously by Amos to allow us to agree to this. The phrase must mean that Israels arrogance, or her proud prosperity, by the wounds which it feels in this time of national decay, shall itself testify against the people-a profound ethical symptom to which we shall return when treating of Repentance. Yet the verse may be rendered in harmony with the context: "the pride of Israel shall be humbled to his face. With their sheep and their cattle they go about to seek Jehovah, and shall not find" Him"; He hath drawn off from them. They have been unfaithful to Jehovah, for they have begotten strange children." A generation has grown up who are not His. "Now may a month devour them with their portions!" Any month may bring the swift invader. Hark! the alarum of war! How it reaches to the back of the land!
"Blow the trumpet in Gibeah the clarion in Ramah
Raise the slogan, Beth-Aven: After thee Benjamin!"
"Ephraim shall become desolation in the day of rebuke! Among the tribes of Israel I have made known what is certain!"
At this point (Hos_5:10) the discourse swerves from the religious to the political leaders of Israel; but as the princes were included with the priests in the exordium (Hos_5:1), we can hardly count this a new oracle.
"The princes of Judah are like landmark-re-movers"-commonest cheats in Israel-"upon them will I pour out My wrath like water. Ephraim is oppressed, crushed is his right, for he willfully went after vanity. And I am as the moth to Ephraim, and as rottenness to the house of Judah." Both kingdoms have begun to fall to pieces, for by this time Uzziah of Judah also is dead, and the weak politicians are in charge whom Isaiah satirized. "And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sore; and Ephraim went to Asshur and sent to King Jareb-King Combative, King Pick-Quarrel," a nickname for the Assyrian monarch. The verse probably refers to the tribute which Mena-hem sent to Assyria in 738. If so, then Israel has drifted full five years into her "thick night." "But he cannot heal you, nor dry up your sore. For I, Myself, am like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, I rend and go My way; I carry off and there is none to deliver." It is the same truth which Isaiah expressed with even greater grimness. God Himself is His peoples sore; and not all their statecraft nor alliances may heal what He inflicts. Priests and Princes, then, have alike failed. A greater failure is to follow.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 5, 8, 12, 13 Hos_5:1. Hear] A fresh beginning of reproof, connected with…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hos_5:1. Hear] A fresh beginning of reproof, connected with chapter 4, addressed to the priests, the royal family, and the whole kingdom. Judg.] Lit. the judgment announced in preceding chapter. You] Priests and court. Snare] A net laid to entice the people, like birds in a trap. Miz. and Tab.] Noted places, and peculiarly adapted for bird-catching.
Read full note →
Hos_5:2. Profound] Lit. they have made slaughter deep, i.e. they have sunk deeply into it. Their sacrifices were slaughter, butcheri’s, and not offerings to God (cf. Isa_31:6). Some, that the allusion is to deep pits covered over for beasts to fall in. Others give the sense of stretching out (Psa_101:3). They have deepened to stretch out excesses, i.e. they have gone to great lengths, are deeply sunken in excesses. The ringleaders laid deep designs to ensnare in idolatry, Rebuker] Lit. a rebuke or correction. God’s attributes and conduct had taken the form of rebuke only towards them.
Hos_5:3. Know] their plans, deceit, and profound cunning (Rev_2:29). All things are naked and opened to God. Now] Even at the present time, when they forget me. Their wickedness is done in public and is undeniable.
HOMILETICS
NATIONAL SINS AND DIVINE DETECTION.—Hos_5:1-3
In this chapter God proceeds in the same method and carries on the same controversy as before. The kingdoms are first cited and then accused. All ranks are guilty of idolatry and pollutions, of obstinacy and impenitency in guilt. It is not an ordinary challenge, as of one displeased only, but the judicial procedure and sentence of the Supreme Judge. “Hear ye this.” The words set forth national sins, the Divine detection, and open rebuke of them.
I. The national sins. All ranks are accused: the priests, the rulers, and the people. Though some were enticed by others, that does not render them without excuse. The prophet rebukes all, without respect of persons, and shows how justly God was angry with their sins.
1. The priests were guilty. They used their sacred office and their high position to ensnare the people.
(1.) They corrupted the law of God. They were the depositaries of this sacred trust; were appointed to expound and keep unsullied the truth of God. They had to teach the statutes which the Lord had spoken unto them by Moses (Lev_10:11). The people inquired from them, and they gave judgment (Deu_17:9; Deu_17:11). They were the messengers of the Lord of hosts, and should have preserved knowledge (Mal_2:7). But instead of feeding the people they starved them, lead them into error and sin. There was neither freshness nor power in their ministry. The science of salvation, the word and the work of God, were not the study of their life. When ministers study and prepare to consume it upon pride and self-confidence; when they seek to please the fancy rather than gain the souls of men; when they grow cold and careless of their own, then they get dull and pitiless concerning the souls of others. Unto them are committed the oracles of God. These oracles they must consult and declare to the people. Their word and doctrine, their life and example, like the breastplate of Aaron, must be a bright reflection of them. The truth of God must not be mixed with human tradition, nor displaced by commandments of men. To teach the law to others and profane it ourselves is mockery.
“I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause.”
(2.) They corrupted the worship of God. The spirituality of God is a practical truth demanding corresponding spirituality in worship. God has absolute and sole right to prescribe how he will be worshipped. But the history of mankind abundantly proves a disposition in human beings to devise and act for themselves in this respect. In the patriarchal and prophetic periods the worship of God was mixed with idolatry. Heroes and beasts have been deified. The heavens and the earth, the ocean and the air, have been peopled with gods. Even now men are dissatisfied with the simplicity and forgetful of the authority of Divine institutes. Worship is thought to consist in words, forms, and gestures. The body assumes the posture and the lips utter the language of devotion, but often there is neither prayer nor praise. It is sad when the priests of God are guilty of innovation, and teach that “fear towards him was taught by the precepts of men” (Isa_29:13). The apostles were exceedingly jealous of any defect, redundancy, or admixture in the worship of God. But Jewish priests debased the institutions and corrupted the law of God. They had embraced and strengthened the idolatry by which they were surrounded, and by apostasy had seduced the people. Their teaching was a snare and their lives a curse.
(3.) They despised the reproof of God. “Though I have been a rebuker of them all.” God by his prophet and by his providence had sought to correct them in vain. Rebuke after rebuke had been given, forbidding idolatry and urging amendment, but Israel was immersed in sin; kings and priests revolted more and more. God warns his Church and his servants, and gives smaller corrections to reclaim them; but if these are despised, the sin becomes more aggravated and the punishment more severe. Apostates and revolters are often given up to gross superstitions, cruel rites, and deeper courses. They may have ability to adorn and defend their crafty designs, but they will be caught by their own deceits. The rebuke of the formalist is solemn; but to immoral teachers, who make grace a cover for sin, and soundness of creed for rottenness of life, God speaks in thunder. Scribes and Pharisees were openly reproved for rejecting the law and misleading the people. “Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.”
2. The rulers were guilty. “Give ye ear, O house of the king.” The priest had to teach and the king enforce the law; but king and priest were alike guilty for corrupting it. Both had been crafty and cruel in carrying out their designs, by patronizing idolatry and leading the nation from Jehovah. Monarchs fulfil a high vocation as representatives of God and his law. They should care for the purity of religion and the administration of justice. If they neglect and violate the law, pervert justice, and encourage vice, they are recreant to God, from whom they receive authority and to whom they are responsible. They are not to assume undue authority, but to establish and preserve good and just laws; to govern in wisdom, equity, and love; to punish evil-doers and encourage them that do well. Asa removed wickedness from the throne, and Amaziah punished it with death. Nehemiah was a great reformer, and Alfred the Great a witness for truth in an age of darkness. But the court of Israel was as corrupt as the priesthood. Instead of being benefactors, they were contaminators to their race. Priests in their saintly robes and kings in their royal garbs have oft been foes in human forms; solemn warnings to the ungodly and profane. They are the greatest sinners, in seducing others, and must suffer the severest punishment.
(1.) They enticed to idolatry;
(2.) They enticed to destruction. “Judgment is toward you.”
3. The People were guilty. Though ensnared by their teachers and princes, they were to blame and had no excuse for their sin. We are to think and act for ourselves. Neither the enticement of the priest nor the terror of the king can force us to do wrong; neither the laws nor the lives of superiors can make us bow down to sin. Like the three Hebrew youths, we should not regard the fashions of the court nor the dictum of the priest. We must not partake of other men’s sins lest we share other men’s sufferings. Ephraim was duped willingly and therefore inexcusably. “He willingly walked after the commandment” and was “oppressed and broken in judgment” (Hos_5:11).
(1.) The people followed bad examples;
(2.) Voluntarily corrupted themselves by idolatry. National sins are the sum of individual contributions. God here arraigns and condemns all classes in the threefold summons. The privileges of the priest, the dignity of the prince, and the number of the people, cannot excuse and do not exempt them from Divine judgments. “Daniel Webster,” says Dr Thomas, “was once asked, ‘What is the most important thought you ever entertained?’ He replied after a moment’s reflection, ‘The most important thought I ever had was my individual responsibility to God.’ ” “Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.”
II. The Divine detection. “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me.” God intimately knows and observes the conduct of men. His knowledge is without defect and his judgment without error. Nothing can be hid or concealed from him. Men may deceive themselves, think God does not notice them, and vail their ways from others, but the omniscient eye of God penetrates the covering and brings all things to light. By his word and providence he discovers sin, puts it before us in true colours, and warns us to flee from it. All excuses and plausible pretexts are torn away, and the sinner is exposed in nakedness and danger. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”
1. Sin is detected notwithstanding human ingenuity to cover it. Men excuse and plead infirmity and mistake.
(1.) Sin is often covered by ignorance. Ignorance itself is a sin when it can be removed. Ignorance in daily calling is “not bliss,” for lessened power involves lessened earnings and fewer comforts and conveniences of life. Men always pay for ignorance. They cannot justify themselves when they sin against light and truth. Ministers will not be able to plead at last, “We knew it not.” They should watch for souls as those that must give account.
(2.) Sin is often covered by cunning craft. Jewish leaders were crafty in their designs and deep in their schemes. They pretended friendship and goodwill, but they were snares and nets to the people (Ecc_7:26). Their rulers with great subtlety laid hold of Israel’s love for idols and reverence for their ancestors, and sought to replace the presence of God by the symbols of nature. Around the worship of Baal were gathered the rites of Moses. The services were decked out and adorned with feasts and fasts, instrumental music and songs; upheld by tithes, by civil authority, by prophet, priest, and king. Leaders sought to please that they might ruin; to flatter that they might devour; but “God taketh the wise in their own craftiness.”
2. Sin is detected notwithstanding State policy to uphold it. In Israel selfish interests were put before eternal; policy before principle; and the welfare of the State must be upheld though the people be ruined. In these modern days expediency is often put before morality, State revenues before virtue, and immorality sanctioned by legislators and teachers. We shall do well to heed what a writer says concerning England. “We may succeed for a time by fraud, by surprise, by violence, but we can succeed permanently only by means directly opposite. It is not alone the courage, the intelligence, the activity of the merchant and manufacturer which maintain the superiority of their productions and the character of their country; it is far more their wisdom, their economy, and above all their probity. If ever in the British Islands the useful citizen should lose these virtues, we may be sure that, for England, as for every other country, the vessels of a degenerate commerce, repulsed from every shore, would speedily disappear from those seas whose surface they now cover with the treasures of the universe, bartered for the treasures of the industry of the three kingdoms.” Religion raises, strengthens, and dignifies a nation. Its industry and civilization depend upon true character and not false policy. Even in war Napoleon said the moral was ten to one to the physical. State policy is often State folly and God-dishonouring policy. “It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness, for the throne is established by righteousness.”
III. The solemn call. “Hear ye this.”
1. A universal call. A call to all classes in Israel to hear and consider their ways.
2. An urgent call. “For judgment is toward you.” The judges are summoned before the Judge of judges and the King of kings. This is a matter that must be attended to. All ranks are guilty when God has a controversy with a nation.
3. A present call. Hear and repent now; delays are dangerous. “Now is the accepted time.” Indifference, moral insensibility, are seen on every hand. Ignorance, carelessness, and opposition to the gospel abound. The authority of the caller, and the interests at stake, urge attention to the message: “Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Kings and priests snares to the people, by erroneous doctrine, fraudulent counsels, evil example, and subtle edicts, and by employing exalted position to lead astray.
Men-trappers—their motive, efforts, pretences, and punishment. Why not attack openly? Why plot and scheme? Because subtlety is the nature of sin and the serpent, and most likely to succeed. “Great ill is an achievement of great powers. Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray.”
Silly people—led astray; like beasts and birds, always exposed and easily overcome by “the snare of the fowler.” We are foolish and weak, and apt to be lured to destruction by cunning foes. Hence the need of (a) watchfulness, (b) prayer, and (c) dependence upon God.
Cunning policy.
1. Most impudent.
2. Most guilty.
3. Most degrading.
4. Most ruinous.
Hear ye this. Preachers should rebuke the sins of rulers as well as those of subjects, so that they bear not the guilt of the souls that are lost, whose blood God will require at their hands [Lange].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Hos_5:1-3. Inferiors are very apt to be formed up according to the mould and manners of those above them. The example of kings and princes are seldom unconformed to by their subjects. There is a great power in example; what is done persuades, as well as what is spoken. And the errors of those that rule, become rules of error; men sin with a kind of authority, through the sins of those who are in authority. Jeroboam made Israel to sin, not only by commanding them to worship the calves at Dan and Bethel, but by commending that idolatrous worship to them in his own practice and example [Caryl].
The common people are like tempered wax, easily receiving impressions from the seals of great men’s vices; they care not to sin by prescription, and damn themselves with authority [Harding].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Hos 5:13; Hos 6:2
Hos 5:13; Hos 6:2
So Ephraim and Judah went to the wrong person, and did not gain much by their application. The same fatal error is being perpetrated by multitudes amongst us still. The error is as ancient as Cain, and as modern as today.
Read full note →
I. It is pretty plain that Israel could not choose to be independent. They had not the forces at their control to enable them to defy all comers. Either the nation must lean on its God, or else it must lean on some arm of flesh, and king Jareb seemed as eligible a helper as anyone else. And neither can we be independent. Our nature is so constituted, and our conditions of existence are so ordered, that we must needs look beyond ourselves for solace and support amidst the strange and trying vicissitudes of life.
II. It would have been no true kindness on God’s part if He had granted the Israelites prosperity when they were apostate from Him. This must have led them to feel the more satisfied with their apostasy, and the less disposed to repent. And it is no less His love to us that makes Him deal with us in a similar manner. He has to thwart us just that He may show us how little king Jareb can do for us.
III. When we draw near to God, we find a good Physician binding up our wounds. Listen to these wondrous words, and see foreshadowed in them all the glories of the Resurrection. "After two days will He revive us... and we shall live in His sight." The life hitherto cut off from us can once again flow into us; after two days in the sepulchre—two days of self-despair and sitting in darkness and the shadow of death—He revives us, and we begin to live in His sight.
W. Hay Aitken, Mission Pulpit, No. 77.
Hos 5:15
I. We often feel as if God were gone away from us. May it not be that there is just that difference—just that distinct boundary-line between absence and presence, "till they shall acknowledge their sin."
II. Consider how confession is to be made. (1) Confess to God. Let it be done with the deepest and most careful humiliation. (2) Let your confession to God particularize. Mention all the little things. Make them stand out in bold relief. It is the sum of confession. (3) When you confess sin, always do it as one who is accepting punishment. (4) At the same moment realize and do not doubt that you are laying your sin upon the true altar, the Lord Jesus Christ. (5) Try to embody that confession, and give it all the force and substance you can, by some holy act, some self-denying labour of love, some gift to God, some special act of devotion.
III. True confession to God will always be accompanied with, and will always produce, the wish to make some confession to man. To confess to man is generally a far harder thing than to confess to God—partly because it brings more immediate shame and loss, and partly because men are so much severer in their judgments than God. But, to a certain extent, it must be done. The confession to God will bring with it a grace which will enable us, and make it afterwards easier, to go and confess to man.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 6th series, p. 14.
References: Hos 5:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1483; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 208; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity, Part II., p. 289. Hosea 5.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 222.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v13
Hosea
‘PHYSICIANS OF NO VALUE’
Read full note →
Hos 5:13.
The long tragedy which ended in the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyrian invasion was already beginning to develop in Hosea’s time. The mistaken politics of the kings of Israel led them to seek an ally where they should have dreaded an enemy. As Hosea puts it in figurative fashion, Ephraim’s discovery of his ‘sickness’ sent him in the vain quest for help to the apparent source of the ‘sickness,’ that is to Assyria, whose king in the text is described by a name which is not his real name, but is a significant epithet, as the margin puts it, ‘a king that should contend’; and who, of course, was not able to heal nor to cure the wounds which he had inflicted. Ephraim’s suicidal folly is but one illustration of a universal madness which drives men to seek for the healing of their misery, and the alleviation of their discomfort, in the repetition of the very acts which brought these about. The attempt to get relief in such a fashion, of course, fails; for as the verse before our text emphatically proclaims, it is God who has been ‘as a moth unto Ephraim,’ gnawing away his strength: and it is only He who can heal, since in reality it is He, and not the quarrelsome king of Assyria, who has inflicted the sickness.
Thus understood, the text carries wide lessons, and may serve us as a starting-point for considering man’s discovery of his ‘sickness,’ man’s mad way of seeking healing, God’s way of giving it.
I. First, then, man’s discovery of his sickness.
The greater part of most lives is spent in mechanical, unreflecting repetition of daily duties and pleasures. We are all apt to live on the surface, and it requires an effort, which we are too indolent to make except under the impulse of some arresting motive, to descend into the depths of our own souls, and there to face the solemn facts of our own personality. The last place with which most of us are familiar, is our innermost self. Men are dimly conscious that things within are not well with them; but it is only one here and there that says so distinctly to himself, and takes the further step of thoroughly investigating the cause. But that superficial life is at the mercy of a thousand accidents, each one of which may break through the thin film, and lay bare the black depths.
But there is another aspect of this discovery of sickness, far graver than the mere consciousness of unrest. Ephraim does not see his sickness unless he sees his sin. The greater part of every life is spent without that deep, all-pervading sense of discord between itself and God. Small and recurrent faults may evoke recurring remonstrances of conscience, but that is a very different thing from the deep tones and the clear voice of condemnation in respect to one’s whole life and character which sounds in a heart that has learned how ‘deceitful and desperately wicked’ it is. Such a conviction may flash upon a man at any moment, and from a hundred causes. A sorrow, a sunset-sky, a grave, a sermon, may produce it.
But even when we have come to recognise clearly our unrest, we have gone but part of the way, we have become conscious of a symptom, not of the disease. Why is it that man is alone among the creatures in that discontent with externals, and that dissatisfaction with himself? ‘Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have roosting-places’: why is it that amongst all God’s happy creatures, and God’s shining stars, men stand ‘strangers in a strange land,’ and are cursed with a restlessness which has not ‘where to lay its head’? The consciousness of unrest is but the agitation of the limbs which indicates disease. That disease is the twitching paralysis of sin. Like ‘the pestilence that walketh in darkness,’ it has a fell power of concealing itself, and the man whose sins are the greatest is always the least conscious of them. He dwells in a region where the malaria is so all-pervading that the inhabitants do not know what the sweetness of an unpoisoned atmosphere is. If there is a ‘worst man’ in the world, we may be very sure that no conscience is less troubled than his is.
So the question may well be urged on those so terribly numerous amongst us, whose very unconsciousness of their true condition is the most fatal symptom of their fatal disease. What is the worth of a peace which is only secured by ignoring realities, and which can be shattered into fragments by anything that compels a man to see himself as he is? In such a fool’s paradise thousands of us live. ‘Use and wont,’ the continual occupation with the trifles of our daily lives, the fleeting satisfactions of our animal nature, the shallow wisdom which bids us ‘let sleeping dogs lie,’ all conspire to mask, to many consciences, their unrest and their sin. We abstain from lifting the curtain behind which the serpent lies coiled in our hearts, because we dread to see its loathly length, and to rouse it to lift its malignant head, and to strike with its forked tongue. But sooner or later-may it not be too late-we shall be set face to face with the dark recess, and discover the foul reptile that has all the while been coiled there.
II. Man’s mad way of seeking healing.
Can there be a more absurd course of action than that recorded in our text? ‘When Ephraim saw his sickness, then went Ephraim to Assyria.’ The Northern Kingdom sought for the healing of their national calamities from the very cause of their national calamities, and in repetition of their national sin. A hopeful policy, and one which speedily ended in the only possible result! But that insanity was but a sample of the infatuation which besets us all. When we are conscious of our unrest, are we not all tempted to seek to conceal it with what has made it? Take examples from the grosser forms of animal indulgence. The drunkard’s vulgar proverb recommending ‘a hair of the dog that bit you,’ is but a coarse expression of a common fault. He is wretched until ‘another glass’ steadies, for a moment, his trembling hand, and gives a brief stimulus to his nerves. They say that the Styrian peasants, who habitually eat large quantities of arsenic, show symptoms of poison if they leave it off suddenly. These are but samples, in the physical region, of a tendency which runs through all lire, and leads men to drown thought by plunging into the thick of the worldly absorptions that really cause their unrest. The least persistent of men is strangely obstinate in his adherence to old ways, in spite of all experience of their crooked slipperiness. We wonder at the peasants who have their cottages and vineyards on the slopes of Vesuvius, and who build them, and plant them, over and over again after each destructive eruption. The tragedy of Israel is repeated in many of our lives; and the summing up of the abortive efforts of one of its kings to recover power by following the gods that had betrayed him, might be the epitaph of the infatuated men who see their sickness and seek to heal it by renewed devotion to the idols who occasioned it: ‘They were the ruin of him and of all Israel.’ The experience of the woman who had ‘spent all her living on physicians, and was nothing the better, but rather the worse,’ sums up the sad story of many a life.
But again the sense of sin sometimes seeks to conceal itself by repetition of sin. When the dormant snake begins to stir, it is lulled to sleep again by absorption of occupations, or by an obstinate refusal to look inwards, and often by plunging once more into the sin which has brought about the sickness. To seek thus for ease from the stings of conscience, is like trying to silence a buzzing in the head by standing beside Niagara thundering in our ears. They used to beat the drums when a martyr died, in order to drown his testimony; and so foolish men seek to silence the voice of conscience by letting passions shout their loudest. It needs no words to demonstrate the incurable folly of such conduct; but alas, it takes many words far stronger than mine to press home the folly upon men. The condition of such a half-awakened conscience is very critical if it is soothed by any means by which it is weakened and its possessor worsened. In the sickness of the soul homoeopathic treatment is a delusion. Ephraim may go to Assyria, but there is no healing of him there.
III. God’s way of giving true healing.
Ephraim thought that, because the wounds were inflicted by Assyria, it was the source to which to apply for bandages and balm. If it had realised that Assyria was but the battle-axe wherewith the hand of God struck it, it would have learned that from God alone could come healing and health. The unrest which betrays the presence in our souls of a deep-seated sin, is a divine messenger. We terribly misinterpret the true source of all that disturbs us when we attribute it only to the occasions which bring it about; for the one purpose of all our restlessness is to drive us nearer to God, and to wrench us away from our Assyria. The true issue of Ephraim’s sickness would have been the penitent cry, ‘Come, let us return to the Lord our God, for He hath smitten, and He will bind us up.’ It is in the consciousness of loving nearness to Him that all our unrest is soothed, and the heaving ocean in our hearts becomes as a summer’s sea and ‘birds of peace sit brooding on the charmed waves.’ It is in that same consciousness that conscience ceases to condemn, and loses its sting. The prophet from whom our text is taken ends his wonderful ministry, that had been full of fiery denunciations and dark prophecies, with words that are only surpassed in their tenderness and the outpouring of the heart of God, by the fuller revelation in Jesus Christ: ‘O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God. Take with you words, and return unto the Lord, and say unto Him: Assyria shall not save us, for in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’ The divine answer which he was commissioned to bring to the penitent Israel-’I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; if Mine anger is turned away from Me’-is, in all its wealth of forgiving love but an imperfect prophecy of the great Physician, from the hem of whose garment flowed out power to one who ‘had spent all her living on physicians and could not be healed of any,’ and who confirmed to her the power which she had thought to steal from Him unawares by the gracious words which bound her to Him for ever-’Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Predictions of Punishment
Predictions of Punishment
The priests, the people, and the royal dynasty have alike sinned, and will alike be punished. Their coquetting with Assyria will prove utterly futile. Judah has also sinned, and will receive their punishment. But there is ever yet hope in the future, if they will but repent.
Read full note →
1. Toward you] RV 'unto you.' Judgment belongs to you by right, and having abused your privilege you deserve greater punishment.
Mizpah and Tabor are both spoken of as ancient sanctuaries: cp Jdg_21:1, Jdg_21:8; 1Sa_7:5-10, and see on Hos_4:13. The assemblies for religious and political purposes had been made occasions for robbing the people by unjust judgments and perhaps by extortionate demands for sacrifices: see on Hos_4:8;
2. Are profound.. slaughter] lit. 'have gone deep to slaughter,' i.e. have committed horrible slaughter. It refers probably to the violence of political factions: cp. Hos_7:7.
Though I have been] RV 'but I am.' Their violence will not escape punishment. Them all] priests, people, and rulers (Hos_5:1).
3. I know.. from me] Israel and Ephraim are in this book synonymous. The people had corrupted themselves by sins of impurity, but Jehovah had seen it and would punish: cp. Psa_10:14.
4. They.. doings] RV 'Their doings will not suffer them.' To repent would mean to give up their cherished vices.
5. The pride.. face] Worse still; they were actually proud of themselves and their doings. Their vaunting of their wickedness was its most obvious proof.
6. The time would come when they would in vain offer sacrifices to Jehovah.
7. Strange children] Some see here an allusion to intermarriage with the Canaanites: cp. Ezra 9, 10. But it may be merely metaphorical. The result of their faithless union with heathen gods was a race of people who were not true Israelites, acknowledged and loved of Jehovah. A month] RV 'the new-moon.' The profanation of their festivals would be punished by the enemy destroying them and their land.
Portions] RV 'fields.'
8. With this begins what is probably a new prophecy. Hosea ironically bids the herald call the people to arms to defend themselves against an invading foe. Gibeah ('a hill') and Ramah ('a high place') would both be suitable spots for sounding an alarm. Bethaven] see on Hos_4:15. After thee.. Benjamin] RV 'behind thee,' etc. From Jdg_5:14 it is supposed that this was the battle cry of the Benjamites, used by the soldiers in following their leaders. It would have been a summons to the Benjamites to battle.
9. But such preparations would be quite useless. The judgment was surely coming.
10. The princes.. bound (RV 'landmark')] They had abused their power to oppress and rob the people. The prophet here includes Judah in his denunciations and threats of consequent punishment. The Assyrians who demolished the northern kingdom crippled Judah in the days of Hezekiah. The deliverance of Judah, temporary as it in fact proved, was a later revelation of prophecy.
11. Broken in judgment] i.e. defeated in his suit and condemned. After the commandment] RM 'after vanity,' i.e. idolatry.
13. Assyrian.. Jareb] cp. Hos_10:6. This refers probably to Menahem paying voluntary tribute to Tiglath-pileser (Pul, 2Ki_15:19). The name Jareb ('adversary') is coined by Hosea to point out the absurdity of their seeking help from such a source. In the words, when Judah saw his wound, Hosea seems to hint at a similar policy on the part of Judah, which was afterwards pursued by both Ahaz and Hezekiah (2Ki_16:7-8; 2Ki_18:14-16).
14. See on Hos_5:10.
15. The prophet still hopes that these calamities will produce repentance and the remission of the full calamity. Meanwhile Jehovah will leave them to the discipline of His punishment.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The Message to the Priests, the People,
CHAPTER 5:1-6:3
The Message to the Priests, the People,
Read full note →
and the Royal House Judgment,
Affliction and the Future Return
1. The message of rebuke (Hos 5:1-7)
2. The judgment announced (Hos 5:8-15)
3. The future return and the blessing (Hos 6:1-3)
Hos 5:1-7. The first verse shows who is addressed: the priests, the house of Israel and the house of the King. Judgment was in store for them, for Mizpah and Tabor, the places of hallowed memory, had been turned by their idolatrous worship into a snare. An old and interesting tradition among the Jews states that at Mizpah the apostates waited for those Israelites who went up to Jerusalem to worship there, to murder them. The next verse seems to indicate something like this tradition.
“And the apostates make slaughter deep; but I am a chastisement to them all.” (We give the passage we quote in a better and more literal rendering. The Authorized Version is frequently incorrect.) (See also Hos 6:9.) And the Lord saw it all. “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from Me.” He knew the whoredoms of Ephraim and the defilement of Israel. Their evil deeds kept them from returning to their God, for the demon of whoredoms had taken complete possession of them and it kept them in sin and rebellion. Pride was the leading sin of Ephraim, it was to testify against them and both Israel and Ephraim would stumble on account of their guilt and Judah would share the same fate. And though they go with their flocks of sheep and their herds, willing and ready to sacrifice, they shall not be able to find Him, for He hath withdrawn Himself.
Hos 5:8-15. Then follows a vision of judgment. The judgment is seen as having already fallen upon the guilty nation. The horn (Shophar) is blown in Gibeah and the trumpet in Ramah; the alarm is sounded. Gibeah and Ramah were situated on the northern boundary of Benjamin. The enemy was behind Benjamin pursuing. There will be no remedy and no escape (verse 9). “The princes of Judah have become, like the removers of landmarks: I will pour out upon them my wrath like water” (Hos 5:10). A curse is pronounced in the law upon those who remove the landmarks Deu 27:17. Judah instead of taking warning from the disaster coming upon the northern kingdom, the ten tribes, sought gain by an enlargement of their own border. The princes of Judah, instead of weeping over the calamity, rejoiced at the removal of Israel as the means of removing the boundary line and increase their estate. Wrath was in store for Judah. To Ephraim the Lord would be as a moth. To the house of Judah He would be as rottenness. The moth destroys. Both terms, moth and rottenness, are symbols of destroying influences working against the house of Israel and the house of Judah Isa 50:9; Isa 51:8; Psa 39:11; Job 13:28. Then they turned to the Assyrian for help and to King Jareb. But there was no help. Jareb is not a proper name, it is an epithet applied to the king of Assyria and means “He will contend” or “He will plead the cause.” Like a lion would be the Lord to Israel, and like a young lion to Judah. The same symbolical language is used in Isaiah in connection with the Assyrian, the rod of God’s anger Isa 10:1-34. “Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions; yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it” Isa 5:29. Thus judgment came upon them and they were carried away as a prey. And like the lion after his attack withdraws to his den, so the Lord would withdraw from them, leave them and return to His place, waiting till their repentance comes and they seek Him early in their affliction.
The last verse of this chapter has a wider meaning than the past judgment which came upon the house of Israel. The Lord of glory came to earth and visited His people. He came with the message and offer of the kingdom to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He came unto His own, but His own received Him not. After they had rejected Him, delivered Him into the hands of the Gentiles to be crucified, He returned to His place. There He is now at the right hand of God, waiting for that day, when the remnant of Israel will repent and seek His face Act 3:19-26. That will be in their coming great affliction, in the time of Jacob’s trouble.
Hos 6:1-3. The division of the chapter at this point is unfortunate. The three verses of chapter 6 must not be detached from the previous chapter. Here we have the future repentance of the remnant of Israel, that is during the great tribulation. Believingly they will acknowledge His righteous judgment and express their faith and hope in His mercy and the promised blessings and restoration. They express what their great prophet Moses so beautifully stated in His prophetic song, that great vision given to him, ere he went to the mountain to die. “See now that I, even I, am He and there is no god with Me; I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of My hand” Deu 32:39. “After two days will He revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight (literally, before His face).” They have been dead spiritually and nationally, but when the two days of their blindness and dispersion are over, there is coming for them the third day of life and resurrection. Jewish expositors have pointed out the fact that a day is with the Lord as a thousand years. They state that they will be in dispersion for two days, that is, two thousand years, after which comes the third day of Israel’s glorious restoration. One Rabbinical commentator says: “The first day we were without life in the Babylonian captivity, and the second day, which will also end, is the great captivity in which we are now, and the third day is the great day of our restoration.” Like Jonah was given up by the fish on the third day, so comes for Israel a third day of life and glory. Then the latter and the former rain will fall upon their land again, and, blest by Him, their Saviour-King, they will live in His sight. But the passage, no doubt, also points to the resurrection of our Lord, the true Israel in a hidden way.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 The Accusation Against the Priests
The Accusation Against the Priests
v. 1. Hear ye this, O priests, the spiritual leaders of the people; and hearken, ye house of Israel, the family of the ten tribes as such; and give ye ear, in paying most careful attention, O house of the king, as the temporal rulers of the nation; for judgment is toward you, it is intended for them, to strike them down in due time, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, this being the town in the northern part of their country or beyond Jordan, and a net spread upon Tabor, a mountain in what was later known as Galileo. The leaders are charged with being snares and nets on account of their leading the people entrusted to them into sins.
Read full note →
v. 2. And the revolters are profound to make slaughter, literally, "and into the corrupt doings of excesses they have sunken deeply," so that the leaders, in their open rebellion against the Lord have carried their transgressions to extremes and beyond; though I have been a rebuker of them all, earnestly trying, by His admonitions, to bring them back to the right way.
v. 3. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from Me, He was well acquainted with the spirit which possessed them both; for now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, that is, idolatry, and Israel is defiled, by likewise taking part in the spiritual adultery.
v. 4. They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God, for as long as they are guilty of such transgressions, their evil works will not permit their return to the Lord; for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, so that the service of idolatry occupies all their thoughts, and they have not known the Lord, for under the circumstances the knowledge of the true God is impossible for them.
v. 5. And the pride of Israel, as they boast of their glory, doth testify to his face, namely, when the punishment of such pride is suffered; therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity, stumbling and being brought to destruction because of it; Judah also shall fall with them, tottering and stumbling with Israel, since both are guilty of idolatry.
v. 6. They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord, as though eager to bring their sacrifices; but they shall not find Him; He hath withdrawn Himself from them, since He has no delight in sacrifices brought in a spirit of hypocrisy, without true repentance.
v. 7. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, in blasphemous faithlessness; for they have begotten strange children, as though by illicit intercourse with idols; now shall an month devour them with their portions, or, "the new moon will devour them. " Their hypocritical festal offerings were so little appreciated and acceptable in the sight of God that, instead of bringing them deliverance, they were rather a cause of their ruin. Many a person will find out that his self-appointed worship of God will bring down upon him the wrath of the Lord instead of His mercy.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Yahweh is talking about Israel.
Read full note →
You have been a snare at Mizpah and a net spread over Tabor
A snare and a net are both objects used to catch prey. In this case, the priests and the royal household had devised ways to keep the people away from Yahweh, while enticing them into idolatry. Mizpah and Tabor were places for idol worship in the land of Israel. (See: How to Translate Names and Metaphor)
The rebels stand deep in slaughter
Here "rebels" refers to all of those people who had turned away from Yahweh, and "deep in slaughter" could refer to the murder of innocent people, or to the slaughter of animals offered to pagan idols. (See: Metaphor)
The rebels
The translator can represent this as "You rebels," because God is really talking to the rebellious people of Israel.
in slaughter
Some modern versions interpret the Hebrew expression as standing for wickedness.
I will punish all of them
The translator can represent this as "I will punish all of you."
translationWords
priest
Israel
king
judge
Mizpah
rebel
slaughter
punish
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15 5:1 Hosea again condemns the religious and political leaders…
5:1 Hosea again condemns the religious and political leaders of Israel. They have led the people into idolatry as hunters trap wild animals in a snare. • The specific sins at Mizpah and Tabor are not known.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.