Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Hosea 3:5

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Hosea 3:5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return — Shall repent of their iniquities, and seek the Lord; lay aside their mock worship, and serve the true God in spirit and in truth.

And David their king — Or as the Targum, "They shall obey the Messiah, the Son of David, their King;" and thus look believingly upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn. And then shall their long spiritual darkness and dismal captivity have an end; but not before. The Messiah, as David, is promised in Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 24:23; Ezekiel 37:22; Ezekiel 37:24-25, (where see the notes,) and in this place of Hosea. Some think that the family of David is intended; but if we go to the rigour of the letter, the house of Israel was scarcely ever perfectly submissive to David. And we know that after the death of Solomon they never acknowledged the house of David till they were all carried away captive; and certainly never since. And to say that Zerubbabel is here meant, is not supportable, as the very short and imperfect obedience of the Jews to Zerubbabel can never comport with the high terms of this and similar prophecies. We are obliged, therefore, from the evidence of these prophecies, from the evidence of the above facts, from the evidence of the rabbins themselves, and from the evidence of the New Testament, to consider these texts as applying solely to JESUS CHRIST, the promised MESSIAH, who has been a light to lighten the Gentiles, and will yet be the glory of his people Israel. There is a strange propensity in some men to deny these evidences of Christianity, while they profess to believe its doctrines.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Steadfast love (3:1-5)

The story now returns to relate how Hosea, having found that his prostitute wife had become a slave, bought her back. In the same way God will buy back his adulterous people from slavery (3:1-2).
But Gomer had first to undergo a period of discipline and live with Hosea as a slave, not as a wife. Israel likewise must have a period of discipline. She must live in captivity in a foreign land, where she will be without her own civil government and will be separated from all objects connected with former religious practices, good and bad. Only when she willingly responds to God’s love and seeks him will she be truly his (3-5).
The love that God showed to Israel (and Hosea to Gomer) is a special kind of love that in Hebrew is called chesed. It is translated in the RSV as ‘steadfast love’, in the GNB as ‘constant love’ and in other versions as ‘mercy’, ‘kindness’ and ‘loving kindness’.

Chesed love is covenant loyalty and faithfulness. A covenant is an agreement between two parties that carries with it obligations and blessings. In the case of Hosea and Gomer, that covenant is the marriage covenant, and chesed is that particularly strong form of love by which the two persons in that covenant are bound to be loyal to each other. This idea forms a basic theme of the book of Hosea. God exercised loyal love and covenant faithfulness towards his people, but they were not loving and faithful to him in return. Their chesed ‘vanished like the morning mist’ (see 6:4-6).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

"Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king, and shall come with fear unto Jehovah and to his goodness in the latter days."

The strong Messianic thrust of this passage is undeniable. It is no longer the old Israel which is in focus here, for the new Israel suddenly enters the picture. The words "afterward" and "in the latter days" which begin and close the passage make this certain. Also, the return to "David their king" can only mean that the return will be to the Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of David (Matthew 1:1), whose resurrection from the dead and subsequent exaltation at God's right hand in heaven were flatly declared by the apostle Peter to be the fulfillment of the ancient promise of God's raising up one to sit on David's throne (Acts 2:19-31). Butler has a significant comment on this:

Every school of the ancient Jews (Talmudic, mystical, Biblical, or grammatical) explained this prophecy of Christ, the Messiah. They even paraphrased it thus: Afterward the children of Israel shall repent, and turn by repentance, and shall seek the service of the Lord their God, and shall obey the Messiah the Son of David, their King.
Such an interpretation is found in some of the Targums and the Midrash and by such scholars as Ibn Ezra and Kimchi.Paul T. Butler, op. cit., p. 465.

There is hardly any need to multiply names and citations from discerning scholars of all ages who have accepted this passage as a reference to the glorious age of Jesus Christ during that present dispensation, during which his holy name is honored literally all over the world. The participation of the new Israel in this is certain, nor do the words of this passage (or any other) deny the possibility that even remnants of the old Israel may yet come to the feast. However, to affirm that such a thing "will be" is to go beyond the word of the Lord.

The three chapters (Hosea 1-3) concluded by this verse are as important as any ever written. As Hailey expressed it, "They stand out in the book of Hosea as of special importance,"Homer Hailey, op. cit., p. 147. this being due to the Messianic import of Hosea 1:10-11; Hosea 2:1; Hosea 2:21-23, and Hosea 3:5.

A SUMMARY OF Hosea 1-3

God's dealings throughout history with the Israel of God, as manifested at first in the literal descendants of Abraham, and later as the New Israel made up of Abraham's spiritual seed (Galatians 3:28-29), are dramatically presented under the strange and complex figure of Hosea's relationship to Gomer. The various events of that domestic relationship are scattered throughout the three chapters; but the arrangement of them is precise, logical, and necessary for carrying the complex meaning assigned to the relationship.

In Hosea 1, the marriage occurs, three children are born; and their names, providentially given, are prophetic of the Scattering, the Apostasy, and the Divorce of the Secular Israel. The secular state, "the sinful kingdom," had become falsely identified as "God's chosen people," which, from the beginning, had never been identified as any kind of a state, but as the true "sons of Abraham," the spiritual seed, the holy remnant who would remain and ultimately welcome the Messiah. This prophecy of the divorce of Israel, as seen in the mystical name of Lo-Ammi, was not to mean the end of the true Israel; and all of God's glorious promises regarding that true Israel were affirmed in the same breath with the mention of Ammi (Hosea 1:10 to Hosea 2:1). That Israel was specifically defined as including the Gentiles, and described as an innumerable multitude; and significantly, they were spoken of, not as Israel, but as Jezreel, the name being a derivative of Israel and possessing a double meaning applicable both to the old Israel and the new. As it applied to the old Israel, it meant "I will scatter"; and as applied to the new, it meant "I will sow," or "I will plant."

Hosea 2 begins at once with the formal announcement of the divorce of the old Israel (Hosea 2:2), and follows that with a bill of particulars (Hosea 2:3-13) containing a remarkable montage with blended elements of Gomer's shameless conduct and Israel's brazen apostasy. There is also recounted a number of initiatives on the part of God who sought to bring Israel back, culminating in the promise of a new marriage, often misunderstood as the divine acceptance of the divorced state, but actually indicating God's marriage to another in the person of the new Israel, as indicated by the significant use of "Jezreel" in @@Hosea 2:22.

However, one important aspect of God's dealing with his once "chosen people" (as identified with the sinful nation) remained to be prophesied. What would be the status of the divorced Israel afterward? Since they were not to be "re-married" to Jehovah, what would be their status during the interim and afterwards? That was dramatically prophesied in Hosea 3 under the figure of Hosea's purchase of Gomer out of slavery and keeping her shut up in his house until she should repent, but without conjugal privileges, the same representing that God would indeed continue to be concerned with Israel, but no longer as his wife or "chosen people." That status would belong to the people of the new covenant, the new Israel of God in the church of Jesus Christ.

Of course, there was to be no injustice whatever done to the old Israel in the developments depicted here; because, the new Israel would include not only the Gentiles of all nations, but not a single member of the old fleshly Israel would be excluded from participation in the new order as an integral part of the "Bride of Christ." That is the situation as it exists even to the present time.

This whole terrible picture of the apostasy of ancient Israel was a product of their own arrogant presumption. It began when they rejected God as their ruler and demanded a king like other nations; and through those kings they were led into the grossest immoralities and idolatrous worship of the Baalim, even rejecting God outright and attributing all of their blessings to pagan deities. Throughout that long period of progressive apostasy, there was still the presumption that they were the "chosen people" of God; and Hosea's prophecy was designed to destroy that conceit. The true Israel of God, submerged for centuries within the wrappings of their man-made state, and still later (until the times of Christ) obscured by experiences of the divorced nation, yet all the while "waiting for the kingdom of heaven," were at last blessed by the visit of the Dayspring from on High, whom they joyously welcomed.

No other prophecy in the whole Bible so adequately foretells the future of God's relationship with Israel (both the old and the new) as does this one. The call of Israel as the "chosen people," God's deliverance of them from slavery and his endowment of them with nationhood and a land of their own, their rejection of God as their ruler in the demand for a king, their progressively bold and arrogant apostasy, God's divorce of the sinful nation (the holy remnant excepted) from any further status as the "bride of Jehovah", the whole nation's sinking into the open debaucheries of paganism, such a state being one of spiritual slavery (to be equated in every way with the spiritual slavery of the whole Gentile world), God's redemption of the old Israel from the slavery of idolatry, his withholding from them his former favor through the long denial of any prophetic word (the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament), and his eventual new marriage to Israel (this time to the new Israel, made up of the faithful elements of the old, plus spiritual seekers of God's kingdom from among the Gentiles of all nations), and finally the great felicity and blessing pertaining to that new marriage as found in the church of Jesus Christ - all of these significant events pertaining to God and Israel are faithfully depicted in the first three chapters of the amazing prophecy of God through Hosea.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Afterward shall the children of Israel return - Elsewhere it is said more fully, “return to the Lord.” It expresses more than “turning” or even conversion to God. It is not conversion only, but reversion too, a turning “back from” the unbelief and sins, for which they had left God, and a return to Him whom they had forsaken.

And shall seek the Lord - This word, “seek,” expresses in Hebrew, from its intensive form, a diligent search; as used with regard to God, it signifies a religious search. It is not such seeking as our Lord speaks of, “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled” John 6:26, or, “many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able” Luke 13:24, but that earnest seeking, to which He has promised, “Seek and ye shall find.” Before, she had diligently sought her false gods. Now, in the end she shall as diligently seek God and His grace, as she had heretofore sought her idols and her sins.

And David their King - David himself, after the flesh, this could not be. For he had long since been gathered to his fathers; nor was he to return to this earth. “David” then must be “the Son of David,” the same, of whom God says, “I will set up One Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David, and He shall be their Shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David a Prince among them” Ezekiel 34:23-24. The same was to be a “witness, leader, commander to the people Isaiah 55:4; He who was to be “raised up to David Jeremiah 23:5-6, a righteous Branch,” and who was to “be called the Lord our Righteousness; David’s Lord” Psalms 110:1, as well as “David’s Son.” Whence the older Jews, of every school, Talmudic, mystical, Biblical, grammatical, explained this prophecy, of Christ. Thus their received paraphrase is: “Afterward the children of Israel shall repent, or turn by repentance, and shall seek the service of the Lord their God, and shall obey Messiah the Son of David, their King” .

And shall fear the Lord - Literally, “shall fear toward the Lord and toward His goodness.” It is not then a servile fear, not even, as elsewhere, a fear, which makes them shrink back from His awful Majesty. It is a fear, the most opposed to this; a fear, whereby “they shall flee to Him for help, from all that is to be feared;” a reverent holy awe, which should even impel them to Him; a fear of losing Him, which should make them hasten to Him. : “They shall fear, and wonder exceedingly, astonied at the greatness of God’s dealing, or of their own joy.” Yet they should “hasten tremblingly,” as bearing in memory their past unfathfulness and ill deserts, and fearing to approach, but for the greater fear on turning away. Nor do they hasten with this reverent awe and awful joy to God only, but “to His Goodness also.” His Goodness draws them, and to it they betake themselves, away from all cause of fear, their sins, themselves, the Evil one. Yet even His Goodness is a source of awe. “His Goodness!” How much it contains. All whereby God is good in Himself, all whereby he is good to us. That whereby he is essentially good, or rather Goodness; that whereby He is good to us, as His creatures, its yet more as His sinfill, ungrateful, redeemed creatures, re-born to bear the Image of His Son. So then His Goodness overflows into beneficence, and condescension, and graciousness and mercy and forgiving love, and joy in imparting Himself, and complacence in the creatures which he has formed, and re-formed, redeemed and sanctified for His glory. Well may His creatures “tremble toward” it, with admiring wonder that all this can be made their’s!

This was to take place “in the latter days.” These words, which are adopted in the New Testament, where Apostles say, “in the last days, in these last days” Acts 2:17; Hebrews 1:2, mean this, the last dispensation of God, in contrast with all which went before, the times of the Gospel . The prophecy has all along been fulfilled during this period to those, whether of the ten or of the two tribes, who have been converted to Christ, since God ended their temple-worship. It is fulfilled in every soul from among them, who now is “converted and lives.” There will be a more full fulfillment, of which Paul speaks, when the eyes of all Israel shall be opened to the deceivableness of the last antichrist; and Enoch and Elias, the two witnesses Revelation 11:3, shall have come to prepare our Lord’s second Coming, and shall have keen slain, and, by God’s converting grace, “all Israel shall be saved” Romans 11:26.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

But it follows, Afterwards shall the children of Israel return and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king. Here the Prophet shows by the fruit of their chastisement, that the Israelites had no reason to murmur or clamour against God, as though he treated them with too much severity; for if he had stretched out his hand to them immediately, there would have been in them no repentance: but when thoroughly cleansed by long correction, they would then truly and sincerely confess their God. We then see that this comfort is set forth as arising from the fruit of chastisement, that the Israelites might patiently bear the temporary wrath of God. Afterwards, he says, they shall return; as though he said, “They are now led away headlong into their impiety, and they can by no means be restrained except by this long endurance of evils.”

They shall therefore return, and then will they seek Jehovah their God. The name of the only true God is set here in opposition, as before, to all Baalim. The Israelites, indeed, professed to worship God; but Baalim, we know, were at the same time in high esteem among them, who were so many gods, and had crept into the place of God, and extinguished his pure worship: hence the Prophet says not simply, They shall seek God, but they shall “seek Jehovah their God”. And there is here an implied reproof in the word אלהים “Elohehem”; for it intimates that they were drawn aside into ungodly superstitions, that they were without the true God, that no knowledge of him existed among them; though God had offered himself to them, yea, had familiarly held intercourse with them, and brought them up as it were in his bosom, as a father his own children. Hence the Prophet indirectly upbraids them for this great wickedness when he says, They shall seek their God. And who is this God? He is even Jehovah. They had hitherto formed for themselves vain gods: and though, he says, they had been deluded by their own devices, they shall now know the only true God, who from the beginning revealed himself to them even as their God. He afterwards adds a second clause respecting King David: but I cannot now finish the subject.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 3

Then said the LORD unto me ( Hsa Hosea 3:1 ),

Hosea is speaking here.

Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine ( Hsa Hosea 3:1 ).

In other words, God is saying, "Now go take your wife again, love her again though she has become a prostitute and has left you. Go, and take her, love her again."

So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver ( Hsa Hosea 3:2 ),

Now the normal price of a slave was thirty pieces of silver. So this fifteen pieces of silver indicates how completely destitute she had become, probably sick, anemic and all through her wasted life; lost her beauty, lost her desirability. He was able to purchase her for half the price of a slave, fifteen pieces of silver.

and for a homer of barley, [or about eighty-six gallons of barley] and a half homer of barley [animal food, barley]: And I said unto her, You shall abide with me for many days; you shall not play the harlot, and you shall not be for another man: so will I also be for thee ( Hsa Hosea 3:2-3 ).

And so in the restoration you're just to abide for many days. You're not to be for another man and I will keep myself for you.

For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, without an image, without an ephod, without the teraphim: And afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; [or their Messiah] and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days ( Hsa Hosea 3:4-5 ).

Now it is true, Israel has gone many days without a king and without sacrifices, without the priesthood, for those ephods and teraphims and all are a part of the priestly garments. And they have gone without these things for many days, many years, and yet God is going to restore these things to them as Jesus Christ comes again, sits upon the throne of David, orders it and establishes it in righteousness and in judgment forever.

So, it is interesting how that Hosea commanded of the Lord to go and now purchase his wife. Sort of reminiscent of the story of the gingerbread man. For the little girl baked this gingerbread man and as she was taking it out of the oven, admiring how handsome he was, and she began to put on the raisins and all for his face and buttons and these things. And finally when she was all through, he jumped out of the pan and began to run away. She began to chase him, and he cried, "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man." And he was right, she couldn't catch him and she went home sad and crying for her gingerbread man had run away. But the next day, as she was walking down the street looking in the store windows as she passed the bakery shop, there looking and smiling at her through the window was her gingerbread man lying on a tray. So she went in to the proprietor and said, "I want my gingerbread man. He's there in the window." And he said, "He will cost you ten cents." She said, "Oh no, no, you don't understand. He's mine. That's my gingerbread man. I made him." The proprietor said, "He costs ten cents." So the little girl went home and she got her bank and she shook the coins until she got her ten pennies and she ran back to the bakery shop and put her pennies on the counter and she said, "Now I want my gingerbread man." And the man took the gingerbread man out of the window and handed it to the little girl and she began to clasp him close to her as she walked home and she said, "Now, you are really mine. First of all I made you and now I bought you." What a picture.

God with Israel, "Now you're really Mine. I made you, now I purchased you." Story of redemption. As the Lord clasps you close to Himself and Jesus says, "Now you're really Mine. I made you. You're Mine by the divine right of creation, but now I've purchased you. You ran away, but now I've purchased you. I redeemed you."

And so the wife now redeemed, abiding for a period of time after the redemption. Jesus came and redeemed Israel. But even after the redemption you're going to abide a period of time without a king, without a sacrifice, without the priesthood. And so the nation Israel has been abiding.

Now, turning ahead to chapter 6, and this is next week's lesson so we're gonna just take a look here. The declaration of Israel in the last days: "Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for He has torn, and He will heal us; He has smitten, but He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us: in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight" ( Hosea 6:1-2 ).

Peter tells us that a day is as a thousand years to the Lord and a thousand years is as a day. Here they speak for two days, after two days He will revive us. It is very interesting and very significant that Israel remained without the sacrifice, without the priesthood for almost two thousand years now. "But after two days He will revive us and in the third day He will raise us up and we will live His sight." That third thousand-year period being the great millennium when the blessings of God are restored upon the nation Israel and they live in His sight. So that is quite a remarkable prophecy of Hosea, ties in with chapter 3 in a sense. That they shall abide for many days without these things after the redemption price is paid, but then they will be restored. "Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and the Messiah David their king; and they shall fear the Lord and His goodness in those latter days." "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The restoration of Yahweh’s wife 3:4-5

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

After this period of cleansing, the Israelites would return to the Lord. They would seek Him as their God and a Davidic king as their ruler (cf. Hosea 2:7; Hosea 5:15; Deuteronomy 4:29). They would approach the Lord with a healthy sense of fear because of His rich blessings. This would happen "in the last days," namely, the days of Israel’s national restoration (i.e., the Millennium; cf. Deuteronomy 4:30; Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1).

"The reference to ’David their king’ should not be understood in an overly literalistic manner. The prophets view the ideal Davidic ruler of the future as the second coming of David (see Isaiah 11:1-10; Micah 5:2) and even call him ’David’ on occasion (see Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23-24; Ezekiel 37:24-25). This ’David’ carries out royal functions that cannot be distinguished from those assigned to the messianic king. Other texts make it clear that this ’David’ is actually a descendant of David (see Jeremiah 23:5-6; Jeremiah 33:15-16) who comes in his ancestor’s spirit and power, much like John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah and thus fulfilled the prophecy of Malachi 4:5 (see Matthew 11:10-14; Matthew 17:11-12; Mark 1:2-4; Luke 1:17; Luke 1:76; Luke 7:27)." [Note: Chisholm, Handbook on . . ., p. 348. Cf. Kaiser, p. 198.]

This appears to be another messianic prophecy (cf. Hosea 1:11).

"Chapter 3 is one of the classic O.T. passages describing Israel’s past, present, and future. Her idolatrous past is illustrated by Gomer’s unfaithfulness to Hosea (Hosea 3:1-2), despite which Hosea is commanded to love her and buy her back ’according to the love of the LORD toward . . . Israel,’ a love which led Him to pay the purchase price of the blood of the cross to redeem Israel, the basis of her restoration. The present condition of Israel is illustrated and plainly prophesied in Hosea 3:3-4. Her future is declared in Hosea 3:5, showing her repentance toward God who, in His faithfulness, will restore her." [Note: The New Scofield . . ., p. 921.]

"To summarize [chapters 1-3]:

"God is gracious, and no matter what ’name’ our birth has given to us, He can change it and give us a new beginning. Even the ’valley of trouble’ can become a ’door of hope.’

"God is holy and He must deal with sin. The essence of idolatry is enjoying the gifts but not honoring the Giver. To live for the world is to break God’s heart and commit ’spiritual adultery.’

"God is love and promises to forgive and restore all who repent and return to Him. He promises to bless all who trust him." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 320.]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Afterward shall the children of Israel return,.... The ten tribes of Israel, and also the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which are included in the name of Israel, as Aben Ezra interprets it; and these are joined together in parallel places; see Jeremiah 30:3 for though they did not go into captivity together, yet their return and conversion will be at the same time; and they are all spoken of under the name of Israel by the Apostle Paul, when he foretells their conversion and salvation, Romans 11:26. The "return" of them, here prophesied of, does not barely mean their return to their own land, which will be at this time; see Jeremiah 30:3, but their return to the Lord by repentance; when they shall repent of, and turn from, their sinful course of life, and particularly of their unbelief and rejection of the true Messiah, and embrace him; and of their traditions and false ways of worship, which they shall discard; and of their own righteousness they shall now renounce; and shall turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in him for righteousness, life, and salvation:

and seek the Lord their God, and David their King; these may be considered either as two distinct persons, Jehovah the Father, and the Messiah, as in Ezekiel 34:23 and so the Targum,

"and seek the worship of the Lord their God, and obey Messiah the Son of David their King;''

who will be both equally sought after, and unto, by them; and which is a proof of the divinity of the Messiah, and of his equality with God his Father; as well as points out the right way in which Jehovah is to be sought, namely, with Christ, or in him, in whom he is a God gracious and merciful; and to seek and know both the one and the other is eternal life, John 17:3 or else all this is to be understood of the Messiah, rendering the words, "and seek the Lord their God, even David their King" as also Jeremiah 30:9, may be rendered; and so these are all epithets, titles, and characters of him: he is Jehovah, the everlasting I AM; the true God, and eternal life; Immanuel, God with us; God in our nature, manifest in the flesh; the Son of David, and his antitype, often called David in Scripture. Psalms 89:3, King of kings, King of the saints, of his church, and will be owned as such by the Jews at the time of their conversion, though they have rejected him; but now they will receive him, and be subject to him; they will seek to him for salvation, for the pardon of their sins, for righteousness, for rest, for food, for protection and safety, and to serve and obey him: and this seeking will not be out of curiosity, or in a carnal way, or for selfish ends; nor hypocritically; but with their whole hearts, and diligently, and in earnest. Not only the Targum interprets this of Messiah the Son of David, but Aben Ezra on the place says, this is the Messiah; and it is applied to him, and his times, by other Jewish writers, both ancient and modern. In an ancient book h of theirs, speaking of David, it is said, the holy blessed God is well pleased with him in this world, and in the world to come; in this world, as it is written, "and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake", 2 Kings 20:6, and in the world to come, as it is written,

they shall seek the Lord their God, and David their King, c. David was King in this world, and David shall be King in the time to come. And in both Talmuds the words are applied to the Messiah; in one of them i, after quoting this text, it is added, the Rabbins say this is the King Messiah; if of the living, David is his name; if of the dead, David is his name. And in the other k, it is said, when Jerusalem is built, David comes; that is, the Son of David, the Messiah; which is proved by this passage, "afterwards the children of Israel shall return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their King"; that is, as the gloss interprets it, after they shall return to the house of the sanctuary, or the temple: so Abarbinel, both in his commentary upon this place, and elsewhere l, as he interprets the "one head" in Hosea 1:11, of Messiah ben Ephraim, whom he, with the rest of his tribe, feign shall perish in war; so he observes, that then Israel shall seek David their King, the rod out of the root of Jesse, whom the Lord shall choose, and cause to reign over them. And another of their later writers m interprets the passage of the Messiah, and produces it to prove against the Christians that he should come in the end of days, or in the latter days; as it is plain and certain that our Jesus, the true Messiah, came at the end of the Jewish world, in the last days of their civil and church state; see Hebrews 1:1,

and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter day; not man, but the Lord; not his wrath and vengeance, but his goodness; not with a servile, but with a godly filial fear; a fear influenced by the blessings of goodness they shall now be partakers of, particularly pardoning grace and mercy, Psalms 130:3, they shall fear the Lord, who is good, and goodness itself, and Christ, in whom the goodness of God is displayed, and who is prevented with the blessings of goodness for his people: it may be rendered, they "shall fear", or "come fearing to the Lord, and his goodness" n, being sensible of their sin, danger, and misery; they shall flee to the Lord as to their city of refuge, and to the blessings of his goodness they see their need of; and this they shall do in haste, as Aben Ezra interprets it, comparing it with Hosea 11:11. The Septuagint version is, "they shall be amazed at the Lord, and his good things"; the Syriac version, "they shall know the Lord, and his goodness": the Arabic version, they shall confess the Lord, and his benefits; the Targum,

"they shall give themselves to the service of the Lord, and his goodness shall be multiplied, which shall come to them in the end of days;''

or, as Aben Ezra, in the end of the prophecy of the prophets, in future time, in the times of the Messiah; which, as Kimchi serves, are always meant by the last days; and here it signifies the latter day of the last days, or of the Gospel dispensation.

h Zohar in Exod. fol. 93. 3. i T. Hieros. Beracot, fol. 5. 1. k T. Bab Megillah, fol. 18. 1. l Mashmiah Jeshuah, fol. 55. 4. m R. Isaac Chizzuk Emunah, par. 1. p. 44. n ופחדו אל יהוה ואל טובו "pavebunt ad Dominum", Montanus; "providi accedent ad Jehovam, et ad bonitatem ejus", Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Drusius "et cum timore venient ad Jehovam, et ad bonum ejus", Schmidt; so Ben Melech interprets it, "they shall fear, and be afraid of him, flow to him, and to his goodness"; and which, he says, Saadiah explains of his glory, agreeably to Exod. xxxiii. 19.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.   2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley:   3 And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.   4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:   5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.

      Some think that this chapter refers to Judah, the two tribes, as the adulteress the prophet married (Hosea 1:3; Hosea 1:3) represented the ten tribes; for this was not to be divorced, as the ten tribes were, but to be left desolate for a long time, and then to return, as the two tribes did. But these are called the children of Israel, which was the ten tribes, and therefore it is more probable that of them this parable, as well as that before, is to be understood. Go, and repeat it, says God to the prophet; Go yet again. Note, For the conviction and reduction of sinners it is necessary that precept be upon precept, and line upon line. If they will not believe one sign, try another, Exodus 4:8; Exodus 4:9. Now,

      I. In this parable we may observe,

      1. God's goodness and Israel's badness strangely serving for a foil to each other, Hosea 3:1; Hosea 3:1. Israel is as a woman beloved of her friend, either of him that has married her or of him that only courts her, and yet an adulteress; such is the case between God and Israel. We say of those whose affection is mutual that there is no love lost between them; but here we find a great deal of the love even of God himself lost and thrown away upon an unworthy ungrateful people. The God of Israel retains a very great love for the children of Israel, and yet they are an evil and adulterous generation. Be astonished, O heavens! at this, and wonder, O earth! (1.) That God's goodness has not put an end to their badness; the Lord loves them, has a kindness for them, and is continually showing kindness to them; they know it, they cannot but own it, that he has been as a friend and Father to them; and yet they look to other gods, gods that they can see, and to the love of which they are drawn by the eye; they look to them with an eye of adoration (they offer up all their services to them) and with an eye of dependence (they expect all their comforts from them); if they were restrained from bowing the knee to idols, yet they gave them an amorous glance, and had eyes full of that spiritual adultery. And they loved flagons of wine; they joined with idolaters because they lived merrily and drank hard; they had a kindness for other gods for the sake of the plenty of good wine with which they had been sometimes treated in their temples. Idolatry and sensuality commonly go together; those that make a god of their belly, as drunkards do, will easily be brought to make a god of any thing else. God's priests were to drink no wine when they went in to minister, and his Nazarites none at all. But the worshippers of other gods drank wine in bowls; nay, no less than flagons of wine would content them. (2.) That their badness had not stopped the current of his favours to them. This is a wonder of mercy indeed, that she is thus beloved of her friend, though an adulteress; such is the love of the Lord towards the children of Israel. "Go," says God, "love such a woman; see if thou canst find in thy heart to do it. No, thou canst not, the breast of no man would admit such a love; yet such is my love to the children of Israel; it is love to the loveless, to the unlovely, to those that have a thousand times forfeited it." Note, In God's goodwill to poor sinners his thoughts and ways are infinitely above ours, and his love is more condescending and compassionate than ours is, or can be; in this, as much as any thing, he is God, and not man,Hosea 11:9.

      2. The method found for the bringing of a God so very good and a people so very bad together again; this is the thing aimed at, and what God aims at he will accomplish. To our great surprise, we find a breach thus wide as the sea effectually healed; miracles cease not so long as divine mercy does not cease. Observe here, (1.) The course God takes to humble them and make them know themselves (Hosea 3:2; Hosea 3:2): I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer and a half of barley, that is, I courted her to be reconciled, to leave her ill courses, and return to her first husband, as Hosea 2:14; Hosea 2:14. I allured her, and spoke comfortably to her; as the Levite who went after his concubine that had played the harlot from him, and had run away with another man, spoke friendly to her,Judges 19:3. But here the present which the prophet brought her for the purchasing of her favour is observed to be a very small one; but it was all that was intended for her separate maintenance, and in it she is reduced to a short allowance, and, to punish her for her pride, is made to look very mean. When Samson went to be reconciled to his wife that had disobliged him he visited her with a kid (Judges 15:1), which was a genteel entertainment. But the prophet here visited his wife with fifteen pieces of silver, a small sum, which yet she must be content to live upon a great while, so long as till her husband thought fit to restore her to her first estate. She shall also have a homer and a half of barley, for bread-corn, and that is all she must expect till she be sufficiently humbled, and, by a competent time of trial, satisfactory proof given that she is indeed reformed. Let her be made sensible that it is not for her own merit that her husband makes court to her; it is but a lame price that he values her at. The price of a servant was thirty shekels, Exodus 21:32. This was but half so much; yet let her know that it is more than she is worth. God had given Egypt for Israel's ransom once, so precious were they then in his sight, and so honourable, Isaiah 43:3. But now that they have gone a whoring from him he will give but fifteen pieces of silver for them, so much have they lost in their value by their iniquity. Note, Those whom God designs honour and comfort for he first makes sensible of their own worthlessness, and brings them to acknowledge, with the prodigal, I am no more worthy to be called thy son. Time was when Israel was fed with the finest of the wheat, but they grew wanton, and loved flagons of wine, and therefore, in order to the humbling and reducing of them, they must be brought in the land of their captivity to eat barley-bread, and be thankful they can get it, and to eat that too by weight and measure, whereas they did not use to be stinted. Note, Poverty and disgrace sometimes prove a happy means of making great sinners true penitents. (2.) The new terms upon which God is willing to come with them (Hosea 3:3; Hosea 3:3): Thou shalt abide for me many days, and shalt not be for another, so will I be for thee. He might justly have given them a bill of divorce, and have resolved to have no more to do with them; but he is willing to show them kindness, and that the matter should be compromised; he deals not with them in strict justice, according to the rigour of the law, but according to the multitude of his mercies; and it represents God's gracious dealings with the apostate race of mankind, that had gone a whoring from him; he bought them indeed with an inestimable price, not for their honour, but for the honour of his own justice; and now this is the proposal he makes to them, the covenant of grace he is willing to enter into with them--they must be to him a people, and he will be to them a God, the same with the proposal here made to Israel. [1.] They must take to themselves the shame of their apostasy from him, must submit to, and accept of, the punishment of their iniquity: Thou shalt abide for me many days in solitude and silence, as a widow that is desolate and in sorrow; they must lay aside their ornaments, and wait with patience and submission to know what God will do with them, and whether he will please to admit such unworthy wretches into his favour again, as they did Exodus 33:4; Exodus 33:5. Their father, their husband, has spit in their face (as God said concerning Miriam), has put them under the marks of his displeasure, and therefore, like her, they must be ashamed seven days, and be shut out of the camp (Numbers 12:14), till their uncircumcised hearts be humbled,Leviticus 26:41. Let them sit alone and keep silence, waiting for the salvation of the Lord, and in the mean time let them bear the yoke,Lamentations 3:26-28. Let them not expect that God should speedily return in mercy to them,; no, let them want it, let them wait for it many days, during all the days of their captivity, and reckon it a miracle of mercy, and well worth waiting for, it if come at last. Note, Those whom God designs mercy for he will first bring to abase themselves and to put a high value upon his favours. [2.] They must never return to folly again; that is the condition upon which God will speak peace to his people and to his saints (Psalms 85:8), and no other. "Thou shalt not play the harlot, shalt not worship idols in the land of thy captivity, while thou art there set apart for the uncleanness." Note, It is not enough to take shame to ourselves for the sins we have committed, and to justify God in correcting us for them, but we must resolve, in the strength of God's grace, that we will not offend any more, that we will not again go a whoring from God, after the world and the flesh. Blessed be God, though it is the law of the covenant, it is not the condition of it that we shall never in any thing do amiss: "But thou shalt not play the harlot; thou shalt not serve other gods, shalt not be for another man." In the land of their captivity they would be courted to worship the idols of the country; that would be a trial for them, a long trial, many days: "But if thou keep thy ground, and hold fast thy integrity, if, when all this comes upon thee, thou dost not stretch out thy hand to a strange god, thou wilt be qualified for the returns of God's favour." Note, It is a certain sign that our afflictions are means of much good to us, and earnests of more, when we are kept by the grace of God from being overcome by the temptations of an afflicted state. [3.] Upon these terms their Maker will again be their husband: So will I also be for thee. This is the covenant between God and returning sinners, that, if they will be for him to serve him, he will be for them to save them. Let them renounce and abjure all rivals with God for the throne in the heart, and devote themselves entirely to him and him only, and he will be to them a God all-sufficient. If we be faithful and constant to God in a way of duty, and will never leave nor forsake him, he will be so to us in a way of mercy, and will never leave nor forsake us. And a fairer proposal could not be made.

      II. In the Hosea 3:4; Hosea 3:5 we have the interpretation of the parable and the application of it to Israel.

      1. They must long sit like a widow, stripped of all their joys and honours, Lamentations 4:1; Lamentations 4:2. They shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince; and a nation in this condition may well be called a widow. They want the blessing, (1.) Of civil government: They shall abide without a king, and without a prince, of their own. There were kings and princes over them to oppress them and rule them with rigour, but they had no king nor prince to protect them, to fight their battles for them, to administer justice to them, and to take care of their common safety and welfare. Note, Magistracy is a very great blessing to a people, and it is a sad and sore judgment to want it. (2.) Of public worship: They shall abide without a sacrifice, and without an image (or a statue, or pillar; the word is used concerning the pillars Jacob erected, Genesis 28:18; Genesis 31:45; Genesis 35:20), and without an ephod and teraphim. The teraphim being here closely joined to the ephod, some thing the urim and thummim were meant by it in the breast-plate of the high priest. The meaning is that in their captivity they should not only have no face of a nation upon them, but no face of a church; they should not have (as a learned expositor speaks) liberty of any public profession or exercise of religion, either true or false, according to their choice. They shall have no sacrifice or altar (so the LXX.), and therefore no sacrifice because no altar. They shall have no ephod, nor teraphim, no legal priesthood, no means of knowing God's mind, no oracle to consult in doubtful cases, but shall be all in the dark. Note, The case of those is very melancholy that are deprived of all opportunities to worship God in public. This was the case of the Jews in their captivity; and it is so far the case of the scattered Jews at this day that, though they have their synagogues, they have no temple-service. Desolate indeed is their condition that are shut out from communion with God, that have no opportunity of directing their addresses to God by sacrifice and altar, and of receiving instruction from him by ephod and teraphim.

      2. They shall at length be received again as a wife (Hosea 3:5; Hosea 3:5): Afterwards, in process of time, when they have gone through this discipline, they shall return, that is, they shall repent of their idolatries and forsake them, they shall apply themselves to God and adhere to him, and herein they shall be accepted of him. Two things are here promised as instances of their return, and steps towards their acceptance with God in their return:-- (1.) The enquiries they shall make after God: They shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king. Note, Those that would find God, and find favour with him, must seek him, must ask after him, covet acquaintance with him, desire to be reconciled to him, set their love on him, and labour in this that they may be accepted of him. Their seeking him implies that they had lost him, that they were lamenting their loss, and that they were solicitous to retrieve what they had lost. They shall seek him as their God; for should not a people seek unto their God? And they shall seek David their King, who can be no other than the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the root and offspring of David, whom David himself called Lord (Psalms 110:1), and to whom God gave the throne of his father David,Luke 1:32. The Chaldee reads it, They shall seek the service of the Lord their God, and shall obey Messiah, the Son of David their king. Compare this with Jeremiah 30:9; Ezekiel 34:23; Ezekiel 37:25. Note, Those that would seek the Lord so as to find him must apply to Jesus Christ, and must seek to him as their King, and become his willing people, and take an oath of fealty and allegiance to him. (2.) The reverence they shall have of God: They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. Some by his goodness here understand the temple, towards which they shall look, in worshipping God. The Jews say, There were three things which Israel cast off in the days of Rehoboam--the kingdom of heaven, the family of David, and the house of the sanctuary; and it will never be well with them till they return, and seek them all three, which is here promised. They shall seek the kingdom of heaven in the Lord their God, the royal family in David their King, and the temple in the goodness of the Lord. Others by his goodness understand Christ, the same with David their King. But it is rather to be taken for that attribute of God which he showed as his glory, and by which he proclaimed his name. Note, It is not only the Lord and his greatness that we are to fear, but the Lord and his goodness, not only his majesty, but his mercy. They shall flee for fear to the Lord and his goodness (so some take it), shall flee to it as their city of refuge. We must fear God's goodness, that is, we must admire it, and stand amazed at it, must adore it, and worship as Moses did at the proclaiming of this name, Exodus 34:6. We must be afraid of offending his goodness, of making any ungrateful returns for it, and so forfeiting it. There is forgiveness with God, that he may be feared,Psalms 130:4. We must rejoice with trembling in the goodness of God, must not be high-minded, but fear. Now this promise had its accomplishment when by the gospel of Christ great multitudes both of Jews and Gentiles were brought home to God, and incorporated in the New-Testament church, served God in Christ, with a filial fear of divine grace, and were accepted of God as his Israel. And some think it is to be yet further accomplished in the conversion of those Jews to the faith of Christ who shall remain in unbelief, when they shall seek their Messiah as David their King, and by him all Israel shall be saved, when the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in. Time was when they sought him to put him to death, saying, We have no king but Cæsar; but the day is coming when they shall seek him to appoint him their head, and to lay their necks under his yoke. He that has here promised that they shall do it will enable them to do it, and bring about this great work in his own way and time, in the latter days of the last times, the times of the Messiah: but, alas! who shall live when God does this? How far we are to expect a general conversion of that nation I cannot say; but I am sure we ought to pray that the Jews may be converted.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The prophecy of Hosea naturally divides itself into two principal divisions with minor sections. The first consists of Hosea 1:1-11; Hosea 2:1-23; Hosea 3:1-5; the second, of the rest of the book. Within these greater divisions, however, we have distinct parts.

The first chapter presents the prophet with his ministry "in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel." He was therefore a contemporary of Isaiah, who prophesied during the same kings, save that in the case of Hosea only do we hear of the then reigning king of Israel, of whom, rather than Judah, our prophet treats. For the word of Jehovah to him takes into account the condition of Israel as a whole, and particularly uses the dismal condition of Ephraim for the moral good of Judah. This is true of the whole book, which is remarkable for its occupation simply with the Jew, without noticing (as do other prophets) the Gentiles either for judgment or for blessing.

Hosea is, one might say, exclusively devoted to the ancient people of God, with a very slight but remarkable exception in the first chapter; but even it is couched in terms so enigmatical (and this, I believe, with divine intention for a special end), that many have failed to discern the truth contemplated in consequence of not using the light supplied in the New Testament. But there cannot be a more striking example than this very instance affords of the all-importance of using one part of scripture, not to correct indeed this were impossible and irreverent but better to understand another. In order to profit by the fuller revelation of the mind of God, we do well to read the earlier communications in the strongest light vouchsafed to us. It is one mind conveyed by one Spirit; and God can give us grace by dependence on Himself to guard us, as far as is consistent with our moral condition, from that narrowness to which we are all too prone, making certain portions of scripture our favourites, so as to interfere with due heed to the rest of the word. Those who indulge in these thoughts cannot be expected to understand the word of God, and, in what they make their one-sided study, are apt to fall into singular and sometimes fatal mistakes. The most precious truths of God, if they are used in an exclusive way, may by the enemy be turned to the support of serious error. Thus there would be danger if there were, for instance, the systematic limiting of the mind to the resurrection or heavenly side of divine truth. Or again, take prophecy; and how withering to the soul when that part of scripture practically becomes a monopoly? Take the church for it does not matter what and in it there is no security one whit more. The reason is simple; the secret of power, blessing, security, and communion is found, not in resurrection or heaven, not in prophecy nor in the church, nor in any other conceivable branch of truth, but in Christ, who alone gives the whole truth. Consequently we see that what we all know to be a doctrine and a necessary principle in God's revelation is true also as applied to every detail of practical experience.

In this case, then, the date of Hosea indicates his interest in Israel, and the work that God assigned him in reference to the twelve-tribed nationality of His people, when the ruin of Israel was at hand, and that of Judah was ere long to follow. Brief as his handling of his subject is, there is a remarkable completeness in the prophecy; and the moral element is as prominent in the second part, as the dispensational is in the first. The parenthesis of Gentile empire is quite omitted throughout. He is filled with the afflictions and the guilt of Israel as a whole, and, more than any other of the twelve shorter prophets, breaks forth into passionate and renewed grief over the people. The book accordingly abounds, as none other does so much, in the most abrupt transitions, which therefore make the style of Hosea singularly difficult in some respects, and, it may be added too, far more so to us just because of its intensely Jewish character. Not being Jews, we do not come under their character of relationship; but those who are to be called as Jews by and by will understand it well. They, having that position, and being thus called (though through the sense of the deepest sins on their part, at the same time knowing the yearnings of the Spirit of God over them), will enter into, as I believe they will profit by, that which to us presents difficulty because we are not in the same position.

The first chapter mainly consists of symbolic action, which represents the course of God's purposes. "The beginning of the word of Jehovah by Hosea. And Jehovah said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms* and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from Jehovah." Nothing can be more evident than this declared object. The prophet is commanded to do that which was necessarily most painful in itself, and suggestive of what he as a man of God must have felt to be humbling as well as repulsive. But such was the attitude of Israel to their God, and Jehovah would make the prophet and those who heeded the prophecy to understand in measure what He must feel as to His people. "So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." This was the first great blow. Israel was to be smitten in the house of Jehu, the avenger of the blood-guiltiness that had been brought in by the idolatrous Jezebel. Jehu was a rough man, vain and ambitious, suited notwithstanding to deal in his rude fashion with that which had dishonoured Jehovah a man far enough outside the current of the feelings of the Spirit of God, but none the less employed in an external way to deal with the evident and open evil of Ahab's house and Israel.

*The very least we can say is that the expression intimated to the prophet what Gomer was going to be. But it must be allowed that the phrase naturally conveys the impression that she had already been guilty of an impure life too common where idolatry reigned. If Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab the harlot, it is not hard to conceive the Lord commanding the prophet to take Gomer to wife as a symbolic parable to Israel. It may be worth noticing that, while in ver. 3 she is said to have borne "him" a son, this is not the phrase, but one more vague, in verses 6 and 8. The mother's character might suffice to stamp itself on the children; but the absence of the pronoun in the ease of Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi, as contrasted with Jezreel is under the circumstances remarkable.

Nevertheless this, as it had no root in God, so it had no strength to maintain itself against other evils. Hence, although it suited the policy of Jehu to deal with certain gross idolatries, the political-religious evil that characterized the kingdom of Israel seemed necessary to sustain him against the house of David. Consequently, as he had no conscience as to the sin of Jeroboam, this was judged of Jehovah in due time. God smote not only Jehu's house, but Israel. The kingdom was to pass, though it might linger for a little while afterwards; but it was smitten of God. This is what is represented by Jezreel. God would scatter in due time. The Assyrian broke the power of Israel in the valley of Jezreel (afterwards called Esdraelon), a scene of covetousness and blood from first to last.

Then again we find a daughter appears, whose name was to be called Lo-ruhamah, a name which expresses the absence of pity towards the people. No more mercy was to be shown. Thus the failure of the kingdom of Israel, which soon followed after the dealing with Jehu's house, was not then complete. There would be still more judgment from God; for He says, "I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel." Jezreel was but the beginning of the judgments of God. "I will utterly take them away." It was not therefore the collapse of the kingdom of Jehu only, but Israel as a whole was to be swept from the land, never more to be restored as a separate polity. "But," says He in the very same breath, "I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen." The Assyrian was allowed to destroy the kingdom of Israel, but was himself checked by divine power when he hoped to carry off Judah.

Thus there was a lengthening of the tranquillity for Judah. They, at least for the time, exhibited fidelity to Jehovah in their measure. Afterwards another child is born a son; and "then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be to you." It was no longer therefore simply a case of breaking up Israel completely, but Judah now comes into judgment. As long as the royal tribe stood, there was still a nucleus round which all the people might be gathered. As long as the house of David was true in any measure with Judah attached yet far from being true, God could (morally speaking) yet work recovery, or at any rate He could make them, as it were, swell out into a great people. But now, on the proved faithlessness of the innermost circle, God represents the solemn crisis by the birth of the son called Lo-ammi. Yet there is no notice of the Babylonish conqueror. The prophet abruptly passes by the captivity of Judah, and at once goes forward to the glorious reversal of all the sentences of woe. It is the reunion of all the tribes, but not the scanty return under Zerubbabel. A greater is here, even Messiah. Undoubtedly He is chosen, given and appointed to them by God; but it was important also to show that they will yield willing and active subjection. Gathered together, Israel and Judah shall make (or appoint) themselves one head, and shall come (or go) up out of the land: not Babylon or Assyria, or even the earth at large, I think, but rather an expression of their union religiously in the same solemn assemblies and feasts, as we have already seen them one people under one head. It was accomplished neither after the captivity nor when Christ came, but strikingly the reverse. It remains to be fulfilled when He comes to reign over the earth. "For," then indeed, "great [shall be] the day of Jezreel." God shall sow His people in His land, not scatter them out of it. It is the day not of humiliation but of manifested glory. "Yet," says He in His very sentence of judgment on Judah, "the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, in the place where it shall be said unto them, Ye [are] not my people, it shall be said unto them, [Ye are] the sons of the living God."

Observe the remarkable change here. It is the scripture already referred to as the mysterious intimation of the call of the Gentiles in pure grace. This, though distinctly taught in Romans 9:1-33, surprises many readers. The reason is because we are apt to regard all as an antithesis in a merely human or limited fashion. If any man of God on the face of the earth had had the writing of the sentence left to himself, had there not been the full power of God which is meant by inspiration in its true and proper sense, it seems quite inconceivable that this sentence could ever have been written. Who would have said it, let him be supposed the best of men, if he loved Israel as a good Jew? Least of all surely Hosea, whose heart was all on fire for the people, both in horror on account of their wickedness and in yearning after their blessedness. But for that reason he of himself would have said, not "Ye are not my people," but Ye shall be made my faithful people. No, this is not what God says, but something quite different. The strong bias so natural even to a good man would have rendered it out of the question to speak as Hosea does. We find it hard to take in, even when written plainly before our eyes, the distinct teaching of God, conveying as it does an unexpected form of thought and an altogether new subject. The Spirit inspired him and can teach us.

This, as hinted before, is the scripture which the apostle Paul employs inRomans 9:1-33; Romans 9:1-33, as is well known. There he is vindicating, as is plain, the sovereign call of God the only resource for man where all is ruined. How beautifully this fits in with our prophet is evident. The ruin of Israel was already there; the ruin of Judah was impending. All was doomed. What then can man fall back on? If the people of God on the earth turned out only a mass of ruins on one side or another, what was there to look to? Nothing and none but God, not His law, but His sovereign grace. Accordingly this is exactly what does come in; as indeed the sovereignty of God must always be the help and sustainment and joy of a soul that is thoroughly beaten out of itself when its evil is truly judged before God. But it often takes a long while to break a man down to that point. Hence it is that many feel difficulties about it, unless perhaps on their death-bed. Then at least, if anywhere, man is true. God is true always; but man (I am speaking now only of such as are born of God) then parts company with those visions, or rather fitful shadows, which had disordered and misled him during the activities of life. Then indeed he realizes what he is as well as what God is. Accordingly, if he lose all confidence in himself in every possible way, it is only to enjoy a confidence, never so well known before, in God Himself.

This is precisely what we find here in the reasonings of the apostle Paul. It is naturally offensive to the pride of man's heart, and more particularly to a Jew's. For had they not received magnificent promises from God? It was a great difficulty to them, and it sounds very natural and formidable, how it was possible that the promises of God should I may not say fail, but seem to fail. But this came from looking simply at themselves with the promises of God. We must remember that the Bible does not contain merely the promises it largely consists, and particularly the Old Testament, of a divine history of the responsibility of man. We must leave room for both, so as not to let the responsibility of man overthrow the promises of God; but, on the other hand, not to neutralize the responsibility of the one because of the promises of the other.

The tendency of all men is to become what people call either Arminians or Calvinists; and a hard thing it is to hold the balance of truth without wavering to either side. There is nothing, however, too hard for the Lord; and the word of God is the unfailing preservative from either one or the other. I am perfectly persuaded spite of partisans who think only of their own views, or freethinkers who have no difficulty in allowing that both are there that neither Arminianism nor Calvinism is in the Bible, and that they are both thoroughly wrong without even the smallest justification. The fact is, that the tendency to either is deeply seated in unrenewed minds that is, the same man may be an Arminian at one time and a Calvinist at another; and it is likely that, if he has been a violent Arminian one day, he may become a violent Calvinist to-morrow. But the roots of both lie in man and in his onesidedness. The truth of God is in His word as the revelation of Christ by the Spirit, and nowhere else.

So it will be observed inRomans 9:1-33; Romans 9:1-33 how completely the apostle sets aside the Jewish misuse of the promises of God. By a chain of the most convincing facts and testimonies of the Old Testament urged in this wonderful chapter, he compels the Jew to abandon the flattering conceit of national election, used absolutely and exclusively as was his wont; for really it is a conceit of himself after all. If they hold to the exclusive pretensions of Israel as simply deriving from Abraham in the line of flesh (which was their point), in that case they must accept others to be their companions; for Abraham had more sons than Isaac, and Isaac had another son than Jacob. The ground of flesh therefore is utterly indefensible. A mere lineal descent would have let in the Ishmaelites, for instance; and of them the Jew would not hear. If he pleaded that Ishmael sprang from Hagar, a slave, be it so; but what of Edom, born of the same mother as well as father, of Isaac and Rebecca, twin brother of Jacob himself? Consequently the ground taken was palpably unsound and untenable. We must therefore fall back upon the sole resource for man's evil and ruin God's sovereignty and gracious call. This was so much the more in point, because there was a time, even in the early history of the chosen people, when nothing less than God could have preserved it and given a ray of hope. It was not the Ishmaelites, not the Edomites, not the Gentiles, but Israel, who made the calf of gold. Had God dealt with them according to what they had been there to Him, must there not have been utter and immediate destruction? It is referred to now because of the moral principles connected with the citation of Hosea in Romans 9:1-33; and indeed all these truths appear to me to run together in the mind of the Spirit of God. If therefore we would understand the prophecy, we must follow and receive that which may seem discursively pursued in the New Testament, but which really was before the inspiring Spirit here too.

Consequently we have in the prophet what was true morally from the beginning of their sad history. It was now verging towards the bitter end of Israel, with Judah's ruin in full view. The very fact of prophets being raised up proved that the end was approaching; for prophecy only comes in with departure from God. There is no such form of revelation as prophecy when things run smooth and fair; nor is it then, morally speaking, required. What we have in days of comparative fidelity is the setting forth of privilege and duty; but when the privilege is despised and the duty not done, when God's people are in evident guilt, and judgment must follow, prophecy comes to tell of God's judging the evil, but with mercy and yet better blessing to the obedient remnant. This is true in principle even of the garden of Eden. God did not speak of the Seed of the woman till Adam was fallen; and so when Israel had transgressed like Adam, prophecy shines out. If the ruin were before Moses' eyes, as indeed it was, prophecy was vouchsafed to the lawgiver himself, as we see conspicuously in the end of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, not to speak of the wondrous burst through Balaam's mouth in the close of Numbers. Afterwards, when God had brought in every new form of blessing to kings raised up in grace to sustain the people, yet the ruin was only more decided. Prophecy too assumes a more comprehensive, systematic, and complete shape. A whole host of prophets, one might say, appears at this time; mighty prophetic utterances warned the people when outwardly things seemed strong but all was over before God, who therefore caused the alarm to be sounded with a remarkable and persistent urgency. The trumpet, as it were, was blown for Jehovah all over the land; and thus Hosea, as we know, was the contemporary of Amos, Micah, Isaiah, and perhaps other prophets at this time. There had been one even earlier still, as we may see if we compare the history. There was a peculiar reason for not putting the earliest first in order, which I hope to explain when I arrive at his book.

Already then the ruin was such that God's sovereignty was the only sure ground which could be taken. Hence we have seen that the apostle Paul uses this to point out, not merely the resource of grace for Israel, but that on Israel's failure it was perfectly open to God to go out to the Gentiles. For this is what Paul quotes the passage for in Romans 9:1-33: "That he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only." From the moment God falls back on His own sovereignty the ground is as open for a Gentile as for a Jew. God is not sovereign if He may not choose whom He pleases. If He is sovereign, then it is but natural that His sovereignty should display itself where it would be most conspicuous. The call of the Gentiles furnishes this occasion; for if they were worst, as they certainly were utterly degraded, for this very reason they were most fit objects for the exercise of the divine sovereignty in grace. "Even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people which were not my people, and her beloved which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called the children of the living God." It is evident that verse 25 the apostle interprets of the future call of Israel, the reinstatement of the people of God on a better footing than ever in sovereign grace; but he also applies verse 26 to the Gentiles.

Thus all is here set out in the most orderly method: "Even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only" (shown in verse 25), "but also of the Gentiles" (referred to in verse 26). "And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called the sons of the living God." Consequently sonship is far more characteristic of the call of the Gentile than of the Jew. Thus in the change (not a little one, as I was going to say, but very great indeed), in the avoidance of the expression "people" and the employment of "sons," God with the most admirable propriety, intimates by His prophet that when He was going to work in grace He would work worthily of His name. He would bring Gentiles not merely into the place of Israel, but into a better standing. Granted that they were the vilest of the vile: even so grace could and would raise them into the nearest relationship to God Himself. Then they should be, not a mere substitute for Israel, but "the sons of the living God" a title never given in its full force to any but the Gentiles who are now being called.

In a vague and general sense, as compared with distant Gentiles, Israel is called son, child, first-born; but this merely as a nation, whereas "sons" is individual. The expression, "In the place . . . . Ye are the sons of the living God," in the latter part of verse 10, is what has been already spoken of as the dim allusion to the call of the Gentiles. but it is so dim that many persons swamp it all together, making it bear on Israel. It might have been viewed as referring to Israel if God had said, "Then they shall be Ammi." He does not, however, say this, but "sons of the living God."

Such is the point of the apostle Paul; and what confirms this as the true interpretation is, that Peter also quotes from our prophet, and indeed was writing to a remnant of Jews only, as the apostle Paul was writing in his own proper place to Gentiles. Peter, however, though he does quote Hosea, omits the words, "They shall be called the sons of the living God." See 1 Peter 2:10: "Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." For his object he quotes fromHosea 2:1-23; Hosea 2:1-23, not from Hosea 1:1-11.

This strikingly falls in with what has been already observed, that the first chapter shows not merely the restoration of Israel (perfectly true as this is, and therefore in no way to be combated), but in a mysterious way room left by God for the bringing in of the Gentiles too. By the form of the allusion, which might very easily he overlooked, He proves His perfect knowledge beforehand, and makes a communication to us of the call of the Gentiles in their own proper distinctive relationship as sons of the living God, and not merely His people.

Hence it is that Peter, writing to Christian Jews only gives the latter. Although they had lost their place of people of God through idolatry and certainly the rejection of the Messiah did not mend matters, but rather confirmed the righteous sentence of God, that the little remnant which had come back were as bad as their fathers, or even worse, for they certainly perpetrated a greater crime in the rejection of their own Messiah, yet grace is come in, and they who have received the Messiah rejected but glorified, "are now the people of God." But he does not go farther, because he simply takes them up as persons who had by grace entered in faith into the privileges of Israel before Israel. They had received the Messiah; they were the remnant of that people. They who were not a people had become now a people; they who had not obtained mercy have now obtained mercy. But Paul, writing to the Gentiles, avails himself in a most appropriate way of what Peter passes by not ofHosea 2:23; Hosea 2:23, but of Hosea 1:10, which intimates the call of Gentiles in yet greater depth of mercy. At the same time he takes care to show that the Jew will require the very same ground of sovereign grace to bring him in by and by as we have for coming in now.

The prophet, it is well to observe, appears to point out Israel's future restoration immediately after in a slightly different phraseology, which I think ought to be noticed. "Then," he says (that is, when God has brought in the Gentiles, as we have seen), "Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land." Their restoration to the land is made evident here, their being joined not only Judah, but even reprobate Ephraim into Israel as a whole. "For great shall be the day of Jezreel." The very name of Jezreel, which was before a term of reproach and initiatory judgment, is now turned by the grace of God into a title of infinite mercy, when they shall be indeed the seed of God, not for scattering only but for the rich harvest of blessing that is to characterize the millennial day. Such is the first chapter.

Hosea 2:1-23 begins like the end of the first. In the rest of the chapter we have God carrying out a part but not the whole of the wonderful principles that are so compressed in the first chapter. We begin with the message: "Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Plead with your mother." It is a call to those who like Hosea could feel, speak, and act according to the Spirit of Christ, with the courage inspired by the certainty of such relationships, though for the present the state of the people was as far from comforting as could well be conceived, as indeed is plain from the next and following verses. "Brethren" and "sisters" look at the Jews (I think) individually. "Your mother" looks at them corporately as a body. "Plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight." Here then we behold a most painful picture Jehovah threatening to put Israel to shame, and to have no mercy upon her children, because their mother had behaved shamelessly towards Himself. "For she is not my wife, nor am I her husband." She must put away her scandalous unfaithfulness, "lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day when she was born, and make her as the desert, and cause her to die of thirst. On her children I will have no mercy; for they are lewd children, because their mother hath committed lewdness, their parent hath acted shamefully; for she said, I will follow my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my wine."

Accordingly Jehovah threatens to hedge up her way with thorns. "Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and raise a wall, that she may not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now." There was compunction occasionally, a little revival from time to time even in Israel; but the people never really repented or consequently abandoned their course of sin. Their good resolutions were the proof of God's goodness and the fruit of His testimony, but they never effected a thorough repentance of Israel. "For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they made into images of gold." Thus all was perverted to the service, and it was imputed to the favour of false gods. "Therefore," says He, "I will take my corn in its time, and my new wine in its season; and I will recover my wool and my flax designed to cover her nakedness. And I will expose her vileness before her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand." Then He threatens that all her mirth shall cease, "her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies. And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees." Even her natural blessings must be cut off which her unbelief made an excuse for the idols she set up. "And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them." All her luxurious and idolatrous sins therefore would come up in remembrance for judgment.

Nevertheless Jehovah remembers mercy, and immediately after announces that He will allure her, and, though leading he; into the wilderness, speak soothingly to her. But it should not be the past renewed, the old and sad history of Israel rehearsed once more; for to her He would grant her vineyards thence, the valley of Achor for a door of hope. The very place which of old was a door of judgment under Joshua becomes a door of hope in the prophetic vision. "And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." Nor shall this freshness of renewed youth fade away as then. "And it shall be at that day, saith Jehovah, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali," (that is, "husband" in love instead of mere "lord," were it in the best and truest sense of dominion and possession from her mouth); also the many and false lords should no more be remembered by their names. "And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword."

Thus we see that, coincident with the return of Israel to Jehovah, and this flowing out of His grace towards them, there shall follow universal blessedness. God will make all the earth to feel to its own joy the gracious restoration of His long-estranged people. With the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the reptiles of the earth, Jehovah declares He will make a covenant for them in that day. It is infatuation to think that all this was fully accomplished at the return from the Babylonish captivity. The result is that even Christians, misled by this miserable error, are drawn away into the rationalistic impiety of counting God's word here mere hyperbole to heighten the effect, as if the Holy Spirit deigned to be a verbal trickster or a prophet were as vain as a litterateur. No; it is a brighter day when the power of God will make a complete clearance from the world of disorder, misrule, man's violence and corruption, as well as reduce to harmless and happy subjection the animal kingdom at large.

On the other hand, it is not the epoch of the Incarnation, as some pious men say; though how they can venture on it is marvellous. "That day" is still future, and awaits the appearing and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. It its distressing to confound such a prophecy with Peter's vision in order to apply all to the church now. "The bow and the sword and the battle I will break and remove out of the earth or land, and will make them to lie down safely." But, better than all, "I will also betroth thee to myself for ever;" for what is the worth of every other mercy compared with this nearest association with Jehovah Himself? "Yea, I will betroth thee to myself in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies," says He for the third time. "I will betroth thee to myself in faithfulness; and thou shalt know Jehovah."

Then comes a final and still fuller assurance. "And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith Jehovah, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel." What an uninterrupted line of blessing, from the heavens down to every earthly blessing in the land of Israel! Every creature of God shall then reap in full enjoyment the fruits of the restored and consummated union of Jehovah with His ancient people. "And I will sow her unto me in the earth [referring to the name of Jezreel]; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy (or Lo-ruhamah); and I will say to them which were not my people (or Lo-ammi), My people thou; and they shall say, My God."

Alas! the heavens had been severed, necessarily and long severed, from the earth by the sin of man, and Satan had gained power not merely on the earth, but above could claim a seeming title of righteousness as accuser before God; and thus the heavens were turned into brass against His people, whom the same enemy so often deceived, perverting that which ought to have been the constant governing power and symbol of all , that influenced men in relation to God into his mainspring,, of corruption. For instead of looking up to God in adoration, man adored the heavens and their host rather than God as the highest object of his worship. Such was the earliest form of idolatry. It was there that Satan's power particularly developed itself, in the turning of the highest creatures of God, the most significant parts and signs of His blessing to man, into instruments of the worst corruption. In that day Jehovah will show His power and goodness in destroying and reversing the work of Satan.

Instead therefore of longer hearing his accusation in the heavens who had only sought to dishonour God and involve man in his own ruin, Jehovah will clear the heavens. There will be restored freedom between the Creator and the higher creation, which speaks to Him as it were on behalf of the thirsty earth, Satan being then expelled, and his power and corrupting influence broken, never more to enter there again. Then, as it is said here, "the heavens shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil." That is, instead of the old and complete breach between the creation and God, and consequently therefore, through the serpent's wiles, desolation justly inflicted by God because of its fallen head, Satan will be effectually gone and all the effects of his power effaced. For the Second man will establish peace on a righteous ground for ever between God and Israel, and all the creatures of God, from the highest down to the lowest, enter into rest and Joy.

Thus there is a total reversal of what Satan had done by sin throughout the universe, but especially in view of Israel; so that the names of the first chapter, which then betokened divine judgment, are now converted into mercy and blessing. "The earth [or land] shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel," as Israel is styled, the seed of God. Lo-ruhamah God calls Ruhamah; and to Lo-ammi He says, "Ammi thou." No doubt there is an allusion in Jezreel to their antecedent dispersion; in no way to anything Israel has been during their days of shame and sorrow, but rather to a fresh sowing of them in the land by Jehovah's grace to His glory. The proper fulfilment of this (whatever be the verification of its principle in the Christian remnant, as we see in 1 Peter 2:1-25) awaits the future and manifest kingdom of Jehovah and His Anointed. Then, not in pledge but in fulness, will it be seen by all the world that Hosea has not written in vain: "I will sow her unto me in the earth." It is granted that Jehovah intends to take all the earth under His manifest sway (Psalms 2:1-12, Zechariah 14:1-21), but a great mistake that "the land" will not have a central place in this vast scheme of earthly blessing. The church will be the New Jerusalem, the heavenly metropolis, coming down from God out of heaven, to which she properly belongs as the bride of the Lamb. But the earth is to be blessed, and pre-eminently the land of Israel under Christ's glorious reign; for the divine purpose is to sum up all things in Him in whom we have obtained an inheritance all things, whether they be things in heaven or things on earth. He, the Son in a way quite unique, is Heir of all in the truest and fullest sense, and the kingdom at His coming will display what faith believes while it is unseen.

Hosea 3:1-5 presents a still more concise summary of Israel's past, present, and future, yet with fresh and striking features in this new outline, brief as it is. Even such Jews as acknowledge their own prophets as divinely inspired confess that Hosea in verse 4 describes exactly their present state, as it has also been for many centuries: neither altar of God nor idolatry, no consultation by the true priests or by idols; though they flatter themselves that they still adhere to Jehovah notwithstanding their sins.* How blind to overlook the teaching that they are out of relation to Jehovah, and that it is only after the present long-lasting anomaly in their state that they are to seek their God!

*Leeser's Twenty-four Books of the Holy Scriptures, page 1242. London edition.

This chapter winds up, as has been stated, the introductory portion of our prophecy. Hosea is still occupied with the purposes of God. "Then said Jehovah unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress." Again that most distressing contrast; the object of Jehovah's affection, and withal the base and gross return of Israel represented by Gomer, who had been unfaithful to the prophet, as was intimated before the marriage that she would be. The precision of the language, and the purity of God's servant even under so singular an injunction, are equally beautiful. She is called no longer thy wife but "a woman;" but her impurity was after marriage, and so she is justly named an adulteress. He is told to go again, and love her, a woman beloved by a "friend." Conjugal love is not intended; yet was she to be loved, as indeed she had been: there was no excuse for her sin in any failure of his affection. The exhortation was not after the manner of men, nor even of the law which regulated Israel's ordinary ways. It was grace, and "according to the love of Jehovah toward the sons of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons [or cakes] of grapes." For the connection of cakes with idolatry, seeJeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 7:18, Jeremiah 44:19. The purchase-money, half in barley, half in money, is that of a female slave; which marks the degradation to which the guilty woman had been reduced; it was of course not a dowry, as she had been married to him already. "And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide [lit. sit] for me many days," said the prophet to her; "thou shalt not commit lewdness, and thou shalt not be to* a man [i.e. neither in sin nor in lawful married life]: so I also toward* thee" his heart and care here, not "to her" as her husband, but "toward" her in affection as a friend. The bearing of this on Israel is next explained: "for the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without seraphim: afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek their God, and David their king; and shall fear Jehovah and his goodness in the latter days."

*The authorised version by giving "for me" and for thee" seems slightly to injure the force by its vague sameness of rendering.

Here are many important points which we could not have gathered from either the first chapter or the second. We have seen the general position down to the end inHosea 1:1-11; Hosea 1:1-11; we have had certain details about Israel in Hosea 2:1-23; but Hosea 3:1-5 furnishes the solemn evidence that the humiliation of Israel was to involve a most marked and peculiar isolation, and that it was not to be a passing visitation but a prolonged state, while grace would bless more than ever in the end. "For the sons of Israel shall abide many days." This could not have been concluded from the language of the preceding chapters. The picture therefore would not have been complete without it. Hence the Spirit of God, true to the divine purpose, gives us enough in these few words to meet the objections of him who might complain that Christianity supposes such an immense time as the period of Israel's blindness and departure from God. The answer is that the Jewish prophet says as much, and thereby the Lord leaves room for all that had to come in meanwhile. Not of course that "many days" would convey the thought of ages as the necessary meaning at first, but that as the time lengthened out, it would be seen that it had been all foreseen and predicted.

But there is more. For they are to remain "without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without a seraphim." Further, they were not to take up idolatrous statues or images, as they had so often done up to the captivity; and as they should be without an ephod, the distinctive priestly apparel, so they should not fall back on tutelary divinities as they used to do for anticipating the future. They should not have a king as before the captivity, nor a prince as the Jews had after their return from Babylon. Israel afterwards had neither; and even the Jews lost what they had not long after Christ came. Again, they were to be "without a sacrifice," their sacred as well as civil polity was at an end; for what is the law without a sacrifice? Thus it is a state of things far more true now since the rejection of the Messiah, than up to that transitional period when Messiah came to them; for, although they had not a king, they had a sort of princely ruler. Certainly in the days of the Lord there was under the authority of the Roman empire a subordinate king or ruler, who might be called prince in a certain sense. They were also to be not only without the worship of the true God, but even without the false gods to which they had formerly been victims. Clearly then this describes the present condition of Israel the most anomalous spectacle the world has ever seen a people who go on age after age without any of those elements which are supposed to be essential for keeping a people in existence. For they have lost their king and prince, they have neither God nor an idol. They are not able to present a sacrifice, having nobody that they know to be a priest. Partly since Babylon carried them into captivity, entirely since Titus destroyed Jerusalem, they are literally without those genealogies which the priests must possess and produce in order to prove their title to minister in the holy place. Whatever their pretensions, they can prove nothing, and yet they are upheld by God.

Thus we have here in a single verse of our prophet the most complete picture of their present state found in the word of God a picture which no Jew can deny to be a likeness of their actual state. The more honest they may be, the more they must acknowledge the living truth of the representation. Now, that God should have no connection with anything on the earth that He should be effectuating no purpose in a distinct manner for His own glory would be a monstrous notion, only fit for the wildest Epicurean dreamer, and a practical denial of the living God. Consequently, that God should use this time of the recess of Israel for the bringing in of other counsels is the simplest thing possible, which we can all understand. The Jew by and by will confess that he was inexcusably faithless in his ways and mistaken in his thoughts; he had here at least the negative side of the picture, his own enigmatic state, the people of God not His people, a nation without a government, and, stranger still, with no false god and yet without the true, having neither priest nor sacrifice. The Spirit of God gives the positive side in the New Testament, where we have the call of the Gentiles meanwhile, and within it the gathering of the faithful into the church Christ's body.

But in addition to all, the last verse furnishes another most distinct disclosure, which none but prejudiced men could overlook, that God has not done with Israel as such. It is not true, therefore, that the sons of Israel are to be merged in Christianity. They are said (ver. 5) afterwards not to turn but to "return," and seek Jehovah their God. This is not a description of becoming members of Christ, or of receiving the new and deeper revelations of the New Testament. They will never as a nation form the heavenly body of Christ, either wholly or in part. They will be saved in God's grace through faith in the Lord Jesus, but rather according to the measure vouchsafed to their fathers than to us now, with the modification of the manifest reign of the Lord. Compare Isaiah 11:1-16, Luke 1:1-80, Romans 11:1-36. Individuals merge in Christianity now of course, and are brought out of their state of Judaism consequently; but here we have a different and future state of things quite distinct in some material respects from anything that was or from anything that is, though there be but one Saviour, and but one Spirit, and but one God the Father. "Afterwards shall the sons of Israel return and seek" not the exalted Head in heaven nor the gospel as such, but "Jehovah their God." I grant you it is the same God, yet as Jehovah. It is not the revelation of His name as the Messiah (when rejected, and above all dead and risen) made Him known as "His Father and our Father, His God and, our God." It is not the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit into which we are baptized with water. Here it is rather the form and measure vouchsafed to the nation of old. In short it is God made known after a Jewish sort. And what confirms this is the next expression, "and David their king" that same blessed person, even the Messiah as such, who unites these two glories in His person, though the former of course not exclusively.

Evidently therefore a state of things is before. us quite distinct from Christianity. The Targum and the Rabbinical expositors own that David here means the Messiah. "And they shall fear toward Jehovah, and toward His goodness in the latter day." Thus we have clearly in this passage, not only the present abnormal condition of Israel, but the future restoration of their blessedness, yea, more than they ever yet possessed.* If "the latter days" mean, according to the well-known rule of Kimchi and other Jewish doctors, the days of the Messiah, the New Testament demonstrates that the question has still to be decided between the days of His first advent or those of His second. The context proves that in the Old Testament these days always look on to His reign in power and glory; but various parts of it in the Psalms and the Prophets attest His profound humiliation and death as clearly as His reign over Israel and the earth. The Jews and the Gentiles are quite if not equally wrong for want of simple-hearted intelligence without confusion of the New Testament with the Old.

*Dr. Henderson renders the last clause, "shall tremblingly hasten to Jehovah and to his goodness." His goodness will attract but overawe their souls. It is real and pious feeling, but in accordance with their relationship hardly with that of the Christian; and so the New Testament never speaks in exactly the same way. It is unwise and unfaithful to force the scriptures.