Bible Commentaries
Hosea 9

Verses 1-17

The judgment was then described in detail. Its first note was of the death of joy. Israel could not find her joy like other peoples. She had gone whoring from God, loving hire on every threshing floor. Having known Jehovah, nothing to which she turned in turning from Him satisfied. The second note was the actual exile, to which she must pass, back to the slavery of Egypt and Assyria, away from the offerings and feasts of the Lord.

The third was the cessation of prophecy. In the estimation of the debased people the prophet would be a fool, and the spiritual man, mad. Thus the means of testing themselves would be corrupted. The fourth declared the nemesis of fornication. The prophet traced the growth of this pollution from its beginnings at Baal Peor, and clearly set forth the inevitable deterioration in numbers and strength of a people abandoned to impurity. The fifth and last would be the final casting out of the people of God because they had failed to listen to His appeals, and as a result they would become wanderers among the nations.