“Put the trumpet to your lips! Something like an eagle is over Yahweh’s house, because they have broken my covenant, and rebelled against my law.
They cry to me, ‘My God, we Israel acknowledge you!’
Israel has cast off that which is good. The enemy will pursue him.
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 themselves idols, that they may be cut off.
Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity?
For this is even from Israel! The workman made it, and it is no God; indeed, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.
For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.
Israel is swallowed up. Now they are among the nations like a worthless thing.
For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself.
But although they sold themselves among the nations, I will now gather them; and they begin to waste away because of the oppression of the king of mighty ones.
Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they became for him altars for sinning.
I wrote for him the many things of my law; but they were regarded as a strange thing.
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, and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt.
For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its fortresses.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–14 Interpreters nearly all agree in this, that the Prophet…
Interpreters nearly all agree in this, that the Prophet threatens not the kingdom of Israel, but the kingdom of Judah, at the beginning of this chapter, because he names the house of God, which they take to be the temple. I indeed allow, that the Prophet has spoken already, in two places, of the kingdom of Judah, but as it were in passing. He has, it is true, introduced some reproofs and threatening, but so that the distinction was quite clear; and we see that he now goes to the kingdom of Judah, but in the second verse, he names Israel, and yet continues his discourse. To thy mouth, he says, the trumpet, etc.; and afterwards he adds, To me shall they cry, My God; we know thee, Israel. Here, certainly, the discourse is addressed to the ten tribes. I am therefore by no means induced to explain the beginning of the chapter by applying it to the kingdom of Judah: and I certainly do wonder that interpreters have mistaken in a matter so trifling; for the house of God means not only the temple, but also the whole people. As Israel retained this boast, that they were a people holy to God, and that they were his family, he says, “Put or set the trumpet to thy mouth, and proclaim the war, which is now nigh at hand; for the enemy hastens, who is to attack the house of God, that is, this holy people, who cover themselves with the name of God, and who, trusting in their election and adoption, think that they shall be free from all evils; war shall come as an eagle against this house of God.”
Had the Prophet added any thing which could be referred peculiarly to the kingdom of Judah, I should willingly accede to their opinion, who think that the house of God is the sanctuary. But let the whole context be read, and any one may easily perceive, that the Prophet speaks of Israel no less in the first verse than in the second and third. For, as it has been said, he lays down no difference, but pursues throughout his teaching or discourse in the same strain.
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He says first, A trumpet to thy mouth, or, “Set to thy mouth the trumpet.” It is an exhibition, (hypotyposis;) for we know that God, in order to affect more powerfully the people, clothes his Prophets with various characters. The Prophet then is introduced here as a herald who proclaims war, or a messenger, or by whatever name you may be pleased to call him. Here then the Prophet is commanded, not to speak with his mouth, but to show by the trumpet that war was nigh, as though God himself by his trumpet declared war against Israel, which was to be carried on soon after by earthly enemies. The enemies were soon after to come, and the herald was to come in the usual manner to declare war. The Greeks call them κηρρυκες, proclaimers, we say, “Les heraux“. As these earthly kings have their proclaimers, or κηρυκες, or heralds, or messengers, who proclaim war; so the Lord sends his Prophet with the usual charge to declare war: “Go then, and let the Israelites know, not now by thy mouth, but even by thy throat, by the sound of the trumpet, that I am an enemy to them, and that I am present with a strong army to destroy them.” It is indeed certain that the Prophet did not use a trumpet; but the Lord by this representations as I have already said increased the reality of what was taught that the Israelites might perceive, that it was not in sport or in play that the Prophet threatened them, but that it was done seriously, as though they now saw the heralds who was to proclaim war; for this was not usually done except when the army is already prepared for battle.
He then says, As an eagle against the house of Jehovah We have already said what the Prophet means by the house of Jehovah, even that people who thought that they would be exempt from every evil, because they had been adopted by the Lord. Hence the Israelites called themselves God’s household; and though under this cover, they impiously and profanely abandoned themselves to every kind of turpitude, yet they thought that they were on the best of terms with God himself. “There shall come,” he says, “a common ruin to you all; this boasting shall not prevent me from taking vengeance at last on your sins.” But he adds As an eagle, that the Israelites might not think that there was to be a long delay; for the impious procrastinate, when they see any danger at hand. Hence, that the Israelites might not continue torpid in their vices, the Prophet says, that the destruction of which he spoke would be like the eagle; for in a moment the eagle goes over an immense distance, and we wonder when we see it over our heads, though a little before it did not appear. So also the Prophet says, that destruction, though not yet seen, was however nigh at hand, that being smitten with terror, though now late, yet as the Lord was thus urging them, they might return to him.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13 God encourageth the Prophet to signify the speedy coming…
God encourageth the Prophet to signify the speedy coming of the enemy against Israel, which was once the people of God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–14 Hos 8:1 [Set] the trumpet to thy mouth. [He…
Hos 8:1 [Set] the trumpet to thy mouth. [He shall come] as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.
Ver. 1. Set the trumpet to thy mouth] Heb. The trumpet to thy palate. A hasty expression, an abrupt and imperfect speech, common with such as are moved with passions, of anger, grief, or fear, as Hos 5:8, "after thee, O Benjamin." God, though not subject to such perturbations, Jas 1:17, yet here aud elsewhere utters himself in this sort; to set forth the nearness of the people’s danger by the enemies’ approach; and the necessity of their return to him by true repentance, for the diversion of his displeasure. "Break off thy sins by righteousness," saith the prophet to Nebuchadnezzar; be abrupt in the work, cut the cart ropes of vanity, if "it may be a lengthening of the tranquillity," Dan 4:27. Take the bark from the tree, and the sap can never find the way to the boughs; get sin remitted, and punishment shall be removed. In this sermon of the prophet (which is much sharper than the former, and may seem to be one of the last, because God is so absolute in threatening, as if he meant to be resolute in punishing) there is (as one saith) peccatorum et poenarum συναθροισμος, a heaping together of sins and of punishments of many sorts; and the prophet commanded to give sudden warning of the enemy at hand, which is elegantly set forth by a military hypotyposis, or lively representation; as if it were now doing. "The trumpet to thy mouth," that is, set up thy note, and proclaim with a loud and clear voice, as Isa 58:1, cry in the throat (so the Chaldee hath it here), spare not, that none may say he was not warned; "lift up thy voice like a trumpet," that all may hear and fear, Amo 3:6, as people use to do when an alarm is sounded, or the bells are rung backward. See Hos 5:8. There they had been before alarmed, here reminded in brief; for the prophet is, as it were, monosyllabus, as one in haste; he uttereth amputatas sententias et verba ante expectatum cadentia, as Seneca somewhere hath it, broken sentences, concise but pithy periods.
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He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord] He, that is, the Assyrian; not Nebuchadnezzar, though the like is said of him, Eze 17:3; Eze 17:7; much less the Romans (as Lyra interpreteth this text of the last destruction of Jerusalem, because the eagle was their ensign); but Pul, Tiglathpileser, and Shalmaneser, who came against the ten tribes as an eagle, to waste, spoil, and carry captive speedily, impetuously, irresistibly; as 2Ki 15:19; 2Ki 15:29; 2Ki 17:3; 2Ki 18:19 Lam 4:19. The eagle is the strongest and swiftest of birds, and feareth no obstacle, either from other fowl, or wind, or thunderbolt, as Pliny afflrmeth (Plin. lib. x. 3). Nebuchadnezzar is not only compared to an eagle (as before is noted), but to a lion with eagle’s wings, Dan 7:4, that is, with invincible armies, that march with incredible swiftness. And all this was long since forethreatened, Deu 28:49, "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth"; to which text the prophet here seemeth to allude; as indeed all the prophets do but comment upon Moses, and draw out that arras, which was folded together by him before.
Against the house of the Lord] That is, the house of Israel, called God’s house, Num 12:7 Heb 3:5, and God’s land, Hos 9:3; Hos 9:15, and their commonwealth is by Josephus called a theocracy. And although they were now become apostates, yet they gloried no less than before to be of the stock of Abraham, and of the family of faith; like as the Turks call themselves at this day Mussulmans, that is, the true and right believers; especially after they are circumcised, which is not done till they be past ten years of age; following the example of Ishmael, whom they imitate and honour as their progenitor; alleging that Abraham loved him, and not Isaac, and that it was Ishmael whom Abraham would have sacrificed.
Because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed] Sin is the mother of misery; and the great makebate between God and his creature. It moves him when we ask bread and fish to feed us, {as Hos 8:2} to answer us with a stone to bruise us, or a serpent to bite us. The sin of this people was the more heinous, because they were covenanters, and confederate with God. It was his covenant that was in their flesh, Gen 17:13, and he had betrothed them to himself, and betrusted them with his oracles, "but they like men transgressed the covenant, and dealt treacherously against him," Hos 6:7, {See Trapp on "Hos 6:7"} they performed not the "stipulation of a good conscience toward God," 1Pe 3:21.
They trespassed against his law] As if it had not been holy, and just, and good, precious, perfect, and profitable; grounded upon so much good reason, that if God had not commanded it, yet it had been best for us to have practised it. Isa 48:17, "I am the Lord that teacheth thee to profit, &c. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments!" &c. q.d. It is for thy profit, and not for mine own, that I have given thee a law to live by. But they have trespassed, or prevaricated; and this out of pride and malice, as the word signifieth; and as before he had oft convinced them of many particulars, and more will do, therefore are they justly punished.
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 vv1–14 He; the king of Assyria, Shalmaneser, who carried Israel…
He; the king of Assyria, Shalmaneser, who carried Israel captive.
As an eagle; swift, hungry, surmounting all difficulties, and which from above seizeth his prey; so shall the Assyrian army come.
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Against; or up to, as far as, so some, but it is better as here,
against. The house of the Lord; either so called because the Israelites pretended their temples were not idols’ houses, but houses of Jehovah, and so the prophet for once calls them so, perhaps to intimate to that their sins would bring an enemy against those though they were indeed what they pretend them to be, the house of the Lord; or else by
house of the Lord is meant the family of Israel, or the Israelitish church, which till unchurched might be called the house of the Lord: or it may be a sarcasm or irony against their wilful, brutish ignorance, who would not understand what was most plain, that his house was only at Jerusalem; or a softer derision of them, one of whose principal places of worship was Beth-el, which in signification is near the same with this in the text, house of God.
They have transgressed my covenant; taken other gods instead of me, turned idolaters.
Trespassed against my law: this explains and confirms the former; covenant and law are synonymous, and so are transgressing and trespassing. They have violated the whole law and covenant, and are apostates from their God, rebels against him their King.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 The reproofs and threatenings here are introduced with an…
The reproofs and threatenings here are introduced with an order to the prophet to set the trumpet to his mouth (Hos 8:1), thus to call a solemn assembly, that all might take notice of what he had to deliver and take warning by it. He must sound an alarm, must, in God's name, proclaim war with this rebellious nation. An enemy is coming with speed and fury to seize their land, and he must awaken them to expect it. Thus the prophet must do the part of a watchman, that was by sound of trumpet to call the besieged to stand to their arms, when he saw the besiegers making their attack, Eze 33:3. The prophet must lift up his voice like a trumpet (Isa 58:1), and the people must hearken to the sound of the trumpet, Jer 6:17. Now,
I. Here is a general charge drawn up against them as sinners, as rebels and traitors against their sovereign Lord. 1. They have transgressed my covenant, Hos 8:1. They have not only transgressed the command (every sin does that), but they have transgressed the covenant; they have been guilty of such sins as break the original contract; they have revolted from their allegiance, and violated the marriage-covenant by their spiritual whoredom; they have, in effect, declared that they will be no longer God's people, nor take him for their God; that is transgressing the covenant. They have not only done foolishly, but have dealt deceitfully. 2. They have trespassed against my law in many particular instances. God's law is the rule by which we are to walk; and this is the malignity of sin, that it trespasses upon the bounds set us by that law. 3. They have cast off the thing that is good. They have put away and rejected good, that is, God himself; so some understand it, and very fitly. He is good, and does good, and is our goodness. There is none good but one, that is God, the fountain of all good. They have cast him off, as not desiring to have any thing more to do with him. God was abandoning them to ruin, and here gives the reason for it. Note, God never casts off any till they first cast him off. Or, as we read it, They have cast off the thing that is good; they have cast off the service and worship of God, which is, in effect, casting God off. They have cast off that which denominates men good; they have cast off the fear of God, and the regard of man, and all sense of virtue and honesty. Observe, They have transgressed my covenant; it has come to this at last; for they trespassed against my law. Breaking the command made way for breaking the covenant; and they did that, for they cast off that which was good; there it began first. They left off to be wise and to do good, and then they went all to naught, Psa 36:3. See the method of apostasy; men first cast off that which is good; then those omissions make way for commissions; and frequent actual transgressions of God's law bring men at length to an habitual renunciation of his covenant. When men cast off praying, and hearing, and sabbath-sanctification, and other things that are good, they are in the high road to a total forsaking of God.
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II. Here are general threatenings of wrath and ruin for their sin: The enemy shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, and (Hos 8:3) shall pursue him. If by the house of the Lord we understand the temple at Jerusalem, by the eagle that comes against it we must suppose to be meant either Sennacherib, who had taken all the fenced cities of Judah, laid siege to Jerusalem (and, no doubt, aimed at the house of the Lord, to lay that waste, as he had done the temples of the gods of other nations), or Nebuchadnezzar, who burnt the temple and made a prey of the vessels of the temple. But, if we make it to point at the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes by the king of Assyria, we must reckon it is the body of that people which as Israelites, to whom pertained the adoption, the glory, and the covenants, is here called the house of the Lord. They thought their being so would be their protection; but the prophet is directed to tell them that now they had lost the life and spirit of their religion, though they still retained the name and form of it, they were but as a carcase to which the eagles and other birds of prey should be gathered together. The enemy shall pursue them as an eagle, so swiftly, so strongly, so furiously. Note, Those who break their covenant of friendship with God expose themselves to the enmity of all about them, to whom they make themselves a cheap and easy prey; and their having been the house of the Lord, and his living temples, will be no excuse nor refuge to them. See Amo 3:2.
III. Here is the people's hypocritical claim of relation to God, when they were in trouble and distress (Hos 8:2): Israel shall cry unto me; when either they are threatened with these judgments, and would plead an exemption, or when the judgments are inflicted on them and they apply to God for relief, pouring out a prayer when God's chastening is upon them, they will plead that among them God is known and his name is great (Psa 76:1) and in their distress will pretend to that knowledge of God's ways which in their prosperity they desired not, but despised. They will then cry unto God, will call him their God, and (as impudent beggars) will tell him they are well acquainted with him, and have known him long. Note, There are many who in works deny God, and disown him, yet, to serve a turn, will profess that they know him, that they know more of him than some of their neighbours do. But what stead will it stand a man in to be able to say, My God, I know thee, when he cannot say, "My God, I love thee," and "My God, I serve thee, and cleave to thee only?"
IV. Here is the prophet's expostulation with them, in God's name (Hos 8:5): How long will it be ere they attain to innocency? It is not meant of absolute innocency (that is what the guilty can never attain to); but how long will it be ere they repent and reform, ere they become innocent in this matter, and free from the sin of idolatry? They are wedded to their idols; how long will it be ere they are weaned from them, ere they are able to get clear of them? so it might be rendered. This intimates that custom in sin makes it very difficult for men to part with it. It is hard to cleanse from that filthiness, either of flesh or spirit, which has been long wallowed in. But God speaks as if he thought the time long till sinners cast away their iniquities and come to live a new life. He complains of their obstinacy; it is that which keeps his anger against them burning, which would soon be turned away if they did but attain to innocency from those sins that kindled it. They in trouble cry, How long will it be ere God return to us in a way of mercy? but they do not hear him ask, How long will it be ere they return to God in a way of duty?
V. Here are some particular sins which they are charged with, are convicted of the folly of, and warned of the fatal consequences of, and for which God's anger is kindled against them.
1. In their civil affairs. They set up kings without God, and in contempt of him, Hos 8:4. So they did when they rejected Samuel, in whom the Lord was their king, and chose Saul, that they might be like the nations. So they did when they revolted from their allegiance to the house of David, and set up Jeroboam, wherein, though they fulfilled God's secret counsel, yet they aimed not at his glory, nor consulted his oracle, nor applied to him by prayer for direction, nor had any regard to his providence, but were led by their own humour and hurried on by the impetus of their own passions. So they did now about the time when Hosea prophesied, when it seems to have grown fashionable to set up kings, and depose them again, according as the contenders for the crown could make an interest, Kg2 15:8, etc. Note, We cannot expect comfort and success in our affairs when we go about them, and go on in them, without consulting God and acknowledge not him in all our ways: "They set up kings, and I knew it not, that is, I did not know it from them, they did not ask counsel at my mouth, whether they might lawfully do it or whether it would be best for them to do it, though they had prophets and oracles with whom they might have advised." They looked not to the Holy One of Israel, Isa 31:1. Nor did the princes do as Jephthah, who, before he took upon him the government, uttered all his words before the Lord in Mizpeh, Jdg 11:11. Note, Those that are entrusted with public concerns, and particularly with the election and nomination of magistrates, ought to take God along with them therein, by desiring his direction and designing his honour.
2. In their religious matters they did much worse; for they set up calves against God, in competition with him and contradiction to him. "Of their silver and their gold which God gave them, and multiplied to them, that they might serve and honour him with them, they have made them idols." They called them gods (Kg1 12:28, Behold thy gods, O Israel!) but God calls them idols; the word signifies griefs, or troubles, because they are offensive to God and will be ruining to those that worship them. Their silver and their gold they have made to them idols; so the words are, referring primarily to the images of their gods, which they made of gold and silver, especially the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Idolaters spare no cost in worshipping their idols. But they are very applicable to the spiritual idolatry of the covetous: Their silver and their gold are the gods they place their happiness in, set their hearts upon, to which they pay their homage, and in which they put their confidence. Now, to show them the folly of their idolatry, he tells them,
(1.) Whence their gods came. Trace them to their original, and they will be found the creatures of their own fancies and the work of their own hands, Hos 8:6. The calf they worshipped is here called the calf of Samaria, because it is probable that when Samaria, in Ahab's time, became the metropolis of the kingdom, a calf was set up there to be near the court, besides those at Dan and Bethel, or perhaps one of those was removed thither; for those that are for new gods will still be for newer. Now let them consider what this god of theirs owed its rise and being to. [1.] To their own invention and institution: From Israel was it also, not from the God of Israel (he expressly forbade it), but from Israel; it was a device of their own (some think), not borrowed from any of their neighbours, no, not from the Egyptians, for, though they worshipped Apis in a living cow, they never worshipped a golden calf; that was from Israel; it was their own iniquity. Now could that be worthy of their worship which was a contrivance of their own? It was from Israel, that is, the gold and silver of which it was made were collected from the people of Israel by a brief: it was a poor god that was framed by contribution. [2.] It was owing to the skill and labour of the craftsman, Deu 27:15. The workmen made it, therefore it is not God, Hos 8:6. This is a very cogent conclusive argument, and the inference so very plain that one would think their own thoughts should have suggested it to them, so as to make them ashamed of their idolatry. What can be more absurd than for men to worship that as a god, giving being and good to them, which they themselves gave being to (both matter and form), but could not give life to? A made god is no God. This is a self-evident truth; and yet St. Paul was accused as a criminal for preaching that those are no gods which are made with hands, Act 19:26. And, here, this which should have turned them from their idols comes in as a reason why they were inseparably wedded to them; therefore they could not attain to innocency because it was from themselves; they were willing to have gods of their own to do what they pleased with, that they themselves might do what they pleased.
(2.) What their gods would come to. If they are not gods, they will not last; nay, if they pretend to be gods, they will be reckoned with: The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces, and those that would not yield to the force of the former argument shall be convinced by this that it is not God, but an unprofitable idol, as the Chaldee calls it. It shall be broken to shivers, like a potter's vessel, though it be a golden calf. It shall be chips or saw-dust; it shall be a spider's web; so St. Jerome. It seems to allude to Moses's grinding to powder the golden calf that was in his time. This shall be served as that was. Sennacherib boasted what he had done to Samaria and her idols, Isa 10:11. Note, Deifying any creature makes way for the destruction of it. If they had made vessels and ornaments for themselves of their silver and gold, they might have remained; but, if they make gods of them, they shall be broken to pieces.
(3.) What their gods would bring them to. The breaking of them to pieces would be a disappointment to those who trusted in them. But that was not all: They have made to themselves idols, that they may be cut off (Hos 8:4), that their gold and silver, which they so abused, may be cut off (so some take it), nay, that they may themselves be cut off from God, from their own land, from the land of the living. Their idolatry will as certainly end in their extirpation as if they had purposely designed it. And, when this proves to be the effect of their sin, what relief will they have from the gods wherein they trusted? None at all: "Thy calf, O Samaria! has cast thee off; it cannot give thee any help in thy distress, and the pleasure thou now takest in it will vanish, and be no pleasure to thee." Those that were justly sent to the gods whom they had chosen found them miserable comforters, Jdg 10:14. If men will not quit the love and service of sin, yet they shall certainly lose all the delights and profits of it. If Samaria had continued firm and faithful to the God of Israel, he would have been a present powerful help to her; but the calf she preferred before him was a broken reed. The case will be the same with those that make their silver and their gold their god. It will cast them off, and not profit them in the day of wrath, Eze 7:12. Note, Those that suffer themselves to be deceived into any idolatries will certainly find themselves deceived in them. Cardinal Wolsey owned that if he had served his God as faithfully as he had served his prince he would not have cast him off, as his prince did, in his old age. Their disappointment in their idols is illustrated (Hos 8:7) by a similitude which intimates both that and the destruction which God brought upon them for their idolatry. [1.] They got no good to themselves by worshipping idols: They have sown the wind. They have put themselves to a great deal of trouble and expense to make and worship their idols, have made a business of it as much as the husbandman does of sowing his corn, in expectation of reaping some mighty advantage from it, and that they should be as prosperous and victorious as the neighbouring nations were, that worshipped idols. But it is all a cheat; it is like sowing the wind, which can yield no increase; they labour in vain, labour for the wind, Ecc 5:16. They take great pains to no purpose, and weary themselves for very vanity, Hab 2:13. Those that make an idol of this world do so; they set their eyes on that which is not, which, like the wind, makes a great noise, but has nothing substantial in it. [2.] They brought ruin upon themselves by it: They shall reap the whirlwind, a great whirlwind (so the word signifies), which shall hurry them away and dash them to pieces. They not only have not their false gods for them but they set the true God against them; their favour will stand them in no more stead than the wind, but his wrath will do them more mischief than a whirlwind. As a man sows, so shall he reap. "If it may be supposed that a man should sow the wind, and cover it with earth, or keep it there for a while penned up, what could he expect but that it should be forced by its being shut up, and the accession of what might increase its strength, to break forth again in greater quantities with greater violence?" So Dr. Pocock. They promise themselves plenty, peace, and victory, by worshipping idols, but their expectations come to nothing. What they sow never comes up; it has no stalk, no blade, or, if it have, the bud shall yield no meal; it shall be as the thin ears in Pharaoh's dream, that were blasted with the east wind, and there was nothing in them. Or if it yield, if they do prosper for a while in their idolatrous courses, the strangers shall swallow it up; it shall be so far from doing them any service that it shall be but as a bait to invite strangers to invade them, and as a spoil to enrich those strangers and enable them to do so much the more mischief. Note, The service of idols is an unprofitable service, and the works of darkness are unfruitful; nay, in the end they will be pernicious. Rom 6:21, The end of those things is death. Those that sow iniquity reap vanity: nay, those that sow to the flesh, reap corruption. The hopes of sinners will be cheats, and their gains will be snares.
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 vv1–14 Set the trumpet to thy mouth,.... Or, "the trumpet…
Set the trumpet to thy mouth,.... Or, "the trumpet to the roof of thy mouth" (t); a concise expression denoting haste, and the vehemence of the passions speaking; they are either the words of the Lord to the prophet, as the Targum,
"O prophet, cry with thy throat as with a trumpet, saying;''
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Aben Ezra take them to be the words of the Lord the prophet, and the sense agrees with Isa 58:1. The prophet is here considered as a watchman, and is called upon to blow his trumpet; either to call the people together, "as an eagle to the house of the Lord" (u), as the next clause may be connected with this; that is, to come as swiftly to the house of the Lord, and hear what he had to say to them, and to supplicate the Lord for mercy in a time of distress: or to give the people notice of the approach of the enemy, and tell them that
he shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord; "flying as an eagle over" (w) or "against the house of the Lord": or they are the words of the Lord, or of the prophet, to the enemy, to blow his trumpet, and sound the alarm of war, and call his army together, and bid them fly like an eagle, with that swiftness and fierceness as that creature does to its prey, against the house of the Lord; meaning not the temple at Jerusalem, but the nation of Israel, formerly called the house and family of God, and still pretended to be so. There may be some allusion to Bethel, which signifies the house of God, where they practised their idolatry. This is to be understood, not of Nebuchadnezzar, sometimes compared to an eagle, Eze 17:3; for not the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem is here meant; nor of the Romans, as Lyra seems to understand it, the eagle being the ensign of the Romans; but of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, compared to this creature for his swiftness in coming, his strength, fierceness, and cruelty; this creature being swift in flight, and a bird of prey. So the Targum interprets it of a king and his army,
"behold, as an eagle flieth, so shall a king with his army come up and encamp against the house of the sanctuary of the Lord.''
Some reference seems to be had to Deu 28:49;
because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law; the law that was given to Israel by Moses at the appointment of God, to which they assented, and promised to observes: and so it had the form of a covenant to them: the bounds of this law and covenant they transgressed, and dealt perfidiously with, and prevaricated in, and wilfully broke all its commands, by their idolatry, murder, adultery, theft, and other sins.
(t) "adhibita palato tuo buccina", Junius & Tremellius; "adhibe palato buccinam", De Dieu; "ad palatum tuum buccinam", Schmidt. (u) "similis aquilae in domum Jehovae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (w) "Super domum Domini", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Schmidt; "contra domum Jehovae", Liveleus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Almost every verse of this chapter speaks both the…
Almost every verse of this chapter speaks both the sins and punishment of Israel, ver. 1-14.
Set the trumpet - The Lord here commands the prophet to publish, as by sound of trumpet, that which God will bring upon apostate Israel. He - The king of Assyria. As an eagle - Swift, hungry, surmounting all difficulties. House of the Lord - The family of Israel, the Israelites church.
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, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 This chapter begins with threatening some hostile invasion in
CHAPTER VIII
This chapter begins with threatening some hostile invasion in
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short and broken sentences, full of rapidity, and expressive of
sudden danger and alarm: "The trumpet to thy mouth; he cometh
as an eagle," 1.
And why? For their hypocrisy, 2;
iniquity, 3;
treason (see 2Kg 15:13; 2Kg 15:17) and idolatry, 4;
particularly the worshipping of the calves of Dan and Bethel, 5, 6.
The folly and unprofitableness of pursuing evil courses is then
set forth in brief but very emphatic terms. The labour of the
wicked is vain, like sowing of the wind; and the fruit of it
destructive as the whirlwind. Like corn blighted in the bud,
their toil shall have no recompense; or if it should have a
little, their enemies shall devour it, 7.
They themselves, too, shall suffer the same fate, and shall be
treated by the nations of Assyria and Egypt as the vile sherds
of a broken vessel, 8, 9.
Their incorrigible idolatry is again declared to be the cause
of their approaching captivity under the king of Assyria. And
as they delighted in idolatrous altars, there they shall have
these in abundance, 10-14.
The last words contain a prediction of the destruction of the
fenced cities of Judah, because the people trusted in these for
deliverance, and not in the Lord their God.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII
Verse 1. Set the trumpet to thy mouth] Sound another alarm. Let them know that an enemy is fast approaching.
As an eagle against the house of the Lord] of this be a prophecy against Judah, as some have supposed, then by the eagle Nebuchadnezzar is meant, who is often compared to this king of birds. See Eze 17:3; Jer 48:40; Jer 49:22; Da 7:4.
But if the prophecy be against Israel, which is the most likely, then Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, is intended, who, for his rapidity, avarice, rapacity, and strength, is fitly compared to this royal bird. He is represented here as hovering over the house of God, as the eagle does over the prey which he has just espied, and on which he is immediately to pounce.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14 Hos 8:1. Set the trumpet to thy mouth —…
Hos 8:1. Set the trumpet to thy mouth — The Vulgate renders it, In guttere tuo sit tuba; that is, Let thy throat, or mouth, sound like a trumpet. God speaks in these words, says Grotius, to the prophet, and commands him to proclaim, with a very loud voice, both the sins of the people, and the evils about to come upon them. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord — The words, he shall come, are not in the Hebrew, and seem to be improperly supplied by the translators; the sense of the words appearing to be, that the prophet should warn the people, and denounce the judgments of God against them for their sins, with a voice so loud that it might be heard as far as the cry of the eagle, flying over, or sitting upon, the top of the temple. Because they have transgressed — Or rather, that they have transgressed my covenant. “Hoc enim ipsum est quod proclamari vult Deus;” for this is the thing which God commanded to be proclaimed. — Grotius. Namely, that they had transgressed against God’s covenant, and violated his law.
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 vv1–14 The trumpet to thy mouth! - So God bids…
The trumpet to thy mouth! - So God bids the prophet Isaiah, “Cry aloud, spare not, llft up thy voice like a trumpet” Isa 58:1. The prophets, as watchmen, were set by God to give notice of His coming judgments Eze 33:3; Amo 3:6. As the sound of a war-trumpet would startle a sleeping people, so would God have the prophet’s warning burst upon their sleep of sin. The ministers of the Church are called to be “watchmen” . “They too are forbidden to keep a cowardly silence, when “the house of the Lord” is imperilled by the breach of the covenant or violation of the law. If fear of the wicked or false respect for the great silences the voice of those whose office it is to “cry aloud,” how shall such cowardice be excused?”
He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord - The words “he shall come” are inserted for clearness. The prophet beholds the enemy speeding with the swiftness of an eagle, as it darts down upon its prey. “The house of the Lord” is, most strictly, the temple, as being “the place which God had chosen to place His name there.” Next, it is used, of the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem, among whom the temple was; from where God says, “I have forsaken My house, I have left Mine heritage; I have given the dearly-beloved of My soul into the hands of her enemies” Jer 12:7, and, “What hath My beloved to do in Mine house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many?” Jer 11:15. Yet the title of “God’s house” is older than the temple, for God Himself uses it of His whole people, saying of Moses, “My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all Mine house” Num 12:7. And even the ten tribes, separated as they were from the Temple-worship, and apostates from the true faith of God, were not, as yet, counted by Him as wholly excluded from the “house of God.” For God, below, threatens that removal, as something still to come; “for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of My house” Hos 9:15. The eagle, then coming down “against or upon” the house of the Lord, is primarily Shalmaneser, who came down and carried off the ten tribes. Yet since Hosea, in these prophecies, includes Judah, also, “the house of the Lord” is most probably to be taken in its fullest sense, as including the whole people of God, among whom He dwelt, and the temple where His Name was placed. The “eagle” includes then Nebuchadnezzar also, whom other prophets so call Eze 17:3, Eze 17:12; Jer 48:40; Hab 1:8; and (since, all through, the principle of sin is the same and the punishment the same) it includes the Roman eagle, the ensign of their armies.
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Because they have transgressed My covenant - “God, whose justice is always unquestionable, useth to make clear to people its reasonableness.” Israel had broken the covenant which God had made with their fathers, that He would be to them a God, and they to Him a people. The “covenant” they had broken chiefly by idolatry and apostasy; the “law,” by sins against their neighbor. In both ways they had rejected God; therefore God rejected them.
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, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 Eagle. It makes a noise like a trumpet. (Pliny,…
Eagle. It makes a noise like a trumpet. (Pliny, [Natural History?] x. 3.) --- Osee denounces judgments on the house of Israel, which, though schismatical, was not entirely abandoned by the Lord. Salmanasar overturned the kingdom, and may be compared to an eagle, as Nabuchodonosor is frequently, Ezechiel xvii. 3. But he is not here meant. (Calmet) --- The temple shall be destroyed by him; (St. Jerome) yet not so soon. (Worthington) --- Septuagint, "In their bosom like earth appears, like an eagle," &c. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 A. “Sowing the Wind brings forth the Whirlwind as…
2. THE JUDGMENT
A. “Sowing the Wind brings forth the Whirlwind as a Harvest.” Galling Dependence upon Assyria
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Hos_8:1-14
1 To thy mouth (set) the trumpet:
“Like the eagle (it is coming) upon the house of Jehovah,”
Because they broke my Covenant,
And sinned against my Law.
2 To me they will cry:
“My God,1 we know Thee, (we) Israel.
3 Yet Israel has rejected the good;
Let the enemy pursue him!2
4 They set up kings, but not by me,
Made princes, but I knew (them) not.
Their silver and their gold
They made into idols for themselves,
That it [silver and gold] might be destroyed.
5 He has rejected thy calf, Samaria,
My anger is inflamed against them,
How long shall ye be incapable of purity?
6 For that also [the calf] is from Israel,
The maker has formed it,
And it is no God,
For the calf of Samaria will become fragments.3
7 For they sowed wind and will reap a whirlwind,
It has no stalk,
(But) a sprout which will yield no meal;
If it should yield (any),
Strangers would devour it.
8 Israel is swallowed up,
Even now have they become among the nations,
Like a vessel, in which no pleasure is taken.
9 For they have gone up to Assyria;
(As) a wild-ass going alone by herself,
Ephraim gave presents4 (for) love.
10 Even if they give presents4 among the nations,
I will now gather [carry] them together (thither),
And in a little they will have sorrow for the tribute of the king of the princes.5
11 For Israel has increased altars for sinning,
They became to him altars for sinning.
12 I presented to him a myriad6 (precepts) of my Law,
(Yet) they are regarded as something strange.
13 My sacrificial offerings they sacrifice as flesh and eat (them):
Jehovah has no pleasure in them,
He will now remember their guilt,
And will punish their princes;
They will return to Egypt!
14 For Israel forgot his Creator
And built (idol-) temples,
And Judah increased the fortified cities:7
But I will send fire into his cities,
And it shall devour her palaces.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Ver. I. (Set) the trumpet to thy mouth. Jehovah commands the Prophet, as the herald of God, to proclaim with the trumpet of Israel the impending judgment: “Like an eagle (it is coming) upon the house of Jehovah.” The judgment will fall as swiftly as an eagle (comp. Deu_28:49). The house of Jehovah not=the Temple, but Israel, as the people among whom God dwells (should and would dwell), comp. Hos_9:8-15; Num_12:7; Jer_12:7; Zec_9:8.
Hos_8:2. Every one will cry: “My God!” Israel is in apposition to the subject contained in the verb [we know thee, we, Israel]. They rely upon the knowledge of God, which, as his people, they assuredly have. But it is a dead knowledge which can bring no deliverance.
Hos_8:3-4 show the position of Israel.
Hos_8:4. They have set up kings, but not by me. This refers to the self-authorized schism from the royal house of David. All the kings of Israel were not from God (that the government of the Ten Tribes was announced beforehand to Jeroboam by Ahijah the Prophet, 1Ki_11:30 ff., and that Jehu was anointed king and commissioned by Elisha, do not contradict this, for God makes use even of human sins to execute his decrees); and besides, according to Hos_7:7, the Prophet probably has in view the frequent violent dethronements and usurpations individually.—׃לְמַעַן יִכָּרֵת in order that it, namely, the silver and gold, may be destroyed (comp. Hos_8:6). למען expresses the certainty of the result as if it had been designed. [Most have regarded Israel (collectively) as the subject of this verb, but, as Keil says, the same thing is more fully stated in Hos_8:6, and the connection of the clause is clear.—M.]
Hos_8:5. He has rejected thy calf, Samaria. Samaria is mentioned as the capital instead of the whole kingdom. The Calf in Bethel is meant. [Henderson, with many Continental Translators, renders: thy calf is an abomination, the verb being taken intransitively. This is better than the translation of E. V., which is retained by Pusey in its natural sense, and by Horsley with a most astonishing application of the expression: “Here God himself turns short upon Samaria or the Ten Tribes, and upbraids their corrupt worship by taking to Himself the title of Samaria’s calf. I whom on have so dishonored by setting up that contemptible idol as the symbol of my glory—now expressly disown you.” The parallelism, as well as the whole drift of the passage seems to confirm the view adopted above.—M.] How long will they be incapable of purity? incapable of walking purely before the Lord instead of polluting themselves with idols.
Hos_8:6. וְחוּא is the predicate; this also=the Calf. It originated from men—from Israel through the maker—and is therefore no God.
Hos_8:7. This result is the natural harvest of the evil sowing. The same image occurs in Hos_12:2רוּחַ is an image of vain human efforts, from which ruin is developed, as naturally as the wind becomes a tempest. Hos_10:13; Job_6:8; Pro_22:8 are analogous, where אָוֶן, עָמָלand עולה are the seed. The sowing of the wind is first regarded as one which brings a harvest of disaster and ruin, but afterwards, as one which, like the wind (image of nothingness, from which nothing can come), deceives the sower, brings him in no harvest צֶמָח־־קֶמַח: a word-play. The latter is literally meal, flour: perhaps ears, as bearing the grains from which the flour is made. The following sentence declares that all their prospects were blasted. Israel’s efforts in every direction are fruitless. The judgment through Assyria stands in the back ground already.
Hos_8:8 is connected with Hos_8:7, but advances through the pret. נבְלַע. Israel is now—already—actually swallowed up. The sequel shows how far and by what means. Like a vessel, etc.: comp. Jer_22:28; Jer_48:38.
Hos_8:9. פֶּרֶא בּדֵד לֹו. Keil gives the meaning thus: While a wild ass, a silly animal, remains alone by itself, in order to maintain its independence, Ephraim seeks to make alliances with the nations of the world, that are unnatural and incompatible with its position. Yet such a comparison by antithesis is somewhat forced. It is much more natural to consider as the tertium comp. the burning lust of the wild ass, and to attach the sentence to the following, in which Ephraim is described as a paramour. Wünsche finds the tert. comp. in the stubborn and intractable nature of the wild ass: that Israel made a like exhibition in going to Assyria in spite of all prophetic admonition. [So Henderson and, to a certain extent, Pococke, Horsley, Newcome, and Pusey. There is no reason why the two ideas should not be united.—M.] The meaning of the following member is clearly the same as in our phrase: courting one’s friendship or love, and with this object giving him presents, flattering him, etc. So did Ephraim court the friendship of Assyria; but the expression is peculiarly pregnant. They presented love=they gave presents in order thereby to obtain love=they gave gifts for love.
Hos_8:10. But this is all in vain. אֲקַבִּצֵם: I will bring them together, namely, among the nations, i.e., will carry them together thither.—The following words again are very difficult. According to the Masoretic punctation: וַיָּחֵלּוּ, they began. Therefore R. Tanchum, and, among the modems, Eichhorn, Rosenmüller, Hitzig, Keil: They began to become small from the burden of the king of the princes. Others, after the LXX. (Symm., Theodot, Syr., Vulg.), deduce the word from חול, and take it=to cease from, rest: they will rest a little from the burden of the king and princes: to be understood ironically=they will in captivity be deprived of their kings, and will have therefore to pay tribute to them no longer. Ewald and Meier read וְיָחִלוּ, also from חוּל: to wait, abstain from anything = that they may cease a little from, paying this shameful tribute, i.e., that they should wait a little before paying it. But was it Jehovah’s purpose only to relieve Israel a short time from this tribute? Simson would therefore explain: In a little sorrow will seize them from the tribute of the king and the princes=in a little they will reap in sorrow the fruits of the tribute which they intend to pay as their security, and which makes them a prey to Assyria. So also Wünsche. [It will be noticed that E. V. takes the same view of the verb, but translates: they shall sorrow a little for the burden. Henderson agrees exactly: they shall suffer in a little (so the marginal reading in E. V.) by reason of the tribute. So also Cowles. Pusey thinks the meaning to be, that they shall sorrow but a little now on account of their burdens, in comparison with the greater trials of the captivity.—M.] The various views taken of מֶלֶךְ שָׂרִים are already apparent. It is usually and probably correctly understood of the Assyrian king, in the sense: king of kings. [The native Assyrian word for prince, as lately made out from the inscriptions, is sarru, answering to the Hebrew sar, and Professor Green (Pres. Quarterly, July, 1872, p. 128) is inclined to suspect that it explains this expression: king of princes, “which would seem not to be an arbitrary or merely poetic variation of the lordly title, ‘king of kings,’ but to contain a designed allusion to the native Assyrian word. And a like allusion may be found in the words attributed to Sennacherib (Isa_10:8): ‘Are not my princes altogether kings?’ ”—M.) Therefore (regarding מַשָּא as=tribute) tribute to the king, or tribute which he imposes. [See Textual note.]
Hos_8:11. Increased the altars, while Israel should have only one altar.
Hos_8:12. Myriads of my Law, hyperbole, to express the almost innumerable individual commands of the Law. [See Textual note.]
Hos_8:13. הַבְהָבֵי, according to Fürst from a root הוּב, to roast, formed by reduplication: a sacrifice burnt upon the altar, a holocaust. It is incomplete unless joined with זֶבַח, literally, a sacrifice of what is burnt, a burnt-offering. My burnt-offerings, i.e., those which should be burnt for Me, they slaughter for meat and devour. Therefore a complete profanation of the sacrifices. They were concerned only about the flesh. [The usual derivation from יהב, to give, with the meaning: offerings, gives substantially the same sense: sacrificial offerings, and is, at least, as probable as the other.—M.] They return to Egypt. Egypt is a type of the land of bondage (comp. Deu_28:68). Actual captivity in Egypt is scarcely meant.
Hos_8:14. Israel forgot his Creator. Comp. Deu_32:15. Temples, perhaps idol-temples. Keil: palaces. The assertion would then be similar to that concerning Judah. But the notion is that Israel builds idol-temples, while Judah does not do that, but by increasing its fortified cities upon which it relied, it showed no less that it was forgetting God. Cities, Palaces, therefore refer to Judah alone.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. In spite of all departure from God, the sinner will often not quite abandon religion, worship, and prayer. In his hypocrisy he often misuses the most beautiful words (Hos_8:2): “Thou art my God,” is otherwise the sum of all precious prayer. Hypocrites compile from the Scriptures a little book of compliments when they find some formulas which are extolled there. They place themselves behind these, while they are far from feeling their power (Rieger).
2. To practice idolatry, in the grosser or in the more refined sense, is to sow the wind, and the whirlwind follows sooner or later, as the harvest. When men forsake the living God, they build upon themselves, upon their own power and wisdom, and the more self-inflated they become, the more certain is their violent fall. All the more so that the foundations of a moral life have been undermined by forgetting the living God; more place is gradually given to vanity, thirst for pleasure, and evil desires, even against their own inclination. They are given up by the God to whom they would not give the glory. There must come a dreadful harvest of whirlwinds, though it may tarry long, though the results of the sowing may deceive and corrupt him long with their glitter and eclat. How often has this been proved in the history of individuals and nations! Compare the fate of the Second French Empire.
3. “God prescribed to Israel myriads of commands.” How strongly this expresses the care of God of his people, and the comprehensiveness of his revelation! Truly nothing is wanting to them; in no way can they complain that they have been meagrely supplied. All the greater is their guilt, in regarding these commands as something “strange,” as though they did not concern them at all, while they were issued solely for that people, and designed for their good. On the other side, the expression, “myriads of my Law,” is certainly most significant as regards the Old Testament stand-point. All these myriads were then received, but the Gospel was not yet given. The one gospel, the one message: the Word became Flesh, outweighs them all. The mercy of God in Christ assured by that message has a force quite different from all law. This mercy of the Gospel is also regarded as something strange, though men should regard it as most truly their own, i.e., as answering their most intimate and their inmost needs, which can be said of no law.
4. “They shall return to Egypt.” See on Hosea 9.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Hos_8:2-3. How ready men are in time of affliction to depend upon their acquaintance with God and their service of Him, and upon their religious life, and to found on these a claim for help, and yet at other times they inquire after God so little! In affliction we hear nothing else than: my God.
Würt. Summ: The cause of war and all its resulting evils, is, that men reject “the good.” And the good is God and his Word, with faith and obedience.
[Pococke: God is simply, supremely, wholly, universally good, and good to all, the Author and Fountain of all good, so that there is nothing simply good but God; nothing worthy of that title except in respect of its relation to Him who is good and doing good. Psa_119:68.—M.]
Hos_8:5-6. Idolatry is man’s foulest pollution.
[Matthew Henry: Deifying any creature makes way for the destruction of it.—M.]
Hos_8:8. Pfaff. Bibelwerk: Sin has this bitter fruit also, that those who serve it come to be despised even by the world.
Hos_8:9-10. Trust in men or in earthly things more than in God is by Him counted idolatry. Trust in men must be most sorely repented of; for not only is the desired help most frequently not found, but those who trust in them are outwardly or inwardly still dependent upon them, and will be heavily oppressed.
Hos_8:11. It does not help to increase altars. It depends on the one to whom the sacrifice is made.
Hos_8:12. How richly has God remembered us with direction! What a rich treasure of the most varied instruction we have in his Word! But what will it profit us if we regard it as something “strange,” when God in it addresses Himself directly to us?—The one Gospel is assuredly a greater gift of God than the myriads of the Law.
Hos_8:13. God is as strict a creditor toward impenitent sinners as He is a kind and indulgent one towards the penitent.
[Matt. Henry: A petition for leave to sin amounts to an imprecation of the curse for sin, and so it shall be answered.
Pusey: God seems to man to forget his sins, when He forbears to punish them; to remember them when He punishes.—M.]
Hos_8:14. Incomprehensible that man should forget his Maker! but it is only too frequent. To have been created by God, and yet to build temples to idols; what a plain contradiction!
Footnotes:
[1][Hos_8:2.—אֱלֹהַי: my God. A distributive use of the singular pronoun. Each of the Israelites is represented as uttering the exclamation, and then all combined as making the protestation in common. Israel is in apposition to the subject of יְדַעֲנוּךָ.—M.]
[2][Hos_8:3.—The rendering of Schmoller follows the reading יִרְדְּפוֹ which has nearly as much authority (“forty-seven of De Rossi’s MSS., and two more by correction, eight of the most ancient and sixty-two other editions, the Syr., Vulg., and Targ.”) as יִרְדְּפוּ in the Textus Receptus, and is probably correct.—M.]
[3][Hos_8:6.—שְׁבָבִים, ἅπ. λεγ. Its root does not exist in Heb. It is usually compared with Chald. שׁבַב to break in pieces. Henderson prefers to consider it= שְׁבִיבִים flames. Arab. װָََّ, to kindle a fire.—M.]
[4]Hos_8:9-10.—הִתְנוּ—יִתְנוּ. The Hiphil and the Kal have here the same meaning: to give presents.
[5]Hos_8:10.—Simson and others translate: king and princes, namely, those of Israel, referring to the tribute which they pay. Here an asyndeton is assumed, or וְשָׂרִים is read, after the ancient versions and several codices.
[6]Hos_8:12.—רבו. According to the Kethibh= רבּו with ת rejected=10000, a myriad. The Masorites, probably because they thought the expression too strong, would make the reading רֻבֵּי, multitudes, from רֹב, which however does not elsewhere occur in the plural.
[7]Hos_8:14.—בְּעָרָיו, אַרְמִנֹתֶיהָ. Both of these refer merely to Judah. In the former the people are thought of and therefore the masc. suffix is employed; in the latter the country, and therefore the fern. [It is possible, also, that the latter refers to each of the cities regarded individually.—M.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–14 My God, we know thee--the singular, "My," is used…
My God, we know thee--the singular, "My," is used distributively, each one so addressing God. They, in their hour of need, plead their knowledge of God as the covenant-people, while in their acts they acknowledge Him not (compare Mat 7:21-22; Tit 1:16; also Isa 29:13; Jer 7:4). The Hebrew joins "Israel," not as English Version, with "shall cry," but "We, Israel, know thee"; God denies the claim thus urged on the ground of their descent from Israel.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–6 After this general announcement the prophet proceeds to call…
After this general announcement the prophet proceeds to call attention to the imminence of the judgment (Hos_8:1), to describe the terror that will befall Israel (Hos_8:2), and to point out the futility of the appeal for deliverance (Hos_8:3).
Set the trumpet to thy mouth — Literally, to thy palate the horn. Palate is equivalent to mouth (as in Job_8:7; Pro_5:3, etc.). On horn see on Hos_5:8. The appeal is to the watchman to give the signal of alarm because the enemy is approaching (compare Amo_3:6). The second exclamation is, literally, “As an eagle against the house of Jehovah.” The thought is evidently that the enemy, on account of whose approach the signal is to be sounded, is coming with the swiftness of an eagle, or vulture (see on Mic_1:16). Wellhausen suggests to read — without any change in the consonants apart from a different division — “for” or “because” an eagle (comes against the house of Jehovah), instead of “as” an eagle; thus bringing out the causal relation existing between the first and the second clauses. G.A. Smith adds the pertinent comment, “Where the carcass is, there are the eagles gathered together.” As already suggested, the enemy is undoubtedly the Assyrian (compare Jer_49:22; Eze_17:3).
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House of Jehovah — Not as commonly, the temple, but, as in Hos_9:15, the land of Israel. A similar expression, house of Omri, equivalent to land of Omri, is found in the Assyrian inscriptions. 1b sums up the accusations against Israel, thus supplying the reasons for the advance of the executioner.
Covenant — Since it stands in parallelism with law it is probably equivalent to ordinance (Jer_11:6); these ordinances were based on the covenant established between Jehovah and Israel at Mount Sinai.
Law — See on Hos_4:6. The impending doom will drive the people to Jehovah, temporarily at least; in their calamity they will cry unto Jehovah.
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 vv1–14 1–7. In great emotion (which reflects itself in the…
1–7. In great emotion (which reflects itself in the short clauses) the prophet announces the imminent invasion of N. Israel, and its true causes—idolatry and schism
1. Set the trumpet to thy mouth] Lit., To thy palate the cornet! An abrupt appeal by a heavenly voice to the prophet, who is bidden to give warning of the approach of the foe (comp. Hos_5:8 note). ‘Palate’, or ‘mouth’, as the organ of speech, as Pro_5:3; Pro_8:7, &c.
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as an eagle] The Hebr. word (nesher) seems to have been specially applied to the great griffon vulture, the carrion-eating habits of which are referred to in Job_39:30; Pro_30:17; Mat_24:28, and its swift flight in Deu_28:49; 2Sa_1:23; Jer_49:22. References to this bird of prey (Assyr. nasru) are frequent in the cuneiform, inscriptions, and figures of it occur in battle-scenes on the monument. The more appropriate is it as an emblem of the Assyrian invaders. Similarly Nebuchadnezzar (whom St Jerome wrongly supposes to be meant here) is called an eagle (or vulture) in Jer_49:22; Eze_17:3.
the house of the Lord] In chap. 2 we had the people of Israel represented as a bride who is sustained and adorned by her husband; here we have the figure completed by the description of the land of Canaan as the divine Bridegroom’s house (as Hos_9:15, comp. Hos_8:3). This beautiful figure is obscured if, with Reynolds and Whitehouse, we compare the weakened sense, ‘country’, of Assyr. bît. In the N.T. the house of God, or of Christ, is the Church, see Heb_3:6; 1Ti_3:15.
my covenant] Most explain this of the ‘covenant’ or contract between Jehovah and Israel. But the phrase is more probably equivalent to ‘mine ordinance’, for the parallel clause has ‘my law.’ The Heb. word (b’rîth) sometimes appears to mean simply ‘appointment’, ‘ordinance’ (so 2Ki_11:4; Jer_11:6; Jer_34:13; Jer_34:18; Job_31:1; Psa_105:10), which may even be the primary meaning (comp. Assyr. barû ‘to decide’). Comp. the phrase ‘the book of the covenant’ (Exo_24:7).
my law] See note on Hos_8:12.
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 vv1–14 (1) Eagle.—The image of swiftness (Jer_4:13; Jer_48:40). So Assyria…
(1) Eagle.—The image of swiftness (Jer_4:13; Jer_48:40). So Assyria shall come swooping down on Samaria, to which Hosea, though with some irony, gives the name “House of Jehovah,” recognising that the calf was meant to be symbolic in some sense of Israel’s God. (See, however, Note on Hos_9:15.)
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 vv1–14 This chapter deals with the punishment of apostasy. Once…
This chapter deals with the punishment of apostasy. Once more the sins of the northern kingdom are enumerated and its approaching fall predicted. There is a close connection between the verses in the first section of the chapter. That connection is as follows: The first verse begins with an exclamation containing Jehovah"s command to the prophet to act as his herald, putting the trumpet to his mouth and sounding the alarm about coming calamity. In the second clause of the same verse the nature of the calamity is announced. In the third and last clause of it the cause of the calamity is declared. The second verse represents Israel in their extremity crying to God for deliverance; the cry is very earnest, and proceeds from every member of the community, backed also with the assertion of their acquaintance with Jehovah. In the third verse Jehovah rejects their cry and refuses to interpose between them and the enemy, because their knowledge of him was merely historical and neither spiritual nor practical, as their dislike of what was good continued unabated. The fourth verse specifies facts in proof of Israel"s renunciation of Jehovah. The fifth verse shows a just retribution, for, inasmuch as Israel disliked what was good, the object of their idolatry has disgusted Jehovah or cast them off. The sixth verse contains the doom of this silly, sinful, and disgusting idol. In the seventh verse the threat of such destruction is accounted for on a broad principle taken from agricultural life, that the harvest will correspond to the seed sown; and so Israel shall reap the fruit of their ungodliness.
The exclamation in this verse, A trumpet to thy mouth, supersedes the necessity of supplying a verb. The alarm of war or of hostile invasion is to be sounded by the prophet at the command of Jehovah. The
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(1) trumpet is at once to be employed for the purpose. The rendering of both the Targum and Syriac
(2) expresses the same idea, though under a different form; the former has, "Cry with thy throat, as if it were a trumpet;" and the latter, "Let thy mouth be as a trumpet." According to this view, the Prophet Hoses expresses here very briefly what Isaiah has done more fully in the words, "Cry aloud Hebrew, "with the throat spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
(3) The LXX here deviates considerably from the Maseoretic Hebrew text, translating eiv kolpon ( autwn, wv gh , of the meaning of which Jerome acknowledges his ignorance, though he attempts to explain it. Cyril connects the words with the concluding part of the preceding chapter, thus: "This their setting at naught (of me) in the land of Egypt shall come into their own bosom. As the land, as the eagle against the house of the Lord;" while his explanation is as follows: "Since, though I preserved them and instructed them, and gave them victory over their enemies (for I strengthened them), they have impiously set me at naught, worshipping demons for gods, and have trusted to the land of the Egyptians, and have fancied that their help shall be sufficient for their prosperity, therefore their attempt shall return unto their own besom, and they shall find no good reward of their temerity; but they shall receive, as it were, into their bosom the deserved punishment. For he shall come, he shall come who shall lay them waste the King of Assyria, with an innumerable multitude of warriors, and he shall come to them as the whole land and region and country, that one might think that the whole region of the Persians and Medes had wholly migrated and had come into Samaria. This is the meaning of the whole land (wv gh ). He shall likewise come as an eagle into the house of the Lord." (He shall come) as an eagle against the house of the Lord. These words cannot mean,
(1) as Hitzig thinks, the rapidity with which the prophet is directed to convey his tidings of alarm, as if it were, "Fly had imperfect being supplied, thou prophet, as an eagle;" nor yet, with others, the loudness of the alarm he was to sound. The meaning abruptly though vividly expressed refers
(2) to the approaching invasion of the enemy, though there is no need to supply hady, or aby, It is the substance of the prophet"s alarm. As an eagle the enemy (as is evident flora ver. 3) shall come against the house of the Lord. The enemy was, in all probability, the Assyrian, in whose symbolism the eagle bulks largely; while the griffin vulture, scenting from afar, and coming down with rapid and terrific swoop upon its prey, is an appropriate image of the sudden and impetuous character of his invasion.
The house of the Lord is neither the temple at Jerusalem, for the prophecy relates to the northern kingdom; nor the temple at Samaria, which could not be called Beta Yehovah, but Bethbamoth; nor the land of Israel, which could not with any propriety be called a house; but the people of Israel, which, owing to God"s covenant relation to that people, is called his house, Num_12:7, "My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house." The figure seems an echo of Deu_28:49, "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth;" while it has a parallel in Mat_24:28, "For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
Because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my Law. These words exhibit the cause of Israel"s being exposed to the sudden hostile attack which the prophet was commissioned to proclaim. The provocations of Israel consisted in violating the covenant which God had been pleased to make with them, and in proving unfaithful to that Law, obedience to which was the condition of the covenant. The explanation of the whole verse thus given is confirmed by the Hebrew commentators; thus Rashi says, "The Shechinah (or Divine Majesty) says to the prophet, "Let the voice of thy palate be heard and sound the trumpet and say, The enemies fly hither as the eagle flieth and come unto the house of the Lord. Abeu Ezra more concisely conveys the same sense: "It is the words of Jehovah to the prophet, "Set the cornet to thy palate, for the enemy flieth as the eagle against the house of the Lord. Kimchi differs in two respects from his brethren, understanding the address to be not that of Jehovah to the prophet, but of the prophet to the people; and the house of the Lord to include the whole laud of Israel and temple at Jerusalem: "The cornet to thy palate, as he said.above, "Sound the trumpet in Gibeah." Many a time the prophet speaks to the people in the singular and many a time in the plural. He says, "Put the trumpet to thy mouth, for behold! the enemy flies hither like the eagle over the house of Jehovah; "he means to say," Over the whole land and also over the house of Jehovah, in order to destroy it." And he joins the trumpet to the palate (and yet man sets the trumpet to the mouth) because the voice passes over the way of the palate after it comes out of the throat.
Vers. 1-3. Ministerial faithfulness.
The prophet is represented as a messenger with alarming tidings, or sentinel at his post to give warning of the enemy"s approach, or rather as a herald commissioned to declare war. Earthly kings have heralds or special messengers for this purpose, and here the King of kings charges the prophet as his herald to proclaim war. "Go, then, and let the Israelites know, not now by thy mouth, but even by thy throat, by the sound of the trumpet, that I am an enemy to them, and that I am present with a strong army to destroy them." The presence of a herald on such occasions presupposed the preparation of the enemy that they were ready to take the field, or were actually on the march. As the prophets of old, so ministers still require to act boldly, bravely, with earnestness and faithfulness in rebuking sin, warning men of approaching peril and punishment, and calling on them loudly and fearlessly to repent and return to God.
I PUNISHMENT IN PURSUIT OF THE GUILTY. Even a heathen poet has sung, "Seldom does punishment, though lame of foot, quit the criminal who goes before." Sometimes the prophet is summoned to declare the people"s sin, showing them its guilt and dangerous consequences; sometimes to denounce its punishment. We have a notable example of the former in a passage a good deal like the opening verse of this chapter; thus Isaiah is commanded by God in the words, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." But the Prophet Hosea is here enjoined to proclaim the punishment which the sin of Israel was surely and swiftly bringing upon them: "He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord." The abruptness imparts vigor to the expression, while it indicates the sad and sudden reality. When the cup of a people"s iniquity is brimful, calamity is just at hand; when they are ripe for judgment, the enemy is ready to execute it; when the day of vengeance has arrived, no distance can secure them from it. From the far-distant land of Assyria, the Assyrian eagle, Shatmaneser, like the great Babylonian eagle, Nebuchadnezzar, of a later date, "kith great wings, long-winged, full of feathers," came from afar, swift in his advance, sudden in his approach, sure of his prey, and savage in rending it. No boasted privileges can delay that day of disaster, nor deliver when it comes; even the house of the Lord shall not be exempt. Israel, though God"s people, his house and family, shall fall by the assault of the Assyrian. God usually speaks before he strikes, and warns before he pours down his wrath; nor does he either threaten or strike until he has been provoked by sin.
II THE PROCURING CAUSE OF ISRAEL"S PUNISHMENT. "Because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my Law;" such is the cause which God assigns for the threatened punishment. God thus indicates his proceedings, exhibits his justice, asserts his patience and long-suffering, declares his hatred of sin, and gives to all a solemn warning against its commission. Here again the mercy of God is made manifest, Notwithstanding God"s supreme right over men and absolute authority to dispose of them as he pleases, yet he graciously condescends to enter into a covenant with his creatures, stipulating promise of reward to obedience, and penalty in case of disobedience. Nor could Israel plead ignorance of the conditions of this covenant; for the Law, with its commandments, exhibited those conditions, explicitly declaring all the duties of the covenant. They, however, broke the commandment, and so prepared the way for breaking the covenant; they trespassed against the Law, and so transgressed the covenant. They violated the commandments of the Law that taught them their duty to their neighbor; they broke the covenant that bound them to their God. Usually men proceed from omissions to commissions, and frequent violations of the Law make way for the final and entire renunciation of the covenant.
III PROFESSION WITHOUT PRACTICE IS MERE PRETENCE. Israel had, no doubt, more knowledge of the true God than any of the neighboring nations. God s Name was known among them; to Israel belonged "the adoption, the glory, and the covenants." They depended much on this, and in their adversity they urged with much vehemence the plea, "My God, we know thee." So at last many will cry, "Lord, Lord, open to us;" or, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy Name, and in thy Name cast out devils, and in thy Name done many wonderful works?
But this plea shall only meet, as it merits, the indignant response, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." Here is the secret of their rejection: their profession was not supplemented by practice. They pretend to know God in the day of their distress; but as long as they basked in the sunshine of prosperity, they neither desired the knowledge of God"s ways, nor delighted in the duties required of them; nay, they despised practical piety. They had a name to live, but were dead; they had a form of godliness, but denied its power in their heart and life. Alas I how many professors of religion are in this same state. "What stead will it stand a man in to be able to say, "My God, I know thee," when he cannot say, "My God, I love thee," and "My God, I serve thee, and cleave to thee only"?" Israel had cast off the thing that is good; they had cast off God, the supreme Good. There is nothing truly great but God, and nothing really good but God; and in rejecting God they rejected all that is good. God is the Author of all goodness, and nearness to him is the sure way of getting good. "Whatsoever any man hath or enjoys of good, is from his relation to him, his nearness to him, his congruity with him." Israel cast off the Law of God, though that Law was holy and just and good; they cast off his worship, though that conduced both to their temporal and eternal good; they abandoned his service, though it was good for all the relations of life; they had east over everything good and upright, just and true; and now in turn they are cast off. The contrast is observable; they had driven away from all that was good, and now the enemy drives in hot pursuit after them.
HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN Vers. 1-4. A trumpet-blast of judgment.
In this passage the announcement of Israel"s doom is still more direct than it has hitherto been. Up to this point the prophet"s message has been principally one of complaint, with threatening of punishment in the future; now, however, he speaks of the judgment as immediately about to fall upon the sinful nation.
I THE PROCLAMATION OF JUDGMENT. (Ver. 1) Hosea is here abruptly addressed by the Spirit as a sentinel or watchman. Being the herald of Jehovah, he is to proclaim with the trumpet of prophecy the near approach of the day of vengeance. His immediate message is that Shalmaneser, the Assyrian king, is soon to descend upon Israel as with the fell swoop of an eagle, and to carry the ten tribes captive. Beyond that, however, and little more than a hundred years later, Nebuchadnezzar, "a great eagle with great wings", (Eze_17:3) is to fall similarly upon Judah. And yet again, in the year 70 A.D., when Jerusalem shall have become a "carcass," the Roman eagles under Titus shall assemble around it, perch victoriously upon the crest of Moriah, and take away from the Jews "both their place and nation." By means of such judgments as these was the wonderful prediction of Moses to be fulfilled, in which the Lord threatened to "bring a nation against Israel from far, as swift as the eagle flieth". (Deu_28:49) Even yet, however, in these times of the gospel, must the Lord"s prophet "set the trumpet to his mouth" to warn wicked nations of the doom which national sin entails, and to remind the sinner of" the wrath to come" which shall overwhelm the impenitent. The "silver trumpet" of the gospel jubilee is to announce, not only the salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ brought at his first coming, but also the judgments which are to overtake unbelievers at the second advent, and which shall then be heralded by the dread "trumpet" of the resurrection.
II THE CAUSE OF THE JUDGMENT. It was apostasy. This is stated generally in ver. 1, and more specifically in ver. 4. Israel had "transgressed the covenant" (ver. 1) that Jehovah had made with them at Sinai; they had done so by "trespassing against his Law," as written in "the book of the covenant". (Exo_24:7) They had forsaken God in two ways: by rebelling against the royal house of David, and by rejecting the priestly order of Aaron (ver. 4).
1. Israel maintained a schismatic kingdom. In revolting under Jeroboam, they consulted only their own evil self-will, and not the will of Jehovah. During the two hundred and fifty years that the northern kingdom lasted, the throne was occupied by six or more wretched dynasties, and by nineteen unhappy monarchs, all of whom were apostates from God and tyrants over the people. Not one of the kings of the ten tribes did Jehovah recognize as his vicegerent. Dethronements and assassinations and usurpations followed one another, and he "knew it not.
2. Israel embraced a false religion. "They made them idols," and went astray into calf-worship and Baal-worship. Not only did the political apostasy lead to the adoption of these heathen practices; the tribes, apart from that, had at this period of their history strong leanings towards idolatry. The people found it pleasant to employ as objects of worship what they could see and touch. They desired to be like the nations around them that served graven images. So they gave freely of their wealth (ver. 4) for the maintenance of their idol temples. In our age, too, the Lord"s prophet must point to apostasy from him as the cause of spiritual ruin. The gospel trumpet is to emphasize the counsel of the apostle, Little children, keep yourselves from idols". (1Jn_5:21) The pulpit ought to warn men that the one sure result of persistently setting any creature whether money, or power, or fame, or any earthly love in the place of the Creator, will be the irreparable loss and everlasting shame of the soul
III THE FALSE PLEA WHICH ISRAEL WOULD USE TO DEPRECATE THE JUDGMENT. (Vers. 2, 3) Their affliction would drive the people to pray, and to plead that "we, Israel, have known thee." But such a declaration on their part were pretentious and hypocritical. It was irrelevant, and it would be unavailing. For, after all, it rested only upon their natural descent as the chosen race, and upon the historical information about God which they possessed. The plea is that the Lord must protect his own people; but he does not recognize as such those who can say nothing more than that "they have Abraham for their father." He regards mere head-knowledge of himself as dead knowledge. Israel "professed that they knew God, but in works they denied him". (Tit_1:16) "Israel hath cast off good" (ver. 3) thrown it from him with loathing and contempt. He had rejected God"s salvation, by "transgressing his covenant in token whereof he had separated himself from the dynasty of David and from the priestly house of Aaron. And he had rejected Jehovah himself as the chief Good, by seeking a portion for himself in idolatry. Inevitably, therefore, "the enemy shall pursue him;" the Assyrian must crush the northern kingdom under his iron heel, and utterly destroy it. But these verses sound still in our ears the warning, to beware lest we trust in spiritual privilege, as if that were personal piety; or in the faith of our godly ancestors, as if that could be imputed to us; or in our knowledge of theology merely, as if that were synonymous with heart-religion. There is a strong tendency in human nature towards such vain confidence; and Satan plies us with subtle temptations in this direction. The Lord Jesus has warned us that when the last "trumpet" shall sound, anti the great assize shall be held, this same false plea shall be presented by multitudes. (Mat_7:22 Luk_13:25-27) To many who shall then cry, "My God, we know thee," the reply of the Judge will be, "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." We must during the present life calmly accept Christ, and live by the faith of him; we must have his Spirit reigning in our hearts, and devote ourselves to the pursuit of righteousness, if we would "not be ashamed before him at his coming. C.J.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Vers. 1, 2. The conventional Church.
"Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my Law. Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee." "It is not unusual," says Elzas," for the prophets, without naming the invading foe, to announce his approach (see Isaiah 13). The words are singularly abrupt, and indicate the suddenness of the threatened invader. "Like an eagle." If this be a prophecy against Judah, as some have supposed, then by the eagle Nebuchadnezzar is meant, who is often compared to the king of birds. (see Jer 48 Eze 17 Dan_7:4) But if the prophecy be against Israel, which is the most likely, then Shalmaneser King of Assyria is intended, who for his rapidity, avarice, rapacity, and strength is fitly compared to the royal bird. " The house of the Lord." This cannot mean here the temple at Jerusalem, which is otherwise so designated, since the threatenings are most probably denounced against the kingdom of the ten tribes. It must therefore be taken to denote the people of Israel, the whole nation viewed as the family of God." By the "house of the Lord," therefore, we are to understand not the temple at Jerusalem, nor the land of Judaea, but Israel as a section of the professed people of God. The house of the Lord was a conventional Church. Look at the words as presenting a conventional Church in three aspects.
I AS ENDANGERED. "He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord." How comes the eagle? Ravenously, suddenly, and swiftly; it pounces down on its prey with the rapidity of lightning, and fastens its talons on its heart. A conventional Church is in greater danger than any secular community. Why?
1. Its guilt is greater. It has the oracles of God, and it professes faith in those oracles, and yet its heart is out of sympathy with God and his laws. "Wee unto thee, Chorazin," etc.! "He that knoweth his master"s will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." The hell of conventional Churches will be, methinks, deeper and darker than any other hell in the black domain of retribution.
2. Its influence is more pernicious. Whose influence on society is the most baneful the man who denies God, the man who ignores him, or the man that misrepresents him? The last, I trow. The conventional Church gives society a real-representation of God and his religion. Of all the men in Christendom there is no man who is a greater bane to his race than he who wears the garb of religion but is destitute of its spirit. Surely the eagle of retribution will wing its way to no class more savagely and more quickly than to these conventional religionists.
II AS WARNED. "Set the trumpet to thy mouth." This is Heaven"s command to the prophet. Blow a blast that shall thrill every heart in the vast congregation of Israel. Why sound the warning?
1. Because the danger is tremendous. It is utter destruction.
2. Because the danger is at hand. The eagle has spread its pinions, has mounted the air, fastened his eye on the victim, and is about swooping down in fury.
3. Because the danger may be avoided. Were there no escape, why blew the trumpet? Why raise the alarm? Thank God there is escape as long as life continues. While the lamp holds out to burn The vilest sinner may return.
What is wanted now is a ministry of warning to conventional Churches. We want bold, intrepid, fiery prophets, like unto Elijah, to sound the trumpet of alarm to all who are at ease in Zion.
III AS REPENTANT. "Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee." The alarm has been taken and the refuge is sought. "My God, we know thee." "This is life eternal to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Oh, hasten the day when all conventional Churches shall be brought to a deep and experimental knowledge of God and his Son! When this transpires, the dense cloud that has concealed the sun of Christianity shall be swept away, and the quickening beam shall fall on every heart. The mountain that has obstructed the chariot of redemptive truth shall be leveled to a plain, and the wheels shall move with lightning speed. "The Word of the Lord shall have free course, and be glorified. D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-4. Doomsday.
The trumpet sounds the approach of judgment. It is judgment which begins at the house of God. (1Pe_4:17) The "eagle" is the Assyrian; in later times the Roman. (cf. Deu_28:49) The cause of the judgment is that constantly insisted on: "They have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my Law" (ver. 1).
I KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THROUGH JUDGMENT. (Ver. 2) In the day of doom Israel would cry to God, My God, we know thee, we Israel" So at the last judgment:
1. Those who have hitherto denied God will be forced to acknowledge him. Their startled cry, when it is too late, will be, "My God, we know thee." They will know him to their cost. They will no longer be able to disguise to themselves the fact of his existence or the reality of his power. No more pretence of ignorance, no more caviling, no more blasphemous defiance.
2. Those who have hitherto forgotten God will be force to remember him. They will experience a rude awakening from the careless security,n which they have been living. They will find God"s words to be true, his warnings real, the "wrath to come" a dreadful certainty. It will be impossible longer to put off reflection, or to shut out thoughts of him with whom they have to do.
3. Those who have hitherto slighted Gods friendship will be eager to make friends with him. They will address him as their God ("My God"), will recall past knowledge of him, will urge any pleas which they think will gain them mercy. They are as anxious now to make themselves out God"s friends as formerly they were to have nothing to do with him. In times of affliction or peril, as well as on the approach of death or judgment, sinners show themselves very willing to call on God. "Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord," etc. (Mat_7:22) Such pleas, however, will not avail. The repentance is too late, and it is not sincere. Israel would gain nothing by being of the seed of Jacob. (cf. Mat_3:9)
II AN INVARIABLE SEQUENCE. (Ver. 3) Israel, having cast off good, would be pursued by the enemy. The sequence is short, simple, certain. It is as sure as any law of nature.
1. Antecedent. "Israel hath cast off good." In every sense Israel had done this. The nation had
(1) cast out the knowledge of good; (Hos_4:6)
(2) cast off the practice of good; (Hos_4:1, 7 5:4 6:7 7:1, 2)
(3) despised the hope of good, the blessing and salvation promised on condition of obedience.
2. Consequent. "The enemy shall or, "let the enemy pursue him." The enemy pursues those who cast off good.
(1) Conscience pursues. The sinner cannot escape from its rebukes, scourgings, and pursuing memories.
(2) The laws of nature pursue. Nature is so constituted that its laws are on the side of the virtuous, and against those that do evil. Sin is followed by inevitable natural penalties.
(3) Divine justice pursues. There is, even in this life, a providential retribution which the sinner seldom escapes. (cf. De 28) In any case there is a final judgment, when every one shall receive for the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether good or bad. (2Co_5:10)
III REPRESENTATIVE TRANSGRESSION. (Ver. 4) Israel"s kings were not of God. They had been set up without consulting God, and had ruled in disregard of God"s will. The worship of the calves was in direct opposition to Divine commandment. It had its ground in political expediency. This lays bare to us the essence of ungodliness. Ungodliness:
1. Waives all regard to God"s will in the shaping of life. It plans existence irrespectively of God. Whatever the ungodly man "sets up," it is done "without God." He seeks an independent being.
2. Makes gods for itself out of God"s gifts. "Of their silver and gold have they made them idols." The world becomes its god.
3. The end off? 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, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 Set thy trumpet to thy mouth.
Hos_8:1
Set thy trumpet to thy mouth.
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The Gospel trumpet
1. By sounding the Gospel trumpet the mind of God can alone be communicated to man. The voice of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost must be heard from the Scriptures. To the whole Christian priesthood the command is given, Preach the Word.
2. It is the purpose that all shall hear and obey the Gospel trumpet. The silver trumpet of the wilderness was for the entire encampment. Preach the Gospel to every creature.
3. In setting the trumpet to the mouth, we must give no uncertain sound. In the ordinance of the silver trumpet the greatest care was taken to instruct the sons of Aaron in its proper use. What is the Gospel? Is it not this?
(1) Man is a sinner, and responsible for his own salvation.
(2) Jesus Christ is the only Saviour.
(3) Mans part in his salvation is faith in the Lord Jesus. The faith must trust wholly in God, and produce a pure life.
(4) In the Gospel trumpet is Divine power; hence hope of victory over every spiritual foe. Intemperance, infidelity, Sabbath desecration, indifferentism, sin in the heart--these are the Jerichos of our day. Where is the hope of taking these strongholds of Satan? The preaching of the Cross as the power of God. Then set this Gospel trumpet to thy mouth! (A. H. Moment.)
As an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against My law.
The conventional Church
These words are singularly abrupt, and indicate the suddenness of the threatened invader. By the house of the Lord we are to understand Israel as a section of the professed people of God.
I. As endangered. How comes the eagle? Ravenously, suddenly, and swiftly. A conventional Church is in greater danger than any secular community, because--
1. Its guilt is greater.
2. Its influence is more pernicious.
Whose influence on society is the most baneful--the man who denies God, the man who ignores Him, or the man who misrepresents Him? The conventional Church gives society a mal-representation of God and His religion.
II. As warned. Blow a blast that shall thrill every heart in the vast congregation of Israel. Why sound the warning?
1. Because the danger is tremendous.
2. Because the danger is at hand.
3. Because the danger may be avoided.
What is wanted now is a ministry of warning to conventional Churches.
III. As repentant. Israel shall cry unto Me, My God, we know Thee. Oh hasten the day when all conventional Churches shall be brought to a deep and experimental knowledge of God and His Son! when this transpires the dense cloud that has concealed the sun of Christianity shall be swept away, and the quickening beam shall fall on every heart. (Homilist.)
God coming in judgment
whatever be the local and particular references as to the eagle, the great principle remains from age to age that God comes to judgment in various forms, always definitely, and always, as we shall see, intelligibly, not only inflicting vengeance as a Sovereign whose covenants have been outraged, but condescending to explain the reasons upon which His most destructive judgments are based. Thus we read, Because they have transgressed My covenant, and trespassed against My law: the covenant had been broken by idolatry, and the law had been violated by social sins. It is needful to mark this distinction with great particularity, because it shows the breadth of the Divine commandment. God is not speaking about a merely metaphysical law,--a law which can only be interpreted by the greatest minds, and put into operation on the sublimest occasions of life; He is speaking about a law which had indeed its lofty religious aspects, but which had also its social, practical, tender phases, in whose preservation every man, woman, and child in the kingdom ought to be interested. God has made it clear that sin is always a crime. Whoever sins against God sins against his own soul. Once let Gods beneficent laws be violated, and the man does not only suffer metaphysically, or go down in some practical quantity or quality, but he actually suffers in body and estate, sometimes apparently, always really. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
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 v4 The curse of such a state of dissipation as…
2. ARTIFICIAL KINGS AND ARTIFICIAL GODS
Hos_8:4-13
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The curse of such a state of dissipation as that to which Israel had fallen is that it produces no men. Had the people had in them "the root of the matter," had there been the stalk and the fiber of a national consciousness and purpose, it would have blossomed to a man. In the similar time of her outgoings upon the world Prussia had her Frederick the Great, and Israel, too, would have produced a leader, a heaven-sent king, if the national spirit had not been squandered on foreign trade and fashions. But after the death of Jeroboam every man who rose to eminence in Israel, rose, not on the nation, but only on the fevered and transient impulse of some faction; and through the broken years one party monarch was lifted after another to the brief tenancy of a blood-stained throne. They were not from God, these monarchs; but man-made, and sooner or later man-murdered. With his sharp insight Hosea likens these artificial kings to the artificial gods, also the work of mens hands; and till near the close of his book the idols of the sanctuary and the puppets of the throne form the twin targets of his scorn.
"They have made kings, but not from Me; they have made princes, but I knew not. With their silver and their gold they have manufactured themselves idols, only that they may be cut off"-king after king, idol upon idol. "He loathes thy Calf, O Samaria," the thing of wood and gold which thou callest Jehovah. And God confirms this. "Kindled is Mine anger against them! How long will they be incapable of innocence?"-unable to clear themselves of guilt! The idol is still in his mind. "For from Israel is it also-as much as the puppet-kings"; a workman made it, and no god is it. Yea, splinters shall the Calf of Samaria become." Splinters shall everything in Israel become. "For they sow the wind, and the whirlwind shall they reap." Indeed like a storm Hoseas own language now sweeps along; and his metaphors are torn into shreds upon it. "Stalk it hath none: the sprout brings forth no grain: if it were to bring forth, strangers would swallow it." Nay, "Israel hath let herself be swallowed up! Already are they becoming among the nations like a vessel there is no more use for." Heathen empires have sucked them dry. "They have gone up to Assyria like a runaway wild-ass. Ephraim hath hired lovers." It is again the note of their mad dissipation among the foreigners. "But if they" thus "give themselves away among the nations, I must gather them in, and" then "shall they have to cease a little from the anointing of a king and princes." This willful roaming of theirs among the foreigners shall be followed by compulsory exile, and all their unholy artificial politics shall cease. The discourse turns to the other target. For Ephraim hath multiplied altars-to sin; altars are his own-to sin. Were I to write for him by myriads My laws, as those of a stranger would they be accounted. They slay burnt-offerings for Me and eat flesh. Jehovah hath no delight in them. Now must He remember their guilt and make visitation upon their sin. They-to Egypt-shall return" Back to their ancient servitude must they go, as formerly He said He would withdraw them to the wilderness. {Hos_2:16}
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, 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 14 Hos_8:1.] Abruptness indicating sudden judgment. Eagle] Swift and alarming…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hos_8:1.] Abruptness indicating sudden judgment. Eagle] Swift and alarming (Deu_28:49). He] Shalmanezer, king of Assyria. House] Not the temple, nor land, but Israel viewed as the residence of God and one family (Num_12:7; Jer_12:7).
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HOMILETICS
A CORRUPT CHURCH.—Hos_8:1
Judgment is again threatened upon Israel for their sins. They were corrupt notwithstanding all profession to the contrary. They had forsaken God and cast off all good; they had changed the civil government, and maintained the golden calf, and were bringing upon them destruction swift and sure. Taking the house of God as meaning the family of Israel, the professed people of God, we have a corrupt Church endangered and warned.
I. The sins of a corrupt Church. “They have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.”
1. The covenant was broken. In condescension God made a covenant with them, to which they consented, and for the keeping of which he promised them rewards. They transgressed not the mere command, but their own original contract; revolted from their allegiance; and in effect declared that they would no longer be God’s chosen people. They acted foolishly and deceitfully.
2. The law was transgressed. Divine authority was disregarded. Their sins were malignant and defied the bounds of law. All sin is lawless. When men break their own, God’s laws cannot bind them. Those who have no respect for human stipulations will have no regard for Divine covenants. Israel were the professed children of God, yet how grievously they sinned. “God help me, my own children have forsaken me,” cried James II. He could bear the defection of a kingdom and the desertion of an army, but burst into tears and wept in agony at the disloyalty of his family.
II. The danger of a corrupt Church. 1. Its sins are great. The sins of a people who profess much, the defections of a Church which belongs to God, are more aggravating than ordinary transgressions. Israel were guilty of apostasy from God and sins against their neighbour. The Church can have no pretence of ignorance, nothing to excuse or extenuate her sins. She has the covenant, the law, and the gospel. “Woe unto thee, Chorazin; woe unto thee, Bethsaida,” &c.
2. Its danger is imminent. “He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord.” Their fair titles and exalted privileges will not keep off the stroke. Enemies are ever prepared to execute judgments. The eagles gather where the carcass is found. The destruction is—(a) near, (b) swift, (c) certain, and (d) violent. Swift as an eagle swooping on its prey does retribution come upon false professors and conventional churches (Deu_28:49; Isa_5:26).
III. The warning of a corrupt Church. “Set the trumpet to thy mouth.” So God bids Isaiah, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.” As the sound of a war-trumpet would startle a sleeping army, so God would have religious teachers to rouse a sleeping Church. They are “watchmen,” and must warn of coming judgments. There must be no cowardly silence, when the house of God is imperilled by sin and destruction. Augustine prayed, “Lord, deliver me from other men’s sins.” David cried, “Deliver me from blood-guiltiness.” Men are asleep, and the danger is nigh. The trumpet must neither be silent nor give any uncertain sound. “Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.”
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. The prophet’s language may justly be regarded as…
Hos 8:2
I. The prophet’s language may justly be regarded as a distinct promise or prophecy on the part of God. He says, with that infinitude of meaning that all words truly spoken by Him must have: "To Me shall they cry, My God, we know Thee, Israel," or "Israel shall cry, My God, we know Thee." In the very midst of the national sins and disasters of His people, the Lord in His anger yet remembers mercy, and declares that the time shall come when idolatrous Israel shall confess to the knowledge of Him, in deed and in truth.
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II. The conversion of Israel, we are taught, is contingent upon the bringing in of the Gentiles. To say, therefore, that Israel shall be restored, is to say that the world shall be converted; that the world shall cry, "My God, we know Thee;" that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. Nor must we judge of this matter from our own position in time; the wheels of His chariot seem to tarry, the Bridegroom is long in coming, but God has eternity to work in. He is not hampered by human circumstances, nor hurried for lack of time. If His purposes are real purposes, they concern the human race as a whole, and their accomplishment is coeval with the consummation of the race.
III. It is a remarkable transition here from the singular to the plural; from the "My God" to the "We know Thee." No scheme of religion would be complete that did not equally recognize the claims of the individual, and those of the multitude; none could be Divine that did not reconcile them. But the religion of the Bible says that "we" is made up of a whole nation, or rather of many nations, and yet every unit is a living entity, and instinct with life; for every individual cries "My God." Many of our practical problems of the present day consist in the difficulty of adjusting these rival claims. They can only be adjusted, they can only be eradicated and reconciled in the kingdom of God, when every unit of the great army that no man can number, can cry in deed, and in truth, "My God," and when they all alike can say, "We know Thee."
S. Leathes, Good Words, 1874, p. 606.
Reference: Hos 8:2.—J. H. Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 59.
Hos 8:5
I. Consider the expression, "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off." The clever policy by which Jeroboam was to escape a difficulty which he could and ought to have met in faith in the providence of God, not only failed, but ruined his house; and brought down God’s heaviest judgments on an unhappy land. Hardly had his son taken his father’s place when Baasha rose and hurled him from his throne, and with that thirst for blood, which to this day marks the Oriental spirit, slew every man, woman, and child, belonging to the royal family. And amid the silence that reigned over this scene of ruthless massacre, the voice of Providence was heard, saying, "Thy calf, O Jeroboam, hath cast thee off." What the calf did to the monarch, it did to the people—here called Samaria—"who, following the steps of their king apostatized from God, and turned their backs on His temple. Judgment succeeded judgment. The ten tribes, a broken bleeding band, left the land of Israel to go into banishment—to be lost for ages or for ever; and over the two idols that were left behind without a solitary worshipper at their shrine, God in providence might be heard saying, "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off."
II. By way of warning and instruction I observe that the sentiments and spirit of my text are illustrated: (1) By the case of those who put riches in the place of God; (2) by those who live for fame—for the favour, not of God, but of men; (3) by those who seek their happiness in the pleasures of sin.
T. Guthrie, Family Treasury, Sept. 1861, p. 129 (see also The Way to Life, p. 20).
References: Hos 8:7.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 312. Hos 8:12.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. i., No. 15; J. Hiles Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 133; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 353.
Hos 8:14
I. Consider the statements of the text in their primary reference to Israel and Judah, showing their application in spirit to ourselves. (1) Those whom God originally called to be one, whom He consolidated into a Church, making them His family and people, are now two; they are split and divided into contending factions. (2) Notice the different conduct by which the two parties in the text were distinguished. Israel builds temples. Judah multiplies fenced cities. Israel fell from and corrupted the primitive institutions of Divine worship. Judah put her trust, not in what God had promised to do for her, but in herself. The people had the form of godliness without the power. While they approached God with their lips, their hearts were far from Him; they bowed in His temple, but they trusted in themselves. (3) The conduct of Israel and Judah, though so different, was alike bad; in each case it proceeded from the same sinful source; against both the judgments of God were equally denounced.
II. Notice a few practical lessons from the subject. (1) Religion is the most powerful thing in the world. (2) This power, the strongest in itself over the human mind, is exposed by the heart to the greatest perversion, and that in various and opposite directions. (3) The liability of religion to corruption, and the power and tendency of men to corrupt it, are no presumption against the reality of religion in general, or against the truth of Christianity in particular. (4) While large masses of the professing Church may seem to be characterized by particular and obvious forms of error, we should always remember that many individuals in each mass may not be involved in the surrounding corruption. (5) It is highly important for us to consider what may be the tendency of any Church system with which we are connected, and to examine narrowly into our own spirit or temper.
T. Binney, Sermons in King’s Weighhouse Chapel, 2nd series, p. 267.
References: Hos 10:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 276; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 315; Ibid., p. 318. Hos 10:12.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1261; vol. xxvi., No. 1563; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 92; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, 2nd series, p. 281. Hos 11:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1675. Hos 11:3.—Ibid., vol. xvii., No. 1021.
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 The Long-merited Retribution
The Long-merited Retribution
The enemy is coming immediately to destroy their temples and palaces and desolate the land, and as a punishment for their idolatry and disloyalty to God. In vain will they appeal to Jehovah.
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1. RM 'The trumpet to thy mouth! As an eagle against the house of the Lord.'
2. RV 'They shall cry unto me, My God, we Israel know thee.' They use the name Israel with its sacred associations, as an inducement to God to help them.
3. Israel] Hosea answers their appeal by saying that the name is worthless without the character which God requires.
4. In the constant changes of dynasty there was no thought for the religious character of the king, nor counsel asked of God's prophets. Revolution and idolatry had all along been the besetting sin of Israel.
That.. off] Had self-destruction been their object, they could not have achieved it more effectually.
5. Thy calf.. off] RV 'He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria'; meaning that the calf would be taken off by the enemy, Samaria, the capital, being put for the whole people. The allusion is, of course, to the golden bull at Bethel, under which symbol they worshipped God.
6. From Israel] The idol was the mere creation of Israel. Therefore.. God] RV 'and it is no God.' It has no real existence: cp. 1Co_8:4.
7. The wind] i.e. idolatry. It.. stalk] RV 'he hath no standing corn,' as the result of his sowing. The bud] RV 'The blade.' If so be.. up] Again Hosea formally modifies his previous statement, only to hint more plainly at the fate of the nation.
8, 9. The condition of Israel in the land of captivity is here described. A vessel wherein is no pleasure] i.e. a cheap and worthless piece of pottery.
9. Hired lovers] with reference to the tribute paid to Tiglath-pileser by Menahem (cp. Hos_7:9-11), and the attempts made by others to coquet with Egypt.
10. This courting of foreign princes will be of no avail. Very soon the people will be gathered for judgment by God and taken into a strange land.
They shall.. little] They already begin to feel the oppressive tribute exacted by Tiglath-pileser: see on Hos_7:9-11. King of princes] perhaps with reference to the many small dependencies under the Assyrian sway: cp. Isa_10:8.
11. The multiplication of altars and sacrifices only led to increased wickedness.
12. I have written.. law] RV 'Though I write for him my law in ten thousand precepts.' It mattered not how emphatically God's teaching should be made known to Israel; they would ignore it.
13. The sacrifices to Jehovah are a merely formal act, only killing and eating. Such sacrifices without repentance are not acceptable to Him, and will not induce Him to forget or overlook their sins: cp. Isa_1:12. They.. Egypt] The prophet in God's name here threatens to undo the greatest act that God had ever done for His people: cp. Isa_7:16. Hosea evidently contemplated the possibility of the punishment which he foresaw coming from Egypt. More frequently he speaks of Assyria as the instrument of God's vengeance.
14. Temples] RV 'palaces.' The building of fenced cities by Israel and Judah implied a want of faith in God's power to save.
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 Apostasy is Followed by Judgment
CHAPTER 8:1-9:9
The Apostasy is Followed by Judgment
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1. The judgment announced (Hos 8:1-7)
2. The apostasy which resulted in judgment (Hos 8:8-14)
3. Warning against self-security (Hos 9:1-9)
Hos 8:1-7. The prophet is commanded to sound the alarm of the impending judgment. The message is that the enemy will come swift as an eagle upon the house of the Lord, which here does not mean the temple (which was in connection with Judah), but Israel as the chosen people was the house, the dwelling-place of the Lord. All their spurious profession, their false claim, “My God, we know Thee, we, Israel”, will go for nothing, because they transgressed the covenant and the law. The obnoxious thing they did is stated in Hos 9:4. They had separated themselves from Judah and chosen their own kings and princes in self will, thus putting themselves outside of the theocracy; idolatry speedily followed. In Bethel they had erected the worship of the calf, the great abomination in the sight of the Lord. He rejects their corrupt worship, and ere long the calf of Samaria will be broken to pieces, like the golden calf their fathers made in the wilderness. They sowed the wind and the whirlwind would be the harvest (Hos 10:13; Hos 12:2; Job 4:8; Pro 22:8). They sowed vanity and evil; the tempest of destruction would be their reaping. What they sowed would not yield fruit at all. The Hebrew contains a play of words, “Tsemach brings no Quernach,” which may be rendered, “shoot brings no fruit.”
Hos 8:8-14. Israel had been swallowed up by the nations, that is, by mingling with them. By their doings they have become like a despised vessel. Their sin was going up to Assyria, like a wild ass, suing there for love and favor. They were like a stubborn brute going there by itself. Ephraim was even worse than the stubborn ass. They formed unnatural alliances with the Gentiles. There they gave presents, hiring lovers, literally rendered, “Ephraim gave presents of love” to practice her whoredoms. They forgot their Creator, God; their sacrifices Jehovah despised. Therefore the judgment.
Hos 9:1-9. Under the reign of Jeroboam II Israel enjoyed great prosperity. It seems they had a bountiful harvest, corn and wine was in abundance. They gave themselves over to feasting and rejoicing. It was at such an occasion when the Lord sent this warning against their own security. Their captivity is announced where they would eat things unclean and feast days will no longer be possible. Then the prophet beholds them as already in the Assyrian captivity. They went away and turned towards the south to escape the sure destruction. But “Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them.” Their precious things of silver will give way to thistles and thorns. The day of visitation was at hand; their iniquities are remembered and their sins will be visited.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 The Judgment Announced
The Judgment Announced
v. 1. Set the trumpet to thy mouth, so the Lord calls out to the prophet in bidding him give a warning concerning the approach of the judgment. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, the enemy, especially the Assyrian, invading the country with the swiftness of an eagle pouncing upon his prey, Deu 28:49, because they have transgressed My covenant and trespassed against My Law. While God, according to His mercy, would like to live in the midst of His people, they make His presence impossible by their rebellious behavior.
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v. 2. Israel shall cry unto Me, literally, "To Me will they cry," presuming upon the relation which had formerly obtained between Jehovah and them, My God, we know Thee (we, Israel). But it is a dead knowledge of the head only, faith no longer being found in their midst. The Lord wants to have the entire trust of the heart, as expressed in a person’s whole life, He is not satisfied with a mere external worship.
v. 3. Israel hath cast off the thing that is good, they are filled with aversion and loathing for the covenant of Jehovah. The enemy shall pursue him, as a punishment for such rebellious behavior, which is now more fully explained.
v. 4. They have set up kings, but not by Me, not by His direction nor with His consent; they have made princes, and I knew it not, for even in the case of Jeroboam and Jehu the manner of their accession did not meet with the Lord’s approval, and in the case of most of the other rulers, murder and violence were the determining factors. Of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, thus cutting themselves off entirely from the covenant of the Lord, that they might be cut off, for on account of their idolatry they rushed into their own destruction with open eyes.
v. 5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off, or, "Is rejected thy calf," one of the idols made with their gold, "O Samaria?" the reference being to the calf of Bethel and Samaria, which is being addressed for the whole nation. Mine anger is kindled against them; how long will it be ere they attain to innocency? How long would they be incapable of purity? How long would it be before they would cease from polluting themselves with their idol-worship?
v. 6. For from Israel was it also, that is, this calf originated from men; the workman made it, therefore it is not god. But the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces, smashed into tiny fragments. This is the result of Israel’s idolatry.
v. 7. For they have sown the wind, by all their transgressions, and they shall reap the whirlwind, a fitting harvest for such a sowing; it hath no stalk, their sowing produces no stalk, the bud, the kernels of the ear, shall yield no meal; if so be it yield, the strangers, the invading enemies, shall swallow it up. Such is the result of seeking the friendship of the enemies of God; in the end they turn upon those who depended upon them and bring destruction upon them.
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, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh is speaking about the coming of the Assyrian army to attack the northern kingdom.
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An eagle is coming over the house of Yahweh
The eagle, a bird of prey, is sometimes used to represent the enemies of Israel. AT: "As an eagle hunts another animal, the enemies of Israel are coming to capture my people" (See: Metaphor)
broken my covenant
Here "broken" represents "disobeyed," "violated." (See: Metaphor)
know you
"are faithful to you"
translationWords
trumpet
eagle
Yahweh
covenant
rebel
law
God
Israel
adversary
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, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 8:1 Sound the alarm: The ram’s horn trumpet (shofar)…
8:1 Sound the alarm: The ram’s horn trumpet (shofar) called the people to worship (Ps 98:6); it was also (as here) the signal for battle (2 Sam 20:1). God was sending an enemy, the Assyrians, to execute his judgment on Israel. • revolted against my law: God’s law (Hebrew torah) is much more than the sum of the individual laws in the Pentateuch. It represents the totality of God’s instruction to his people through his words and his deeds. Loving fulfillment of the Torah was Israel’s part of the covenant. They had broken God’s commandments, and they had turned aside from their covenant relationship with the Lord.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.