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Text -- Hosea 6:5 (NET)

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Context
6:5 Therefore, I will certainly cut you into pieces at the hands of the prophets; I will certainly kill you in fulfillment of my oracles of judgment; for my judgment will come forth like the light of the dawn.
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Dictionary Themes and Topics: Word of God | TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT | SIN (1) | LOGOS | Instability | GOD, 2 | Church | Backsliders | more
Table of Contents

Word/Phrase Notes
Wesley , JFB , Clarke , Calvin , TSK

Word/Phrase Notes
Barnes , Poole , Haydock , Gill

Verse Notes / Footnotes
NET Notes , Geneva Bible

Verse Range Notes
TSK Synopsis , MHCC , Matthew Henry , Keil-Delitzsch , Constable , Guzik

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Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Hos 6:5 - -- Because I would do for you whatever might be done.

Because I would do for you whatever might be done.

Wesley: Hos 6:5 - -- I have severely, and unweariedly reproved, and threatened them.

I have severely, and unweariedly reproved, and threatened them.

Wesley: Hos 6:5 - -- As I did by word foretel, so I did effect in due time.

As I did by word foretel, so I did effect in due time.

Wesley: Hos 6:5 - -- The punishments threatened, which fell upon this people, did so fully answer the prediction that every one might see them clear as the light, and as c...

The punishments threatened, which fell upon this people, did so fully answer the prediction that every one might see them clear as the light, and as constantly executed as the morning.

JFB: Hos 6:5 - -- That is, I announced by the prophets that they should be hewn asunder, like trees of the forest. God identifies His act with that of His prophets; the...

That is, I announced by the prophets that they should be hewn asunder, like trees of the forest. God identifies His act with that of His prophets; the word being His instrument for executing His will (Jer 1:10; Eze 43:3).

JFB: Hos 6:5 - -- (Isa 11:4; Jer 23:29; Heb 4:12).

JFB: Hos 6:5 - -- The judgments which I will inflict on thee, Ephraim and Judah (Hos 6:4). So "thy judgments," that is, those inflicted on thee (Zep 3:15).

The judgments which I will inflict on thee, Ephraim and Judah (Hos 6:4). So "thy judgments," that is, those inflicted on thee (Zep 3:15).

JFB: Hos 6:5 - -- Like the light, palpable to the eyes of all, as coming from God, the punisher of sin. HENDERSON translates, "lightning" (compare Job 37:3, Margin; Job...

Like the light, palpable to the eyes of all, as coming from God, the punisher of sin. HENDERSON translates, "lightning" (compare Job 37:3, Margin; Job 35:15).

Clarke: Hos 6:5 - -- Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets - I have sent my prophets to testify against their fickleness. They have smitten them with the most sole...

Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets - I have sent my prophets to testify against their fickleness. They have smitten them with the most solemn and awful threatenings; they have, as it were, slain them by the words of my mouth. But to what purpose

Clarke: Hos 6:5 - -- Thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth - Instead of ומשפטיך אור יצא umispateycha or yetse , "and thy judgments a light that g...

Thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth - Instead of ומשפטיך אור יצא umispateycha or yetse , "and thy judgments a light that goeth forth,"the versions in general have read ומשפטי כאור umishpati keor , "and my judgment is as the light."The final כ caph in the common reading has by mistake been taken from אור aur , and joined to משפטי mishpati ; and thus turned it from the singular to the plural number, with the postfix כ cha . The proper reading is, most probably, "And my judgment is as the light going forth."It shall be both evident and swift; alluding both to the velocity and splendour of light.

Calvin: Hos 6:5 - -- God shows here, by his Prophet, that he was constrained by urgent necessity to deal sharply and roughly with the people. Nothing, we know, is more pl...

God shows here, by his Prophet, that he was constrained by urgent necessity to deal sharply and roughly with the people. Nothing, we know, is more pleasing to God than to treat us kindly; for there is not found a father in the world who cherishes his children as tenderly: but we, being perverse, suffer him not to follow the inclination of his nature. He is therefore constrained to put on, as it were, a new character, and to chide us severely, according to the way in which he here says, he had treated the Israelites; I have cut them, he says, by my prophets, and killed them by the words of my mouth

Some render the words otherwise, as though God had killed the Prophets, meaning thereby the impostors, who corrupted the pure worship of God by their errors. But this view seems not to me in any way suitable; and we know that it was a common mode of speaking among the Hebrews, to express the same thing in two ways. So the Prophet speaks here, I have cut or hewed them by my Prophets, I have killed them by the cords of my mouth. In the second clause he repeats, I doubt not, what we have already briefly explained, namely, that God had cut or hewed them by his Prophets.

But we must see for what purpose God declares here that he had commanded his Prophets to treat the people roughly. Hypocrites we indeed know, however much in various ways they mock God, are yet tender, and cannot bear any rebuke. Their sins are gross, except when they disguise themselves; but at the same time, when God begins to reprove, they expostulate and say, “What does this mean? God everywhere declares that he is kind and merciful; but he fulminates now against us: this seems not consistent with his nature.” Thus then hypocrites would have God to be their batterer. He now answers, that he had been constrained, not only for a just cause, but also necessarily, to kill them, and to make his word by the Prophets like a hammer or an ax. This is the reason, he says, why my Prophets have not endeavored mildly and gently to allure the people. For God kindly and sweetly draws or invites to himself those whom he sees to be teachable; but when he sees so great a perverseness in men, that he cannot bend them by his goodness, he then begins, as we have said, to put on a new character. We now then under stand God’s design: that hypocrites might not complain that they had been otherwise treated than what is consistent with God’s nature, the Prophet here answers in God’s name, “Ye have forced me to this severity; for there was need of a hard wedge, as they say, for a hard knot: I have therefore hewed you by my Prophets, I have hewed you by the words of my mouth; that is, I have used my word as an ax: for ye were like knotty and tough wood; it was therefore necessary that my word should be to you like an ax: and I have killed you by the words of my mouth; that is my word has not been sweet food to you, as it is wont to be to meek men; but it has been like a two-edged sword; it was therefore necessary to slay you, as ye would not bear me to be a Father to you.”

It then follows Thy judgments are light that goes forth Some understand by “judgments” prosperity as if God were here reproaching the Israelites, that it was not his fault that he did not win them: “I have not neglected to treat you kindly, and under my protection to defend you; but ye are ungrateful.” But this is a strained exposition. The greater part of interpreters explain the passage thus, “That thy judgments might be a light going forth.” But I do not see why we should change any thing in the Prophet’s words. God then simply intimates here, that he had made known to the Israelites the rule of a religious and holy life, so that they could not pretend ignorance; for the Hebrews often understand “judgments” in the sense of rectitude. I refer this to the instruction given them: Thy judgments then, that is, the way of living religiously, was like light; which means this, “I have so warned you, that you have sinned knowingly and willfully. Hence, that you have been so disobedient to me, must be imputed to your perverseness; for when ye were pliant, I certainly did not conceal from you what was right: for as the sun daily shines on the earth, so my teaching, has been to you as the light, to show to you the way of salvation; but it has been with no profit.” We now then understand what the Prophet meant by these words. It follows —

TSK: Hos 6:5 - -- have I : 1Sa 13:13, 1Sa 15:22; 1Ki 14:6, 1Ki 17:1, 1Ki 18:17; 2Ki 1:16; 2Ch 21:12; Isa 58:1; Jer 1:10,Jer 1:18, Jer 5:14, Jer 13:13; Eze 3:9, Eze 43:3...

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Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Hos 6:5 - -- Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets - Since they despised God’ s gentler warnings and measures, He used severer. "He hewed"them, H...

Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets - Since they despised God’ s gentler warnings and measures, He used severer. "He hewed"them, He says, as men hew stones out of the quarry, and with hard blows and sharp instruments overcome the hardness of the stone which they have to work. Their piety and goodness were light and unsubstantial as a summer cloud; their stony hearts were harder than the material stone. The stone takes the shape which man would give it; God hews man in vain; he will not receive the image of God, for which and in which he was framed.

God, elsewhere also, likens the force and vehemence of His word to "a hammer which breaketh the rocks in pieces"Jer 23:29; "a sword which pierceth even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit"Heb 4:12. : He "continually hammered, beat upon, disquieted them, and so vexed them (as they thought) even unto death, not allowing them to rest in their sins, not suffering them to enjoy themselves in them, but forcing them (as it were) to part with things which they loved as their lives, and would as soon part with their souls as with them."

And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth - The "judgments"here are the acts of justice executed upon a man; the "judgment upon him,"as we say. God had done all which could be done, to lay aside the severity of His own judgments. All had failed. Then His judgments, when they came, would be manifestly just; their justice clear "as the light which goeth forth"out of the darkness of night, or out of the thick clouds. God’ s past loving-kindness, His pains, (so to speak,) His solicitations, the drawings of His grace, the tender mercies of His austere chastisements, will, in the Day of Judgment, stand out clear as the light, and leave the sinner confounded, without excuse. In this life, also, God’ s final "judgments are as a light which goeth forth,"enlightening, not the sinner who perishes, but others, heretofore in the darkness of ignorance, on whom they burst with a sudden blaze of light, and who reverence them, owning that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether"Psa 19:9.

And so, since they would not be reformed, what should have been for their wealth, was for their destruction. "I slew them by the words of My mouth."God spake yet more terribly to them. He slew them in word, that He might not slay them in deed; He threatened them with death; since they repented not, it came. The stone, which will not take the form which should have been imparted to it, is destroyed by the strokes which should have moulded it. By a like image Jeremiah compared the Jews to ore which is consumed in the fire which should refine it; since there was no good in it. "They are brass and iron; they are all corrupted; the bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them"Jer 6:28-30.

Poole: Hos 6:5 - -- Therefore because I would do for you whatever might be done, because I would cure you of your obstinacy and hypocrisy, and make you upright and const...

Therefore because I would do for you whatever might be done, because I would cure you of your obstinacy and hypocrisy, and make you upright and constant. I have hewed them; I have severely, continually, and unweariedly by the prophets reproved, warned, and threatened. Your hearts have been like knotty trees, or hardest stones: I have made my prophets like labourers, and, my words like axes or hammers to cut off the knots, and to hew off the roughness which make unfit for use; but all to no purpose, the desired effect hath not been attained.

By the prophets some that were before Hosea. Jeroboam the First was by a prophet reproved and threatened for this idolatry, in which Israel persisted, and to which Judah did too often fall; and through the space of two hundred years, from Jeroboam the First to Hosea’ s time, many other prophets were sent, whose names, and some memoirs of them, we have, as Ahijah, Jehu, Hanani, Elijah, and Elisha. These and such like were the prophets that did hew crooked and knotty Israel.

I have slain them: some say the false prophets are the persons meant here, whom God did slay for their sin, seducing Israel to, and confirming them in, idolatry; indeed Elijah’ s sincere zeal did cut off so many, 1Ki 18:22,40 , and Jehu’ s counterfeit zeal cut off so many, 2Ki 10:21,25 , that it could never be forgotten among that people. So the thing is true, many false prophets were slain for this sin; yet the persons in our text were not these false prophets, but they were the people of Israel and Judah, the idolatrous, refractory hypocrites among them, whom God threatened with death, and that by the sword of enemies.

By the words of my mouth as he did by his word foretell, so he did effect too in due time.

Thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth i.e. the punishments threatened, the miseries foretold, which fell upon this people, did so fully answer the prediction, that every one might see them clear as the light, and as constantly executed as the morning. So Zep 3:5 .

Haydock: Hos 6:5 - -- Mouth. I have ordered my prophets to denounce death unto them, and to treat them roughly, like a piece of marble designed for a statue. Septuagint,...

Mouth. I have ordered my prophets to denounce death unto them, and to treat them roughly, like a piece of marble designed for a statue. Septuagint, &c., "I have slain thy prophets," &c., by Elias, Jehu, &c. The former sense is preferable. ---

Thy judgments, or condemnation. (Calmet) ---

Hebrew, "and thy judgments light shall go forth." (Haydock) ---

Pocock labours hard, but in vain, to explain this; as all the old versions, except the Vulgate have, "my judgments as the light," &c. Hebrew letters may probably have been ill joined, (Kennicott) as Meibomius suspects they have been also, Jeremias xxiii. 33. Here umospoti caur, "my judgments as the light," &c., is exchanged for umishpatec or. This would be very easy when words were written undivided, as in ancient manuscripts. (Haydock) ---

"Some transcriber upon hearing umishpatecaor, from the person dictating to him, writ umishpateca or instead of umishpate caor. (Kennicott, Diss. 1.)

Gill: Hos 6:5 - -- Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth,.... Sharply reproved them for their sins by the prophets, wh...

Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth,.... Sharply reproved them for their sins by the prophets, who were as lapidaries that cut stone, or us hewers of timber that cut off the knotty parts; so these by preaching the terrors of the law, which is a killing letter, and by delivering out the threatenings of the Lord, and denouncing his judgments upon them for their sins, cut them to the heart, and killed them; for their foretelling and prophesying of their being slain, ruined, and destroyed, was a slaying of them; see Jer 1:10. The Targum is,

"because I admonished them by the message of my prophets, and they returned not, I will bring upon them those that slay, because they have transgressed the word of my will.''

But the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, and so Aben Ezra and Joseph Kimchi, understand these words, not of hewing, and cutting, and slaying of the people by the prophets, but of the cutting and slaying the prophets themselves, and read the words, "therefore have I cut off the prophets, and slain them &c.", either the false prophets, some of them that caused the people to err, that they might not repent, as Aben Ezra; as the prophets of Baal in the times of Elijah, and the Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time, who were in the way of the people's repentance, reformation, and reception of Christ; these he cut off, and their doctrine, and condemned by his own, and the doctrine of his apostles, the words of the Lord's mouth; see Zec 11:8; and this he did for the good of his people, in answer to the question put by himself in Hos 6:4; so Schmidt interprets it: or else the true prophets of God, who were exposed to death, to be cut off and slain, for the messages they were sent with: or those messages were such as were killing to them to carry them, and deliver them; and they were so constantly employed, early and late, in such service, that for the work of the Lord they were often nigh unto death: but our version, and the sense agreeable to it, scent best;

and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth; that is, their judgments, the people's, a sudden change of person: meaning either the statutes and judgments prescribed them by the Lord, and to be observed by them; which were clear and plain as the light at noon day, and therefore could not plead any excuse of ignorance of them, that they did not observe them: or the judgments of God upon them for their sins; which were open and manifest to all, and increasing like the light, more and more, and no more to be resisted than that; and the righteousness of God in them was very conspicuous; his judgments were manifest, and the justice of them. Some understand this of the judgments or righteousnesses of the saints, both imputed and inherent, Rom 5:16; which appear light and clear, the darkness of pharisaism being removed by Christ. The Targum is,

"my judgment goes forth as the light.''

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Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Hos 6:5 In 6:3 unrepentant Israel uttered an over-confident boast that the Lord would rescue the nation from calamity as certainly as the “light of the ...

Geneva Bible: Hos 6:5 Therefore have I ( d ) hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy ( e ) judgments [are as] the light [that] goe...

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Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Hos 6:1-11 - --1 Exhortations to repent and hope in God.4 A lamentation over those who had sinned after conviction.5 Reproofs of obstinate sinners, and threatenings ...

MHCC: Hos 6:4-11 - --Sometimes Israel and Judah seemed disposed to repent under their sufferings, but their goodness vanished like the empty morning cloud, and the early d...

Matthew Henry: Hos 6:4-11 - -- Two things, two evil things, both Judah and Ephraim are here charged with, and justly accused of: - I. That they were not firm to their own convict...

Keil-Delitzsch: Hos 6:5 - -- "Therefore have I hewn by the prophets, slain them by the words of my mouth: and my judgment goeth forth as light."‛Al - kēn , therefore, beca...

Constable: Hos 6:4--11:12 - --V. The fourth series of messages on judgment and restoration: Israel's ingratitude 6:4--11:11 This section of th...

Constable: Hos 6:4--11:8 - --A. More messages on coming judgment 6:4-11:7 The subject of Israel's ingratitude is particularly promine...

Constable: Hos 6:4--9:1 - --1. Israel's ingratitude and rebellion 6:4-8:14 Two oracles of judgment compose this section. Eac...

Constable: Hos 6:4--8:1 - --Accusations involving ingratitude 6:4-7:16 The Lord accused the Israelites of being ungr...

Constable: Hos 6:4-11 - --Lack of loyalty 6:4-11 This section stresses Israel's covenant disloyalty to Yahweh. 6:4 The Lord twice asked rhetorically what He would do with Ephra...

Guzik: Hos 6:1-11 - --Hosea 6 - "Come, Let Us Return to the Lord" A. A call to return to the LORD. 1. (1-2) Israel should trust in the God who chastened her. ...

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Introduction / Outline

JFB: Hosea (Book Introduction) THE first of the twelve minor prophets in the order of the canon (called "minor," not as less in point of inspired authority, but simply in point of s...

JFB: Hosea (Outline) INSCRIPTION. (Hos 1:1-11) Spiritual whoredom of Israel set forth by symbolical acts; Gomer taken to wife at God's command: Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and ...

TSK: Hosea 6 (Chapter Introduction) Overview Hos 6:1, Exhortations to repent and hope in God; Hos 6:4, A lamentation over those who had sinned after conviction; Hos 6:5, Reproofs of ...

Poole: Hosea (Book Introduction) THE ARGUMENT Without dispute our prophet is one of the obscurest and most difficult to unfold clearly and fully. Though he come not, as Isaiah and ...

Poole: Hosea 6 (Chapter Introduction) CHAPTER 6 An exhortation to repentance, Hos 6:1-3 . A complaint against Israel and Judah for persisting still in their wickedness, Hos 6:4-11 . T...

MHCC: Hosea (Book Introduction) Hosea is supposed to have been of the kingdom of Israel. He lived and prophesied during a long period. The scope of his predictions appears to be, to ...

MHCC: Hosea 6 (Chapter Introduction) (Hos 6:1-3) An exhortation to repentance. (Hos 6:4-11) Israel's instability and breach of the covenant.

Matthew Henry: Hosea (Book Introduction) An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of the Prophet Hosea I. We have now before us the twelve minor prophets, which some of the anc...

Matthew Henry: Hosea 6 (Chapter Introduction) The closing words of the foregoing chapter gave us some hopes that God and his Israel, notwithstanding their sins and his wrath, might yet be happi...

Constable: Hosea (Book Introduction) Introduction Title and Writer The prophet's name is the title of the book. The book cl...

Constable: Hosea (Outline) Outline I. Introduction 1:1 II. The first series of messages of judgment and restoration: Ho...

Constable: Hosea Hosea Bibliography Andersen, Francis I., and David Noel Freedman. Hosea: A New Translation, Introduction and Co...

Haydock: Hosea (Book Introduction) THE PROPHECY OF OSEE. INTRODUCTION. Osee , or Hosea, whose name signifies a saviour, was the first in the order of time among those who are ...

Gill: Hosea (Book Introduction) INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA This book, in the Hebrew Bibles, at least in some copies, is called "Sopher Hosea", the Book of Hoses; and, in the Vulgate La...

Gill: Hosea 6 (Chapter Introduction) INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 6 This chapter gives an account of some who were truly penitent, and stirred up one another to return to the Lord, encouraged...

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