Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Hosea 12:10

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Hosea 12:10. I have also spoken — I have used every means, and employed every method, to instruct and save you. I have sent prophets, who spake plainly, exhorting, warning, and beseeching you to return to me. They have had Divine visions, which they have declared and interpreted. They have used similitudes, symbols, metaphors, allegories, c., in order to fix your attention, and bring you back to your duty and interest. And, alas! all is in vain you have not profited by my condescension. This text St. Paul seems to have had full in view, when he wrote, Hebrews 1:1: "God who, at SUNDRY TIMES and in DIVERS MANNERS, spake in time past unto the FATHERS by the PROPHETS." See the note on the above.

Dr. Dodd supposes that there are three distinct kinds of prophecy mentioned here:

1. Immediate inspiration, when God declares the very words.

2. Vision; a representation of external objects to the mind, in as lively a manner as if they were conveyed by the senses.

3. Parables and apt resemblances.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Deceit and wilfulness (11:12-12:14)

Israel’s political agreements with foreign nations, whether concerning trade or defence, are unlawful in God’s eyes. They are based on lies and dishonesty (11:12-12:1).

Such deceit has been a characteristic of Israel from the time of the nation’s forefather, Jacob (the original Israel). From birth Jacob showed a desire to get his own way. As an adult he struggled even with God. Only when he was forced finally to give in did he win the blessing he so eagerly desired (2-5; see Genesis 25:22-26; Genesis 32:24-30). In the same way the people who are descended from him and who bear his name must give in by turning from their sinful ways to God. Only in this way will they receive God’s blessing (6).

Merchants have become wealthy by cheating and oppressing the poor, but now they are to receive fitting justice. They have used their wealth to bribe judges and administrators, but they cannot use it to bribe God. Their prosperous cities and luxurious houses will be destroyed and the people of Israel will be forced to live in tents, as they did on their journey from Egypt to Canaan. This was an experience that Israelites recalled each year when they lived in small temporary shelters during the Feast of Tabernacles (7-9; cf. Leviticus 23:40-43).

God had used prophets to speak to his people in many ways, but the people repeatedly ignored the messages and are now to suffer the consequences. Their heathen altars will be destroyed and left like heaps of stones in a field (10-11).
Jacob was a shepherd who looked after sheep, but Moses was a shepherd who looked after people. He was a prophet who led God’s people Israel, but just as the people of Israel rebelled against Moses so they have rebelled against all the prophets after him. Their rebellion against God’s messengers is really a rebellion against God himself. They have made God angry with them and thereby have made their own punishment certain (12-14).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"I have also spoken unto the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets have I used similitudes."

Hailey has a concise paraphrase of this as follows:

"They had no excuse for their ignorance of Jehovah, for he had spoken to them through prophets, through multiplied visions, and by the use of similitudes through which they should have learned."Homer Hailey, op. cit., p. 177.

"I have spoken unto the prophets" In addition to the great prophet Moses, "That Prophet like unto Christ," Calvin gave the following list of prophets who had preceded Hosea: "Abijah the Shilonite, Shemaiah, Iddo, Azariah, Hanani, Jehu, Elijah, Elisha, Micaiah, Joel, and Amos."John Calvin as quoted by Robert Jamieson, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1962), p. 780.

"I have used similitudes" There were a number of acted parables of God's Word in the Old Testament, but for sheer dramatic impact, nothing exceeds the example of Hosea himself in his relationship with Gomer, a type of the rejected Israel.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

I have also spoken by the prophets - Literally, “upon the prophets,” the revelation coming down from heaven upon them. Somewhat like this, is what Ezekiel says, “the hand of the Lord was strong upon me” (Ezekiel 3:14, ...). God declares, in what way He had been their God “from the land of Egypt.” Their ignorance of Him was without excuse, for He had always taught them, although they ever sought the false prophets, and persecuted the true. He taught them continually and in divers ways, if so be any impression might be made upon them. He taught them, either in plain words, or in the “visions” which He “multiplied” to the prophets; or in the “similitudes” or parables, which He taught through their ministry. In the “vision,” God is understood to have represented the things to come, as a picture, to the prophet’s mind, , “whether the picture were presented to his bodily eyes, or impressed on his imagination, and that, either in a dream, or without a dream.”

The “similitude,” which God says that He repeatedly, continually, used, seems to have been the parable, as when God compared His people to a vine, Himself to the Lord of the vineyard, or when He directed His prophets to do acts which should shadow forth some truth, as in the marriage of Hosea himself. God had said to Aaron, that He would thus make Himself known by the prophets. “If there be a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make Myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all My house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches” Numbers 12:6-8. “The dark speech” in Moses answers to the “similitude” of Hosea; the “vision” and “dream” in Moses are comprehended in “visions,” as used by Hosea. The prophet Joel also says, “your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” Joel 2:28. So little ground then have they, who speak of the visions of Daniel and Zechariah, as if they belonged to a later age. : “I have instructed,” God saith, “men of God, to form thee to piety, enlightening their minds with manifold knowledge of the things of God. And because the light of divine wisdom could not otherwise shine on people placed here below in the prison-house of the body, I had them taught through figures and corporeal images, that, through them, they might rise to the incorporeal, and receive some knowledge of divine and heavenly things. And thou, how didst thou requite me? How didst thou shew thy teachableness? It follows;”

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

The Prophet amplifies the sin of the people in having always obstinately opposed God, so that they were without any pretext of ignorance: for men, we know, evade God’s dreadful judgement as long as they can plead either ignorance or thoughtlessness. The Prophet denies that the people had fallen through want of information, for they had been often, nay, continually warned by the Prophets. It then appears that this people were become, as it were, wilfully rebellious against God; for they had ever despised the Prophets, not once or twice, but when the Lord sent them in succession: I have spoken, he says, upon my prophets, or, by my Prophets; for על, ol, is variously taken: ‘I have spoken upon my Prophets,’ that is, I have deposited with them the doctrine which ought to have restored you to the right way; and not only so, but I have multiplied visions; it has not been in one way that I have tried to gather you, but I have accumulated many visions: and then he says, In the hand of Prophets I have placed similitudes; that is, I have endeavoured in every way possible to restore you to a sound mind; for God speaks after the manner of men. He might indeed, if he chose, effect this by the secret movement of his Spirit; but it is enough to take away every excuse from men to allege the fact, that they obey not the word, and offer not themselves to God as submissive and teachable, when he by his Prophets cohorts them to repentance. It is then an enhancing of sin worthy of being noticed, when God remonstrates, and says, that he had uselessly spent all his efforts to collect the dispersed Israel, though he had constantly employed the labours of his Prophets.

But this reproach may be also applied to us at this day; yea, whatever the Prophet has hitherto said may justly be turned against us. For we see how the world hardens itself against all warnings; and we see also how long the Lord suspends his judgements, and tolerates men who scoff at his forbearance. Then the same depravity rages now in the world, which the Prophet describes in this place. Besides, God has not only redeemed us from Egypt, but from the lowest hell, and we know that we have been redeemed by Christ for this end, — that we may be wholly devoted to God; for Christ died and rose again for this purpose, — that he might be the Lord of the living and of the dead. But we see how much is the perverseness of men, and how with impunity they grow wanton against God. Who among us remember that they are no longer their own, because they have been purchased by the blood of Christ? Few think of this. And not only this only true and perpetual redemption ought to be kept in mind by us; for the Lord again redeemed us when we were sunk in the gulf of Popery; and daily also does he renew the same kindness towards us; and yet we are so forgetful, that often the grace of God is not remembered by us. We now see how necessary is this doctrine even for our age.

Besides, God, as I have already said, ceases not daily to stimulate and urge us; he multiplies prophecies and similitudes; that is, he in various ways accommodates himself to us; for by similitudes he means all forms of teaching. And doubtless we see that God in a manner transforms himself in his word, for he speaks not according to his own majesty, but as he sees to be suitable to our capacities and weakness; for the Scriptures set before us various representations, which show to us the face of God. Since God then thus accommodates himself to our rudeness, how great is our ingratitude, when no fruit follows? Let us then remember that the Prophet so reproved the men of his age, that he also speaks to us at this day. Let us now proceed —

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 12

Ephraim feeds on the wind, and follows after the east wind: he daily increases lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians ( Hsa Hosea 12:1 ),

They tried to escape the destruction of God by making a covenant with the Assyrians and by buying mercenaries from Egypt, sending down oil to Egypt. But all of these devices failed.

The Lord also has a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him ( Hsa Hosea 12:2 ).

Jacob is in for judgment and the Lord says now of Jacob, and this is the actual Jacob of history, Esau's son.

He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: Yes, he had power over the angel, and prevailed ( Hsa Hosea 12:3-4 ):

Now this takes us historically back to the story of when Jacob and Esau go back. When Rachel was carrying these two boys... was it Rachel or Rebekah? Rebekah. Rebekah was carrying these two sons in her womb. She's having a terrible pregnancy. In fact, she's having such a bad time, she said, "God what's going on?" A terrible pregnancy. The Lord said, "You've got two nations in your womb. They're diverse, different from each other. They're fighting." Here were these twin brothers, fraternal twins, who were going at it in the womb, fighting with each other while they were still within the womb. God said that they're battling with each other. That's why you're having such a terrible time in pregnancy. Imagine what that would be like having couple little guys really flailing away with each other within your womb. So that when they were born, the first one which came out was Esau covered with hair, so they called him hairy, which the name Esau means hairy. When the second one was born, still fighting, he reached over and grabbed his brother, who had just been born, by the heel, not gonna give up on this fight, and they called him Yacov. "Oh," he said, "he's a heel catcher, Yacov."

Later on as they were growing up, their father Isaac was ready to give the paternal blessing upon the older son. Asked him to go out and to get some venison and barbecue it and fix it like he likes it. So he'd bring it in and when he ate he would then give him the blessing. And so Jacob disguised himself as his older brother, his mother barbecued a goat, made it taste like venison, and Jacob took it in because his father at this point was blind, and he received the blessing that was due to Esau. In fact, the father thought he was blessing Esau, but instead he was blessing Jacob. And so Jacob went out from the presence of his father and Esau came in with the venison all barbecued and he said, "Here you are, Dad, bless me." And Jacob said... or the father of Esau said, "Well, I've already blessed you." "No." I said, "It must be that rat brother of mine Jacob," you know. And he said... he began to weep, he cried, said, "Bless me! Is there anything left? Bless me, Dad." And said, "Well, I've given him everything, you know, in the blessing. I've given it all to him."

Well Esau comforted himself with the thought, "I'm gonna kill that rat as soon as Dad dies." And he was comforting himself with that. "I'm just gonna kill him." So, realizing that Esau had this hatred towards Jacob, their mother sent Jacob off to Mesopotamia to her family in order that his brother's vengeance might not be taken out on him. Now, when Jacob was there in Mesopotamia, he fell in love with his cousin, bargained with her dad that for seven years of labor he should have her as his wife. Of course, we know the old switcharoo. He worked for seven years then, so the old man Laban... they had the marriage ceremony. And, of course, she was all veiled and everything else, but when Jacob woke up in the morning and went to kiss his wife, found out that it was her sister and her older sister. So he went storming into Laban and said, "What is this? What have you done? You know I worked for Rachel, how come you passed off Leah on me?" It was just custom you know. The older sister has to be married first and so it's custom. But if you want to work another seven years you can have the other sister too, you know."

So he labored a second seven-year term to receive Rachel as his bride. And then afterwards he continued to work for Laban on an arrangement of a portion of the cattle and the sheep and so forth would be Jacob's. Well, Jacob could see that because he was being prospered and blessed so much his other cousins were becoming very jealous; Laban himself was becoming jealous. And so he decided that he, you know, better go back home because things are getting too hot here. So Jacob started back, and on the way, unbeknownst to him, his wife Rachel had taken some of the family images. And so when Laban came in, he said, "Where's Jacob?" His son said, "Oh, he took off a few days ago, you know, with everything--heading back to their land."

So he got together a posse and they started out after Jacob with a host. And the night before he caught up with Jacob the Lord came to Laban and said, "Don't you lay a hand on him. If you do, you're in big trouble." So Laban caught up with Jacob the next day and they had words and he said, "Well, it's not enough that you take my daughters and take my possessions and everything else, but you've also taken my gods." And Jacob did not know what Rachel had done, and he said, "Well, if you can find them, you know, they're yours." So Laban went through everything and of course Rachel was hiding them and he didn't find them. But at any rate, it was a very tense experience because Laban was still angry. In fact, if it weren't that the Lord warned him... in fact, he said, "If God hadn't told me not to touch you, man, you'd be in big trouble. You'd be a dead man now." But he said, "The Lord told me not to touch you."

So he said, "Look, here's a line. Now don't you come back over this line and I won't cross over that line," you know and he drew the line between them. And then they said, "Mizpah," which some people had picked up as sort of a pleasant good-bye, you know. It means, "The Lord watch between me and thee while we are absent one from another." You say, "Well that's beautiful." Yes, except in the context, "You're taking my daughters away. I'm not gonna be able to watch you, you scoundrel. I think you're ripping me off. May the Lord watch you while we're absent. I can't watch you, may the Lord be watching you while we're absent one from another."

Now Jacob left this tense scene and he gets news. "Your brother Esau is coming to meet you; he's got two hundred men." Oh man, you know, this is the end of the road. Can't go back, we've drawn a line. And here I'm going forward and my brother Esau who has vowed to kill me is on his way now with two hundred men. He's come to the little river of Jabbok. And so they divide things up into two companies, in case he strikes one company, the other might be able to get away. And then he sets up his family all safe on... or hopefully safe on the one side of the river, at least give them a chance to make off. And he went back over the river and it said, "That night an angel of the Lord wrestled with him all night long." Now tomorrow's gonna be a heavy day. You're gonna be meeting Esau with his two hundred men. Yesterday was a heavy day; I had this big to-do with Laban. Man, I need a good night's rest. I really need be fresh for tomorrow; it's gonna be a rough one. But an angel of the Lord wrestled with this fellow all night long, until morning, until the day began to break.

Well, Jacob was a fighter; he was tough. He also was very resourceful. A man who is intuitively resourceful many times has great difficulty in really submitting to God. A man who is the master of every situation and can connive and figure his way out of problems so often fails to really submit himself totally to God. He's cleaver, he's wise, he understands human nature, he's able to manipulate and he had gotten by on his wits all the way along. This fellow lived on his wits. And thus, when he was wrestling with the Lord he wasn't about ready to give up, hanging in there all night long until the morning began to break. And when the morning began to break, when the Lord saw that he could not prevail, this guy's not gonna give up, then he touched him there in his hip joint and caused really the muscles of his upper thighs to shrivel, crippling him. Then the Lord said, "Let me go because the day is breaking." And at this point Jacob's still hanging on, said, "I will not let you go until you bless me." The Lord says, "What is your name?" He said, "Heel catcher." He said, "Your name will no longer be heel catcher, but governed by God, Israel." Governed by God.

Now, it would seem from the story that Jacob, by his stubborn persistence, prevailed against the Lord. Not so. Hosea gives us the commentary, something we don't get out of the story in Genesis, but an insight that causes us to now really understand what happened.

He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God: Yes, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: [how?] he wept, and made supplication ( Hsa Hosea 12:3-4 ):

You see, what happened was when the Lord touched him and crippled him, he then realized, "It's too much. I've had it." And he was a broken man; he began to weep. And his was not a demand, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." It was a prayer, "Please bless me. Don't go without blessing me." And he was weeping. He was a defeated man at this point; he was begging. God finally brought him to the place where He needed to bring him in order that He might work in him His blessings. So many times God has to bring us to the end of ourselves and to the end of our resources and to the end of our schemes and the end of our cleverness and cut off every other avenue until I am beat, I am defeated, there's nowhere to go. There are times when God has to cripple a person to bring him to this place, and now Jacob is defeated. He's been brought to that place of helplessness. He is weeping, he is crying out in desperation, "Please don't go without blessing me." And here he receives that glorious blessing. It's in the change of his name, which represents the whole change of life. You'll no longer be a man who gets by with your wits and with your scheming and with your cleverness, but you're to be a man now who is governed by God.

The next morning as he crossed the brook back towards his wife, his wives and his children, as he was trying to make his way through the brook with this shriveled leg, this crippled condition, I can hear Rachel and Leah saying "What happened? How come you're crippled? What's happened, Jacob?" I believe he straightened up and said, "Don't call me Jacob. Call me Israel. My life has changed. No longer am I a supplanter, now I am a man who is governed by God." And the place of defeat became the place of greatest victory.

And that's so often true in our lives when God brings us to that place of utter desperation where I've had it and I have to just say, "Hey that's it. I can't go any further. This is all. This is the end of the road. I can't go." That can be the day of the greatest blessing of your entire life, if at that point you learn to just commit everything to God and to be governed now by God. "God, it's in Your hands. I just... I'm through, not going to try anymore, not gonna scheme anymore. God, it's just in Your hands. My life is now to be governed by Thee."

And so Hosea gives us this beautiful commentary and insight to this incident. If you just read it in Genesis you'll find difficulty with it, but with Hosea's commentary we now understand that his victory came from defeat as he was weeping and begging, brought to the end of himself that he might be governed by God.

God found him in Bethel while he was fleeing from his brother Esau. He stopped in Bethel and there he went to sleep using a rock for a pillow. And he had the dream, the heavens were opened and the ladder on up to heaven and the angels of heaven are ascending and descending. And in the morning when he woke up he looked around and he said, "Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not." There was nothing to suggest that God was there. Bethel is just rocks, rocky place, barren. There are no beautiful waterfalls, there are no great forests or anything, just barren rocky ground. Nothing to suggest the presence of God, but yet he became so conscience of it and he called it Bethel; this is the house of God.

Even the LORD of hosts; the LORD is his memorial. Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait upon God continually ( Hsa Hosea 12:5-6 ).

The exhortation to the people.

For he is a merchant ( Hsa Hosea 12:7 ),

That is Ephraim, now he is referring Ephraim. Ephraim has become a merchant.

but the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loves to oppress. Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found great substance: in all of my labors they shall find no iniquity in me that were sins. And that I am the LORD ( Hsa Hosea 12:7-9 )

God responds and said,

And I that am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast ( Hsa Hosea 12:9 ).

The Feast of Tabernacles where they dwell in the booths and remember God's provision through the wilderness.

I have also spoken by the prophets, I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets ( Hsa Hosea 12:10 ).

God said, "I have spoken to you. I spoke to you by the prophets, by the multiplying of visions and using of similitudes." The prophets doing these things that would bring a message to the people.

Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are heaps in the furrows of the field. And Jacob fled to the country of Syria ( Hsa Hosea 12:11-12 ),

Again, going back to the story of Jacob fleeing from his brother Esau

and Israel [or Jacob] served for a wife, and for a wife he kept Laban's sheep. And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, [by Moses that is] and by a prophet they were preserved. Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him ( Hsa Hosea 12:12-14 ). "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The pride of Israel that needed humbling 12:7-11

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The Lord also reminded them that He had spoken to them through prophets many times (cf. Hosea 9:7; Hosea 11:2). He had given the prophets visions, and they had taught their lessons to the Israelites. Nevertheless in spite of so many exhortations to return to the Lord the people had not responded.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

I have also spoken to the prophets,.... Or, "I will speak" b; for this respects not the Lord's speaking by the prophets of the Old Testament who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; though all they said were for the use of, and profitable unto, Christian churches; but his speaking by the apostles, prophets, and teachers, under the Gospel dispensation; by whom the doctrines of grace have been more clearly dispensed, and which are no other than the voice of Christ speaking in them; and which it is both a privilege to hear, and a duty to attend unto; see Ephesians 4:11;

and I have multiplied visions: or, "will multiply visions" c; more than under the former dispensation, as was foretold by Joel, Joel 2:28; see Acts 2:16; witness the visions of the Apostles Peter, Paul, John, and others: or this may respect the more clear sight and knowledge of Gospel truths in the times of the Messiah, then under the Mosaic economy; see 2 Corinthians 3:13;

and used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets: or, "will use similitudes" d; for this is to be understood, not of the types and figures used by the Lord under the legal dispensation, to represent spiritual things, as the brasen serpent, passover lamb, manna, and the sacrifices of the law; nor of the similitudes used by the prophet Hosea, taking a wife and children of whoredoms, to set forth the case and condition of Israel, and of the comparisons he makes of God, to a lion, leopard, bear, c. or by any other of the former prophets but of parables and similitudes used in Gospel times; not only such as Christ used himself, who seldom spoke without a parable; see Matthew 13:11; but which he used by the ministry of his apostles and prophets, and which are to be met with in their discourses and writings; see 1 Corinthians 3:6; and especially such seem to be meant that respect the conversion of the Jews, and the glory of the church in the latter day, Romans 11:16.

b ודברתי "et loquar", Piscator, Liveleus, Drusius, Cocceius, Schmidt. c חזון הרביתי "visionem multiplicabo", Vatablus, Liveleus, Drusius, Schmidt. d אדמה "assimilabo", Montanus, Schmidt; "similitudinibus utar", Castalio, Liveleus.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      7 He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.   8 And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.   9 And I that am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast.   10 I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets.   11 Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields.   12 And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.   13 And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.   14 Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him.

      Here are intermixed, in these verses,

      I. Reproofs for sin. When God is coming forth to contend with a people, that he may demonstrate his own righteousness, he will demonstrate their unrighteousness. Ephraim was called to turn to his God and keep judgment (Hosea 12:6; Hosea 12:6); now, to show that he had need of that call, he is charged with turning from his God by idolatry, and breaking the laws of justice and judgment.

      1. He is here charged with injustice against the precepts of the second table, Hosea 12:7; Hosea 12:8. Here observe,

      (1.) What the sin is wherewith he is charged: He is a merchant. The margin reads it as a proper name, He is Canaan, or a Canaanite, unworthy to be denominated from Jacob and Israel, and worthy to be cast out with a curse from this good land, as the Canaanites were. See Amos 9:7. But Canaan sometimes signifies a merchant, and therefore is most likely to do so here, where Ephraim is charged with deceit in trade. Though God had given his people a land flowing with milk and honey, yet he did not forbid them to enrich themselves by merchandise, and they succeeded the Canaanites in that as well as in their husbandry; they sucked the abundance of the seas and the treasures hidden in the sand,Deuteronomy 33:19. And, if they had been fair merchants, it would have been no reproach at all to them, but an honour and a blessing. But he is such a merchant as the Canaanites were, who were honest only with good looking to, and, if they could, cheated all they dealt with. Ephraim does so; he deceives and thereby oppresses. Note, There is oppression by fraud as well as oppression by force. It is not only princes, lords, and masters, that oppress their subjects, tenants, and servants, but merchants and traders are often guilty of oppressing those they deal with, when they impose upon their ignorance, or take advantage of their necessity, to make hard bargains with them, or are rigorous and severe in exacting their debts. Ephraim cheated, [1.] With a great deal of art and cunning: The balances of deceit are in his hand. He uses balances, and delivers his goods by weight and measure, as if he would be very exact, but they are balances of deceit, false weights and false measures, and thus, under colour of doing right, he does the greatest wrong. Note, God has his eye upon merchants and traders, when they are weighing their goods and paying their money, whether they do honestly or deceitfully. He observes what balances they have in their hand, and how they hold them; and, though those they deal with may not be aware of that sleight of hand with which they make them balances of deceit, God sees it, and knows it. Trades by the wit of man are made mysteries, but it is a pity that by the sin of man they should ever be made mysteries of iniquity. [2.] With a great deal of pleasure and pride: He loves to oppress. To oppress is bad enough, but to love to do so is much worse. His conscience does not check and reprove him for it, as it ought to do; if it did, though he committed the sin, he could not delight in it; but his corruptions are so strong, and have so triumphed over his convictions, that he not only loves the gain of oppression, but he loves to oppress, sins for sinning-sake, and takes a pleasure in out-witting and over-reaching those that suspect him not.

      (2.) How he justifies himself in this sin, Hosea 12:8; Hosea 12:8. Wicked men will have something to say for themselves now when they are told of their faults, some frivolous turn-off or other wherewith to evade the convictions of the word. Ephraim stands indicted for a common cheat. Now see what he pleads to the indictment. He does not deny the charge, nor plead, Not guilty, yet does not make a penitent confession of it and ask pardon, but insists upon his own justification. Suppose it were so that he did use balances of deceit, yet, [1.] He pleads that he had got a good estate. Let the prophet say what he pleased of his deceit, of the sin of it and the curse of God that attended it, he could not be convinced there was any harm or danger in it, for this he was sure of that he had thriven in it: "Yet I have become rich, I have found me out substance. Whatever you make of it, I have made a good hand of it." Note, Carnal hearts are often confirmed in a good opinion of their evil ways by their worldly prosperity and success in those ways. But it is a great mistake. Every word in what Ephraim says here proclaims his folly. First, It is folly to call the riches of this world substance, for they are things that are not, Proverbs 23:5. Secondly, It is folly to think that we have them of ourselves, to say (as some read it), I have made myself rich; what substance I have is owing purely to my ingenuity and industry--I have found it; my might and the power of my hand have gotten me this wealth. Thirdly, It is folly to think that what we have is for ourselves. I have found me out substance, as if we had it for our own proper use and behoof, whereas we hold it in trust, only as stewards. Fourthly, It is folly to think that riches are things to be gloried in, and to say with exultation, I have become rich. Riches are not the honours of the soul, are not peculiar to the best men, nor sure to us; and therefore let not the rich man glory in his riches,James 1:9; James 1:10. Fifthly, It is folly to think that growing rich in a sinful way makes us innocent, or will make us safe, or may make us easy, in that way; for the prosperity of fools deceives and destroys them. See Isaiah 47:10; Proverbs 1:32. [2.] He pleads that he had kept a good reputation. It is common for sinners, when they are justly reproved by their ministers, to appeal to their neighbours, and because they know no ill of them, or will say none, or think well of what the prophets charge them with as bad, fly in the face of their reprovers: In all my labours (says Ephraim) they shall find no iniquity in me that were sin. Note, Carnal hearts are apt to build a good opinion of themselves upon the fair character they have among their neighbours. Ephraim was very secure; for, First, All his neighbours knew him to be diligent in his business; they had an eye upon all his labours, and commended him for them. Men will praise thee when thou doest well for thyself. Secondly, None of them knew him to be deceitful in his business. He acted with so much policy that nobody could say to the contrary but that he acted with integrity. For either, 1. He concealed the fraud, so that none discovered it: "Whatever iniquity there is, they shall find none;" as if no iniquity were displeasing to God, and damning to the soul, but that which is open and scandalous before men. What will it avail us that men shall find no iniquity in us, when God finds a great deal, and will bring every secret work, even secret frauds, into judgment? Or, 2. He excused the fraud, so that none condemned it: "They shall find no iniquity in me that were sin, nothing very bad, nothing but what is very excusable, only some venial sins, sins not worth speaking of," which they think God will make nothing of because they do not. It is a fashionable iniquity; it is customary; it is what every body does; it is pleasant; it is gainful; and this, they think, is no iniquity that is sin; nobody will think the worse of them for it. But God sees not as man sees; he judges not as man judges.

      2. He is here charged with idolatry, against the precepts of the first table, with that iniquity which is in a special manner vanity, the making and worshipping of images, which are vanities (Hosea 12:11; Hosea 12:11): Surely they are vanity; they do not profit, but deceive. Now the prophet mentions two places notorious for idolatry:-- (1.) Gilead on the other side Jordan, which had been branded for it before (Hosea 6:8; Hosea 6:8): Is there iniquity in Gilead? It is a thing to be wondered at; it is a thing to be sadly lamented. What! iniquity in Gilead? idolatry there? Gilead was a fruitful pleasant country (pleasant to a proverb, Jeremiah 22:6), and does it so ill requite the Lord? It was a frontier-country, and lay much exposed to the insults of enemies, and therefore stood in special need of the divine protection; what! and yet by iniquity throw itself out of that protection? Is there iniquity in Gilead? Yea, (2.) And in Gilgal too; there they sacrifice bullocks (Hosea 9:5; Hosea 9:5), and there their altars which they have set up, either to strange gods in opposition to his own appointed altar, are as thick as heaps of manure in the furrows of the field that is to be sown, Hosea 8:11; Hosea 8:11. Is there iniquity in Gilead only? so some. Is it only in those remote parts of the nation that people are so superstitious, where they border upon other nations? No; they are as bad at Gilgal. In Gilead God protected Jacob their father (of whom he had been speaking) from the rage of Laban; and will you there commit iniquity?

      II. Here are threatenings of wrath for sin. Some make that to be so (Hosea 12:9; Hosea 12:9), I will make thee to dwell in tabernacles as in the days of the appointed time, that is, I will bring thee into such a condition as the Israelites were in when they dwelt in tents and wandered for forty years; that was the time appointed in the wilderness. Ephraim forgot that God brought him out of Egypt and brought him up to be what he was, and was proud of his wealth, and took sinful courses to increase it; and therefore God threatens to bring him to a tabernacle-state again, to a poor, mean, desolate, unsettled condition. Note, It is just with God, when men have by their sins turned their tents into houses, by his judgments to turn their houses into tents again. However, that is certainly a threatening (Hosea 12:14; Hosea 12:14), Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly. See how men are deceived in their opinion of themselves, and how they will one day be undeceived. Ephraim thought that there was no iniquity in him that deserved to be called sin (Hosea 12:8; Hosea 12:8); but God told him that there was that in him which was sin, and would be found so if he did not repent and reform; for, 1. It was extremely offensive to his God: Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly with his iniquities, which were so distasteful to God, and to him too would be bitterness in the latter end. He was so wilful in sinning against his knowledge and convictions that any one might see, and say, that he designed no other than to provoke God in the highest degree. 2. It would certainly be destructive to himself; that cannot be otherwise which provokes God against him, and kindles the fire of his wrath. Therefore, (1.) He shall take away his forfeited life: He shall leave his blood upon him, that is, he shall not hold him guiltless, but bring upon him that death which is the wages of sin. His blood shall be upon his own head (2 Samuel 1:16), for his own iniquity has testified against him and he alone shall bear it. Note, When sinners perish their blood is left upon them. (2.) He shall take away his forfeited honour: His reproach shall his Lord return upon him. God is his Lord; he had by idolatry and other sins reproached the Lord, and done dishonour to him, and to his name and family, and had given occasion to others to reproach him; and now God will return the reproach upon him, according to the word he has spoken, that those who despise him shall be lightly esteemed. Note, Shameful sins shall have shameful punishments. If Ephraim put contempt on his God, he shall be so reduced that all his neighbours shall look with contempt upon him.

      III. Here are memorials of former mercy, which come in to convict them of base ingratitude in revolting from God. Let them blush to remember,

      1. That God had raised them from meanness. When Ephraim had become rich, and was proud of that, he forgot that which God (that he might not forget it) obliged them every year to acknowledge (Deuteronomy 26:5), A Syrian ready to perish was my father. But God here puts them in mind of it, Hosea 12:12; Hosea 12:12. Let them remember, not only the honours of their father Jacob, what a mighty prince he was with God, Hosea 12:3; Hosea 12:3 (an honour which they had no share in while they were in rebellion against God), but what a poor servant he was to Laban, which was sufficient to mortify those that were puffed up with the estates they had raised. Jacob fled into Syria from a malicious brother, and there served a covetous uncle for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep, because he had not estate to endow a wife with. Jacob was poor, and low, and a fugitive; therefore his posterity ought not to be proud. He was a plain man, dwelling in tents, and keeping sheep; therefore balances of deceit ill became them. He served for a wife that was not a Canaanitess, as Esau's wives were; therefore it was a shame for them to degenerate into Canaanites, and mingle with the nations. God wonderfully preserved him in his flight and preserved him in his service, so that he multiplied exceedingly, and from that root in a dry ground sprang an illustrious nation, that bore his name, which magnifies the goodness of God both to him and them and leaves them under the stain of base ingratitude to that God who was their founder and benefactor.

      2. That God had rescued them from misery, had raised them to what they were, not only out of poverty, but out of slavery (Hosea 12:13; Hosea 12:13), which laid them under much stronger obligations to serve him and under a yet deeper guilt in serving other gods. (1.) God brought Israel out of Egypt on purpose that they might serve him, and by redeeming them out of bondage acquired a special title to them and to their service. (2.) He preserved them, as sheep are kept by the shepherd's care. He preserved them from Pharaoh's rage at the sea, even at the Red Sea, protected them from all the perils of the wilderness, and provided for them. (3.) He did this by a prophet, Moses, who, though he is called king in Jeshurun (Deuteronomy 33:5), yet did what he did for Israel as a prophet, by direction from God and by the power of his word. The ensign of his authority was not a royal sceptre, but the rod of God; with that he summoned both Egypt's plagues and Israel's blessings. Moses, as a prophet, was a type of Christ (Acts 3:22), and it is by Christ as a prophet that we are brought out of the Egypt of sin and Satan by the power of his truth. Now this shows how very unworthy and ungrateful this people were, [1.] In rejecting their God, who had brought them out of Egypt, which, in the preface to the commandments, is particularly mentioned as a reason for the first, why they should have no other gods before him. [2.] In despising and persecuting his prophets, whom they should have loved and valued, and have studied to answer God's end in sending them, for the sake of that prophet by whom God had brought them out of Egypt and preserved them in the wilderness. Note, The benefit we have had by the word of God greatly aggravates our sin and folly if we put any slight upon the word of God.

      3. That God had taken care of their education as they grew up. This instance of God's goodness we have, Hosea 12:10; Hosea 12:10. As by a prophet he delivered them, so by prophets he still continued to speak to them. Man, who is formed out of the earth, is fed out of the earth; so that nation, that was formed by prophecy, by prophecy was fed and taught; beginning at Moses, and so going on to all the prophets through the several ages of that church, we find that divine revelation was all along their tuition. (1.) They had prophets raised up among themselves (Amos 2:11), a succession of them, were scarcely ever without a Spirit of prophecy among them more or less, from Moses to Malachi. (2.) These prophets were seers; they had visions, and dreams, in which God discovered his mind to them immediately, with a full assurance that it was his mind, Numbers 12:6. (3.) These visions were multiplied; God spoke not only once, yea, twice, but many a time; if one vision was not regarded, he sent another. The prophets had variety of visions, and frequent repetitions of the same. (4.) God spoke to them by the prophets. What the prophets received from the Lord they plainly and faithfully delivered to them. The people at Mount Sinai begged that God would speak to them by men like themselves, and he did so. (5.) In speaking to them by the prophets he used similitudes, to make the messages he sent by them intelligible, more affecting, and more likely to be remembered. The visions they saw were often similitudes, and their discourses were embellished with very apt comparisons. And, as God by his prophets, so by his Son, he used similitudes, for he opened his mouth in parables. Note, God keeps an account, whether we do or no, of the sermons we hear; and those that have long enjoyed the means of grace in purity, plenty, and power, that have been frequently, faithfully, and familiarly, told the mind of God, will have a great deal to answer for another day if they persist in a course of iniquity.

      IV. Here are intimations of further mercy, and this remembered too in the midst of sin and wrath (as some understand Hosea 12:9; Hosea 12:9): "I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, who then and there took thee to be my people, and have approved myself thy God ever since, in a constant series of merciful providences, have yet a kindness for thee, bad as thou art; and I will make thee to dwell in tabernacles, not as in the wilderness, but as in the days of the solemn feast," the feast of tabernacles, which was celebrated with great joy, Leviticus 23:40. 1. They shall be made to see, by the grace of God, that though they are rich, and have found out substance, yet they are but in a tabernacle-state, and have in their worldly wealth no continuing city. 2. They shall yet have cause to rejoice in God, and have opportunity to do it in public ordinances. The feast of tabernacles was the first solemn feast the Jews kept after their return out of Babylon, Ezra 3:4. 3. This, as other promises, was to have its full accomplishment in the grace of the gospel, which provides tabernacles for believers in their way to heaven, and furnishes them with matter of joy, holy joy, joy in God, such as was in the feast of tabernacles, Zechariah 14:18; Zechariah 14:19.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Everybody's Sermon

July 25, 1858 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes." Hosea 12:10 .

When the Lord would win his people Israel from their iniquities, he did not leave a stone unturned, but gave them precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little. He taught them sometimes with a rod in his hand, when he smote them with sore famine and pestilence, and invasion; at other times he sought to win them with bounties, for he multiplied their corn and their wine and their oil, and he laid no famine upon them. But all the teachings of his providence were unavailing, and whilst his hand was stretched out, still they continued to rebel against the Most High. He hewed them by the prophets. He sent them first one, and then another: the golden mouthed Isaiah was followed by the plaintive Jeremy; while at his heels in quick succession, there followed many far-seeing, thunder-speaking seers. But though prophet followed prophet in quick succession, each of them uttering the burning words of the Most High, yet they would have none of his rebukes, but they hardened their hearts, and went on still in their iniquities. Among the rest of God's agencies for striking their attention and their conscience, was the use of similitudes. The prophets were accustomed not only to preach, but to be themselves as signs and wonders to the people. For instance, Isaiah named his child, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, that they might know that the judgment of the Lord was hastening upon them; and this child was ordained to be a sign, "for before the child shall have knowledge to cry, my father and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria." On another occasion, the lord said unto Isaiah, "Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, "Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives young and old, naked and barefoot, to the shame of Egypt." Hosea, the prophet, himself had to teach the people by a similitude. You will notice in the first chapter a most extraordinary similitude. The Lord said to him, "Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms; for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord," and he did so; and the children begotten by this: marriage, were made as signs and wonders to the people. As for his first son he was to be called Jezreel, "for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu." As for his daughter, she was to be called Lo-ruhamah "for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away." Thus by divers significant signs, God made the people think. He made his prophets do strange things, in order that the people might talk about what he had done, and then the meaning which God would have them learn, should come home more powerfully to their consciences, and be the better remembered. Now it struck me that God is every day preaching to us by similitudes. When Christ was on earth he preached in parables, and, though he is in heaven now, he is preaching in parables to-day. Providence is God's sermon. The things which we see about us are God's thoughts and God's words to us; and if we were but wise there is not a step that we take, which me should not find to be full of mighty instruction. O ye sons of men! God warns you every day by his own word; he speaks to you by the lips of his servants, his ministers; but, besides this, by similitudes he addresses you at every time. He leaves no stone unturned to bring his wandering children to himself, to make the lost sheep of the house of Israel return to the fold. In addressing myself to you this morning, I shall endeavor to show how every day, and every season of the year, in every place, and in every calling which you are made to exercise, God is speaking to you by similitudes. I. EVERY DAY God speaks to you by similitudes. Let us begin with the early morning. This morning you awakened and you found yourselves unclothed, and you began to array yourselves in your garments. Did not God, if you would but have heard him, speak to you by a similitude? Did he not as much as say to thee, "Sinner, what will it be when thy vain dreams shall have ended, if thou shouldst wake up in eternity to find thyself naked? Wherewithal shalt thou array thyself? If in this life thou dost cast away the wedding garment, the spotless righteousness of Jesus Christ, what wilt thou do when the trump of the archangel shall awaken thee from thy clay cold couch in the grave, when the heavens shall be blazing with lightnings, and the solid pillars of the earth shall quake with the terror of God's thunder? How wilt thou be able to dress thyself then? Canst thou confront thy Maker without a covering for thy nakedness? Adam dared not, and canst thou attempt it? Will he not affright thee with his terrors? Will he not cast thee to the tormentors that thou mayest be burned up with unquenchable fire, because thou didst forget the clothing of thy soul while thou wast in this place of probation? Well, you have put on your dress, and you come down to your families, and your Children gather round your table for the morning meal. If you have been wise God has been preaching to you by a similitude then: he seemed to say to thee "Sinner, to whom should a child go but to his father? And where should be his resort when he is hungry but to his father's table?" And as you feed your children, if you had an ear to hear, the Lord was speaking to you and saying, "How willingly would I feed you! How would I give you of the bread of heaven and cause you to eat angels, food! But thou hast spent thy money for that which is not bread, and thy labor for that which not. Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, let thy soul delight itself in fatness." Did he not stand there as a Father, and say, "Come my child, come to my table. The precious blood of my Son has been shed to be thy drink, and he has given his body to be thy bread. Why wilt thou wander hungry and thirsty? Come to my table O, my child, for I love my children to be there and to feast upon the mercies I have provided." You left your home and you went to your business. I knew not in what calling your time was occupied of that we will say more before we shall have gathered up the ends of your similitudes this morning but you spend your time in your work; and surely, beloved, All the time that your fingers were occupied, God was speaking to your heart, if the ears of your soul had not been closed, so that you were heavy and ready to slumber, and could not hear his voice And when the sun was shining in high heaven, and the hour of noon was reached, mightest thou not bare lifted up thine eye and remembered that if thou hadst committed thy soul to God, thy path should have been as the shining light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day? Did he not speak to thee and say, "I brought the sun from the darkness of the east; I have guided him and helped him to ascend the slippery steeps of heaven and now he standeth in his zenith, like a giant that hath run his race, and hath attained his goal. And even so will I do with thee. Commit thy ways unto me and I will make thee full of light, and thy path shall be as brightness, and thy life shall be as the noon-day: thy sun shall not go down by day, but the days of thy mourning shall be ended, for the Lord God shall be thy light, and thy salvation." And the sun began to set, and the shadows of evening were drawing on, and did not the Lord then remind thee of thy death? Suns have their setting, and men have their graves. When the shadows of the evening were stretched out, and when the darkness began to gather, did he not say unto thee, "O man, take heed of thine eventide, for the light of the sun shall not endure for ever? There are twelve hours wherein a man shall work, but when they are past there is no work nor device in the night of that grave whither we are all hastening. Work while ye have the light, for the night cometh wherein no man can work. Therefore, whatsoever thine hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might." Look I say to the sun at his setting and observe the rainbow hues of glory with which he paints the sky, and mark how he appears to increase his orb as he nears the horizon. O man kneel down and learn this prayer, "Lord, let my dying be like the setting of the sun; help me, if clouds and darkness are round about me, to light them up with splendor; surround me, O my God, with a greater brightness at my death than I have shown in all my former life. If my death-bed shall be the miserable pallet, and if I expire in some lone cot yet nevertheless, grant, O Lord, that my poverty may be gilded with the light that thou shalt give me, that I may exhibit the grandeur of a Christian's departure at my dying hour." God speaketh to thee, O man, by similitude, from the rising to the setting of the sun. And now, thou hast lit thy candle and thou sittest down; thy children are about thee. and the Lord sends thee a little preacher to preach thee a sermon, if thou wilt hear. It is a little gnat, and it flieth round and round about thy candle, and delighteth itself in the light thereof, till, dazzled and intoxicated, it begins to singe its wings and burn itself. Thou seekest to put it away, but it dashes into the flame, and having burned itself it can scarcely fan itself through the air again. But as soon as it has recruited its strength again, mad-like it dashes to its death and destruction. Did not the Lord say to thee, "Sinner, thou art doing this also, thou lovest the light of sin; oh! that thou wert wise enough to tremble at the fire of sin, for he who delights in the sparks thereof, must be consumed in the burning!" Did not the hand seem to be like the hand of thy Almighty, who would put thee away from thine own destruction, and who rebukes and smites thee by his providence, as much as to say to thee, "Poor silly man be not thine own destruction." And whilst thou seest perhaps with a little sorrow the death of the foolish insect, might not that forewarn thee of thine awful doom. when, after having been dazzled with the giddy round of this world's joys, thou shalt at last plunge into the eternal burning and lose thy soul, so madly, for nothing but the enjoyments of an hour? Doth not God preach to thee thus? And now it is time for thee to retire to thy rest. Thy door is bolted, and thou hast fast closed it. Did not that remind thee of that saying, "When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut-to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door saying, 'Lord, Lord, open unto us;' and he shall answer and say unto you, I know not whence you are?" in vain shall be your knocking then, when the bars of immutable justice shall have fast closed the gates of mercy on mankind; when the hand of the Almighty Master shall have shut his children within the gates of Paradise, and shall have left the thief and the robber in the cold chilly darkness, the outer darkness, where there shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Did he not preach to thee by similitude? Even then, when thy finger was on the bolt, might not his finger have been on thy heart? And at night time thou wast startled. The watchman in the street awoke thee with the cry of the hour of the night, or his tramp along the street. O man, if thou hadst ears to hear, thou mightest have heard in the steady tramp of the policeman the cry, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him." And every sound at midnight that did awaken thee from thy slumber and startle thee upon thy bed, might seem to forewarn thee of that dread trump of the archangel which shall herald the coming of the Son of Man, in the day he shall judge both the quick and the dead, according to my gospel. O that ye were wise, that ye understood this, for all the day long, from dewy morning till the darkness of the eventide, and the thick darkness of midnight, God evermore doth preach to man he preacheth to him by similitudes. II. And now we turn the current of our thoughts, and observe that ALL THE YEAR round God doth preach to man by similitudes. It was but a little while ago that we were sowing our seeds in our garden, and scattering the corn over the broad furrows. God had sent the seed time, to remind us that we too are like the ground, and that he is scattering seed in our hearts each day. And did he not say to us, "Take heed, O man, lest thou shouldest be like the highway whereon the seed was scattered, the fowls of the air devoured it. Take heed that thou be not like the ground that had its basement on a hard and arid rock, lest this seed should spring up and by-and-bye should wither away when the sun arose, because it had not much depth of earth. And be thou careful, O son of man, that thou art not like the ground where the seed did spring up, but the thorns sprang up and choked it; but be thou like the good ground whereon the seed did fall, and it brought forth fruit, some twenty, some fifty, and some a hundred fold." We thought, when are were sowing the seed, that we expected one day to see it spring up again. Was there not a lesson for us there? Are not our actions all of them as seeds? Are not our little words like grains of mustard seed? Is not our daily conversation like a handful of the corn that we scatter over the soil? And ought we not to remember that our words shall live again, that our acts are as immortal as ourselves, that after having laid a little while in the dust to be matured, they shall certainly arise? The black deeds of sin shall bear a dismal harvest of damnation; and the right deeds which God's grace has permitted us to do, shall, through his mercy and not through our merit, bring forth a bounteous harvest in the day when they who sow in tears slowly reap in joy. Doth not seed-time preach to thee, O man, and say, "Take heed that thou sowest good seed in thy field." And when the seed sprang up, and the season had changed, did God cease then to preach? Ah! no. First the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear, had each its homily. And when at last the harvest came, how loud the sermon which it preached to us! It said to us, "O Israel, I have set a harvest for thee. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, and he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." If you have an opportunity to journey into the country during the next three weeks, you will, if your heart is rightly attuned, find a marvellous mass of wisdom couched in a cornfield. Why I could not attempt for a moment to open the mighty mines of gabled treasure which are hidden there. Think, beloved, of the joy of thy harvest. How does it tell us of the joy of the redeemed if we, being saved, shall at last be carried like shocks of corn fully ripe into the garner. Look at the ear of corn when it is fully ripe, and see how it bendeth toward the earth! It held its head erect before, but in getting ripe how humble does it become! And how does God speak to the sinner and tell him, that if he would be fit for the great harvest he must drop his head and cry "Lord hare mercy upon me a sinner." And when we see the weeds spring up amongst wheat, have we not our Master's parable over again of the tares among the wheat; and are we not reminded of the great day of division, when he shall say to the reaper, "Gather first the tares and bind them in bundles, to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn." O yellow field of corn, thou preaches well to me, for thou safest to me, the minister, "Behold, the fields are ripe already to the harvest. Work thou thyself; and pray thou the Lord of the harvest to send forth more laborers into the harvest." And it preaches well to thee, thou man of years, it tells thee that the sickle of death is sharp, and that thou must soon fall, but it cheers and comforts thee, for it tells thee that the wheat shall be safely housed, and it bids thee hope that thou shalt be carried to thy Master's garner to be his joy and his delight for ever. Hark, then, to the rustling eloquence of the yellow harvest. In a very little time, my beloved, you will see the birds congregated upon the housetops in great multitudes, and after they have whirled round and round and round as if they were taking their last sight of Old England, or rehearsing their supplications before they launched away, you will see them, with their leader in advance, speed across the purple sea to live in sunnier climes, while winter's cold hand shall strip their native woods. And doth not God seem to preach to you, sinners, when these birds are taking their flight? Do you not remember how he himself puts it? "Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord." Doth he not tell us that there is a time of dark winter coming upon this world; a time of trouble, such as there has been none like it, neither shall be any more; a time, when all the joys of sin shall be nipped and frost-bitten, and when the summer of man's estate shall be turned into the dark winter of his disappointment? And does he not say to you, "Sinner fly away away away to the goodly land, where Jesus dwells! Away from self and sin! Away from the city of destruction! Away from the whirl of pleasures, and from the tossing to and fro of trouble! Haste thee, like a bird to its rest! Fly thou across the sea of repentance and faith and build thy nest in the land of mercy, that when the great day of vengeance shall pass o'er this world, thou mayest be safe in the clefts of the rock." I remember well, how once God preached to me by a similitude in the depth of winter The earth had been black, and there was scarcely a green thing or a flower to be seen. As you looked across the field, there was nothing but blackness bare hedges and leafless trees, and black, black earth, wherever you looked. On a sudden God spake and unlocked the treasures of the snow, and white flakes descended until there was no blackness to be seen, and all was one sheet of dazzling whiteness. It was at that time that I was seeking the Saviour, and it was then I found him; and I remember well that sermon which I say, before me: "Come now, and let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be whiter than wool." Sinner! thy heart is like that black ground; thy soul is like that black tree and hedgerow, without leaf or blossom. God's grace is like the white snow it shall fall upon thee till thy doubting heart shall glitter in whiteness of pardon, and thy poor black soul shall be covered with the spotless purity of the Son of God. He seems to say to you, "Sinner, you are black, but I am ready to forgive you; I will wrap thy heart in the ermine of my Son's righteousness, and with my Son's own garments on, thou shalt be holy as the Holy One." And the wind of to-day, as it comes howling through the trees, many of which have been swept down, reminds us of the Spirit of the Lord, which, "bloweth where it listeth," and when it pleaseth; and it tells us to seek earnestly after that divine and mysterious influence, which alone can speed us on our voyage to heaven; which shall cast down the trees of our pride, and tear up by the roots the goodly cedars of our self confidence; which shall shake our refuges of lies about our ears, and make us look to Him who is the only covert from the storm, the only shelter when "the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall." Ay, and when the heat is coming down, and we hide ourselves beneath the shadow of the tree, an angel standeth there, and whispereth, "Look upwards, sinner, as thou hidest thyself from the burning rays of Sol beneath the tree; so there is One who is like the apple tree among the trees of the wood, and he bids thee come and take shadow beneath his branches, for he will screen thee from the eternal vengeance of God, and give thee shelter when the fierce heat of God's anger shall beat upon the heads of wicked men." III. And now again, EVERY PLACE to which you journey, every animal that you see, every spot you visit, has a sermon for you. Go into your farm-yard, and your ox and your ass shall preach to you. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." The very dog at your heels may rebuke you. He follows his master; a stranger will he not follow, for he knows not the voice of a stranger, but ye forsake your God and turn aside unto your crooked ways. Look at the chicken by the side of yonder pond, and let it rebuke your ingratitude. It drinks, and every sip it takes it lifts its head to heaven and thanks the giver of the rain for the drink afforded to it; while thou eatest and drinkest, and there is no blessing pronounced at thy meals and no thanksgiving bestowed upon thy Father for his bounty. The very horse is checked by the bridle, and the whip is for the ass; but thy God hath bridled thee by his commandments, and he hath chastened by his providence, yet art thou more obstinate than the ass or the mule; still thou wilt not run in his commandments, but thou turnest aside, wilfully and wickedly following out the perversity of thine own heart. Is it not so? Are not these things true of you? If you are still without God and without Christ, must not these things strike your conscience? Would not any one of them lead you to tremble before the Most High, and beg of him that he would give you a new heart and a right spirit, and that no longer you might be as the beasts of the field, but might be a man full of the Divine Spirit, living in obedience to your Creator. And in journeying, you have noticed how often the road is rough with stones, and you have murmured because of the way over which you have to tread; and have you not thought that those stones were helping to make the road better, and that the worst piece of road when mended with hard stones would in time become smooth and fit to travel on? And did you think how often God has mended you; how many stones of affliction he has cast upon you; how many waggon-loads of warnings you have had spread out upon you, and you have been none the better, but have only grown worse, and when he comes to look on you to see whether your life has become smooth, whether the highway of your moral conduct has become more like the king's highway of righteousness, how might he say, "Alas! I have repaired this road, but it is none the better; let it alone until it becomes a very bog and quagmire, until he who keeps it thus ill shall have perished in it himself." And thou hast gone by the sea-side, and has not the sea talked to thee? Inconstant as the sea art thou, but thou art not one-half so obedient. God keeps the sea, the mountain-waved sea, in check with a belt of sand; he spreads the sand along the sea-shore and even the sea observes the landmark. "Fear ye not me? saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?" It is so. Let thy conscience prick thee. The sea obeys Him from shore to shore, and yet thou wilt not have him to be thy God, but thou sayest, "Who is the Lord that I should fear him? Who is Jehovah that I should acknowledge his sway?" Hear the mountains and the hills, for they have a lesson. Such is God. He abideth for ever, think not that he shall change. And now, sinner, I entreat thee to open thine eyes as thou goest home today and if nothing that I have said shall smite thee, perhaps God shall put into thy way something that shall give thee a text, from which thou mayest preach to thyself a sermon that never shall be forgotten. Oh! if I had but time, and thought, and words, I would bring the things that are in heaven above, and in the earth beneath and in the waters under the earth, and I would set them all before thee, and they should every one give their warning before they had passed from thine inspection, and I know that their voice would be, "Consider the Lord thy Creator and fear and serve him, for he hath made thee, and thou hast not made thyself;" we obey him, and we find it is our beauty to be obedient, and our glory ever to move according to his will; and thou shalt find it to be the same." Obey him while thou mayest, lest haply when this life is over all these things shall rise up against thee, and the stone in the street shall clamor for the condemnation, and the beam out of the wall shall bear witness against thee, and the beasts of the field shall be thine accusers, and the valley and hill shall begin to curse thee. O man, the earth is made for thy warning. God would have thee he saved. He hath set hand-posts everywhere in nature and in providence, pointing thee the way to the City of Refuge, and if thou art but wise thou needest not miss thy way; it is but thy wilful ignorance and thy neglect that shall cause thee to run on in the way of error, for God hath made the way straight before thee and given thee every encouragement to run therein. IV. And now, lest I should weary you, I will just notice that every man in his CALLING has a sermon preached to him. The farmer has a thousand sermons; I have brought them out already; let him open wide his eye, and he shall see more. He need not go an inch without hearing the songs of angels, and the voice of spirits wooing him to righteousness, for all nature round about him has a tongue given to it, when man hath an ear to hear. There are others, however, engaged in a business which allows them to see but very little of nature, and yet even there God has provided them with a lesson. There is the baker who provides us with our bread. He thrusts his fuel into the oven, and he causeth it to glow with heat, and puts bread therein. Well may he if he be an ungodly man, tremble as he stands at the oven's mouth, for there is a text which he may well comprehend as he stands there: "For the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble; they shall be consumed." Men ingather them in bundles and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. Out of the oven's mouth comes a hot and burning warning, and the man's heart might melt like wax within him if he would but regard it. Then see the butcher. How doth the beast speak to him? He sees the lamb almost lick his knife, and the bullock goes unconsciously to the slaughter. How might he think every time that he smites the unconscious animal, (who knows nothing of death), of his own. doom. Are we not, all of us who are without Christ, fattening for the slaughter? Are we not more foolish than the bullock, for doth not the wicked man follow his executioner, and walk after his own destroyer into the very chambers of hell? When we see a drunkard pursuing his drunkenness, or an unchaste man running in the way of licentiousness, is he not as an ox going to the slaughter, until a dart smite him through the liver? Hath not God sharpened his knife and made ready his axe that the fatlings of this earth may he killed, when he shall say to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field, "Behold, I have made a feast of vengeance for you, and ye shall feast upon the blood of the slain, and make yourselves drunken with the streams thereof?" Ay butcher, there is a lecture for you in your trade; and your business may reproach you. And ye whose craft is to sit still all day, making shoes far our feet, the lapstone in your lap may reproach you, for your heart, perhaps, is as hard as that. Have you not been smitten as often as your lapstone, and yet your heart has never been broken or melted? And what shall the Lord say to you at last, when your stony heart being still within you, he shall condemn you and cast you away because you would have none of his rebukes and would not turn at the voice of his exhortation? Let the brewer remember that as he brews he must drink. Let the potter tremble lest he be like a vessel marred upon the wheel. Let the printer take heed, that his life be set in heavenly type, and not in the black letter of sin. Painter, beware! for paint will not suffice, we must have unvarnished realities. Others of you are engaged in business where you are continually using scales and measures. Might you not often put yourselves into those scales? Might you not fancy you saw the great Judge standing by with his Gospel in one scale and you in the other, and solemnly looking down upon you, saying, "Mene, mene, tekel, thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting." Some of you use the measure, and when you have measured out, you cut off the portion that your customer requires. Think of your life too, it is to be of a certain length, and every year brings the measure a little farther, and at last there come the scissors that shall clip off your life, and it is done. How knowest thou when thou art come to the last inch? What is that disease thou hast about thee, but the first snip of the scissors? What is that trembling in thy bones, that failing in thy eyesight, that fleeing of thy memory, that departure off thy youthful vigor, but the first rent? How soon shalt thou be rent in twain, the remnant of thy days past away, and thy years all numbered and gone, misspent and wasted for ever! But you say you are engaged as a servant and your occupations are diverse. Then diverse are the lectures God preaches to you. "A servant waits for his wages and the hireling fulfilleth his day." There is a similitude for thee, when thou hast fulfilled thy day on earth, and shalt take thy wages at last. Who then is thy master? Art thou serving Satan and the lusts of the flesh, and wilt thou take out thy wages at hast in the hot metal of destruction? or art thou serving the fair prince Emmanuel, and shalt thy wages be the golden crowns of heaven? Oh! happy art thou if thou servest a good master, for according to thy master shall be thy reward; as is thy labor such shall the end be. Or thou art one that guideth the pen, and from hour to hour wearily thou writest. Ah! man, know that thy life is a writing. When thy hand is not on the pen, thou art a writer still; thou art always writing upon the pages of eternity; thy sins thou art writing or else thy holy confidence in him that loved thee. Happy shall it be for thee, O writer, if thy name is written in the Lamb's book of life, and if that black writing of thine, in the history of thy pilgrimage below, shall have been blotted out with the red blood of Christ, and thou shalt hare written upon thee the fair name of Jehovah, to stand legible for ever. Or perhaps thou art a physician or a chemist; thou prescribest or preparest medicines for man's body. God stands there by the side of thy pestle and thy mortar, and by the table where thou writest thy prescriptions, and he says to thee, "Man, thou art sick; I can prescribe for thee. The blood and righteousness of Christ, laid hold of by faith, and applied by the Spirit, can cure thy soul I can compound a medicine for thee that shall rid thee of thy sins and bring thee to the place where the inhabitants shall no more say, 'I am sick.' Wilt thou take my medicine or wilt thou reject it? Is it bitter to thee, and dost thou turn away from it? Come, drink my child, drink, for thy life lieth here; and how shalt thou escape if thou neglect so great salvation?" Do you cast iron, or melt lead, or fuse the hard metals of the mines? then pray that the Lord may melt thine heart and cast thee in the mould of the gospel? Do you make garments for men? oh, be careful that you find a garment for yourself for ever. Are you busy in building all day long, laying the stone upon its fellow and the mortar in its crevice? Then remember thou art building for eternity too. Oh that thou mayest thyself be built upon a good foundation! Oh that thou mayest build thereon, not wood, hay, or stubble, but gold, and silver, and precious stones, and things that will abide the fire! Take care man lest thou shouldest be God's scaffold, lest thou shouldest be used on earth to be a scaffolding for building his church, and when his church is built thou shouldest be cast down and burned up with fire unquenchable. Take heed that thou art built upon a rock, and not upon the sand, and that the vermillion cement of the Saviour's precious blood unites thee to the foundation of the building, and to every stone thereof. Art thou a jeweller, and dost thou cut thy gem and polish the diamond from day to day? Would to God thou wouldest take warning from the contrast which thou presentest to the stone on which thou dost exercise thy craft. Thou cuttest it, and it glitters the more thou dost cut it; but though thou hast been cut and ground, though thou hast had cholera and fever, and hast been at death's door many a day, thou art none the brighter, but the duller, for alas! thou art no diamond. Thou art but the pebble-stone of the brook, and in the day when God makes up his jewels he shall not enclose thee in the casket of his treasures; for thou art not one of the precious sons of Zion, comparable unto fine gold. But be thy situation what it may, be thy calling what it may, there is a continual sermon preached to thy conscience. I could that thou wouldest now from this time forth open both eye and ear, and see and hear the things that God would teach thee. And now, dropping the similitude while the clock shall tick but a few times more, let us put the matter thus Sinner, thou art as yet without God and without Christ; thou art liable to death every hour. Thou canst not tell but that thou mayest be in the flames of hell before the clock shall strike ONE to-day. Thou art to-day "condemned already," because thou believest not in the Son of God. And Jesus Christ saith to thee this day, "Oh, that thou wouldest consider thy latter end!" He cries to thee this morning, "How often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not." I entreat you, consider your ways. If it be worth while to make your bed in hell do it. If the pleasures of this world are worth being damned to all eternity for enjoying them, if heaven be a cheat and hell a delusion, go on in your sins. But, if there be hell for sinners and heaven for repenting ones, and if thou must dwell a whole eternity in one place or the other, without similitude, I put a plain question to thee Art thou wise in living as thou dost, without thought, careless, and godless? Wouldest thou ask now the way of salvation? It is simply this "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." He died; he rose again; thou art to believe him to be thine. Thou art to believe that he is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him. But, more than that, believing that to be a fact, thou art to cast thy soul upon that fact and trust to him, sink or swim. Spirit of God! help us each to do this and by similitude, or by providence, or by thy prophets, bring us each to thyself and save us eternally, and unto thee shall be the glory.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The rest of the prophecy consists of the indignant appeals of the Holy Spirit to conscience because of the increasing evils of Israel not so much the judgment of God on a grand scale, and His grace at the end, but His people caused to see themselves over and over again, and in every class, in presence of His patient but righteous ways with them. I do not mean that we shall not find here, especially at the end, what Jehovah will do in His goodness, but it consists much more of presentation sketches of Israel in a moral point of view. His dealings and denunciations compare the actual state then with the past, but the Spirit of prophecy launches into the future also. This, in fact, will be found in the rest of the prophecy, which closes with not a call only to repentance, but Jehovah's final assurance to Israel of His mercy, love, and rich blessing. Thus the two divisions end alike with Israel blessed inwardly and outwardly on earth to the praise of Jehovah their God, wound up with a moral appeal and a warning at the conclusion of all (Hosea 14:9).

In this second or remaining part the opening chapter (Hosea 4:1-19) begins to set out the ground of complaint against the sons of Israel. They are called to hear Jehovah; for He "hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land." It is well to note this. In the hypocrite or the theorist there may be a certain knowledge without good fruit; but, in those who are simple and real, knowledge of God cannot be separated from holy and righteous ways, as practical evil goes with ignorance of God. As the first verse puts their state negatively, in the second we have the positive wickedness charged home with amazing energy: "Swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, burst out, and blood [lit. bloods] toucheth on blood." There was to the prophet nothing else. Profanity against God, corruption and violence among men, filled the scene; and this in the land where Jehovah's eyes rested continually, whence He had destroyed the former inhabitants because of their iniquities. "Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away." God marked His sense of all by desolation in the lower creation, down to those which might seem farthest from the control or influence of man. Such was the havoc and misery under God's hand through Israel's sin. "Yet let not man strive, and let not man reprove; for thy people [are] as they that strive with the priest." It was vain for man to speak now: God must take in hand a people who were like such as rejected him who spoke and judged in His name. Therefore was their destruction imminent, and would it be unceasing, "thou" and "the prophet" and "thy mother" all, root and branch. "Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother."

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I also will reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: because thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I too will forget thy children" (ver. 6). The true meaning seems to be Israel's loss of their relative nearness to God as His people (Exodus 19:1-25), not to such sons of Aaron as might pander to irregularities in worship or connive at sin. Not individuals but "my people" are in question; as those who bring priests into the verse seem to see in the following clause. We shall hear of priests presently. Here it is the people. "As they increased, so they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame. They eat up the-sin [perhaps sin-offering] of my people, and long after [lift up their soul to] their iniquity. Therefore it shall be, like people, like priest; I will visit upon him his ways, and make his doings to return to him." Here imperceptibly we come from the people to the priest, who are singularly identified, as in wickedness so in punishment, in the latter clauses of verse 9 not "them" but "him." They were alike evil. No class was exempt from pollution: people and priests were indiscriminately corrupt. From their position the priests might be more guilty than the people; but they were all morally at one. But God would not fail in judgment.

"For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit lewdness, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to Jehovah. My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of lewdness hath caused them to err, and they have gone lewdly from under their God." Thus moral laxity and indulgence play into the hands of idolatry, as Satan takes advantage of the passions to hold men in his religious toils. Hence we see how well the expression for uncleanness morally suits the heart's going after false gods. "They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and offer incense on the hills, under the oak and the poplar and the terebinth, because their shade is good: therefore your daughters commit lewdness, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery. I will not punish your daughters when they commit lewdness, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; for they themselves go aside with harlots, and sacrifice with prostitutes" (literally, consecrated to this demoralising false worship, which made their debasement a religious duty and a gain): "therefore the people not understanding shall be cast headlong."

Whatever their faults and ways against each other, deepest of all was their sin against Jehovah their God. And this furnishes the opportunity and necessity for the warning that they must lose their priestly character as a nation; that is, their distinctive nearness in relation to God. Further, let their ruin be a call to Judah to beware. This brings us face to face into the actual state of Israel when Hosea was on the earth. "Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-aven." The allusion is to the notorious idolatry of Israel and its chief seats, where God had once given the nation to judge their own evil, or near the spot where their father, prince with God, received promises of grace from Himself. It was now, however, not Bethel (house of God) but the neighbouring pollution, Beth-aven (house of vanity). "Nor swear, Jehovah liveth," thus adding insult against Jehovah to the injury done towards His truth; for idolatry is in no way mitigated, but the less excusable in him who even outwardly owns His name. This very recognition, and the attempt to mingle Jehovah with what was contrary to Jehovah, form the gravamen of their guilt, and its exact measure and worst aggravation at that epoch in the sight of God. The same principle applies now. To accredit with faith an offender is no ground whatever to count his sin less but rather more heinous. For there cannot be a more immoral or destructive principle than to allege the fact or hope of one's Christianity as a reason for slurring over his sin: on the contrary moral judgment and separation would be but due to the name of God, not to say in love to his soul whose deliverance and restoration we desire For we have to do with God's will and ways; according to which a man's faith and confession of the Lord's name should be the ground of discipline, never of tolerating his sin. But latitudinarian laxity characterises these days, and is, under the show of grace, real evil in God's sight.

Take notice of another solemn principle in verse 17 after warning Judah from the sad ruin of Israel: a desolate land of exile was before them. "Ephraim is joined to idols [lit. toils]: let him alone." God chastises as long as there is the smallest feeling; but when He ceases to deal with the guilty, all is over morally speaking. When to Ephraim or any other He gives such rest as this, it is because hope is abandoned, and the evil is allowed to run its course unchecked. "Their drink is turned; her rulers greatly love infamy:" that is, they give themselves to nothing else than that which is and brings inevitable shame. "The wind hath bound her up in its wings, and they shall be ashamed of their sacrifice." They refused to learn of God in peace and righteousness, and must be given up to the winds, dispersed afar off by their enemies, and there be humbled seeing they refused it in their own land.

There is a triple summons inHosea 5:1; Hosea 5:1. We begin with a distinct address to the priests, then a call to the people, and lastly to the house of the king. The last chapter was occupied with the people, and only by gradual transition came to the priests. But now the leaders are appealed to, religious and civil.

There is a notion that Hosea is disorderly, some going so far as to say that there is no regular method in the book. One can understand men owning that they have failed to comprehend a prophet so concise and so rapid in his changes. But it is grievous to add that a bishop who was considered to possess learning ventured to pronounce it merely the leaves of the Sibyl; as if any inspired words could with reverence be compared to mythic oracles of no heavenly birth, written on leaves and dispersed by the wind. When will men learn modesty as to themselves as well as reverence when they have to do with the word of God? If they cannot explain a passage or a book, why not confess their ignorance or hold their peace? For a man professing to be a chief shepherd of Christ to dare thus to speak of writings beyond his own measure evinces certainly anything but the lowly faithfulness which becomes a steward of God. Such, however, is the spirit of man increasingly in this age. To my conviction, though with abundant ground for feeling my own shortcomings, the prophecy is beyond doubt knit together so as to indicate a systematic chain, profoundly dealing with the whole people, and pointing the moral for Judah from apostate and callous Ephraim.

Idolatrous evil, with every other in its train, had perverted all grades and men in Israel up to the priests and the king's household the one controlling religious matters, the other acting as the fountain of authority here below. Where now was the saint of Jehovah, or the witness of the true David that was coming? Reckless impiety and self-indulgence reigned. There was wickedness everywhere. The judgment was now towards those who should have judged righteously. Alas! they were a snare on Mizpah and a net spread on Tabor. East or west of the Jordan made no difference; and the scenes of former mercies which ought never to have been forgotten were remembered but to give effect to actual enticements of idolatry. And the revolters made the slaughter deep, though Jehovah had been a rebuke to them all. Little as the guilty people thought it in their headlong self-willed madness, He well knew Ephraim, and Israel was not hidden from Him: defiling corruption wrought everywhere. Their doings would not permit them to return to their God; for the spirit of lewdness was in their bosom, and they had not known Jehovah. Therefore should the pride of Israel be humbled before His face; and Israel and Ephraim should stumble in their iniquity, Judah too falling with them (verses 1-5).

"They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Jehovah; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them. They have dealt treacherously against Jehovah: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions." No offerings in such a state would avail: God stood aloof. Their treachery against Him was extreme; and the evil was perpetuated: but now, says the prophet in warning of speedy and sweeping judgments, shall one month devour them together with their portions [possessions]. Hence, says the prophet (verses 8, 9): "Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: cry aloud at Beth-aven after thee, O Benjamin. Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be."

Alas! Judah, instead of repenting, sought their own profit; and divine wrath must be poured on them. Ephraim, disobedient to God, was subservient enough to him who made Israel sin against God, who thereon is like a moth to him, and to Judah like rottenness. Chastening did not lead them to God, but to the Assyrian: could he heal or cure? It was bad enough to be treacherous to God; but it was worse that they must expose their impiety and unbelief by having recourse to the stranger. It is a distress when the children of God behave ill among themselves, but it is an awful thing when there is no shame in seeking the resources of the world that hates them. With Israel this was the case. They exposed themselves; they exposed God, so to speak, in His own people, the only link, we may say, with God on the earth. "When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb:* yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound." In fact it was God who was inflicting it: no wonder it was incurable. "For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah." Thus, we see, they are both now joined, as in sin so in punishment, first slow decay, and then fierce violence. Judah would take no warning from the sin of Ephraim or from his judgment now at hand. Hence says Jehovah, "I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early."

*There seems no good reason to regard ja'-reb as a proper name, but rather as an ordinary appellation, meaning the king "that should contend," "plead," or "avenge" the hostile king: so many ancients and moderns. It was the Assyrian.

This draws out a remarkable appeal from the agonized prophet (Hosea 6:1): "Come, and let us return unto Jehovah; for he hath torn, and he will heal us." Is there any disorder here? What more proper? We have had the proof of the guilt of them all; not only the solemn warning of the Lord, but the distinct statement that He was going away from them to leave them to themselves not absolutely as if He had done with them, though they had done with Him for the time; for He says, "In their affliction they will seek me early." There He gives them up. But this draws out the prophet. If such was the divine character, if God felt so keenly their adultery and spiritual treachery towards Himself, it nevertheless showed that His heart was towards them. "Come, and let us return." Why wait? Why go to the end of wickedness? "Come, and let us return unto Jehovah: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up," and with how much delight! It was God's hand that had brought them low, but He was able to heal. "After two days" a sufficient witness, it would seem "After two days he will revive us: in the third day" the witness was now complete; for "in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established" "in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight." He first gives enough proof of what we are; then He will prove what He is in raising His people up nationally as from the dead.

Can it be doubted that the passage does in an indirect and hidden but real way refer to the resurrection of Christ? He became the true Israel. Consequently, just as He went down in grace and perfectness into the depths where they had fallen justly for their sins, under the persecuting power of the Gentiles, and was called out of Egypt, as they had been of old (a scripture which is given later in Hosea and applied by the Spirit of God in Matthew 2:1-23), so I do not doubt here similarly we have the resurrection of the Lord in mysterious view. Nevertheless its plain and immediate bearing is rather on Israel than on the Messiah. To Him it only refers, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost cannot but bring Him everywhere in the Bible. No matter what He may treat of if it be only loops or taches, badgers' or rams' skins, pillars, curtains, or anything else, revelation must always turn on Christ. His name lies at the bottom and is the top-stone of all. So it is here. Whatever the Spirit may hold out to Israel, Christ is the One fixed and guiding star to which we are directed by the Spirit of God. The chosen people may wax, wane, or disappear; but He abides, occasionally behind clouds the Sun that never sets. The Spirit is come to glorify Christ; He is now sent down, takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us. Even in the Old Testament, when coverings and a vail hung over all that was within, His words might be given, as remarked, in a kindred style: still Christ was ever underneath the veil.

Next we have from verse 4 Jehovah's grief, to which Hosea gives expression: "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and their judgments are as the light that goeth forth. For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant; there have they dealt treacherously against me." It is the language of Jehovah, as the earlier verses were the prophet's exhortation. Thence he slides so to speak, into the language of Him who gave him his office. A prophet was really the voice of Jehovah, and therefore beginning as a prophet he rises up to that which becomes Jehovah Himself. The hewing of the people by the prophets expresses vividly the moral dealings of God which gave the wicked no quarter. "I have slain them by the words of my mouth," he adds, to make still plainer what kind of slaying it was. "And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth."

But of mercy He speaks. "For I desired mercy:" this is what He loves, and to this end, that He may be morally vindicated in displaying it. "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like" not ''men'' but Adam is right. "Men" hardly gives the full force; in fact it is a force contrary to the truth, because men as such were not under the law nor under His covenant, and Adam did not hold such a place. As the head of the race, his position was well defined and peculiar. Adam had a relationship with God; but the fall broke up the state of innocence, and God "drove out the man," instead of keeping him in the earthly garden of His delights. The position of man since is that of an outcast from paradise. But Israel were called externally to a place of favour, separate to Jehovah from all the rest of mankind. There was a new trial of man, though of man fallen. Indeed this forms the proper scene of man's probation: either when in Eden, and there Adam comes before us; or out of Eden, and in due time the Jew manifests his course and issue. The interval between Adam and Israel, though not without divine testimonies and dealings in grace of the deepest interest individually, not to speak of the judgment of the world by the flood, was not one of recognised relationship with man as such, because, being driven out from the presence of God, he had as yet no formal position with God, save the responsibility of avenging His injured image. (Genesis 9:5-6.)

Consequently, although in the intervening time there were most instructive lessons, and of the greatest importance for us to heed, nevertheless Israel have a peculiar place, as under probation, that was found in no way between the two. Hence there need not be the slightest doubt that, although the word is capable of meaning "men" as well as "Adam," the context proves the true meaning to be what is given in the margin, not in the text: "But they [that is Israel], like Adam, have transgressed the covenant." Scripture never so speaks of man in general. Man is called a sinner. The Gentiles as such are not, I think, called transgressors. We hear of "sinners," never "transgressors, of the Gentiles." Men generally were not in a position to transgress; but they certainly were sinners and did nothing but sin. Transgression, dreadful as it is, supposes that those guilty of it have had a known revelation of God's revealed mind and will, and hence stand on a definite ground of relationship, the limits of which they have overpassed. Hence it is that "transgression" suits the state of man not when outcast, but when they break through the bounds that God has been pleased to set them. Certainly Adam was under a law, which he broke; he thus became a transgressor. Israel were under the law, which they broke likewise, and thus became transgressors. But the people between Adam and Moses, although they were sinners just as much as either, were not transgressors as both were.

This appears to be the ground taken here. Therefore the passage does not, I am persuaded, mean men, but Adam. "But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant." The relation of Adam with God may be regarded as a covenant with God, though not the covenant. There was certainly a law given to Adam, but not the law. Israel had the law and the first or old covenant, in contrast with that new one of which Jeremiah speaks under the Messiah's reign of peace and glory. But Israel rebelled, or, as it is said here, "transgressed the covenant." "There have they dealt treacherously against me."

The region of Gilead, which was across the Jordan, is next specified. No city of the name is known: if none, the name is given by a bold figure to their corporate union in corruption and violence. "Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood." Nor is this the worst: for the priests banded privily to waylay and destroy "And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent." Those that ought to have been a city of refuge and active intercessors for the needy were themselves the ringleaders in evil, and on every ground the most guilty of all. They "murder in the way of consent (or "toward Shechem"): for they commit deliberate crime." This was the heart-breaking sorrow. Had it been among the heathen, it were not so surprising. But "I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled." The chapter closes with the assurance of sovereign mercy on His part who must judge iniquity according to the holiness of His nature. "Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned [or rather return] the captivity of my people." It is impossible fairly to apply this to the return from the captivity in Babylon; for it is striking to observe that the post-captivity prophets never speak of the Jews who returned as "my people," save in predictions of future blessedness under their Messiah reigning in glory and power over the earth. The return of the Jews by the decree of Cyrus was an unparalleled event, contrary to the policy of the East, and only to be accounted for by, the power which wrought in the conscience of Babylon's conqueror through the divine word, and (it may be) the personal weight of Daniel. Put those who returned were never called "my people." It awaits another and very different day when the Jews shall look on Him whom they pierced. Compare chapters 1, 2, 3. For that day awaits the real fulfilment ofPsalms 126:1; Psalms 126:1; Psalms 126:5, when the harvest of joy shall come after many and long sorrows.

Hosea 7:1-16, in a most solemn description, follows up the same proof and reproof of sin against them all; and shows that, spite of the patient mercy and touching appeals of God, they would only get worse and worse. The day of deliverance was as yet far off. God's intervention in goodness only manifested the people's sin "When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the evils of Samaria; for they practise falsehood (cf. John 3:1-36; John 3:1-36); and the thief cometh in, a troop of robbers plundereth without. And they say not to their hearts, I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings encompass them; they are before my face. They have made the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies."

What can be more graphic, though somewhat obscure from the singular compression of the style and rapid changes in figure, than the description which follows in verses 4-7, where the heart burns with the fire of passion, and indulgence and flattery furnish fuel? "They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners. For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me." Ephraim is shown to have been mixed up among the nations to the dishonour of Jehovah. There might have been some hope, if he had judged such a self-willed slight and confusion and had repented; but he is become "a cake not turned" (verse 8). Therefore, it is only a question of getting so burnt as to be good for nothing. "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, grey hairs are sprinkled about on him, and he knoweth it not" (verse 9). It was plain enough their heathen idols were proving their ruin. "And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face; but they turn not to Jehovah their God, nor seek him for all this." This is confirmed in verse 11 by the proof of their folly. The grey hairs beginning to show themselves here and there held out no promise of a crown of honour for his head far from it. They were but the sign of death working decrepitude, and of distance from God. Hence it is said: "Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria." That is, they look anywhere and everywhere rather than to God. Jehovah had dealt with them, no doubt, punishing them in His retributive righteousness.

Hence it is said, "As they go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. They return, but not to the most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt." Egypt, to which they called in vain, not only fails them, as against Assyria, but mocks at their captivity and ruin. Such is the world against God's guilty people. Whatever favours God gave them, they turned against Him; whatever judgments He sent against them, they never cried to Him. How dreadful was their condition when justly given up to their folly and its punishment! "They have not cried unto me," He says, "from their heart." They cried out when punished, but they never cried to God with their heart when they howled from their beds. Judgment had no more moral effect upon them than mercy.

In Hosea 8:1-14 accordingly, Jehovah warns aloud of unsparing judgment. "Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of Jehovah." They are the same figures used by our Lord in Matthew 24:1-51, where the disciples are told of the loud sound of the trumpet and of the eagles gathering together at the end of this age. The trumpet is clearly the announcement of the purpose of God in any given case. Here it is the sound of imminent judgment, as in the Lord's later prophecies it assures of the time come to gather the scattered Jews, or rather Israel. The eagles are a figure of the instruments of divine vengeance surely and rapidly coming to their prey. I only refer to both now to illustrate the surprising unity of scripture, and show how the employment of figures from beginning to end is governed by the perfect wisdom of God. This is no inconsiderable help to interpretation; because if the prophets had only employed each his own peculiar phrases, it would have been incomparably more difficult to understand scripture. As it is, there is a definite language of symbol used right through the Bible; and when you have seized it in one place, it remains for use in another, and thus become a means of helping us through what would otherwise prove more difficult. But it is well to remember that in point of depth the New Testament exceeds the Old; and although many complain of difficulties in Hebrew, they are not of the same nature but are mainly owing to a difference of relationship.

"To me will they then cry, My God, we [Israel] know thee." It was but lip-confession. "Israel hath cast off good; the enemy shall pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols that they may be cast off. Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to purity? For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God: but the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up: now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure."

The prophet in spirit sees the people already captives, yet not extinguished, among the Gentiles, yet never coalescing as others, utterly despised as none ever were, yet surviving all cruelty and shame to this day. "For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers. Yea, because they hire among the nations, now will I gather them, and in a little they shall sorrow for the burden of the king of princes." This was one great offence with God, whom they forsook and forget: else surely He had appeared for their deliverance as He did for Judah. They sought the shelter of Assyria, and there should they be carried in shame. "Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, many altars shall be unto him to sin." This was their other great transgression, the parent of fruitful evil and sorrow. "I have written to him the great things of my law: they were counted as a strange thing. They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it: Jehovah accepteth them not; now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt. For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities; but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof." There might be thus a difference in degree of departure. Israel had abandoned the true God, Judah trusted her fortified cities; but judgment would prove that God is not indifferent in either case to His own dishonour. The denunciation here is too plain to call for explanation.

Hosea 9:1-17 sets out the joyless doom of Israel for their lewd departure from their God; for they had taken their corn as a harlot's hire from their false gods: all such outward mercies should fail, and they should not dwell in the land of Jehovah, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and in Assyria they should eat of unclean things some fleeing voluntarily to the former, the mass captives in the latter. They should not pour out wine to Jehovah, nor should they be pleasing to Him their sacrifices unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof should be unclean; for their bread should be for themselves none should come into the house of Jehovah (verses 1-4). "What will ye do on the day of assembly on the day of Jehovah's feast?" They should be not only incapable of keeping holiday after the manner prescribed, but alas! without the heart and conscience exercised, seeing man's power, not their own sin nor God's judgment. "For, lo, they are gone because of destruction." To avoid the Assyrian they escaped to the south; but "Egypt shall gather them, Memphis shall bury them [not the land of their fathers]; as for their desired silver, nettles shall inherit it thorns in their tents." Impatience had long stupefied them. They should awake to suffering if not repentance. "The days of visitation are come, the days of retribution are come; Israel shall know it [not yet themselves, nor Jehovah]. The prophet is foolish, the man of the spirit frantic, for the greatness of thy punishment and the great hatred." Such had been Israel's taunt against the true prophet; and such was meted again to the false. Of these deceivers it was true. "Ephraim [was a] watchman with my God; the prophet is a fowler's snare on all his ways hatred in the house of his God. They have gone deep, they are corrupted, as in the days of Gibeah: he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins" (ver. 5-9).

As the Spirit compares their state as a whole to that frightful epoch when one tribe all but perished for its obstinate espousal of an evil most offensive to Israel, so now He dwells on Jehovah's love for the people and their sad return. "I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first-ripe in the fig-tree at her first time: but they went to Baal-peor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved. As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away as a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left; yea, woe also to them when I depart from them! Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, O Jehovah: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters. Ephraim is smitten' their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations."

Thus not only should a blight fall on their national prosperity, and their glory in their children perish, but woe to themselves forsaken of Jehovah! Murder and barrenness should befall Ephraim, who dared to make Gilgal itself the sink of their wickedness: for their wicked audacious doings Jehovah would drive them out of His house, and love them no more; but they should not wander only, but be wanderers among the nations. How truly accomplished to the letter! and the more strikingly because they do not form a separate community, but mix with the Gentiles within and without Christendom, chiefly abandoned to the lust of gain.

In Hosea 10:1-15 we have Israel judged as an empty* vine in accordance with all that precedes. For it is clear that this answers to the outward state in the days of the prophet. There was ample religious show, such as it was profession, but nothing for God's acceptance the plain contrast of Christ, who alone was the true vine. This is another instance of the way in which Christ takes up in His own person the history of Israel, and renews it for good in obedience to God's glory; as all the fruit Israel brought forth was to lusts, multiplying altars as his fruit multiplied, and making goodly statues or images as his land was made good. It is always thus where prosperity accompanies an unrenewed mind. "Their heart is divided; now shall they be guilty. He will cut off their altars; he will spoil their statues [or images]. For now will they say, We have no king, because we fear not Jehovah and the king: what can he do for us? They have spoken [mere] words, swearing falsely, making a covenant, and judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field." It was poison they planted, cultivated, and would reap. "For the calves of Beth-aven the inhabitants of Samaria fear; yea, the people thereof mourn over them, and the priests thereof [that] rejoiced over them for its glory, because it is departed from it. This also shall be carried to Assyria a present to the contentious king [or king Jareb]: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel be ashamed of his own counsel." Their idol, far from helping, was taken captive with the besotted people who gave up Jehovah for the likeness of a calf which eats hay. "As for Samaria, her king is cut off as foam [or a chip] on the face of the water. The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us."

*Dr. Henderson and others render baqaq "luxuriant," and argue that the idea of emptying, which the verb also has (derived) from that of pouring out entirely or abundantly the contents of a vessel, does not suit the present connection. But there is no need for the smallest violence. For inasmuch as the sense is clearly a vine that is luxuriant in everything but fruit, pouring out, as it literally means, its wood and leaves, the authorized version is justified, not those who overlook the connection, and take it in the sense of fruitfulness. The Targum of Jonathan is decidedly in favour of this; the old versions are divided, like the moderns.

Verses 9-11 are a most animated appeal, putting Israel now in as bad or a worse light than guilty Benjamin when all the other tribes punished his iniquity. "O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood." They were fallen now; and that battle or worse must now overtake them. The nations will be used of Jehovah to chastise Israel, only harmonious and earnest in toiling at sin. Whatever might have been the gentle training of God before, He would place a rider on Ephraim [not make Ephraim to ride], but Judah, yea, all the seed of Jacob, should be broken down under the hand of the enemy. Under kindred figures an exhortation follows in verse 12, and a reproof in 13; but internal tumult would surely come, and ruin from without ensue, on Shalman (=Shalmaneser's) in the day of battle; and all this destructive devastation Bethel should procure them for "the wickedness of their wickedness:" "in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off."

Hosea 11:1-12 exemplifies a remark made repeatedly; for here again the Spirit intermingles Christ and Israel very strikingly. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." The allusion is clear to the past history of Israel, when they were the object of Jehovah's love and delivering power and special government. There seems an intimation of what He may do for His people by and by; for great things are in store for that people preserved providentially now for the work of grace at the end of this age. Meanwhile the Lord Jesus comes in between the two, enacting as it were the history over again in His own person, and becoming the basis for the future restoration of Israel. It is here that the principle applies so admirably. He resumes in grace their leading points, and thus comforts faith in Israel by the testimony of God's care for His people. "[He] then called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them." Thus, spite of all His goodness in every suited form, He was in their eyes as those that put the yoke on the Jews, feed them as He might.

At the same time Egypt is not, strictly speaking, the place where the great bulk of them lie hidden, though those who maybe there will surely be called out. Thus was Christ when His parents fled of old from Herod. But as a whole the tribes were carried into Assyria; and Hosea says here, "He shall not return into the land of Egypt: but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return." The meaning implied is that in rebellion against God some would have liked Egypt as a refuge from the Assyrian spoiler. We know that in the time of Jeremiah there was such a resource in order to avoid submission to Babylon. God commanded the king and people to submit to the head of gold; but they would not, keeping by Egypt, which was tolerably near for escape. In vain! they perished; and Egypt was humbled under His hand. It was not that Israel had reason to love the iron furnace whence they had come out, their house of bondage till God delivered them by Moses; but man is ever perverse; and even Egypt, when displeasing to God and about to be judged after Israel, seems to their blind unbelief a desirable shield from the sword of the Assyrian when it comes, as it surely will. What we fly from in opposition to God's will becomes our severest scourge. "He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return. And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them, because of their own counsels. And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt him." The prophet's language is picturesque, though compressed. The supposed Sibylline irregularity is nowhere in Hosea. There is often difficulty, because we are ignorant, and it may be added, because we do not read with the feeling and on the ground of Jews; for this prophet is intensely Jewish. The time is not yet come when Israel will be awakened to appreciate his rapid transitions, his solemn reproaches, his mingled recalls of divine favour. When that time comes, all difficulties of this kind will disappear. The Israelite will delight in and sympathize with these impassioned changes. Gentiles are but little capable of entering into such experience, and more particularly too when they confound, as they generally do, what belongs to Israel with the Christian's portion.

Here then, just as before, the announcement of these sweeping judgments of Jehovah, as well as of their humiliating causes, is pressed on the conscience and heart of Israel; at one time they are inflicted morally by the prophet, at another they are from their foes. Of course moral judgment comes first. Now we have it in a more external form. Their punishment is threatened to the last extremity out of the land, slaves of the heathen, which they assumed never could be; for so superstition dreams, as once in Israel, no less in what calls itself the church. But it is most just and retributive punishment. Nevertheless we have a new burst of sorrow on God's part, who grieved though compelled to strike, and would not utterly destroy the people He had chosen. "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city. They shall walk after Jehovah: he shall roar like a lion: when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west. They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria: and I will place them in their houses, saith Jehovah. Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints."

Were they not really as bad as the devoted cities of the plain? Yet would He spare in sovereign mercy, not like man returning to complete the work, nor entering into the city that He might do it thoroughly; for He is God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of Ephraim. Here He assures not only of His intervention, but of their submission and answer to His summons, from the west, south, and north-east; for the Assyrians represent the north as decidedly as the east. The last verse however judges the present moral state of the two houses of Israel. How far from what grace will yet work though Judah stood?

Accordingly Hosea 12:1-14 pursues the reproof of Ephraim, and charges Judah also with offences in His sight. Thus Jacob is brought in not only as guilty in his sons, but personally as an object of divine dealing in order to counsel the people now. And a most interesting appeal it is, where Jehovah now pleads with His people, not so much appealing to conscience, nor letting them know His own pain in smiting them, but urging on them the reminiscences of past mercy to their father Jacob as a present lesson to his sons. How many a soul has been brought back to God by reminding it if joys once tasted, though long, long forgotten! And Jehovah will use any and every right measure to win His people back to Himself. So here He reminds them of Jacob. "Ephraim feedeth on wind" what folly! "And followeth after the east wind," of all winds the most fierce and scorching. "He daily increaseth lies and desolation," deceitful evil and its recompence even now, as well as by and by. "And they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt." They might like to curry favour again with the mighty; but their false heart, breaking the covenant, and seeking to win Egypt also by presenting what they could expect abundantly, only made the Assyrian their enemies; and so end all efforts at setting one power against another to one's own advantage. It is unworthy even of a man, how much more of the people of God!

"Jehovah hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him." It was not Ephraim only but Judah too which was in question, though not yet so far gone as the rest. This gives the link reminding them of the ancient history of their common father. "He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God." From the first Jacob did that which indicated the supplanting of his brother on the one hand, before it could be set down to developed character, but on the other God recalls what grace did when it gave him strength beyond his own in his weakness. When he was shrunk up in the sinew of his thigh he was strengthened of God to prevail with the angel, and acquired the name which pledges the blessing of grace and all overcoming to the seed of Abraham. "Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him." What! The man who cowered and wept for fear of Esau? The self-same man on that very same occasion, when full of plans though not without prayer at the alarming approach of Esau, learns the sufficiency of grace, and has this strength made perfect in his weakness. "He found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us [identifying strikingly and touchingly the children with their forefathers] even Jehovah the God of hosts; Jehovah is his memorial. Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually." What a withering rebuke in verses 7, 8! "A merchant [Canaan], the balance of deceit in his hand, he loveth to overreach! And Ephraim said, I am simply become rich; I have found me out substances: it is all my labours. They will find no iniquity in me that is sin." How often prosperity blinds to evil, and God's judgment those who should know both.

In verse 9 Jehovah binds together His deliverance of Israel from Egypt with that mercy which will yet make good what the feast of tabernacles pledged; in verse 10 He reminds them of this extraordinary testimony when they ruined themselves by breaking this law and forsaking Himself; in verse 11 He sets before them the lamentable and ruinous witness of their idolatry. Then in verse 12 their father Jacob is once more held up to rebuke them, who fled in weakness, but served faithfully sad contrast of his sons; and yet, though brought by God's word and power out of Egypt, most bitterly did Ephraim provoke to anger now therefore should his Lord leave his blood-guiltiness on him and requite his reproach to him.

In Hosea 13:1-16 we see that when Ephraim spake, there was trembling, so exalted was he in Israel: "When he offended in Baal, he died. And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen; they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves." Hence was so great a change, and the downfall of his power; their prosperity was as evanescent as the lightest things men speak of in proverbs. Yet again Jehovah reminds them of His relation to them from the beginning. Himself the only true God and Saviour. His very mercy was too much for them. He should now show Himself an avenger (verses 7, 8). Truly, as it is so earnestly put, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help."* The sovereign grace of God is the only hope and help for His sinful people. Of this Israel will reap the benefit, as we are doing.

*The words probably mean, literally, "Thy destruction, Israel, [is] that [thou art] against me, against thyself."

Where was now their king to save? where their judges? Alas! the words recall another early history of sin and rebellion and of God's displeasure. Yet Ephraim clung only to his sin (ver. 12), hid instead of confessing it.. The very patience of God only makes the blow the more sudden and felt when it falls. What folly not to come forth when safety depends on promptness? But man's extremity is God's opportunity, who will deliver when all hope is gone. How unlike the king whom He gave once in wrath, who brought them into such a state of degradation that they could not even sharpen the mattock in the land of Israel, but were obliged to their bitterest enemies for the barest means of subsistence! Jehovah assuredly will take the matter in hand, and then not merely their enemies, but death and the grave would be put down. Let them summon plagues and array pestilence as they may, Jehovah will conquer on behalf of His people.

To apply this to any thing past in Israel's history is extravagantly poor. But it is a mistake to think that they will not be accomplished magnificently in Israel's future deliverance. Gentile "conceit," as the apostle warns in Romans 11:1-36, easily falls into such oversight, in its eagerness to take all the blessings to itself, leaving all the curses, and only these, to Israel. The New Testament gives a still richer turn, and reads a deeper truth in the words; but this in no way warrants our alienating the ancient people of God in the latter day from their predicted blessing through Jehovah's grace, when our Lord reigns, the all-conquering King of Israel, Jesus the Christ. Deliverance will come when the last Assyrian, the king of the north of Daniel, strikes his last blow not as of old carrying off the people, but himself falling far more miserably than Samaria then met her punishment at his hands.

Then most beautifully winding up the prophecy, we have in Hosea 14:1-9 no scattered leaf of the Sibyl, but what ought to be here and nowhere else the final operation and effect of divine grace on the long-guilty, long-hardened people of God. The appeals, the reminiscences, the warnings, and the mercy are no longer in vain; but at length by the Spirit poured into the heart of Israel (who bow at last to that gracious Jehovah whose long-suffering had waited upon them many days ages of His own dishonour through them waiting for these latter days) the blessed time of Israel's restoration to their God in their own land. Fitly therefore at the end, and assuredly not in vain, comes the call: "O Israel, return unto Jehovah thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." How true and wholesome is the word of God I "Take with you words, and turn to Jehovah: say unto him, Take away all iniquity." He would not leave them without a suited word to Him, for He loves to provide all; He would put no words less than these into their lips: "Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." Would they have ventured to ask so much? Lord, teach us to ask from Thee we need this as well as to act for Thee. "So will we render the calves of our lips."

All is judged now aright; because self is judged before the God who brings them near Him. Their repentance is genuine and the fruit of grace. "Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses." All their vain resources are now and for ever abandoned. "Neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy." Idolatry had been the inlet of all mischief at home, as well as the outlet to pride in the world. Then comes Jehovah's answer from verse 4: "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon." What mercy in the face of wayward inconstancy and hearts only firm in rebellion! What tender love as well as mercy! Love free and full whose motive is in God Himself, who once smote His people in anger, but now will be as the dew to them so long without one drop of moisture to refresh them! How will not Israel then flourish! As the lily for form and graceful elegance; as Lebanon for stability; as the unfading olive for beauty (no longer under the morning cloud), and with the fragrance of Lebanon. "They that dwell under his shade shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine; the scent as the vine of Lebanon." What will the receiving back of Israel be to all the world but life from the dead?

True and faithful is the sovereign grace of God. It is not salvation in the meagre sense that the Jews will be screened from deserved destruction. If Jehovah saves, He will do it evermore for earth or heaven in a way that is worthy of Himself. "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir-tree. From me is thy fruit found." It appears to be a conversation between Ephraim and Jehovah. "Ephraim [shall say], "What have I to do any more with idols?" To this Jehovah answers, "I myself have heard and observed him." Thereon Ephraim replies, "I am like a green fir tree;" to which Jehovah rejoins, "From me is thy fruit found." What a blessed change for Ephraim! and what communion with their God!

The whole of this terse prophecy ends with the searching question of the closing verse "Who is wise, that he may understand these things? intelligent, that he may know them? for the ways of Jehovah are right, and the transgressors shall stumble thereon." May this wisdom be given to us, that we too may understand Himself and His ways! "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever;" and this being the desire, he "shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." "None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand."