Let’s acknowledge Yahweh. Let’s press on to know Yahweh. As surely as the sun rises, Yahweh will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth.”
Parallel Translations
-
Let’s acknowledge Yahweh. Let’s press on to know Yahweh. As surely as the sun rises, Yahweh will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth.”
-
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.
-
And let us know, eagerly strive to know the LORD, His going forth is sure as the morning; and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain that watereth the earth.'
Cross-references (32)
Passages linked to Hosea 6:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 24:7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.
- Hosea 14:5 I will be like the dew to Israel. He will blossom like the lily, and send down his roots like Lebanon.
- Psalms 72:6 He will come down like rain on the mown grass, as showers that water the earth.
- Proverbs 2:1-5 My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you, so as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures: then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God.
- Philippians 3:13-15 Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you.
- Matthew 13:11 He answered them, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is not given to them.
- Revelation 22:16 I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify these things to you for the assemblies. I am the root and the offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
- Zechariah 10:1 Ask of Yahweh rain in the spring time, Yahweh who makes storm clouds, and he gives rain showers to everyone for the plants in the field.
- Micah 4:2 Many nations will go and say, “Come! Let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law will go out of Zion, and Yahweh’s word from Jerusalem;
- Malachi 4:2 But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out, and leap like calves of the stall.
- Luke 1:78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the dawn from on high will visit us,
- 2 Peter 1:19 We have the more sure word of prophecy; and you do well that you heed it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your hearts:
- Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and streams on the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring:
- Isaiah 54:13 All your children will be taught by Yahweh; and your children’s peace will be great.
- Joel 2:23-24 “Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in Yahweh, your God; for he gives you the early rain in just measure, and he causes the rain to come down for you, the early rain and the latter rain, as before. The threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
- John 17:3 This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
- Hebrews 3:14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end,
- Deuteronomy 32:2 My doctrine will drop as the rain. My speech will condense as the dew, as the misty rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb.
- Psalms 65:9 You visit the earth, and water it. You greatly enrich it. The river of God is full of water. You provide them grain, for so you have ordained it.
- Isaiah 32:15 until the Spirit is poured on us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is considered a forest.
- Hosea 2:20 I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh.
- Hosea 10:12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you.
- Acts 17:11 Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
- Job 29:23 They waited for me as for the rain. Their mouths drank as with the spring rain.
- Proverbs 4:18 But the path of the righteous is like the dawning light that shines more and more until the perfect day.
- Isaiah 5:6 I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”
- Ezekiel 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols.
- Micah 5:2 But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times.
- Psalms 19:4 Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
- Micah 5:7 The remnant of Jacob will be among many peoples, like dew from Yahweh, like showers on the grass, that don’t wait for man, nor wait for the sons of men.
- 2 Samuel 23:4 shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, a morning without clouds, when the tender grass springs out of the earth, through clear shining after rain.’
- John 7:17 If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain In this verse the faithful pursue what we have…
In this verse the faithful pursue what we have before considered, making the hope of salvation sure to themselves: nor is it a matter of wonder that the Prophet dwells more fully on this subject; for we know how prone we are to entertain doubt. There is nothing more difficult, especially when God shows to us signs of his wrath, than to recover us, so that we may be really persuaded that he is our physician, when he seems to visit us for our sins. We must then, in this case, earnestly strive, for it cannot be done without labour. Hence the faithful now say, We shall know, and we shall pursue to know Jehovah. They show then by these words that they distrust not, but that light would arise after darkness; for this is the meaning of the words: We shall then know, they say; that is, “Though there is now on every side horrible darkness, yet the Lord will manifest his goodness to us, even though it may not immediately appear.” They therefore add, And we shall pursue after the knowledge of Jehovah. We now perceive the purport of the words.
Now this passage teaches us, that when God hides his face, we act foolishly if we cherish our unbelief; for we ought, on the contrary, as I have already said, to contend with this destructive disease, inasmuch as Satan seeks nothing else but to sink us in despair. This his device then ought to be understood by us, as Paul reminds us, (2 Corinthians 2:11;) and the Holy Spirit supplies us here with weapons, by which we may repel this temptation of Satan, “What? Thou seest that God is angry with thee; nor is it of any use to thee to attempt to come to him, for every access is shut up.” This is what Satan suggests to us, when we are sensible of our sins. What is to be done? The Prophet here propounds a remedy, We shall know; “Though now we are sunk in thick darkness, though there never shines on us, no, not even a spark of light, yet we shall know (as Isaiah says, ‘I will hope in the Lord, who hides his face from Jacob’) that this is the true exercise of our faith, when we lift up our eyes to the light which seems to be extinguished, and when in the darkness of death we yet continue to promise to ourselves life, as we are here taught: We shall then know; further, We shall pursue after the knowledge of Jehovah; though God withdraws his face, and, as it were designedly, doubles the darkness, and all knowledge of his grace be, as it were, extinct, we shall yet pursue after this knowledge; that is, no obstacle shall keep us from striving, and our efforts will at length make their way to that grace which seems to be wholly excluded from us.”
Read full note →
Some give this rendering, We shall know, and shall pursue on to know Jehovah, and explain the passage thus, — that the Israelites had derived no such benefit from the law of Moses, but that they still expected the fuller doctrine, which Christ brought at his coming. They then think that this is a prophecy respecting that doctrine, which is now by the Gospel set forth to us in its full brightness, because God has manifested himself in his Son as in a living image. But this is too refined an exposition; and it is enough for us to keep close to the design of the Prophet. He indeed introduces the godly thus speaking for this reason — because there was need of great and strong effort, that they might rise up to the hope of salvation; for it was not to be the exile of one day, but of seventy years. When therefore so heavy a trial awaited the godly, the Prophet here wished to prepare them for the laborious warfare: We shall then know, and follow on to know Jehovah
Then he says, As the morning shall come to us his going forth, — a similitude the most appropriate; for here the faithful call to mind the continued succession of days and nights. No wonder that God bids us to hope for his grace, the sight of which is yet hid from us; for except we had learnt by long experience, who could hope for sudden light when the darkness of night prevails? Should we not think that the earth is wholly deprived of light? But seeing that the dawn suddenly shines, and puts an end to the darkness of night, and dispels it, what wonder is it that the Lord should shine forth beyond our expectation? His going forth then shall be like the morning.
He here calls a new manifestation the going forth of God, that is, when God shows that he regards his people with favor, when he shows that he is mindful of the covenant which he made with Abraham; for as long as the people were exiled from their country, God seemed not, as we have said, to look on them any more; nay, the judgment of the flesh only suggested this, that God was far distant from his people. He then calls it the going forth of God, when God should show himself propitious to the captives, and should wholly restore them; then the going forth of God shall come, and shall be like the morning We now then see that he confirms them by the order of nature, as Paul does, when he chides the unbelief of those to whom a future resurrection seemed incredible, because it surpasses the thoughts of the flesh; “O fool!” he says, “does thou not see that what thou sowest first decays and then germinates? God now sets before thee in a decaying seed an emblem of the future resurrection.” So also in this place, since light daily rises to us, and the morning shines after the darkness of night, what then will not the Lord effect by himself, who works so powerfully by material things? When he will put forth his full power, what, think we, will he do? Will he not much more surpass all the thoughts of our flesh? We now then see why this similitude was added.
He afterwards describes to us the effect of this manifestation, He shall come, he says, as the rain to us, as the late rain, a rain to the earth This comparison shows, that as soon as God will deign to look on his people, his countenance will be like the rain, which irrigates the earth. When the earth is dry after long heat and long drought, it seems to be incapable of producing fruit; but rain restores to it its moisture and vigor. Thus then the Prophet, in the person of the faithful, does here strengthen the hope of a full restoration. He shall come to us as the rain, as the late rain
The Hebrews call the late rain מלקום, melakush, by which the corn was ripened. And it seems that the Prophet meant the vernal rain by the word גשם, geshem, But the sense is clearly this, that though the Israelites had become so dry that they had no longer any vigor, there would yet be no less virtue in God’s grace than in the rain, which fructifies the earth when it seems to be barren. But when at the end he adds, a rain to the earth, I doubt not but that he meant seasonable rain, which is pleasant and acceptable to the earth, or which the earth really wants; for a violent shower cannot be called properly a rain to the earth, because it is destructive and hurtful. It follows —
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.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Hos 6:3 Then shall we know, [if] we follow…
Hos 6:3 Then shall we know, [if] we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter [and] former rain unto the earth.
Ver. 3. Then shall we know] Heb. And we shall know, we shall follow on to know, Sciemus sectabimurque (Vatablus). We shall experimentally know the Lord if we turn unto him; we shall taste and see that the Lord is good. We shall not only be raised "out of the dust of death," that is, of deep afflictions (wherein we "lay as among the pots"), and "live in his sight," that is, comfortably, Psa 22:15; Psa 68:13; but we shall know him, which is life eternal; yea, we shall prosecute knowledge, follow on to know, as unsatisfiable, and not content with any measures already required; yea, we shall proceed therein and make progress, as the morning light doth to the perfect day. Those that turn from their iniquities shall understand God’s truth, Dan 9:13, shall be of his counsel, Psa 25:14, shall have the mind of Christ, 1Co 2:16, the wisdom of God in a mystery, 1Co 2:7, such as the great Rabbis of the world can no more understand than the Philistines could Samson’s riddle, 1Co 2:8, yea, these "pure in heart shall see God," Mat 5:8, see him and live, see him, and eat and drink, being much cheered and refreshed, as those nobles of Israel, Exo 24:10-11. Provided that being once enlightened, and having tasted of the heavenly gift, they be not slothful, but show the same diligence, Heb 6:4; Heb 6:11-12, in the use of means to get more knowledge, till they all "come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," Eph 4:13, or (as the words may be read) of that age wherein Christ filleth all in all, Eph 3:19, so as to be able to comprehend with all saints the several dimensions, and to "know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." Lo, this is indeed to follow on to know the Lord; when we are still adding to our virtue knowledge, till (with those famous Romans) we be full of goodness, filled brimful with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another, saying, "Come, and let us return to the Lord," &c. "Come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord," Isa 2:5, walk in that light we have, and we shall have more; for "to him that hath," sc. for use and practice, "shall be given," Mar 4:25. He that first begs, and then digs for knowledge, searching for her as for hidden treasure, Pro 2:3-4, he shall be sure of some daily comings in from Christ; he shall understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God, Hos 6:5; Christ will say unto him, as once he did to Nathaniel, "Thou shalt see greater things then these," Joh 1:50, even "great and mighty things, which thou knowest not," Jer 33:3.
Read full note →
His going forth is prepared as the morning] That is, as sure as the morning followeth the night, and shineth more and more unto the perfect day, so sure shall God appear for our comfort, and shall dispel the night of our calamity. Mourning lasteth but till morning, Psa 30:5; and as before the morning light is the thickest darkness, so before deliverance our afflictions are usually increased upon us. God appeareth on the sudden and beyond expectation (as out of a cloud, or as out of an engine, εκ της μηχανης), and shows himself then usually when things are at their worst. Hence that of Job, Post tenebras spero lucern; After the darkness I look for the light, and that of the Church in Micah, "Though I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me," Mic 7:8. Vatablus applieth this text to the coming of Christ, that Day Star from on high, that Sun of righteousness, to whom all the prophets point God’s people, when they would comfort them indeed ( orietur Christus ut aurora quae adventu suo depellit tenebras); arise Christ so that dawn with its arrival dispells the darkness, for he is the consolation of Israel, the desire of all nations, for whom their souls waited more than they that watch for the morning wait for the morning, Psa 130:6. But because God’s going forth is opposed to his departure, when he retired to his place, Hos 5:10, therefore, his settled going forth here, is by most interpreted of his manifestations of his mercy to his poor prisoners of hope, those disconsolate captives, whom he not only brought back from Babylon, but also shineth into some of their hearts, by the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And he shall come unto us as the rain] As the showers of blessing, Eze 34:26, rain of liberalities, Psa 68:9, rain of righteousness, Hos 10:12. Cito exaudi me, Domine; complue me, saith Austin upon those words of David, my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. Hear me quickly, O Lord, rain righteousness upon my dry soul, fill me with the fruits of thy Spirit; whose work it is to illuminate and sanctify, as it is the Father’s to heal, Hos 6:1, and the Son’s to revive, and raise us together with himself, the firstfruits of them that sleep, Hos 6:2.
As the latter and former rain unto the earth] sc. in perfection of gifts and graces, by degrees wrought in our hearts; or, in seasonable and suitable comforts, as rain in seedtime, softening the ground; and a little before harvest, to plump and fill up the grain in the ear.
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 Then; after that God hath revived and raised his…
Then; after that God hath revived and raised his repenting and inquiring captives, brought them to his temple and city, restored his worship and his law amongst them (all which are figures of more glorious things to be expected by the church of Christ after his resurrection).
Shall we know; be better instructed in the law of our God, know what worship he requires, and is best pleased with. This knowledge of God shall be to us a spring of all holy, righteous, sober, and temperate conversation. Such knowledge, if we observe the Scriptures, was promised to the Jews after their return out of captivity, and their seeking the Lord, Jer 24:5-7; 31:34; Eze 11:17-20; 36:23; Hab 2:14; Zep 3:9, &c.
Read full note →
Follow on to know; it shall be an increasing knowledge, which by a diligent attendance to the word and works of God these shall attain, and improve by doing the will of God, and by worshipping him; they shall know experimentally and practically how holy, how good, how faithful God is, Joh 8:31,32. Before this they knew not God, and sinned, provoked God, and undid themselves; but now they shall know, obey, and please their God and Saviour.
His going forth before his people who know him, and endeavour to increase that knowledge; his gracious, faithful, holy, just, and wise providences, and manifestations of himself in the conduct of them for his people’s good and comfort.
Is prepared as the morning; as sure, seasonable, beautiful, grateful, and as clear as the morning; which dispels the darkness, and proclaims its own approach.
As the latter and former rain unto the earth; which reviveth, maketh it fruitful, beautifieth it, and gives a new face to all. So God will abundantly bless his repenting Israel, his returning people. This blessing he promised over and over to the Jews after the captivity, Eze 34:25; Hos 2:18,19; 14:5,6; Mal 3:10.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Then shall we know, if we follow on to…
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord,.... The word "if" is not in the original text, and the passage is not conditional, but absolute; for as persons, when converted, know Christ, and not before, when he is revealed to them, and in them, as the only Saviour and Redeemer, so they continue and increase in the knowledge of him; they earnestly desire to know more of him, and eagerly pursue those means and methods by which they attain to a greater degree of it; for so the words are, "and we shall know, we shall follow on to know the Lord" (t); that grace, which has given the first measure of spiritual and experimental knowledge of him, will influence and engage them to seek after more. The Jews, when they are quickened, and turn to the Lord, will know him, own and acknowledge him, as the Messiah, the only Redeemer and Saviour; and will be so delighted with the knowledge of him, that they will be desirous of, and seek after, a larger measure of it; and indeed they shall all know him, from the least to the greatest, when the covenant of grace shall be renewed with them, manifested and applied to them. The words may be considered as a continuation of their exhortation to one another from Hos 6:1; thus, "and let us acknowledge, let us follow on to know him" (u); let us own him as the true Messiah, whom we and our fathers have rejected; and let us make use of all means to gain more knowledge of him: or let us follow after him, to serve and obey him, which is the practical knowledge of him; let us imitate him, and follow him the Lamb of God, embrace his Gospel, and submit to his ordinances. So Kimchi interprets it, "to know him"; that is, to serve him; first know him, then serve him;
his going forth is prepared as the morning; that is, the Lord's going forth, who is known, and followed after to be more known; and is to be understood, not of his going forth in the council and covenant of grace from everlasting; nor of his incarnation in time, or of his resurrection from the dead; but of his spiritual coming in the latter day, with the brightness of which he will destroy antichrist; or of his going forth in the ministration of the Gospel, to the conversion of Jews and Gentiles, the light of which dispensation will be very great; it will be like a morning after a long night of darkness with the Jewish and Pagan nations; and be as grateful and delightful, beautiful and cheerful, as the morning light; and move as swiftly and irresistibly as that, and be alike growing and increasing: and so the words are a reason of the increasing knowledge of the Lord's people in those times, because he shall go forth in the ministration of the word like the morning light, which increases more and more till noon; and of the evidence and clearness of it, it being like a morning without clouds; with which agrees the note of Joseph Kimchi,
Read full note →
"we shall know him, and it will be as clear to us as the light of the morning without clouds:''
and also of the firmness and certainty of it; for both the increasing knowledge of the saints, and the going forth of Christ in a spiritual manner, is "firm" and "sure" (which may be the sense of the word (w)) as the morning; for, as sure as the night cometh, so also the morning;
and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth; in the land of Israel they had usually two rains in a year; the one in autumn, or quickly after the seed was sown; the other in the spring, when the corn was ripe, and harvest near, and which was very reviving and refreshing to the earth, and the fruits of it; and such will be the coming of Christ unto his people, in the ministration of the Gospel in the latter day, which will drop as the rain, and distil as the dew, as the small rain on the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass; and in the discoveries of his favour and love to them, and in the distribution of the blessings of his grace among them. Much the like phrases are used of the spiritual coming of Christ in the latter day, Psa 72:6. The Targum is,
"and we shall learn, and we shall follow on, to know the fear of the Lord, as the morning light, which darts in its going out; and blessings will come to us as a prevailing rain, and as the latter rain which waters the earth.''
(t) "sciemusque, sequemur ad sciendum Dominum", Montanus; "et cognoscemus, et persequemur ad cognoscendum Jehovam", Zanchius; "sciemus persequemur", Liveleus. (u) "Cognoscamus, sive agnoscamus, et persequautur scientiam Dominis", Schmidt. (w) "firmum certum notat", sic quidam in Schmidt; "firmatus ac stabilitus", Tarnovius.
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 Know - What worship he requires. And the knowledge…
Know - What worship he requires. And the knowledge of God shall be to us a spring of all holy, righteous, sober conversation. Follow on - By a diligent attendance to the word, and works of God, we shall know experimentally, how holy, how good, how faithful God is. His going forth - Before his people; his gracious, faithful, holy, just, and wise providence, for his peoples good and comfort. As the morning - As sure, beautiful, grateful, and as clear as the morning; which dispels the darkness, and proclaims its own approach. As the rain - Which revives, makes it fruitful, beautifies it, and gives a new face to all.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 3. Then shall we know] We shall have…
Verse 3. Then shall we know] We shall have the fullest evidence that we have not believed in vain.
If we follow on to know the Lord] If we continue to be as much in earnest as we now are.
Read full note →
His going forth] The manifestation of his mercy to our souls is as certain as the rising of the sun at the appointed time.
And he shall come unto us as the rain] As surely as the early and the latter rain come. The first, to prepare the earth for the seed; this fell in autumn: the second, to prepare the full ear for the harvest; this fell in spring. Here is strong confidence; but not misplaced, however worthless the persons were. As surely as the sun, who is now set, is running his course to arise on us in the morning, and make a glorious day after a dreary night; so surely shall the Lord come again from his place, and the Sun of righteousness shall arise on our souls with healing in his wings. He is already on his way to save us.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Hos 6:3. Then shall we know, if we follow…
Hos 6:3. Then shall we know, if we follow on, &c. — Hebrew, ונדעה נדדפה לדעת, And we shall know, we shall follow on to know the Lord. Then, when we have returned unto the Lord, Hos 6:1, in sincerity and truth; when he hath torn and healed us, hath smitten and bound us up, hath convinced us of and humbled us for our sins, and converted us to himself, and created us anew; when he hath revived us, raised us up, and made us live; then shall we experimentally know the Lord, as merciful to our unrighteousness, Jer 31:34; we shall taste and see that he is good; we shall not only be raised out of deep afflictions, wherein we lay as in a state of death, but we shall live in his sight, a life of union and communion with him, a life of faith, love, and obedience; we shall know Him whom to know is life eternal. And we shall prosecute that knowledge; we shall follow on to know him, not content with any measures of the knowledge of him already attained. We shall proceed therein, and make progress, as the morning light doth to the perfect day. For, his going forth to visit, deliver, and comfort his people, to manifest himself to them, to refresh and save them; or, his going forth before his people, in his gracious, faithful, holy, just, and wise providence, for their benefit and comfort, is prepared as the morning — As sure, beautiful, grateful, reviving, and clear, with a continually increasing light, which proclaims his own approach and progress. And he shall come unto us as the rain unto the earth — Which refreshes it, renders it fruitful, beautifies it, and gives it a new and smiling face. As the latter and former rain — Or, as the words should rather be rendered, the harvest rain, and the rain of seed-time: see notes on Deu 11:14, and Pro 16:15. For, as Bishop Horsley justly observes, the Hebrew words here used have nothing of latter or former implied in their meaning. And these expressions convey a notion just the reverse of the truth to the English reader. For what our translation here terms the latter rain, מלקושׁ, is literally, as the bishop terms it, the crop rain, which fell just before the season of the harvest, to plump the grain before it was severed: that is, it fell in what we term the spring, and consider as the former part of the year; for the harvest in Judea began about the middle of our March, according to the old style. The other, יורה, which we term the former rain, and which is literally the springing rain, or the rain which makes to spring, fell upon the seed newly sown, and caused the green blade to shoot up out of the ground: that is, it fell about the end, or middle, of our October, which we consider as the latter end of the year. These rains, of seed-time and harvest, are the υετος πρωιμος και οψιμος, the early and latter rain, of St. Jas 5:7. But the apostle’s epithets have reference to the order of the husbandman’s expectations, not to the civil division of the year.
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 Then shall we know, if we follow on to…
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord - Rather, “Then shall we know, shall follow on to know the Lord,” i. e., we shall not only know Him, but we shall grow continually in that knowledge. Then, in Israel, God says, “there was no knowledge of Him;” His “people was destroyed for lack of it” Hos 4:1, Hos 4:6. In Christ He promises, that they should have that inward knowledge of Him, ever growing, because the grace, through which it is given, ever grows, and “the depth of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge is unsearchable, passing knowledge.” We “follow on,” confessing that it is He who maketh us to follow Him, and draweth us to Him. 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. For here “we know in part” only; then “shall we know, even as we are known. We shall follow on.” Where shall we “follow on?” To the fountains of the water of life, as another prophet saith; “For He that hath mercy upon them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them” Isa 49:10. And in the Revelations we read, that “the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters” Rev 7:17. The bliss of eternity is fixed; the nearness of each to the throne of God, the “mansion” in which he shall dwell, admits of no change; but, through eternity, it may be, that we shall “follow on to know” more of God, as more shall be revealed to us of that which is infinite, the Infinity of His Wisdom and His Love.
His going forth - that is, the going forth of God, “is prepared,” firm, fixed, certain, established, (so the word means) “as the morning.” Before, God had said, He would withdraw Himself from them; now, contrariwise, He says, that He would “go forth.” He had said, “in their affliction they shall seek Me early or in the morning;” now, “He shall go forth as the morning.” : “They shall seek for Him, as they that long for the morning; and He will come to them as the morning,” full of joy and comfort, of light and warmth and glorious radiance which shall diffuse over the whole compass of the world, so that “nothing shall be hid from its light” and “heat.” He who should so go forth, is the same as He who was to “revive them” and “raise them up,” i. e., Christ. Of Him it is said most strictly, that “He went forth,” when from the Bosom of the Father He came among us; as of Him holy Zacharias saith, (in the like language,) “The Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Christ goeth forth continually from the Father, by an eternal, continual, generation. In He “came forth” from the Father in His Incarnation; He “came forth” to us from the Virgin’s womb; He “came forth,” from the grave in His Resurrection. His “coming forth, as the morning,” images the secrecy of His Birth, the light and glow of love which He diffuseth throughout the whole new creation of His redeemed. : “As the dawn is seen by all and cannot be hid, and appeareth, that it may be seen, yea, that it may illuminate, so His going forth, whereby He proceeded from His own invisible to our visible became known to all,” tempered to our eyes, dissipating our darkness, awakening our nature as from a grave, unveiling to man the works of God, making His ways plain before his face, that he should no longer “walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
Read full note →
He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth - So of Christ it is foretold, “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth” Psa 72:6. Palestine was especially dependent upon rain, on account of the cultivation of the sides of the hills in terraces, which were parched and dry, when the rains were withheld. The “former,” or autumnal “rain,” fell in October, at the seed-time; the “latter” or spring “rain,” in March and April, and filled the ears before harvest. Both together stand as the beginning and the end. If either were withheld, the harvest failed. Wonderful likeness of Him who is the Beginning and the End of our spiritual life; from whom we receive it, by whom it is preserved unto the end; through whom the soul, enriched by Him, hath abundance of all spiritual blessings, graces, and consolations, and yieldeth all manner of fruit, each after its kind, to the praise of Him who hath given it life and fruitfulness.
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 Third. In a short time the Lord will easily…
Third. In a short time the Lord will easily set us free. But the prophet refers more directly to the resurrection of the faithful, and of Christ, Ephesians ii. 5., and 1 Corinthians xv. 4. (Calmet) --- St. Paul mentions the third day according to the Scriptures, which nowhere else so clearly specify it. (Worthington) See St. Jerome; St. Cyrpian; Sanct.[Sanctius?] 9. --- Know. Hitherto we have been reproached with voluntary ignorance in adoring idols, chap. iv. 6. We will amend. --- His, Christ’s. --- Rain. It falls only in autumn and in spring, Deuteronomy xi. 14. (Calmet)
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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain know, if we follow on to know the Lord--The…
know, if we follow on to know the Lord--The result of His recovered favor (Hos 6:2) will be onward growth in saving knowledge of God, as the result of perseverance in following after Him (Psa 63:8; Isa 54:13). "Then" implies the consequence of the revival in Hos 6:2. The "if" is not so much conditional, as expressive of the means which God's grace will sanctify to the full enlightenment of Israel in the knowledge of Him. As want of "knowledge of God" has been the source of all evils (Hos 4:1; Hos 5:4), so the knowledge of Him will bring with it all blessings; yea, it is "life" (Joh 17:3). This knowledge is practice, not mere theory (Jer 22:15-16). Theology is life, not science; realities, not words. This onward progress is illustrated by the light of "morning" increasing more and more "unto the perfect day" (Pro 4:18).
prepared--"is sure," literally, "fixed," ordered in His everlasting purposes of love to His covenant-people. Compare "prepared of God" (Gen 41:32, Margin; Rev 12:6). Jehovah shall surely come to the relief of His people after their dark night of calamity.
Read full note →
as the morning-- (Sa2 23:4).
as the rain . . . latter . . . former-- (Job 29:23; Joe 2:23). First, "the rain" generally is mentioned; then the two rains (Deu 11:14) which caused the fertility of Palestine, and the absence of which was accounted the greatest calamity: "the latter rain" which falls in the latter half of February, and during March and April, just before the harvest whence it takes its name, from a root meaning " to gather"; and "the former rain," literally, "the darting rain," from the middle of October to the middle of December. As the rain fertilizes the otherwise barren land, so God's favor will restore Israel long nationally lifeless.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 3. Then shall we know, &c.] But as this…
3. Then shall we know, &c.] But as this construction is resumptive of Hos_6:1, we had better translate, Yea, let us know, let us be zealous to know, Jehovah, i.e., to know him as our master, protector, and friend. Why so? Because the want of this knowledge was the cause of Israel’s misery. It was however a hasty resolution, from which a full and free confession of sin was fatally absent (contrast penitent Israel’s words in Hos_14:2). Hence the complaint of the omniscient Holy One which follows in Hos_6:4.
his going forth] viz. from his ‘place’ in heaven (Hos_5:15.)
Read full note →
is prepared as the morning] Or, ‘is certain as the grey of morning’ (which heralds the glories of sunrise). The speakers, then, are ‘a people that walk in darkness’ (Isa_9:1).
as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth] Rather, as the heavy rain, as the latter rain which watereth the earth. Comp. Psa_62:6. The Israelites count upon the return of God’s favour with the same confidence with which, at the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, a farmer counts upon the former and latter rain. Their confidence is excessive; they presume on God’s forgiveness without complying with His conditions.
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.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Then shall we know, if we follow on to…
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord. This is more accurately rendered by, let us therefore know, hunt after the knowledge of Jehovah, the verbs being both cohortative and no conditional particle ("if") in the second clause. The second clause is a more emphatic and energetic reaffirmation of the first, urging to active anti zealous effort and steady perseverance in obtaining the knowledge of God a knowledge theoretic, but especially practical. Aben Ezra understands the exhortation of intellectual knowledge: "To know Jehovah is the secret of all wisdom, and for this alone was man created. But he cannot know God till he has learnt many doctrines of wisdom, which are, as it were, a ladder ha order to mount up to this highest step of knowledge." Kimchi, on the other hand, though quoting Aben Ezra"s comment with approval, inclines to the practical side of knowledge: "Let us follow on to know Jehovah, exercising justice and righteousness." His going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Here, again, the translation of the Authorized Version is susceptible of improvement: his going forth is fixed as the morning dawn; and he shall come to us as the plentiful rain, as the latter rain which watereth (or, watering) the earth. Here we have two beautiful figures the morning dawn and the fertilizing rain. The going forth of Jehovah is represented as the sun rising upon the earth, or rather as the dawn which heralds the day. The advent of salvation to his people is identified with, or symbolized by, his appearance. But the dawn of day only brings the commencement of salvation; its complement is found in the fruits and blessings of salvation. The root of motsav is zatsa, which is applied to the sunrise in Gen_19:23, as also in Psa_19:7. Parallel passages are found in Isa_58:8, "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning (dawn), and thy health shall spring forth speedily;" and Isa_9:2, "The Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee." Further, the word nakon, meaning "prepared," "fixed firm," is applied to the clear bright light of morning, as in Pro_4:18, "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect (nekon) day." The plentiful rain is that which falls after the sowing of the seed in October (the beginning of the Hebrew year) and in the following months; while the malqosh is the late or spring rain, which, tailing in March and till the middle of April, precedes and promotes the harvest. The LXX translates the
(1) concluding clause by uetoimov and oyimov erroneously, for zoreh is not a noun with b, being understood before "earth;" neither is it
Read full note →
(2) the future Hiph., which would necessitate the ellipse being supplied by asher; it is the Qal participle in the sense of" watering." Geshem is "a violent or plentiful rain," stronger than the usual word for" rain," matar; while malqosh is "the late rain" which ceases a short time before harvest. The explanation of the "dawn" by Aben Ezra is erroneous: "The intelligent man at the beginning knows God blessed be he! by his works, like the dawn of day in its going forth; but moment after moment the light increases, until the full truth becomes visible." Kimchi more correctly explains the figure as follows: "If we shall do this, viz. follow on to know the Lord, then he will be to us as the morning dawn, of which the going forth is fixed purposed by God and certain as though he said, He will cause his light and his goodness to shine over us." His comment on the second similitude is equally appropriate: "He will come to us as the plentiful rain, as the plentiful rain which revives the dead plants; so man sunk in sorrow is like one dead; but when deliverance comes to him it is with him as if he revived out of his dead state." Thus he shall be to his people as "morning to the weary watcher," and as "plentiful rain to the parched ground.
Heavenly blessings for weary souls.
This clause, read in the light of the context, evidently refers to the outpouring of Divine influence in other words, to the gift of the Holy Spirit. As the earth waits for the rain, so the Church waits for the Spirit. The appropriateness of the figure will be seen in a fair consideration of the coming and the effects of the descending rains.
I CONSIDER THE BLESSING IN ITS COMING.
1. Rain is given in the sovereign bounty of God. Few things are less subject to the control of man, who at most can foretell its fall. Human merit, human skill, and human power have nothing to do in ruling it. If God pleased he could, by a comparatively slight change in physical laws, so alter the condition of the world that the clouds would no longer float in the sky, and the verdure no longer beautify the earth. Our home might be transformed into a world like the moon, with its awful crevasses and stupendous mountains ungladdened either by rain or dew. But in the tender mercy of God rain still falls, and under its influence ferns uncurl in the woods, and the cups of forgotten flowers run over with blessing. It is God who "so clothes the grass of the field." He only can transform the moral wilderness into a paradise, arid he does "give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.
2. Rain falls generously. Suppose you were at variance with your neighbor, and shut yourself off from him by a lorry wall, so that you could not see his garden nor he yours. When a shower fell from heaven it would disregard that distinction, and bless alike the seeds you both had sown; nor would it matter whether his was the splendid park, or only the tiny garden where a few flowers made the soil look beautiful. So generously does the Spirit come down on all assemblies of Christian worshippers; whether they meet in the home or in the church; amidst the uncouth expressions of prayer and song, or the splendors of an ornate ritual. In them all God sees tender flowers of joy and peace whose fragrance is sweet to him, and he comes down on them as the rain.
3. Rain falls seasonably. "As the latter and former rain upon the earth." In Palestine, where the steep hillsides were cultivated in terraces, the soil would suffer readily from drought. The former," or autumn rain, fell in September, blessing the seed-time, and making the earth soft with showers. "The latter rain," falling in March and April, filled out the ears of corn before the harvest. So that to a Jew there was special significance in the promise, "I will cause the rain to come down in his season." If either of the rains were withheld the harvest would fail. The spiritual life of man is ever needing the nourishment of Divine influence. Christ is "the Author and the Finisher" of our faith. He is the Alpha and the Omega of Christian life. The old Christian cannot rest in past experience, nor the working Christian in service; but each must ever be looking out of and above himself. Nor can we trust to organizations and ritual for revival. It is wise to dig canals, and build tanks, and provide means for directing the rills to the gardens which need them; but of what avail are these, if the rain does not come? We may use our watering-pot during a drought; but how small the patch affected, how poor and unsatisfactory our work, compared with that day when God visits the earth and waters it! Diffuse, O God, those copious showers, That earth its fruit may yield; And change this barren wilderness To Carmel"s flowery field.
II CONSIDER THE BLESSING IN ITS EFFECTS.
1. The revival of drooping life. Describe a corn-field in spring-time after a time of drought. Contrast its condition after a week"s rain. Apply these pictures to the moral condition of the Christian Church. Take as a typical instance the condition of the disciples before and after the day of Pentecost. It was the descent of the Holy Spirit which gave them new tongues, and emboldened them to face and to rebuke a hostile world, till those who had crucified the Lord were pricked in their hearts, and cried, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?
2. The attractiveness of fragrant life. Nothing is more beautiful in appearance, more pleasant in fragrance, than the garden just blessed by a shower. The rain has brought nourishment to all the life that is in it; but each plant has transformed the nourishment into its own kind of beauty, so that it is white in the lily, green in the grass, fragrance in the violet, strength in the oak. A Pentecostal blessing would not make all Christians alike, but would increase the beauty and the strength of each. Indicate the different expressions of revived life in the increase of integrity, self-sacrifice, gentleness, devoutness, joy, etc. The Church should be attractive to the world, and so full of life as to possess heating power. She should be like the Lord, around whom the sin-sick and sad gathered, and virtue went out of him even to the skirts of his garments, and "as many as touched were made perfectly whole.
3. The blessedness of a useful life. The Church, represented by the growing grass, exists as grass does for the world"s sake. The grass is not merely the pleasant background on which Nature may weave her gorgeous colors; but it is also the fundamental life by means of which other things and beings live. Directly by his use of corn, indirectly through eating the flesh of animals fed on grass, man is absolutely dependent upon grass as it is on the rain. So through the Church, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the world lives; and in this is found her highest honor, because in it she is like unto her Lord, who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
APPLICATION.
1. To those outside the Church. Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you". (Hos_10:12)
2. To those within the Church. Be like Elijah after his conflict on Carmel. Let the yearning cry arise to heaven, and let your hopes go up often to catch the first sign of the coming blessing; arid we shall "hear the sound of abundance of rain," whereby God will refresh his inheritance when it is weary. A.R.
The quest of Divine knowledge.
In the Old Testament prominence is given to the intellectual as well as to the practical side of religion. To the Hebrew, religion was no mere matter of routine and ceremony; it consisted in an acquaintance with the character and will of the Supreme, and in a practical obedience. In this the authority of Old Testament Scripture is very apparent. True religion as distinguished from human superstition is based upon an appeal to the intelligence.
I THE AIM. This is, "to know the Lord." Such knowledge was opposed to the idolatry into which Israel had been tempted; it involved recovery to the worship and service of Jehovah. Revelation has made an extended knowledge of God possible to man. And in his Son Jesus Christ, our heavenly Father has made himself more fully known than even by the Law and the prophets. We may know God by the way of discovery, by the way of experimental acquaintance, and still more fully by the way of voluntary conformity.
II THE MEANS. This is by "following on," an expression which implies that it is not by a single effort, but by sustained endeavor, that we are to come to the knowledge of our God and Savior. This quest of Divine knowledge must be undertaken and carried on urgently and strenuously, in the right direction, under Divine guidance, perseveringly and persistently, and without discouragement.
III THE PROMISE. "Then shall we know." Or, if this be not an exact translation, it may be said to represent the spirit and tenor of the passage. "Let us know," i.e. we may if we will, and if we will aright. In the quest of other kinds of knowledge we may be disappointed. It may be too high for us; our powers may be too feeble. In the pursuit of some knowledge success may be a curse. But this is a sure, a precious, a gracious promise. For "this is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. T.
Morning and showers.
A beautiful description of the privileges and joys appointed for such as follow on to know the Lord. His gracious visitation is compared to the brightness of the daybreak, to the falling of the refreshing and fertilizing showers. The language is doubly applicable to those who receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I A SUGGESTION OF HUMAN NEED. It is implied that our state in sin and ignorance is a state of darkness and of drought.
1. Absence of Divine knowledge and favor are as darkness covering the soul with gloom, and society with moral night.
2. The same privation is as drought to the thirsty land. Where no water is, there is barrenness and death. An emblem of those who are without God.
II A REPRESENTATION OF DIVINE PROVISION.
1. Christ is the Light of the world, the Morning at whose presence darkness flees away. He brings daylight and healing on his wings. Where he comes, he scatters the night of error, ignorance, and sin; he sheds the light of truth and purity.
2. The Holy Spirit is as the rain which falls upon and fertilizes the soil as "the latter and former rain." The Spirit of God was given in Pentecostal showers, and his influences are diffused throughout the Church. These influences are like the rain heavenly in origin, silent in operation, free and full in measure, yet individual in appropriation.
III AN ANTICIPATION OF SPIRITUAL RESULTS. As the sunlight and the showers co-operate to evoke and sustain and perfect life, and to produce fruitfulness and abundance, so is it with the provision made under the gospel. Where Christ is preached, and where his Spirit works, there life abounds and spiritual fertility is apparent.
APPLICATION.
1. Acknowledge the Source of true blessing.
2. Come under the range of spiritual influence.
3. Seek the diffusion throughout humanity of these priceless blessings. T.
The rain.
The climate of Palestine differs from our own. There are "early" rains at sowing-time. Rain continues from autumn until spring. That which swells the corn and prepares for harvest is the "latter" rain. Deficiency of rain is fatal to the hopes of the husbandman; regular and abundant rains ensure his crops. Accordingly these rains serve as figures of the spiritual influences of God in producing and perfecting spiritual life and fruitfulness. The appropriateness is evident of the application of this figurative language to the spiritual economy beneath which we are privileged to live. The Holy Spirit"s influences resemble the latter and the former rain, inasmuch as they are
I HEAVENLY IN ORIGIN.
II SEASONABLE IN BESTOWMENT.
III COPIOUS IN MEASURE.
IV UNFAILING IN SUPPLY.
V REFRESHING IN EFFECTS.
VI QUICKENING TO THE LIFELESS.
VII FERTILIZING IN ULTIMATE RESULTS.
APPLICATION.
1. Recognize a historical fact in the Divine outpouring.
2. Believe a faithful promise of mercy and blessing.
3. Act upon an encouragement to earnest prayer. T.
Man God-ward, and God man-ward.
"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." "Let us therefore know hunt after the knowledge of Jehovah; his rising is fixed like the morning dawn, that he may come to us like rain, and moisten the earth like the latter rain" (Keil and Delitzsch). There are two pursuits in this passage man pursuing God, "following on to know him," and God as a consequence pursuing men. "He shall come unto us as the rain." Observe
I MAN IN A GOD-WARD DIRECTION. "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord." The particle if is not in the original, although it is certain that a knowledge of Jehovah depends on searching after it. Two things are here implied.
1. That a knowledge of God is the essence of spiritual goodness. This is clear from reason, and is everywhere taught in the Bible. By a knowledge of him, however, we do not mean a scientific acquaintance with his attributes, relations, and works; but a sympathetic experience an experience of those sentiments of justice, truthfulness, love, and mercy, which are the inspiration, the moral life of God himself. Philosophically, we can only know a man as we sympathize with the leading principles of the man"s heart; and it is only thus we can know God.
2. That a knowledge of God can only be attained by earnest searching. We shall know if we "follow on," if we "hunt after." Intellectually, whatever may be the amount of earnest searching, we shall never know him. "Who by searching can find out God?" But with the heart we may know him whom to know is "life eternal" Every day by study we may get new ideas of him, every day we may translate those ideas into emotions, and every day we may cherish those emotions into dominant forces of the soul. All this requires the most resolute and persistent effort.
II GOD IN A MAN-WARD DIRECTION. The man who goes forth in search of a heart-acquaintance with Jehovah will meet with him in the way. "His that is, Jehovah"s going forth is prepared as the morning." God comes forth to all men, but he comes forth in a special way to all those who are pressing after an acquaintance with himself.
1. He comes to them full of promise. "As the morning." What a delightful season is the morning: it rings the knell of the (lark night, and heralds the beauties and brightness of the coming day! How the sufferer in his midnight agonies, the mariner in his nocturnal tempest, haft the first grey beams of the morning! The night of guilt and dark foreboding is broken by the morning of God"s manifestations of love. We could not bear God to come to us as the high noon his effulgence would burn us up; hence he comes as the morning.
2. He comes to them full of refreshing influence. "He shall come unto us as the rain." What a glorious change seasonable showers produce on the parched earth! They touch every part into life and beauty. Such is the influence of God upon the heart of the devout inquirer.
CONCLUSION. How sublime the destiny of the truly good man! He goes forth in search of a knowledge, not of the creation, but of the Creator himself; and the Creator appears to him full of the promise of the morning and of the influence of refreshing showers. What is the world to him? Whilst worldly men Things terrestrial worship as Divine, His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust That dims his sight, and shortens his survey, Which longs, in infinite, to lose all bounds. (Dr. Young.) D.T.
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 Then shall we know, if we follow on to…
Hos_6:3
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.
Read full note →
Follow on
In the context, the deliverance of Gods Church out of her troubles is foretold. In the same words our salvation in Christ is figured forth. Knowledge here includes the whole of experimental and practical godliness; for in religion we only know what we feel and do. In making progress in the life of godliness, the two words of our text are--a condition, a rule, and a spur.
I. The recommendation of our text implies--
1. That the pursuit is worthy.
2. That there is a leader whom we are to follow.
3. That the pursuit is begun. Regeneration has been experienced, pardon has been conferred, spiritual life is possessed.
4. That there is danger of stopping short. There are difficulties without, and foes within.
II. Special reasons for obeying the text.
1. Only so can the genuineness of our religion be proved.
2. Only so can our mission be fulfilled.
3. Only so can our characters be developed.
4. Only so can heaven be reached. How much there is enfolded in that ward overcometh. Uncoil it by Divine help in your lives.
III. Encouragements to cheer and stimulate.
1. Bread is provided for the hungry.
2. A staff of promises for the weak.
3. Repose for the Weary.
4. Complete success is guaranteed. (R. Berry.)
Knowing the Lord
Ignorance is a lamentable evil. It unfits persons for acting their part with propriety in civil life, and it is far more injurious to them in the concerns of eternity.
I. What is meant by knowing the Lord.
1. It is to be scripturally acquainted with His character. No correct knowledge can be acquired concerning God and salvation, but through the instrumentality of the Word. In the volumes of nature and providence there is much to be learned concerning the existence and goodness of God. Only from the volume of inspiration we learn what God is, not only as our Creator and Preserver, but also as our Redeemer.
2. It is to give Him the homage which is due unto His name. There is the necessity of acknowledging Him--returning unto Him in new allegiance, by repentance unto life, and giving Him an unreserved reverence, in obedience to all His laws, ordinances, and commandments. Knowledge without a corresponding practice would only add to our condemnation.
II. Explain the proposal of following on to know the Lord.
1. It is to persevere in cultivating intercourse and acquaintance with Him. In so far as it has pleased God to reveal Himself unto us in His Word, it is our duty to learn what He hath revealed. We may, however, learn all that is to be theoretically known regarding God, and yet remain spiritually ignorant of His gracious character. His perfections will be best understood by a practical reliance upon them, and on acting agreeably to their nature.
2. Following on to know the Lord shall be crowned with success. Exertion in this Divine pursuit shall be successful. Disappointment is impossible. We shall know all the blessings of the New Covenant, whether pertaining to justification, adoption, or sanctification. We shall know and understand the law of our God, believingly feel its importance, and sincerely practise its requirements.
III. The encouragement to follow on to know the Lord. This blessing of our Saviours coming is--
1. Progressive and certain. Prepared as the morning. A knowledge of Divine things cannot be obtained but by a Divine teacher. The going forth of God the Saviour to enlighten and cherish His people, when they seek after Him, is as certain as the outgoings of the morning, which are a settled and regular constitution of nature.
2. Pleasant and desirable. His going forth is prepared as the morning. It is ever comfortable to know that in the midst of difficulties there is One prepared to give us relief. Christ, our Almighty Saviour and Friend, is so prepared. As the morning air and light are agreeable to the watchman who has been marching his weary rounds in the dark--to the weather-beaten mariner who has been tempest-tested through the night--so agreeable, and unspeakably more so is the coming of God our Saviour to enlighten and relieve them that are cast down and overwhelmed with the sense of sin, to help and comfort them that are ready to perish.
3. Quickening and salutary. He shall come unto us as the rain. Rain is not less necessary than heat for the production of vegetable life. It is like the circulation of the blood in the human body, that which keeps the whole system alive.
4. Invigorating and satisfying. As the latter and former rain unto the earth. The expression, latter and former rain, has reference to the two periodical rains that fell in the land of Canaan. As necessary as these rains are the showers of grace in the Church to water the seed of the Word, that it may spring up in our hearts unto everlasting life, to encourage its growth, and to perfect its fruits of holiness and meetness for the heavenly world. From this subject we may see ground for cherishing large expectations. God is gracious, His promise is large, and His Word is unimpeachable. God is able to carry you on to perfection; trust in Him then for all needful supplies, and you will not be disappointed. From this subject all may see the importance of being possessed by saving knowledge. (John Shoolbraid.)
The fuller knowledge of God
Some give this rendering, We shall know, and shall pursue on to know Jehovah, and they explain the passage thus,--that the Israelites had derived no such benefit from the law of Moses, but that they still expected the fuller doctrine which Christ brought at His coming. They then think that this is a prophecy respecting that doctrine, which is now by the Gospel set forth to us in its full brightness, because God has manifested Himself in His Son as in a living image. But this is too refined an exposition; and it is enough for us to keep close to the design of the prophet. (John Calvin.)
Need of perseverance in seeking the knowledge of God
All Scripture writers bear witness to the faithfulness of God; and call upon us, by patient continuance in well-doing, to seek for glory, honour, and immortality.
I. The important object of the believers pursuit. Of true believers it may be said, they follow on to know the Lord. In what does this knowledge consist; and in what way is it communicated to the mind? It is not a mere knowledge of such a Being as God, as Creator and Upholder; nor is it such an idea of God as is conceived by those who exalt one attribute to the exclusion of another, who make Him all mercy, forgetful of His perfect justice. We cannot know the Lord to our comfort, till we know Him as our God and Father in Jesus Christ. By nature, we stand at an immeasurable distance from God; and the more correct are our notions of His power, His holiness, and His glory, the more discouraging will they be if they are unconnected with the Redeemer as our Mediator with the Father. This knowledge is implanted in the soul by the Holy Ghost.
II. The certainty of its final success. He who follows on shall not fail of the grace of God. This truth is plainly declared, and figuratively exhibited. The figures are the morning and the rain. Learn--
1. How needful is this knowledge.
2. The reason why those who have attained some knowledge of Christ do not attain to more enlarged and experimental acquaintance with spiritual things. Be patient in hope, and persevering in prayer. (W. Mayers, A. M.)
The duty and happiness of progressive spiritual knowledge
The works of God in nature are here employed to describe His moral government, His ways with His Church, His dealings with His people for their spiritual discipline and sanctification. The enlightening and comforting influences of the Holy Ghost shall as surely be vouchsafed to the soul longing for salvation, as the rain, the former and the latter, refreshes and fertilises the earth. The laws and operations of nature are net more certain than the fulfilment, in the revelation of grace, of Gods exceeding great and precious promises. The Divine promises and threatenings rest on the same foundation--the immovable foundation of His everlasting unehangeableness, His perfect faithfulness, His universal presence, His almighty power. The text contains a duty and a promise. Our duty is to follow on to know the Lord, and to its performance we are incited by a gracious promise. Then we shall know him.; for His going forth, His care and condescension to meet us in mercy is prepared--is as predetermined and customary as those successive changes and established operations of His visible works which we so beneficially and continually experience. According to the text, the safety and happiness of knowing the Lord, and of following on to know Him, are consequent upon returning to the Lord with penitent acknowledgment and lively compunction on account of apostasy and disobedience. Suffering and wretchedness, in this world or in the next, or in both, are necessarily the results of sin. Alienation from God is likewise spiritual insensibility, a moral death. It is also a condition of ignorance. The way of transgressors is hard. Consider what it is to know the Lord. How incomparably great is the excellence of this knowledge! The knowledge of the Lord comprehends the experience of the Divine goodness and loving-kindness, together with the fruits of faith and obedience to His commandments. Saving knowledge is communicated through the offices of the one Mediator, and the agency of the Holy Ghost, imparting an efficacious blessing upon prayer, the Word, and the ministrations of the Church. It consists in veneration and love towards the Lord--a meek but firm affiance in His promises and mercy, and in persevering obedience to Him. Let us make it our first and supreme concern to attain to the knowledge of God as our reconciled Father in Christ Jesus. Having attained this, your salvation is begun. While this knowledge implies and cherishes an approval of God s ways and will, and is accompanied with love to Him and delight in Him, it likewise implies justice and mercy and charity to our fellow-creatures. (Thomas Ridley, M. A.)
The progressive character of the Christian life
Christian life is not a house, but a plant. It is not complete, but grows.
1. It is growth in faith. Its beginning is, or may be, as small as a grain of mustard-seed. The least bit will do to begin with. Act upon what you now believe to be true and right as relates to our duties to God, to our fellows and ourselves. With Gods help I will under take every known duty. Sin is to be eradicated, and holiness is to increase in such a spirit the seed will germinate, the tree will grow, and strength will come, and what before was impossible will now be easy.
2. In knowledge: acquaint thyself with God. Ascend the mountain. There are ever new disclosures in creation, providence, and redemption.
3. In experience: here faith is verified. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine. Faith alone blesses our life; unbelief is destructive. It works ruin to all our highest interests to live without faith--in government, in society, and in the family. Principles which cannot with safety to all dearest concerns be followed are necessarily false. Faith is confirmed in life and assured in death: I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
4. In good works: religion is also practical. The tree bears good fruit, and bears it perennially. The Christian will improve in the quantity and quality of the good he does. Like the palm-tree, he will be fruitful to the end of life. (L. O. Thompson.)
Divine knowledge, and the means of acquiring it
It is a universal law that nothing great can be achieved without perseverance. For want of considering this, many who commence a religious course with zeal and joy run well for a season, but meeting with unex pected difficulties, grow weary and give up the race.
I. Divine knowledge.
1. To know the Lord implies a general knowledge of His being, nature, and attributes,
2. It signifies a more particular and experimental knowledge of God, especially of His justice and mercy, these being the two great attributes exercised in the stupendous work of human redemption. The true believer is happily possessed of an experimental knowledge of the Divine mercy.
3. A more peculiar knowledge of God, especially of His goodness and love, is obtained by the sincere and pure in heart who follow on to know Him.
4. To know the Lord includes also, profound veneration; ardent love; humble confidence; and sincere and uniform obedience.
II. The means of acquiring Divine knowledge.
1. God could, no doubt, communicate a perfect knowledge of Himself instantaneously. But in doing so He must work a miracle, and this without answering any valuable end. The gradual operations of God in providence and grace are accommodated to our finite capacities, enabling us, step by step, to trace Him in His wondrous works.
2. To illustrate this Hosea uses two beautiful figures--the morning and the rain.
3. That this is the mode of the Divine manifestations evidently appears--
(1) From the media through which they are communicated; His works, His Word, and His Spirit.
(2) From the gradual manner in which God has revealed His will unto man by successive dispensations.
(3) This appears in the rise and progress of religion in the soul. The understanding is enlightened; the judgment convinced; the heart affected; and the will subdued. Hence contrition, repentance, faith, and prayer. Justification follows, and, in full, sanctification.
(4) We see, therefore, the necessity of following on to know the Lord, pressing on as after a guide through a crowd, as after a light in a dark place. When fully sanctified, there is as much necessity as ever for following on. The fountains of Divine knowledge are perennial. There are yet unexplored heights, and lengths, and depths, and breadths of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge. (Thomas Rowe.)
Perseverance in attaining the knowledge of God
I. to know God requires that men should seek to know Him. The know ledge clothe Most High is not instinctive and intuitive. Now, the world by wisdom knoweth not God. How strange that men should think to know God and religion without diligence, whilst they think not to know any human science or profession without application, and diligence, and exertion! Would to God that men were as wise for eternity as they are for time. It is, however, not merely necessary to give diligence in order to know God, we must follow on to know Him. The crowning grace of the Christian is constant perseverance. To him that overcometh, the promise of eternal life is made.
II. The encouragement as it is here so vividly portrayed. Then shall we know. God who cannot lie hath spoken this. The prophet adds two beautiful figures. The morning of the day is sure to come. The former and the latter rain will return in their seasons. (Hugh Stowell, A. M.)
Following on to know
In Christ, the prophet promises, they should have inward knowledge of Him, ever growing, because the grace, through which it is given, ever grows. 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. Through eternity we shall follow on to know more of God. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Divine knowledge
We may consider this in two ways.
1. As an address of good men to themselves, being a kind of soliloquy, or self-admonition and encouragement.
2. As addressed to the godly from each other. The language is an expression of holy confidence. This admits of various degrees, but without some degree of it we shall never seek the Lord; shall never cleave to Him with full purpose of heart. Between this holy confidence and presumption there is no resemblance.
I. An important subject--Divine knowledge. To be destitute of this knowledge is to be in a perilous and even a perishing condition. Knowledge is the same to the soul as the window is to the building, or the eye to the body. Knowledge is essential to right conduct. It is from ignorance that a disregard to the Saviour springs. It is from ignorance that legality springs. Nothing can be truly religious or moral that is done in ignorance, because then there would be no motive or principle, and to these the Lord looks in all our actions; all righteous conduct is begun and carried on in the renewal of the mind. Gods empire is founded in light; the devils kingdom is founded in darkness. God opens the eyes of all His subjects, and they follow Him from conviction and disposition. Bishop Hall says, God never works in a dark shop. He that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But what is this knowledge to which such importance is attached? What is it to know the Lord? It is one thing to know that there is a God, and another to know what He is. It is much more than knowing Him to be almighty. It is a knowing Him to be righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works. Such knowledge as this, if there be no more, will operate upon a sinners mind conscious of guilt, so as to produce distance, alarm, and fear. It is necessary to the recovery of a fallen creature that God should be known as the justifier of those who believe in Christ. In creation God is above us. In providence He is beyond us. In His holy law He is against us. But in Christ He is with us, and for us, and in us too. This knowledge is not a merely speculative know ledge. It is experimental. Some professors are like December nights, very clear, but alas: very cold. This is all that can be said with regard to their religion. But the knowledge of the Gospel is saving; it is the light of life; it descends from the head to the heart. What a difference there is between a mere conviction and a cordial assent!
II. A necessary duty. Follow on to know the Lord. This includes three things.
1. The practising what we know. Why should God give you more light while you are not disposed to make-use of what you already have?
2. Diligence in the use of appointed means. God has ordained meditation, reading the Scriptures, hearing the Word, conversation with those who know a little more than ourselves, but, above all, prayer to the Father of mercies, as the appointed means.
3. It implies continuance in this active course. You have not only to hear, but also to watch.
III. An assured privilege. Then shall ye know. If probability is enough to actuate a man, how much more should real certainty do so. The assurance of success should encourage us in regard to others. Do not deal harshly with them. If unable for a time to embrace religious truths, be not impatient. God shall reveal this to them in His own time and way. Let this encourage you with regard to prayer. Are you desirous of knowing more of the blessed Saviour? Go on and you will know more and see more. Two cases in which this encouragement may be applied.
1. If you are in perplexity with regard to the path of duty.
2. Do you wish to know God better by appropriation? Are you anxious to know your own interest in Him?
IV. A striking illustration. Taken from the morning and the rain. As the morning, gradually; as the rain, periodic ally and regularly. He who gives the former rain in its season, will not fail to give the latter rain in its season. Even after the stress and strain of life, there shall be a reviving in your spiritual experience, to your own great comfort, and to the praise of our faithful and covenant-keeping God. (William Jay.)
The knowledge of God
It is spoken of here as something distinct and definite. It is as palpable as the morning light. It is as sensible as the rain that waters the earth. Is any knowledge of God possible? The agnostic says, We cannot know God. If He exists, He is beyond our reach. He is unknowable He does not deny that there is a God; he only denies that He can be known. In an important sense, the agnostic is right. The agnostic is not born again; he has never known the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost; therefore he cannot see the kingdom of God. Degenerate man cannot understand and appropriate the things of God--the truths of the spiritual world. Is man, then, born into this world with no capacity for knowing God? By no means. The spiritual faculties are not completely destroyed. In many ways they respond to the voice of God. No man is born either an atheist or an agnostic. The organs of spiritual life may be only rudimentary, but they exist. It is possible to know God, but only by the renewing and enlightening grace of His Holy Spirit. The knowledge of God is not reached by an intellectual process. It is faith which apprehends the invisible God, yet it is also experience which affixes the seal to the knowledge which faith attains. It is no exclusive privilege of the man of culture, it is equally open to the unlettered, the simple, the child. The pure in heart shall see God. It may be said, if one man can know God, why may not another? There is a gulf between the natural and the spiritual man, wider than that between animal and plant life. The distinction is as broad as between the living and the dead. The new life of regeneration is a beginning, a bud of promise, a day dawn; it is not the consummation of the spiritual life. The work and duty of the Christian is to follow on to know the Lord. We must take heed lest we become examples of arrested development. How can firm lasting faith be attained?
1. By realising to its depth our emptiness and need, and then our utter inability to supply it.
2. By clearing away certain obstacles which commonly clog up and check the flow of the grace of God. Of these the first and most obvious is sin. Then there is worldliness. Then neglect of prayer. Prayer is the key that will unlock the treasures of Divine knowledge. (R. H. MKim, D. D.)
A new consciousness
The infatuation of knowledge is the course of life; to know, the desire to know, unsettles life. Yet what is most of our knowledge? The world is a vast, wide churchyard, and what we call knowledge is but a reading of inscriptions. Much so-called knowledge is but curiosity, and when that curiosity is satisfied, it turns, like other unsatisfied appetites, upon, and corrodes itself. Our nature seeks Divine knowledge; knowledge, not of notions, but of facts; not of sentiments, but of laws. A man may talk of God, who has no rest in God.
1. If religion is progression, it is surely, before it can be this, a beginning; but as a beginning it is a consciousness. Consciousness which being translated is knowledge. Religion should produce happiness, but that is not the chief idea of religion. A holy heart has three stages in its history.
(1) To find something within us tending to evil, contrary to our full and free consent. The first part of our spiritual combat is when the world within awakes, and we find ourselves all wrong.
(2) A state in which it is interrupted; when it would do good, and mourns that evil is present with it.
(3) A state when it finds itself again sometimes rebelling against the better part. There is a state of apparent religious life which is not a state of consciousness or knowledge;--there is a want of conviction, and also mistaken apprehension. What a power the principle of grace is in the soul! This knowledge is great because God is the substance of the soul. The soul stands on and in God; so long as I stand on and in carnal and notional and phenomenal knowledge, I know not how to say my soul has a substance. When God is the substance of the soul and all its knowledge, then the blessed life and the blessed knowledge give light within.
2. But it is a progression. Follow on. What states grow out of this first state, the seminal germ of the Christian life? The evidences brighten as we follow on to know the Lord. You should determine to ascend to the knowledge of the higher law of the Christian life. Then shall we know when our knowledge shall no longer be narrowed by limited sensations. Every sense I possess is only a material sheathing of some deeper and higher sense, which cannot find its appropriate expression here. I can only conceive of the state of souls as a state of immortal consciousness, a state where hope and memory are one, and love is only passive in certain and secure possession. (Paxton Hood.)
Diligence in religion
Doctrine: That the way to thrive in religion is to follow on, to pursue, to hold our hand to it, when once our hand is in it.
I. Who they are whom we may call to follow on. There are some whom we cannot call to follow on, because they have not yet stirred a foot in religion. There may be some whom the King has brought into His chambers, and assured of His love. Their business is to follow on. Others have got but some glimmerings of solid hope from the Lord. Others have gained some mastery over spiritual foes. Others are yet only striving. Others can only be said to have some desires towards God. Others have only had passing convictions of sin. Yet others know nothing more than inward uneasiness.
II. What is it to follow on?
1. You must make religion your great end.
2. You must be persuaded of the weight and worth of religion.
3. You must hold fast what you have.
4. You must be moving forward, labouring for more.
5. You must habitually attend upon religion, and make it your chief business.
6. You must be resolute and vigorous in your endeavours.
7. You must entertain a hope of success.
8. If you fall, you must get up again, and quicken your pace.
III. Confirm this doctrine. However small your beginnings or hopes may now be, yet persevere. You have Gods Word for it. You shall reap, if you faint not.
1. You have Gods Word of promise for it (Mat_25:29).
2. It is the Lords ordinary way in His works, to bring great things by degrees out of small beginnings.
3. The works of grace in the soul ordinarily arise from very small beginnings. Consider--
4. The bountiful nature of God, who surely will not always flee from those who follow Him, but will at length be found of them.
5. No person gets a refusal from heaven, but those who court it by their own indifference. A faint way of seeking is to beg a denial.
6. As importunity is usually in all cases the way to come speed, so it has special advantages in this case which promise success.
7. Such followers the Lord does not bid to go back. And this is encouraging.
8. The Lord commands you to follow Him (Luk_11:19).
IV. Practical improvement.
1. Those who have not yet begun to seek the Lord are neither prospering in their souls, nor are they in the way to it.
2. It is no wonder that back sliders have lean souls.
3. They are in no prospering case who are at a stand in religion.
4. The smallest spark which you now have may be brought to a flame.
5. See what is the ruin of many communicants.
It is not that they get nothing, it is that they carry nothing away; they follow nothing on. They do not hold their hands to it when they are at home. (T. Boston, D. D.)
The benefit of following on to know the Lord
I. A course of conduct proposed. Knowledge in general is an excellence. The knowledge here proposed is most excellent, as to its nature and object, and most profitable to its possessor.
1. The proposal implies a previous state of ignorance and estrangement. This was manifestly the case with Israel, and it is but too true a picture of our own times.
2. The proposal implies reformation begun. The obstinacy has given way. They are ashamed. They seek His face early, earnestly.
3. The proposal is that of following up these good beginnings. We may learn much concerning God in His attributes and relations. The inquiry should be followed up in the way He has prescribed--the way of righteousness, self-denial, prayer, and religious obedience generally. We should follow on in the manner He has prescribed--sincerely, humbly, fervently, perseveringly.
II. Thy encouragement assumed.
1. This going forth is a certain blessing. The outgoings of the morning are settled by a Divine constitution.
2. This going forth is a progressive blessing. The condition suggested is that of improvement--of going on from good to better. It is a state of improving light.
The subject should teach us--
1. The importance of saving knowledge. Those who remain at a distance from God must remain in darkness and barrenness and misery.
2. It should encourage exertion.
3. It should induce large expectations.
4. It should confirm us in a patient continuance in well-doing. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Conditions of knowledge
There must be no sitting down by the wayside, no loitering, no laziness in all the school of the Church. We shall know if we follow on to know. If we practise the little we do know, we shall get outlook of things that lie beyond, and confidence to deal with them. Love shall beget love; capacity shall enlarge itself into a still fuller capacity, and practice in prayer should, so to say, end in skill of supplication; we shall know the way to the throne and the seat of mercy, and come boldly to it as of right, not in ourselves, but invested in us by the grace of God. Prepared as the morning--is established as the morning. It is a great action of law, a great movement settled, regulated, determined from eternity. He shall come unto us as the rain, not the occasional shower, not the intermittent baptism of soft water, but as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Both must come, each in its own time, and in its own way. Thus we have law, and thus we have mercy. Here we have philosophy which earthly philosophy has not yet comprehended; condescension that leaves behind no amazement that it can stoop so low as to touch the fartherest away. It is in these mysteries we live; in these voices we hear the only music we care to listen to. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Patient perseverance
Is God revealed by the works of creation, or are those works the instruments for the memorial and confirmation of a previous revelation? We incline to the latter view. We cannot regard mankind as having been at any time independent of a revelation. Every man has, by traditionary revelation, a knowledge of Gods existence. When we examine into the works of nature, we find the confirmation of the truth with which we have been previously and independently made acquainted. There is no such thing as a light of nature, or natural religion.
I. The object of this knowledge. In the works of nature, and without the aid of the Bible, God is merely set forth as God, and not as the Lord; that is, He is known only as Creator. We regard this knowledge of the Lord as absolutely essential to mans happiness. By the knowledge of the Lord, we mean acquaintance with His purposes and plans. For this a preternatural revelation is necessary. We must know God as a being possessing a mind and purpose with respect to human actions and conduct. We can see but a faint shadow of Gods purposes in the works of creation. It is desirable to know the Lord, for the sake of His law. Unless there be a law of moral restraint, there must exist a state of misery.
II. The nature and kind of this knowledge of the Lord. It must be of a practical character. It must be capable of the test of good deeds. Unpractical knowledge and imperfect knowledge are one and the same thing. To know is to perceive with certainty, or to see with approbation. Love is not perceived and apprehended by the intellect, but by the heart. Intellectual knowledge should be the handmaid of heart knowledge. And a heart knowledge is identical with a practical know ledge.
III. The prescribed means of acquiring this knowledge. Follow on to know the Lord. The advance to the perfect knowledge of the Lord is independent of all external circumstances and all innate abilities; and thus if we all employ the same simple means, then the result will be the same in all. (W. H. Wright, B. A.)
Go on, go on
Arago says, in his Autobiography, that his master in mathematics was a word or two of advice which he found in the binding of one of his text-books. Puzzled and discouraged by the difficulties he met with in his early studies, he was almost ready to give over the pursuit. Some words which he found on the waste leaf used to stiffen the cover of his paper-bound text-book caught his eye and interested him. Impelled, he says, by an indefinable curiosity, I dampened the cover of the book, and carefully unrolled the leaf to see what was on the other side. It proved to be a short letter from DAlembert to a young person disheartened like myself by the difficulties of mathematical study, who had written to him for counsel. Go on, sir, go on, was the counsel which DAlembert gave him. The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn and shine with increasing clearness on your path. That maxim, says Arago, was my greatest master in mathematics. Following out those simple words, Go on, sir, go on, made him the first astronomical mathematician of his age. What Christians it would make of us! (Old Testament Anecdotes.)
Knowing by following on
When climbing Snowdon, I one day scaled some precipitous rocks called Crybydiskil, i.e., edge of the plate, because on each side of the narrow ridge was a sheer precipice of several hundred feet. A thick fog came on which hid from view everything but ourselves and the bit of knife-edge on which we straddled. We knew that the ridge led direct to the summit, which we should reach if we went forward. We could see two yards beyond us, but not an inch farther. This was enough for the very next advance, when a further similar glimpse was revealed. So by creeping along the first few inches, we saw the next few hitherto hidden. So, as the Scripture says, Follow on to know the Lord. (Newman Hall.)
Practical devotion promotes our knowledge of God
Near the Arctics the fogs are prevalent and thick. This is because there is so much ice drifting down from the vast frozen fields of the north, the meeting of which with the warmer southern waters fills the air with moisture. If we keep our minds at the edge of the cold regions of secularity, we may expect that our minds shall be in a fog as respects religious truth. Drift into the warmer air of practical devotion, accustom your heart to the prevalence of spiritual sentiments, and see how clear Gods truth will become. (J. B. Ludlow, D. D.)
His going forth is prepared as the morning.
Morning cometh
1. The time of deliverance is the morning, the morning after the sad, dark night, As light is comfortable in the, morning, after a dark and stormy night, so is deliverance after trouble. God s mercies after afflictions are very sweet.
2. The Church has no afflictions unfollowed by a morning.
3. It is Gods presence which constitutes the saints morning.
4. Gods mercies to His people are prepared and decreed.
5. The saints in the night of their affliction can comfort themselves in this, that the morning is coming. It is night yet, but the morning will come; it is approaching.
6. The saints night is darkest a little before their deliverance; as a little before the dawning of the day the darkness is most dense and terrible.
7. Gods mode of deliverance is gradual. As the day breaks by degrees, so the saints shine gradually in their lives, answerable to the light which God imparts. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
The going forth of the Lord prepared as the morning
These words show just where Ephraim was in soul experience. He does not represent one destitute of spiritual light and life, but a quickened vessel of mercy, but one who was wrapping himself up in a garment, not of Christs giving, nor of the Spirits application. And there are many still who have the fear of God in their hearts who are wrapping themselves up in a covering which is not of Gods Spirit. There is something more to be known than the bare doctrine of Christs righteousness. That doctrine may even become a lying refuge if the mere letter of truth is sheltered in, and the Holy Ghost does not experimentally make it known to the soul.
I. The soul experience indicated. A following on to know the Lord. To know the Lord is the desire of every living soul. To know Him by His own Divine manifestations, by the gracious revelation of His grace, His love, His presence, His glory. To know the Lord is to know, experimentally and spiritually, the power of Jesus blood and righteousness. Thus to know the Lord is the sum and substance of vital godliness. But the expression follow on implies that there are many difficulties, obstacles, and hindrances in a mans way, which keep him back from knowing the Lord.
1. Sometimes a man takes up the notion that he is but a self-deceiver and a hypocrite.
2. Sometimes Satan hurls a blasphemous suggestion into our carnal mind.
3. Sometimes the remembrance of past sins, lying as a heavy weight on the conscience, presses a man down with despondency and despair.
4. Sometimes the gusts of infidelity will so blow on a mans mind as to make him doubt the reality of all religion.
5. Sometimes the recollection of many inconsistencies, foolish thoughts, words, and actions, stand like mountains of difficulty in his way.
6. Sometimes great worldly troubles hinder him.
7. Sometimes darkness besets the mind, and clouds of unbelief rest on the soul, and the way is obscure. The work of the Spirit in a mans soul is to carry him on in spite of all these obstacles. It is really astonishing how souls are kept alive. For what are we to follow on? To know the Lord, as the sum and substance of all religion, as the very marrow of vital godliness.
II. Seeking the Lord and not finding Him. This is a part of experience through which every soul passeth. Here lies the difference between a living soul in his darkest hours and a dead professor. A living soul knows that God is to be found of His saints, but cannot always find Him for himself; but a dead professor knows nothing about God at all. It is to the living soul walking in darkness, and unable to find God, that the text says, His going forth is prepared as the morning. There is an appointed time for the Lord to go forth: and this is compared to the rising of the sun. All His goings forth are as much prepared, and the moment is as much appointed, as the time is fixed every morning for the sun to rise.
III. The fruit and effect of the Lords coming. As the rain--softening and fertilising. To understand the spiritual, we must first know the meaning of the natural figure. Explain the two rain seasons of Palestine. In the early rain is a figure of Christs first coming to the soul. By the latter rain is suggested Christs coming in Christian experience. (J. G. Philpot.)
Christ the day-dawn and the rain
The most ancient Jewish commentators find the last fulfilment of these words in the great promised Messiah. It is Christ, then, whom our faith must grasp under these two figures, the day-dawn and the rain. The world is a great book of symbols for the soul of man to read God by. There is something of common likeness in these two figures, and yet something distinctive is conveyed. There is a twofold coming of the Son of God, the first in His own person to establish and confirm the Gospel, the second in His Holy Spirit, to apply it to the heart. The one of these may very fitly be compared to the morning, and the other to the rain.
I. The day-dawn and the rain represent some resemblances between the coming of Christ in His Gospel and in His Spirit.
1. They have the same manifest origin. The day dawn comes from heaven and so does the rain. They are not of mans ordering, but of Gods. And it is not less so with the Gospel and Spirit of Christ. Man neither invented them nor discovered them. They carry their evidence with them, like heavens sun and heavens rain. We may learn the origin of our faith in a study of the grandeur and comprehensiveness of its plan, and in a feeling of its power in our souls. The same God who makes morning to the world by the sun, gives the dawn of a new creation to the spirits of men through the Saviour.
2. They have the same mode of operation on the part of God. That mode of operation is soft and silent. The greatest powers of nature work most calmly and noiselessly. And like to these in their operations are the Gospel and Spirit of Christ. When our Saviour came into the world, it was silent and alone. So it was with His entrance into the heart. There is no outward crisis to tell of the birth of souls.
3. They have the same form of approach to us--in perfect freeness and fulness. The morning light comes unfettered by any condition, and so, also, descends the rain. The Gospel opens on the world priceless and free as the light which waits but for the eye to be unclosed to see and share it all. As free is the Spirit of Christ. Nor has He less fulness.
4. They have the same object and end. It is the transformation of death into life, and the raising of that which lives into higher and fairer form. The Gospel and Spirit of Christ have the same aim--life and revival. The Gospel of Christ is the Word of life. The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of life. As both work together for life, so both must co-operate for revival.
II. Some points of the distinction between them.
1. Christs approach to men has a general and yet a special aspect. The sun comes every morning with a broad unbroken look, shining for all, and singling out none. There is a universality of kindness about him which men, with all their powers of limitation, have never been able to abridge. But the rain as it descends, breaks into drops, and hangs with its globules on every blade. There is a wonderfully individualising power in the rain. The Gospel of Gods grace enters the world with the broad universal look of daylight. It singles out none that it may exclude none. The arms of God are as wide as His call, and the power of Christs atonement is as unlimited as the invitation to it. But Christ comes after another manner with His Spirit. Here no man can tell how God is dealing with another.
2. Christs coming is constant, and yet variable. The sunrise is of all things the most sure and settled. And Christ visits men in His Gospel, steady and unchanging as the sun. But with the Holy Spirit it is other wise. His coming varies in time and place, as the rain, whose arrival depends on causes we have not fathomed.
3. Christs coming may be with gladness, but also with trouble. What can be more joyful than the returning sun? But God comes also in the cloud, and there is a shade over the face of nature. So Christ comes, through His Spirit, in the conviction of sin.
4. Christs coming, in His Gospel and Spirit, may be separate for awhile, but they tend to a final and perfect union. They are indispensable to each other. Sunlight without rain, and rain without sunlight, can only work evil. The Gospel without the Spirit, would be the sun shining on a waterless waste. The Spirit without the Gospel, would be the rain falling in a starless night. Some have a very distinct perception of the Gospel in its freeness and fulness, but they have ceased to derive from it the comfort they once enjoyed. They need the rain. They have been too neglectful of the secret life of religion, which is its soul. (John Ker, D. D.)
The goings forth of the Lord
By His going forth, we are to understand the communications of His grace in behalf of those who desire an interest in His favour.
I. The idea suggested by this expression is that of certainty as to the event. Before the faintest streaks of light appear, we feel no misgivings as to the return of morning. The longest winter night will come to an end. Thus certain and infallible are Gods gracious purposes to penitent souls. As soon shall the sun forget to rise, as His goings forth of grace and mercy be frustrated. This may encourage seeking souls, afflicted ones, weeping mothers and fathers, and those who are approaching the end of life.
II. An idea suggested by the first image in the text is that of clearness. What a change does the dawning morn produce upon the face of nature and the views of man! We find the path which before was doubtful open to our view. We can go to our avocations without stumbling, or, if travellers, prosecute our journey without fear. By the glorious light which God sheds upon their path, His people are guided into all truth. The most wonderful discoveries are made to their souls, and they see more accurately than they ever did before the marvellous things of Gods law. The entrance of Gods word gives light, and crooked things become straight before it.
III. Another idea suggested is that of gladness and joy. The light is sweet; and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. As the night is the season of gloom, the morning is one of cheerfulness and joy. In Psa_130:1-8. the truly penitent soul is represented as waiting for the consolations of religion under the image of those who watch for the coming of the morning. Neither the moon in all her beauty, nor the stars in all their brightness, can compare with the splendours of the orb of day. At his rising universal nature is refreshed, and the earth on which he shines puts on a robe of gladness. And it is thus with the goings forth of the Lord. Let but the healing beams of the Sun of Righteousness arise upon the soul, and even the wilderness and the solitary place will be glad for them. The whole heart is inspired with a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.
IV. Another idea suggested is that of progress. Not all at once, but gradual, is the beauty of the morning. So the goings forth of the Lord are gradual upon the soul, until from the first dawnings of spiritual light it is rendered capable of beholding the august glories of the Gospel. The second illustration in the passage is taken from the rain. Between rain that descends upon the earth, and the influences of Divine grace on the soul, many pleasing analogies obtain. Rain is the work of God. It falls according to the appointment of Him who causes it to descend on One city and not upon another. The rain falls sometimes gently and persistently, sometimes violently. Like the former and the latter rain of the East, there are two seasons in the Divine life, when the influences of the Divine Spirit are particularly requisite. Young converts stand in need of the one, and aged saints of the other. (J. L. Adamson.)
Coming as the morning
A recent traveller gives a striking description of sunrise among the Himalaya Mountains. We were watching, she says, the first flash of rosy dawn on a high snowpeak, as the stars disappeared one by one. The song of the first bird blended with the roar of the stream that fretted its way through the narrow gorge. Then we could trace the forms of trees, shrubs, and flowers above and below our path, and enjoy the fragrance of the eglantine blossoms strewn hither and thither like patches of snow. Presently, however, her attention was drawn to a mimosa-tree which seemed quite dead. Its leaves, although green, were closed and drooping. Yet the root had not been disturbed--branches, twigs, blossoms, and the leaves themselves all appeared perfect. Was it dead, or only asleep? As we watch and wonder, the slanting rays of yellow light from the great sun, hidden hitherto by the mountain opposite, creep toward us. They touch the mimosa-tree, and at the same moment we hear the rustle of the morning breeze among its leaves. Even as we look the delicate twigs are stirred; they flutter in the wind, they lift themselves to the golden rays, and, ere we pass on, the leaves are expanded, the blossoms erect, and the tree seems to rejoice among its fellows in its gracious fulness of life. (Sunday Companion.)
Genuine piety
I. In genuine piety the individual man has to do with the great God. He has to follow on to know the Lord.
II. In genuine piety the great God has to do with individual man, His going forth is prepared as the morning, etc.
1. He cometh to him as the morning--full of promise. What a delightful season is the morning. It rings the knell of the dark night, and heralds the coming day. How delightful the morning to the sufferer on his bed; to the mariner on the ocean, etc. God comes to the man that is following on to know Him; puts an end to the night of his guilt, and throws around him the first beams of a glorious day. He comes as the night to the wicked; He comes as the morning to the good. We would not have Him come as the noon to us. He would consume us with His glory.
2. He comes to him as the rain--full of refreshing influence. He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. What a glorious change do the seasonable showers produce upon the parched earth! they change every part into life and beauty. Thus the Almighty comes to the good man, and he feels it to be a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Learn from this the glorious destiny of the good. It is a following on to know Him, whom to know is life eternal. (Homilist.)
The gentleness of Christ
The Jews regarded these words as a prophecy of Christ. As such take them. How beautiful is the morning! How refreshing is the rain!
I. Both are independent of man. The day is Thine, O Lord, Thou hast prepared the light. He prepareth rain for the earth. They both emanate from God. How true of grace and mercy! He who gives morning to the world gives dawning to the soul.
1. How softly, and silently come the light and the rain! How true of Christs coming into the world and of His mission among men! He shall, not strive, etc. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation--with spectators looking on.
2. How true of Christs entrance into the soul! Not in the storm, but in the still small voice. My conversion, says a French evangelist, was as gentle as a mothers kiss.
II. Both are necessary to man. Nansen tells us how they longed for the light! In India and Australia, how the thirsty land cries out for the refreshing showers! So the soul of man needs Christ.
III. Both are full and free for man. The sun and the rain come for all. No Trusts can monopolise them. How true of the Divine love! It is like the great sea whose waves beat upon every shore. Draw up the blind, said George Dawson; let in the light. When the gentle rain descends, you put out your ferns and flower-pots. Get where there are showers of blessing that your soul may be refreshed. (A. Hampden Lee.)
He shall come to us as the rain.--
Christ as the rain
1. Christs coming to the heart, and the rains coming to the flower, are alike in this, that each is by the sovereign ordering of God. Modern science has attained wonderful knowledge of the laws that govern the movements of the clouds. But we are as dependent upon God now, as ever, for the early and the latter rain, for the showers that water and refresh the earth. Equally dependent are we for those influences of the Holy Spirit by which Christ in all His preciousness and graciousness is communicated to the soul.
2. The coming in each case affords scope for the energy and efficacy of prayer. Whilst God is sovereign in His gifts, He is not arbitrary in their bestowment either in nature or in grace. There are innumerable and well-attested instances in which God has heard the prayers of His people for rain. And so the coming of Christ with spiritual power into the heart and into the Church may be secured by earnest and importunate prayer.
3. The coming of Christ in refreshing presence and power is often pre ceded by lightning and tempest. Dark clouds of adversity, fierce winds of temptation disturb and terrify the soul. When the storms of spiritual trial have encompassed the soul, Christ by His blessed Spirit comes in gentlest and most unobtrusive ministry to every parched leaf and drooping flower of the Christian graces.
4. The coming of Christ is like that of the rain in its benign and blessed results. The roots of religious life are fed. The fountains of spiritual energy in the soul are replenished. (T. D. Witherspoon, D. D. , LL. D.)
The Spirit as rain
1. As rain, the influences of the Holy Spirit are copious.
2. Are seasonable.
3. Are refreshing.
4. Are fertilising.
5. Are from above. (G. Brooks.)
As the latter and the former rain.--The analogy between nature and grace is very close. God employs nature as a typal thing. He designs through it to image forth Diviner things. He would have us be observers of nature, to look through nature up to natures God. Years ago, an observing writer told how he viewed the ravages of winter as the Jews did the desolation of their temple when its expressive types and symbols were demolished or defaced by the Babylonian armies, and thus he viewed spring as the rebuilding of the creation-temple, in which are renewed all the sweet and significant emblems of the everlasting Gospel. In the same spirit may we consider the early and latter rain, the second of the two images employed by the prophet Hosea. Now, we read about the former and the latter rain in other parts of Scripture as well as in Hosea. (Thus in Deu_11:14; Jer_5:24; Joe_2:23; Jam_5:7.) Rain typifies and sets forth Divine influence and grace. It falls to fertilise where all was dry and fruitless. It falls to renew the face of the earth. It falls to ripen and mature the grain. In Judea the rain fell plentifully twice in the year. About September, and about March, if, chiefly and more copiously fell. Now, the month Abib, or March, was the first month in the ecclesiastical or holy year; and hence we have light thrown on the expression, the latter rain in the first month. It may be observed, without any undue pressing of the similitude, that rain being the vapours exhaled by the sun, would cease to fall were the sun withdrawn from the firmament. The parallel between growth in nature and growth in grace, being clear, we are taught at once that Divine grace comes not apart from Him who, being the Son of God, died on the Cross for our sins, that through the Holy Ghost sent down, the fruitless soil of our fallen nature might have fertility--be quickened into newness of life. Now, it strikes us as interesting that, in the passages we have cited, beginning with the Book of Deuteronomy, and ending with the Epistle of St. James, there should be seen a certain order which we may follow as we try briefly to exhibit some truths suggested by our subject. In Deuteronomy, we read how God would give the first rain and the latter rain. Passing on to Jeremiah, we see how the people refused to fear the Lord who giveth rain both the former and the latter. In Hosea we read of the fuller knowledge to be enjoyed by those who serve the Lord. In Joel we read of the joy of the children of God to whom had been given the former rain. Then in St. James we read of the patience that becomes the Christian as he waits for the coming of his Lord. Undesigned as this order may be, it is nevertheless interesting. It suggests to us the thought of progressiveness. As the Christian dispensation is fuller, brighter than the Jewish; so the believer should advance, following on to know the Lord.
Beginning, then, with the words of Deuteronomy, we read in Deu_11:13-14 --And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto My commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul; that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. As Israel sought spiritual blessings, so should Israel enjoy temporal blessings as well. These were the terms of the Divine covenant. Grace, free and undeserved grace, itself the outflow of the Divine love, would bestow these blessings. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (temporal necessaries) shall be added unto you. Thus the prophet Jeremiah speaks: But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart,. . . neither say they in their heart, Let us.now fear the Lord our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter in his season. In the days of Moses, multitudes of the Israelites had turned from God. They entered not into the promised land, because of unbelief. On them the former and the latter rain never fell. So, in the days of Jeremiah, many feared not God, who yet saw how His covenant with nature was kept, and around whom privileges were gathered. The words of the prophet Hosea (Hos_6:3) tell of the bright and blessed results of real repentance, Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord. We observe in this verse that the latter rain is placed before the former; and it may be just said by the way that the latter rain (malkusit, from a verb to delay) was more probably that which fell in the autumn, and the former rain (jirah) that which fell in the spring; though this is questioned. (See Calmets Dict.)
Without seeing in this uncertainty any explanation of the precedence of the latter rain in the verse in Hosea, something perhaps may be inferred as to the inseparableness of the former and the latter rain. Grace is glory begun. And so the apostle Peter speaks: And hope to the end (or, hope perfectly, τελίως ἐλπίσατε), for the grace that is being brought unto you (φερομένην) at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Life eternal being the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent, Divine grace, typified by the early rain, must cause this knowledge to take root in our heart. And then, little and limited though that knowledge be at first, like the showers first drops, yet we shall know, if we follow on to know the Lord. Where rain has come, rain will come. They go from strength to strength. Sin, as they follow on, becomes less strong; God becomes more the strength of their heart. So the prophet Joel speaks of the joy of Christians: Be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God, for He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month. In this verse, we are directed in the margin to observe that the former rain moderately is in the Hebrew the . . . according to righteousness.
In the Septuagint the literal rendering would be, For He gave to you (the) food (τὰ βρώματα) towards (or with reference to) righteousness, and will rain for you rain early and late (latter), according as before. It does not seem quite plain bow we are to take the words, the former rain according to righteousness, or a teacher unto righteousness (as Hebrews will have it), if they are not taken in some way to have regard to a teacher (perhaps Joel himself) typical of the Messiah. Concerning ourselves, however, with the rendering of our Authorised Version, the former rain moderately (or in due measure), we shall see that the children of Zion were to be glad and rejoice in the Lord their God, giving glory to Him who had kept and remembered His covenant, who had sent and who would send the shower to fructify the earth, and who had shed abroad in their hearts the very grace that shower should typify. Be glad and rejoice; your hearts have been disposed to holiness through Divine grace; God will perform the good work in you which He has begun. So spake the inspired prophet. And, in truth, joy becomes the Christian. But this joy, we remember, requires patience. And St. James, in the last passage remaining for us, speaks of patience: Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord; and he proceeds to employ an illustration fetched from the tiller and the field. In the purpose and promise of God, precariousness has no place; and between seed-time and harvest nature exacts her needed interval.
Time is needed for the early, time for the latter rain to fall. So spiritually; and more also. Natural rain may be withheld; drought may be instead. Grace shall always come, if rightly sought. It cannot fail. Patience becomes the Christian; the Word of God sown in his heart shall not be left waterless. But a span separates the early from the latter rain. To none should the time be either too long or yet too short. Be patient unto the coming of the Lord. And once again, there is encouragement in the thought of the rain, the latter rain, where there may have been a declension, where watchlessness may have been allowed, or where trial and temptation may have chilled devotion and zeal. Rain sought again, shall fall to revive. Never forsaken by a covenant God, penitent Israel, idolatrous and prayerless no more, will receive the blessing of abundance of rain: he shall grow as the lily, and revive as the corn. (Christian Observer.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.