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 vv5–14 The Prophet goes on with the same subject; for…
The Prophet goes on with the same subject; for he shows that Israel perished through their own fault, and that the crime, or the cause of destruction, could not be transferred to any other. There is some ambiguity in the words, which does not, however, obscure the sense; for whether we read calf in the objective case, or say, thy calf has removed thee far off, it will be the same. Some say, “has forsaken thee,” as they do above, “Israel has forsaken good;” but the sense of throwing away is to be preferred. Thy calf, then, Samaria, has cast thee off, or, “The Lord has cast far off thy calf.” If we read thy calf in the “objective” case, then the Prophet denounces destruction not only on the Israelites, but also on the calf in which they hoped. But the probable exposition is, that the calf had removed far off, or driven far Samaria or the people of Samaria; and this, I have no doubt, is the meaning of the words; for the Prophet, to confirm his previous doctrine, seems to remind the Israelites again, that the cause of their destruction was not anywhere to be sought but in their wickedness, and especially because they, having forsaken the true God, had made an idol for themselves, and formed the calf to be in the place of God. Now, it was a stupidity extremely gross and perverse, that having experienced, through so many miracles, the infinite power and goodness of God, they should yet have betaken themselves to a dead thing. They forged for themselves a calf! Must they not have been moved, as it were, by a prodigious madness, when they did thus fall away from the true God, who had so often and so wonderfully made himself known to them?
Hence God says now Thy calf O Samaria; that is “The captivity which now impends over thee will not happen by a fortuitous chance, nor will it be right to ascribe it to the wrong done by enemies, that they shall by force take thee to distant lands; but thy very calf drives thee away God had indeed fixed thee in this land, that it might be to thee a quiet heritage to the end; but thy calf has not suffered thee to rest here. The land of Canaan was indeed thy heritage, as it was also the Lord’s heritage; but after God has been banished, and the calf has been introduced in his place, by what right can you now remain in the possession of it? Thy calf, then, expels thee, inasmuch as by thy calf thou hast first attempted to banish the true God.” We now perceive the mind of the Prophet.
Read full note →
He afterwards says that his anger kindled against them He includes here all the Israelites, and shows that it cannot be otherwise, but that God would inflict on them extreme vengeance, inasmuch as they were not teachable, (as we have before often observed,) and could not be turned nor reformed by any admonitions.
How long, he says, will they be not able to attain cleanness, or innocence? He here deplores the obstinacy of the people, that at no period or space of time had they returned to a sane mind, and that there was no hope of them in future. How long then will they not be able to attain innocence? “Since it is so; that is, since they are unimpressible, (incompatibiles) as they commonly say, since they are void of all purity or innocence, I am, therefore, now constrained to adopt the last remedy, and, that is, to destroy them.” Here God shuts the mouth of the ungodly, that they could not object that the severity which he so rigidly exercised towards them was immoderate. He refutes their calumnies by saying, that he had patiently borne with them, and was still bearing with them. But he saw them to be so obstinate in their wickedness, that no hope of them could be entertained. It follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13 That is, upright judgment and godly life.
That is, upright judgment and godly life.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv5–14 Hos 8:5 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast [thee]…
Hos 8:5 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast [thee] off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long [will it be] ere they attain to innocency?
Ver. 5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off] That is, it can do thee no stead, nor deliver thee from the destroyer. "Be not afraid of such idols" (saith Jeremiah), "for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good," Jer 10:5, they can neither hurt nor help; for an idol is nothing in the world, 1Co 8:4, nothing but a mere fiction; it hath no godhead or power divine in itself, as the following words show, "that there is none other God but one." How then can help be reasonably expected from it? Israel had cast off the thing that is good for calf worship, Hos 8:3, therefore is he worthily cast off by his calf, called here Samaria’s calf, or calves, because that was the chief city, the palace of the king, and is therefore put for the whole province; and their idols called a calf, by way of contempt, as the brazen serpent is called Nehushtan, or a piece of brass, when once it was idolized. See how Rabshakeh insults over those heathen deities, 2Ki 18:33-35, and blasphemously applieth it to the God of Israel, who never casteth off his faithful servants; but is with them in trouble, to deliver them, and honour them, Psa 91:15. Surely "the Lord will not cast off his faithful people, neither will he forsake his inheritance," Psa 94:14. "Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man," Job 8:20. "But though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies," Lam 3:32. Some read it thus, "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath been carried away into a far country," namely, into Assyria; as the idols of the nations which were overcome were carried away captive in triumph by the conquerors. See Hos 10:6.
Read full note →
Mine anger is kindled against them] God is said to be angry against idolaters, because he doth that which an angry man useth to do, viz. 1. chide, 2. fight: see the second commandment in the sanction of it, and tremble at God’s displeasure, which when once kindled, and comes into his face, or nostrils (as here), it burneth to the lowest hell, consumeth the earth with her increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains, Deu 32:22. It is ill angering him that is the Ancient of days, and a consuming fire. The Jews use to say to this day, that there is no punishment befalleth them in which there is not an ounce of Aaron’s golden calf.
How long will it be ere they attain to innocency?] Quousque non poterunt innocentiam? a forcible ellipsis; as if God were so vexed, that be could not fully utter himself, nor at all speak to Samaria as he had begun, but turns his discourse to others, saying, How long will they not be cleansed? or, not abide innocence? By which powerful expression three things are intimated. First, that these Israelites were refractory and desperate; not only unclean, but enemies to innocence, such as could not abide it: they were inveterate and incurable, their diseases ingrained, and not easily stirred by any potion. Secondly, that God is most patient, who though he thinks over a long period of time that men continue in their evil courses, and therefore cries, Quousque, How long? &c., and, when will it once be? yet bears with their evil manners, and inviteth them to better. Thirdly, that he will at length break off his patience, and proceed to punishment, since there is no other remedy, 2Ch 34:16 Pro 29:1.
“ Compenset longas ut gravitate moras. ”
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 vv5–14 Thy calf; Jeroboam at first set up two calves,…
Thy calf; Jeroboam at first set up two calves, at Dan and Beth-el, but it is probable that in process of time there were more set up in other places, for when Israel forgot his God he built temples, Hos 8:14. The calf then here is the chief idol set up in Samaria, and worshipped there. The prophet, in contempt of the idol, and in derision of their folly, gives it its right name, it is no god, but a calf; nor yet so much, for that it is senseless and without life.
Hath cast thee off; been the occasion of casting thee far off, in that by this thou hast provoked God to anger, and he hath cast thee off. Or else thus, if thy God, thy idol, thy calf, have done aught, it is mischief; thy calf could not keep itself in Samaria, but it is either carried a captive god, or, broken into pieces, is carried piecemeal into Assyria, and so hath cast time off: it carrieth somewhat of irony in it.
Read full note →
Mine anger is kindled against them; now it is evident that my anger, as fire, burneth against the idols, idol-makers, and idol-worshippers, and shall so burn till they are purified or consumed.
How long will it be ere they attain to innocency? the prophet is very concise, and perhaps here must be supposed some or other (some one of the people, or the prophet himself) sighing out to God, How long shall thine anger burn? and answer returned by God, How long will it be ere they be cleansed?
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 v8 It was the honour and happiness of Israel that…
It was the honour and happiness of Israel that they had but one God to trust to and he all-sufficient in every strait, and but one God to serve, and he well worthy of all their devotions. But it was their sin, and folly, and shame, that they knew not when they were well off, that they forsook their own mercies for lying vanities; for,
I. They multiplied their alliances (Hos 8:9): They have hired lovers, or (as the margin reads it) they have hired loves. They were at great expense to purchase the friendship of the nations about them, that otherwise had no value nor affection at all for them, nor cared for having any thing to do with them but only upon the Shechemites' principles - Shall not their cattle and their substance be ours? Gen 34:23. Had Israel maintained the honour of their peculiarity, the surrounding nations would have continued to admire them as a wise and understanding people; but, when they profaned their own crown, their neighbours despised them, and they had no interest in them further than they paid dearly for it. But those surely have behaved ill among their neighbours who have no loves, no lovers, but what they hire. See here, 1. The contempt that Israel lay under among the nations (Hos 8:8): Israel is swallowed up, devoured by strangers, their land eaten up (Hos 8:7), and themselves too, and, being impoverished, they have quite lost their credit and reputation, like a merchant that has become a bankrupt, so that they are among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure, a vessel of dishonour (Ti2 2:20), a despised broken vessel, Jer 22:28. None of their neighbours have any value for them, nor care to have any thing to do with them. Note, Those that have professed religion, if they degenerate and grow profane, are of all men the most contemptible. If the salt have lost its savour, it is fit for nothing but to be trodden under foot of men. Or it denotes their dispersion and captivity among the Gentiles; they shall be among them poor and prisoners; and who has pleasure in such? 2. The court that Israel made to the nations notwithstanding (Hos 8:9): They have gone to Assyria, to engage the king of Assyria to help them; and herein they are as a wild ass alone by himself, foolish, headstrong, and unruly; they will have their way, and nothing shall hold them in, no, not the bridle of God's laws, nothing shall turn them back, no, not the sword of God's wrath. They take a course by themselves, and the effect will be that, like a wild ass by himself, they will be the easier and surer prey to the lion. See Job 11:12; Jer 2:24. Note, Man is in nothing more like the wild ass's colt than in seeking for that succour and that satisfaction in the creature which are to be had in God only. 3. The crosses that they were likely to meet with in their alliances with the neighbouring nations (Hos 8:10): Though they have hired among the nations, and hoped thereby to prevent their own ruin, yet now will I gather them, as the sheaves in the floor (Mic 4:12); so that what they provided for their own safety shall but make them the easier prey to their enemies. Note, There is no fence against the judgments of God, when they come with commission; nay, that which men hire for their own preservation often contributes to their own destruction. See Isa 7:20. The king of Assyria, whose friendship they courted, called himself a king of princes, Isa 10:8. Are not my princes altogether kings? He laid burdens upon Israel, levied taxes upon them, Kg2 15:19, Kg2 15:20. And for these they shall sorrow a little; this shall be but a little burden to them in comparison of what they may further expect; or they will be but little sensible of this grievance, will not lay it to heart, and therefore may expect heavier judgments. They have begun to be diminished (so some read it), by the burden of the king of princes; but this is only the beginning of sorrows (Mat 24:8), the beginning of revenges, Deu 32:42. Note, God often comes gradually with his judgments upon a provoking people, that he may show how slow he is to wrath, and may awaken them to repentance; but those that are made to sorrow a little, if they are not thereby brought to sorrow after a godly sort, will, another day, be made to sorrow a great deal, to sorrow everlastingly.
Read full note →
II. They multiplied their altars and temples. Observe,
1. How they denied the power of godliness, and wholly cast that off (Hos 8:12): I have written to him the great things of my law; this intimates the privilege they enjoyed, as having God's statutes and judgments made known to them, and being entrusted with the lively oracles. Note, (1.) The things of God's law are magnalia Dei - the great things of God. They are things that proclaim the greatness of the Law-maker, and things of great use and great importance to us; they are our life, and our eternal welfare depends upon our observance of them and obedience to them; they will make us great if we make a right use of them; and they are things which God will magnify and make honourable. (2.) It is a great privilege to have the things of God's law written; thus they are reduced to a greater certainty, spread the further, and last the longer, with much less danger of being embezzled and corrupted than if they were transmitted by word of mouth only. (3.) The things of God's law are of his own writing; for Moses and the prophets were his amanuenses, and holy men wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (4.) It is the advantage of those that are members of the visible church that these great things are written to them, are intended for their direction, and so they must receive them; what things were written in former ages were written for our learning, and are profitable for us. And, if those were happy who had the great things of God's law written to them, how much happier are we who have the gospel written to us! But see how this privilege was slighted; these great things of the law were counted as a strange thing, as unintelligible and unreasonable (which might therefore be slighted, because not to be fathomed, not to be accounted for), or as foreign, and things of no concernment to them, things that they had nothing to do with nor were to be governed by; they used those things as strangers, which they were shy of, and knew not how to bid welcome. We desire not the knowledge of thy ways. Note, [1.] God having written to us the great things of his law, we ought to make them familiar to us, as our nearest relations (Pro 7:3, Pro 7:4); for therefore we have them written, that they may talk with us, Pro 6:22. [2.] We make nothing of the things of God's law if we make strange of them, as if they did not affect us and therefore we need not be affected with them.
2. How they kept up the form of godliness notwithstanding, and to what little purpose they did so.
(1.) They multiplied their altars (Hos 8:11): Ephraim made many altars to sin. God appointed that there should be but one altar for sacrifice (Deu 12:3, Deu 12:5); but the ten tribes, having forsaken that, would still be thought very devout, and zealous for the honour of God, and, as if they would make amends for the affront they put on God's altar, they made many altars, dedicated to the God of Israel, whom hereby they intended, or at least pretended, to give glory to; but that would not justify their violation of God's express command, nor would the example of the patriarchs, who before the law of Moses had many altars. No, they made many altars to sin (that is, they did that which turned into sin to them), and therefore these altars shall be unto them to sin, that is, God will charge it upon them as a heinous sin, and put that upon the score of their crimes which they designed to be for the expiation of their crimes. Or they shall be to them an occasion of further sin. Their multiplying of altars dedicated to the God of Israel would introduce altars dedicated to other gods. Note, It is a great sin to corrupt the worship of God, and it will be charged as sin upon those that do it, how plausible soever their pretensions may be. And the way of this, as other sins, is down-hill; those that once deviate from the fixed rule of God's commands will wander endlessly.
(2.) They multiplied their sacrifices, Hos 8:13. Their altars were smoking altars: They sacrificed flesh for the sacrifices of God's offerings, and they celebrated their feasts upon their sacrifices; they were at a great expense upon their devotions, and (as those commonly are who set up their own inventions in the room of divine institutions) were very zealous in their way; as if they hoped by their impositions on themselves to atone for the contempt of the great atonement, and by their observing a ceremonial law of their own to excuse themselves from the obligation of all God's moral precepts. But how did they speed? [1.] God makes no reckoning of their services: The Lord accepts them not. How should he, when they did not offer their sacrifice upon that altar which alone sanctified the gift, and when they only sacrificed flesh, but not the spiritual sacrifice of a penitent believing heart? Note, Those services only are acceptable to God which are performed according to the rule of his word, and through Jesus Christ, Pe1 2:5. [2.] He takes that occasion to reckon with them for their sins; now will he, instead of pardoning their iniquity and blotting out their sins, as they expected, remember their iniquity and visit their sins. Such an abomination to the Lord are the sacrifices of the wicked that they provoke him to call them to an account for all their other abominations. When they think by their sacrifices to bribe the Judge of heaven and earth into a connivance at their wickedness he will resent that as the highest affront they can put upon him, and it shall be the measure-filling sin. Note, A petition for leave to sin amounts to an imprecation of the curse for sin, and so it shall be answered, according to the multitude of the idols. "I will punish their sins, for they shall return to Egypt;" they shall be carried captive into Assyria, which shall be to them a house of bondage, as Egypt was to their fathers. Or it refers to Deu 28:68, where returning to Egypt is made to close and complete the miseries of that sinful nation.
(3.) They multiplied their temples, and these also in honour of the true God, as they pretended, but really in contempt of the choice he had made of Jerusalem to put his name there. Israel has forgotten his Maker, Hos 8:14. They pretended to know him, and yet forgot him, for they liked not to retain God in their knowledge, when the remembrance of him would give check to their lusts. It was an aggravation of their sin in forgetting God that he was their Maker (Deu 32:15, Deu 32:18; Job 35:10), as nothing obliges us more to remember him than that he is our Creator, Ecc 12:1. "He has forgotten his Maker, and builds temples; he seems by the temples he builds to me mindful of his Maker, and to be desirous still to keep him in mind, and yet really he has forgotten him, because he has cast off the fear of him." Some by temples here understand palaces, for so the word sometimes signifies. "He has forgotten his Maker, and yet is so secure and haughty that he sets his judgments at defiance, as Nebuchadnezzar did when he said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built?" Judah is likewise charged with multiplying fenced cities, and trusting in them for safety, when the judgments of God were abroad. To fortify their cities in subjection and subordination to God was well enough; but to fortify them in opposition to God, and without any regard to him or his providence (Isa 22:11), shows their hearts to be desperately hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. But none ever hardened his heart against God and prospered, nor shall they. God will send a fire upon his cities, upon the cities both of Judah and Israel, not only the head-cities of Jerusalem and Samaria, but all the other cities of those two kingdoms, and it shall devour not only the cottages, but the palaces thereof; though ever so strong, the fire shall master them; though ever so stately and sumptuous, the fire shall not spare them. This was fulfilled when all the cities of Israel were laid in ashes by the king of Assyria, and all the cities of Judah by the king of Babylon. The fires they both kindled were of his sending; and when he judges he will overcome.
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 vv5–14 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off,.... Or,…
Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off,.... Or, is the cause of thy being cast off by the Lord, and of being cast out of thine own land, and carried captive into another; the past tense is used for the future, as is common in prophetic writings, to denote the certainty of the thing: or "thy calf hath left thee" (a); in the lurch; it cannot help thee; it is gone off, and forsaken thee; it has "removed" itself from thee, according to the sense of the word in Lam 3:17; as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe; or is removed far from thee, being carried captive itself into Assyria; for, when the king of Assyria took Samaria, he seized on the golden calf for the sake of the gold, and took it away; see Hos 10:5; or "he hath removed thy calf" (b); that is, the enemy, taking it away when he took the city; or God has rejected it with the utmost contempt and abhorrence: the calf is here, and in the following verse, called the calf of Samaria, because this was the metropolis of the ten tribes, in which the calf was worshipped, and because it was worshipped by the Samaritans; and it may be, when Samaria became the chief city, the calf at Bethel might be removed thither, or another set up in that city:
mine anger is kindled against them: the calves at Dan and Bethel, the singular before being put for the plural; or against the if of Samaria, and Samaria itself; or the inhabitants of it, because of the worship of the calf, which was highly provoking to God, it being a robbing him of his glory, and giving it to graven images:
Read full note →
how long will it be ere they attain to innocency? or "purity" (c); of worship, life, and conversation: the words may be rendered thus, "how long?" (d) for there is a large stop there; and this may be a question of the prophet's, asking how long the wrath of God would burn against the people, what; would be the duration of it, and when it would end? to which an answer is returned, as the words may be translated, "they cannot bear purity" (e); of doctrine, of worship of heart, and life; when they can, mine anger will cease burning: or, as the Targum,
"as long as they cannot purify themselves,''
or be purified; so long as they continue in their sins, in their superstition and idolatry, and other impieties, and are not purged from them.
(a) "dereliquit vitulus te", Lutherus; "descruit te vitulus tuus", Schmidt. (b) "Elongavit sc. hostis, vitalum tuum", Schindler. (c) "munditiem", Calvin, Rivet, Schmidt. (d) "quousque?" Zanchius, Pareus, Cocceius. (e) "non possunt innocentiam praestare", Cocceius; "quamdiu non poterunt animum adjungere ad innocentam", Zanchius; "usquedum non poterunt ferre innocentiam", Pareus.
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 vv5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Thy calf - The chief idol set up in…
Thy calf - The chief idol set up in Samaria. Cast thee off - Hath provoked God to cast thee off. Against them - Idols, and idol worshippers. How long - How long will it be, ere they repent and reform?
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv5–14 Verse 5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee…
Verse 5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off] Bishop Newcome translates: "Remove far from thee thy calf, O Samaria!" Abandon thy idolatry; for my anger is kindled against thee.
How long will it be ere they attain to innocency?] How long will ye continue your guilty practices? When shall it be said that ye are from these vices? The calf or ox, which was the object of the idolatrous worship of the Israelites, was a supreme deity in Egypt; and it was there they learned this idolatry. A white ox was worshipped under the name of Apis, at Memphis; and another ox under the name of Mnevis, was worshipped at On, or Heliopolis. To Osiris the males of this genus were consecrated, and the females to Isis. It is a most ancient superstition, and still prevails in the East. The cow is a most sacred animal among the Hindoos.
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 vv5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14 Hos 8:5-6. Thy calf, O Samaria — Here God…
Hos 8:5-6. Thy calf, O Samaria — Here God himself, who is the speaker, turns short upon Samaria, or the ten tribes; and, in a tone of dreadful indignation, upbraids their corrupt worship. Hath cast thee off — That is, “will profit thee nothing in dangers.” — Grotius. As if he had said, As the people of Samaria hath cast off that which is good, Hos 8:3, so the calf, which they worship, shall not protect or deliver them from the evils coming upon them, now my anger is kindled against them. How long will it be ere they attain to innocency? — How long will it be ere they repent and reform? Bishop Horsley renders it, How long will they bear antipathy to pure religion? The Hebrew word, נקיו, signifies purity, or cleanness generally; hence moral purity, innocence. But here, says he, “I think it particularly denotes pure religion, or the purity of worship; pure religion and undefiled, in opposition both to the superstitious practices of idolaters, and the false show of hypocrites. For from Israel was it also — Or, “from Israel came even this; this thing, vile and abominable as it is, was his own invention; not a thing that he had learned or borrowed from any other nations. Archbishop Newcome indeed says, ‘The Israelites may have originally borrowed this superstition from the Egyptians;’ for in Egypt, he observes, ‘this species of animals were worshipped, the Apis at Memphis, and the Mnevis at Heliopolis.’ But the prophet expressly says, that the Israelites borrowed this superstition from nobody; it was all their own. Indeed, what they had seen in Egypt was the worship of a living calf, not of the lifeless image of a calf, or of any other animal.” — Bishop Horsley. The workman made it, therefore it is not God — It is no more than the work of man, and therefore there is no divine power in it. But the calf of Samaria — Or, the calf of Beth-el, in the kingdom of Samaria, shall be broken in pieces — Whereby it shall be proved to all, that there is nothing divine in it. Horsley renders it, Verily, the calf of Samaria shall be reduced to atoms. So also Grotius understands the Hebrew expression, שׁבבים היה, interpreting the noun שׁבב, as signifying, “minimum quidque in re quâvis: ut scintillæ, fragmenta, segmenta;” the smallest particle in any thing, as sparks, shivers, shreds; Jerome says, atoms. This was done by the Assyrians, when they made an entire conquest of the ten tribes.
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 vv5–14 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off -…
Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off - Israel had cast off God, his good. In turn, the prophet says, the “calf,” which he had chosen to be his god instead of the Lord his God, “has cast” him “off.” He repeats the word, by which he had described Israel’s sin, ”Israel hath cast off and abhorred good” in order to show the connection of his sin and its punishment. “Thy calf,” whom thou madest for thyself, whom thou worshipest, whom thou lovest, of whom thou saidst, “Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” 1Ki 12:28-31; “thy” calf, in whom thou didst trust instead of thy God, it has requited thee the dishonor thou didst put on thy God; it hath “cast thee off” as a thing “abhorred.” So it is with all people’s idols, which they make to themselves, instead of God. First or last, they all fail a man, and leave him poor indeed. Beauty fades; wealth fails; honor is transferred to another; nothing abides, save God. Whence our own great poet of nature makes a fallen favorite say, “had I but serv’d my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine-enemies.”
Mine anger is kindled against them - Our passions are but some distorted likeness of what exists in God without passion; our anger, of His displeasure against sin. And so God speaks to us after the manner of people, and pictures His divine displeasure under the likeness of our human passions of anger and fury, in order to bring home to us, what we wish to hide from ourselves, the severe and awful side of His Being, His Infinite Holiness, and the truth, that He will indeed avenge. He tells us, that He will surely punish; as people, who are extremely incensed, execute their displeasure if they can.
Read full note →
How long will it be ere they attain to innocency? - Literally, “how long will they not be able innocency?” So again it is said, “him that hath an high look and a proud heart, I cannot” Psa 101:5; we supply, “suffer.” “New moons and sabbaths I cannot” Isa 1:13; our version adds, “away with,” i. e., endure. So here probably. As they had with abhorrence cast off God their good, so God says, “they cannot endure innocency;” but He speaks as wondering and aggrieved at their hardness of heart and their obdurate holding out against the goodness, which He desired for them. “How long will they not be able to endure innocency?” “What madness this, that when I give them place for repentence, they will not endure to return to health of soul!”
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 vv5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14 Calf. The idol is broken in pieces, and carried…
Calf. The idol is broken in pieces, and carried away by the victorious enemy. Thus does the vanity of such gods appear. Their captivity is therefore often foretold, Jeremias xliii. 12. --- Cleansed. The physician is disgusted with the obstinacy of the sick. (Calmet) --- How long will Israel resist the Holy Ghost? (Acts vii. 51.) (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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv5–14 hath cast thee off--As the ellipsis of thee is…
hath cast thee off--As the ellipsis of thee is unusual, MAURER translates, "thy calf is abominable." But the antithesis to Hos 8:3 establishes English Version, "Israel hath cast off the thing that is good"; therefore, in just retribution, "thy calf hath cast thee off," that is, is made by God the cause of thy being cast off (Hos 10:15). Jeroboam, during his sojourn in Egypt, saw Apis worshipped at Memphis, and Mnevis at Heliopolis, in the form of an ox; this, and the temple cherubim, suggested the idea of the calves set up at Dan and Beth-el.
how long . . . ere they attain to innocency?--How long will they be incapable of bearing innocency? [MAURER].
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 vv5–6 5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off…
5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off — R.V., “He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria.” The latter is a more accurate reproduction of the Hebrew, and gives better sense; but when taken with the context a difficulty remains; for the context suggests that Jehovah is the speaker, so that we would expect “I have cast off.” The addition of one single consonant to the verb form, with corresponding vowel changes, produces this reading. The emendation becomes unnecessary if the verb is given an intransitive meaning: “Abominable is thy calf.” Calf is a contemptuous designation of the bulls set up in Dan and Beth-el, and perhaps in Samaria, though the expression used here does not necessarily imply the presence of such calf in the capital, Samaria; the name of the capital may be used instead of the name of the country, Israel. Throughout the entire section the sentences follow one another in rapid succession without indication of the logical connection. The righteous anger of Jehovah is aroused, therefore he must make an end of the calf.
How long will it be ere they attain to innocency? — An exclamation prompted by disappointment and sympathy. The exact force of the words “they attain to innocency” is disputed. The literal translation, “how long will they be incapable of innocency,” seems to come nearer to the real thought. The persistent idolatry reveals their incapacity for something better. Is this condition to continue forever?
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 vv5–14 5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off]…
5. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off] This rendering is very harsh in this context; Ewald prefers ‘He hath cast off thy calf’, a contrast to ‘Israel hath cast off that which is good’ in Hos_8:3. But ‘casting off’ implies a previous connexion (e. g. Psa_43:2); it is better to revert to the intransitive sense which belongs to the cognate verb in Arabic, and render, Thy calf, O Samaria, is loathsome. ‘Thy calf’ is a contemptuous expression for the small golden bull which was symbolic of Jehovah; such a bull, it appears, existed at Samaria, and doubtless at other places besides Dan and Bethel (e. g. at Gilgal).
ere they can attain innocency] Lit. ‘will they be incapable of innocency.’ Idolatry presented itself to Hosea, not only as a form of worship, but as an immoral way of living.
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 vv5–14 (5) Thy calf . . . hath cast thee…
(5) Thy calf . . . hath cast thee off.—Rather, is loathsome, Nothing can exceed the scorn of this outburst. The last clause should be rendered, How long are ye unable to attain purity? The attribution of consuming fire to God is not peculiar to the prophet. (Comp. Heb_12:29.)
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 vv5–14 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath east thee off; mine…
Thy calf, O Samaria, hath east thee off; mine anger is kindled against them. This portion of the verse has occasioned much diversity of translation and exposition, and yet the general meaning is much the same.
(1) In the translation
Read full note →
(a) of the Authorized Version the word "thee" is supplied; others
(b) supply "me," meaning Jehovah, thus, "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast me off;" while
(c) Rosenm prefers supplying "them," viz. the Israelites: "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast them off," i.e. has been the cause of their rejection, which is favored by in the following clause. The meaning of (b) is plain, the import being that the idol-worship had led to the rejection and so the withdrawal of Jehovah; while the sense of (a) conveys the idea that the golden calf which the country represented by its capital and the government had established at Bethel as the symbol of their worship, so far from protecting its worshippers, would fall itself into the hands of the Assyrian invader.
(2) The Septuagint translates by apotreqai toscon sou Samareia , equivalent to "Cast off as if jnz thy calf, O Samaria;" which is an exhortation to Samaria, and not only Samaria, but the entire country, with the inhabitants of the capital at its head, to cast aside the calf-worship by which they had incurred the wrath of the Almighty. Jerome, reading jNzu (Pual), renders, "Cast off is thy calf.
(3) Some modern scholars translate, "He has cast off thy calf," and refer it to the enemy, and rather in the sense of carrying off the golden image as a spoil; or to Jehovah; thus De Wette has, Jehova verwirft deiu Calb, Samarien," which is not in keeping with the first person in the next clause.
(4) Others take the verb intransitively, and give it the meaning of "smelling bodily," "emitting intolerable stench." "being loathsome or disgusting;" thus Keil has, "Thy calf disgusts, O Samaria." So Wunsche: "Anekolt deiu Calb." Israel loathed or felt disgust at pure worship and what was really good; now Jehovah in turn is disgusted with their golden calf and hateful idolatry. No wonder it is added, Mine anger is waxed hot (has burnt or blazed out) against them; i.e. not the calf and Samaria, nor the calves, but their stupid, sinful worshippers. How long will it be ere they attain to innocence? Or it may be translated, How long will it be ere they shall be able to endure (bear) innocence (guiltlessness)? The verb lky, has frequently to be supplemented by another verb, as in Psa_150:5, lkWa al, "A proud heart will not I suffer;" so also Isa_1:13. The speaker here turns, as it were, from unwilling auditors to others more ready to lend ancar, and asks, "How long are they incapable of purity of life instead of the abominations of idolatry? How great the madness that, while I allow space and place for repentance, they are unwilling to return to soundness of mind!" The Authorized Version rendering is supported by Aben Ezra and Kimchi. The former explains: "It is as if z were written double, "Thee as thy calf cast off thee Samaria, as if it has rejected thee, for the city shall be laid and its inhabitants shall go into captivity; and Kimchi says, "z is transitive, and has the meaning of "remove," as in Lam_2:7. He says, "O Samaria, thy calf has removed thee," that is, on account of it thou art removed out of thy land." The last clause is also well explained by Kimchi, though in a different sense from that given above, thus: "How long are they unable to purify themselves from this guilt (i.e. idolatry)?
Vers. 5-14. Sin its own punishment.
These verses exhibit
(1) the root of viz. forgetfulness of God (ver. 14);
(2) its folly (ver. 6);
(3) its fruitlessness (ver. 7); and
(4) the ruin which it entails (vers. 8, 10, 13, 14).
But perhaps the most prominent thought in the passage is that of the self-punishing nature of sin, as illustrated in the early history and the later fortunes of Ephraim. We see this fact reflected
I IN THE NATIONAL CALF-WORSHIP. (Vers. 5-7) Samaria had "cast off good" (ver. 3) by departing from the pure ritual which Jehovah had prescribed; and therefore the "calf" which she had set up, and in which she gloried, had "cast her off." There was no help in the golden god during the crisis of the country"s peril. How could there be? for "the workman made it." Instead, therefore, of interposing to save their worshippers from exile, the two calves were themselves taken to Nineveh as a spoil. Tiglathpileser carded away the calf of Dan, and Shalmaneser that of Bethel. The worship of Jeroboam"s images proved the ruin of the nation. It was a sowing of the wind. For the breach of the second commandment paved the way for the violation of the first, and for contempt of the whole Decalogue; and then Israel "reaped the whirlwind.
II IN THE MULTIPLICATION OF ALTARS AND SACRIFICES (Vers. 11-14) The Divine will had appointed but one central sanctuary and place of sacrifice. (Deu_12:5-14) But Israel evinced the corruption of her worship by multiplying temples all over the land, not only to Jehovah, but to the gods of heathendom. The people protested, indeed, that they did not deny the Lord God of their fathers, even when they called upon Baal. (Hos_2:11) But Jehovah could not accept a divided homage; he regarded their altars as set up only "to sin," and he rejected the sacrifices which they laid upon them. The temples which the men of Ephraim built, thus became a millstone round their neck to drag them to destruction (ver. 11). What a pathetic word-picture of a dead ritualism is sketched with one slight touch in ver. 14, "Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples"! Yet these shrines were not true temples after all, for there was no Divine presence in them. Without the presence of God the most splendid cathedral is not a sanctuary, but a sepulcher.
III IN THE POLITICAL FLIRTATIONS WITH ASSYRIA. (Vers. 8-10) Again and again the kingdom of Israel endeavored to bolster itself up by abject vassalage to the King of Assyria, and by paying heavy tribute to buy off his invading armies. To this adulterous policy Hosea refers in the words, "Ephraim hath hired lovers." But such expedients, so far from contributing to the safety of the nation, served rather to precipitate and aggravate its ruin. First of all, the tribute imposed upon the people caused them to "sorrow" (ver. 10); and at length Israel was entirely "swallowed up" by the invader. The nation became, in its headstrong obstinacy of disobedience, like the solitary "wild ass" of the desert; and it fell an easy prey to the Assyrian lion.
IV IN THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE IN MATERIAL DEFENSES. (Ver. 14) Hosea ascribes this particular sin to Judah rather than to Israel. The Jews "trusted in their fenced cities". (Jer_5:17) A fortified city is certainly a place of refuge from the invading host. But the motto of such should be, Nisi Dominus.frustra;" for, "except the Lord keep the city," it will be quite defenseless, in spite of its fortifications. Judah"s battlements were not the Lord"s; so they attracted the thunderbolts of the Divine vengeance, and were at last burned with fire by Sennacherib, (2Ki_18:13) and by Nebuchadnezzar. (2Ki_25:9, 2Ki_25:10) His cities and towers had been erected, Babel-like, in proud self-confidence; and thus they ultimately became his destruction.
CONCLUSION.
1. What was true of Ephraim will be true also of England, so soon as the national life of our land shall resemble his. If we claim that the spiritual promises made to Ephraim apply to England, we ought also to acknowledge that the denunciations directed against Ephraim may possibly be deserved by England too.
2. If Ephraim"s sin turned out to be its own punishment, it is the same also with that of each individual sinner. Retribution fails upon the wrong-doer in the course of natural law. For Providence is just, and "of our pleasant vices makes instruments to plague us. C.J.
Vers. 5-7. Idolatry.
"Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off. These verses present to us idolatry in five aspects.
I AS ABHORRENT TO JEHOVAH. "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them." By a synecdoche, Samaria is here used for all the ten tribes. There is no allusion in history to any calf set up in the city of Samaria, but its existence in Bethel, the most celebrated place of worship in the kingdom, is a matter of certainty. "The introduction of the worship of the golden calves by Jeroboam, in imitation of that of Apis at Memphis, and of Mnevis at Heliopolis, which he must have seen during his residence in Egypt, paved the way for the imitation and adoption of the gross idolatries practiced by the Phoenicians, Syrians; and Chaldeans." Now, against this idolatry Jehovah declares his anger "to be kindled." The language is, of course, anthropomorphic, and used only to express his unconquerable opposition to idolatry, the foulest of all evils a violation of his command, "Thou shalt have no other god beside me," It is the abominable thing which he hates. The fact that idolatry is abhorrent to the great God is the grand reason why his loyal servants should consecrate themselves to his service.
II AS ANTAGONISTIC TO MORAL PURITY. "How long shall they be incapable of purity?" (Elzas). Where there is not supreme love to the supremely Good, there is no soil in which one solitary virtue can germinate, there is no foundation on which one stone can be laid for the temple of goodness. Hence the history of idolatry shows that it is inseparably associated with pollution and crime. Idolatry is a fountain essentially corrupt, and all its streams are filthy and foul. Paul"s description in the first chapter of Romans is true to universal fact. If the world is ever to be made virtuous, it must have the one true and living God presented to it as the one Object of supreme love and worship.
III As AN OUTRAGE ON REASON. "For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God." "It is the greatest folly," says an old author, "to look upon that which derives its excellency from ourselves as superior to us, and that in the highest degree; to forsake God that made us, and to make that to be a god unto us that we have made ourselves. If one be maintained or raised by another, he is expected to be serviceable to him. In this relation we stand to God, but idolatry makes men go against the very principles of reason. They fashion the idol and yet account it their god; they are made and sustained by God, and yet forget him." And yet this folly men are constantly committing every day, not only in heathen lands, but in Christendom. Men are everywhere making their gods. Power, money, pleasure, fame, these be thy gods, O England!
IV As DOOMED TO DESTRUCTION. "But the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces." "All idolatry must be destroyed". (Exo_34:13 Deu_7:5 Eze_20:7)
1. God has destroyed idols by the gospel.
2. God is destroying idols by the gospel. D.T.
"As I live, saith the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with my glory." "In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats: to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
V As PRODUCTIVE OF GREAT EVIL. "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind," etc. "As the husbandman reaps the same kind of grain which he has sown, but in far greater abundance, so he who sows the wind shall have the whirlwind to reap." "It hath no stalk." Nothing that can yield a blossom. "The bud shall yield no meal." "If they should have a stalk, and that stalk should have a blossom, that blossom shall yield no fruit; and if there be fruit, the sower shall not enjoy it, for strangers shall eat it. The Israelites should be unsuccessful in all their undertakings, and whatever partial gains they might acquire would be eagerly seized by the Assyrians" (Elzas).
1. All men are sowing. Every human act is a seed.
2. Some are sowing worthless seed wind." The worldling, the man of pleasure, the conventional religionist, the speculative skeptic, are all "sowing the wind.
3. The more worthless the seed sown, the more terrible the reaping. "Reap the whirlwind." Great is the power of the whirlwind. The Scripture describes it as very great. In 1Ki_19:11 it "rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks." Sabdicos reports that Cambyses" soldiers being at dinner in a sandy place, there arose a whirlwind and drove the sand upon them, so that it covered them all. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Hear, Father! hear and aid! If I have loved too well; if I have shed, In my vain fondness, o"er a mortal head Gifts on thy shrine, my God, more fitly laid; If I have sought to live But in one light, and made a mortal eye The lonely star of my idolatry; Thou art Love; oh, pity and forgive! (Mrs. Hemans.)
Vers. 5-7. Broken gods.
Samaria would now discover the folly of trusting in her calf.
I SAMARIA"S CALF. (Vers. 5, 6)
1. The futility of making it. "From Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God" (ver. 6). Idolatry is a huge absurdity. That cannot be a god which we make with our own hands. (cf. Isa_40:18-20 Isa_44:9-20) As foolish is it to make a god of wealth, position, reputation, or anything created by man"s effort.
2. The folly of trusting in it. "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off" (ver. 5); "The calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces" (ver. 6).
1. It could not help.
2. It was helpless to save itself.
Anything earthly that man relies on will prove a vain help when God wills its overthrow, or the overthrow of him who depends on it.
3. The reward of serving it. "Mine anger is kindled against them" (ver. 5). God"s anger was kindled
(1) at the idolatry;
(2) at the sins connected with the idolatry;
(3) at the resistance shown to the means used for the nation"s spiritual recovery.
"How long will it be ere they attain to innocency?" The effects of this kindling of God"s anger are described in ver. 7. One effect would be the destruction of their idol (ver. 6).
II SIN"S PENALTIES. (Ver. 7) Retribution is set forth under two images.
1. The wind and whirlwind. "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." "The wind is an image of vain human efforts, from which ruin is developed, as naturally as the wind becomes a tempest" (Schmoller). The image suggests:
(1) The insubstantiality of sinful objects of pursuit. Substanceless as wind. (Hos_12:1)
(2) That the sinner is not his own master. Wind is an image of the hurrying force of passion. The sinner"s passions hurry him along.
(3) That sin develops the elements of its own retribution. The sowing is congruous with the reaping. As the sinner is hurried along by sin, so he must submit to be swept along by God"s judgments. As he lived an unsubstantial life, he must submit to have the unsubstantiality of his life revealed by the tempest that lays it in ruins.
2. The blasted grain. "It hath no stalk." etc. The thought here is that of designs frustrated at every stage. It appears first as if there would be no stalk. Then such stalk as there is yields no fruit. Or if, perchance, there should be any, it is devoured by strangers. Thus, life without God proves to be but deceptive show, promise without performance, effort without result. It has to reckon with God"s frown at every stage. He may nip its designs in their inception. He may thwart them a stage further on. He may prevent them from attaining final success. Or, if success be permitted, it is only that he may make their overthrow more striking in the end. (Psa_73:18; cf. Hos_9:11, Hos_9:16) 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 vv5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cut thee off; or,…
Hos_8:5
Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cut thee off; or, Thy calf, O Samaria, hath kicked thee off.
Read full note →
Kicking calves
The words of the text have a quaint sound. They suggest a ludicrous figure. There is something ludicrous in the notion of a boy trying to drive a calf, and getting kicked by it. When you understand what the words mean, you will soon grow grave enough. Samaria was the centre and capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, as Jerusalem was the centre and capital of the southern kingdom of Judah. Each city was a sacred city, a centre of worship, as well as of business and government. There was a temple in each of them, and in the temple certain symbols of the Divine presence and activity. At Mount Gerizim they had only the golden calf and the emblems of its worship. At first this calf was intended to be a nature-symbol of Jehovah. But it too closely resembled the animal forms in the heathen temples--especially in Egypt--and these animal forms were very apt to breed a kind of worship which gave free play to animal lusts. At best, moreover, the calf was a graven image, and was therefore a standing and flagrant violation of the law which God had given to Israel. Soon the Ten Tribes sunk into the idolatries of the nations around them, with their degradation of God and man. And they put no more restraint on their carnal passions and lusts than the beasts whose forms they placed in their temples. Men grow like the gods they worship, The animal part of their nature soon prevailed over the spiritual. As soon as a man suffers the beast in him to prevail, he grows worse than the beasts, and sinks below their level. What they do by the law of their nature, he does against the taw of his nature. Hosea paints a dreadful picture of the impotence and degradation into which the Israelites had sunk through their false worship. They were consequently so weakened by their strifes and divisions, their loss of manliness and patriotism, as to be unable to resist the foreign invader when he came. And so their calf had kicked them. If they did not speedily return to the God of their fathers, their calf would soon kick them off. They would find themselves abandoned by their god, in whose foul service they had sacrificed their manhood, their unity, their strength. They would fall before the sword of the foe, or be led captive by him into a strange land. So there is a principle in Hoseas quaint words. It is this--every sin carries in itself its own retribution, and is sure to avenge itself upon us if we fall into it. Punishment is only the other half of sin. Or every calf we worship is sure to kick us, or even to kick us off. Whatever we love best and pursue most heartily, that, for the time at least, is our god, our calf. For the moment we look to it for the happiness or the gratification we most crave, and serve and follow it with our supreme affection or desire. Look at some of these calf worshippers, and mark how their god treats them. There is the greedy boy, who puts no restraint upon his appetite. To gratify his appetite he will do things which are mean, selfish, wrong. What follows? The calf which Little Glutton worshipped has kicked him, and kicked him in his tenderest part, just where he feels it most. Take the case of a vain, foolish girl, who gives herself great airs when she goes to a new school. When she is found out, her fibs detected, or her foolish self-complacency resented and exposed, may we not say that her calf has kicked her, humbled her in the dust, so that she who wanted to be admired is despised. Her sin has wrought its own punishment. But in the mercy of God her punishment is intended to help her to recover herself. And men have made idols of their very sins--drunkenness and licentiousness. They have sacrificed their all to them. And not only our base passions, but even our best affections, our plainest duties, may be exalted into the place of God, and thus be turned into calves which will only too surely kick us, or kick us off, before they have done with us. Young men may be tempted to snatch at business success by taking some mean advantage of their fellows, so straining their integrity and defiling the clear honour of their soul, violating the allegiance they owe to principles, conscience, and God. Or men may suffer mere success in business to absorb all their energies, so that they neglect the culture of the mind, and the purest and best affections of the heart and home. In either case, if you yield to these temptations, you will have turned what was once a clear duty into an idol, into a calf such as that which of old men worshipped in Samaria. And your calf will kick you as it kicked them. Your want of integrity, your meanness and baseness will be detected and exposed. Your punishment will grow out of your sin. And young women need to be told that even love, if it be made an idol, will prove to be but a calf. If in the sacred name of love, you cast away prudence, principle, parental control, and marry a man who has not yet learned to earn his own livelihood, or whose character is dubious, or whose life is bad, you may be sure your calf will kick you for your pains. All these foolish and hurtful idolatries of ours spring from our false conceptions of God, and of what He requires of us. The true ends of life do not lie in mere worldly success, or even in gratified affection. Hosea teaches us to think of God as a wise and loving Father who is ever seeking to make us good. In this light we may see how poor and paltry are many of the aims which men pursue, and how inevitable it is that they should be frustrated of these poor aims in order that they may learn to set the true end of life before them. Our well-deserved falls and failures are parts of the process by which our Heavenly Father is teaching us to walk, and to walk with Him. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Idols worshipped
The gross and debasing idolatry of Israel soon brought upon them the judgments of heaven; and when in their deep distress they discovered their folly, they found that, having cast off Jehovah, they had no god to go to. It is to this course of wickedness the text refers. The prophet addresses the people of Samaria in tones of withering irony. Two important lessons.
I. That every false and worldly confidence is sure in the end to cheat and disappoint us. Speak to those who are worshipping some other object than the one true God--drink, business.
II. The Lord himself, and He alone, will never fail or cast off those that trust in Him. Why should He taunt Israel upon the faithlessness and vanity of their earthly idols, if to trust Himself might prove equally vain? Wherefore should He remind you that the golden calves of worldly pleasure, pelf, and pride will all cast you off, if perchance He will cast you off Himself? It is a curious fact that just as foolish and worldly people generally cherish unfounded hopes, so Christian persons often indulge unfounded fears. The one never imagine that their calf, their idol, will cast them off: the other are constantly doubting and dreading that their God will forsake them. If there is anything that God makes quite plain, it is that this can never be; He never fails nor forsakes. The truth is that God draws nearer and closer to His people in their trouble. (J. Thain Davidson, D. D.)
The world a lie
The story of Jeroboam the son of Nebat affords a perpetual warning. Other things besides consumption, and lunacy, and various maladies our flesh is heir to are hereditary. Jeroboams sin descended to his children; and was transmitted like an entail from sire to son. More than that, it struck like a malaria of a virulent disease to the very walls of his palace; it infected all his successors, and from the throne spread its deadly influence to the poorest and most distant cottages of the land.
I. The sin of Jeroboam. He was hardly seated on the throne, when a political difficulty arose,--and that a very serious one. The Mosaic law required every male to go up three times each year to Jerusalem. An astute and sagacious politician, Jeroboam foresaw how this custom might be attended with dangerous results. But he was not the man to meet the difficulty aright. He did what, no doubt, the world had thought a clever thing. Setting up one calf in Bethel and another in Dan, in imitation of the cherubim in the temple, he sent forth this edict, Let him that sacrificeth, kiss the calves,--go and worship these. Jeroboam succeeded, but his success brought down ruin on his house and government. It was followed by results which should teach our statesmen that no policy in the end shall thrive which traverses the Word of God. That can never be politically right, which is morally and religiously wrong. What the calf did to the monarch, it did to the people--here called Samaria. Following the steps of their king, they apostatised from God, and turned their backs on His temple. Then judgment succeeded judgment, and one trouble breaking on the back of another, the land had no rest. The commonwealth sank under the weight of its idolatry. The voice of God in providence might have been heard saying, Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off.
II. Warning from the sin and sorrow of Samaria. The sentiment of the text is illustrated--
1. By the case of those who put riches in the place of God. The thirst for gold, like the drunkards, is insatiable. The more it is indulged, the more the flame is fed, it burns the fiercer.
2. The sentiment of the text is illustrated by the case of those who live for fame--for the favour, not of God, but of men. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
The sinner betrayed by his sin
s:--Jeroboams calf symboled not only his casting off the true faith, but also his preference for the secular and sensual culture of Egypt, instead of the simplicity and purity of life which God had prescribed for His people. For a while the rebellious people seemed to prosper. At length the thunderbolt of Divine wrath fell. The godless land was ravaged, and the people carried away captive by the Assyrians. Egypt turned a deaf ear to their appeals. This, Hosea predicted in words of withering sarcasm: Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off. (The calf was a copy of the Egyptian Mnevis.)
I. The calf stands in general for sin. No sin ever, in the long-run, meets the promise it makes to the imagination. In the end the soul has to pay for its guilty pleasures out of its own pains. True of fleshly lusts. Their glow is that of a fever rising; soon they will burn. Nature does not put enough strength in the human frame to endure more than a temperate, lawful supply of the appetites. This fuel gone, the indulgence has become a necessity, and consumes the life itself. Selfishness cannot enjoy its accumulations beyond a limited amount; beyond this they feed impatience and ennui. Pride, as Bulwer says, is a garment all stiff brocade outside, and all grating sackcloth on the side next the skin.
II. The calf stands for a peculiar class of sins. The Samaritans did not regard their worship as degrading. The calf represented life, productiveness; a far nobler object of worship than that set up by many heathen nations. It represented especially polite sins, and those lines of conduct whose evil consists chiefly in that they are not obedience to God. For instance, such as meet our ideas of expediency, but are not according to strict conscience. Young men generally begin with such sins. Thus the standard is gradually lowered.
1. They will do nothing disreputable in religious or even secular society.
2. Nothing disreputable in club life.
3. Nothing that they (now blinded by indulgence) think will hurt them.
4. At last, their own passion has become their standard, and they are socially a wreck before they are fully aware of their danger.
III. The calf stands for a current form of unbelief. The calf-worship was mixed with some features of the true worship of Israel. It had a line of priests. Its chief sites were places already sacred in the religious history of Gods people. The altars were dedicated at the time of a true religious festival--the Feast of Tabernacles. A current form of infidelity is a blending of human conceits with some scriptural teaching. It uses Sabbaths, sanctuaries, ministries. It admires Jesus, and praises His precepts. But it denies supernaturalism. Not Gods Word, but the human reason, is supreme. (L.)
Cast off by the god of worldliness
The great Wolsey, after he had climbed the highest round of ambitions ladder, in the evening of life bitterly exclaimed, Would that I had served my God as faithfully as I have served my king. He would not have abandoned me in my old age. The illustrious statesman, William Pitt, the favourite of king and people, died, says Wilberforce, his friend, of a broken heart. On his dying bed he is stated to have said, I fear I have neglected prayer too much to make it available on a death-bed. Still more distressing was the closing scene of Sheridans career. He who had stood on the pinnacle of glory, and gained the most flattering distinctions, writes in old age to one of his friends, I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted. Misfortunes crowded on him, and his last moments were haunted by fears of a prison. Forsaken by his gay associates, dispirited, and world-weary, he closed his eyes in gloom and sorrow. Campbell, the author of The Pleasures of Hope, in his old age wrote I am alone in the world. My wife and child of my hopes are dead; my surviving child is consigned to a living tomb (a lunatic asylum); my old friends, brothers, sisters, are dead, all but one, and she too is dying; my last hopes are blighted. As for fame, it is a bubble that must soon burst.
How long will it be ere they attain to innocency?--
Attainment hindered
I. An attainment spoken of. How long will it be ere they attain unto innocency? Innocency is here put for true and saving religion. And this is a most desirable attainment, more so than all besides.
1. It is important because without it there can be no fellowship with God. Without fellowship with God there can be no peace; without peace there can be no happiness.
2. It is important because without it man cannot live well. A guilty man lives according to his thoughts.
3. It is important because without it man cannot die well. There is nothing before a sinner but death, darkness, and despair.
II. A hindrance suggested. The calves were the idols set up to prevent the Israelites from worshipping Jehovah. The hindrances to attaining innocency (that is, satisfying the natural cravings of religion in worshipping God) are the idols which are set up in the human heart. These idols may be--
1. The gratification of self. Self is one of the most favoured of idols, it is worshipped by all, and the man who worships self cannot worship God.
2. The vanities of the world. The idolatry of the present day, if not so bold in its rebellion, is not so religious as in the days of old. The idolatrous Jews and heathen were essentially religious. It was death to any one to speak against the gods. It is pleasure now men worship, and a god of any sort is forgotten.
3. The blandishments of science. This is another idol men fall down before. These are the calves which keep men from God, calves set up by themselves at the instigation of Satan. No man can ever attain unto innocency so long as they remain.
III. The consequences inferred. A time is coming when true religion will be the only thing worth possessing. The day of sifting will arrive. Gods anger will be kindled against the persistently ungodly. Then what avail will the false gods which men have served so long be to afford them shelter? The calf will cast thee off. There are two penalties, then, to the guilty. They lose both earth and heaven. They are cast off--
1. By the devil whom they serve. The world cannot offer them help. Satans object is only to effect their ruin.
2. By the God whom they have neglected. How can He who has been scorned and forsaken be the succour of those who have despised His love and rejected His rule? (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv5, 7, 9, 11, 14 Hos_8:6. For] The reason of displeasure. It also] The…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hos_8:6. For] The reason of displeasure. It also] The calf as well as the kings set up, made by Israel, not by God. It deserved not their homage, no creature can be God; idol worship therefore folly in the extreme.
Read full note →
Hos_8:7. Wind] an image of labour in vain, from which ruin springs as naturally as harvest from evil sowing; as the wind becomes a tempest (Pro_22:8; Gal_6:7). Whirlwind] Intensive form, a mighty whirlwind. Three things first—no stalk, no yield, devoured by strangers. Israel’s efforts in every direction were fruitless.
HOMILETICS
IDOLATRY; ITS ORIGIN, EFFECTS, AND DESTINY.—Hos_8:5-6
These words describe the cause and nature of Israel’s sin, and justify God’s anger against them.
I. Idolatry in its origin. Idols are the device of man. “The workman made it.” Man in his natural and primeval condition had a knowledge of God sufficient for the condition in which he was placed. But sin alienated him from God and robbed him of fellowship with God. There is a natural tendency in man to embody in living forms (eidola) the image of God, to imagine and honour other gods. Dissatisfied with the law, and forgetful of the claims of the true God, he has wandered in the conjectures of reason and the creations of fancy; in the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea, in all the lights of heaven and in all the elements of nature, he beheld the movements of a false deity; and associated vague notions of power and wisdom with the realities by which he is surrounded. Hence the creation of gods many and lords many. They are things made, the work of men’s hands. “They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, but they hear not.” They are not gods, but vanities, and have become a crime and a curse to heathendom. “They that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them.” But “from Israel was it also,” who boasted of the knowledge and law of God. Israel knew her sin, and felt that calf-worship was not the worship of Jehovah. This rendered her inexcusable and aggravated her guilt. Now among people to whom the oracles of God are committed, even in the Christian Church, we have idolatry. Men cut and carve gods of their own fancy. The wife of their bosom, the child of their loins, may be a god. An image of gold or of clay;—business, fame, and success, may be set up, take the place of God in our affections, and unduly absorb homage and attention due to God. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
II. Idolatry in its effects.
1. It is dishonouring to human nature. Man assimilates himself to the moral character of the object which he worships, becomes like the thing which he loves. He looks upon his God as the standard of virtue; abandons everything in life which offends; and desires favour by conformity to the will and character of his deity. The history of idolatry confirms this truth. When men have bowed down to the brutes, they have lowered themselves in the depths of vice. The more they worshipped the more they resembled the objects of their worship. Medhurst says that in China the priests teach this doctrine of assimilation. “Think of Buddha and you will be transformed into Buddha. If men pray to Buddha and do not become Buddha, it is because the mouth prays, and not the mind.” Our character and conduct can never rise higher than our aims. If we follow earthly objects we become earthly and grovelling. The pleasure-seeker becomes light and frivolous; the mammon-worshipper sordid and mean. “My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.”
2. It is displeasing to God. “Mine anger is kindled against them.” God here speaks after the manner of men to remind us of his claims. As men who incensed will execute their displeasure, so God will punish idolatry. It forbids his worship and denies his existence. It is degrading to his creatures and calamitous to the universe. Its temporal consequences have been awful to its votaries. What then must be its eternal? “They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.”
3. It is a hindrance to moral purity. “How long will it be ere they attain to innocency?” God is the fountain of all goodness, and his will the standard of all virtue. When God’s will is rejected there is no check to moral pollutions, and no motives to moral purity. The knowledge of God is essential to holiness and progress! inseparable from the welfare of men: and necessary to extricate a fallen world from the evils of idolatry.
(1) Purity of heart is necessary to purity of life. This is only gained by the love and worship of a pure object. A sinful object defiles physically and spiritually. God is opposed to sin, revealed as our example, renews the heart, and satisfies the conscience in Christ. “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.”
(2) Purity of the object worshipped must therefore have sufficient influence to beget holy life. The mere representation of God, the presentation of a holy object would not touch the heart, change the opinions, and draw men from evil practices. A display of power and persuasion alone can overcome evil habits, wean men’s affections from idols, and fix them on God. God has interposed by his Son and his Spirit, and sinners are converted from the error of their ways. We have one true and living God made known to us as the object of supreme love and regard. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
III. Idolatry in its destination. “The calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.” In origin it is a thing of nought, the work of men’s hands and ingenuity. In its end it shall be nought. Idolatry is a nullity, and is doomed to destruction by its inherent weakness and God’s purpose.
1. Idolatry is doomed to destruction by its own weakness. With all its splendid rites and forms, its ancient priesthood and prevalence, it is coming to nought. It cannot satisfy the heart and the conscience. The heathens are closing their temples and pagodas, breaking their gods and forsaking their worship. Deserted by devotees, and their altars bereft of gifts and offerings, idols shall pine away and idol-worship perish by mere inanition. Idolatry in the old Roman Empire was thus destroyed, and this will be the process everywhere. Its seat is in the soul, and outward force cannot overturn it. But the gods of the heathen will be starved to death, by the failure of their revenue and offerings. “The Lord will be terrible unto them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen.”
2. Idolatry is doomed to destruction by the power of the gospel. God has purposed to send the gospel to all the nations of the earth. “As I live, saith the Lord, all the earth shall be filled with my glory.” Nothing can frustrate this design nor rob the nations of this glory. What a conception! What is there in patriotism, philosophy, or philanthropy, to equal it? The mighty scheme, as a mere system of social government and social culture, stands forth in peerless grandeur. But how blessed that day when “a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats: to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hos_8:5. “How long.” The hardness of heart and the stubborn holding out of the sinner a matter of astonishment even to God. Continuance in sin and aggravation of guilt only make the case worse. God’s patience will end, and God’s anger will be the hotter. By this powerful expression three things are intimated. First, that these Israelites were refractory and desperate; not only unclean, but enemies to innocency, such as could not abide it: they were inveterate and incurable, their diseases ingrained, and not easily stirred by any potion. Secondly, that God is most patient, who though he thinks overlong of the time that men continue in sin, and therefore cries, How long? &c., yet bears with their evil manners and inviteth them to better. Thirdly, that he will at length break off his patience and proceed to punishment, since there is no other remedy (2Ch_34:16; Pro_29:1) [Trapp].
The attainment of innocency. I. The thing to be attained—“Innocency.” Man was originally innocent in body and soul, created in the image of God. But this holiness he lost through sin and can never perfectly, only comparatively attain it in this world. Sinless perfection is a delusion (1Jn_1:8). II. The method of attaining it. “How shall man be just with God?” Our guilt is removed in Christ, our natures renewed by grace, and the Holy Spirit imparts Divine enlightenment and transforms into the Divine nature. Believers in Christ are justified before God. Their faith works by love, and overcomes sin and the world. All men may secure this privilege. III. The reason why men do not attain it.
1. Some despise and do not feel their need of it.
2. Others despond in seeking it. God is able and willing to save. Examples of men most degraded and abandoned encouraged. “How long,” then, before you accept the proffered mercy and find peace with God!
Hos_8:6. Not God. Such is the bewitching nature of idolatry, though men pretend that they worship God in the image, and the deceitfulness of the human heart; that they are gradually led to deify their idol. God therefore proves that it is not God (Exo_32:4-5; 1Ki_12:28).
Whatever estimation men have of images, or whatever excellency or Divinity they conceive in or represented by them, yet it is sufficient to refute them, that themselves, who are but vain and empty things, gave all the excellency they have; for the workman made it [Hutcheson].
The workman was rather a god to his idol, than it to him; for he made it; it was a thing made. To say that it was made, was to deny that it was God. Hence the prophets so often urge this special proof of the vanity of idols. No creature can be God. Nor can there be anything between God and a creature; and that which is not a creature is God. God himself could not make a creature who should be God [Pusey].
Broken in pieces. 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 [Mt. Henry].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8
Hos_8:5-6. Idolatry. Travellers tell us that there is a tribe in Africa so given to superstition that they fill their huts and hovels with so many idols, that they do not even leave room for their families. How many men there are who fill their hearts with the idols of sin, so that there is no room for the living God, or for any of his holy principles [Bate].
Man, that aspires to rule the very wind,
And make the sea confess his majesty;
Whose intellect can fill a little scroll
With words that are immortal; who can build
Cities, the mighty and the beautiful:
Yet man,—this glorious creature,—can debase
His spirit down to worship wood and stone,
And hold the very beasts which bear his yoke,
And tremble at his eye, for sacred things. [Landon.]
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.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v8 A Further Threat of Judgment
A Further Threat of Judgment
v. 8. Israel is swallowed up, its judgment being practically accomplished even now, the statement being made as though the prophecy were already fulfilled; now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure, which is discarded as useless. Cf Jer 22:28; Jer 48:38.
Read full note →
v. 9. For they are gone up to Assyria, their object being to gain the friendship of the powerful nation, a wild ass alone by himself; Ephraim hath hired lovers. While the wild ass, an irrational brute, shuns the company of men, in order to maintain his independence, Ephraim seeks unnatural affiliations, such as are not in agreement with his high destiny.
v. 10. Yea, though they have hired among the nations, in the unnatural attempt of buying friendships, now will I gather them, bringing them together among the nations, but in the capacity of captives, and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes, they will be diminished in number by reason of the oppression which they must suffer in exile. Thus all their great plans and hopes turned out in just the opposite way, to their own detriment.
v. 11. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, in practicing idolatry to such an exceptional degree, altars shall be unto him to sin, the idolatry practiced has made him guilty in the sight of God.
v. 12. I have written to him the great things of My Law, literally, I presented to him a myriad of My Law, the many precepts by which the Israelites might fulfill His will; but they were counted as a strange thing, they simply ignored the commandments,, of the Lord, as though they did not concern them.
v. 13. They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of Mine offerings and eat it, intending it as a burnt offering; the Lord, however, looks upon it as a slaughtered animal, not as a sacrifice in His honor, because the right condition of the heart is missing; but the Lord accepteth them not; now will He remember their iniquity and visit their sins, with the punishment which they so richly deserved. They shall return to Egypt, once more be delivered into bondage.
v. 14. For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, Cf Deu 32:18, and buildeth temples, either palaces or idol-temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities, in a false reliance upon his own strength. But I will send a fire upon his cities, by bringing the invading enemies into the country, and it shall devour the palaces thereof. When men forsake and deny the Lord, relying upon their own ability and power instead, the Lord destroys the fortresses of such a false confidence; for He is a jealous God and will not tolerate any one but Himself to be acknowledged as the supreme Being in heaven and earth.
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 vv6, 8, 11, 13 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh is speaking.
Read full note →
For the people sow the wind and reap the whirlwind
To sow or plant the wind is to act in useless or destructive ways. To reap the whirlwind is to suffer disaster from one's own actions. (See: Metaphor)
The standing grain has no heads
Here "head" refers to the part of the plant where the grain is. A stalk with no head has nothing to give to the farmer. In the same way, Israel's actions will result in nothing good. (See: Idiom)
If it does come to maturity, foreigners will devour it
If any of Israel's actions do happen to result in something good, Israel's enemies will come and take it from them. (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
Israel
God
cow
Samaria
grain
alien
devour
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 vv5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 8:5-6 this calf: When Jeroboam I (931–910 BC), the…
8:5-6 this calf: When Jeroboam I (931–910 BC), the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, ascended the throne, he established places of worship in the cities of Dan and Bethel so that the people would not travel to the Temple in Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom. At each site, he erected a gold calf for the people to worship (1 Kgs 12:26-30).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.