Bible Commentaries
Hosea 10

Verses 1-15

HOSEA - CHAPTER 10

LAMENTATIONS AGAINST EPHRAIM AND ISRAEL CONTINUED

Verses 1-15:

Verse 1 pictures Israel as an empty (luxurious) vine, producing fruit of carnal kind, only for herself or himself, for Ephraim’s own craving of the sensual, Hosea 14:8. Israel has become allied with foreigners, strangers, alien bed fellows, Ezekiel 17:6; Psalms 80:9; Psalms 80:12. Outwardly she appeared prosperous for a time, but bare no fruit for God. The more material prosperity came to the northern kingdom of Israel the more they increased their idols.

Verse 2 expresses the sentiments of a double-minded, or two-faced people, with allegiance professed toward God, but their practices were toward heathen idols, to the contempt of God, 1 Kings 18:21. God threatens to break down their altars, break the heads off their gods, as enemy victims are beheaded, Amos 3:12; Deuteronomy 32:26-27.

Verse 3 contains words of despair. Now, or soon, deprived of- a king, they shall be in a state of anarchy, forsaken of God. What, they say to themselves, can or could a king do for us, if God be against us? A king would be of no help for such an hour of their due judgment, Hosea 13:10. Having rejected the heavenly king, they now are deprived of an earthly king.

Verse 4 explains the just basis of their sorrow and trouble. Their words of worship and pretense of Divine homage had been without substance, insincere and empty talk, Isaiah 58:13. Their covenants were lacking of truth and lightly broken, 2 Kings 17:14; They planted the seed of poppies and darnell and cultivated the soil for the growth of injustice that had spread like the bitter and poisonous hemlock, Deuteronomy 29:18; Amos 5:7; Amos 6:12. Perverted justice is like a deadly poisonous vine. It spreads to bring death to those nearby.

Verse 5 announces fear for the occupants of Samaria, because of the calves (idol gods) of Beth-aven, that had been substituted for worship of the true and living God, Hosea 8:5-6; 1 Kings 12:28-29. "Calves" is feminine gender in the Hebrew, denoting female-like­weakness or contempt, in which their idol gods should be held, Psalms 115:5. Both people and priests are to be brought to great mourning and fear because no glory (no Shekinah) ever appeared or shall ever appear about false gods, or golden calves of heathen altars, Hosea 9:1.

Verse 6 announces that it, the golden calf, should be carried away into Assyria, as a present for their conquering heathen king, Jared. Ephraim shall be heir to shame and Israel shall be brought to blush at all the council of Ephraim’s alliance makers, even of Jeroboam, who enticed them to erect their own altars, away from Jerusalem, to keep the Israelites of the northern kingdom from returning to Judah for worship.

Verse 7 concluded that Samaria and her occupants, center of the calf-god worship, has her king, her civil ruler, cut off from her and he and they are adrift, like foam on the water of a raging current, helpless, and hopeless, v. 3, 5.

Verse 8 predicts that the high places of worship in Beth-aven and Dan, the place and occasion of their sin, shall be destroyed, Deuteronomy 9:21; 1 Kings 12:30. Thorns and thistles shall grow up upon their heathen altars. And calamity of war and suffering shall be come so severe that the people will prefer death to life, Luke 23:30; Such will also come to Christ rejectors at the end of this age, Revelation 6:16.

Verse 9 returns to Israel’s rebellion in earlier days, as a testimony of her persistent, willful sin to prove her deeper guilt, then at Gibeah. They at Gibeah, after suffering, were spared, but Israel shall not escape their greater sin now, Judges chs. 19, 20. None of the ten tribes has here taken the side of God.

Verse 10 expressed God’s desire to chastise them for their obstinate ways of idolatry forthwith, in severity, without mercy, as He had forewarned, Deuteronomy 28:63. God determined to bind them, like oxen plowing side by side, for two reasons: First, they had forsaken Him, and second they had rebelled against the house of David, Jeremiah 2:13; Isaiah 1:24; Ezekiel 5:13. The invaders shall bind them both, Ephraim and Judah, to cause them to serve them like slaves, wearing the yoke of heathen bondage.

Verse 11 pictures Ephraim as a cowed-heifer that is under the yoke of servitude, that loved to tread out the corn, an easier job than plowing in the furrow. For the treading of the corn, an heifer was to wear 6o muzzle and was not usually yoked to another. It was also permitted to eat from the corn it tread upon, Deuteronomy 25:4; Deuteronomy 32:15. But God put the yoke upon her fair neck, for more servile work, causing Assyria to ride as a charioter upon Ephraim, Judah to plow, and all the posterity of Jacob to break up the clods, as well as Ephraim, the royal tribe upon whom the yoke shall press most heavily, as in Job 30:22; Psalms 66:12.

Verse 12 is an appeal from God to Ephraim, a call to repentance. They were to sow and reap with moral conduct, in a right way. Thus they would reap mercy, to the degree that they sowed righteously in harmony with God’s law, Psalms 119:60. They were called to break up their over-grown ground, as virgin soil, to start sowing and reaping anew, righteously, Jeremiah 4:3; Proverbs 11:18. The Lord is to be sought "till he come and rain righteousness upon you," with material and spiritual blessings, 1 Samuel 26:13; Joel 2:23.

Verse 13 reflects, "you all have plowed (cultivated) wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity," fruits of what you sowed, eating the fruit of lies, of false and spurious worship, Galatians 6:7-8; Job 4:8; Proverbs 22:8. Because they had trusted in their chosen idolatrous ways, in pursuit of their mighty, compromising ruling princes who negotiated alliances with heathen nations, and sanctioned idolatrous worship from Egypt and Assyria, Psalms 2:12; Isaiah 57:10; Jeremiah 2:23.

Verse 14 predicts tumult, disintegration and war through all the tribes of Israel, with the destruction of all her fortresses as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel the house of the ambush of God, 2 Kings 18:34. It was to be a cruel, inhuman murder event, Amos 2:2; 2 Kings 8:12; Isaiah 13:16; Psalms 137:8.

Verse 15 asserts that Bethel polluted, the seat of their chosen idolatry should suffer extreme wickedness, double cruelty, in the cutting off of their king in a morning, a time of expectancy that would turn to be a time of Assyrian treachery, upon Israel, Psalms 30:5.