1When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.
2They don’t consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face.
3They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
4They are all adulterers. They are burning like an oven that the baker stops stirring, from the kneading of the dough, until it is leavened.
5On the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine. He joined his hand with mockers.
6For they have prepared their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps all the night. In the morning it burns as a flaming fire.
7They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me.
1 When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.
2 They don’t consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face.
3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
4 They are all adulterers. They are burning like an oven that the baker stops stirring, from the kneading of the dough, until it is leavened.
5 On the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine. He joined his hand with mockers.
6 For they have prepared their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps all the night. In the morning it burns as a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me.
KJVKing James Version
1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without.
2 And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.
3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
4 They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.
5 In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.
6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.
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JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
1 when I would heal Israel, then is the iniquity of Ephraim uncovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they commit falsehood; and the thief entereth in, and the troop of robbers maketh a raid without.
2 And let them not say to their heart — I remember all their wickedness; now their own doings have beset them about, they are before My face.
3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
4 They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth to stir from the kneading of the dough until it be leavened.
5 On the day of our king the princes make him sick with the heat of wine, he stretcheth out his hand with scorners.
6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait; their baker sleepeth all the night, in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges; all their kings are fallen, there is none among them that calleth unto Me.
Hosea 7:13(v1)Woe to them! For they have wandered from me. Destruction to them! For they have trespassed against me. Though I would redeem them, yet they…
Luke 12:2(v2)But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.
Jeremiah 9:2(vv3–4)Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all…
Romans 1:32(v3)who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those…
2 Kings 15:10(v7)Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and struck him before the people, and killed him, and reigned in his place.
Show all 100 cross-references
2 Kings 15:14(v7)Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirzah, came to Samaria, struck Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria, killed him, and reigned in his…
2 Kings 15:25(v7)Pekah the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him and attacked him in Samaria, in the fortress of the king’s house, with Argob…
2 Kings 15:30(v7)Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, attacked him, killed him, and reigned in his place, in the…
Psalms 90:8(v2)You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
Jeremiah 2:19(v2)“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing,…
Jeremiah 14:10(v2)Yahweh says to this people, “Even so they have loved to wander. They have not restrained their feet. Therefore Yahweh does not accept them.…
Hosea 6:4(v1)“Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears…
Amos 8:7(v2)Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Surely I will never forget any of their works.
Micah 7:3(v3)Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil…
Micah 7:3-7(v1)Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil…
Hosea 4:2(vv1, 3, 4)There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.
Isaiah 28:1(vv1, 5)Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile…
Genesis 40:20(v5)On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday, he made a feast for all his servants, and he lifted up the head of the chief cup bearer and…
Job 36:13(v7)“But those who are godless in heart lay up anger. They don’t cry for help when he binds them.
Psalms 1:1(v5)Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;
Psalms 9:16(v2)Yahweh has made himself known. He has executed judgment. The wicked is snared by the work of his own hands.
Psalms 10:8-9(v6)He lies in wait near the villages. From ambushes, he murders the innocent. His eyes are secretly set against the helpless. He lurks in…
Psalms 25:7(v2)Don’t remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. Remember me according to your loving kindness, for your goodness’ sake, Yahweh.
Psalms 69:12(v5)Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards.
Isaiah 5:12(v2)The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of Yahweh, neither have they…
Isaiah 9:13(v7)Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought Yahweh of Armies.
Isaiah 43:22(v7)Yet you have not called on me, Jacob; but you have been weary of me, Israel.
Isaiah 64:7(v7)There is no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have consumed…
Jeremiah 4:18(v2)“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.”
Jeremiah 5:7-8(v4)“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed…
Jeremiah 9:2-6(v1)Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all…
Jeremiah 16:17(v2)For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes.
Jeremiah 28:1-4(v3)That same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, Hananiah the son of Azzur,…
Jeremiah 32:19(v2)great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give everyone according to his ways,…
Daniel 5:23(v5)but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords,…
Hosea 7:10(v7)The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they haven’t returned to Yahweh their God, nor sought him, for all this.
Hosea 8:4(v7)They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made…
Hosea 9:9(v2)They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins.
Micah 2:1(v6)Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of…
Matthew 23:37(v1)“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children…
Luke 13:34(v1)“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children…
Luke 19:42(v1)saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.
1 Corinthians 4:5(v2)Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the…
Ephesians 5:18(v5)Don’t be drunken with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit,
Hebrews 4:13(v2)There is no creature that is hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him to whom we must give an…
James 4:4(v4)You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a…
1 Peter 4:3-4(v5)For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies,…
Micah 6:16(vv1, 3)For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of Ahab’s house. You walk in their counsels, that I may make you a ruin, and her…
Numbers 32:23(v2)“But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against Yahweh; and be sure your sin will find you out.
Deuteronomy 32:29(v2)Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
1 Samuel 19:11-15(v6)Saul sent messengers to David’s house, to watch him, and to kill him in the morning. Michal, David’s wife, told him, saying, “If you don’t…
2 Samuel 13:28-29(v6)Absalom commanded his servants, saying, “Mark now, when Amnon’s heart is merry with wine; and when I tell you, ‘Strike Amnon,’ then kill…
1 Kings 13:4(v5)When the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar in Bethel, Jeroboam put out his hand from the altar,…
1 Kings 16:9-11(v7)His servant Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him. Now he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza,…
1 Kings 16:18(v7)When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the fortified part of the king’s house, and burned the king’s house over him with…
1 Kings 22:6(v3)Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Should I go against Ramoth Gilead to…
1 Kings 22:13(v3)The messenger who went to call Micaiah spoke to him, saying, “See now, the prophets declare good to the king with one mouth. Please let…
2 Kings 9:24(v7)Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and struck Joram between his arms; and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sunk down in his…
2 Kings 9:33(v7)He said, “Throw her down!” So they threw her down; and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses. Then he trampled her…
2 Kings 10:7(v7)When the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons and killed them, even seventy people, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them…
2 Kings 10:14(v7)He said, “Take them alive!” They took them alive, and killed them at the pit of the shearing house, even forty-two men. He didn’t leave any…
Job 20:11-29(v2)His bones are full of his youth, but youth will lie down with him in the dust. “Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it…
Job 34:21(v2)“For his eyes are on the ways of a man. He sees all his goings.
Psalms 50:22(v2)“Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver.
Proverbs 4:16(v6)For they don’t sleep unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall.
Proverbs 5:21-22(v2)For the ways of man are before Yahweh’s eyes. He examines all his paths. The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin…
Proverbs 13:20(v5)One who walks with wise men grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
Proverbs 20:1(v5)Wine is a mocker and beer is a brawler. Whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
Proverbs 23:29-35(v5)Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? Those who stay long at…
Isaiah 1:3(v2)The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t consider.”
Isaiah 5:11-12(v5)Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!…
Isaiah 5:22-23(v5)Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink; who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for…
Isaiah 28:7-8(v5)They also reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink. They are swallowed up by wine.…
Isaiah 59:12(v1)For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our…
Jeremiah 5:31(v3)The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end…
Jeremiah 37:19(v3)Now where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you, nor against this land?’
Jeremiah 51:9(v1)“We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to…
Ezekiel 16:46(v1)Your elder sister is Samaria, who dwells at your left hand, she and her daughters; and your younger sister, who dwells at your right hand,…
Ezekiel 22:30(v7)“I sought for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I would not destroy it; but I…
Ezekiel 23:4(v1)Their names were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria…
Daniel 5:1-4(v5)Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the…
Daniel 9:13(v7)As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us. Yet we have not entreated the favor of Yahweh our God, that we should…
Hosea 4:12(v4)My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they…
Hosea 4:17(v1)Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone!
Hosea 5:1(v1)“Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been…
Hosea 5:11(v3)Ephraim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgment; Because he is intent in his pursuit of idols.
Hosea 5:15(v7)I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”
Hosea 6:8-10(v1)Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood. As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests…
Hosea 7:4(v6)They are all adulterers. They are burning like an oven that the baker stops stirring, from the kneading of the dough, until it is leavened.
Hosea 7:5(v3)On the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine. He joined his hand with mockers.
Hosea 7:6-7(v4)For they have prepared their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps all the night. In the morning it burns as a…
Hosea 7:7(v6)They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their kings have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me.
Hosea 7:14(v7)They haven’t cried to me with their heart, but they howl on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They turn away…
Hosea 8:5(v1)Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity?
Hosea 8:9(v1)For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself.
Hosea 8:13(v2)As for the sacrifices of my offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it; But Yahweh doesn’t accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity,…
Hosea 10:5(v1)The inhabitants of Samaria will be in terror for the calves of Beth Aven; for its people will mourn over it, Along with its priests who…
Hosea 11:12–12:1(v1)Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood, and the house of Israel with deceit. Judah still strays from God, and is unfaithful to the Holy One.…
Amos 7:10-13(v3)Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the middle of the house of…
Amos 8:14(v1)Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives;’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives;’ they will fall, and never…
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (114 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (26 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv1–7God, that he might show how corrupt was the…
God, that he might show how corrupt was the state of all the people of Israel, compares himself here to a physician, who, while he wishes to try remedies, acknowledges that there are hid more grievous diseases; which is often the case. When a sick person sends for a physician, his disease will be soon discovered; but it may be that he has for many years labored under other hidden complaints, which do not immediately come to the knowledge of the physician. He may indeed think that the symptoms of the disease are those which proceed from a source more hidden; but on the third or fourth days after having tried some remedies he then knows that there is some hidden malady. God then says, that by applying remedies he had found out how corrupt Israel was, While I was healing my people, he says, then I knew what was the iniquity of Samaria and of all Ephraim.
By Samaria he means the principal part of the kingdom; for that city, as it is well known, was the capital and the chief seat of government. The Prophet therefore says, that the iniquities of Samaria were then discovered to be, not common, but inveterate diseases. This is the meaning. We now see what God had in view; for the people might deceive themselves, as it often happens, and say, “We are not indeed wholly free from every vice; but God ought not however to punish us so severely, for what nation is there under the sun which does not labour under the common diseases?” But the Prophet here answers, that the people of Israel were so corrupt, that light remedies would not do for them. God then here undertakes the office of a physician, and says, “I have hitherto wished to heal Israel, and this was my design, when I hewed them by my Prophets, and employed my word as a sword; and afterwards when I added chastisements; but now I have found that their wickedness is greater than can be corrected by such remedies.” The iniquity of Ephraim then has been discovered, he says, and then I perceived the vices of Samaria
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Now this place teaches, that though the vices of men do not immediately appear, yet they who deceive themselves, and disguise themselves to others, gain nothing, nor are they made free before God, and their fault is not lessened, nor are they absolved from guilt; for at last their hidden vices will come to light: and this especially happens, when the Lord performs the office of a physician towards them; for we see that men then cast out their bitterness, when the Lord seeks to heal their corruptions. Under the papacy, even those who are the worst conceal their own vices. How so? Because God does not try them; there is no teaching that cauterizes or that draws blood. As then the Papists rest quietly in their own dregs, their perverseness does not appear. But in other places, where God puts forth the power of his word, and where he speaks effectually by his servants, there men show what great impiety was before hid in them; for in full rage they rise up against God, and they cannot bear any admonition. As soon then as God begins to do the office of a physician, men then discover their diseases. And this is the reason why the world so much shun the light of heavenly doctrine; for he who does evil hates the light, (John 3:20.) We may also observe the same as to chastisements. When God indulges the wicked, they then with the mouth at least bless him; but when he begins to punish their sins they clamour against him and are angry, and at length show how much fury was before hid in their hearts. We now see what the Prophet here lays to the charge of the people of Israel. It may also be observed at this day through the whole world, that the curing of diseases discovers evils which were before unknown.
But we have said, and this ought to be borne in mind, that Ephraim is here expressly named by the Prophet, and also the city, Samaria, because he wished to intimate that their diseases were inveterate, existing not only in the extreme members, but deeply fixed in the head and bowels, and occupying the vital parts. It then follows, Because they have acted mendaciously, or, done falsely. The Prophet signifies by this expression, that there was nothing sound in the whole people, because they were addicted to their own depravities. By the word שקר, shikor, he means every kind of falseness, that is, that men were thoroughly imbued with depraved lusts, and that there was now remaining in them nothing sound or whole. This then is the main point, that the wickedness of the people was discovered, and that it could not be cured by moderate severity, because it had penetrated into the very bowels and spread over the whole body.
What follows interpreters are wont to regard as the punishment which God had already inflicted. The Prophet says The thief has entered in, and the robber has plundered without. They therefore think that this is to be referred to the manner in which God had already begun by punishment to recall the people to a sound mind; as though he said, “You have been pillaged by thieves as well as harassed by robbers.” But I rather think that the Prophet here pursues the same subject, and shows that the people were inwardly and outwardly so infected with vices, that there was now no whole part; and that by mentioning a part for the whole, he here designates every kind of evil, for he specifies two kinds which may stand for all things in general. He therefore says, The thief has entered in, that is, stealthily, and does mischief insidiously, or even openly like robbers, who use open violence; which means, that impiety so prevailed, either by frauds or by open war, that they were in every way corrupt. But when he says, that the thief had entered in, he means, that many of the people were like foxes, who craftily do mischief; and when he says, that the robber had plundered abroad, he means that others, like lions, seized openly and without shame on what belonged to others, and thus by open force stripped and plundered the miserable and the poor.
We now apprehend the meaning of the Prophet. Having said that the Israelites and the citizens of Samaria had conducted themselves so deceitfully, he now, by specifying two things, shows how they had departed from all uprightness, and prostituted themselves to every kind of wickedness; because where violence reigned, there also frauds and all kinds of evil reigned. The thief then had entered in, and the robber plundered abroad; that is, they secretly circumvented their neighbors, and also went forth like robbers openly and without any shame. It then 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.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7Meaning, that there was no one kind of vice…
Meaning, that there was no one kind of vice among them, but that they were subject to all wickedness, both secret and open.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv1–7Hos 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then…
Hos 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, [and] the troop of robbers spoileth without.
Ver. 1. When I would have healed Israel, &c.] Whereas Israel, hearing of a happy harvest promised to Judah, Hos 6:11, and themselves excluded, might complain of hard dealing; God shows them here, that crudelem medicum intemperans aeger facit, the fault was merely in themselves. God came with his healing medicines to have cured them, but they hated to be healed, and, like madmen, railed and raged against the physician, spilt the portions, would have none of those slibber-sauces, {a} as they accounted them; yea, as if on purpose to cross God,
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then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness ( malitia multiplex) of Samaria] Of so perverse a spirit were they; and therefore (in Solomen’s judgment, Pro 12:8) worthy to have been despised and let alone to perish in their corruptions. In Hippocrates’ time the physicians were bound by oath to leave such under their wounds to perish by them as were unruly, and would not be ordered. "We would have healed Babylon," (saith the Church), "but she would not be healed; forsake her therefore," saith God, Jer 51:9. "Let them alone," saith Christ, Mat 15:14. That which will die, let it die: a fearful sentence. Let them swelter and pine away in their iniquities, Lev 26:39. In their filthiness is lewdness, their disease is complicated, it is the leprosy in the head, it breaketh forth in their forehead, and my people love to have it so; but "what will they do in the end thereof?" Jer 5:31. Ephraim here discovereth a headstrong wilfulness that was uncounsellable, incurable. He runs away after conviction, with a bit between his teeth, as it were; he runs, I say, upon the rock, Amo 6:12, where he first breaketh his hoofs, and then his neck. Some grow desperately sinful, like those Italian senators, that despairing of their lives (when upon submission they had been promised their lives, yet), being conscious of their villany, made a curious banquet; and at the end thereof every man drank up his glass of poison: and killed himself. So men, feeling such horrible hard hearts, and privy to such notorious sins they cast away souls and all for lust; and perish woefully, because they lived desperately, and so securely. It is a fearful sign of reprobation when God’s means and medicines do men no good, but hurt rather; when medicine, which should remove the disease, doth co-operate with it, then death comes with the more pain and speed. The stronger the conviction of sin is the deeper will be the wrath against it, if it be not by repentance avoided.
For they commit falsehood] They do not the truth, 1Jn 1:6, but deal falsely, Jer 6:13, every one of them, from the prophet even to the priest; they work a deceitful work, Pro 11:18, their bellies prepare deceit, Job 15:35, they have an art in lying, in stitching one lie to another, as the word signifieth, Psa 119:69, Assuunt mendacium mendacio. Idolatry is a real lie, as she in the Book of Martyrs answered the doctor, that asked her, Dost thou believe that the body of Christ is in the sacrament of the altar really and substantially? I believe, said she, that so to hold is a real lie, and a substantial lie. These idolaters having played false with God, and treacherously dealt with him, what wonder though they lie, deceive, rob, spoil, both within doors and without, in private negotiations and public transactions? but especially forge lies against those that withstood their superstitious vanities, and prey upon their goods, as Heb 10:34. Sublata pietate tollitur fides, is a truth irrefutable. Take away piety, and fidelity is gone; as we see in that unrighteous judge, Luk 18:2, and as Abraham concluded of the men of Gerar, Gen 20:11, and lastly, as Constantinus Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, experimented in his own councillors and courtiers; whence that famous maxim of his, recorded by Eusebius: He cannot be faithful to me who is unfaithful to God; religion being the ground of all true fidelity and loyalty.
{a} A compound or concoction of a messy, repulsive, or nauseous character, used esp. for medicinal purposes. ŒD
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv1–7When: whether this chapter be a new sermon, or…
When: whether this chapter be a new sermon, or a continuation of that begun Ho 6, we need not inquire, nor are there any particulars by which we can guess at the time when this healing work was attempted; but, so soon as it was endeavoured; indefinitely it is spoken, and so to be interpreted.
I would have healed Israel: God doth assume the person of a physician or chirurgeon, who compassionately endeavours to cure a people sick and wounded: such was the house of Israel, the whole body of the people.
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The iniquity; the hidden, old, and putrefying sores, here called iniquity, the impieties and injustice.
Of Ephraim; of Israel, called Ephraim, or of Ephraim, the chief tribe of this revolting kingdom; some would have it mean the rulers, or principal men.
Was discovered; broke out; as many times in cures of old sores it happens some deeper and more rooted distemper, unthought of by the chirurgeon, appears. The wickedness, the great and many sins
of Samaria, the royal city of the kingdom, where citizens, priests, prophets, and courtiers as much outsinned others as they exceeded them in wealth and ease.
They commit falsehood; lying and cozening each other is acted as if it were a business they were bound to attend.
The thief cometh in; secret thefts, or robbing others by subtle and undiscerned methods.
The troop of robbers spoileth without; and open violence by hands joined to hands to spoil abroad. In a word, the strength and danger of their disease appears and increaseth more and more under endeavours to heal them.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v1Some take away the last words of the foregoing…
Some take away the last words of the foregoing chapter, and make them the beginning of this: "When I returned, or would have returned, the captivity of my people, when I was about to come towards them in ways of mercy, even when I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim (the country and common people) was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, the court and the chief city." Now, in these verses, we may observe,
I. A general idea given of the present state of Israel, Hos 7:1, Hos 7:2. See how the case now stood with them.
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1. God graciously designed to do well for them: I would have healed Israel. Israel were sick and wounded; their disease was dangerous and malignant, and likely to be fatal, Isa 1:6. But God offered to be their physician, to undertake the cure, and there was balm in Gilead sufficient to recover the health of the daughter of his people; their case was bad, but it was not desperate, nay, it was hopeful, when God would have healed Israel. (1.) He would have reformed them, would have separated between them and their sins, would have purged out the corruptions that were among them, by his laws and prophets. (2.) He would have delivered them out of their troubles, and restored to them their peace and prosperity. Several healing attempts were made, and their declining state seemed sometimes to be in a hopeful way of recovery; but their own folly put them back again. Note, If sinful miserable souls be not healed and helped, but perish in their sin and misery, they cannot lay the blame on God, for he both could and would have healed them; he offered to take the ruin under his hand. And there are some special seasons when God manifests his readiness to heal a distempered church and nation, now and then a hopeful crisis, which, if carefully watched and improved, might, even when the case is very bad, turn the scale for life and health.
2. They stood in their own light and put a bar in their own door. When God would have healed them, when they bade fair for reformation and peace, then their iniquity was discovered and their wickedness, which stopped that current of God's favours, and undid all again. (1.) Then, when their case came to be examined and enquired into, in order to their cure, that wickedness which had been concealed and palliated was found out; not that it was ever hid from God, but he speaks after the manner of men; as a surgeon, when he probes a wound in order to the cure of it and finds that it touches the vitals and is incurable, goes no further in his endeavour to cure it, so, when God came down to see the case of Israel (as the expression is, Gen 18:21), with kind intentions towards them, he found their wickedness so very flagrant, and them so hardened in it, so impudent and impenitent, that he could not in honour show them the favour he designed them. Note, Sinners are not healed because they would not be healed. Christ would have gathered them, and they would not. (2.) Then, when some endeavours were used to reform and reclaim them, that wickedness which had been restrained and kept under broke out; and from God's steps towards the healing of them they took occasion to be so much the more provoking. When endeavours were used to reform them vice grew more impetuous, more outrageous, and swelled so much the higher, as a stream when it is damned up. When they began to prosper they grew more proud, wanton, and secure, and so stopped the progress of their cure. Note, It is sin that turns away good things from us when they are coming towards us; and it is the folly and ruin of multitudes that, when God would do well for them, they do ill for themselves. And what was it that did them this mischief? In one word, they commit falsehood; they worship idols (so some), defraud one another (so others), or, rather, they dissemble with God in their professions of repentance and regard to him. They say that they are desirous to be healed by him, and, in order to that, willing to be ruled by him; but they lie unto him with their mouth and flatter him with their tongue.
3. A practical disbelief of God's omniscience and government was at the bottom of all their wickedness (Hos 7:2): "They consider not in their hearts, they never say it to their own hearts, never think of this, that I remember all their wickedness." As if God could not see it, though he is all eye, or did not heed it, though his name is Jealous, or had forgotten it, though he is an eternal mind that can never be unmindful, or would not reckon for it, though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This is the sinner's atheism; as good say that there is no God as say that he is either ignorant or forgetful, that there is none that judges in the earth as that he remembers not the things he is to give judgment upon. It is a high affront they put upon God; it is a damning cheat they put upon themselves; they say, The Lord shall not see, Psa 94:7. They cannot but know that God remembers all their works; they have been told it many a time; nay, if you ask them, they cannot but own it, and yet they do not consider it; they do not think of it when they should, and with application to themselves and their own works, else they would not, they durst not, do as they do. But the time will come when those who thus deceive themselves shall be undeceived: "Now their own doings have beset them about, that is, they have come at length to such a pitch of wickedness that their sins appear on every side of them; all their neighbours see how bad they are, and can they think that God does not see it?" Or, rather, "The punishment of their doings besets them about; they are surrounded and embarrassed with troubles, so that they cannot get out, by which it appears that the sins they smart for are before my face, not only that I have seen them, but that I am displeased at them;" for, till God by pardoning our sins has cast them behind his back, they are still before his face. Note, Sooner or later, God will convince those who do not now consider it that he remembers all their works.
4. God had begun to contend with them by his judgments, in earnest of what was further coming: The thief comes in, and the troop of robbers spoils without. Some take this as an instance of their wickedness, that they robbed and spoiled one another. Nec hospes ab hospite tutus - The host and the guest stand in fear of each other. It seems rather to be a punishment of their sin; they were infested with secret thieves among themselves, that robbed their houses and shops and picked their pockets, and troops of robbers, foreign invaders, that with open violence spoiled abroad; so far was Israel from being healed that they had fresh wounds given them daily by robbers and spoilers; and all this the effect of sin, all to punish them for robbing God, Isa 42:24; Mal 3:8, Mal 3:11.
II. A particular account of the sins of the court, of the king and princes, and those about them, and the tokens of God's displeasure that they were under for them.
1. Their king and princes were pleased with the wickedness and profaneness of their subjects, who were emboldened thereby to be so much them ore wicked (Hos 7:3): They make the king and princes glad with their wickedness. It pleased them to see the people conform to their wicked laws and examples, in the worship of their idols, and other instances of impiety and immorality, and to hear them flatter and applaud them in their wicked ways. When Herod saw that his wickedness pleased the people he proceeded further in it, much more will the people do so when they see that it pleases the prince, Act 12:3. Particularly, they made them glad with their lies, with the lying praises with which they crowned the favourites of the prince and the lying calumnies and censures with which they blackened those whom they knew the princes had a dislike to. Those who show themselves pleased with slanders and ill-natured stories shall never want those about them who will fill their ears with such stories. Pro 29:12, If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked, and will make him glad with their lies.
2. Drunkenness and revelling abound much at the court, Hos 7:5. The day of our king was a merry day with them, either his birthday or his inauguration-day, of which it is probable that they had an anniversary observation, or perhaps it was some holiday of his appointing, which was therefore called his day; on that day the princes met to drink the king's health, and got him among them, to be merry, and made him sick with bottles of wine. It should seem the king did not ordinarily drink to excess, but he was not upon a high day brought to it by the artifices of the princes, tempted by the goodness of the wine, the gaiety of the company, or the healths they urged; and so little was he used to it that it made him sick; and it is justly charged as a crime, as crimen laesae majestatis - treason, upon those who thus imposed upon him and made him sick; nor would it serve for an excuse that it was the day of their king, but was rather an aggravation of the crime, that, whey they pretended to do him honour, they dishonoured him to the highest degree. If it is a great affront and injury to a common person to make him drunk, and there is a woe to those that do it (Hab 2:15), much more to a crowned head; for the greater any man's dignity is the greater disgrace it is to him to be drunk. It is not for kings, O Lemuel! it is not for kings, to drink wine, Pro 31:4, Pro 31:5. See what a prejudice the sin of drunkenness is to a man, to a king. (1.) In his health; it made him sick. It is a force upon nature; and strange it is by what charms men, otherwise rational enough, can be drawn to that which besides the offence it gives to God, and the damage it does to their spiritual and eternal welfare, is a present disorder and distemper to their own bodies. (2.) In his honour; for, when he was thus intoxicated, he stretched out his hand with scorners; then he that was entrusted with the government of a kingdom lost the government of himself, and so far forgot, [1.] The dignity of a king that he made himself familiar with players and buffoons, and those whose company was a scandal. [2.] The duty of a king that he joined in confederacy with atheists, and the profane scoffers at religion, whom he ought to have silenced and put to shame; he sat in the seat of the scornful, of those that had arrived at the highest pitch of impiety; he struck in with them, said as they said, did as they did, and exerted his power, and stretched forth the hand of his government, in concurrence with them. Goodness and good men are often made the song of the drunkards (Psa 69:12; Psa 35:16); but woe unto thee, O land! when thy king is such a child as to stretch forth his hand with those that make them so, Ecc 10:16.
3. Adultery and uncleanness prevailed much among the courtiers. This is spoken of Hos 7:4, Hos 7:6, Hos 7:7, and the charge of drunkenness comes in in the midst of this article; for wine is oil to the fire of lust, Pro 23:33. Those that are inflamed with fleshly lusts, that are adulterers (Hos 7:4), are here again and again compared to an oven heated by the baker (Hos 7:4): They have made ready their heart like an oven (Hos 7:6); they are all hot as an oven, Hos 7:7. Note, [1.] An unclean heart is like an oven heated; and the unclean lusts and affections of it are as the fuel that makes it hot. It is an inward fire, it keeps the heat within itself; so adulterers and fornicators secretly burn in lust, as the expression is, Rom 1:27. The heat of the oven is an intense heat, especially as it is here described; he that heats it stirs up the fire, and ceases not from raising it up, till the bread is ready to be put in, being kneaded and leavened, all which only signifies that they are like an oven when it is at the hottest; nay, when it is too hot for the baker (so the learned Dr. Pocock), when it is hotter than he would have it, so that the raiser up of the fire ceases as long as while the dough that is kneaded is in the fermenting, that the heat may abate a little. Thus fiery hot are the lusts of an unclean heart. (2.) The unclean wait for an opportunity to compass their wicked desires; having made ready their heart like an oven, they lie in wait to catch their prey. The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, Job 24:15. Their baker sleeps all the night, but in the morning it burns as a flaming fire. As the baker, having kindled a fire in his oven and laid sufficient fuel to it, goes to bed, and sleeps all night, and in the morning finds his oven well heated, and ready for his purpose, so these wicked people, when they have laid some wicked plot, and formed a design for the gratifying of some covetous, ambitious, revengeful, or unclean lusts, have their hearts so fully set in them to do evil that, though they may stifle them for a while, yet the fire of corrupt affections is still glowing within, and, as soon as ever there is an opportunity for it, their purposes which they have compassed and imagined break out into overt acts, as a fire flames out when it has vent given it. Thus they are all hot as an oven. Note, Lust in the heart is like fire in an oven, puts it into a heat; but the day is coming when those who thus make themselves like a fiery oven with their own vile affections, if that fire be not extinguished by divine grace, shall be made as a fiery oven by divine wrath (Psa 21:9), when the day comes that shall burn as an oven, Mal 4:1.
4. They resist the proper methods of reformation and redress: They have devoured their judges, those few good judges that were among them, that would have put out these fires with which they were heated; they fell foul upon them, and would not suffer them to do justice, but were ready to stone them, and perhaps did so; or, as some think, they provoked God to deprive them of the blessing of magistracy and to leave all in confusion: All their kings have fallen one after another, and their families with them, which could not but put the kingdom into confusion, crumble it into contending parties, and occasion a great deal of bloodshed. There are heart-burnings among them; they are hot as an oven with rage and malice at one another, and this occasions the devouring of their judges, the falling of their kings. For the transgressions of a land many are the princes thereof, Pro 28:2. But in the midst of all this trouble and disorder there is none among them that calls unto God, that sees his hand stretched out against them in these judgments, and deprecates the strokes of it, none, or next to none, that stir up themselves to take hold on God, Isa 64:7. Note, Those are not only heated with sin, but hardened in sin, that continue to live without prayer even when they are in trouble and distress.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv1–7When I would have healed Israel,.... Or rather, "when…
When I would have healed Israel,.... Or rather, "when I healed Israel" (k); for this is not to be understood of a velleity, wish, or desire of healing and saving them, as Jarchi; nor of a bare attempt to do it by the admonitions of the prophets, and by corrections in Providence; but of actual healing them; and by which is meant, not healing them in a spiritual and religious sense, as in Hos 6:1; but in a political sense, of the restoring of their civil state to a more flourishing condition; which was done in the times of Jeroboam the son of Joash, as Kimchi rightly observes; who restored the coast of Israel, from the entering of Hamath, unto the sea of the plain, Kg2 14:25;
then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; some refer this to the times of Jeroboam the first, and that the sense is, that the Lord having cured Israel of the idolatry introduced by Solomon, quickly a new scene of idolatry broke out in Ephraim, or the ten tribes, of which Samaria was the metropolis; for Jeroboam soon set up the calves at Dan and Bethel to be worshipped; but it does not appear that Israel was corrupted with the idolatry of Solomon, and needed a cure then; nor was Samaria built in Jeroboam's time: others apply it to the times of Jehu, who, though he slew the worshippers of Baal, and broke his images, and destroyed him out of Israel, yet retained the worship of the calves at Dan and Bethel, Kg2 10:25; so, though they were healed of one sort of idolatry, another prevailed. It is right, in both these senses, that the iniquity of Ephraim, and wickedness or wickednesses of Samaria, are taken for the idolatrous worship of the golden calves; but then it respects the times of Jeroboam the second, the son of Joash, in whose days Israel was prosperous; and yet these superstitious and idolatrous practices of worship were flagrant and notorious, were countenanced by the king and his courtiers that dwelt at Samaria, as is clear from Amo 7:10; which was an instance of great ingratitude to the Lord;
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for they commit falsehood; among themselves, lying to one another, and deceiving each other; or to God, deal falsely with him, are guilty of false worship, worshipping idols, which are vanities and lies:
and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without; which may be interpreted either of their sins, their sins in general, both private and public; and their sins of theft and robbery in particular; both such as were committed in houses by the thief privately entering there, and by a gang of robbers in the streets, or on the highway: so the Targum,
"in the night they thieve in houses, and in the day they rob on the plain,''
or fields: or else of punishment for their sins; and then the words may be rendered (l), "therefore the thief entereth in, and the troop" or "army spreads without"; this thief was Shallum, who came in to kill and to steal; he slew Zachariah the son of Jeroboam, after he had reigned six months, and usurped the kingdom, and so put an end to the family of Jehu, according as the Lord had threatened, Kg2 8:12; the troop or army is the Assyrian army under Pul, who came against Menahem, king of Israel, of whom he exacted a tribute, and departed, Kg2 15:19; so Cocceius.
(k) "dum curo", Junius & Tremellius; "dum medeor", Piscator, Zanchius, Calvin; "quando sanavi, vel sano", Schmidt. (l) "ideo fur ingreditur", Munster. So some in Drusius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv1–7Various accusations with threats annext, ver. 1-16.
Various accusations with threats annext, ver. 1-16.
Of Ephraim - Of Ephraim the chief tribe of this revolting kingdom.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7Here God complains that though he had employed every…
CHAPTER VII
Here God complains that though he had employed every means for
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reforming Israel, they still persisted in their iniquity,
without fearing the consequences, 1, 2;
that those who ought to check their crimes were pleased with
them, 3;
and that they all burned with adultery, as an oven when fully
heated, and ready to receive the kneaded dough, 4.
The fifth verse alludes to some recent enormities; the sixth
charges them with dividing their time between inactivity and
iniquity; the seventh alludes to their civil broils and
conspiracies; (see 2Kg 15:10; 2Kg 15:14; 2Kg 15:25;)
the eighth to their joining themselves with idolatrous nations;
and the ninth describes the sad consequence. The tenth verse
reproves their pride and open contempt of God's worship; the
eleventh reproves their foolish conduct in applying for aid to
their enemies; (see 2Kg 15:19; 2Kg 17:4;)
the twelfth and thirteenth threaten them with punishments; the
fourteenth charges them with hypocrisy in their acts of
humiliation; the fifteenth with ingratitude; and the image of
the deceitful bow, in the sixteenth verse, is highly expressive
of their frequent apostasies; and their hard speeches against
God shall be visited upon them by their becoming a reproach in
the land of their enemies.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII
Verse 1. When I would have healed Israel] As soon as one wound was healed, another was discovered. Scarcely was one sin blotted out till another was committed.
The thief cometh in] Their own princes spoil them.
The troop of robbers spoileth without.] The Assyrians, under different leaders, waste and plunder the country.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv1–5Hos 7:1. When I would have healed Israel —…
Hos 7:1. When I would have healed Israel — When I would have reclaimed them from their sins, and in consequence thereof have averted their judgments. The Hebrew, כרפאי, is, as I was healing: dum in eo essem ut sanarem. At the very time when I was about to heal them; or, as the Seventy render it, Εν τω ιασαθαι με τον Ισραηλ, When I was in the very act of healing Israel. Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered — Literally, was uncovered, or made bare, that is, showed itself openly, or was avowed and undisguised. The people gave me fresh provocations, especially the inhabitants of Samaria, the principal seat of the kingdom. For they commit falsehood — Or, carry on delusion; literally, practise deceit, or a lie. “The thing meant here seems to be the carrying on of a premeditated plot, or scheme, for the subversion of the true religion, and the establishment of idolatry. And the lie, falsehood, or delusion which they wrought, was every thing that was seductive in the external rites of the false religions:” see Horsley, who, in a note on this passage, observes, “The particular time alluded to is, I think, the reign of the second Jeroboam, when the kingdom of Israel seemed to be recovering from the loss of strength and territory it had sustained in the preceding reigns, by the encroachments of the Syrians; for Jeroboam restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, 2Ki 14:25. The successes vouchsafed to this warlike prince against his enemies were signs of God’s gracious inclination to pardon the people, and restore the kingdom to its former prosperity. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel that it was bitter, &c. See 2Ki 14:26-27. But these merciful purposes of God were put aside by the wickedness of the king and the people. For this same Jeroboam did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, &c.” And the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers, &c. — They are guilty both of the secret methods of fraud, and the open violence of rapine and oppression.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv1–7When I would have healed Israel - God begins…
When I would have healed Israel - God begins anew by appealing to Israel, that all which He had done to heal them, had but served to make their sin more evident, and “that,” from highest to lowest, as to all manners and ways of sin. When the flash of God’s light on the sinner’s conscience enlightens it not, it only discloses its darkness. The name “Israel” includes the whole people; the names, Ephraim and Samaria, probably are meant to designate the chief among them, Ephraim having been their royal tribe, and being the chief tribe among them; Samaria being their royal city. The sins, which Hoses denounces in this chapter, are chiefly the sins of the great, which, from them, had spread among the people. Whatever healing methods God had used, whether through the teaching of the prophets or through His own fatherly chastisements, they “would not hearken nor be amended, but ran on still more obstinately in their evil courses. The disease prevailed against the remedy, and was irritated by it, so that the remedy served only to “lay open” the extent of its malignity, and to shew that there was worse in it, than did at first appear” . Paul says of all human nature. “When the commandment came, sin revived” Rom 7:9.
Apart from grace, the knowledge of good only enhances evil. : “So, when God, made Man, present and visible, willed to “heal Israel,” then that iniquity of the Jews and wickedness of the Scribes and Pharisees was discovered, whereof this iniquity of Ephraim and wickedness of Samaria was a type. For an evil spirit goaded them to mock, persecute, blaspheme the Teacher of repentance who, together with the word of preaching, did works, such as none other man did. For Christ pleased them not, a Teacher of repentance, persuading to poverty, a Pattern of humility, a Guide to meekness, a Monitor to mourn for sins, a Proclaimer of righteousness, a Requirer of mercy, a Praiser of purity of heart, a Rewarder of peace, a Consoler of those who suffered persecution for righteousness’ sake. Why did they reject, hate, persecute, Him who taught thus? Because they loved all contrary thereto, and wished for a Messiah, who should exalt them in this world, and disturb the peace of nations, until he should by war subdue to their empire all the rest of the world, build for them on earth a Jerusalem of gold and gems, and fulfill their covetousness in all things of this sort.
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This their mind He once briefly expressed; “How can ye believe which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?” Joh 5:24. They persecuted Him then who willed to heal them, as madmen strike the physician offering them medicine, nor did they cease, until they required Him their King to be crucified. Thus was the “iniquity of Ephraim and wickedness of Samaria discovered,” yet filled up by them; and so they filled up the measure of their fathers, and discovered and testified, that they were of the same mind with their fathers. In all these things they “committed falsehood,” lying against, their King whom they denied, and accused as seditious.”
For they - (i. e. all of them) commit falsehood Falsehood was the whole habit and tissue of their lives. : “They dealt falsely in all their doings both with God and man, being hypocritical and false in all their words and doings, given to fraud and deceit, from the highest to the lowest.” Night and day; in silence and in open violence; “within,” where all seemed guarded and secure, and “without,” in open defiance of law and public justice; these deeds of wrong went on in an unceasing round. In the night, “the thief cometh in,” breaking into people’s houses and pillaging secretly; “a troop of robbers spoileth without,” spreading their ravages far and wide, and desolating without resistance. It was all one state of anarchy, violence, and disorganization.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv1–7Israel. God divided the kingdom, that by this chastisement…
Israel. God divided the kingdom, that by this chastisement the people might be converted. But Jeroboam set up calves, and caused them to grow worse. (Worthington) --- How often did God send his prophets to reclaim them! --- Without. Most of the kings were of this stamp, while foreign nations invaded the land.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v12. Chiefly against the Court
2. Chiefly against the Court
Hos_7:1-16
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1 When I would heal Israel,
Then the iniquity of Ephraim is made manifest,
And the evil deeds of Samaria.
For they have worked deceit, and the thief enters (the houses).
A band of robbers plunders in the street.
2 And they will not say to their heart,
(That) I have remembered all their wickedness;
Now their deeds have beset them round;
They are before my face.
3 By their wickedness they have pleased the king,
And by their falsehood the princes.
4 All of them (are) adulterers,
(They are) like an oven heated1by the baker,
Who rests, stirring up (the fire),
From the kneading of the dough, until it is raised.
5 On the (feast-) day of our king,
The princes begin in the heat2 of wine
He draws out his hand [goes hand in hand] with scorners.
6 For they draw close together; like the oven is
Their heart in its craftiness;
Their anger3 sleeps the whole night,
In the morning it burns like a flame of flre.
7 All of them are heated like the oven,
And devour their judges,
All their kings have fallen,
And there is none among them that cries to me.
8 Ephraim mingles with the heathen,
Ephraim has become a cake not turned.
9 Strangers devour his strength,
Yet he does not know it.
Gray hairs are also sprinkled over him,
And he does not know it.
10 And the pride of Israel testifies to his face;
Yet they do not return to Jehovah their God,
And do not seek Him with [in spite of] all this.
11 And Ephraim became a silly dove, without understanding.
To Egypt they called:
To Assyria they went.
12 As they are going
I will spread over them my net;
As a bird of heaven I will bring them down.
I will chastise them,4 according to the announcement to their congregation.
13 Woe to them that they have wandered from me!
Destruction upon them, that they have sinned against me!
For I would have redeemed them5
But they spoke lies against me.
14 They did not cry to me with their heart,
For they shrieked upon their beds;
For corn and new wine they distress themselves;6
They apostatized from me.
15 And I instructed (them),
I strengthened their arm;
But they devised evil against me.
16 They will not return upwards7 [to God],
They have become like a deceitful bow.
Their princes will fall by the sword,
On account of the rage of their tongues:
This7 (will be) their scorn in the land of Egypt.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Hos_7:1-2. When I would heal Israel, etc. It was just when God attempted to heal them that their corruption was displayed in its full extent. If it had not been so great the attempt would not have been vain. The latter consisted in the chastisements themselves, but also in the discourses of the Prophet calling them to repentance. Now follows a description of their dreadful condition: lying, theft, and robbery. In the midst of it all, the greatest security, not a single thought of divine punishment. Their deeds have beset them round. This expresses evidently the boldness of their sinning=their sins have so increased as to become mountains hedging them round.
Hos_7:3. The situation is the more desperate as the corruption extends to the highest ranks.
Hos_7:4. They are all adulterers. The whole people are such, not merely the king and princes, though these are necessarily included. The adultery in this connection (comp. Hos_7:2 : lying, thieving, and robbery, and Hos_7:5 : debauchery) is to be taken in its literal sense. The comparison of the adulterer to a burning oven is here decisive; which does not suit adultery in the figurative application=idolatry, but expresses well the burning of lust. בֹּעֵרָה מֵאֹפֶה, literally: burning from the baker=heated by the baker. This burning of the oven is further described still more closely and figuratively, and that with relation to the increase of the heat, in the following words: יִשׁבֹּת וג׳. Wünsche: Who rests, stirring up, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened, i. e., when he has kneaded the dough, he rests, namely from kneading, which is the most fatiguing part of the whole process of bread-baking, but then does something else, which compared with the other is resting, namely, heats the stove and stirs it up from the time the dough is kneaded until it is raised. During this time while the process of fermentation is going on, the stove is being heated so as to become quite hot, i.e., hot enough for baking. The Part. therefore is not used for the Inf. depending on ישפת=who ceases to stir up. It would be strange if emphasis were to be laid upon ceasing, leaving off, when the object is to show that the heat increases. And Wünsche remarks rightly that it would be out of place to heat the oven before the dough was kneaded, and then to cease heating it, but that the contrary process is the one followed. [Henderson takes מעיר in the sense of heating, as also does Gesenius. His application is as follows: “To place the violent and incontinent character of their lust in the strongest light, the Prophet compares it to a baker’s oven which he raises to such a degree of heat that he only requires to omit feeding it during the short period of the fermentation of the bread. Such was the libidinous character of the Israelites that their impure indulgences were subject to but slight interruptions.” But it is evident that the Prophet did not intend to call attention to any interruption of indulgence (and if he had the mode of conveying that notion would not have been very natural), but to emphasize its constant commission. Horsley takes מעיר in the sense of stoker, one who attends to the fire, and makes it the subject of ישׁפת: “the stoker desists after the kneading of the dough until the fermentation be complete.” He then gives a most fanciful application to the act of indulgence. For a sufficient explanation of the images see the Doctrinal and Ethical section, No. 1.—M.]
Hos_7:5. But they are not only adulterers; they are also drunkards. They are heated with wine as well as with lust. The rulers here lead the way by their example. In the day of our king = festal day, probably birth-day. A banquet is referred to, given by the king to his nobles. By the phrase, our king, Hosea indicates his citizenship in the kingdom of Israel.
הֶחֱלוּ: the LXX., Syr., Chald., and Jerome: they began. Others: they are diseased. But the Hiphil does not mean: to be sick—מָשַׁךְ וג׳. The king is the subject; literally: draws out [stretches out] his hand with. This means: he holds out his hand constantly to them=keeps company, goes hand in hand with them. Scorners, men who throw ridicule upon what is sacred, and is regarded as sacred. Such derision is specially natural in a state of intoxication. Hence the connection in which it stands here with the drinking-bout, a connection which is certainly not fortuitous.
Hos_7:6. The figure of the heated oven is again taken up. But it becomes here an image of the heat of anger which burns in their hearts, which, being craftily concealed, does not at first make itself manifest, but which grows only the more surely, and at last breaks out in deeds of violence. (Just so is it in Hos_7:4 with the heat of the bake oven.) The notion is evidently this, that the cordiality of the princes towards the king in the banquet is only apparent, only the result of cunning. It ends with an insurrection, with the murder of the king, who has certainly richly deserved such a lot.—קֵ־ְבוּ וג׳. This is a difficult expression Some: they have made their heart approach (resemble) an oven. But this is languid. Would any one say, in giving an illustration, that the object was only “approximately” like the image ? Besides, כְּ with תַּנּוּר would be superfluous. Keil: they have brought their heart into their craftiness as into an oven. The cunning is compared with the oven; the heart with the fuel. This clearly gives a plain sense. It would be perhaps more correct to detach קרבו from what follows as forming a clause by itself. Simson: they (the conspirators) approach. Wünsche, perhaps better: they draw close together, namely, in the banquet, at all events, as conspirators. The following words then mean simply: like an oven is their heart in their malice. Thus the malicious heart is like an oven which only waits for the kindling of a fire.—כָל־הַלַּיְלָה וג׳; according to the Masoretic punctation: the whole night sleeps their baker. Baker would then =he who heats the oven, i.e., their heart inflames them. By the baker might be understood passion (Ewald, Keil). This would rather be compared to the fire. “The baker sleeps” would then be explained as meaning that the baker after kindling the fire, cared no more about it. But it would not be exactly suitable to conceive of “passion” as sleeping, that is, not stirring up the fire. Simson refers “baker” to a person, the leader of the conspiracy. But the following member of the verse creates most difficulty. היּא introduces another subject, the oven. It is therefore naturally suggested (Wünsche) to change the pointing into אַפֵקֻם, =their anger. This is represented as fire, and this sleeps in the night, i.e., it burns on, unperceived, during the whole night, until in the morning it becomes a clearly burning flame. So with their anger. “Night” and “morning” allude primarily to the figure of the fire, but probably also to the thing represented itself, especially if it be supposed that at the end of the feast, which has lasted the whole night, the anger breaks forth in the morning in violent acts, which are more particularly described in
Hos_7:7. All of them, probably not merely the princes, but the whole people, together with the princes, who gave the impulse to the rest. They devour their judges, i.e., the kings. The following clause: all their kings fall, does not add anything new, but only expresses what is meant by the judges. This applies, to the period, succeeding that of Jeroboam II., when in swift succession Zachariah was overthrown by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, and Menahem’s son Pekahiah by Pekah, and between Zachariah and Shallum eleven years anarchy prevailed. The Prophet alludes here to such events, certainly to a number of such events (perhaps also to earlier revolutions in the succession), as the plural, judges, kings, plainly shows. Yet the particular description in Hos_7:5-6, suggest the conjecture that the Prophet had in mind a special case, and then in Hos_7:7 gives a general view. And there is none amongst them who calls upon me. The reference probably is to the kings. The sentence thus indicates briefly but strikingly the complete estrangement from God, the deplorable situation of these kings. Keil supposes the whole nation to be referred to: no one is brought to reflection in the midst of these mournful circumstances, that he should return to the Lord.
Hos_7:8. Ephraim mingles itself up with the nations. This refers certainly not to the invasion of the Israelitish possessions by the heathen, nor merely to alliances with them (Hos_7:11), but in addition to something more profound, it supposes that through idolatry heathen practices were followed. Com. Psa_105:35-36; Psa_105:39, “which passage furnishes a commentary upon ours” (Wünsche). A cake not turned, and therefore burnt on one side (while it is not baked at all on the other). The idea is plain. [On the preceding sentence, Henderson: “In Psa_105:35 a similar expression is used of promiscuous intercourse with idolaters. That such intercourse generally, and not specifically the entering into leagues with them, is meant, appears from the following clause, in which, to express the worthlessness of the Ephraimitish character, the people are compared to a cake, which, from not having been turned, is burnt and good for nothing. … Such was the state of the apostate Israelites; they had corrupted themselves and were fit only for rejection.”—M.]
Hos_7:9. Their being burnt declared figuratively that strangers devoured their strength. This is not merely an outward devastation by war, but an inner consumption by the inroads of heathen practices. Indications of old age also are apparent in Israel as tokens of speedy decay.
Hos_7:10. See Hos_5:5.
Hos_7:11. A consequence of impenitence. Israel is like a simple dove, which, not observing the snare set for her, is caught in it (Hos_7:12). They called out to Egypt; they went to Assyria. As syria threatened Israel. The latter then turned immediately to Egypt, to obtain help against Assyria, and partly sought to gain the favor of Assyria (Hos_8:9). And after all they fell into the net of Assyria.
Hos_7:12. It is the Lord who inveigles them into destruction. According to the announcement to their congregation = according to the oft-repeated threatening against the people (comp. in the Law, Lev_26:14 ff.; Deu_28:15 ff.).
Hos_7:13. They spoke lies conerning me, namely, that I would not help them. And they, in effect, lie when they do not call out for help.
Hos_7:14. And they did not cry out to me with their heart, even if they did cry with the mouth. Their cry was one of unbelieving despair. יִרְגּוֹרָרוּ, according to Fürst, to distress themselves, parallel to יְיֵלִילוּ. Others: assemble themselves in crowds, i.e., with eager desire for corn and wine. [See Grammatical Note.]
Hos_7:15. They devise evil against me, namely, in their apostasy.
A deceitful bow: a bow upon which the archer cannot depend, which, when he is in the act of shooting, he fears may cause him to miss his aim. So God cannot depend upon Israel, is deceived in them every moment, cannot reach the aim with them which He desires. Others claim for רְמִיָּה the meaning: slackness, therefore, a slack, bow, which cannot carry the arrow to the mark. Each meaning affords essentially the same result. The princes are emphasized, because they were the seducers of the people. This (will become) a scorning in the land of Egypt; that is: the scorn of Egypt will fall upon them for this reason, namely, on account of the falling of the princes just mentioned. Not=because they placed their trust in Egypt and fell notwithstanding (Keil), for this would rather earn them the scorn, of Assyria. They would be ridiculed by Egypt because of the weakness revealed in their fall, while they had magnified their strength before Egypt.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The Prophet assails the practices of the court without ceremony, and brands them with some powerful strokes, as a course of life, in which the nobles are as ready to carouse together as to conspire against one another. All discipline, as well as all fidelity, is wanting. “Even when they hold a feast in honor of their king, there is no end to their gorging, lewdness, carousing, etc. The more vilely they behave, the better they suppose they shall celebrate the day of the king. On the other hand, when they are dissatisfied with their king they are as eager and anxious to murder him, as they formerly were to drink his health until they became intoxicated.” The spirit which governs these circles is aptly compared to a fire, for it is a powerful passion by which they are driven about, revealed in various forms, partly in the form of sensual and fleshly lust, and partly in the form of craft, rage, and party-intrigue. With the loss of morality, frivolity goes hand in hand, partly as consequence and partly as cause. The courtiers together with the king are “scorners,” or make common cause with them. “The scorner, לֵץ, is the presumptuous, haughty, puffed-up (enlightened) man, who sets himself above what is and is regarded as sacred, and so practices his scornful amusement.” Comp. also Hos_7:16 : the insolence of the tongue.
2. The decay of the kingdom is already patent. Hos_7:9 : Gray hairs show themselves. But where the mistake lies, namely, in apostasy from Jehovah, those of the upper circles will not regard it (for it is these that the Prophet has specially in mind, comp. also Hos_7:16). Therefore, instead of returning to Him and seeking Him (Hos_7:10), the opposite means are seized upon, which have a result just the opposite of what they desire: help is sought in the world-powers (Hos_7:11). Not merely the vanity but the disastrous nature of such dealing is now clearly expressed; for Israel is just preparing the way for its own ruin. It is like a silly dove, which does not see the net; and so straightway falls into it, i.e., the world-powers are preparing its destruction. In truth, however, it is God who employs them to punish his faithless people (Hos_7:12). And thus will be fulfilled the previous announcement of punishment by the prophets (according to the declaration to their congregation, Hos_7:12). It is not yet particularly indicated how the world-powers are to accomplish their destruction, nothing being as yet said of a captivity.
3. We may collect the other scattered strokes delineating Israel’s conduct towards God (for in such brief touches are the moral and religious views of our book exhibited).
Hos_7:2 describes the insensibility of the conscience, which in the commission of evil deeds ignores God’s omniscience, while nothing is more certain than that God knows them—they are before his face.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:1. When God lays his hand upon the conscience and his Spirit chastens it, then is first truly felt the greatness of sin. O, that we would subject ourselves to such chastening of the Spirit, and we would be saved!
Cramer: When a sinner is about to receive help, it is with him as with many patients. They often do not feel their disease and danger, until the physician comes and reveals them.
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:2. It is great simplicity on the part of the ungodly to suppose that God does not know their wickedness. Mark, soul, the eyes of the Lord are like flames of fire, and know even the most secret things of thy heart, and accompany thee in all thy evil ways.
[Matt. Henry: This is the sinner’s atheism. As good say there is no God, as say He is either ignorant or forgetful; none that judgeth in the earth, as say He remembers not the things He is to give judgment upon.—M.]
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:4. Ye lustful men who burn so in your lascivious desires, know that a fire is prepared for you in the other world where you will burn forever.
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:7. What a deplorable situation men are in, when they have no longer confidence to cry out to God for help in their distress, because conscience tells them that they have made Him their enemy. But it is a great consolation to the pious that, when there is none to take their part, they have free access to God and his help.
Hos_7:8. Beware of heathenish desires and practices. As soon as thou dost admit them—and they may obtain entrance in all kinds of seemingly harmless shapes, even in a refined form—they injure thy religious nature. The result is a stupefying of the spiritual sense, the loss of spiritual taste, then only remains an “unturned, insipid, and disgusting cake.”
[Pusey: Hos_7:9. “Thy gray hairs are thy passing-bell,” says the proverb.—M.]
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:10. Man, thy sins condemn thyself. What! wouldst thou exculpate thyself? Turn only to thy conscience and ask it; it will soon utter thy condemnation.
[Pusey: Hos_7:13. To be separated from God is the source of all evils. Whoever seeks anything out of God or against his will, whoever seeks from man or from idols, from fortune or from his own powers, what God alone bestows; whoever acts as if God were not a good God ready to receive the penitent, or a just God who will avenge the holiness of his laws and not clear the guilty, does in fact speak lies against God.—M.]
Hos_7:14. Is it the worst with thee when prosperity is past? To be vexed at the loss of temporal blessings, is a mourning of this world, and does not lead to life.
Matt. Henry: To pray is to lift up the soul unto God; this is the essence of prayer. If that be not done, words, though never so well worded, are but wind; but if there be that, it is an acceptable prayer though the groanings cannot be uttered.—M.]
[Pusey: Hos_7:15. The creature can neither hurt nor profit the Creator. But since God vouchsafed to be their King, He designed to look upon their rebellions as so many efforts to injure Him.—M.]
Hos_7:16. Whither dost thou turn? Upwards or downwards?
[Pusey: Like a deceitful bow. In like way doth every sinner act, using against God in the service of Satan, God’s gifts of nature or of outward means, talents or wealth, or strength, or beauty, or power of speech,—God gave all for his own glory; and man turns all aside to do honor and service to Satan.—M.]
Footnotes:
[1]Hos_7:4.—בֹּעֵרָה is accentuated as Milel, probably because the Masorites took objection to the fem. form, תּנּוּר which is elsewhere masculine. But the names for fire and anything connected therewith are in the Semitic languages usually fem. Hence בעערה is to be regarded as actually fem., and to be pointed בֹּלַרָה [See Green, Heb. Gr., § 196 c.—חֻמִצֽתֹי. חָמֵץ takes in the construct inf. the fem. ending, like חָמַל (Eze_16:5).—M.]
[2][Hos_7:5.—חֲמַת is an example of a construct before a noun having a preposition. This may denote the direct and powerful influence of the wine upon the revellers, or it may merely be an example of a poetical usage, Green, §255,1.—לֹצְצִים ἁπ. λεγ. Some assume a verb לָצַץ, but Gesenius, Fürst and most regard the form as Piel Part. of לוּץ with מְ dropped. Houbigant would change the reading into לֵצִים, but needlessly.—M.]
[3][Hos_7:6.—Henderson objects, to the change of reading to אַפֵּיהֶם, that this never occurs in the sense, ira, furor, eorum. But as anger is a frequent sense of the dual form, and as the exigencies of the case seem to demand another reading, it seems reasonable to adopt the emendation. The conjecture has also the support of antiquity, as the Targum renders רוּגְזְהוֹן and the Syr.;ܘܰܔܐܗܘܰ١ Only it is not necessary to retain the י—; the form given in the Exposition is probably the correct reading.—M.]
[4]Hos_7:12.—אַיְסִרֵם. This form is from the Hiphil הִיסִיר for דוסִיר.
[5]Hos_7:13.—אֶפְדֵּם is a voluntative or optative: I would or would like to redeem them.
[6]Hos_7:14.—The LXX. have read יִתְגּוֹדֵדוּ: they wound themselves. [But authority vastly preponderates in favor of the received reading.—M.]
[7][Hos_7:16—לֹא עָל. It is agreed that the Kamets is due to the pause and that the normal form is עַל. Critics are divided as to whether this should be regarded as a noun used collectively (they return to no-gods=idols; or as an adverb: upwards=to heaven, where God is. The word means properly an elevation, summit; hence the notion that it might be used concretely=most High. In Hos_11:7 this certainly seems the true meaning. Again it might be used adverbially, as in 2Sa_23:1. The best lexicographers (Gesenius, Fürst) approve the former sense here; some of the best Expositors (Manger, Ewald, Keil, and others) prefer the latter. The Anglo American expositors, generally, agree with the first named class. Newcome prefers to read לֹא יוֹעִיל: that which cannot profit.—M.]—זוֹ= זֶה, ἁπ. λεγ.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv2–7consider not in their hearts--literally "say not to," &c.…
consider not in their hearts--literally "say not to," &c. (Psa 14:1).
that I remember--and will punish.
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their own doings have beset them about--as so many witnesses against them (Psa 9:16; Pro 5:22).
before my face-- (Psa 90:8).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn v1NEW PICTURE OF THE MORAL CORRUPTION AND RESULTING ANARCHY,…
NEW PICTURE OF THE MORAL CORRUPTION AND RESULTING ANARCHY, Hos_6:11 to Hos_7:7.
1, 2. The mercy of Jehovah, manifesting itself in his willingness to “heal,” wrought no change for the better; it was interpreted as an indication of Jehovah’s weakness, and only increased the people’s recklessness. Iniquity… discovered [“uncovered”] — The reflexive force of the verb form may be expressed by rendering “displayed itself.” Iniquity broke out with ever-increasing force and prevented the carrying out of God’s gracious purpose.
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Samaria — The capital of the northern kingdom mentioned because it was the center of the corruption. Wherein consisted the iniquity?
Commit falsehood — Practice fraud and deceit toward God and man.
Thief cometh [“entereth”] in — Into the house. Theft and highway robbery were common (Joe_2:9).
Spoileth [“ravageth”] — The highways were made unsafe by robbers in quest of plunder.
Consider — Literally, they do not speak to their heart; their consciences have become seared.
I remember — They have no thought that Jehovah will remember and punish, but they are mistaken; their sins are constantly before his face, where he can see them.
Their own doings have beset them about — They are completely surrounded by their wrongs, so that escape has become impossible; even repentance seems to be out of the question. The verse closes with a re-affirmation that Jehovah is not deceived about their real condition (Psa_90:8).
In Hos_7:3-7 the text is in places obscure, but concerning the general drift of the thought there can be no doubt. The prophet describes in vivid colors the corruption that pervades the whole nation, and shows that the existing anarchy is the inevitable result of the same: adultery, drunkenness, conspiracy, assassinations everywhere, not one redeeming feature.
They make the king glad — The subject is the same as in Hos_7:1-2, the Israelites. As representatives of Jehovah king and princes should rejoice in righteousness and justice; their depravity is seen in the fact that they not only fail to punish crime, but actually delight in it.
Princes — See on Hos_3:4. The Hebrew gives good sense; the emendation first suggested by Wellhausen and since adopted by many scholars, “they anoint” instead of “they make glad,” is not necessary, though it would give equally good sense and would make this passage agree in meaning with Hos_8:4.
They are all adulterers — King, princes, and people are filled with unholy passions for revelry, licentiousness, etc. This is a new condemnation, and is not to be connected with the preceding as a circumstantial clause. The rest of the verse is doubtful.
As an oven heated by the baker — R.V. supplies “they are,” which is an improvement. A different division of the consonantal text would give, “they are like a burning oven,” and with “the baker” the new sentence might be begun.
This is preferable. In their madness the people resemble a burning oven.
The heart is the oven, the unholy passions the fire. Modern commentators are inclined to regard this clause, as well as the rest of Hos_7:4, a later addition, a gloss to Hos_7:6. Whatever one may think of the rest of the verse, which seems to be dependent on Hos_7:6, this clause certainly sounds like a part of the original denunciation; Hos_7:5 would make a good continuation.
The baker… ceaseth — As these words stand now they describe the apparent calm between one outbreak of violence and the next. “The baker ceases from stirring when the oven has reached a certain heat; and then he leaves the fire to smolder until the fermentation of the dough is complete and fresh heating is necessary. So after passion has been gratified it smolders for a time, but is afterward kindled to a greater heat than before, when some attractive object comes within range.”
In Hos_7:5 the prophet evidently refers to a recent event — Wellhausen thinks to a royal assassination — when passion found unrestrained expression.
Day of our king — Perhaps the king’s birthday (Mat_14:6), or the coronation day; at any rate, a day of joyful celebration.
The princes have made him sick — R.V., “made themselves sick.” Either translation is possible, though usage favors A.V. — they made the king drunk and assassinated him (2Sa_13:28-29). Royal assassinations are referred to in Hos_7:7; in this verse, however, the thought implied in R.V. is more probable, though usage may favor A.V. — they gave themselves to such excesses that they became ill.
Bottles of wine — Better, R.V., “heat of wine,” or “with fever from wine” (G.A. Smith).
He stretched out his hand — The meaning is uncertain, but it is generally interpreted as meaning that the king entered into intimate relations with scoffers, that is, worthless, lawless fellows who are always devising mischief. Perhaps the words allude to “some lawless project decided upon in the intoxication of the revel.”
Hos_7:6-7 do not connect with 4, giving the explanation and ground for the simile of the oven, so that Hos_7:5 would be parenthetical (Keil); they contain a new assertion, co-ordinate with the statements in Hos_7:3-5. The subject is the same as in the other verses, the Israelites.
For — Here not a causal conjunction, but, as often, a particle of asseveration — “truly,” “indeed” (G.-K., 148d).
Have made ready their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait — The Hebrew contains several peculiarities, hence the translation and interpretation are uncertain. Many attempts have been made to interpret the present Hebrew text and not a few emendations have been suggested. It seems necessary to alter the text. Following in part LXX., we get, by only slight alterations, an excellent thought: “Indeed, like an oven their hearts burn with their intriguing” (compare Hos_4:1, “There is no truth in the land”; Hos_4:2, “There is naught but swearing and breaking faith”).
Their baker — Who is their baker? The subject of burneth is the same in Hebrew as that of sleepeth. Can it be said of the baker that he burns as a flaming fire? Two ancient versions, Targum and Peshitto, read “their anger” for “their baker”; this requires no change of the consonantal text in Hebrew and may be accepted as original: “Their anger sleepeth all the night.” The conspiracy is kept secret until it is matured, then it breaks forth. The darkness of the night is the time when the schemes are developed; in the morning, the time for action having arrived, the conspiracy blazes forth (compare Mic_2:1). Hos_7:7 describes the result of these intrigues. They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured [“and devour”] — Need not be rejected as an unnecessary repetition; it sums up in a few words the thought of Hos_7:6. It would be better, however, to translate it as a circumstantial clause, “Being (thus) hot like an oven, they devour.”
Judges — Not to be understood in the narrower sense of that term, but equivalent to rulers, that is, king and princes as the guardians of the law and administrators of justice (Isa_40:23; Psa_2:10).
Their kings are fallen — By assassination; parallel to the preceding clause. 2 Kings 15 furnishes a commentary. In all probability the prophecy comes from the reign of Menahem, which was preceded by two royal assassinations, that of Zechariah after a reign of six months and that of Shallum after one month. There is none among the people that calleth unto me — “A prophetic touch to the historical statement” which precedes. Notwithstanding the serious condition of affairs, no one appealed to Jehovah, who alone could bring relief.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–71–7. The moral degradation of Israel, especially of its…
1–7. The moral degradation of Israel, especially of its ruling class, which, so far from stemming the tide of corruption, applauds and encourages its progress
1. How foolish is the conduct of Israel! When the great turning-point in her fortunes arrives, the day of mingled punishment and mercy, all his wickedness will be remembered and brought to light. To improve the sense and restore balance to the opening of the verse, it is expedient to read thus, with Ewald, When I turn the fortunes of my people, when I heal Israel, then will be manifest Ephraim’s guilt and Samaria’s wickedness, how they practise falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and bandits roam abroad without. Comp. Hos_4:2. Samaria is mentioned, as the abode of the princes next spoken of.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–6(1) Translate, When I heal Israel (referring to a…
(1) Translate, When I heal Israel (referring to a cessation in the attacks of the menacing foe, or to such a thrill of finer feeling as that which is recorded in 2Ch_28:8-15), then is revealed the iniquity of Ephraim and the wickedness of Samaria, that they commit falsehood. Samaria here sustains the same relation to Israel that Jerusalem does to Judah, and it is the very source of the corruption of the whole country.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv1–7This chapter may be divided into three sections. In…
This chapter may be divided into three sections. In the first section, including vers. 1-7, the prophet reproves with much but deserved severity the depraved morals of king and princes. In the second section, consisting of vers. 8-11, he rebukes their sinfulness, silliness, pride, and stupid obstinacy, notwithstanding the many manifest tokens of decay. Otherwise the first section deals with the internal corruption of the northern kingdom, and the second exposes their sinful and harmful foreign policy. The third section, continuing from the twelfth verse to the end of the chapter, that is, vers. 12-16, threatens the infliction of punishment incurred by their gross wicked. Hess and base ingratitude to God.
Vers. 1-3. When I would hays healed Israel. We may, with some, understand this healing of those
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(1) prophetic admonitions and rebukes by which God designed to cure the transgressions and heal the backslidings of his people.
(2) It is more probable, however, that the reference is to the partial restoration of the national prosperity in the days of Jeroboam II, who "restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain.
(3) Jerome"s exposition is not so natural when he says, "The sense is: When I wished to blot out the old sins of my people, on account of ancient idolatry, Ephraim and Samaria discovered new idols;" the old sins and ancient idolatry he refers to the making and worshipping of the golden calf in the wilderness, while the new idols were the calf-worship which Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim instituted, and the people of the capital, Samaria, adopted. When God would heal, or as often as he proceeded to heal, Israel, the evils broke out afresh, or came more fully to light, just like a wound the dangerous nature of which is discovered by the surgeon"s probe in the effort to heal it. Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria. The sin of the northern kingdom manifested itself in high quarters in the premier tribe of Israel, and in the capital city of Samaria. "Because," says Abort Ezra, in his comment, "they said, He hath torn, and he will heal us, he says, When I was disposed to heal them, the wickedness concealed in their heart stood before my face, which they have not left off until the present time, for they practice falsehood; by night they steal, and by day troops (of bandits) spread themselves outside the cities." Similarly, Rashi explains: "When I was willing to help and to heal them, their iniquities manifested themselves before me, for they practiced lying constantly; while thieves of their number entered in continually, and stole the wealth of their companions, and even their gangs spread themselves for robberies to rob men." For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth (margin, strippeth) without. Here follows an enumeration of the crimes of which they were guilty. There was falsehood, or fraud, or deception generally, and that, not only in words, but in works; next comes dishonesty, both in public and in private. The thief privately entered the houses, and committed burglary; gangs of highwaymen publicly infested the roads, spoiling the passers-by, or rather roamed or spread themselves abroad for plunder, since it is the causative conjugation of pashat that has the signification of stripping or spoiling others. The thief within, the rubber robs without.
Vers. 1-7. Crimes charged on Israel; people and princes.
It was a time of great corruption and of atrocious crimes. Nor were those crimes committed only by persons "of the baser sort;" people and princes alike, rulers and ruled, had their share in them; the country and the capital, Ephraim and Samaria; the chief tribe and the chief city, with the common people as well as elite, in the former, and members of the court in the latter. All classes contributed their portion to the national tins, and sins of almost all classes were freely indulged in.
I THE CHARACTER OF SIN AS A DISEASE. Sin is represented in Scripture as a disease an all-pervading disease; it is as universal as the race, for all have sinned; it is an all-embracing disease, for it extends to the faculties and feelings of the soul, and employs as its instruments all the members of the body. It infects whole peoples as well as individual persons. The description which Isaiah gives of its widespread ravages applies to the body politic as well as to the body human: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." It is thus a loathsome disease, a dangerous disease, a deadly disease; and, unless arrested in time, it is a fearfully fatal disease. The Apostle James gives us the genesis and development of this disease: "When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death;" and the symbol of this spiritual malady is leprosy one of the most frightful scourges of humanity.
II THE MEANS OF HEALING EMPLOYED. The disease is so desperate that God alone can cure it.
1. If there is balm in Gilead and a physician there, God himself is that Physician, and a Physician who not only supplies the balm but applies it; he has provided the remedy and prescribed the way in which it is made available. Thus the Prophet Jeremiah prays," Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my Praise." To a people as well as a person laden with sin, God promises relief when it is earnestly sought and properly applied for; thus we read in 2Ch_7:13, 2Ch_7:14, "If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people, which are called by my Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." If, then, sin-sick souls are not healed, it is not that God is either unwilling or unable to heal them. When Christ would have gathered the people of Palestine, or the inhabitants of its principal city, with all the tenderness and all the carefulness that the parent bird exercises in gathering its brood under its outspread wings, they would not. So is it still; sinners condemnation is self-procured as well as justly deserved, while the salvation of the righteous is only of the Lord.
2. The means which God employs for healing, though various, are yet pretty much the same at all times. One of these means, and that most commonly employed, is the Word of his grace read, preached, or meditated on. In all ages the chief instrumentality for reclaiming men has been his message of mercy. Thus he dealt with his ancient people: "The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy" (margin, "healing"). Other means used for the same end are afflictions and adverse circumstances of whatever kind; cases of thin sort, such as dearth, or famine, or pestilence, or impoverishment, or sore sickness and of long continuance, were frequent experiences of God"s people in the past. But the purpose was benevolent and salutary: "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." It is so still; for while "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Again, God sends intervals of prosperity with like design. This he did with Israel in the reign of Jeroboam II, in the days of Joash, and at other periods in their history, in order to wean them from sin and win them to himself. Another means of healing which God resorted to in the case of his ancient people was the removal of ringleaders in iniquity and notable apostates, as when he made an end of the dynasty of Ahab. Not a few similar instances in subsequent and modern times might be, pointed out.
III THE EXTENT OF THE HURT DISCOVERED BY THE ATTEMPT AT HEALING. While God was manifesting his intentions of mercy towards Israel, the virulence of their disease became evident. God here, in condescension to our weakness, accommodates himself to the manner of men and adopts their mode of speech. As though he had not known the desperate state of matters before, he speaks of it being now discovered. It is by probing a wound that a surgeon discovers its depth, and whether it reaches some vital part; it is only by careful examination a physician detects the character of his patient"s disease, and whether it is curable or likely to prove fatal. So with the good physician on closely examining the state of Israel; he found it even worse than had been supposed much worse than it appeared to the superficial observer. Much, no doubt, must have appeared on the surface, and much lay hid in secret; it had been, in fact, "half revealed, half concealed." When the iniquity of Ephraim was fully discovered and the wickedness of Samaria clearly seen, it proved incurable, so enormous was their guilt, so hardened were they in their transgressions, above all, so impenitent were they and so unwilling to be helped and healed. Their obduracy barred the door against the entrance of mercy, their refusal to part with their enormities checked the outgoings of the Divine goodness towards them. Nay more; as when a rock rises up in a river-bed, or the stream is narrowed by the encroaching banks, the water rushes with greater violence and is lashed into foam, so the very attempt to repress the sin of Israel rendered it more violent and outrageous. The rulers and those who occupied high places, as the inhabitants of the metropolis Samaria, and the people of the preeminent tribe of Ephraim, proved the most incorrigible of all. Among the vices of the time were falsehood and fraud, and the fraud was both private and public.
IV THE SINS CHARGED AGAINST ISRAEL ARE COMMON TO THEM, WITH THE UNGODLY, AT ALL TIMES. This assertion is proved by the further enumeration of these sins by Hosea. There was also sinful security and senseless stupidity.
1. They did not confer with their own hearts in reference to their state in the sight of God, nor impress on themselves their responsibility to him. They were strangers to any right searching of heart, or any serious reflection on the issues of their conduct and conversation. It is thus with hundreds of our fellow-men; want of consideration has ruined thousands Both for time and eternity; hence the earnest wish of the great lawgiver, "Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" Hence, too, the solemn command of "the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
2. The want of consideration or of communing with their own heart had special reference to the relationship in which they stood to God. They did not reflect that God remembered all their wickedness, consequently they did not recollect their liability to punishment for their wickedness at the hand of God, and therefore they did not feel any remorse on account of their wickedness when committed. Being spared after their wickedness, and not visited with immediate vengeance because of their wickedness, they thought themselves certain of impunity; enjoying a season of prosperity notwithstanding the greatness of their wickedness, they were emboldened in their wicked ways.
3. Atheism, theoretical or practical, or both, was at the root of the matter with them. The first article of belief embraces the existence of God, and the existence of God implies a Being of Divine attributes and infinite perfections; the second article includes a belief in God that he is a Recompenser of men"s actions a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and a Punisher of all workers of wickedness. They rejected, at least practically, these rudiments of the faith, these primary articles of belief; "as if God could not see their wickedness, though he is all eye; and did not heed it, though his name is Jealous; or had forgotten it, though he is an eternal mind that can never be unmindful; or would not reckon for it, though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This is the sinner"s atheism; as good say there is no God, as say he is either ignorant or forgetful; none that judgeth in the earth, as say he remembers not the things he is to give judgment upon; it is a high affront they put upon God, it is a damning cheat they put upon themselves, when they say, The Lord shall not see" nor remember.
4. The eyes of such shall be opened one day. They shall wake up out of their daydream, and their delusion shall vanish when their doings shall beset them about and the sad effects thereof shall entangle them as in a net. They shall see their sins in the punishments they bring upon them; they shall feel them in the sorrows and sufferings that attend them; and they shall recognize that God had them before his face all the time, having knowledge of them when committed, taking notice of their demerit, and remembering them for the exercise of his retributive justice. Even men"s secret sins God sets in the light (literally luminary," maor) of his countenance; the fire-flashing eye of the Omniscient penetrates the deep recesses of the human heart, and brings forth its secret workings into the sight of the sun and the broad light of day.
V OBSEQUIOUSNESS TO RULERS IN THEIR SINFUL COMMANDS OR COURSES IS EXTREMELY PERNICIOUS. It may please ungodly sovereigns or civil rulers to find subjects so pliable as at once to fall in with their wicked works and ways; or to he flattered by them; or to hear the upright who oppose their vileness slandered; or to listen to the lies by which the unscrupulous seek to ingratiate themselves; but such pandering must prove pitiful and profitless work for both the persons who indulge in it and the princes who encourage it. The former have often realized, though not perhaps to the same extent, the hitter experience of the great cardinal when he saidOh, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes" favors I There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have; And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again .... Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.
There is an alternative interpretation of ver. 3 which presents the other side, and another aspect of the case, namely, when deceitful men wickedly and mendaciously impose on the credulity of princes by false professions of friendship at the very time they are plotting their downfall and planning their destruction. The ordinary acceptation, however, suits the sense of the passage very well. When people are so wicked as to conform to the idolatrous worship prescribed by godless rulers, or to imitate their impious and immoral practices, or to applaud their worthless favorites, or to calumniate those known to be obnoxious to them, those rulers are more than gratified add gladdened by such lying and baseness, they are encouraged and stimulated in their wrongdoing, while a terrible responsibility rests upon the head of both. Thus Herod, after harassing the Church and slaying games the brother of John, "because he saw it pleased the Jews, proceeded further to take Peter." People, again, when they see that their acts of wickedness please their rulers, or their accounts thereof amuse them, are emboldened to proceed yet further. Thus sovereigns and subjects encouraging each other in sin ultimately work each other"s destruction. There is probably a reference to the people"s facile complaisance with the idolatry of the calves legalized by Jeroboam, or of Baal by Ahab a conscienceless acquiescence which in the end was fraught with the most baneful results to princes and people.
VI THE COURSE OF SIN IS A DOWNWARD SLOPE. After reprehending the profligate pleasure which both princes and people took in sin, the prophet reproves the servile submission of the latter to idolatry, and the debaucheries of the former. The adultery which he proceeds to stigmatize may be understood literally as welt as spiritually, the former being so frequent an accompaniment of the latter. In this case the heart is aptly compared to an oven, its lusts the fire with which it is heated; while Satan supplies by his temptations the fuel to the fire, and at the same time puts the leaven in the dough. Whether the baker, after kindling the fire, ceases from stirring it till morning, by which time the dough is leavened and ready for the oven, which he then raises to a greater heat; or whether he rests comparatively while still stoking during the interval that elapses from kneading the dough till it is leavened and ready for use; in either case there is a respite, not from the fire of lust abating or the fuel of temptation ceasing, but from want of opportunity or courage or ability. Soon, however, as the occasion presents itself or opportunity is afforded, or means of gratification are available, or hope of impunity is cherished, the fire of lust that seemed smoldering flames up with increased intensity; the wicked plot is executed; the covert passion breaks out into the overt act; the half-stifled concupiscence finds vent; the lustful, covetous, or ambitious project is accomplished.
VII DRUNKENNESS IS A PREPARATION FOR OTHER WICKEDNESS. The reference to it in ver. 5 is interjected between the mention of adultery and other enormities, as if it were an incentive thereto,
1. The occasion on which the intemperance took place was a celebration day, whether the king"s birthday, or the day of his accession to the throne, or his coronation day. As it was, it is; days of celebration, while not improper in themselves, may be turned into days of sinful carousal. Days of high festival that ought to be days of thanksgiving to God, of grateful praise and holy joy, are too often taken advantage of for purposes of intemperance, gluttony, or dissipation. Days that should be consecrated to religious exercises or real national rejoicing are too frequently desecrated by irreligious sensuality and anti-religious debauch.
2. According to the common rendering, the health of the king suffered; according to another rendering, which some prefer, the day was begun so that his honor was tarnished. According to either, his high dignity was leveled in the dust. It is bad enough and sad enough to see any man indulge in the sin of intemperance a sin which deranges and disorders the body, damages the soul and its eternal interests, dishonors God, and degrades man below the beast that perisheth. But for a king who is appointed to govern others to lose the government of himself through such scandalous excess, is the extreme of vileness; hence the faithful admonition, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine.
3. While the duty of a king was neglected, the dignity of a king was sacrificed. Kimchi has the following judicious remark in reference to this matter: "The prophet says, What was the business of the princes with the king? There was no conversation about the might and conquest of the enemies and about the establishment of justice, as it becomes the king of a free nation, but their business consisted in eating and drinking until they made the king sick from the excessive drinking of wine." Even worse, if possible, was the fact of his debasing himself by companionship with profane scoffers. Rashi aptly observes, "The king withdraws his hand from the good and worthy in order to join in fellowship with scorners. The men that put the bottle to his mouth with professed friendliness were, as the event proved, plotting his ruin and preparing for his assassination.
VIII THE SEEMING RESPITE FROM, AND REACTIONARY NATURE OF, SIN. The respite was not a real rest from sin; it was only the interval while the mischief was being premeditated, and the opportunity for putting it in practice waited for.
1. In the morning, at the first and earliest opportunity, soon as the plot was matured and the favorable moment for its execution arrived, the fire of passion or lust that had been burning slowly all the time broke out afresh and with greatly increased vigor. They made ready, applied, or, as Pusey says," literally brought near their heart. Their heart was ever brought near to sin, even while the occasion was removed at a distance from it." While the leaven is commingling with the dough and the fuel combining with the fire, the baker may sleep, or seem to do so; so, while temptation, like fuel, is acting on the fire of lust within, and the evil suggestion of Satan is pervading the powers of the soul in which it has found lodgment, the tempter may appear to slumber. The work is going on internally, and once the occasion offers it shall be carried out externally in full force and certain effect.
2. A man throws a stone in the air and it comes back on his own head; men sin themselves or tempt others to sin, and the consequences recoil on themselves. The Israelitish kings, from the period of the disruption in the days of Jeroboam, corrupted the worship of God or acquiesced in that corruption, and induced the people to conform to that corruption and other sinful courts that followed in its wake; and all for their own political advantage and private selfish ends to prevent, if possible, the return of power to the Davidic line, and the reunion of the ten tribes with the two. But the time of reaction arrived, and the retributive Nemesis began to work; the people who had been corrupted by their rulers now turned against their corrupters; disloyalty to God brought in its train disloyalty to man; kings and subordinate rulers perished in quick succession. And notwithstanding the times of anarchy, insecurity for life and property, and general upheaval of social order amid all those scenes of terrible confusion, there was none among them to realize the fact that "for the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof." Consequently there was none among them to call upon God in supplication for relief and preservation.
HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN Vers. 1-7. Sins of court and country.
The reproofs contained in this chapter lay special emphasis upon the sins of the upper classes. But the prophet brands the whole nation also for its irreligion and immorality, and (in the second part of the chapter) for its political corruption.
I THE EXPOSURE OF ISRAEL"S SIN. The wickedness of the people is portrayed, both as regards principles and individual acts. It may be described as:
1. Gold-blooded in its principles. (Vers. 1-3) These showed themselves in habits of:
(1) "Falsehood." (Ver. 1.) There was "no truth in the land". (Hos_4:1) The life of the nation had become a lie. Towards God there was chronic hypocrisy, and towards man habits of theft and robbery. (Hos_6:6-10)
(2) Sympathy with sin and crime. (Ver. 3) The ruling classes had become morally so corrupt that not only was their example always evil, but it also gave them positive satisfaction to take note of the immoralities of their subjects. Such satisfaction is itself the climax of human wickedness. (Rom_1:32)
(3) Spiritual inconsiderateness. (Vers. 2, 7) The root of all the evil was Israel"s forgetfulness of God. They failed to remember his holiness, his justice, his omniscience. And, in ignoring these truths, they neglected also their own highest interests; for, from the lack of timely repentance, their sins "beset them about." This inconsiderateness is the cardinal error of all ungodly men. Multitudes, like Ephraim, have had their attention loudly called to spiritual things by the voice of temporal blessings, of gospel promises, and of providential chastisements; but they will not hear! But, again, Israel"s sin was:
2. Hot-blooded in its acts. (Vers. 4-7) Here the people are compared three several times to a baker"s "oven," the meaning being that in doing their deeds of guilt they were enthusiastic and passionate, They sinned hotly in the direction of:
(1) Idolatry. (Ver. 4) "They are all adulterers;" i.e. king, princes, and people alike were guilty of apostasy from Jehovah, and shared in the dissoluteness which was associated with the worship of the Phoenician deities. "They had violated their faith pledged to God, they gave themselves up to filthy superstitions, and they had wholly corrupted themselves; for faith and sincerity of heart constitute spiritual chastity before God" (Calvin). Their souls were inflamed with their idolatrous lusts like a burning oven.
(2) Debauchery. (Ver. 5) Both the king and the nobles followed habits of intemperance. At the banquet held on the royal birthday he and they "erred through strong drink," and scoffed together at the majesty of Jehovah. In our own country, too, how many there are who spend Christmas as if they were celebrating the birth of the devil rather than that of the Redeemer!
(3) Anarchy. (Vers. 6, 7) The fiery passions of the people caused the land to be long torn by disorder and revolution. Their rulers became fuel for the fire of their anger. "All their kings are fallen; Zechariah was murdered by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, Pekahiah by Pekah, etc. Indeed, very few of the monarchs of the northern kingdom died in peace. During its entire course, the heat of political violence devoured like a furnace; and in the deepest national calamities none sought the aid of the Divine King.
II WHAT LED TO THIS EXPOSURE.
1. The encircling presence of their sins. (Ver. 2) The people sinned so deeply and so boldly that their enormities grew up around them like a rampart. Wherever they went their wickedness attended them, and became a swift witness against them. A man"s iniquity wraps him round like a poisoned tunic. He is "holden with the cords of his sins"; (Pro_5:22) and it is his own hands, alas! that have forged and riveted his chains. Evil doings "beset" a man through the accusations of conscience, through the power of habit, through the action of natural law, and through the providence of God, which makes sure that his "sin will find him out.
2. Gods remembrance of their sins. (Ver. 2) The Lord must take notice of sin, for he must punish it. Although the sinful nation has forgotten this, the fact remains. "They are before my face;" i.e. ever present to me; I cannot avoid seeing them. "These words "before me in the first commandment teach us that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of, and is much displeased with, the sin of having any other god" (Westminster Assembly"s Shorter Catechism).
3. God"s efforts to cure them of their sins. (Ver. 1) As the depth and seriousness of a wound are often not known until the surgeon probes it, and as the nature of a disease may not be fully understood for some time after the physician has begun to grapple with the case, so the depravity of Israel was adequately exposed only when God adopted strong measures in connection with it, by the chastisements of his providence, and the warning voices of his prophets. For the people refused to obey each summons to repentance; and, instead of placing confidence in Jehovah, "they called to Egypt, and went to Assyria" (ver. 11). So the very means of grace which God used in order to save Israel, became the occasion of showing how far the nation had already wandered from him, and even of inducing them to wander still further. And thus is it still, when God deals with men by his Word and Spirit. "By the Law is the knowledge of sin". (Rom_3:20) The primary work of the Holy Ghost is to "convince the world of sin". (Joh_16:8) By his common grace he gives, even to the unconverted, a partial view of their own unworthiness. And, in the case of all who enter upon the Christian life, he uses the disclosure of sin to lead the penitent to renounce all self-righteousness, and to fall at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. C.J.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1, 2. Sin"s malignancy.
Jehovah was Israel"s Healer. (Exo_15:26) His constantly cherished desire was to do them good. He had labored for this end by his prophets, by chastisements, and by exhibitions of kindness. All had been in vain. The people would not permit the Lord to be their Healer. If sin was checked for a little, it was only to break out again in worse forms than before. The more he sought to heal them, only the more clearly was their iniquity discovered. We note here concerning Ephraim"s wickedness
I ITS INVETERATE MALIGNANCY. "When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria" (ver. 1). The evil of sin is revealed in the very attempt to cure it.
1. The cure of sin makes necessary the laying bare of its evil. The wound must be probed before remedial measures can be adopted. It is when he begins to probe it that the physician discovers its dangerous character. So, when God would heal us, he begins by discovering to us the truth about our spiritual state. He calls sin by its right name. He tells us of our depravity, our corruption, and brings into light the transgressions we had covered up. This was the work of the prophets of Israel. It is the work of the Law, and of God"s Word generally. Till we are thoroughly convinced of sin, recovery is hopeless. "By the Law is the knowledge of sin". (Rom_3:20)
2. The evil of sin is discovered in its resistance to cure. An ordinary disease yields to remedies. Where these are employed and no improvement is manifest, we pronounce the case a serious one. Its resistance to treatment evinces its malignity. It is thus that Ephraim"s sin was discovered by God"s attempts to heal him. Every means of remedy had been tried, but without success. (Hos_6:4) Wickedness seemed at a greater height than ever. Sin is no skin-deep disorder. The difficulty of its cure is sufficient proof of the inveteracy of its hold. So depraved is the heart, that nothing will remedy it but complete renewal. We have evidence every day of the determined resistance which sin is capable of offering to God. We see it in others, and we know it in experience.
3. The attempt to cure sin often results in aggravated manifestations of it. The. sinful heart is roused to antagonism. Its latent enmity to God comes more fully out. It rages in its opposition to his servants. When the commandment comes, sin revives. (Rom_7:9) Temporary amendment is followed by greater outbursts of wickedness. (Hos_6:8 Luk_11:24-26)
II ITS BALEFUL MANIFESTATIONS. "For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without" (ver 1). We have here: 1. Falsehood. Israel was guilty of falsehood
(1) towards God, in breaking his covenant, in proving faithless to their vows of amendment, and in "speaking lies" concerning him (ver. 13);
(2) towards their allies, in disregarding treaty engagements; and
(3) towards one another. Deceit had become part of their nature. When falsehood becomes a habit, moral recovery is scarcely possible. The ingrained liar is an almost hopeless subject for conversion.
1. Robbery. Justice is itself a species of truth, and with the loss of the sense of truth there is undergone a corresponding loss of the sense of justice. Each regards his neighbor as his lawful prey. He robs him if he can. Thefts, heartless frauds, organized robberies, are of frequent occurrence.
2. Violence. From robbery to violence the transition is not great. When men cease to live by honest labor, they do not stick at trifles. If a slack state of the law permits, crimes will abound. Where, as was the case in Israel, the throne is built on murder, it need not surprise us that lawlessness spreads in the community.
III ITS PITIFUL DELUSION. (Ver. 2) "They consider not in their hearts," etc. The point here is the obliviousness of the wicked to God"s knowledge of their doings. They extrude God from their thoughts. "They say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?". (Psa_73:11) On this notice:
1. The wicked have, in secret, more knowledge of God than they pretend. Israel, with a prophet like Hosea in its midst, could not be entirely ignorant of God. It showed that it had some knowledge of him, by its cries to him in trouble, and by brief periods of amendment. This extrusion of him from the thoughts was, therefore, voluntary. It was Israel"s will not to know God. Thus there lurks in the sinner"s consciousness a spark of knowledge which renders him inexcusable for his habitual forgetfulness, He may banish God from his thoughts, and try to persuade himself that God does not remember his wickedness. But if he does so, it is because he prefers to live in a delusion which at bottom he knows to be such.
2. The wicked, as a rule, do succeed in expelling God from their thoughts. They get their own way. They soon perfect themselves in the art of forgetting their Creator. Like the ostrich, which is fabled to hide its head in the sand as a protection from the hunters, they think that when they have succeeded in putting God out of their remembrance they have somehow got rid of him.
3. The delusion in which the wicked encourage themselves does not in the least alter the real state of the case. Sinners may shut out the thought of God"s knowledge of their doings, but none the less is God cognizant of everything they are about. "Their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face." This is the folly of sin; it cannot by its forgetfulness and denials alter the actual state of the facts. The sinner"s deeds are his own. He remains answerable for every one of them. With all his doings about him, he stands daily, hourly, constantly, in fall view of the eye of God. (Ps 139) He will be called to an account. J.O.
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 Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv1–2When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity…
Hos_7:1
When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria.
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The great deceiver and spoiler of the nation
We identify the deceiver as strong drink.
I. The dangerous and insinuating character of intoxicating drinks. The thief cometh in. Compare the movements of thieves with the manner in which these drinks operate upon different classes of our fellow-men.
1. The thief will often seize the property of others under false pretences. So the strong drinks pretend to give strength to the weak, and to preserve the strong from becoming weak. Those drinks pretend to act favourably upon the sympathies of our nature, and to promote good fellowship among neighbours and friends. But when and where did strong drink perform such wonderful things?
2. The thief commits his depredations under the guise of friendship.
II. you are known to have money, many will offer friendship, and when they have gained your confidence, they will strip you of everything you possess. And it is thus with the friendly glass.
3. The thief pounces upon his prey at unawares. And the thief, strong drink, acts very much in the same way. To be forewarned is in many cases to be forearmed, but too many refuse to take warning, and hence the thief pounces upon them at unawares, and they become an easy prey.
4. The thief pays no respect either to age or sex. The thief is known to seize upon male or female, old or young, any party, or under any circumstance, if he can but meet with a victim. And the thief, strong drink, acts precisely in the same way. In every walk of life, in every condition of society, and under every variety of circumstance this thief commits his depredations.
5. The thief, in the accomplishment of his object, often takes away the life of his victim. Here is another most painful characteristic of strong drink. By this thief multitudes of men die and go to their long home.
II. The evils inflicted upon our country by the traffic in strong drinks. The troop of robbers spoileth without.
1. The vast-extent of this source of evil. Thousands are engaged in the manufacture of strong drink.
2. The traffic fails to give an equivalent for what it costs.
3. The traffic in strong drink spoils the morals of our country.
4. The traffic is spoiling the efforts of the Church.
III. The means by which these evils may be removed.
1. The real cause of these evils must be kept distinctly in view. Individual example is the matter requiring supreme attention.
2. The manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks, except for scientific and medicinal purposes, must be condemned.
3. The practical rather than the doubtful should be steadily pursued. There is always a danger of our having our minds diverted from the real to the visionary. It is a delusion to trust to acts of parliament. Personal and individual abstinence is the one thing to urge. (D. Sunderland.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v3There follows now a very difficult passage. The text…
4. WICKEDNESS IN HIGH PLACES
Hos_7:3-7
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There follows now a very difficult passage. The text is corrupt, and we have no means of determining what precise events are intended. The drift of meaning, however, is evident. The disorder and licentiousness of the people are favored in high places; the throne itself is guilty.
"With their evil they make a king glad, and princes with their falsehoods: all of them are adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker"
"On the day of our king"-some coronation or kings birthday-"the princes were sick with fever from wine. He stretched forth his hand with loose fellows," presumably made them his associates. "Like an oven have they made their hearts with their intriguing. All night their anger sleepeth in the morning it blazes like a flame of fire. All of them glow like an oven, and devour their rulers: all their kings have fallen, without one of them calling on Me."
An obscure passage upon obscure events; yet so lurid with the passion of that fevered people in the flagrant years 743-735 that we can make out the kind of crimes described. A king surrounded by loose and unscrupulous nobles: adultery, drunkenness, conspiracies, assassination: every man striking for himself; none appealing to God.
From the court, then, downwards, by princes, priests, and prophets, to the common fathers of Israel and their households, immorality prevails. There is no redeeming feature, and no hope of better things. For repentance itself the capacity is gone.
In making so thorough an indictment of the moral condition of Israel, it would have been impossible for Hosea not to speak also of the political stupidity and restlessness which resulted from it. But he has largely reserved these for that part of his discourse which now follows, and which we will take in the next chapter.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn vv1, 4Hos_7:1.] Exposure of wickedness continued. Healed] politically and morally.…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hos_7:1.] Exposure of wickedness continued. Healed] politically and morally. The danger of a wound only discovered when probed and healing attempted. Spoileth] Heb. strippeth off a garment: plunder extensive and without resistance. Falsehood] Deception toward God and man. “Falsehood was the whole habit and tissue of their lives” [Pusey].
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Hos_7:2. Consider] Lit. say not to themselves in serious reflection. Rem.] Notice and punish (Deu_32:34; Psa_90:8). Beset] as fetters and witnesses against them (Psa_9:16; Pro_5:22).
Hos_7:3. Lies] People conformed to wicked laws and seductive rites of kings and princes; flattered and pleased them with applause and immoralities (Act_12:13).
HOMILETICS
A SAD DISCOVERY.—Hos_7:1
The exposure of moral depravity is continued. The efforts of God to heal are frustrated by the disease. Greater iniquity is discovered. The grace of God is turned into lasciviousness.
I. A disease malignant in its working.
1. It was secretly hidden. It broke out in one place when the physician was curing another. “When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered.” Sin is never hid from God. It lies concealed in the heart of man, and only waits for a chance to break out in acts. “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.”
2. It was openly violent. The thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. They were infested with thieves within and spoiled by foreign invaders from without. Wounded afresh day by day. No place was secure and free from sin. Secret sins indulged in become stronger and more violent in their manifestations. Spots break out in the character and errors in the life, like some malignant humour in the body. The body is robbed of its beauty, the mind of its vigour, and the life spoiled in its influence and end.
II. A disease complicated in its symptoms. Within and without, politically and religiously, the disease was spreading.
1. There was falsehood toward God. “For they commit falsehood.” Falsehood in their worship and profession, in their principles and practices. They said they were willing to be healed and to be ruled by God: “nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues.”
2. There was treachery toward man. Take away the fear of God and there will be no regard to man. “He cannot be faithful to me who is unfaithful to God,” said the father of Constantine the Great. Religion is the basis and cement of society. If we throw off fidelity to truth and God, what is there to bridle passion and check corruption? Treachery destroys all principles of confidence and security by which society is bound together. The Romans even disdained to practise it towards their enemies. How disgraceful for a Christian people to be guilty of it. “Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?”
III. A disease incurable in its nature. “When I would have healed”—by the teachings of the prophets and the chastisements of Providence—“they would not hearken nor be amended.” The disease defied all remedy, was more irritated by it and laid open in its extent and malignity. Many distempered churches and afflicted nations neglect the hopeful crisis, then go from bad to worse, and never get cured. Their wickedness is incorrigible and their disease incurable. When once inwardly rotten and corrupt, the foulness will break out and be externally visible. No earthly physician can sew up or heal the wound. Death in the body can never be cured. There is no death so sad and momentous in its results as the death of things which die within. “The greatest epoch in a man’s life is by no means the day of his physical death, but the day in which he died to something more important to him than the whole world.” “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed; forsake her.”
DIVINE REMEMBRANCE OF SIN.—Hos_7:2-3
God saw the wickedness of Israel. All things are naked and opened before him. The manifold and intricate ways of sin, with their surroundings and consequences, are known to him. “They are before my face.”
I. God remembers the sins of men. “I remembered all their wickedness.” These words are full of awful truth, confirmed by Scripture and every-day experience. God is omnipresent; beholds us everywhere; and we can never sin with security. If I wished to escape inspection, “whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” God is omniscient, having infinite and intimate knowledge of the affairs of men. He needs no light to discern sin, but the light of his countenance. Our open transgressions and secret sins are before his face. “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.” But this knowledge is remembrance. Not that God ever forgets. Though punishment does not always immediately follow transgression, yet the sin itself is not forgotten or buried in oblivion. God sees and knows it. Men may wink at sin and forget it, but God never does. God’s remembrance is—
1. Minute,—even the most secret things are known to him.
2. Constant,—“remember” continually.
3. Individual,—“their wickedness.”
4. Universal,—“all their wickedness.”
III. Men think that God is indifferent to their sins. “They consider not in their hearts.” They forget God, and think that God forgets them. “They say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.”
1. Men forget God in their thoughts. “They consider not.” If they acknowledge him in words, they do not wish to have him near to them. They do not speak to their own hearts, nor listen to the voice of conscience within. The young and old, the rich and poor, the gay and busy, shun acquaintance with him—put him in the background of life, and curtain him out of sight lest he should trouble them. They desire not the knowledge of his ways, wish to remain ignorant, and say, “Depart from us.” A French philosopher even declared, “that the first duty of an intelligent and free man is to chase incessantly from the mind and conscience the idea of God.” Practical atheism abounds now in the world. Men abandon faith in the unseen and spiritual, and virtually say, No God. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God, God is not in all his thoughts.”
2. Men disregard God in their ways. If God is not in our thoughts he will not be in our ways. Conduct results from thoughts, as fruit from a tree. Thought may not always be embodied in deed; may inadequately be represented by a man’s life; but the connection of one with the other is like cause and effect. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” “There are many devices in a man’s heart” which lead him to act independently and forgetfully of God. Scientific men talk of “generative powers,” “vital energies,” and “eternal laws.” We have the designs of Balak and Balaam, of Haman and Herod. Men take no account of God in their daily duties and avocations, their plans and pursuits. Self is their oracle. and self their counsellor, “for they have perverted their way and forgotten the Lord their God.”
III. When men disregard God in their ways, they become more wicked in their lives. Due regard to God is essential to the order and harmony of society. What a desolation would happen to a world without the knowledge of God! The French Revolution is a lesson to all nations in this respect. The results of idolatry have been sad in the extreme. Even among the chosen people, amid light and privileges, when God was forsaken, every barrier was removed. Falsehood and injustice, cruelty and sensuality, increased more and more. They gave full play to passions and lusts; perpetrated sins without fear or shame; and indulged in unbridled folly. Two things are specially pointed out.
1. The highest ranks were corrupted. “They made the king glad with their wickedness.” Those who should have been models of truth and virtue, encouraged the people to sin by their example and influence. Their unjust laws and customs were eagerly obeyed; they were pleased with the flattery, made glad with the homage of the people. In pomp and unbounded arrogance they proceeded further in sins, like Herod; and not only did the same, but had pleasure in them that did them.
2. The lowest ranks were servile. “And the princes with their lies.” An unhappy complaisance was the ruling character of Israel. Their consciences were versatile and accommodating to the circumstances of the day. They approved and followed whatever was commanded by those in power; acquiesced in legalized idolatry, and preferred their kings to their God. They pleased the king, but they were not sincere. They flattered the prince, but they lied in their hearts. They conformed to the customs, but cursed the persons of their rulers. Even now, men bow in homage to those who crush them to poverty; lose their manhood by worshipping the rich and the mighty. “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.” Wicked sovereigns and wicked people are a curse to each other. When kings and princes are corrupted the people will be corrupted. Ahab preferred falsehood to truth, and was surrounded by lying prophets. “Lies will be told to those that are ready to hearken to them.” The sinful ruler is a tool for all kinds of wickedness. He drives the godly from his presence, and ever finds those that minister to his folly. “If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked” (Pro_29:12).
ENCIRCLED IN SIN.—Hos_7:2
If the sinner pays no regard to reason and the All-seeing eye of God, he cannot hide his sins. They will chain and imprison him, go with him and encircle him at all times. His sins become a constant torment and a deadly punishment. “Now their own doings have beset them about.” The sinner is beset—
I. By the sting of conscience. He seeks to hide his sins, but conscience detects them, brings them to remembrance, and accuses him of guilt. The consciousness of sin haunts him continually, and his sin is ever before him.
II. By the force of habit. Sin by repetition grows into habit. Habit becomes a ruling power, and cannot be given up easily. “A rooted habit,” says Tillotson, “becomes a governing principle. Every lust we entertain deals with us as Delilah did with Samson; not only robs us of our strength, but leaves us fast bound.”
III. By the influence of example. The doings of men live before them in their effects upon others. They cannot die, but they encircle them in the bands of associates and companions. Example is repeated and imitated by others; goes forth with self-propagating power, and may descend from one generation to another. “The evil that men do lives after them.”
IV. By the consequences of natural law. Punishment follows sin by a natural law, the law of causation. Even now men are encircled by their own doings, in loss of health and position; in decay of intellect and disorders of mind; in the torments of conscience and the tyranny of habit; in misery, despair, and death. In the future, punishment awaits the sinner. “Is not this laid up in store with me and sealed up among my treasures? “Unless repented of, and washed in the blood of Christ, sins are destined to be cited against the sinner. In time and eternity “his own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 7
Hos_7:1. If we had eyes like those of God, we should think very differently of ourselves. The transgressions which we see and confess are but like the farmer’s small sample which he brings to market, when he has left his granary full at home. We have but a few sins which we can observe and detect, compared with those which are hidden from ourselves and unseen by our fellow-creatures [Spurgeon].
Hos_7:2. Habits. As impossible as it is for a blackamoor to cast away his skin and to become white, and for a leopard to put away his spots; so impossible is it for them that ensnare themselves, and accustom themselves with evil doing, to change their custom and do well [Cawdry].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible1900 · Public DomainOn v1I. Look at the fact of God’s remembrance of…
Hos 7:2
I. Look at the fact of God’s remembrance of sin. (1) God remembers all kinds and degrees of sin; secret and open, wilful and negligent. (2) God remembers the sins of all men; the sins of the young and of the aged, of the well-known citizen and of the stranger. (3) God remembers the sins of all men accurately and completely. (4) God remembers continually and for ever. (5) God remembers with a practical result; He remembers thai He may act upon His recollections. He remembers as a Ruler, and He either forgives or He punishes.
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II. Look at this fact as forgotten by those who, ought to remember it. "They consider not in their hearts;" they do not think. Lack of thought often accounts for lack of religion.
III. Turn to God’s complaint of this forgetfulness. God complains of the state of the heart. God complains of forgetfulness; and why? Because it sears the conscience, leads to false views of a man’s position, is personally offensive to God, and is frequently the occasion of final ruin.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 4th series, No. 18.
Hos 7:8
There is something in the character of some men which resembles a burnt loaf: a cake left too long with one side exposed to the fire till it has caught and been scorched, while the other side is still mere dough.
The character described is easily legible. It is that in which there is a too-much and a too-little. Every part of the mind and life—the principles, the affections, the temper, and the spirit; the motives and conduct, the feelings towards God and the feelings towards man—ought to be alike and equally influenced by the presence of the Holy Spirit within. The cake is imperfectly mixed, imperfectly leavened, or imperfectly baked if it be not so. It is the want of this unity, this coherence and consistency of parts, this combination and harmony of all elements in one whole, which makes the words true of any human character, "Ephraim is a cake not turned."
I. There is, first, the case which the context seems to point to; an inconsistency arising from too much of voluntary intermixture with the world.
II. Or again, there is the still sadder case, if it be possible, of one who is tied and bound by the chain of some evil habit.
III. How applicable is the description of the text to some characters to which we can scarcely deny the title of religious; some which, perhaps, most confidently arrogate that title to themselves. How often have we seen in such persons zeal without tenderness; energy without repose; eagerness for what they deem truths, without charity towards those whom they count in error.
IV. And if applicable thus far to Christian men, what shall we say of the bearing of the subject upon persons who have not yet taken a decisive step towards Christ’s service. In many of them conscience is at variance with practice, conviction with conduct. You will never be really happy until your life is at one. Unity is happiness, and unity is strength. If you see that the Lord is God, follow Him; follow Him whithersoever He goeth.
C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of Life and Godliness, p. 65.
References: Hos 7:8.—Spurgeon, Morning, by Morning, p. 175; J. Baines, Sermons, p. 100.
Hos 7:9
Gray hairs are a sign of decay. They are here the marks of age, the premonitory symptoms of dissolution; and so the truth the text announces is that men, many men, live in ignorance, and act in disregard, of signs that should warn and alarm them.
In illustration of this I remark—
I. It appears in the history of states. The words were first spoken of the kingdom of Israel. In the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy, in the corruption of morals and the decline of true religion the prophet saw the signs of his country’s decay,—these were the gray hairs that were here and there upon them, and they knew not. Kingdoms, as well as men and women in decline, stricken with a mortal malady, have descended into the grave, blind to their dangers and their doom. (2) My text applies to the false security of sinners. Be our profession what it may, if we have habits if sin—these are the gray hairs that, unless grace convert and mercy pardon, foretell our doom. So long as you see one star in the sky, the sun is not risen; so long as one leak admits the water, the ship is not safe; so long as one sin reigns in a man’s heart, and is practised in his life, Jesus is neither his Saviour nor his King. The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. (3) This appears in men’s insensibility to the lapse and lessons of time. The nearer we draw to our end, through a natural callousness or otherwise, the less sensible we grow to the evils and approach of age. And when a man has not left his peace with God to seek in old age, his greatest work to a time when he is least fit to do it: in such a case it is a most blessed thing that old age does not make our hearts old, or benumb our feelings—that gray hairs are on us, and yet we know not. But where, in such a case, is the hope of those who have trusted to turning religious when they grow old, and attending to the concerns of a better world when they have ceased to feel any interest in this?
T. Guthrie, Speaking to the Heart, p. 1.
How comes it that a man may slip away from earnestness in the Christian life, into a condition of spiritual decrepitude, without knowing it?
I. Because we are all inclined to look more favourably on ourselves than on others. The man who is himself declining in spiritual health may be, very often is, blind to his own defections, while yet he has a clear perception of the backsliding of others. How shall this evil be prevented? By trying ourselves fairly by the standard of God’s Word, and by laying ourselves open in earnest supplication to the inspection of the Lord Himself.
II. This insensibility to spiritual deterioration may be largely owing to the gradual way in which backsliding steals upon a man. No one becomes very wicked all at once; and backsliding, as the term itself implies, is a thing not of sudden manifestation, but of gradual motion. We shall know where we are when we test ourselves by the Word of God, as that has been vindicated for us by the example and the spirit of the Lord Jesus. Let us not compare ourselves simply with that which we were yesterday, or last week, or last year; but let us rather take daily sights of the Sun of Righteousness, and shape our course accordingly.
III. This unconsciousness of backsliding may be largely accounted for in many cases by the fact that the individuals are absorbed in other matters to such an extent that the state of the heart is forgotten. Just in proportion as their business prosperity increases their spiritual health diminishes. Here, again, the question arises, How is this danger to be obviated? And the answer is, In one of two ways: either (1) by curtailing the business, or (2) by consecrating it as a whole to God.
W. M. Taylor, Limitations of Life, p. 327.
References: Hos 7:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 830; H. M. Arthur, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 282; Parker, Pulpit Notes, p. 73.
Hos 7:14
I. The grand motive which should influence the sinner in turning to God is love to the kind and gracious Father, who has so long borne with his waywardness; and a sincere desire to promote His glory.
II. A reliance on a deathbed repentance implies a doubt of the declarations of the Bible, that God expects us to walk before Him during the days of our earthly pilgrimage in holiness and righteousness.
III. It is a prominent feature in the great plan of redemption, that we should openly acknowledge our allegiance to God, by becoming a member of His Church. If all should look to a deathbed repentance, the very groundwork of the system of faith would be overturned.
IV. Besides faith and repentance, habitual obedience is required of every one who truly turns to God. Is a deathbed the place we should choose to root out sinful passions and desires, subdue habits indulged in for years, and form plans for amendment of life? If we ever intend to save our souls, we should set about it now.
J. N. Norton, Old Paths, p. 172.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow1909 · Public DomainOn v1Corruption of the Court
Corruption of the Court
In this chapter the tone again becomes despondent. How can Israel be saved when her iniquity is so deep, so glaring, so obstinate? Samaria is especially instanced as the centre of a wicked and corrupt government sustained by a lawless people and false teachers. Hosea dwells chiefly on some plot which ended in regicide and the reliance on foreign powers which meant want of faith in God.
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2. They fail to realise how patent in God's sight their iniquity is, while they attempt to combine a profession of religion with sins of the worst type. Now they are 'holden with the cords of their sins' (Pro_5:22).
3. They induced their rulers not only to connive at, but to take part with delight in their wicked practices.
4. The fire of lust is likened to a baker's oven. But the simile seems also to include the passion of anger which worked in the heart and produced acts of violence, such as regicide.
5-7. A scene from the palace. The king carouses with his courtiers, who have formed a plot against him, and wait the fitting moment to rise and put him to death. It would appear that Hosea has in his mind the assassination of a king at a feast, or just after a feast, in the early morning. The case is perhaps that of Zechariah, son of Jeroboam II (see Intro.).
5. The day.. king] some royal feast, probably the king's birthday. Have.. wine] RV 'made themselves sick with the heat of wine.' By their drunken carouse they heaped up fuel on the fire of their malicious hate. He stretched out] i.e. in hospitality. The hand is stretched out by the host to offer the cup to his guests. Scorners] those who in their heart despise the king and are ever plotting his death.
6. Their baker] Perhaps we should follow the LXX, etc., and read, 'their anger.' Their anger sleeping would mean that they manage to control it, until it can work with effect. If we keep the reading 'baker,' it will mean that just as the baker sleeps when once he has made up his fire and heated his oven ready for use in the morning, so they wait for the morning to execute their purpose.
7. Judges.. kings] whatever definite event the prophet has in his mind this describes the general character of the northern kingdom, a restless disloyalty to kings and rulers. The only dynasties of any duration were those of Omri and Jehu. None.. calleth unto me] Irreligion lay at the root of this constant disloyalty.
8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people] RV 'the peoples' or nations. Another fault, and another evidence of a want of patriotism, the tendency to court foreign alliances and foreign influences, such as was seen in the policy of Menahem with reference to Tiglath-pileser (2Ki_15:19). A cake not turned] which is therefore burnt on one side, and half raw on the other, and so spoilt.
9. Strangers.. strength] the natural consequence of seeking help from a foreign alliance, which meant the exaction of what was practically tribute, and consequently heavy taxation (2Ki_15:20). Israel did not realise that these signified the beginning of national decrepitude, just as grey hairs here and there are the first signs of old age.
10. The pride.. face] see on Hos_5:5. He is so besotted with pride that he recognises neither the evil itself nor its true remedy.
11. A silly dove] As the dove flies helplessly one way and another, so Israel turns to one power after another, only eventually to make enemies of both. The only recorded alliance with Egypt was that of Hoshea (2Ki_17:4); but it was a common policy of Judah, and is frequently condemned by the prophets. There was a natural temptation to play off Egypt against Assyria, and such an alliance may have been already projected by those opposed to Menahem's action. Heart] RV 'understanding,' as in Hos_4:11.
12. They shall go] i.e. for help. This courting of alliances will inevitably, by God's providence, end in their destruction. The metaphor of the dove suggests that of the fowler. Jehovah will through their own folly lure them to their ruin. As their congregation hath heard] Hosea had warned them beforehand of what was to befall.
14. Howled.. beds] Their prayers do not proceed from any reverential fear of God. They are like the howling of an animal from pain. They cry out because they are in trouble, but their prayers are for material blessings, and they are still rebellious at heart: cp. Job_35:9. They assemble themselves] i.e. meet in religious exercises, but RM has 'cut themselves,' referring to heathen practices in time of tribulation: cp. 1Ki_18:28.
15. Bound] RV 'taught,' by chastisement.
16. They return, etc.] Their turning is ever farther away from God. Their princes shall fall] As a punishment for their insolence they would perish amidst the derision of the very people whose aid they had sought: see Hos_7:11.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein1922 · Public DomainOn v1The Moral Depravity of Israel
CHAPTER 7
The Moral Depravity of Israel
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1. Their moral depravity (Hos 7:1-7)
2. Mingling with heathen nations (Hos 7:8-16)
Hos 7:1-7. All the gracious efforts of the Lord to heal Israel resulted in a greater manifestation of the iniquity of Ephraim. Instead of turning to Him in true repentance and self-judgment their evil heart turned away from Jehovah, and they continued in their downward course. They did not consider that the Lord would remember all their evil deeds and punish them for it. The king and the princes, the political heads were as corrupt as the priests, they were pleased with the impenitence and wickedness of their subjects. Then follows a graphic description of their moral depravity. They were adulterers, burning with lust, “like an oven heated by the baker, who rests, stirring up (the fire), after he has kneaded the dough until it be leavened.” They indulged in all the vile, obscene practices connected with the idol worship of the heathen about them. They were also drunkards and were heated with wine as they were with lust. They made their heart like an oven; their baker (meaning their own evil will and imagination) slept all night, but, awakening in the morning, their lust is stirred up again. Nor did anyone call upon the name of the Lord.
Such was the moral depravity of a people with whom the Lord had entered into covenant, the favored nation. The source of it was unbelief and the rejection of His Word. The sad history of Israel is repeated in professing Christendom today.
Hos 7:8-16. The Lord called Israel to be a separated nation, but Ephraim mingled with the heathen (not, people) and is compared to a cake not turned. They adopted heathen ways, heathen manners and heathen vices. Like an unturned cake, which is black and burnt on the one side, while above it is unbaked, such was Ephraim’s condition. Such a cake was fit for nothing; it had to be thrown away. The strangers with whom they mingled devoured their strength, nor did they not notice the signs of their speedy national decay. This is the meaning of the statement, “Gray hairs are here and there upon him, and he does not know it.” Furthermore, Ephraim is likened to a silly dove without understanding. Instead of flying back to Jehovah their help and rest, they fluttered, like a moth around the flame, around Egypt and Assyria, trying to find deliverance there. But while fluttering from Egypt to Assyria and from Assyria to Egypt, they did not see the net which was spread for their destruction--that net was Assyria itself. In this net the Lord caught them; their freedom would be ended and captivity begin. Then follows the divine Woe. “Woe unto them! for they have wandered from Me. Destruction upon them, that they have transgressed against Me!” The divine lament cried after them, “I would have redeemed them, but they spoke lies against Me.” While they may have cried with their mouth, their heart did not. They were like a deceitful bow on which the archer cannot depend, so the Lord could not depend upon Israel. God had, to apply the symbol, bent Israel as His own bow against evil and idolatry, but they turned themselves against Him.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v1The Moral Corruption of Israel
The Moral Corruption of Israel
v. 1. When I would have healed Israel, when the Lord attempted to remove their corruption, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, it became known openly, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, so that intercourse became impossible because no man could trust the other; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without, so that no traveler was sure of his life.
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v. 2. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness, that it is known and recorded in the book of God’s remembrances; now their own doings have beset them about, like mountains hedging them in on every hand; they are before My face, making it impossible to ignore them.
v. 3. They, the criminals of every type, make the king glad with their wickedness and the princes with their lies, a fact which shows that the highest ranks of the people were infested with the corruption.
v. 4. They are all adulterers, the spiritual and moral condition of the entire people being the very lowest, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising, that is, from heating the oven further, after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. The adulterous and idolatrous lust of the people was inflamed to such an extent that it was like a baker’s oven which was already at such an extreme heat that he could omit adding more fuel while the fermentation of his bread was finished.
v. 5. In the day of our king, his birthday or the day of his inauguration, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine, or, "the princes became ill with the heat of the wine"; he stretched out his hand with scorners, accepting their company with a ready spirit, making them his boon companions, so that everything which men hold sacred was dragged in the dust.
v. 6. For they have made ready their heart like an oven whiles they lie in wait, that is, as men bring fuel for an oven, so they have brought their hearts into their cunning; their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. The baker is the ringleader, who inspires passion, who starts the conspiracy; the night provides a time of rest, so that the passion of idolatry, which burns throughout, may break forth with new strength and fierceness after the interval. When the evil thoughts of their hearts have fully matured, when they find time and opportunity for the execution of their plans, then they carry them out with eagerness.
v. 7. They are all hot as an oven, aflame with the various passions to which they have yielded themselves, and have devoured their judges, their magistrates; all their kings are fallen, the references probably being to the time when the last kings of Israel, Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah, followed one another in quick succession. There is none among them that calleth unto Me; for even the great calamities in which they found themselves did not cause them to repent.
v. 8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people, by entering into friendships with heathen nations, adopting their ways and serving their idols. Ephraim is a cake not turned, like a pancake burned on the lower side, while the upper side is not yet done. The entire cake is then not fit for eating.
v. 9. Strangers have devoured his strength, partly on account of the wars waged against Israel, partly as a consequence of the heathen ways which had been adopted in the northern kingdom, and he knoweth it not, he was not even aware of his unfortunate condition; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, signs of the approaching national dissolution; yet he knoweth not, being blind to all evidences of the inevitable end.
v. 10. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face, Cf Hos 5:5, and they do not return to the Lord, their God, nor seek Him for all this. The situation was like that of which also other prophets complain when they state that the people have become hardened to the chastising hand of the Lord. Cf Isa 9:13; Jer 5:3.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1, 3, 6General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh is speaking.
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I want to heal Israel
Making Israel obedient to God again and receivers of his blessing is spoken of as if it were healing. (See: Metaphor)
for they practice deceit
The people are selling and buying products dishonestly. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
marauding band
This is a group of people who are attacking other people without cause.
their deeds surround them
The people's evil deeds are probably spoken of here as if they were other people ready to accuse them of their crimes. (See: Metaphor)
they are before my face
Here God is represented by his "face" which emphasizes his presence and awareness. AT: "and I see it all" (See: Synecdoche)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 77:1-2 I want to heal Israel: God’s overwhelming desire…
7:1-2 I want to heal Israel: God’s overwhelming desire was to heal Israel’s harlotry (see 14:4) and restore her to right relationship with him, but she was filled with liars, thieves, and bandits. • The Israelites might have thought that the Lord was unaware of their sins, but he was watching them, and he saw everything they did.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–7 God, that he might show how corrupt was the…
God, that he might show how corrupt was the state of all the people of Israel, compares himself here to a physician, who, while he wishes to try remedies, acknowledges that there are hid more grievous diseases; which is often the case. When a sick person sends for a physician, his disease will be soon discovered; but it may be that he has for many years labored under other hidden complaints, which do not immediately come to the knowledge of the physician. He may indeed think that the symptoms of the disease are those which proceed from a source more hidden; but on the third or fourth days after having tried some remedies he then knows that there is some hidden malady. God then says, that by applying remedies he had found out how corrupt Israel was, While I was healing my people, he says, then I knew what was the iniquity of Samaria and of all Ephraim.
By Samaria he means the principal part of the kingdom; for that city, as it is well known, was the capital and the chief seat of government. The Prophet therefore says, that the iniquities of Samaria were then discovered to be, not common, but inveterate diseases. This is the meaning. We now see what God had in view; for the people might deceive themselves, as it often happens, and say, “We are not indeed wholly free from every vice; but God ought not however to punish us so severely, for what nation is there under the sun which does not labour under the common diseases?” But the Prophet here answers, that the people of Israel were so corrupt, that light remedies would not do for them. God then here undertakes the office of a physician, and says, “I have hitherto wished to heal Israel, and this was my design, when I hewed them by my Prophets, and employed my word as a sword; and afterwards when I added chastisements; but now I have found that their wickedness is greater than can be corrected by such remedies.” The iniquity of Ephraim then has been discovered, he says, and then I perceived the vices of Samaria
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Now this place teaches, that though the vices of men do not immediately appear, yet they who deceive themselves, and disguise themselves to others, gain nothing, nor are they made free before God, and their fault is not lessened, nor are they absolved from guilt; for at last their hidden vices will come to light: and this especially happens, when the Lord performs the office of a physician towards them; for we see that men then cast out their bitterness, when the Lord seeks to heal their corruptions. Under the papacy, even those who are the worst conceal their own vices. How so? Because God does not try them; there is no teaching that cauterizes or that draws blood. As then the Papists rest quietly in their own dregs, their perverseness does not appear. But in other places, where God puts forth the power of his word, and where he speaks effectually by his servants, there men show what great impiety was before hid in them; for in full rage they rise up against God, and they cannot bear any admonition. As soon then as God begins to do the office of a physician, men then discover their diseases. And this is the reason why the world so much shun the light of heavenly doctrine; for he who does evil hates the light, (John 3:20.) We may also observe the same as to chastisements. When God indulges the wicked, they then with the mouth at least bless him; but when he begins to punish their sins they clamour against him and are angry, and at length show how much fury was before hid in their hearts. We now see what the Prophet here lays to the charge of the people of Israel. It may also be observed at this day through the whole world, that the curing of diseases discovers evils which were before unknown.
But we have said, and this ought to be borne in mind, that Ephraim is here expressly named by the Prophet, and also the city, Samaria, because he wished to intimate that their diseases were inveterate, existing not only in the extreme members, but deeply fixed in the head and bowels, and occupying the vital parts. It then follows, Because they have acted mendaciously, or, done falsely. The Prophet signifies by this expression, that there was nothing sound in the whole people, because they were addicted to their own depravities. By the word שקר, shikor, he means every kind of falseness, that is, that men were thoroughly imbued with depraved lusts, and that there was now remaining in them nothing sound or whole. This then is the main point, that the wickedness of the people was discovered, and that it could not be cured by moderate severity, because it had penetrated into the very bowels and spread over the whole body.
What follows interpreters are wont to regard as the punishment which God had already inflicted. The Prophet says The thief has entered in, and the robber has plundered without. They therefore think that this is to be referred to the manner in which God had already begun by punishment to recall the people to a sound mind; as though he said, “You have been pillaged by thieves as well as harassed by robbers.” But I rather think that the Prophet here pursues the same subject, and shows that the people were inwardly and outwardly so infected with vices, that there was now no whole part; and that by mentioning a part for the whole, he here designates every kind of evil, for he specifies two kinds which may stand for all things in general. He therefore says, The thief has entered in, that is, stealthily, and does mischief insidiously, or even openly like robbers, who use open violence; which means, that impiety so prevailed, either by frauds or by open war, that they were in every way corrupt. But when he says, that the thief had entered in, he means, that many of the people were like foxes, who craftily do mischief; and when he says, that the robber had plundered abroad, he means that others, like lions, seized openly and without shame on what belonged to others, and thus by open force stripped and plundered the miserable and the poor.
We now apprehend the meaning of the Prophet. Having said that the Israelites and the citizens of Samaria had conducted themselves so deceitfully, he now, by specifying two things, shows how they had departed from all uprightness, and prostituted themselves to every kind of wickedness; because where violence reigned, there also frauds and all kinds of evil reigned. The thief then had entered in, and the robber plundered abroad; that is, they secretly circumvented their neighbors, and also went forth like robbers openly and without any shame. It then 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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7 Meaning, that there was no one kind of vice…
Meaning, that there was no one kind of vice among them, but that they were subject to all wickedness, both secret and open.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Hos 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then…
Hos 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, [and] the troop of robbers spoileth without.
Ver. 1. When I would have healed Israel, &c.] Whereas Israel, hearing of a happy harvest promised to Judah, Hos 6:11, and themselves excluded, might complain of hard dealing; God shows them here, that crudelem medicum intemperans aeger facit, the fault was merely in themselves. God came with his healing medicines to have cured them, but they hated to be healed, and, like madmen, railed and raged against the physician, spilt the portions, would have none of those slibber-sauces, {a} as they accounted them; yea, as if on purpose to cross God,
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then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness ( malitia multiplex) of Samaria] Of so perverse a spirit were they; and therefore (in Solomen’s judgment, Pro 12:8) worthy to have been despised and let alone to perish in their corruptions. In Hippocrates’ time the physicians were bound by oath to leave such under their wounds to perish by them as were unruly, and would not be ordered. "We would have healed Babylon," (saith the Church), "but she would not be healed; forsake her therefore," saith God, Jer 51:9. "Let them alone," saith Christ, Mat 15:14. That which will die, let it die: a fearful sentence. Let them swelter and pine away in their iniquities, Lev 26:39. In their filthiness is lewdness, their disease is complicated, it is the leprosy in the head, it breaketh forth in their forehead, and my people love to have it so; but "what will they do in the end thereof?" Jer 5:31. Ephraim here discovereth a headstrong wilfulness that was uncounsellable, incurable. He runs away after conviction, with a bit between his teeth, as it were; he runs, I say, upon the rock, Amo 6:12, where he first breaketh his hoofs, and then his neck. Some grow desperately sinful, like those Italian senators, that despairing of their lives (when upon submission they had been promised their lives, yet), being conscious of their villany, made a curious banquet; and at the end thereof every man drank up his glass of poison: and killed himself. So men, feeling such horrible hard hearts, and privy to such notorious sins they cast away souls and all for lust; and perish woefully, because they lived desperately, and so securely. It is a fearful sign of reprobation when God’s means and medicines do men no good, but hurt rather; when medicine, which should remove the disease, doth co-operate with it, then death comes with the more pain and speed. The stronger the conviction of sin is the deeper will be the wrath against it, if it be not by repentance avoided.
For they commit falsehood] They do not the truth, 1Jn 1:6, but deal falsely, Jer 6:13, every one of them, from the prophet even to the priest; they work a deceitful work, Pro 11:18, their bellies prepare deceit, Job 15:35, they have an art in lying, in stitching one lie to another, as the word signifieth, Psa 119:69, Assuunt mendacium mendacio. Idolatry is a real lie, as she in the Book of Martyrs answered the doctor, that asked her, Dost thou believe that the body of Christ is in the sacrament of the altar really and substantially? I believe, said she, that so to hold is a real lie, and a substantial lie. These idolaters having played false with God, and treacherously dealt with him, what wonder though they lie, deceive, rob, spoil, both within doors and without, in private negotiations and public transactions? but especially forge lies against those that withstood their superstitious vanities, and prey upon their goods, as Heb 10:34. Sublata pietate tollitur fides, is a truth irrefutable. Take away piety, and fidelity is gone; as we see in that unrighteous judge, Luk 18:2, and as Abraham concluded of the men of Gerar, Gen 20:11, and lastly, as Constantinus Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great, experimented in his own councillors and courtiers; whence that famous maxim of his, recorded by Eusebius: He cannot be faithful to me who is unfaithful to God; religion being the ground of all true fidelity and loyalty.
{a} A compound or concoction of a messy, repulsive, or nauseous character, used esp. for medicinal purposes. ŒD
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–7 When: whether this chapter be a new sermon, or…
When: whether this chapter be a new sermon, or a continuation of that begun Ho 6, we need not inquire, nor are there any particulars by which we can guess at the time when this healing work was attempted; but, so soon as it was endeavoured; indefinitely it is spoken, and so to be interpreted.
I would have healed Israel: God doth assume the person of a physician or chirurgeon, who compassionately endeavours to cure a people sick and wounded: such was the house of Israel, the whole body of the people.
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The iniquity; the hidden, old, and putrefying sores, here called iniquity, the impieties and injustice.
Of Ephraim; of Israel, called Ephraim, or of Ephraim, the chief tribe of this revolting kingdom; some would have it mean the rulers, or principal men.
Was discovered; broke out; as many times in cures of old sores it happens some deeper and more rooted distemper, unthought of by the chirurgeon, appears. The wickedness, the great and many sins
of Samaria, the royal city of the kingdom, where citizens, priests, prophets, and courtiers as much outsinned others as they exceeded them in wealth and ease.
They commit falsehood; lying and cozening each other is acted as if it were a business they were bound to attend.
The thief cometh in; secret thefts, or robbing others by subtle and undiscerned methods.
The troop of robbers spoileth without; and open violence by hands joined to hands to spoil abroad. In a word, the strength and danger of their disease appears and increaseth more and more under endeavours to heal them.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Some take away the last words of the foregoing…
Some take away the last words of the foregoing chapter, and make them the beginning of this: "When I returned, or would have returned, the captivity of my people, when I was about to come towards them in ways of mercy, even when I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim (the country and common people) was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, the court and the chief city." Now, in these verses, we may observe,
I. A general idea given of the present state of Israel, Hos 7:1, Hos 7:2. See how the case now stood with them.
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1. God graciously designed to do well for them: I would have healed Israel. Israel were sick and wounded; their disease was dangerous and malignant, and likely to be fatal, Isa 1:6. But God offered to be their physician, to undertake the cure, and there was balm in Gilead sufficient to recover the health of the daughter of his people; their case was bad, but it was not desperate, nay, it was hopeful, when God would have healed Israel. (1.) He would have reformed them, would have separated between them and their sins, would have purged out the corruptions that were among them, by his laws and prophets. (2.) He would have delivered them out of their troubles, and restored to them their peace and prosperity. Several healing attempts were made, and their declining state seemed sometimes to be in a hopeful way of recovery; but their own folly put them back again. Note, If sinful miserable souls be not healed and helped, but perish in their sin and misery, they cannot lay the blame on God, for he both could and would have healed them; he offered to take the ruin under his hand. And there are some special seasons when God manifests his readiness to heal a distempered church and nation, now and then a hopeful crisis, which, if carefully watched and improved, might, even when the case is very bad, turn the scale for life and health.
2. They stood in their own light and put a bar in their own door. When God would have healed them, when they bade fair for reformation and peace, then their iniquity was discovered and their wickedness, which stopped that current of God's favours, and undid all again. (1.) Then, when their case came to be examined and enquired into, in order to their cure, that wickedness which had been concealed and palliated was found out; not that it was ever hid from God, but he speaks after the manner of men; as a surgeon, when he probes a wound in order to the cure of it and finds that it touches the vitals and is incurable, goes no further in his endeavour to cure it, so, when God came down to see the case of Israel (as the expression is, Gen 18:21), with kind intentions towards them, he found their wickedness so very flagrant, and them so hardened in it, so impudent and impenitent, that he could not in honour show them the favour he designed them. Note, Sinners are not healed because they would not be healed. Christ would have gathered them, and they would not. (2.) Then, when some endeavours were used to reform and reclaim them, that wickedness which had been restrained and kept under broke out; and from God's steps towards the healing of them they took occasion to be so much the more provoking. When endeavours were used to reform them vice grew more impetuous, more outrageous, and swelled so much the higher, as a stream when it is damned up. When they began to prosper they grew more proud, wanton, and secure, and so stopped the progress of their cure. Note, It is sin that turns away good things from us when they are coming towards us; and it is the folly and ruin of multitudes that, when God would do well for them, they do ill for themselves. And what was it that did them this mischief? In one word, they commit falsehood; they worship idols (so some), defraud one another (so others), or, rather, they dissemble with God in their professions of repentance and regard to him. They say that they are desirous to be healed by him, and, in order to that, willing to be ruled by him; but they lie unto him with their mouth and flatter him with their tongue.
3. A practical disbelief of God's omniscience and government was at the bottom of all their wickedness (Hos 7:2): "They consider not in their hearts, they never say it to their own hearts, never think of this, that I remember all their wickedness." As if God could not see it, though he is all eye, or did not heed it, though his name is Jealous, or had forgotten it, though he is an eternal mind that can never be unmindful, or would not reckon for it, though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This is the sinner's atheism; as good say that there is no God as say that he is either ignorant or forgetful, that there is none that judges in the earth as that he remembers not the things he is to give judgment upon. It is a high affront they put upon God; it is a damning cheat they put upon themselves; they say, The Lord shall not see, Psa 94:7. They cannot but know that God remembers all their works; they have been told it many a time; nay, if you ask them, they cannot but own it, and yet they do not consider it; they do not think of it when they should, and with application to themselves and their own works, else they would not, they durst not, do as they do. But the time will come when those who thus deceive themselves shall be undeceived: "Now their own doings have beset them about, that is, they have come at length to such a pitch of wickedness that their sins appear on every side of them; all their neighbours see how bad they are, and can they think that God does not see it?" Or, rather, "The punishment of their doings besets them about; they are surrounded and embarrassed with troubles, so that they cannot get out, by which it appears that the sins they smart for are before my face, not only that I have seen them, but that I am displeased at them;" for, till God by pardoning our sins has cast them behind his back, they are still before his face. Note, Sooner or later, God will convince those who do not now consider it that he remembers all their works.
4. God had begun to contend with them by his judgments, in earnest of what was further coming: The thief comes in, and the troop of robbers spoils without. Some take this as an instance of their wickedness, that they robbed and spoiled one another. Nec hospes ab hospite tutus - The host and the guest stand in fear of each other. It seems rather to be a punishment of their sin; they were infested with secret thieves among themselves, that robbed their houses and shops and picked their pockets, and troops of robbers, foreign invaders, that with open violence spoiled abroad; so far was Israel from being healed that they had fresh wounds given them daily by robbers and spoilers; and all this the effect of sin, all to punish them for robbing God, Isa 42:24; Mal 3:8, Mal 3:11.
II. A particular account of the sins of the court, of the king and princes, and those about them, and the tokens of God's displeasure that they were under for them.
1. Their king and princes were pleased with the wickedness and profaneness of their subjects, who were emboldened thereby to be so much them ore wicked (Hos 7:3): They make the king and princes glad with their wickedness. It pleased them to see the people conform to their wicked laws and examples, in the worship of their idols, and other instances of impiety and immorality, and to hear them flatter and applaud them in their wicked ways. When Herod saw that his wickedness pleased the people he proceeded further in it, much more will the people do so when they see that it pleases the prince, Act 12:3. Particularly, they made them glad with their lies, with the lying praises with which they crowned the favourites of the prince and the lying calumnies and censures with which they blackened those whom they knew the princes had a dislike to. Those who show themselves pleased with slanders and ill-natured stories shall never want those about them who will fill their ears with such stories. Pro 29:12, If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked, and will make him glad with their lies.
2. Drunkenness and revelling abound much at the court, Hos 7:5. The day of our king was a merry day with them, either his birthday or his inauguration-day, of which it is probable that they had an anniversary observation, or perhaps it was some holiday of his appointing, which was therefore called his day; on that day the princes met to drink the king's health, and got him among them, to be merry, and made him sick with bottles of wine. It should seem the king did not ordinarily drink to excess, but he was not upon a high day brought to it by the artifices of the princes, tempted by the goodness of the wine, the gaiety of the company, or the healths they urged; and so little was he used to it that it made him sick; and it is justly charged as a crime, as crimen laesae majestatis - treason, upon those who thus imposed upon him and made him sick; nor would it serve for an excuse that it was the day of their king, but was rather an aggravation of the crime, that, whey they pretended to do him honour, they dishonoured him to the highest degree. If it is a great affront and injury to a common person to make him drunk, and there is a woe to those that do it (Hab 2:15), much more to a crowned head; for the greater any man's dignity is the greater disgrace it is to him to be drunk. It is not for kings, O Lemuel! it is not for kings, to drink wine, Pro 31:4, Pro 31:5. See what a prejudice the sin of drunkenness is to a man, to a king. (1.) In his health; it made him sick. It is a force upon nature; and strange it is by what charms men, otherwise rational enough, can be drawn to that which besides the offence it gives to God, and the damage it does to their spiritual and eternal welfare, is a present disorder and distemper to their own bodies. (2.) In his honour; for, when he was thus intoxicated, he stretched out his hand with scorners; then he that was entrusted with the government of a kingdom lost the government of himself, and so far forgot, [1.] The dignity of a king that he made himself familiar with players and buffoons, and those whose company was a scandal. [2.] The duty of a king that he joined in confederacy with atheists, and the profane scoffers at religion, whom he ought to have silenced and put to shame; he sat in the seat of the scornful, of those that had arrived at the highest pitch of impiety; he struck in with them, said as they said, did as they did, and exerted his power, and stretched forth the hand of his government, in concurrence with them. Goodness and good men are often made the song of the drunkards (Psa 69:12; Psa 35:16); but woe unto thee, O land! when thy king is such a child as to stretch forth his hand with those that make them so, Ecc 10:16.
3. Adultery and uncleanness prevailed much among the courtiers. This is spoken of Hos 7:4, Hos 7:6, Hos 7:7, and the charge of drunkenness comes in in the midst of this article; for wine is oil to the fire of lust, Pro 23:33. Those that are inflamed with fleshly lusts, that are adulterers (Hos 7:4), are here again and again compared to an oven heated by the baker (Hos 7:4): They have made ready their heart like an oven (Hos 7:6); they are all hot as an oven, Hos 7:7. Note, [1.] An unclean heart is like an oven heated; and the unclean lusts and affections of it are as the fuel that makes it hot. It is an inward fire, it keeps the heat within itself; so adulterers and fornicators secretly burn in lust, as the expression is, Rom 1:27. The heat of the oven is an intense heat, especially as it is here described; he that heats it stirs up the fire, and ceases not from raising it up, till the bread is ready to be put in, being kneaded and leavened, all which only signifies that they are like an oven when it is at the hottest; nay, when it is too hot for the baker (so the learned Dr. Pocock), when it is hotter than he would have it, so that the raiser up of the fire ceases as long as while the dough that is kneaded is in the fermenting, that the heat may abate a little. Thus fiery hot are the lusts of an unclean heart. (2.) The unclean wait for an opportunity to compass their wicked desires; having made ready their heart like an oven, they lie in wait to catch their prey. The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, Job 24:15. Their baker sleeps all the night, but in the morning it burns as a flaming fire. As the baker, having kindled a fire in his oven and laid sufficient fuel to it, goes to bed, and sleeps all night, and in the morning finds his oven well heated, and ready for his purpose, so these wicked people, when they have laid some wicked plot, and formed a design for the gratifying of some covetous, ambitious, revengeful, or unclean lusts, have their hearts so fully set in them to do evil that, though they may stifle them for a while, yet the fire of corrupt affections is still glowing within, and, as soon as ever there is an opportunity for it, their purposes which they have compassed and imagined break out into overt acts, as a fire flames out when it has vent given it. Thus they are all hot as an oven. Note, Lust in the heart is like fire in an oven, puts it into a heat; but the day is coming when those who thus make themselves like a fiery oven with their own vile affections, if that fire be not extinguished by divine grace, shall be made as a fiery oven by divine wrath (Psa 21:9), when the day comes that shall burn as an oven, Mal 4:1.
4. They resist the proper methods of reformation and redress: They have devoured their judges, those few good judges that were among them, that would have put out these fires with which they were heated; they fell foul upon them, and would not suffer them to do justice, but were ready to stone them, and perhaps did so; or, as some think, they provoked God to deprive them of the blessing of magistracy and to leave all in confusion: All their kings have fallen one after another, and their families with them, which could not but put the kingdom into confusion, crumble it into contending parties, and occasion a great deal of bloodshed. There are heart-burnings among them; they are hot as an oven with rage and malice at one another, and this occasions the devouring of their judges, the falling of their kings. For the transgressions of a land many are the princes thereof, Pro 28:2. But in the midst of all this trouble and disorder there is none among them that calls unto God, that sees his hand stretched out against them in these judgments, and deprecates the strokes of it, none, or next to none, that stir up themselves to take hold on God, Isa 64:7. Note, Those are not only heated with sin, but hardened in sin, that continue to live without prayer even when they are in trouble and distress.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–7 When I would have healed Israel,.... Or rather, "when…
When I would have healed Israel,.... Or rather, "when I healed Israel" (k); for this is not to be understood of a velleity, wish, or desire of healing and saving them, as Jarchi; nor of a bare attempt to do it by the admonitions of the prophets, and by corrections in Providence; but of actual healing them; and by which is meant, not healing them in a spiritual and religious sense, as in Hos 6:1; but in a political sense, of the restoring of their civil state to a more flourishing condition; which was done in the times of Jeroboam the son of Joash, as Kimchi rightly observes; who restored the coast of Israel, from the entering of Hamath, unto the sea of the plain, Kg2 14:25;
then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria; some refer this to the times of Jeroboam the first, and that the sense is, that the Lord having cured Israel of the idolatry introduced by Solomon, quickly a new scene of idolatry broke out in Ephraim, or the ten tribes, of which Samaria was the metropolis; for Jeroboam soon set up the calves at Dan and Bethel to be worshipped; but it does not appear that Israel was corrupted with the idolatry of Solomon, and needed a cure then; nor was Samaria built in Jeroboam's time: others apply it to the times of Jehu, who, though he slew the worshippers of Baal, and broke his images, and destroyed him out of Israel, yet retained the worship of the calves at Dan and Bethel, Kg2 10:25; so, though they were healed of one sort of idolatry, another prevailed. It is right, in both these senses, that the iniquity of Ephraim, and wickedness or wickednesses of Samaria, are taken for the idolatrous worship of the golden calves; but then it respects the times of Jeroboam the second, the son of Joash, in whose days Israel was prosperous; and yet these superstitious and idolatrous practices of worship were flagrant and notorious, were countenanced by the king and his courtiers that dwelt at Samaria, as is clear from Amo 7:10; which was an instance of great ingratitude to the Lord;
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for they commit falsehood; among themselves, lying to one another, and deceiving each other; or to God, deal falsely with him, are guilty of false worship, worshipping idols, which are vanities and lies:
and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without; which may be interpreted either of their sins, their sins in general, both private and public; and their sins of theft and robbery in particular; both such as were committed in houses by the thief privately entering there, and by a gang of robbers in the streets, or on the highway: so the Targum,
"in the night they thieve in houses, and in the day they rob on the plain,''
or fields: or else of punishment for their sins; and then the words may be rendered (l), "therefore the thief entereth in, and the troop" or "army spreads without"; this thief was Shallum, who came in to kill and to steal; he slew Zachariah the son of Jeroboam, after he had reigned six months, and usurped the kingdom, and so put an end to the family of Jehu, according as the Lord had threatened, Kg2 8:12; the troop or army is the Assyrian army under Pul, who came against Menahem, king of Israel, of whom he exacted a tribute, and departed, Kg2 15:19; so Cocceius.
(k) "dum curo", Junius & Tremellius; "dum medeor", Piscator, Zanchius, Calvin; "quando sanavi, vel sano", Schmidt. (l) "ideo fur ingreditur", Munster. So some in Drusius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Various accusations with threats annext, ver. 1-16.
Various accusations with threats annext, ver. 1-16.
Of Ephraim - Of Ephraim the chief tribe of this revolting kingdom.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7 Here God complains that though he had employed every…
CHAPTER VII
Here God complains that though he had employed every means for
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reforming Israel, they still persisted in their iniquity,
without fearing the consequences, 1, 2;
that those who ought to check their crimes were pleased with
them, 3;
and that they all burned with adultery, as an oven when fully
heated, and ready to receive the kneaded dough, 4.
The fifth verse alludes to some recent enormities; the sixth
charges them with dividing their time between inactivity and
iniquity; the seventh alludes to their civil broils and
conspiracies; (see 2Kg 15:10; 2Kg 15:14; 2Kg 15:25;)
the eighth to their joining themselves with idolatrous nations;
and the ninth describes the sad consequence. The tenth verse
reproves their pride and open contempt of God's worship; the
eleventh reproves their foolish conduct in applying for aid to
their enemies; (see 2Kg 15:19; 2Kg 17:4;)
the twelfth and thirteenth threaten them with punishments; the
fourteenth charges them with hypocrisy in their acts of
humiliation; the fifteenth with ingratitude; and the image of
the deceitful bow, in the sixteenth verse, is highly expressive
of their frequent apostasies; and their hard speeches against
God shall be visited upon them by their becoming a reproach in
the land of their enemies.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII
Verse 1. When I would have healed Israel] As soon as one wound was healed, another was discovered. Scarcely was one sin blotted out till another was committed.
The thief cometh in] Their own princes spoil them.
The troop of robbers spoileth without.] The Assyrians, under different leaders, waste and plunder the country.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Hos 7:1. When I would have healed Israel —…
Hos 7:1. When I would have healed Israel — When I would have reclaimed them from their sins, and in consequence thereof have averted their judgments. The Hebrew, כרפאי, is, as I was healing: dum in eo essem ut sanarem. At the very time when I was about to heal them; or, as the Seventy render it, Εν τω ιασαθαι με τον Ισραηλ, When I was in the very act of healing Israel. Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered — Literally, was uncovered, or made bare, that is, showed itself openly, or was avowed and undisguised. The people gave me fresh provocations, especially the inhabitants of Samaria, the principal seat of the kingdom. For they commit falsehood — Or, carry on delusion; literally, practise deceit, or a lie. “The thing meant here seems to be the carrying on of a premeditated plot, or scheme, for the subversion of the true religion, and the establishment of idolatry. And the lie, falsehood, or delusion which they wrought, was every thing that was seductive in the external rites of the false religions:” see Horsley, who, in a note on this passage, observes, “The particular time alluded to is, I think, the reign of the second Jeroboam, when the kingdom of Israel seemed to be recovering from the loss of strength and territory it had sustained in the preceding reigns, by the encroachments of the Syrians; for Jeroboam restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, 2Ki 14:25. The successes vouchsafed to this warlike prince against his enemies were signs of God’s gracious inclination to pardon the people, and restore the kingdom to its former prosperity. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel that it was bitter, &c. See 2Ki 14:26-27. But these merciful purposes of God were put aside by the wickedness of the king and the people. For this same Jeroboam did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, &c.” And the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers, &c. — They are guilty both of the secret methods of fraud, and the open violence of rapine and oppression.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–7 When I would have healed Israel - God begins…
When I would have healed Israel - God begins anew by appealing to Israel, that all which He had done to heal them, had but served to make their sin more evident, and “that,” from highest to lowest, as to all manners and ways of sin. When the flash of God’s light on the sinner’s conscience enlightens it not, it only discloses its darkness. The name “Israel” includes the whole people; the names, Ephraim and Samaria, probably are meant to designate the chief among them, Ephraim having been their royal tribe, and being the chief tribe among them; Samaria being their royal city. The sins, which Hoses denounces in this chapter, are chiefly the sins of the great, which, from them, had spread among the people. Whatever healing methods God had used, whether through the teaching of the prophets or through His own fatherly chastisements, they “would not hearken nor be amended, but ran on still more obstinately in their evil courses. The disease prevailed against the remedy, and was irritated by it, so that the remedy served only to “lay open” the extent of its malignity, and to shew that there was worse in it, than did at first appear” . Paul says of all human nature. “When the commandment came, sin revived” Rom 7:9.
Apart from grace, the knowledge of good only enhances evil. : “So, when God, made Man, present and visible, willed to “heal Israel,” then that iniquity of the Jews and wickedness of the Scribes and Pharisees was discovered, whereof this iniquity of Ephraim and wickedness of Samaria was a type. For an evil spirit goaded them to mock, persecute, blaspheme the Teacher of repentance who, together with the word of preaching, did works, such as none other man did. For Christ pleased them not, a Teacher of repentance, persuading to poverty, a Pattern of humility, a Guide to meekness, a Monitor to mourn for sins, a Proclaimer of righteousness, a Requirer of mercy, a Praiser of purity of heart, a Rewarder of peace, a Consoler of those who suffered persecution for righteousness’ sake. Why did they reject, hate, persecute, Him who taught thus? Because they loved all contrary thereto, and wished for a Messiah, who should exalt them in this world, and disturb the peace of nations, until he should by war subdue to their empire all the rest of the world, build for them on earth a Jerusalem of gold and gems, and fulfill their covetousness in all things of this sort.
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This their mind He once briefly expressed; “How can ye believe which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which cometh from God only?” Joh 5:24. They persecuted Him then who willed to heal them, as madmen strike the physician offering them medicine, nor did they cease, until they required Him their King to be crucified. Thus was the “iniquity of Ephraim and wickedness of Samaria discovered,” yet filled up by them; and so they filled up the measure of their fathers, and discovered and testified, that they were of the same mind with their fathers. In all these things they “committed falsehood,” lying against, their King whom they denied, and accused as seditious.”
For they - (i. e. all of them) commit falsehood Falsehood was the whole habit and tissue of their lives. : “They dealt falsely in all their doings both with God and man, being hypocritical and false in all their words and doings, given to fraud and deceit, from the highest to the lowest.” Night and day; in silence and in open violence; “within,” where all seemed guarded and secure, and “without,” in open defiance of law and public justice; these deeds of wrong went on in an unceasing round. In the night, “the thief cometh in,” breaking into people’s houses and pillaging secretly; “a troop of robbers spoileth without,” spreading their ravages far and wide, and desolating without resistance. It was all one state of anarchy, violence, and disorganization.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Israel. God divided the kingdom, that by this chastisement…
Israel. God divided the kingdom, that by this chastisement the people might be converted. But Jeroboam set up calves, and caused them to grow worse. (Worthington) --- How often did God send his prophets to reclaim them! --- Without. Most of the kings were of this stamp, while foreign nations invaded the land.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 2. Chiefly against the Court
2. Chiefly against the Court
Hos_7:1-16
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1 When I would heal Israel,
Then the iniquity of Ephraim is made manifest,
And the evil deeds of Samaria.
For they have worked deceit, and the thief enters (the houses).
A band of robbers plunders in the street.
2 And they will not say to their heart,
(That) I have remembered all their wickedness;
Now their deeds have beset them round;
They are before my face.
3 By their wickedness they have pleased the king,
And by their falsehood the princes.
4 All of them (are) adulterers,
(They are) like an oven heated1by the baker,
Who rests, stirring up (the fire),
From the kneading of the dough, until it is raised.
5 On the (feast-) day of our king,
The princes begin in the heat2 of wine
He draws out his hand [goes hand in hand] with scorners.
6 For they draw close together; like the oven is
Their heart in its craftiness;
Their anger3 sleeps the whole night,
In the morning it burns like a flame of flre.
7 All of them are heated like the oven,
And devour their judges,
All their kings have fallen,
And there is none among them that cries to me.
8 Ephraim mingles with the heathen,
Ephraim has become a cake not turned.
9 Strangers devour his strength,
Yet he does not know it.
Gray hairs are also sprinkled over him,
And he does not know it.
10 And the pride of Israel testifies to his face;
Yet they do not return to Jehovah their God,
And do not seek Him with [in spite of] all this.
11 And Ephraim became a silly dove, without understanding.
To Egypt they called:
To Assyria they went.
12 As they are going
I will spread over them my net;
As a bird of heaven I will bring them down.
I will chastise them,4 according to the announcement to their congregation.
13 Woe to them that they have wandered from me!
Destruction upon them, that they have sinned against me!
For I would have redeemed them5
But they spoke lies against me.
14 They did not cry to me with their heart,
For they shrieked upon their beds;
For corn and new wine they distress themselves;6
They apostatized from me.
15 And I instructed (them),
I strengthened their arm;
But they devised evil against me.
16 They will not return upwards7 [to God],
They have become like a deceitful bow.
Their princes will fall by the sword,
On account of the rage of their tongues:
This7 (will be) their scorn in the land of Egypt.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Hos_7:1-2. When I would heal Israel, etc. It was just when God attempted to heal them that their corruption was displayed in its full extent. If it had not been so great the attempt would not have been vain. The latter consisted in the chastisements themselves, but also in the discourses of the Prophet calling them to repentance. Now follows a description of their dreadful condition: lying, theft, and robbery. In the midst of it all, the greatest security, not a single thought of divine punishment. Their deeds have beset them round. This expresses evidently the boldness of their sinning=their sins have so increased as to become mountains hedging them round.
Hos_7:3. The situation is the more desperate as the corruption extends to the highest ranks.
Hos_7:4. They are all adulterers. The whole people are such, not merely the king and princes, though these are necessarily included. The adultery in this connection (comp. Hos_7:2 : lying, thieving, and robbery, and Hos_7:5 : debauchery) is to be taken in its literal sense. The comparison of the adulterer to a burning oven is here decisive; which does not suit adultery in the figurative application=idolatry, but expresses well the burning of lust. בֹּעֵרָה מֵאֹפֶה, literally: burning from the baker=heated by the baker. This burning of the oven is further described still more closely and figuratively, and that with relation to the increase of the heat, in the following words: יִשׁבֹּת וג׳. Wünsche: Who rests, stirring up, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened, i. e., when he has kneaded the dough, he rests, namely from kneading, which is the most fatiguing part of the whole process of bread-baking, but then does something else, which compared with the other is resting, namely, heats the stove and stirs it up from the time the dough is kneaded until it is raised. During this time while the process of fermentation is going on, the stove is being heated so as to become quite hot, i.e., hot enough for baking. The Part. therefore is not used for the Inf. depending on ישפת=who ceases to stir up. It would be strange if emphasis were to be laid upon ceasing, leaving off, when the object is to show that the heat increases. And Wünsche remarks rightly that it would be out of place to heat the oven before the dough was kneaded, and then to cease heating it, but that the contrary process is the one followed. [Henderson takes מעיר in the sense of heating, as also does Gesenius. His application is as follows: “To place the violent and incontinent character of their lust in the strongest light, the Prophet compares it to a baker’s oven which he raises to such a degree of heat that he only requires to omit feeding it during the short period of the fermentation of the bread. Such was the libidinous character of the Israelites that their impure indulgences were subject to but slight interruptions.” But it is evident that the Prophet did not intend to call attention to any interruption of indulgence (and if he had the mode of conveying that notion would not have been very natural), but to emphasize its constant commission. Horsley takes מעיר in the sense of stoker, one who attends to the fire, and makes it the subject of ישׁפת: “the stoker desists after the kneading of the dough until the fermentation be complete.” He then gives a most fanciful application to the act of indulgence. For a sufficient explanation of the images see the Doctrinal and Ethical section, No. 1.—M.]
Hos_7:5. But they are not only adulterers; they are also drunkards. They are heated with wine as well as with lust. The rulers here lead the way by their example. In the day of our king = festal day, probably birth-day. A banquet is referred to, given by the king to his nobles. By the phrase, our king, Hosea indicates his citizenship in the kingdom of Israel.
הֶחֱלוּ: the LXX., Syr., Chald., and Jerome: they began. Others: they are diseased. But the Hiphil does not mean: to be sick—מָשַׁךְ וג׳. The king is the subject; literally: draws out [stretches out] his hand with. This means: he holds out his hand constantly to them=keeps company, goes hand in hand with them. Scorners, men who throw ridicule upon what is sacred, and is regarded as sacred. Such derision is specially natural in a state of intoxication. Hence the connection in which it stands here with the drinking-bout, a connection which is certainly not fortuitous.
Hos_7:6. The figure of the heated oven is again taken up. But it becomes here an image of the heat of anger which burns in their hearts, which, being craftily concealed, does not at first make itself manifest, but which grows only the more surely, and at last breaks out in deeds of violence. (Just so is it in Hos_7:4 with the heat of the bake oven.) The notion is evidently this, that the cordiality of the princes towards the king in the banquet is only apparent, only the result of cunning. It ends with an insurrection, with the murder of the king, who has certainly richly deserved such a lot.—קֵ־ְבוּ וג׳. This is a difficult expression Some: they have made their heart approach (resemble) an oven. But this is languid. Would any one say, in giving an illustration, that the object was only “approximately” like the image ? Besides, כְּ with תַּנּוּר would be superfluous. Keil: they have brought their heart into their craftiness as into an oven. The cunning is compared with the oven; the heart with the fuel. This clearly gives a plain sense. It would be perhaps more correct to detach קרבו from what follows as forming a clause by itself. Simson: they (the conspirators) approach. Wünsche, perhaps better: they draw close together, namely, in the banquet, at all events, as conspirators. The following words then mean simply: like an oven is their heart in their malice. Thus the malicious heart is like an oven which only waits for the kindling of a fire.—כָל־הַלַּיְלָה וג׳; according to the Masoretic punctation: the whole night sleeps their baker. Baker would then =he who heats the oven, i.e., their heart inflames them. By the baker might be understood passion (Ewald, Keil). This would rather be compared to the fire. “The baker sleeps” would then be explained as meaning that the baker after kindling the fire, cared no more about it. But it would not be exactly suitable to conceive of “passion” as sleeping, that is, not stirring up the fire. Simson refers “baker” to a person, the leader of the conspiracy. But the following member of the verse creates most difficulty. היּא introduces another subject, the oven. It is therefore naturally suggested (Wünsche) to change the pointing into אַפֵקֻם, =their anger. This is represented as fire, and this sleeps in the night, i.e., it burns on, unperceived, during the whole night, until in the morning it becomes a clearly burning flame. So with their anger. “Night” and “morning” allude primarily to the figure of the fire, but probably also to the thing represented itself, especially if it be supposed that at the end of the feast, which has lasted the whole night, the anger breaks forth in the morning in violent acts, which are more particularly described in
Hos_7:7. All of them, probably not merely the princes, but the whole people, together with the princes, who gave the impulse to the rest. They devour their judges, i.e., the kings. The following clause: all their kings fall, does not add anything new, but only expresses what is meant by the judges. This applies, to the period, succeeding that of Jeroboam II., when in swift succession Zachariah was overthrown by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, and Menahem’s son Pekahiah by Pekah, and between Zachariah and Shallum eleven years anarchy prevailed. The Prophet alludes here to such events, certainly to a number of such events (perhaps also to earlier revolutions in the succession), as the plural, judges, kings, plainly shows. Yet the particular description in Hos_7:5-6, suggest the conjecture that the Prophet had in mind a special case, and then in Hos_7:7 gives a general view. And there is none amongst them who calls upon me. The reference probably is to the kings. The sentence thus indicates briefly but strikingly the complete estrangement from God, the deplorable situation of these kings. Keil supposes the whole nation to be referred to: no one is brought to reflection in the midst of these mournful circumstances, that he should return to the Lord.
Hos_7:8. Ephraim mingles itself up with the nations. This refers certainly not to the invasion of the Israelitish possessions by the heathen, nor merely to alliances with them (Hos_7:11), but in addition to something more profound, it supposes that through idolatry heathen practices were followed. Com. Psa_105:35-36; Psa_105:39, “which passage furnishes a commentary upon ours” (Wünsche). A cake not turned, and therefore burnt on one side (while it is not baked at all on the other). The idea is plain. [On the preceding sentence, Henderson: “In Psa_105:35 a similar expression is used of promiscuous intercourse with idolaters. That such intercourse generally, and not specifically the entering into leagues with them, is meant, appears from the following clause, in which, to express the worthlessness of the Ephraimitish character, the people are compared to a cake, which, from not having been turned, is burnt and good for nothing. … Such was the state of the apostate Israelites; they had corrupted themselves and were fit only for rejection.”—M.]
Hos_7:9. Their being burnt declared figuratively that strangers devoured their strength. This is not merely an outward devastation by war, but an inner consumption by the inroads of heathen practices. Indications of old age also are apparent in Israel as tokens of speedy decay.
Hos_7:10. See Hos_5:5.
Hos_7:11. A consequence of impenitence. Israel is like a simple dove, which, not observing the snare set for her, is caught in it (Hos_7:12). They called out to Egypt; they went to Assyria. As syria threatened Israel. The latter then turned immediately to Egypt, to obtain help against Assyria, and partly sought to gain the favor of Assyria (Hos_8:9). And after all they fell into the net of Assyria.
Hos_7:12. It is the Lord who inveigles them into destruction. According to the announcement to their congregation = according to the oft-repeated threatening against the people (comp. in the Law, Lev_26:14 ff.; Deu_28:15 ff.).
Hos_7:13. They spoke lies conerning me, namely, that I would not help them. And they, in effect, lie when they do not call out for help.
Hos_7:14. And they did not cry out to me with their heart, even if they did cry with the mouth. Their cry was one of unbelieving despair. יִרְגּוֹרָרוּ, according to Fürst, to distress themselves, parallel to יְיֵלִילוּ. Others: assemble themselves in crowds, i.e., with eager desire for corn and wine. [See Grammatical Note.]
Hos_7:15. They devise evil against me, namely, in their apostasy.
Hos_7:16. עַל, probably adverb=upwards. [See Grammatical Note]
A deceitful bow: a bow upon which the archer cannot depend, which, when he is in the act of shooting, he fears may cause him to miss his aim. So God cannot depend upon Israel, is deceived in them every moment, cannot reach the aim with them which He desires. Others claim for רְמִיָּה the meaning: slackness, therefore, a slack, bow, which cannot carry the arrow to the mark. Each meaning affords essentially the same result. The princes are emphasized, because they were the seducers of the people. This (will become) a scorning in the land of Egypt; that is: the scorn of Egypt will fall upon them for this reason, namely, on account of the falling of the princes just mentioned. Not=because they placed their trust in Egypt and fell notwithstanding (Keil), for this would rather earn them the scorn, of Assyria. They would be ridiculed by Egypt because of the weakness revealed in their fall, while they had magnified their strength before Egypt.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The Prophet assails the practices of the court without ceremony, and brands them with some powerful strokes, as a course of life, in which the nobles are as ready to carouse together as to conspire against one another. All discipline, as well as all fidelity, is wanting. “Even when they hold a feast in honor of their king, there is no end to their gorging, lewdness, carousing, etc. The more vilely they behave, the better they suppose they shall celebrate the day of the king. On the other hand, when they are dissatisfied with their king they are as eager and anxious to murder him, as they formerly were to drink his health until they became intoxicated.” The spirit which governs these circles is aptly compared to a fire, for it is a powerful passion by which they are driven about, revealed in various forms, partly in the form of sensual and fleshly lust, and partly in the form of craft, rage, and party-intrigue. With the loss of morality, frivolity goes hand in hand, partly as consequence and partly as cause. The courtiers together with the king are “scorners,” or make common cause with them. “The scorner, לֵץ, is the presumptuous, haughty, puffed-up (enlightened) man, who sets himself above what is and is regarded as sacred, and so practices his scornful amusement.” Comp. also Hos_7:16 : the insolence of the tongue.
2. The decay of the kingdom is already patent. Hos_7:9 : Gray hairs show themselves. But where the mistake lies, namely, in apostasy from Jehovah, those of the upper circles will not regard it (for it is these that the Prophet has specially in mind, comp. also Hos_7:16). Therefore, instead of returning to Him and seeking Him (Hos_7:10), the opposite means are seized upon, which have a result just the opposite of what they desire: help is sought in the world-powers (Hos_7:11). Not merely the vanity but the disastrous nature of such dealing is now clearly expressed; for Israel is just preparing the way for its own ruin. It is like a silly dove, which does not see the net; and so straightway falls into it, i.e., the world-powers are preparing its destruction. In truth, however, it is God who employs them to punish his faithless people (Hos_7:12). And thus will be fulfilled the previous announcement of punishment by the prophets (according to the declaration to their congregation, Hos_7:12). It is not yet particularly indicated how the world-powers are to accomplish their destruction, nothing being as yet said of a captivity.
3. We may collect the other scattered strokes delineating Israel’s conduct towards God (for in such brief touches are the moral and religious views of our book exhibited).
Hos_7:2 describes the insensibility of the conscience, which in the commission of evil deeds ignores God’s omniscience, while nothing is more certain than that God knows them—they are before his face.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:1. When God lays his hand upon the conscience and his Spirit chastens it, then is first truly felt the greatness of sin. O, that we would subject ourselves to such chastening of the Spirit, and we would be saved!
Cramer: When a sinner is about to receive help, it is with him as with many patients. They often do not feel their disease and danger, until the physician comes and reveals them.
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:2. It is great simplicity on the part of the ungodly to suppose that God does not know their wickedness. Mark, soul, the eyes of the Lord are like flames of fire, and know even the most secret things of thy heart, and accompany thee in all thy evil ways.
[Matt. Henry: This is the sinner’s atheism. As good say there is no God, as say He is either ignorant or forgetful; none that judgeth in the earth, as say He remembers not the things He is to give judgment upon.—M.]
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:4. Ye lustful men who burn so in your lascivious desires, know that a fire is prepared for you in the other world where you will burn forever.
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:7. What a deplorable situation men are in, when they have no longer confidence to cry out to God for help in their distress, because conscience tells them that they have made Him their enemy. But it is a great consolation to the pious that, when there is none to take their part, they have free access to God and his help.
Hos_7:8. Beware of heathenish desires and practices. As soon as thou dost admit them—and they may obtain entrance in all kinds of seemingly harmless shapes, even in a refined form—they injure thy religious nature. The result is a stupefying of the spiritual sense, the loss of spiritual taste, then only remains an “unturned, insipid, and disgusting cake.”
[Pusey: Hos_7:9. “Thy gray hairs are thy passing-bell,” says the proverb.—M.]
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Hos_7:10. Man, thy sins condemn thyself. What! wouldst thou exculpate thyself? Turn only to thy conscience and ask it; it will soon utter thy condemnation.
[Pusey: Hos_7:13. To be separated from God is the source of all evils. Whoever seeks anything out of God or against his will, whoever seeks from man or from idols, from fortune or from his own powers, what God alone bestows; whoever acts as if God were not a good God ready to receive the penitent, or a just God who will avenge the holiness of his laws and not clear the guilty, does in fact speak lies against God.—M.]
Hos_7:14. Is it the worst with thee when prosperity is past? To be vexed at the loss of temporal blessings, is a mourning of this world, and does not lead to life.
Matt. Henry: To pray is to lift up the soul unto God; this is the essence of prayer. If that be not done, words, though never so well worded, are but wind; but if there be that, it is an acceptable prayer though the groanings cannot be uttered.—M.]
[Pusey: Hos_7:15. The creature can neither hurt nor profit the Creator. But since God vouchsafed to be their King, He designed to look upon their rebellions as so many efforts to injure Him.—M.]
Hos_7:16. Whither dost thou turn? Upwards or downwards?
[Pusey: Like a deceitful bow. In like way doth every sinner act, using against God in the service of Satan, God’s gifts of nature or of outward means, talents or wealth, or strength, or beauty, or power of speech,—God gave all for his own glory; and man turns all aside to do honor and service to Satan.—M.]
Footnotes:
[1]Hos_7:4.—בֹּעֵרָה is accentuated as Milel, probably because the Masorites took objection to the fem. form, תּנּוּר which is elsewhere masculine. But the names for fire and anything connected therewith are in the Semitic languages usually fem. Hence בעערה is to be regarded as actually fem., and to be pointed בֹּלַרָה [See Green, Heb. Gr., § 196 c.—חֻמִצֽתֹי. חָמֵץ takes in the construct inf. the fem. ending, like חָמַל (Eze_16:5).—M.]
[2][Hos_7:5.—חֲמַת is an example of a construct before a noun having a preposition. This may denote the direct and powerful influence of the wine upon the revellers, or it may merely be an example of a poetical usage, Green, §255,1.—לֹצְצִים ἁπ. λεγ. Some assume a verb לָצַץ, but Gesenius, Fürst and most regard the form as Piel Part. of לוּץ with מְ dropped. Houbigant would change the reading into לֵצִים, but needlessly.—M.]
[3][Hos_7:6.—Henderson objects, to the change of reading to אַפֵּיהֶם, that this never occurs in the sense, ira, furor, eorum. But as anger is a frequent sense of the dual form, and as the exigencies of the case seem to demand another reading, it seems reasonable to adopt the emendation. The conjecture has also the support of antiquity, as the Targum renders רוּגְזְהוֹן and the Syr.;ܘܰܔܐܗܘܰ١ Only it is not necessary to retain the י—; the form given in the Exposition is probably the correct reading.—M.]
[4]Hos_7:12.—אַיְסִרֵם. This form is from the Hiphil הִיסִיר for דוסִיר.
[5]Hos_7:13.—אֶפְדֵּם is a voluntative or optative: I would or would like to redeem them.
[6]Hos_7:14.—The LXX. have read יִתְגּוֹדֵדוּ: they wound themselves. [But authority vastly preponderates in favor of the received reading.—M.]
[7][Hos_7:16—לֹא עָל. It is agreed that the Kamets is due to the pause and that the normal form is עַל. Critics are divided as to whether this should be regarded as a noun used collectively (they return to no-gods=idols; or as an adverb: upwards=to heaven, where God is. The word means properly an elevation, summit; hence the notion that it might be used concretely=most High. In Hos_11:7 this certainly seems the true meaning. Again it might be used adverbially, as in 2Sa_23:1. The best lexicographers (Gesenius, Fürst) approve the former sense here; some of the best Expositors (Manger, Ewald, Keil, and others) prefer the latter. The Anglo American expositors, generally, agree with the first named class. Newcome prefers to read לֹא יוֹעִיל: that which cannot profit.—M.]—זוֹ= זֶה, ἁπ. λεγ.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–7 consider not in their hearts--literally "say not to," &c.…
consider not in their hearts--literally "say not to," &c. (Psa 14:1).
that I remember--and will punish.
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their own doings have beset them about--as so many witnesses against them (Psa 9:16; Pro 5:22).
before my face-- (Psa 90:8).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On v1 NEW PICTURE OF THE MORAL CORRUPTION AND RESULTING ANARCHY,…
NEW PICTURE OF THE MORAL CORRUPTION AND RESULTING ANARCHY, Hos_6:11 to Hos_7:7.
1, 2. The mercy of Jehovah, manifesting itself in his willingness to “heal,” wrought no change for the better; it was interpreted as an indication of Jehovah’s weakness, and only increased the people’s recklessness. Iniquity… discovered [“uncovered”] — The reflexive force of the verb form may be expressed by rendering “displayed itself.” Iniquity broke out with ever-increasing force and prevented the carrying out of God’s gracious purpose.
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Samaria — The capital of the northern kingdom mentioned because it was the center of the corruption. Wherein consisted the iniquity?
Commit falsehood — Practice fraud and deceit toward God and man.
Thief cometh [“entereth”] in — Into the house. Theft and highway robbery were common (Joe_2:9).
Spoileth [“ravageth”] — The highways were made unsafe by robbers in quest of plunder.
Consider — Literally, they do not speak to their heart; their consciences have become seared.
I remember — They have no thought that Jehovah will remember and punish, but they are mistaken; their sins are constantly before his face, where he can see them.
Their own doings have beset them about — They are completely surrounded by their wrongs, so that escape has become impossible; even repentance seems to be out of the question. The verse closes with a re-affirmation that Jehovah is not deceived about their real condition (Psa_90:8).
In Hos_7:3-7 the text is in places obscure, but concerning the general drift of the thought there can be no doubt. The prophet describes in vivid colors the corruption that pervades the whole nation, and shows that the existing anarchy is the inevitable result of the same: adultery, drunkenness, conspiracy, assassinations everywhere, not one redeeming feature.
They make the king glad — The subject is the same as in Hos_7:1-2, the Israelites. As representatives of Jehovah king and princes should rejoice in righteousness and justice; their depravity is seen in the fact that they not only fail to punish crime, but actually delight in it.
Princes — See on Hos_3:4. The Hebrew gives good sense; the emendation first suggested by Wellhausen and since adopted by many scholars, “they anoint” instead of “they make glad,” is not necessary, though it would give equally good sense and would make this passage agree in meaning with Hos_8:4.
They are all adulterers — King, princes, and people are filled with unholy passions for revelry, licentiousness, etc. This is a new condemnation, and is not to be connected with the preceding as a circumstantial clause. The rest of the verse is doubtful.
As an oven heated by the baker — R.V. supplies “they are,” which is an improvement. A different division of the consonantal text would give, “they are like a burning oven,” and with “the baker” the new sentence might be begun.
This is preferable. In their madness the people resemble a burning oven.
The heart is the oven, the unholy passions the fire. Modern commentators are inclined to regard this clause, as well as the rest of Hos_7:4, a later addition, a gloss to Hos_7:6. Whatever one may think of the rest of the verse, which seems to be dependent on Hos_7:6, this clause certainly sounds like a part of the original denunciation; Hos_7:5 would make a good continuation.
The baker… ceaseth — As these words stand now they describe the apparent calm between one outbreak of violence and the next. “The baker ceases from stirring when the oven has reached a certain heat; and then he leaves the fire to smolder until the fermentation of the dough is complete and fresh heating is necessary. So after passion has been gratified it smolders for a time, but is afterward kindled to a greater heat than before, when some attractive object comes within range.”
In Hos_7:5 the prophet evidently refers to a recent event — Wellhausen thinks to a royal assassination — when passion found unrestrained expression.
Day of our king — Perhaps the king’s birthday (Mat_14:6), or the coronation day; at any rate, a day of joyful celebration.
The princes have made him sick — R.V., “made themselves sick.” Either translation is possible, though usage favors A.V. — they made the king drunk and assassinated him (2Sa_13:28-29). Royal assassinations are referred to in Hos_7:7; in this verse, however, the thought implied in R.V. is more probable, though usage may favor A.V. — they gave themselves to such excesses that they became ill.
Bottles of wine — Better, R.V., “heat of wine,” or “with fever from wine” (G.A. Smith).
He stretched out his hand — The meaning is uncertain, but it is generally interpreted as meaning that the king entered into intimate relations with scoffers, that is, worthless, lawless fellows who are always devising mischief. Perhaps the words allude to “some lawless project decided upon in the intoxication of the revel.”
Hos_7:6-7 do not connect with 4, giving the explanation and ground for the simile of the oven, so that Hos_7:5 would be parenthetical (Keil); they contain a new assertion, co-ordinate with the statements in Hos_7:3-5. The subject is the same as in the other verses, the Israelites.
For — Here not a causal conjunction, but, as often, a particle of asseveration — “truly,” “indeed” (G.-K., 148d).
Have made ready their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait — The Hebrew contains several peculiarities, hence the translation and interpretation are uncertain. Many attempts have been made to interpret the present Hebrew text and not a few emendations have been suggested. It seems necessary to alter the text. Following in part LXX., we get, by only slight alterations, an excellent thought: “Indeed, like an oven their hearts burn with their intriguing” (compare Hos_4:1, “There is no truth in the land”; Hos_4:2, “There is naught but swearing and breaking faith”).
Their baker — Who is their baker? The subject of burneth is the same in Hebrew as that of sleepeth. Can it be said of the baker that he burns as a flaming fire? Two ancient versions, Targum and Peshitto, read “their anger” for “their baker”; this requires no change of the consonantal text in Hebrew and may be accepted as original: “Their anger sleepeth all the night.” The conspiracy is kept secret until it is matured, then it breaks forth. The darkness of the night is the time when the schemes are developed; in the morning, the time for action having arrived, the conspiracy blazes forth (compare Mic_2:1). Hos_7:7 describes the result of these intrigues. They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured [“and devour”] — Need not be rejected as an unnecessary repetition; it sums up in a few words the thought of Hos_7:6. It would be better, however, to translate it as a circumstantial clause, “Being (thus) hot like an oven, they devour.”
Judges — Not to be understood in the narrower sense of that term, but equivalent to rulers, that is, king and princes as the guardians of the law and administrators of justice (Isa_40:23; Psa_2:10).
Their kings are fallen — By assassination; parallel to the preceding clause. 2 Kings 15 furnishes a commentary. In all probability the prophecy comes from the reign of Menahem, which was preceded by two royal assassinations, that of Zechariah after a reign of six months and that of Shallum after one month. There is none among the people that calleth unto me — “A prophetic touch to the historical statement” which precedes. Notwithstanding the serious condition of affairs, no one appealed to Jehovah, who alone could bring relief.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–7 1–7. The moral degradation of Israel, especially of its…
1–7. The moral degradation of Israel, especially of its ruling class, which, so far from stemming the tide of corruption, applauds and encourages its progress
1. How foolish is the conduct of Israel! When the great turning-point in her fortunes arrives, the day of mingled punishment and mercy, all his wickedness will be remembered and brought to light. To improve the sense and restore balance to the opening of the verse, it is expedient to read thus, with Ewald, When I turn the fortunes of my people, when I heal Israel, then will be manifest Ephraim’s guilt and Samaria’s wickedness, how they practise falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and bandits roam abroad without. Comp. Hos_4:2. Samaria is mentioned, as the abode of the princes next spoken of.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–6 (1) Translate, When I heal Israel (referring to a…
(1) Translate, When I heal Israel (referring to a cessation in the attacks of the menacing foe, or to such a thrill of finer feeling as that which is recorded in 2Ch_28:8-15), then is revealed the iniquity of Ephraim and the wickedness of Samaria, that they commit falsehood. Samaria here sustains the same relation to Israel that Jerusalem does to Judah, and it is the very source of the corruption of the whole country.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–7 This chapter may be divided into three sections. In…
This chapter may be divided into three sections. In the first section, including vers. 1-7, the prophet reproves with much but deserved severity the depraved morals of king and princes. In the second section, consisting of vers. 8-11, he rebukes their sinfulness, silliness, pride, and stupid obstinacy, notwithstanding the many manifest tokens of decay. Otherwise the first section deals with the internal corruption of the northern kingdom, and the second exposes their sinful and harmful foreign policy. The third section, continuing from the twelfth verse to the end of the chapter, that is, vers. 12-16, threatens the infliction of punishment incurred by their gross wicked. Hess and base ingratitude to God.
Vers. 1-3. When I would hays healed Israel. We may, with some, understand this healing of those
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(1) prophetic admonitions and rebukes by which God designed to cure the transgressions and heal the backslidings of his people.
(2) It is more probable, however, that the reference is to the partial restoration of the national prosperity in the days of Jeroboam II, who "restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain.
(3) Jerome"s exposition is not so natural when he says, "The sense is: When I wished to blot out the old sins of my people, on account of ancient idolatry, Ephraim and Samaria discovered new idols;" the old sins and ancient idolatry he refers to the making and worshipping of the golden calf in the wilderness, while the new idols were the calf-worship which Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim instituted, and the people of the capital, Samaria, adopted. When God would heal, or as often as he proceeded to heal, Israel, the evils broke out afresh, or came more fully to light, just like a wound the dangerous nature of which is discovered by the surgeon"s probe in the effort to heal it. Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria. The sin of the northern kingdom manifested itself in high quarters in the premier tribe of Israel, and in the capital city of Samaria. "Because," says Abort Ezra, in his comment, "they said, He hath torn, and he will heal us, he says, When I was disposed to heal them, the wickedness concealed in their heart stood before my face, which they have not left off until the present time, for they practice falsehood; by night they steal, and by day troops (of bandits) spread themselves outside the cities." Similarly, Rashi explains: "When I was willing to help and to heal them, their iniquities manifested themselves before me, for they practiced lying constantly; while thieves of their number entered in continually, and stole the wealth of their companions, and even their gangs spread themselves for robberies to rob men." For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth (margin, strippeth) without. Here follows an enumeration of the crimes of which they were guilty. There was falsehood, or fraud, or deception generally, and that, not only in words, but in works; next comes dishonesty, both in public and in private. The thief privately entered the houses, and committed burglary; gangs of highwaymen publicly infested the roads, spoiling the passers-by, or rather roamed or spread themselves abroad for plunder, since it is the causative conjugation of pashat that has the signification of stripping or spoiling others. The thief within, the rubber robs without.
Vers. 1-7. Crimes charged on Israel; people and princes.
It was a time of great corruption and of atrocious crimes. Nor were those crimes committed only by persons "of the baser sort;" people and princes alike, rulers and ruled, had their share in them; the country and the capital, Ephraim and Samaria; the chief tribe and the chief city, with the common people as well as elite, in the former, and members of the court in the latter. All classes contributed their portion to the national tins, and sins of almost all classes were freely indulged in.
I THE CHARACTER OF SIN AS A DISEASE. Sin is represented in Scripture as a disease an all-pervading disease; it is as universal as the race, for all have sinned; it is an all-embracing disease, for it extends to the faculties and feelings of the soul, and employs as its instruments all the members of the body. It infects whole peoples as well as individual persons. The description which Isaiah gives of its widespread ravages applies to the body politic as well as to the body human: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." It is thus a loathsome disease, a dangerous disease, a deadly disease; and, unless arrested in time, it is a fearfully fatal disease. The Apostle James gives us the genesis and development of this disease: "When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death;" and the symbol of this spiritual malady is leprosy one of the most frightful scourges of humanity.
II THE MEANS OF HEALING EMPLOYED. The disease is so desperate that God alone can cure it.
1. If there is balm in Gilead and a physician there, God himself is that Physician, and a Physician who not only supplies the balm but applies it; he has provided the remedy and prescribed the way in which it is made available. Thus the Prophet Jeremiah prays," Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my Praise." To a people as well as a person laden with sin, God promises relief when it is earnestly sought and properly applied for; thus we read in 2Ch_7:13, 2Ch_7:14, "If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people, which are called by my Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." If, then, sin-sick souls are not healed, it is not that God is either unwilling or unable to heal them. When Christ would have gathered the people of Palestine, or the inhabitants of its principal city, with all the tenderness and all the carefulness that the parent bird exercises in gathering its brood under its outspread wings, they would not. So is it still; sinners condemnation is self-procured as well as justly deserved, while the salvation of the righteous is only of the Lord.
2. The means which God employs for healing, though various, are yet pretty much the same at all times. One of these means, and that most commonly employed, is the Word of his grace read, preached, or meditated on. In all ages the chief instrumentality for reclaiming men has been his message of mercy. Thus he dealt with his ancient people: "The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy" (margin, "healing"). Other means used for the same end are afflictions and adverse circumstances of whatever kind; cases of thin sort, such as dearth, or famine, or pestilence, or impoverishment, or sore sickness and of long continuance, were frequent experiences of God"s people in the past. But the purpose was benevolent and salutary: "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." It is so still; for while "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Again, God sends intervals of prosperity with like design. This he did with Israel in the reign of Jeroboam II, in the days of Joash, and at other periods in their history, in order to wean them from sin and win them to himself. Another means of healing which God resorted to in the case of his ancient people was the removal of ringleaders in iniquity and notable apostates, as when he made an end of the dynasty of Ahab. Not a few similar instances in subsequent and modern times might be, pointed out.
III THE EXTENT OF THE HURT DISCOVERED BY THE ATTEMPT AT HEALING. While God was manifesting his intentions of mercy towards Israel, the virulence of their disease became evident. God here, in condescension to our weakness, accommodates himself to the manner of men and adopts their mode of speech. As though he had not known the desperate state of matters before, he speaks of it being now discovered. It is by probing a wound that a surgeon discovers its depth, and whether it reaches some vital part; it is only by careful examination a physician detects the character of his patient"s disease, and whether it is curable or likely to prove fatal. So with the good physician on closely examining the state of Israel; he found it even worse than had been supposed much worse than it appeared to the superficial observer. Much, no doubt, must have appeared on the surface, and much lay hid in secret; it had been, in fact, "half revealed, half concealed." When the iniquity of Ephraim was fully discovered and the wickedness of Samaria clearly seen, it proved incurable, so enormous was their guilt, so hardened were they in their transgressions, above all, so impenitent were they and so unwilling to be helped and healed. Their obduracy barred the door against the entrance of mercy, their refusal to part with their enormities checked the outgoings of the Divine goodness towards them. Nay more; as when a rock rises up in a river-bed, or the stream is narrowed by the encroaching banks, the water rushes with greater violence and is lashed into foam, so the very attempt to repress the sin of Israel rendered it more violent and outrageous. The rulers and those who occupied high places, as the inhabitants of the metropolis Samaria, and the people of the preeminent tribe of Ephraim, proved the most incorrigible of all. Among the vices of the time were falsehood and fraud, and the fraud was both private and public.
IV THE SINS CHARGED AGAINST ISRAEL ARE COMMON TO THEM, WITH THE UNGODLY, AT ALL TIMES. This assertion is proved by the further enumeration of these sins by Hosea. There was also sinful security and senseless stupidity.
1. They did not confer with their own hearts in reference to their state in the sight of God, nor impress on themselves their responsibility to him. They were strangers to any right searching of heart, or any serious reflection on the issues of their conduct and conversation. It is thus with hundreds of our fellow-men; want of consideration has ruined thousands Both for time and eternity; hence the earnest wish of the great lawgiver, "Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" Hence, too, the solemn command of "the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
2. The want of consideration or of communing with their own heart had special reference to the relationship in which they stood to God. They did not reflect that God remembered all their wickedness, consequently they did not recollect their liability to punishment for their wickedness at the hand of God, and therefore they did not feel any remorse on account of their wickedness when committed. Being spared after their wickedness, and not visited with immediate vengeance because of their wickedness, they thought themselves certain of impunity; enjoying a season of prosperity notwithstanding the greatness of their wickedness, they were emboldened in their wicked ways.
3. Atheism, theoretical or practical, or both, was at the root of the matter with them. The first article of belief embraces the existence of God, and the existence of God implies a Being of Divine attributes and infinite perfections; the second article includes a belief in God that he is a Recompenser of men"s actions a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and a Punisher of all workers of wickedness. They rejected, at least practically, these rudiments of the faith, these primary articles of belief; "as if God could not see their wickedness, though he is all eye; and did not heed it, though his name is Jealous; or had forgotten it, though he is an eternal mind that can never be unmindful; or would not reckon for it, though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This is the sinner"s atheism; as good say there is no God, as say he is either ignorant or forgetful; none that judgeth in the earth, as say he remembers not the things he is to give judgment upon; it is a high affront they put upon God, it is a damning cheat they put upon themselves, when they say, The Lord shall not see" nor remember.
4. The eyes of such shall be opened one day. They shall wake up out of their daydream, and their delusion shall vanish when their doings shall beset them about and the sad effects thereof shall entangle them as in a net. They shall see their sins in the punishments they bring upon them; they shall feel them in the sorrows and sufferings that attend them; and they shall recognize that God had them before his face all the time, having knowledge of them when committed, taking notice of their demerit, and remembering them for the exercise of his retributive justice. Even men"s secret sins God sets in the light (literally luminary," maor) of his countenance; the fire-flashing eye of the Omniscient penetrates the deep recesses of the human heart, and brings forth its secret workings into the sight of the sun and the broad light of day.
V OBSEQUIOUSNESS TO RULERS IN THEIR SINFUL COMMANDS OR COURSES IS EXTREMELY PERNICIOUS. It may please ungodly sovereigns or civil rulers to find subjects so pliable as at once to fall in with their wicked works and ways; or to he flattered by them; or to hear the upright who oppose their vileness slandered; or to listen to the lies by which the unscrupulous seek to ingratiate themselves; but such pandering must prove pitiful and profitless work for both the persons who indulge in it and the princes who encourage it. The former have often realized, though not perhaps to the same extent, the hitter experience of the great cardinal when he saidOh, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes" favors I There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have; And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again .... Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.
There is an alternative interpretation of ver. 3 which presents the other side, and another aspect of the case, namely, when deceitful men wickedly and mendaciously impose on the credulity of princes by false professions of friendship at the very time they are plotting their downfall and planning their destruction. The ordinary acceptation, however, suits the sense of the passage very well. When people are so wicked as to conform to the idolatrous worship prescribed by godless rulers, or to imitate their impious and immoral practices, or to applaud their worthless favorites, or to calumniate those known to be obnoxious to them, those rulers are more than gratified add gladdened by such lying and baseness, they are encouraged and stimulated in their wrongdoing, while a terrible responsibility rests upon the head of both. Thus Herod, after harassing the Church and slaying games the brother of John, "because he saw it pleased the Jews, proceeded further to take Peter." People, again, when they see that their acts of wickedness please their rulers, or their accounts thereof amuse them, are emboldened to proceed yet further. Thus sovereigns and subjects encouraging each other in sin ultimately work each other"s destruction. There is probably a reference to the people"s facile complaisance with the idolatry of the calves legalized by Jeroboam, or of Baal by Ahab a conscienceless acquiescence which in the end was fraught with the most baneful results to princes and people.
VI THE COURSE OF SIN IS A DOWNWARD SLOPE. After reprehending the profligate pleasure which both princes and people took in sin, the prophet reproves the servile submission of the latter to idolatry, and the debaucheries of the former. The adultery which he proceeds to stigmatize may be understood literally as welt as spiritually, the former being so frequent an accompaniment of the latter. In this case the heart is aptly compared to an oven, its lusts the fire with which it is heated; while Satan supplies by his temptations the fuel to the fire, and at the same time puts the leaven in the dough. Whether the baker, after kindling the fire, ceases from stirring it till morning, by which time the dough is leavened and ready for the oven, which he then raises to a greater heat; or whether he rests comparatively while still stoking during the interval that elapses from kneading the dough till it is leavened and ready for use; in either case there is a respite, not from the fire of lust abating or the fuel of temptation ceasing, but from want of opportunity or courage or ability. Soon, however, as the occasion presents itself or opportunity is afforded, or means of gratification are available, or hope of impunity is cherished, the fire of lust that seemed smoldering flames up with increased intensity; the wicked plot is executed; the covert passion breaks out into the overt act; the half-stifled concupiscence finds vent; the lustful, covetous, or ambitious project is accomplished.
VII DRUNKENNESS IS A PREPARATION FOR OTHER WICKEDNESS. The reference to it in ver. 5 is interjected between the mention of adultery and other enormities, as if it were an incentive thereto,
1. The occasion on which the intemperance took place was a celebration day, whether the king"s birthday, or the day of his accession to the throne, or his coronation day. As it was, it is; days of celebration, while not improper in themselves, may be turned into days of sinful carousal. Days of high festival that ought to be days of thanksgiving to God, of grateful praise and holy joy, are too often taken advantage of for purposes of intemperance, gluttony, or dissipation. Days that should be consecrated to religious exercises or real national rejoicing are too frequently desecrated by irreligious sensuality and anti-religious debauch.
2. According to the common rendering, the health of the king suffered; according to another rendering, which some prefer, the day was begun so that his honor was tarnished. According to either, his high dignity was leveled in the dust. It is bad enough and sad enough to see any man indulge in the sin of intemperance a sin which deranges and disorders the body, damages the soul and its eternal interests, dishonors God, and degrades man below the beast that perisheth. But for a king who is appointed to govern others to lose the government of himself through such scandalous excess, is the extreme of vileness; hence the faithful admonition, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine.
3. While the duty of a king was neglected, the dignity of a king was sacrificed. Kimchi has the following judicious remark in reference to this matter: "The prophet says, What was the business of the princes with the king? There was no conversation about the might and conquest of the enemies and about the establishment of justice, as it becomes the king of a free nation, but their business consisted in eating and drinking until they made the king sick from the excessive drinking of wine." Even worse, if possible, was the fact of his debasing himself by companionship with profane scoffers. Rashi aptly observes, "The king withdraws his hand from the good and worthy in order to join in fellowship with scorners. The men that put the bottle to his mouth with professed friendliness were, as the event proved, plotting his ruin and preparing for his assassination.
VIII THE SEEMING RESPITE FROM, AND REACTIONARY NATURE OF, SIN. The respite was not a real rest from sin; it was only the interval while the mischief was being premeditated, and the opportunity for putting it in practice waited for.
1. In the morning, at the first and earliest opportunity, soon as the plot was matured and the favorable moment for its execution arrived, the fire of passion or lust that had been burning slowly all the time broke out afresh and with greatly increased vigor. They made ready, applied, or, as Pusey says," literally brought near their heart. Their heart was ever brought near to sin, even while the occasion was removed at a distance from it." While the leaven is commingling with the dough and the fuel combining with the fire, the baker may sleep, or seem to do so; so, while temptation, like fuel, is acting on the fire of lust within, and the evil suggestion of Satan is pervading the powers of the soul in which it has found lodgment, the tempter may appear to slumber. The work is going on internally, and once the occasion offers it shall be carried out externally in full force and certain effect.
2. A man throws a stone in the air and it comes back on his own head; men sin themselves or tempt others to sin, and the consequences recoil on themselves. The Israelitish kings, from the period of the disruption in the days of Jeroboam, corrupted the worship of God or acquiesced in that corruption, and induced the people to conform to that corruption and other sinful courts that followed in its wake; and all for their own political advantage and private selfish ends to prevent, if possible, the return of power to the Davidic line, and the reunion of the ten tribes with the two. But the time of reaction arrived, and the retributive Nemesis began to work; the people who had been corrupted by their rulers now turned against their corrupters; disloyalty to God brought in its train disloyalty to man; kings and subordinate rulers perished in quick succession. And notwithstanding the times of anarchy, insecurity for life and property, and general upheaval of social order amid all those scenes of terrible confusion, there was none among them to realize the fact that "for the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof." Consequently there was none among them to call upon God in supplication for relief and preservation.
HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN Vers. 1-7. Sins of court and country.
The reproofs contained in this chapter lay special emphasis upon the sins of the upper classes. But the prophet brands the whole nation also for its irreligion and immorality, and (in the second part of the chapter) for its political corruption.
I THE EXPOSURE OF ISRAEL"S SIN. The wickedness of the people is portrayed, both as regards principles and individual acts. It may be described as:
1. Gold-blooded in its principles. (Vers. 1-3) These showed themselves in habits of:
(1) "Falsehood." (Ver. 1.) There was "no truth in the land". (Hos_4:1) The life of the nation had become a lie. Towards God there was chronic hypocrisy, and towards man habits of theft and robbery. (Hos_6:6-10)
(2) Sympathy with sin and crime. (Ver. 3) The ruling classes had become morally so corrupt that not only was their example always evil, but it also gave them positive satisfaction to take note of the immoralities of their subjects. Such satisfaction is itself the climax of human wickedness. (Rom_1:32)
(3) Spiritual inconsiderateness. (Vers. 2, 7) The root of all the evil was Israel"s forgetfulness of God. They failed to remember his holiness, his justice, his omniscience. And, in ignoring these truths, they neglected also their own highest interests; for, from the lack of timely repentance, their sins "beset them about." This inconsiderateness is the cardinal error of all ungodly men. Multitudes, like Ephraim, have had their attention loudly called to spiritual things by the voice of temporal blessings, of gospel promises, and of providential chastisements; but they will not hear! But, again, Israel"s sin was:
2. Hot-blooded in its acts. (Vers. 4-7) Here the people are compared three several times to a baker"s "oven," the meaning being that in doing their deeds of guilt they were enthusiastic and passionate, They sinned hotly in the direction of:
(1) Idolatry. (Ver. 4) "They are all adulterers;" i.e. king, princes, and people alike were guilty of apostasy from Jehovah, and shared in the dissoluteness which was associated with the worship of the Phoenician deities. "They had violated their faith pledged to God, they gave themselves up to filthy superstitions, and they had wholly corrupted themselves; for faith and sincerity of heart constitute spiritual chastity before God" (Calvin). Their souls were inflamed with their idolatrous lusts like a burning oven.
(2) Debauchery. (Ver. 5) Both the king and the nobles followed habits of intemperance. At the banquet held on the royal birthday he and they "erred through strong drink," and scoffed together at the majesty of Jehovah. In our own country, too, how many there are who spend Christmas as if they were celebrating the birth of the devil rather than that of the Redeemer!
(3) Anarchy. (Vers. 6, 7) The fiery passions of the people caused the land to be long torn by disorder and revolution. Their rulers became fuel for the fire of their anger. "All their kings are fallen; Zechariah was murdered by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, Pekahiah by Pekah, etc. Indeed, very few of the monarchs of the northern kingdom died in peace. During its entire course, the heat of political violence devoured like a furnace; and in the deepest national calamities none sought the aid of the Divine King.
II WHAT LED TO THIS EXPOSURE.
1. The encircling presence of their sins. (Ver. 2) The people sinned so deeply and so boldly that their enormities grew up around them like a rampart. Wherever they went their wickedness attended them, and became a swift witness against them. A man"s iniquity wraps him round like a poisoned tunic. He is "holden with the cords of his sins"; (Pro_5:22) and it is his own hands, alas! that have forged and riveted his chains. Evil doings "beset" a man through the accusations of conscience, through the power of habit, through the action of natural law, and through the providence of God, which makes sure that his "sin will find him out.
2. Gods remembrance of their sins. (Ver. 2) The Lord must take notice of sin, for he must punish it. Although the sinful nation has forgotten this, the fact remains. "They are before my face;" i.e. ever present to me; I cannot avoid seeing them. "These words "before me in the first commandment teach us that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of, and is much displeased with, the sin of having any other god" (Westminster Assembly"s Shorter Catechism).
3. God"s efforts to cure them of their sins. (Ver. 1) As the depth and seriousness of a wound are often not known until the surgeon probes it, and as the nature of a disease may not be fully understood for some time after the physician has begun to grapple with the case, so the depravity of Israel was adequately exposed only when God adopted strong measures in connection with it, by the chastisements of his providence, and the warning voices of his prophets. For the people refused to obey each summons to repentance; and, instead of placing confidence in Jehovah, "they called to Egypt, and went to Assyria" (ver. 11). So the very means of grace which God used in order to save Israel, became the occasion of showing how far the nation had already wandered from him, and even of inducing them to wander still further. And thus is it still, when God deals with men by his Word and Spirit. "By the Law is the knowledge of sin". (Rom_3:20) The primary work of the Holy Ghost is to "convince the world of sin". (Joh_16:8) By his common grace he gives, even to the unconverted, a partial view of their own unworthiness. And, in the case of all who enter upon the Christian life, he uses the disclosure of sin to lead the penitent to renounce all self-righteousness, and to fall at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. C.J.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1, 2. Sin"s malignancy.
Jehovah was Israel"s Healer. (Exo_15:26) His constantly cherished desire was to do them good. He had labored for this end by his prophets, by chastisements, and by exhibitions of kindness. All had been in vain. The people would not permit the Lord to be their Healer. If sin was checked for a little, it was only to break out again in worse forms than before. The more he sought to heal them, only the more clearly was their iniquity discovered. We note here concerning Ephraim"s wickedness
I ITS INVETERATE MALIGNANCY. "When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria" (ver. 1). The evil of sin is revealed in the very attempt to cure it.
1. The cure of sin makes necessary the laying bare of its evil. The wound must be probed before remedial measures can be adopted. It is when he begins to probe it that the physician discovers its dangerous character. So, when God would heal us, he begins by discovering to us the truth about our spiritual state. He calls sin by its right name. He tells us of our depravity, our corruption, and brings into light the transgressions we had covered up. This was the work of the prophets of Israel. It is the work of the Law, and of God"s Word generally. Till we are thoroughly convinced of sin, recovery is hopeless. "By the Law is the knowledge of sin". (Rom_3:20)
2. The evil of sin is discovered in its resistance to cure. An ordinary disease yields to remedies. Where these are employed and no improvement is manifest, we pronounce the case a serious one. Its resistance to treatment evinces its malignity. It is thus that Ephraim"s sin was discovered by God"s attempts to heal him. Every means of remedy had been tried, but without success. (Hos_6:4) Wickedness seemed at a greater height than ever. Sin is no skin-deep disorder. The difficulty of its cure is sufficient proof of the inveteracy of its hold. So depraved is the heart, that nothing will remedy it but complete renewal. We have evidence every day of the determined resistance which sin is capable of offering to God. We see it in others, and we know it in experience.
3. The attempt to cure sin often results in aggravated manifestations of it. The. sinful heart is roused to antagonism. Its latent enmity to God comes more fully out. It rages in its opposition to his servants. When the commandment comes, sin revives. (Rom_7:9) Temporary amendment is followed by greater outbursts of wickedness. (Hos_6:8 Luk_11:24-26)
II ITS BALEFUL MANIFESTATIONS. "For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without" (ver 1). We have here: 1. Falsehood. Israel was guilty of falsehood
(1) towards God, in breaking his covenant, in proving faithless to their vows of amendment, and in "speaking lies" concerning him (ver. 13);
(2) towards their allies, in disregarding treaty engagements; and
(3) towards one another. Deceit had become part of their nature. When falsehood becomes a habit, moral recovery is scarcely possible. The ingrained liar is an almost hopeless subject for conversion.
1. Robbery. Justice is itself a species of truth, and with the loss of the sense of truth there is undergone a corresponding loss of the sense of justice. Each regards his neighbor as his lawful prey. He robs him if he can. Thefts, heartless frauds, organized robberies, are of frequent occurrence.
2. Violence. From robbery to violence the transition is not great. When men cease to live by honest labor, they do not stick at trifles. If a slack state of the law permits, crimes will abound. Where, as was the case in Israel, the throne is built on murder, it need not surprise us that lawlessness spreads in the community.
III ITS PITIFUL DELUSION. (Ver. 2) "They consider not in their hearts," etc. The point here is the obliviousness of the wicked to God"s knowledge of their doings. They extrude God from their thoughts. "They say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?". (Psa_73:11) On this notice:
1. The wicked have, in secret, more knowledge of God than they pretend. Israel, with a prophet like Hosea in its midst, could not be entirely ignorant of God. It showed that it had some knowledge of him, by its cries to him in trouble, and by brief periods of amendment. This extrusion of him from the thoughts was, therefore, voluntary. It was Israel"s will not to know God. Thus there lurks in the sinner"s consciousness a spark of knowledge which renders him inexcusable for his habitual forgetfulness, He may banish God from his thoughts, and try to persuade himself that God does not remember his wickedness. But if he does so, it is because he prefers to live in a delusion which at bottom he knows to be such.
2. The wicked, as a rule, do succeed in expelling God from their thoughts. They get their own way. They soon perfect themselves in the art of forgetting their Creator. Like the ostrich, which is fabled to hide its head in the sand as a protection from the hunters, they think that when they have succeeded in putting God out of their remembrance they have somehow got rid of him.
3. The delusion in which the wicked encourage themselves does not in the least alter the real state of the case. Sinners may shut out the thought of God"s knowledge of their doings, but none the less is God cognizant of everything they are about. "Their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face." This is the folly of sin; it cannot by its forgetfulness and denials alter the actual state of the facts. The sinner"s deeds are his own. He remains answerable for every one of them. With all his doings about him, he stands daily, hourly, constantly, in fall view of the eye of God. (Ps 139) He will be called to an account. J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–2 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity…
Hos_7:1
When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria.
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The great deceiver and spoiler of the nation
We identify the deceiver as strong drink.
I. The dangerous and insinuating character of intoxicating drinks. The thief cometh in. Compare the movements of thieves with the manner in which these drinks operate upon different classes of our fellow-men.
1. The thief will often seize the property of others under false pretences. So the strong drinks pretend to give strength to the weak, and to preserve the strong from becoming weak. Those drinks pretend to act favourably upon the sympathies of our nature, and to promote good fellowship among neighbours and friends. But when and where did strong drink perform such wonderful things?
2. The thief commits his depredations under the guise of friendship.
II. you are known to have money, many will offer friendship, and when they have gained your confidence, they will strip you of everything you possess. And it is thus with the friendly glass.
3. The thief pounces upon his prey at unawares. And the thief, strong drink, acts very much in the same way. To be forewarned is in many cases to be forearmed, but too many refuse to take warning, and hence the thief pounces upon them at unawares, and they become an easy prey.
4. The thief pays no respect either to age or sex. The thief is known to seize upon male or female, old or young, any party, or under any circumstance, if he can but meet with a victim. And the thief, strong drink, acts precisely in the same way. In every walk of life, in every condition of society, and under every variety of circumstance this thief commits his depredations.
5. The thief, in the accomplishment of his object, often takes away the life of his victim. Here is another most painful characteristic of strong drink. By this thief multitudes of men die and go to their long home.
II. The evils inflicted upon our country by the traffic in strong drinks. The troop of robbers spoileth without.
1. The vast-extent of this source of evil. Thousands are engaged in the manufacture of strong drink.
2. The traffic fails to give an equivalent for what it costs.
3. The traffic in strong drink spoils the morals of our country.
4. The traffic is spoiling the efforts of the Church.
III. The means by which these evils may be removed.
1. The real cause of these evils must be kept distinctly in view. Individual example is the matter requiring supreme attention.
2. The manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks, except for scientific and medicinal purposes, must be condemned.
3. The practical rather than the doubtful should be steadily pursued. There is always a danger of our having our minds diverted from the real to the visionary. It is a delusion to trust to acts of parliament. Personal and individual abstinence is the one thing to urge. (D. Sunderland.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v3 There follows now a very difficult passage. The text…
4. WICKEDNESS IN HIGH PLACES
Hos_7:3-7
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There follows now a very difficult passage. The text is corrupt, and we have no means of determining what precise events are intended. The drift of meaning, however, is evident. The disorder and licentiousness of the people are favored in high places; the throne itself is guilty.
"With their evil they make a king glad, and princes with their falsehoods: all of them are adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker"
"On the day of our king"-some coronation or kings birthday-"the princes were sick with fever from wine. He stretched forth his hand with loose fellows," presumably made them his associates. "Like an oven have they made their hearts with their intriguing. All night their anger sleepeth in the morning it blazes like a flame of fire. All of them glow like an oven, and devour their rulers: all their kings have fallen, without one of them calling on Me."
An obscure passage upon obscure events; yet so lurid with the passion of that fevered people in the flagrant years 743-735 that we can make out the kind of crimes described. A king surrounded by loose and unscrupulous nobles: adultery, drunkenness, conspiracies, assassination: every man striking for himself; none appealing to God.
From the court, then, downwards, by princes, priests, and prophets, to the common fathers of Israel and their households, immorality prevails. There is no redeeming feature, and no hope of better things. For repentance itself the capacity is gone.
In making so thorough an indictment of the moral condition of Israel, it would have been impossible for Hosea not to speak also of the political stupidity and restlessness which resulted from it. But he has largely reserved these for that part of his discourse which now follows, and which we will take in the next chapter.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 Hos_7:1.] Exposure of wickedness continued. Healed] politically and morally.…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hos_7:1.] Exposure of wickedness continued. Healed] politically and morally. The danger of a wound only discovered when probed and healing attempted. Spoileth] Heb. strippeth off a garment: plunder extensive and without resistance. Falsehood] Deception toward God and man. “Falsehood was the whole habit and tissue of their lives” [Pusey].
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Hos_7:2. Consider] Lit. say not to themselves in serious reflection. Rem.] Notice and punish (Deu_32:34; Psa_90:8). Beset] as fetters and witnesses against them (Psa_9:16; Pro_5:22).
Hos_7:3. Lies] People conformed to wicked laws and seductive rites of kings and princes; flattered and pleased them with applause and immoralities (Act_12:13).
HOMILETICS
A SAD DISCOVERY.—Hos_7:1
The exposure of moral depravity is continued. The efforts of God to heal are frustrated by the disease. Greater iniquity is discovered. The grace of God is turned into lasciviousness.
I. A disease malignant in its working.
1. It was secretly hidden. It broke out in one place when the physician was curing another. “When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered.” Sin is never hid from God. It lies concealed in the heart of man, and only waits for a chance to break out in acts. “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.”
2. It was openly violent. The thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. They were infested with thieves within and spoiled by foreign invaders from without. Wounded afresh day by day. No place was secure and free from sin. Secret sins indulged in become stronger and more violent in their manifestations. Spots break out in the character and errors in the life, like some malignant humour in the body. The body is robbed of its beauty, the mind of its vigour, and the life spoiled in its influence and end.
II. A disease complicated in its symptoms. Within and without, politically and religiously, the disease was spreading.
1. There was falsehood toward God. “For they commit falsehood.” Falsehood in their worship and profession, in their principles and practices. They said they were willing to be healed and to be ruled by God: “nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues.”
2. There was treachery toward man. Take away the fear of God and there will be no regard to man. “He cannot be faithful to me who is unfaithful to God,” said the father of Constantine the Great. Religion is the basis and cement of society. If we throw off fidelity to truth and God, what is there to bridle passion and check corruption? Treachery destroys all principles of confidence and security by which society is bound together. The Romans even disdained to practise it towards their enemies. How disgraceful for a Christian people to be guilty of it. “Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?”
III. A disease incurable in its nature. “When I would have healed”—by the teachings of the prophets and the chastisements of Providence—“they would not hearken nor be amended.” The disease defied all remedy, was more irritated by it and laid open in its extent and malignity. Many distempered churches and afflicted nations neglect the hopeful crisis, then go from bad to worse, and never get cured. Their wickedness is incorrigible and their disease incurable. When once inwardly rotten and corrupt, the foulness will break out and be externally visible. No earthly physician can sew up or heal the wound. Death in the body can never be cured. There is no death so sad and momentous in its results as the death of things which die within. “The greatest epoch in a man’s life is by no means the day of his physical death, but the day in which he died to something more important to him than the whole world.” “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed; forsake her.”
DIVINE REMEMBRANCE OF SIN.—Hos_7:2-3
God saw the wickedness of Israel. All things are naked and opened before him. The manifold and intricate ways of sin, with their surroundings and consequences, are known to him. “They are before my face.”
I. God remembers the sins of men. “I remembered all their wickedness.” These words are full of awful truth, confirmed by Scripture and every-day experience. God is omnipresent; beholds us everywhere; and we can never sin with security. If I wished to escape inspection, “whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” God is omniscient, having infinite and intimate knowledge of the affairs of men. He needs no light to discern sin, but the light of his countenance. Our open transgressions and secret sins are before his face. “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.” But this knowledge is remembrance. Not that God ever forgets. Though punishment does not always immediately follow transgression, yet the sin itself is not forgotten or buried in oblivion. God sees and knows it. Men may wink at sin and forget it, but God never does. God’s remembrance is—
1. Minute,—even the most secret things are known to him.
2. Constant,—“remember” continually.
3. Individual,—“their wickedness.”
4. Universal,—“all their wickedness.”
III. Men think that God is indifferent to their sins. “They consider not in their hearts.” They forget God, and think that God forgets them. “They say, The Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.”
1. Men forget God in their thoughts. “They consider not.” If they acknowledge him in words, they do not wish to have him near to them. They do not speak to their own hearts, nor listen to the voice of conscience within. The young and old, the rich and poor, the gay and busy, shun acquaintance with him—put him in the background of life, and curtain him out of sight lest he should trouble them. They desire not the knowledge of his ways, wish to remain ignorant, and say, “Depart from us.” A French philosopher even declared, “that the first duty of an intelligent and free man is to chase incessantly from the mind and conscience the idea of God.” Practical atheism abounds now in the world. Men abandon faith in the unseen and spiritual, and virtually say, No God. “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God, God is not in all his thoughts.”
2. Men disregard God in their ways. If God is not in our thoughts he will not be in our ways. Conduct results from thoughts, as fruit from a tree. Thought may not always be embodied in deed; may inadequately be represented by a man’s life; but the connection of one with the other is like cause and effect. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” “There are many devices in a man’s heart” which lead him to act independently and forgetfully of God. Scientific men talk of “generative powers,” “vital energies,” and “eternal laws.” We have the designs of Balak and Balaam, of Haman and Herod. Men take no account of God in their daily duties and avocations, their plans and pursuits. Self is their oracle. and self their counsellor, “for they have perverted their way and forgotten the Lord their God.”
III. When men disregard God in their ways, they become more wicked in their lives. Due regard to God is essential to the order and harmony of society. What a desolation would happen to a world without the knowledge of God! The French Revolution is a lesson to all nations in this respect. The results of idolatry have been sad in the extreme. Even among the chosen people, amid light and privileges, when God was forsaken, every barrier was removed. Falsehood and injustice, cruelty and sensuality, increased more and more. They gave full play to passions and lusts; perpetrated sins without fear or shame; and indulged in unbridled folly. Two things are specially pointed out.
1. The highest ranks were corrupted. “They made the king glad with their wickedness.” Those who should have been models of truth and virtue, encouraged the people to sin by their example and influence. Their unjust laws and customs were eagerly obeyed; they were pleased with the flattery, made glad with the homage of the people. In pomp and unbounded arrogance they proceeded further in sins, like Herod; and not only did the same, but had pleasure in them that did them.
2. The lowest ranks were servile. “And the princes with their lies.” An unhappy complaisance was the ruling character of Israel. Their consciences were versatile and accommodating to the circumstances of the day. They approved and followed whatever was commanded by those in power; acquiesced in legalized idolatry, and preferred their kings to their God. They pleased the king, but they were not sincere. They flattered the prince, but they lied in their hearts. They conformed to the customs, but cursed the persons of their rulers. Even now, men bow in homage to those who crush them to poverty; lose their manhood by worshipping the rich and the mighty. “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.” Wicked sovereigns and wicked people are a curse to each other. When kings and princes are corrupted the people will be corrupted. Ahab preferred falsehood to truth, and was surrounded by lying prophets. “Lies will be told to those that are ready to hearken to them.” The sinful ruler is a tool for all kinds of wickedness. He drives the godly from his presence, and ever finds those that minister to his folly. “If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked” (Pro_29:12).
ENCIRCLED IN SIN.—Hos_7:2
If the sinner pays no regard to reason and the All-seeing eye of God, he cannot hide his sins. They will chain and imprison him, go with him and encircle him at all times. His sins become a constant torment and a deadly punishment. “Now their own doings have beset them about.” The sinner is beset—
I. By the sting of conscience. He seeks to hide his sins, but conscience detects them, brings them to remembrance, and accuses him of guilt. The consciousness of sin haunts him continually, and his sin is ever before him.
II. By the force of habit. Sin by repetition grows into habit. Habit becomes a ruling power, and cannot be given up easily. “A rooted habit,” says Tillotson, “becomes a governing principle. Every lust we entertain deals with us as Delilah did with Samson; not only robs us of our strength, but leaves us fast bound.”
III. By the influence of example. The doings of men live before them in their effects upon others. They cannot die, but they encircle them in the bands of associates and companions. Example is repeated and imitated by others; goes forth with self-propagating power, and may descend from one generation to another. “The evil that men do lives after them.”
IV. By the consequences of natural law. Punishment follows sin by a natural law, the law of causation. Even now men are encircled by their own doings, in loss of health and position; in decay of intellect and disorders of mind; in the torments of conscience and the tyranny of habit; in misery, despair, and death. In the future, punishment awaits the sinner. “Is not this laid up in store with me and sealed up among my treasures? “Unless repented of, and washed in the blood of Christ, sins are destined to be cited against the sinner. In time and eternity “his own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 7
Hos_7:1. If we had eyes like those of God, we should think very differently of ourselves. The transgressions which we see and confess are but like the farmer’s small sample which he brings to market, when he has left his granary full at home. We have but a few sins which we can observe and detect, compared with those which are hidden from ourselves and unseen by our fellow-creatures [Spurgeon].
Hos_7:2. Habits. As impossible as it is for a blackamoor to cast away his skin and to become white, and for a leopard to put away his spots; so impossible is it for them that ensnare themselves, and accustom themselves with evil doing, to change their custom and do well [Cawdry].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. Look at the fact of God’s remembrance of…
Hos 7:2
I. Look at the fact of God’s remembrance of sin. (1) God remembers all kinds and degrees of sin; secret and open, wilful and negligent. (2) God remembers the sins of all men; the sins of the young and of the aged, of the well-known citizen and of the stranger. (3) God remembers the sins of all men accurately and completely. (4) God remembers continually and for ever. (5) God remembers with a practical result; He remembers thai He may act upon His recollections. He remembers as a Ruler, and He either forgives or He punishes.
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II. Look at this fact as forgotten by those who, ought to remember it. "They consider not in their hearts;" they do not think. Lack of thought often accounts for lack of religion.
III. Turn to God’s complaint of this forgetfulness. God complains of the state of the heart. God complains of forgetfulness; and why? Because it sears the conscience, leads to false views of a man’s position, is personally offensive to God, and is frequently the occasion of final ruin.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 4th series, No. 18.
Hos 7:8
There is something in the character of some men which resembles a burnt loaf: a cake left too long with one side exposed to the fire till it has caught and been scorched, while the other side is still mere dough.
The character described is easily legible. It is that in which there is a too-much and a too-little. Every part of the mind and life—the principles, the affections, the temper, and the spirit; the motives and conduct, the feelings towards God and the feelings towards man—ought to be alike and equally influenced by the presence of the Holy Spirit within. The cake is imperfectly mixed, imperfectly leavened, or imperfectly baked if it be not so. It is the want of this unity, this coherence and consistency of parts, this combination and harmony of all elements in one whole, which makes the words true of any human character, "Ephraim is a cake not turned."
I. There is, first, the case which the context seems to point to; an inconsistency arising from too much of voluntary intermixture with the world.
II. Or again, there is the still sadder case, if it be possible, of one who is tied and bound by the chain of some evil habit.
III. How applicable is the description of the text to some characters to which we can scarcely deny the title of religious; some which, perhaps, most confidently arrogate that title to themselves. How often have we seen in such persons zeal without tenderness; energy without repose; eagerness for what they deem truths, without charity towards those whom they count in error.
IV. And if applicable thus far to Christian men, what shall we say of the bearing of the subject upon persons who have not yet taken a decisive step towards Christ’s service. In many of them conscience is at variance with practice, conviction with conduct. You will never be really happy until your life is at one. Unity is happiness, and unity is strength. If you see that the Lord is God, follow Him; follow Him whithersoever He goeth.
C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of Life and Godliness, p. 65.
References: Hos 7:8.—Spurgeon, Morning, by Morning, p. 175; J. Baines, Sermons, p. 100.
Hos 7:9
Gray hairs are a sign of decay. They are here the marks of age, the premonitory symptoms of dissolution; and so the truth the text announces is that men, many men, live in ignorance, and act in disregard, of signs that should warn and alarm them.
In illustration of this I remark—
I. It appears in the history of states. The words were first spoken of the kingdom of Israel. In the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy, in the corruption of morals and the decline of true religion the prophet saw the signs of his country’s decay,—these were the gray hairs that were here and there upon them, and they knew not. Kingdoms, as well as men and women in decline, stricken with a mortal malady, have descended into the grave, blind to their dangers and their doom. (2) My text applies to the false security of sinners. Be our profession what it may, if we have habits if sin—these are the gray hairs that, unless grace convert and mercy pardon, foretell our doom. So long as you see one star in the sky, the sun is not risen; so long as one leak admits the water, the ship is not safe; so long as one sin reigns in a man’s heart, and is practised in his life, Jesus is neither his Saviour nor his King. The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. (3) This appears in men’s insensibility to the lapse and lessons of time. The nearer we draw to our end, through a natural callousness or otherwise, the less sensible we grow to the evils and approach of age. And when a man has not left his peace with God to seek in old age, his greatest work to a time when he is least fit to do it: in such a case it is a most blessed thing that old age does not make our hearts old, or benumb our feelings—that gray hairs are on us, and yet we know not. But where, in such a case, is the hope of those who have trusted to turning religious when they grow old, and attending to the concerns of a better world when they have ceased to feel any interest in this?
T. Guthrie, Speaking to the Heart, p. 1.
How comes it that a man may slip away from earnestness in the Christian life, into a condition of spiritual decrepitude, without knowing it?
I. Because we are all inclined to look more favourably on ourselves than on others. The man who is himself declining in spiritual health may be, very often is, blind to his own defections, while yet he has a clear perception of the backsliding of others. How shall this evil be prevented? By trying ourselves fairly by the standard of God’s Word, and by laying ourselves open in earnest supplication to the inspection of the Lord Himself.
II. This insensibility to spiritual deterioration may be largely owing to the gradual way in which backsliding steals upon a man. No one becomes very wicked all at once; and backsliding, as the term itself implies, is a thing not of sudden manifestation, but of gradual motion. We shall know where we are when we test ourselves by the Word of God, as that has been vindicated for us by the example and the spirit of the Lord Jesus. Let us not compare ourselves simply with that which we were yesterday, or last week, or last year; but let us rather take daily sights of the Sun of Righteousness, and shape our course accordingly.
III. This unconsciousness of backsliding may be largely accounted for in many cases by the fact that the individuals are absorbed in other matters to such an extent that the state of the heart is forgotten. Just in proportion as their business prosperity increases their spiritual health diminishes. Here, again, the question arises, How is this danger to be obviated? And the answer is, In one of two ways: either (1) by curtailing the business, or (2) by consecrating it as a whole to God.
W. M. Taylor, Limitations of Life, p. 327.
References: Hos 7:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 830; H. M. Arthur, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 282; Parker, Pulpit Notes, p. 73.
Hos 7:14
I. The grand motive which should influence the sinner in turning to God is love to the kind and gracious Father, who has so long borne with his waywardness; and a sincere desire to promote His glory.
II. A reliance on a deathbed repentance implies a doubt of the declarations of the Bible, that God expects us to walk before Him during the days of our earthly pilgrimage in holiness and righteousness.
III. It is a prominent feature in the great plan of redemption, that we should openly acknowledge our allegiance to God, by becoming a member of His Church. If all should look to a deathbed repentance, the very groundwork of the system of faith would be overturned.
IV. Besides faith and repentance, habitual obedience is required of every one who truly turns to God. Is a deathbed the place we should choose to root out sinful passions and desires, subdue habits indulged in for years, and form plans for amendment of life? If we ever intend to save our souls, we should set about it now.
J. N. Norton, Old Paths, p. 172.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Corruption of the Court
Corruption of the Court
In this chapter the tone again becomes despondent. How can Israel be saved when her iniquity is so deep, so glaring, so obstinate? Samaria is especially instanced as the centre of a wicked and corrupt government sustained by a lawless people and false teachers. Hosea dwells chiefly on some plot which ended in regicide and the reliance on foreign powers which meant want of faith in God.
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2. They fail to realise how patent in God's sight their iniquity is, while they attempt to combine a profession of religion with sins of the worst type. Now they are 'holden with the cords of their sins' (Pro_5:22).
3. They induced their rulers not only to connive at, but to take part with delight in their wicked practices.
4. The fire of lust is likened to a baker's oven. But the simile seems also to include the passion of anger which worked in the heart and produced acts of violence, such as regicide.
5-7. A scene from the palace. The king carouses with his courtiers, who have formed a plot against him, and wait the fitting moment to rise and put him to death. It would appear that Hosea has in his mind the assassination of a king at a feast, or just after a feast, in the early morning. The case is perhaps that of Zechariah, son of Jeroboam II (see Intro.).
5. The day.. king] some royal feast, probably the king's birthday. Have.. wine] RV 'made themselves sick with the heat of wine.' By their drunken carouse they heaped up fuel on the fire of their malicious hate. He stretched out] i.e. in hospitality. The hand is stretched out by the host to offer the cup to his guests. Scorners] those who in their heart despise the king and are ever plotting his death.
6. Their baker] Perhaps we should follow the LXX, etc., and read, 'their anger.' Their anger sleeping would mean that they manage to control it, until it can work with effect. If we keep the reading 'baker,' it will mean that just as the baker sleeps when once he has made up his fire and heated his oven ready for use in the morning, so they wait for the morning to execute their purpose.
7. Judges.. kings] whatever definite event the prophet has in his mind this describes the general character of the northern kingdom, a restless disloyalty to kings and rulers. The only dynasties of any duration were those of Omri and Jehu. None.. calleth unto me] Irreligion lay at the root of this constant disloyalty.
8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people] RV 'the peoples' or nations. Another fault, and another evidence of a want of patriotism, the tendency to court foreign alliances and foreign influences, such as was seen in the policy of Menahem with reference to Tiglath-pileser (2Ki_15:19). A cake not turned] which is therefore burnt on one side, and half raw on the other, and so spoilt.
9. Strangers.. strength] the natural consequence of seeking help from a foreign alliance, which meant the exaction of what was practically tribute, and consequently heavy taxation (2Ki_15:20). Israel did not realise that these signified the beginning of national decrepitude, just as grey hairs here and there are the first signs of old age.
10. The pride.. face] see on Hos_5:5. He is so besotted with pride that he recognises neither the evil itself nor its true remedy.
11. A silly dove] As the dove flies helplessly one way and another, so Israel turns to one power after another, only eventually to make enemies of both. The only recorded alliance with Egypt was that of Hoshea (2Ki_17:4); but it was a common policy of Judah, and is frequently condemned by the prophets. There was a natural temptation to play off Egypt against Assyria, and such an alliance may have been already projected by those opposed to Menahem's action. Heart] RV 'understanding,' as in Hos_4:11.
12. They shall go] i.e. for help. This courting of alliances will inevitably, by God's providence, end in their destruction. The metaphor of the dove suggests that of the fowler. Jehovah will through their own folly lure them to their ruin. As their congregation hath heard] Hosea had warned them beforehand of what was to befall.
14. Howled.. beds] Their prayers do not proceed from any reverential fear of God. They are like the howling of an animal from pain. They cry out because they are in trouble, but their prayers are for material blessings, and they are still rebellious at heart: cp. Job_35:9. They assemble themselves] i.e. meet in religious exercises, but RM has 'cut themselves,' referring to heathen practices in time of tribulation: cp. 1Ki_18:28.
15. Bound] RV 'taught,' by chastisement.
16. They return, etc.] Their turning is ever farther away from God. Their princes shall fall] As a punishment for their insolence they would perish amidst the derision of the very people whose aid they had sought: see Hos_7:11.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The Moral Depravity of Israel
CHAPTER 7
The Moral Depravity of Israel
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1. Their moral depravity (Hos 7:1-7)
2. Mingling with heathen nations (Hos 7:8-16)
Hos 7:1-7. All the gracious efforts of the Lord to heal Israel resulted in a greater manifestation of the iniquity of Ephraim. Instead of turning to Him in true repentance and self-judgment their evil heart turned away from Jehovah, and they continued in their downward course. They did not consider that the Lord would remember all their evil deeds and punish them for it. The king and the princes, the political heads were as corrupt as the priests, they were pleased with the impenitence and wickedness of their subjects. Then follows a graphic description of their moral depravity. They were adulterers, burning with lust, “like an oven heated by the baker, who rests, stirring up (the fire), after he has kneaded the dough until it be leavened.” They indulged in all the vile, obscene practices connected with the idol worship of the heathen about them. They were also drunkards and were heated with wine as they were with lust. They made their heart like an oven; their baker (meaning their own evil will and imagination) slept all night, but, awakening in the morning, their lust is stirred up again. Nor did anyone call upon the name of the Lord.
Such was the moral depravity of a people with whom the Lord had entered into covenant, the favored nation. The source of it was unbelief and the rejection of His Word. The sad history of Israel is repeated in professing Christendom today.
Hos 7:8-16. The Lord called Israel to be a separated nation, but Ephraim mingled with the heathen (not, people) and is compared to a cake not turned. They adopted heathen ways, heathen manners and heathen vices. Like an unturned cake, which is black and burnt on the one side, while above it is unbaked, such was Ephraim’s condition. Such a cake was fit for nothing; it had to be thrown away. The strangers with whom they mingled devoured their strength, nor did they not notice the signs of their speedy national decay. This is the meaning of the statement, “Gray hairs are here and there upon him, and he does not know it.” Furthermore, Ephraim is likened to a silly dove without understanding. Instead of flying back to Jehovah their help and rest, they fluttered, like a moth around the flame, around Egypt and Assyria, trying to find deliverance there. But while fluttering from Egypt to Assyria and from Assyria to Egypt, they did not see the net which was spread for their destruction--that net was Assyria itself. In this net the Lord caught them; their freedom would be ended and captivity begin. Then follows the divine Woe. “Woe unto them! for they have wandered from Me. Destruction upon them, that they have transgressed against Me!” The divine lament cried after them, “I would have redeemed them, but they spoke lies against Me.” While they may have cried with their mouth, their heart did not. They were like a deceitful bow on which the archer cannot depend, so the Lord could not depend upon Israel. God had, to apply the symbol, bent Israel as His own bow against evil and idolatry, but they turned themselves against Him.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Moral Corruption of Israel
The Moral Corruption of Israel
v. 1. When I would have healed Israel, when the Lord attempted to remove their corruption, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, it became known openly, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, so that intercourse became impossible because no man could trust the other; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without, so that no traveler was sure of his life.
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v. 2. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness, that it is known and recorded in the book of God’s remembrances; now their own doings have beset them about, like mountains hedging them in on every hand; they are before My face, making it impossible to ignore them.
v. 3. They, the criminals of every type, make the king glad with their wickedness and the princes with their lies, a fact which shows that the highest ranks of the people were infested with the corruption.
v. 4. They are all adulterers, the spiritual and moral condition of the entire people being the very lowest, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising, that is, from heating the oven further, after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. The adulterous and idolatrous lust of the people was inflamed to such an extent that it was like a baker’s oven which was already at such an extreme heat that he could omit adding more fuel while the fermentation of his bread was finished.
v. 5. In the day of our king, his birthday or the day of his inauguration, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine, or, "the princes became ill with the heat of the wine"; he stretched out his hand with scorners, accepting their company with a ready spirit, making them his boon companions, so that everything which men hold sacred was dragged in the dust.
v. 6. For they have made ready their heart like an oven whiles they lie in wait, that is, as men bring fuel for an oven, so they have brought their hearts into their cunning; their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. The baker is the ringleader, who inspires passion, who starts the conspiracy; the night provides a time of rest, so that the passion of idolatry, which burns throughout, may break forth with new strength and fierceness after the interval. When the evil thoughts of their hearts have fully matured, when they find time and opportunity for the execution of their plans, then they carry them out with eagerness.
v. 7. They are all hot as an oven, aflame with the various passions to which they have yielded themselves, and have devoured their judges, their magistrates; all their kings are fallen, the references probably being to the time when the last kings of Israel, Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah, followed one another in quick succession. There is none among them that calleth unto Me; for even the great calamities in which they found themselves did not cause them to repent.
v. 8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people, by entering into friendships with heathen nations, adopting their ways and serving their idols. Ephraim is a cake not turned, like a pancake burned on the lower side, while the upper side is not yet done. The entire cake is then not fit for eating.
v. 9. Strangers have devoured his strength, partly on account of the wars waged against Israel, partly as a consequence of the heathen ways which had been adopted in the northern kingdom, and he knoweth it not, he was not even aware of his unfortunate condition; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, signs of the approaching national dissolution; yet he knoweth not, being blind to all evidences of the inevitable end.
v. 10. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face, Cf Hos 5:5, and they do not return to the Lord, their God, nor seek Him for all this. The situation was like that of which also other prophets complain when they state that the people have become hardened to the chastising hand of the Lord. Cf Isa 9:13; Jer 5:3.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh is speaking.
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I want to heal Israel
Making Israel obedient to God again and receivers of his blessing is spoken of as if it were healing. (See: Metaphor)
for they practice deceit
The people are selling and buying products dishonestly. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
marauding band
This is a group of people who are attacking other people without cause.
their deeds surround them
The people's evil deeds are probably spoken of here as if they were other people ready to accuse them of their crimes. (See: Metaphor)
they are before my face
Here God is represented by his "face" which emphasizes his presence and awareness. AT: "and I see it all" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
cure
Israel
sin
Ephraim
evil
works
Samaria
heart
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 7 7:1-2 I want to heal Israel: God’s overwhelming desire…
7:1-2 I want to heal Israel: God’s overwhelming desire was to heal Israel’s harlotry (see 14:4) and restore her to right relationship with him, but she was filled with liars, thieves, and bandits. • The Israelites might have thought that the Lord was unaware of their sins, but he was watching them, and he saw everything they did.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.