Text -- Hosea 9:1-11 (NET)

Fertility Cult Festivals Have Intoxicated Israel

9:1 O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly like the nations, for you are unfaithful to your God. You love to receive a prostitute's wages on all the floors where you thresh your grain. 9:2 Threshing floors and wine vats will not feed the people, and new wine only deceives them.

Assyrian Exile Will Reverse the Egyptian Exodus

9:3 They will not remain in the Lord’s land. Ephraim will return to Egypt; they will eat ritually unclean food in Assyria. 9:4 They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord; they will not please him with their sacrifices. Their sacrifices will be like bread eaten while in mourning; all those who eat them will make themselves ritually unclean. For their bread will be only to satisfy their appetite; it will not come into the temple of the Lord. 9:5 So what will you do on the festival day, on the festival days of the Lord?

No Escape for the Israelites This Time!

9:6 Look! Even if they flee from the destruction, Egypt will take hold of them, and Memphis will bury them. The weeds will inherit the silver they treasure– thorn bushes will occupy their homes.

Israel Rejects Hosea’s Prophetic Exhortations

9:7 The time of judgment is about to arrive! The time of retribution is imminent! Let Israel know! The prophet is considered a fool– the inspired man is viewed as a madman– because of the multitude of your sins and your intense animosity. 9:8 The prophet is a watchman over Ephraim on behalf of God, yet traps are laid for him along all of his paths; animosity rages against him in the land of his God.

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

9:9 They have sunk deep into corruption as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their wrongdoing. He will repay them for their sins. 9:10 When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness. I viewed your ancestors like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season. Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame– they became as detestable as what they loved.

The Fertility Worshipers Will Become Infertile

9:11 Ephraim will be like a bird; what they value will fly away. They will not bear children– they will not enjoy pregnancy– they will not even conceive!

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Hos 9:1

With feastings, triumphs, and sacrifices of thanksgiving.

Wesley: Hos 9:1

Such as is given by adulterers to lewd women; thou hast loved to see thy floor full, and hast said thy idols gave thee this plenty.

Wesley: Hos 9:2

The corn which is gathered into the floor.

Wesley: Hos 9:2

press - The wine that is prest out in it.

Wesley: Hos 9:2

Shall not nourish and strengthen the idolaters.

Wesley: Hos 9:2

Samaria and all Israel expect a full vintage, but they expect it from their idols, and therefore shall be disappointed.

Wesley: Hos 9:3

Many of Ephraim shall fly into Egypt.

Wesley: Hos 9:3

The residue shall be carried captive into Assyria.

Wesley: Hos 9:4

These were appointed to be offered with the morning and evening sacrifice, the sacrifice representing Christ, and pardon by him; the wine-offering, the spirit of grace: the sacrifice repeated, daily continued their peace and pardon. All this shall be withheld from these captives.

Wesley: Hos 9:4

If any should venture to offer.

Wesley: Hos 9:4

It shall as much pollute them and displease God as if one mourning for the dead, and forbidden to sacrifice, should venture to do it.

Wesley: Hos 9:4

Their bread which they were bound to offer with their sacrifices, they will now have no opportunity of bringing to the Lord's house.

Wesley: Hos 9:5

You will not then be suffered to observe any of them.

Wesley: Hos 9:6

Some are already withdrawn from the desolation that cometh.

Wesley: Hos 9:6

In Egypt they hope to be quiet and survive these desolations, but they shall die in Egypt.

Wesley: Hos 9:6

Their beautiful houses built for keeping their wealth in.

Wesley: Hos 9:6

Shall be ruined, and lie in rubbish, 'till nettles grow in them.

Wesley: Hos 9:7

The false prophet.

Wesley: Hos 9:7

That pretends to be full of the spirit of prophecy.

Wesley: Hos 9:7

God began his punishments in giving them over to believe their false prophets.

Wesley: Hos 9:7

Which God had against your sins.

Wesley: Hos 9:8

The old true prophets indeed were with God.

Wesley: Hos 9:8

The God of Hosea.

Wesley: Hos 9:8

The false prophets have, as well as the people, left God.

Wesley: Hos 9:8

Their pretended predictions are but a snare, such as fowlers lay.

Wesley: Hos 9:8

Such prophets are full of hatred and malice: yea, they are hatred itself.

Wesley: Hos 9:10

The Lord speaks of himself in the person of a traveller, who unexpectedly in the wilderness finds a vine loaded with grapes; such love did God bear to Israel.

Wesley: Hos 9:10

Whom I brought out of Egypt.

Wesley: Hos 9:10

ripe - As the earliest ripe fruit of the fig - tree, which is most valued and desired.

Wesley: Hos 9:10

Consecrated themselves to that shameful idol.

Wesley: Hos 9:10

Their idols, and way of worshipping them.

Wesley: Hos 9:10

As they fancied.

Wesley: Hos 9:11

Their children or posterity, which was the glory of Israel.

Wesley: Hos 9:11

It is proverbial, and speaks a sudden loss of children.

Wesley: Hos 9:11

As soon as born.

Wesley: Hos 9:11

Their mothers shall not bring their fruit alive into the world.

Wesley: Hos 9:11

Their wives shall not conceive.

JFB: Hos 9:1

Literally, "to exultation." Thy exultation at the league with Pul, by which peace seems secured, is out of place: since thy idolatry will bring ruin on thee.

JFB: Hos 9:1

The Assyrians for instance, who, unlike thee, are in the height of prosperity.

JFB: Hos 9:1

Thou hast desired, in reward for thy homage to idols, abundance of corn on every threshing-floor (Hos 2:12).

JFB: Hos 9:2

(Hos 2:9, Hos 2:12).

JFB: Hos 9:2

Disappoint her expectation.

JFB: Hos 9:3

(See on Hos 8:13). As in Hos 11:5 it is said, "He shall not return into . . . Egypt." FAIRBAIRN thinks it is not the exact country that is meant, but the bondage state with which, from past experience, Egypt was identified in their minds. Assyria was to be a second Egypt to them. Deu 28:68, though threatening a return to Egypt, speaks (Deu 28:36) of their being brought to a nation which neither they nor their fathers had known, showing that it is not the literal Egypt, but a second Egypt-like bondage that is threatened.

JFB: Hos 9:3

Reduced by necessity to eat meats pronounced unclean by the Mosaic law (Eze 4:13). See 2Ki 17:6.

JFB: Hos 9:4

Literally, "pour as a libation (Exo 30:9; Lev 23:13).

JFB: Hos 9:4

As being offered on a profane soil.

JFB: Hos 9:4

Which was unclean (Deu 26:14; Jer 16:7; Eze 24:17).

JFB: Hos 9:4

Their offering for the expiation of their soul [CALVIN], (Lev 17:11). Rather, "their bread for their sustenance ('soul' being often used for the animal life, Gen 14:21, Margin) shall not come into the Lord's house"; it shall only subserve their own uses, not My worship.

JFB: Hos 9:5

(Hos 2:11).

JFB: Hos 9:6

To escape from the devastation of their country.

JFB: Hos 9:6

That is, into its sepulchres (Jer 8:2; Eze 29:5). Instead of returning to Palestine, they should die in Egypt.

JFB: Hos 9:6

Famed as a necropolis.

JFB: Hos 9:6

That is, their desired treasuries for their money. Or, "whatever precious thing they have of silver" [MAURER].

JFB: Hos 9:6

The sign of desolation (Isa 34:13).

JFB: Hos 9:7

Vengeance: punishment (Isa 10:3).

JFB: Hos 9:7

To her cost experimentally (Isa 9:9).

JFB: Hos 9:7

The false prophet who foretold prosperity to the nation shall be convicted of folly by the event.

JFB: Hos 9:7

The man pretending to inspiration (Lam 2:14; Eze 13:3; Mic 3:11; Zep 3:4).

JFB: Hos 9:7

Connect these words with, "the days of visitation . . . are come"; "the prophet . . . is mad," being parenthetical.

JFB: Hos 9:7

Or, "the great provocation" [HENDERSON]; or, "(thy) great apostasy" [MAURER]. English Version means Israel's "hatred" of God's prophets and the law.

JFB: Hos 9:8

The spiritual watchmen, the true prophets, formerly consulted my God (Jer 31:6; Hab 2:1); but their so-called prophet is a snare, entrapping Israel into idolatry.

JFB: Hos 9:8

Rather, "(a cause of) apostasy" (see Hos 9:7) [MAURER].

JFB: Hos 9:8

That is, the state of Ephraim, as in Hos 8:1 [MAURER]. Or, "the house of his (false) god," the calves [CALVIN]. Jehovah, "my God," seems contrasted with "his God." CALVIN'S view is therefore preferable.

JFB: Hos 9:9

As in the day of the perpetration of the atrocity of Gibeah, narrated in Jdg 19:16-22, &c.

JFB: Hos 9:10

As the traveller in a wilderness is delighted at finding grapes to quench his thirst, or the early fig (esteemed a great delicacy in the East, Isa 28:4; Jer 24:2; Mic 7:1); so it was My delight to choose your fathers as My peculiar people in Egypt (Hos 2:15).

JFB: Hos 9:10

When the first-fruits of the tree become ripe.

JFB: Hos 9:10

(Num 25:3): the Moabite idol, in whose worship young women prostituted themselves; the very sin Israel latterly was guilty of.

JFB: Hos 9:10

Consecrated themselves.

JFB: Hos 9:10

To that shameful or foul idol (Jer 11:13).

JFB: Hos 9:10

Rather, as Vulgate, "they became abominable like the object of their love" (Deu 7:26; Psa 115:8). English Version gives good sense, "their abominable idols they followed after, according as their lusts prompted them" (Amo 4:5, Margin).

JFB: Hos 9:11

Fit retribution to those who "separated themselves unto that shame" (Hos 9:10). Children were accounted the glory of parents; sterility, a reproach. "Ephraim" means "fruitfulness" (Gen 41:52); this its name shall cease to be its characteristic.

JFB: Hos 9:11

Ephraim's children shall perish in a threefold gradation; (1) From the time of birth. (2) From the time of pregnancy. (3) From the time of their first conception.

Clarke: Hos 9:1

Rejoice not - Do not imitate the heathens, nor serve their idols. Do not prostitute thy soul and body in practicing their impurities. Hitherto thou hast acted as a common harlot, who goes even to the common threshing places; connects herself with the meanest, in order to get a hire even of the grain there threshed out.

Clarke: Hos 9:3

But Ephraim shall return to Egypt - See on Hos 8:12 (note).

Clarke: Hos 9:4

As the bread of mourners - By the law, a dead body, and every thing that related to it, the house where it lay, and the persons who touched it, were all polluted and unclean, and whatever they touched was considered as defiled. See Deu 26:14; Num 19:11, Num 19:13, Num 19:14

Clarke: Hos 9:4

For their bread for their soul - The bread for the common support of life shall not be sanctified to them by having the first-fruits presented at the temple.

Clarke: Hos 9:5

What will ye do in the solemn day - When ye shall be despoiled of every thing by the Assyrians; for the Israelites who remained in the land after its subjection to the Assyrians did worship the true God, and offer unto him the sacrifices appointed by the law, though in an imperfect and schismatic manner; and it was a great mortification to them to be deprived of their religious festivals in a land of strangers. See Calmet.

Clarke: Hos 9:6

For, lo, they are gone - Many of them fled to Egypt to avoid the destruction; but they went there only to die

Clarke: Hos 9:6

Memphis - Now Cairo, or Kahira, found them graves

Clarke: Hos 9:6

The pleasant places for their silver - The fine estates or villas which they had purchased by their money, being now neglected and uninhabited, are covered with nettles; and even in their tabernacles, thorns and brambles of different kinds grow. These are the fullest marks of utter desolation.

Clarke: Hos 9:7

The days of visitation - Of punishment are come

Clarke: Hos 9:7

The prophet is a fool - Who has pretended to foretell, on Divine authority, peace and plenty; for behold all is desolation

Clarke: Hos 9:7

The spiritual man - איש הרוח ish haruach , the man of spirit, who was ever pretending to be under a Divine afflatus

Clarke: Hos 9:7

Is mad - He is now enraged to see every thing falling out contrary to his prediction.

Clarke: Hos 9:8

The watchman of Ephraim - The true prophet, was with - faithful to, God

Clarke: Hos 9:8

The prophet - The false prophet is the snare of a fowler; is continually deceiving the people, and leading them into snares, and infusing into their hearts deep hatred against God and his worship.

Clarke: Hos 9:9

They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah - This relates to that shocking rape and murder of the Levite’ s wife, mentioned Jdg 19:16, etc.

Clarke: Hos 9:10

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness - While they were faithful, they were as acceptable to me as ripe grapes would be to a thirsty traveler in the desert

Clarke: Hos 9:10

I saw your fathers - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, etc

Clarke: Hos 9:10

As the first ripe - Those grapes, whose bud having come first, and being exposed most to the sun, have been the first ripe upon the tree; which tree was now in the vigor of youth, and bore fruit for the first time. A metaphor of the rising prosperity of the Jewish state

Clarke: Hos 9:10

But they went to Baal-Peor - The same as the Roman Priapus, and worshipped with the most impure rites

Clarke: Hos 9:10

And their abominations were according as they loved - Or, "they became as abominable as the object of their love."So Bp. Newcome. And this was superlatively abominable.

Clarke: Hos 9:11

Their glory shall fly away - It shall suddenly spring away from them, and return no more

Clarke: Hos 9:11

From the birth - "So that there shall be no birth, no carrying in the womb, no conception."- Newcome. They shall cease to glory in their numbers; for no children shall be born, no woman shall be pregnant, for none shall conceive. Here judgment blasts the very germs of population.

Calvin: Hos 9:1

It is not known at what time the Prophet delivered this discourse, but it is enough to know that it is directed against the obstinate wickedness of the people, because they could by no means be turned to repentance, though their defection was, at the same time, manifest. He now declares that God was so angry, that no success could be hoped for. And this warning ought to be carefully noticed; for we see that hypocrites as long as God spares or indulges them, take occasion to be secure: they think that they have sure peace with God, when he bears with them even for a short time; and further, except the drawn sword appears, they are never afraid. Since, then, men sleep so securely in their vices, especially when the Lord treats them with forbearance and kindness, the Prophet here declares, that the Israelites had no reason to rejoice for their prosperity, or to flatter themselves under this cover, that the Lord had not immediately taken vengeance on them; for he says, that though all people under heaven were prosperous, yet Israel would be miserable, because he had committed fornication against his God.

We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet. Israel, he says, rejoice not thou with exultations like the people; that is, “Whatever prosperity may happen to thee, though God may seem propitious by not afflicting thee, but kindly bearing with thee, — nay, though he may bountifully nourish thee, and may seem to give thee many proofs of paternal favor, yet there is no reason for thee to felicitate thyself, for vain will be this joy, because an unhappy end awaits thee.” Thou hast committed fornication, he says, against thy God This warning was very necessary. This vice, we know, has ever prevailed among men, that they are blind to their sins as long as the Lord spares them; and experience, at the present day, most fully proves, that the same disease still cleaves to our marrow. As it is so, let this passage of the Prophet awaken us, so that we may not rejoice, though great prosperity may smile on us; but let us rather inquire, whether God has a just cause of anger against us. Though he may not openly put forth his hand, though he may not pursue us, we ought yet to anticipate his wrath; for it is the proper office of faith, not only to find out from present punishment that God is angry, but also to fear, on account of any prevailing vices, the punishment that is far distant. Let us then learn to examine ourselves, and to make a severe scrutiny, even when the Lord conceals his displeasure, and visits us not for our sins. If, then, we have committed fornication against God, all our prosperity ought to be suspected by us; for this contempt, in abusing God’s blessings, will have to be dearly bought by us.

The comparison here made is also of great weight. As other people, says the Prophet. He means, that though God might pardon heathen nations, yet he would punish Israel, for less excusable was his apostasy and rebellion in having committed fornication against his God. That other nations wandered in their errors, was no wonder; but that Israel should have thus cast off the yoke, and then denied his God, that he should have broken and violated the fidelity of sacred marriage, — all this was quite monstrous. It is then no wonder that God here declares, by the mouth of his Prophet, that though he spared other people, he would yet inflict just punishment on Israel.

He then adds, Thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor He pursues the same metaphor, that Israel had committed fornication like an unchaste and perfidious woman. Hence he says, that they were like harlots, who are so enticed by gain, that they are not ashamed of their lewdness. He said yesterday, that the people had hired lovers; but now he says, that they were led astray by the hope of reward. These things are apparently contradictory; but their different aspect is to be noticed. Israel hired for himself lovers, when he purchased, with a large sum of money, a confederacy with the Assyrians; but, at the same time, when he worshipped false gods with the hope of gain, he was like strumpets, who prostitute their body to all kinds of filthiness, when any rewards entice them.

But a question may be here moved, Why does the Prophet say that the reward is meretricious, when a plenty of corn is sought for? for he reproaches the Israelites for no other thing, but that they wished their floors to be filled with wheat. This seems not indeed to be in itself worthy of reproof, for who of us does not desire a fruitful increase of corn and wine? Nay, since the Lord, among other blessings, promises to give abundance of provision, it is certainly lawful to ask by supplications and prayers what he promises. But the Prophet calls it a wicked reward, when what God has promised to give is sought from idols. When therefore we depart from the one true God, and devise for ourselves new gods to nourish us and supply our food and raiment, we are like strumpets, who choose by lewdness to gain support, rather than to receive it from their own husbands. This is then to be like a woman whom her husband treats bountifully, and she casts her eyes on others, and seeks a filthy reward from adulterers. Such are idolaters. For God offers himself freely to us, and testifies that he will perform the part of a father and preserver; but the greater part, despising the blessing of God, flee elsewhere, and invent for themselves false gods, as we see to be done under the Papacy: for who are the patrons ( nutricios — nourishers) they implore, when either drought or any other adverse season threatens sterility and want? They have an innumerable multitude of gods to whom they flee. They are then strumpets who hunt for gain from adulterers; while, at the same time, God freely promises to be a husband to them, and to take care that nothing should be wanting. Since, then, they are not satisfied with the blessing of God alone, it is a meretricious lust, which is insatiable, and in itself filthy and disgraceful.

We now then see what the Prophet repudiates in the people of Israel, and that is, They hoped for a larger abundance of corn from their idols than from the true God, as was the case with the idolaters mentioned by Jeremiah,

‘when we served,’ they said, ‘the queen of heaven,
we abounded in wine and corn,’ (Jer 44:17.)

They compared God with idols, and denied that they were so well and so sumptuously provided for when they worshipped God alone. Since, then, idolaters give honour to fictitious gods, so as to think them to be more liberal to them than the true God, this is the reason that the Prophet now so severely blames Israel, when he says that they loved a meretricious reward on all the floors of wheat. It then follows —

Calvin: Hos 9:2

God now denounces such a punishment as the Israelites deserved. They had been drawn away, as we have said, from the pure worship of God by allurements; they hoped for more profit from superstitions. Hence God shows, that he would on this account punish them by taking away from them their wine and corn, as we have already noticed in Hos 2:0 : for it is the only way by which the Lord restores men to a sane mind, or at least renders them inexcusable, to deprive them of his blessings. The harlot, as long as gain is to be had, as long as she surpasses all honest and chaste matrons in her dress and mode of living, is pleased with herself and blinded by her own splendour; but when she is reduced to extreme want, when she sees herself to be the laughing-stock of all, and when she drags a miserable life in poverty, she then sighs and owns how infatuated she had been in leaving her husband. So the Lord now declares by his Prophet, that he would thus deal with the Israelites, that they might no longer please themselves with such delusions.

Hence he says, The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall disappoint them, ( mentietur illis — shall lie to them;) — that is, the vineyards shall not answer their expectation. It is the same as though he said, “As these men regard only their stomach, as they deem nothing of any moment but provision, therefore the floor and the wine-press shall not feed them; I will deprive them of their support, that they may understand that they in vain worship false gods.” Let us take a common similitude: We see some boys so disingenuous as not to be moved either by disgrace or even by stripes; but as they are subject to the cravings of appetite, when the father deprives them of bread, they nearly lose all hope. Stripes do no good, all warnings are slighted; but when the boy who loves excess sees that bread is denied him, he finds out that his father’s displeasure ought to be feared. Thus God corrects men addicted to excessive indulgence; for they are so insensible, that no other remedy can do them any good.

We now, then, apprehend the meaning of the Prophet. He first reproaches the Israelites for loving a reward, for hastening after fictitious gods, that they might glut themselves with great abundance of things: but when the Lord saw that they had become stupefied in their fatness, he said, “I will deprive them of all their provisions; neither wine nor wheat shall be given them; this want will at length drive them to repentance.” We hence see how the Lord deals with men according to their disposition. And his manner of speaking ought to be noticed; he says, that neither the floor nor the wine-press shall feed them. He does not say, that the fields shall be barren; he does not say, that he would send hail or storm; but he says, that neither the floor nor the wine-press shall feed them; and further, that the new wine shall disappoint them; that is, when they shall think themselves to be blessed with all plenty, when the harvest shall appear abundant, and when they shall have already, by anticipation, swallowed up the large produce of their vineyards, all this shall come to nothing; for neither the floor nor the wine-press shall feed them; nay, the very wine which they thought to have been prepared shall disappoint them. It follows —

Calvin: Hos 9:3

The Prophet proclaims here a heavier punishment — that the Lord would drive them into exile. It was indeed a dreadful repudiation, when they were deprived of the land of Canaan, which was the Lord’s rest, as it is called in the Psalms, (Psa 132:14.) While they dwelt in the land of Canaan, they lived as it were in the habitations of God, and could have a sure hope that he would be a father to them: but when they were thence expelled, the Lord testified that he regarded them as aliens; it was the same as when a father disinherits his son. The Prophet now threatens them not only with the want of food, but also with repudiation, which was far more grievous — They shall not dwell, he says, in the Lord’s land

There is an elegant play on words in the verbs here used; ישבו , ishebu, and ושב , usheb; the one is from ישב , isheb, and the other from שוב , shub. ‘They shall not dwell in the Lord’s land; but Ephraim shall return into Egypt:’ and the other circumstance is still more dreadful. In Assyria they shall eat what is unclean; for it was the same as if the Lord intended to blend that holy people with the profane Gentiles, so that there should be afterwards no difference; for the uncleanness of which the Prophet speaks would have the effect of destroying the distinction which the adoption of God made between that people and the profane nations. It was indeed by badges that the Lord retained the people of Israel, when he ordered them to abstain from unclean meats: but when they differed nothing, as to common food, from the Gentiles, it was evident that they were rejected by God, and that the holiness which belonged to them through the free covenant of God was obliterated. They shall eat, then, what is unclean in Assyria; that is, “They shall not now be under my care and protection; they shall live according to their own will, as the other nations. I have hitherto preserved them under some restraint; but now, as they will not bear to live under my law, they shall have their own liberty, and shall be profane like the rest of the world, so that they shall become involved in all the defilements and pollutions of the Gentiles.” This is the meaning.

And now we ought to consider, whether it be right, when we are among idolaters, to conform to the rites approved by them. This place, no doubt, as other places, most clearly shows, that nothing more grievous can happen to us than the doing away of all difference between us and the profane despisers of God, even in the outward manner of living. Had the Prophet said, “The Israelites shall now be hungry in a far country; — the Lord has hitherto fed them with plenty, for he has performed what he had formerly promised by Moses; this land has in every way been blessed, and has supplied us with great abundance of wine, wheat, and oil; yea, honey has flowed like water; but they shall now be constrained to pine away with want among their enemies:” — Had the Prophet said this, it would have been a grievous and severe denunciation; but now he fills them, as it has been already said, with much greater horror, for he says, ‘They shall eat what is unclean.’ There seemed to be some great importance belonging to the external rite: but the outward profession was the badge of divine adoption. When therefore the people loosened the reins and ate indiscriminately any meat, and made no choice according to the directions of the law, then the distinction was removed, so that they ceased to be the people of God. It is the same also, at this day, with those who turn aside from a sincere profession of their faith and associate with the Papists; they renounce, as far as they can, the favour of God, and abandon themselves to the will of Satan.

Let us then know that it is a dreadful judgement of God, when we are not allowed to profess our faith by outward worship; and when the ungodly so rule, as to put us under the necessity of which the Prophet here speaks, even of eating unclean things, that is, of being implicated in their profane superstitions. It is then a favour, to be highly valued, when we are permitted to abstain from all defilements and to worship God purely, so that no one may contaminate himself by dissimulation: but when we are compelled, under the tyranny of the ungodly, to conform to impure superstitions, it is a sign of the dreadful judgement of God; and there is nothing by which any one can excuse himself in this respect or extenuate his fault, as many do, whom yet conscience bites within, though they deem it sufficient to spread forth their own excuses before the eyes of men. But there is nothing by which such men can either flatter themselves, or dazzle the eyes of the simple; for it is an extreme reproach, when people, who ought to be sacred to God and to profess outwardly his pure worship, suffer themselves to be polluted with unclean food. It follows —

Calvin: Hos 9:4

It is uncertain whether the Prophet testifies here, that they should lose their labour and their oil (as they say) when they sacrificed to God; or whether he declares what would be the case when they had been driven into exile. Both views seem probable. Now, if we refer the words of the Prophet to the time of exile, they seem not unsuitable, They shall not then pour out wine to Jehovah, and their sacrifices shall not be acceptable to him; no oblation shall come any more to the temple of Jehovah.” And thus many understand the passage; yet the former sense is the most appropriate, as it may be easily gathered from the context. The Prophet says, that they shall not pour out wine to Jehovah, and that their sacrifices shall not be acceptable to him; and then he adds, All that eat shall be polluted It seems not by any means applicable to exiles, that they should vainly endeavour to pour out wine to God; for their religion forbade them to do such a thing. Further, when he says, Their sacrifices shall be to them as the bread of mourners, — this must also be understood of sacrifices, which they were wont daily to offer to God; for in exile (as it has been said) it was not lawful for them to make any offering, nor had they there an altar or a sanctuary.

What, then, is the meaning of the Prophet, when he says, “All that eat of their sacrifices shall be polluted”? We must know that the Prophet speaks here of the intermediate time, as though he said, “What the Israelites now sacrifice is without any advantage, and God is not pacified with these trifles for they bring polluted hands, they change not their minds, they obtrude their sacrifices on God, but they themselves first pollute them.” Of this same doctrine we have already often treated; I shall not then dwell on it now; but it is enough to point out the design of the Prophet, which was to show that the Israelites were seeking in vain to pacify God by their ceremonies, for they were vain expiations which God did not regard, but deemed as worthless.

They shall not then pour out wine to God. There is an important meaning in this sentence; for it is certain that as long as the Israelites lived in their country, they were sedulous enough in the performance of outward worship, and that drink-offerings were not neglected by them. Since, then, this custom prevailed among them, the Prophet must be speaking here only of the effect, and says, that they exercised themselves in vain in their frivolous worship, for they poured not out wine to Jehovah, that is, their libation did not come to Jehovah; and he explains himself afterwards, when he says, Their drink-offerings shall not be pleasant to him However much, then, the Israelites might labour, the Prophet says that their labour would be fruitless, for the Lord would reject whatever they did. He then adds what is to the same purpose, Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat shall be polluted; that is, all their sacrifices are polluted. The Prophet now shows more clearly, not that there would be no sacrifices, but that they would be in vain, because the Lord would abominate them, and would repudiate all the masks which they would put on in his presence, and under the cover of which they withdrew themselves from their allegiance to him. The reason is, because when any one unclean touches pure flesh, he pollutes it by his uncleanness. God then must necessarily abominate whatever impure men offer, unless they seek to purify their minds. And this principle has ever prevailed among the very blind, —

An impious right hand does not rightly worship the celestials.
( Non bene coelestes impia dextra colit.)

These words, which spread everywhere, have been witnesses of the common feeling; for the Lord intended to draw out men, as it were, from their converts, when he forced them to make such a confession. It is no wonder that the Prophet now says (as this truth is also often taught in Scripture) that the sacrifices of the people, who continued in their own perfidy, would be like the bread of mourners; as Isaiah says,

‘When one kills an ox, it is the same as if he slew a man; when one sacrifices a lamb, it is the same as if he killed a dog,’
(Isa 66:3.)

He compares sacrifices to murders; nor is it to be wondered at, for it is a more atrocious crime to abuse the sacred name of God than to kill a man, and this is what ungodly men do.

Then he says, “If any one eats, he will be polluted.” He enlarges on what he said before, and says that if any one clean should come, he would be polluted by being only in company with them. We now see how sharply the Prophet here arouses hypocrites, that they might now cease to promise to themselves what they were wont to do, and that is, that God would be propitious to them while they pacified him with their vain things. “By no means,” he says; “nay, there is so much defilement in your sacrifices, that they even contaminate others who come, being themselves clean.”

But it may be asked, Can the impiety of others pollute us, when we afford no proof of companionship, nor by dissimulation manifest any consent? when we then abstain from all superstition, does society alone contaminate us? The answer is easy: The Prophet does not avowedly discuss here how another’s impiety may contaminate men who are clean; but his object was to show in strong language how much God abhors the ungodly, and that not only he is not pacified with their sacrifices, but also holds them as the greatest abominations. But with regard to this question, it is certain that we become polluted as soon as we content to profane superstitions: yet when ungodly men administer either holy baptism or the holy supper, we are not polluted by fellowship with them, for the deed itself has nothing vicious in it. Then the act only does not pollute us, nor the hidden and inward impiety of men. This is true: but we are to understand for what purpose the Prophet said, that all who eat of their sacrifices shall be polluted.

He proceeds with the same subject, Their bread for their souls etc. This clause, “for their soul,” may be explained in two ways. In saying, Bread for their soul, the Prophet spake by way of contempt; as though he said, “Let them serve themselves and their stomach with bread, and no more offer it to God; let them then satiate themselves with bread, for they cannot consecrate to God their bread, when they themselves are unclean.” But I am inclined to follow what has been more approved, that bread for their soul shall not come to the house of the Lord; for men, we know, are then wont to offer their sacrifices to God to reconcile themselves to him, or at least to present emblems of their expiation: hence the Prophet says, that bread is offered for the soul according to the directions of the law; but that the ungodly could not bring bread into the house of Jehovah, because the Lord excludes them, as it were, by an interdict. Not that hypocrites keep away, for we see how boldly they thrust themselves into the temple; nay, they would occupy the first place; but the Lord yet forbids them to come to his presence. This is the reason why he says, that the bread of the ungodly shall not come before God, though in appearance their oblations glitter before men. It follows —

Calvin: Hos 9:5

The Prophet here alludes again to their exile, and shows how deplorable the condition of the people would be, when deprived of all their sacrifices. It is indeed true that the Israelites, when they changed the place of the temple, and when new and spurious rites were introduced by Jeroboam, became wholly rejected, so that from that time no sacrifice pleased God, for they sacrificed to idols and demons and not to God, as it is elsewhere stated, (Deu 32:17;) but yet, as they had some kind of divine worship, as circumcision remained, and sacrifices were offered, as it were, by Moses’ command, and they boasted themselves to be the children of Abraham and lived in the holy land, they were satisfied with their condition. But when in exile they saw no sign of God’s favour, when they were deprived of the temple and altar and all sacrifices, when on every side mere solitude and waste met their eyes, when God thus manifested that he was far removed from them, great sorrow must have entered their hearts. Hence the Prophet says, What will ye do in the solemn day?

And he expressly mentions solemn and festal-days. “If the morning and the evening oblation, which is wont to be made, will not be remembered, and if the other sacrifices will not occur to your minds, what will you do when the festal days will come? for the Lord will then show that he has nothing to do with you.” For the trumpets sounded on the festivals, that the people might come from the whole land into the temple; and it was, as it were, the voice of God, sounding from heaven: but when the feast-days were forgotten, when there were no holy assemblies, it was the same as if the Lord, by commanding silence, had proved that he no longer cared for the people. That the Israelites then might not think that exile only was threatened to them, the Prophet here shows that something worse was connected with it, and that was, that the Lord would wholly forsake them, and that there would exist no token of his presence, as though they were cut off from the Church. What then will ye do on the solemn day, on the day of Jehovah’s festivity? That is, “Do you think that something of an ordinary kind is denounced on you when I speak of exile? The Lord will indeed take away the whole of your worship, and will deprive you of all the evidences of his presence. What then will you do? But if a brutish stupor should so occupy your minds, that this should not recur to your thoughts daily, the solemn and festal-days will at least constrain you to think how dreadful it is, that you have nothing remaining among you, which may afford a hope of God’s favour.” We now apprehend the meaning of the Prophet.

We hence learn what I have said before, that nothing worse can happen to us in this world, than to be scattered without any order, when no outward evidence appears by which the Lord collects us to himself. It would therefore be better for us to be deprived of meat and drink, and to go naked, and to perish at last through want, than that the exercises of religion, ( exercita pietatis — exercises of religion) by which the Lord holds us, as it were, in his own bosom, should be taken away from us. When therefore we are deprived of these aids, and God thus hides his face from us, and mournful waste discovers to us dread on every side, it is an extreme calamity, an evidence of the dreadful judgement of God. Let us then learn, when our flesh is touched, when sterility or some other evil impends over us — let us learn to dread this deprivation still more, and to fear lest the Lord should deprive us of our festal-days; that is, take away all the aids of religion by which he holds us together in his house, and shows us to be a part of his Church. This then, in the last place, ought to be noticed: what remains we shall consider in our next lecture.

Calvin: Hos 9:6

The Prophet confirms here what is contained in the last verse, that is, that the Israelites would at length find that the Prophets had not in vain threatened them, though they at the time heedlessly despised the judgement of God. Lo, he says, they have departed: he speaks of the exile as if it had already taken place, when it was only nigh at hand. The Israelites were then dwelling in their own country, he yet speaks of them as having already gone away. But he sets forth the certainty of the prediction by this manner of speaking, that profane men might cease to promise themselves impunity when God summons them to his tribunal: yea, he shows that he was already armed to take vengeance: “They have gone away,” he says, “on account of desolation.” Then he adds, Egypt shall gather them To gather here is to be taken in a bad sense; for it means the same as trousser (to pack up, to bundle) in our language; and it is often taken in this sense by the Prophets, when mention is made of destruction: and this appears still clearer from the word, burying, which the Prophet immediately subjoins. Egypt shall gather them: He certainly speaks not of a kind retreat, but declares that Egypt would be a sepulchre to them, in which they should remain shut up: and thus he takes away from them any hope of deliverance. The Israelites expected that they should find shelter for a season in Egypt, when they bent their course there for fear of their enemies. The Prophet now shows that they would be disappointed in dreaming of a return, for they would remain there gathered up; that is, a free return, as they imagined, would not be allowed them, but a perpetual habitation, yea, a grave.

‘Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them.’ There is a striking correspondence between the words here used, קבר , kober, and קבף , kobets,. By the first the Prophet signifies that they should be shut up, so as to be, as it were, bound and fixed to a place; and then he adds that they should be buried.

He then says, The desirable place of their silver the nettle shall possess, as by hereditary right, and the thorn, etc. ; some render it paliurus; but I follow what is more received, the thorn then shall be in their tabernacles The meaning is, that the Israelites would be exiles and sojourners, not for a short time, but that their exile would be so long that their land would become waste and uncultivated; for neither nettles nor thorns grow in an inhabited place. Hosea then declares that their land would be deserted and without inhabitants, for nettles and thorns would occupy it instead of men. Now it tended greatly to increase the sorrow of exile, that the hope of return was cut off from them; and God had also declared that Egypt, where they had promised a refuge for themselves, would be to them like a grave. And thus it happens for the most part to the ungodly, who retake themselves to vain solaces, that they may escape the vengeance of God; for they throw themselves into deep labyrinths; where they think to find a harbour of rest for a time, and a commodious habitation; but there they find either a gulf or a grave. This is the meaning. Let us proceed —

Calvin: Hos 9:7

The Prophet, by saying that the days of visitation had come, intended to shake off from hypocrites that supine torpor of which we have often spoken; for as they were agitated by their own lusts, and were in a state of continual fervour, so they hardened themselves against God’s judgement, and, as it were, covered themselves over with hardness. It was then necessary to deal roughly with them in order to break down such stubbornness. This is the reason that the Prophet repeats so often and in so many forms what might be expressed in this one sentence — That God would be a just avenger. Hence he cries out here, that the days of visitation had come. For when the Lord spared them, as sacred history relates, and as we said at the beginning, (and under the king Jeroboam the second, the son of Joash, their affairs were prosperous,) their pride and contempt of God the more increased. Since then they thought themselves to be now beyond the reach of harm, the Prophet declares that the days had come. And there is here an implied contrast in reference to the time during which the Lord had borne with them; for as the Lord had not immediately visited their sins, they thought that they had escaped. But the Prophet here distinguishes between time and time: “You have hitherto thought,” he says, “that you are at peace with God; as if he, by conniving at the sins of men, denied himself, so as not to discharge any more the office of a judge: nay, there is another thing to be here considered, and that is, that God has certain days of visitation, which he has fixed for himself; and these days are now come.”

And he again teaches the same thing, The days of retribution have come He uses another word, that they might know that they could not go unpunished for having in so many ways provoked God. For as the Lord disappoints not the hope of his people, who honour him; so also there is a reward laid up for the ungodly, who regard as nothing his judgement. “God will then repay you what you have deserved, though for a time it may please him to suspend his judgement.”

Then he says, Israel shall know This is the wisdom of fools, as it is said even in an old proverb; and Homer has also said, παθων δε τε νήπιος εγνω, (Even the foolish knows when he suffers.) The foolish is not wise, except when he suffers. Hence the Prophet says, that Israel, when afflicted, would then perceive that instruction had been despised, and that all warnings had been trifled with, at least had not been regarded. Israel then shall know; that is, he shall at length, when too late, understand that he had to do with God, even when the time of repentance shall be no more. The meaning then is that as the ungodly reject the word of God, and obey not wise admonitions and counsels, they shall at length be taken to another school, where God teaches not by the mouth but by the hand. Whosoever then does not now willingly submit to his teaching, shall find God to be a judge, and shall not escape his hand.

They who join what follows elicit this meaning, Israel shall know the Prophet to be foolish, the man of the spirit to be mad; that is, Israel shall then understand that he was deluded by flatteries, when the false Prophets promised that all things would be prosperous. We indeed know that they catched at those prophecies which pleased their ears; for which Micah also reproves them; hence he calls those who gave hope of a better state of things, the Prophets of wine and oil and wheat, (Mic 2:11.) The world wishes to be ever thus deceived. Since then there were many in Israel, who by their impositions deceived the miserable, he says, Israel shall at last know that he has been deluded by his own teachers. If we receive this sense, there is then here a reproof to Israel for thinking that the vengeance of God was in some way restrained, when the false Prophets said that he was pacified, and that there was no danger to be feared. For do not men in this way stultify themselves? And how gross is their stupidity, when they think that God’s hands are tied, when men are silent, or when they perfidiously turn the truth into a lie? And yet even at this day this disease prevails in the world, as it has prevailed almost in all ages. For what do the ungodly seek, but to be let alone in their sins? When mouths are closed, they think that they have gained much. This madness the Prophet derides, intimating that those profane men, who have such delicate ears, that they can bear no words of reproof, shall at last know what they had gained by hiring prophets to flatter them. We hence see, in short, that the adulations, by which the ungodly harden themselves against God, will be to them the occasion of a twofold destruction; for such fallacies dementate them, so that they much more boldly provoke against themselves the wrath of God.

But if we read the two clauses apart, the rendering will be this, “The Prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad.” And as to the matter itself, there is not much difference. I will not then dwell on the subject; for when we are agreed as to the design of the Prophet and the truth remains the same, it is vain, at least it is of no benefit, to labour very anxiously about the form of the sentence. If then we begin a sentence with these words, אויל הנביא , avil enebia, the sense will be this, “I know that the Prophets promise impunity to you; but they who thus hide your sins, and cover them over as with plasters, are insane men, yea, they are wholly infatuated. There is then no reason why their flatteries should delight you; for the event will show that they are mere absurdities and idle ravings.” We now see that there is no great difference in the sense: for this remains still unaltered, that there were many flatterers among the people, who made it their business to lie, that they might thus procure the favour of the people; and this ambition has prevailed in all ages: and sometimes also cupidity or avarice takes such hold on men, that they use a meretricious tongue, and excuse all vices however grievous, and elude all threatening. This is what the Prophet shows in the first place; and then he shows, that men without any advantage indulge their vices, when there is no one severely to reprove them, or boldly to exhort them to repent; and that though all the Prophets should give them hope of safety they should yet perish: for men cannot by their silence restrain God from executing at last his judgement. Nay, we must remember this, that God spares men when he does not spare them; that is, when he chastises them, when he reproves their sins, and when he constrains them by terror, he then would spare them. And again, when God spares, he does not spare; that is, when he connives at their sins, and leaves men to their own will, to grow wanton at their pleasure, without any yoke or bridle, he then by no means spares them, for he destines them for destruction.

“The man of the spirit,” some render “the man of the wind;” and some “the fanatical man;” but they are in my judgement mistaken; for the Prophet, I doubt not, uses a respectful term, but yet by way of concession. He then calls those the men of the spirit who were by their office prophets, but who abused that title, as those who at this day call themselves pastors when they are really rapacious wolves. The Prophets, as we know, always declared that they did not speak from their own minds but what the Spirit of God dictated to them. Hence they were men of the Spirit, that is, spiritual men: for the genitive case, we know, was used by the Hebrews to express what we designate by an adjective. The Prophets then were the men of the Spirit. He concedes this name, in itself illustrious and honourable, to impostors; but in the same sense as when I speak generally of teachers; I then include the false as well as the true. This then is the real meaning of the expression, as we may gather from the context: for he says the same thing twice, אויל הנביא , avil enebia, Fool is the Prophet, and then, משגע איש הרוח , moshigo aish eruch, Mad is the man of the spirit As he spoke of a Prophet, so he now mentions the same by calling him a man of the spirit, or a spiritual man.

At the end of the verse he adds, For the multitude of thine iniquity, for great hatred, or, much hatred; for it may be rendered in these two ways. Here the Prophet shows, that though the false Prophets stultified by their fallacies the people, yet this could by no means avail for an excuse or for extenuating the fault of the people. How so? Because they suffered the punishment of their own impiety. For whence comes it, that the Lord takes away his light from us, that after having once shown to us the way of salvation, he turns suddenly his back on us, and suffers us to go astray to our perdition? How does this happen? Doubtless, because we are unworthy of that light, which was a witness to us of God’s favour. For as much then as men through their own fault procure such a judgement to themselves, the Lord neither blinds them nor gives to Satan the power of deluding them, except when they deserve such a treatment. Hence the Prophet says, For the multitude of thine iniquity, and for thy crimes, by which thou hast excited against thyself the wrath and hatred of God. We hence see how frivolous are the pretences by which men clear themselves, when they object and say that they have been deceived and that if their teachers had been faithful and honest, they would have willingly obeyed God. When therefore men make these objections, the ready answer is this, that they had been deprived of true and faithful teachers, because they had refused the favour offered to them, and extinguished the light, and as Paul says, preferred a lie to the truth; and that they had been deceived by false Prophets, because they willingly hastened to ruin when the Lord called them to salvation. We now then understand the import of what is here taught.

The Prophet says, in the first place, that the day of vengeance was now at hand, because the Lord by forbearance could prevail nothing with the obstinate. He then adds, that as all threatenings were despised by the people, and as they were deaf to every instruction, they would at length know that God had not spoken in vain but would perceive that their were justly treated; for the Lord would not now teach them by his word, but by scourges. He adds, in the third place, that the Prophet was foolish and delirious, and also, that they who boasted themselves to be the men of the spirit were mad: by which expressions he meant that the flatteries, by which the people were lulled asleep were foolish; for God would not fail at last, when the time came, to execute his office. And, lastly he reminds them that this would happen through the fault of the people, that there was no reason for them to trace or to ascribe the cause of the evil to any thing else; for this blindness was their just punishment. The Lord would have never permitted Satan thus to prevail in his own inheritance, had not the people, by the immense filth of their sins, provoked God for a long time, and as it were with a determined purpose. It now follows —

Calvin: Hos 9:8

Interpreters obscure this verse by their various opinions. Almost all suppose a verb to be understood that Ephraim “had set” a watchman. But I see no need to make any change in the words of the Prophet: I therefore take them simply as they are. Now some think that there is here a comparison between the old Prophets who had not turned aside from God’s command, and those flatterers who pretended the name of God, while they were the ministers of Satan to deceive. They therefore thus distinguish them, The watchman of Ephraim was with my God; that is, there was a time formerly when the watchmen of Ephraim were connected with God, and declared no strange doctrine, when they drew from the true fountain all that they taught; there was then a connection between God and the Prophets, for they depended on the mouth of God, and the Prophets delivered to the people, as from hand to hand, whatever God commanded; there was then nothing corrupt, or impure, or adventitious in their words. But now the Prophet is a snare of a fowler; that is, the dice is turned, a deplorable change has taken place; for now the Prophets lay snares to draw people by their disciples into destruction; and this abomination bears rule, that is, this monstrous wickedness prevails in the temple of God: these Prophets live not in caves nor traverse public roads, but they occupy a place in the temple of God; so that of the sacred temple of God they make a brothel for the impostures of Satan. Such is their view.

But I read the verse as connected together, The watchman of Ephraim, who ought to have been with God, even the Prophet, is a snare of a fowler on all his ways The former view would have indeed met my approbations did not the words appear to be forced; and I do not love strained meanings. This is the reason which prevents me from subscribing to an exposition which in itself I approve, as it embraces a useful doctrine. But this simple view is more correct, that the watchman of Ephraim, a Prophet, is a snare of a fowler: and he adds, with God; for it is the duty of teachers to have nothing unconnected with God. Hosea then shows what Prophets ought to do, not what they may do. A Prophet then is he who is a watchman of Israel; for this command, we know, is given in common to all Prophets — to be as it were on their watch-tower, and to be vigilant over the people of God. It is therefore no wonder that the Prophet dignifies with his own title all those who were then teachers among God’s people. But he thus doubles their crime, by saying that they were only keen and sharp-sighted to snare the people. Then the watchmen of Israel, the Prophet, who was placed on the watch-tower to watch or to exercise vigilance over the safety of the whole people — this Prophet was a snare of a fowler! But he triplicates the crime when he says, With my God: for as we have already observed, teachers could not faithfully discharge their office, except they were connected with God, and were able truly to testify that they brought forth nothing that was invented, but what the Lord himself had spoken, and that they were his organs. We now then apprehend the real meaning of the Prophet; and according to this view there is nothing strained in the words.

The Prophet also thus confirms what he had said before, that the Prophets were fools, that is, that their prophecies would at length appear empty and vain; for they could not prevent God from inflicting punishment on the wicked by their fallacious flatteries; he confirms this truth when he says, The watchmen of Ephraim is a snare of a fowler on all his ways: that is, he ought to have guided the people, and to have kept them safe from intrigues. But now the people could not move a foot without meeting with a snare; and whence came this snare but from false doctrine and impostures? What then was to be at last? Could the snares avail to make them cautious? By no means; but Satan thus hunts his prey, when he soothes the people by his false teachers, and keeps them, as it were, asleep, that they may not regard the hand of God. There was then no reason for the Israelites to think well of the fowlers by whom they were drawn into ruin.

This indignity is more emphatically expressed, when he says, that there was a detestable thing in the temple of God There was not, indeed, a temple of God in Bethel, as we have often said; but as the people were wont to pretend the name of God, the Prophet, conceding this point, says, that these abominations were covered over by this pretence. There is then no need anxiously to inquire here, whether it was the temple at Samaria or at Bethel, or the house and sanctuary of God; for a concession proves not a thing to be so, but it is to speak according to the general opinion. So then the Prophet does not without reason complain, that the place, on which was inscribed the name of God, was profaned, and that, instead of the teaching of salvation, there was fowling everywhere, which drew the people into apostasy, and finally into utter ruin. It follows —

Calvin: Hos 9:9

Hosea declares here, that the people were so sunk in their vices, that they could not be drawn out of them. He who has fallen can raise up himself when one extends a hand to him; and he who strives to emerge from the mire, finding a helper to assist him, can plant his foot again on solid ground: but when he is cast into a gulf, he has no hope of a recovery. I extend my hand in vain, when one sinks in a shipwreck, and is fallen into the deep. So now the Prophet says, that the people were unhealable, because they were deeply fixed; and further, because they were infected with corruptions. He therefore intimates that their diseases were incurable, that they had struck roots so deeply, that they could by no means be cleansed. They were then deeply fixed, and were corrupt as in the days of Gibeah

The Gibeonites, we know, were so fallen, that their city differed nothing from Sodom; for unbridled licentiousness in all kinds of vices prevailed there, and lusts so monstrous reigned among them, that there was no distinction between good and evil, no shame whatever. Hence it was, that they ravished the Levite’s wife, and killed her by their filthy obscenities: and this was the cause of that memorable slaughter which nearly demolished the whole tribe of Benjamin. The history is related in the Book of Judges Jud 19:1; and it deserved to be recorded, that people might know what it is not to walk with care and fear in obedience to the Lord. Who could indeed have believed that a people taught in the law of God could have fallen into such a state of madness as this city did, which was nigh to Jerusalem, the destined place of the temple, though not yet built? and, not to mention the temple, who could have thought that this city, which was in the midst of the people, could have been so demented, that, like brute beasts, they should abandon themselves to the filthiest lusts? nay, that they should have been more filthy than the beasts? For monstrous lusts, as I have said, were there left unpunished, as at Sodom and in the neighbouring cities.

The Prophet says now, that the whole of Israel had become as corrupt as formerly the citizens of Gibeah. Deeply sunk, then, were the Israelites in their vices, and were as addicted as the inhabitants of Gibeah to their corruptions. What, then, is to follow? God, he says, will remember their iniquities, and will visit their sins The Prophet means two things first, that as the Israelites were wholly disobedient, and would receive no instruction, God would in no other way deal with them, as though he said, “The Lord will no longer spend labour in vain in teaching you, but he will seize the sword and execute his vengeance; for ye are not worthy of being taught by him any longer; for his teaching is counted a mockery by you.” This is one thing; and the other is, that though God had hitherto spared the people of Israel, he had not yet forgotten the filth of sins which prevailed among them. Hence God, he says, will at length remember and, as he had said before, will visit your sins.

We now then perceive the simple meaning of the Prophet. But let us hence also learn to rouse ourselves; and let us, in the first place, notice what the Prophet says of the Israelites, that they were deeply fixed; for men must be filled with contempt to God, when they thus descend, as Solomon says, (Pro 18:4,) to the deep. Lets then each of us stir up himself to repentance and carefully beware lest he should descend into this deep gulf. But since he says, “the Lord will remember and will visit”, let us know that they are greatly deceived who indulge themselves as long as the Lord mercifully bears with their sins; for though he may for a time conceal his displeasure yet an oblivion will never possess him: but at a fit time he will remember, and prove that he does so by executing a just punishment.

Calvin: Hos 9:10

In this verse God reproves the Israelites for having preferred to prostitute themselves to idols, rather than to continue under his protection, though he had from the beginning showed his favour to them; as though he had said that they having been previously favoured with his free love, had transferred their affections to others; for he says, that he had found them as grapes in the wilderness. The word wilderness, ought to be joined with grapes, as if he had said, that they had been as sweet and acceptable to him as a grape when found in a desert. When a traveller finds, by chance, a grape in a barren and desolate place, he not only admires it, but takes great delight in a fruit so unlooked for. And thus the Lord, by this comparison, shows his great love towards the Israelites. He adds, — As the first fruit of the figtree; for the fig-tree, we know, produces fruit twice every year. Therefore, God says, — As figs at the beginning (or, as they say, the first fruits) are delightful, so have I taken delight in this people. The Prophet does not however mean, that the people were worthy of being so much loved. But the Hebrews use the word, to find, in the same sense as we do, when we say in French, — Je treuve cela a mon gout , (I find this to my taste.) I have therefore regarded Israel as grapes in the wilderness And this remark is needful, lest some one should subtilely infer, that the Israelites were loved by God, because they had something savoury in them. For the Prophet relates not here what God found in the people, but he only reproves their ingratitude, as we shall presently see.

The first part then shows that God had great delight in this people. It is the same or similar sentence to that in Hos 11:0, where he says, ‘When Ephraim was yet a child, I loved him,’ except that there is not there so much fervour and warmth of love expressed; but the same argument is there handled, and the object is the same, and it is to prove, that God anticipated his people by his love. There remained, in this case, less excuse, when men rejected God calling them, and responded not to his love. A perverseness like this would be hardly endured among men. Were any one to love me freely, and I to slight him, it would be an evidence of pride and rudeness: but when God himself gratuitously treats us with kindness, and when, not content with common love, he regards us as delectable fruit, does not the rejection of this love, does not the contempt of this favour, betray, on our part, the basest depravity? We now then understand the design of the Prophet. In the first clause, he says, in the person of God, “I have loved Israel, as a traveller does grapes, when he finds them in the desert, and as the first ripe figs are wont to be loved: since then, I so much delighted in them, ought they not to have honoured me in return? Ought not my gratuitous love to have inflamed their hearts, so as to induce them to devote themselves wholly to me?”

But they went in unto Baal-peor. So I interpret the verb באו , bau; and it is taken in this sense in many other places. For the Hebrews say, “they went in,” to express in a delicate way the intercourse between husbands and wives. And the Prophet does not, without reason, compare the sacrifices which the people offered to Baal-peor to adultery, as being like the intercourse which an adulterer has with an harlot. They then went in unto Baal-peor; and he adds, that they “separated themselves”. Some interpret the word נזר , nesar, as referring to worship, and as meaning that they consecrated themselves to Baal-peor; and others derive it from זרה , sare, which they think is here in a passive sense, and means, “to be alienated.” But I take it in the same sense as when Ezekiel says, “They have separated themselves from after me,” מאחרי , macheri, Eze 14:7; that is, that they may not follow me. God here expostulates with the people for following their fornication, and for thus repudiating that sacred marriage which God contracts with all his people. I therefore read the two sentences as forming one context, The Israelites went in unto Baal-peor, as an adulterer goes in unto a harlot; and they separated themselves; for they denied God, and violated the faith pledged to him; they discarded the spiritual marriage which God made with them.” For the Prophet, we know, whenever he refers to idolatries speaks allegorically or metaphorically, and mentions adultery.

They have separated themselves, he says, to reproach; that is, though their filthiness was shameful, they were yet wholly insensible: as when a wife disregards her character, or as when a husband cares not that he is pointed at by the finger, and that his baseness is to all a laughing-stock; so the Israelites, he says, had separated themselves to reproach, having cast away all shame, they abandoned themselves to wickedness. Some render the word בשת , beshet, obscenity, and others refer it to Baal-peor, and render the sentence thus, “They have separated themselves to that filthy idol.” For some think Priapus to have been Baal-peor; and this opinion has gained the consent of almost all. But I extend wider the meaning of the word “reproach,” as signifying that the people observed no difference between what was decent and what was shameful, but that they were senseless in their impiety. They were therefore abominable, or abominations according to their lovers The Prophet, I doubt not, connects here the Israelites with idols and with Baal-peor itself, that he might strip them of all that holiness which they had obtained through God’s favour. We now apprehend the meaning of the Prophet.

Now, what is here taught is worthy of being noticed and is useful. For, as we have said, inexcusable is our wickedness, if we despise the gratuitous love of God, bestowed unasked. When God then comes to us of his own accord, when he invites us, when he offers to us the privilege of children, an inestimable benefit, and when we reject his favour, is not this more than savage ferocity? It was to reprobate such conduct as this that the Prophet says, that God had loved Israel, as when one finds grapes in the desert, or as when one eats the first ripe figs. But it must, at the same time, be noticed why the Prophet so much extols the dealings of God with the people of Israel; it was for this reason, because their adoption, as it is well known, was not an ordinary privilege, nor what they enjoyed in common with other nations. Since, then, the people had been chosen to be God’s special possession, the Prophet here justly extols this love with peculiar commendation. And the like is our case at this day; for God vouchsafes not to all the favour which has been presented to us through the shining light of the gospel. Other people wander in darkness, the light of life dwells only among us: does not God thus show that he delights especially in us? But if we continue the same as we were, and if we reject him and transfer our love to others, or rather if lust leads us astray from him, is not this detestable wickedness and obstinacy?

But what the Prophet says, that they separated themselves to reproach, is also worthy of being noticed; for he exaggerates their crime by this consideration, that the Israelites were so blinded, that they perceived not their own turpitude, though it was quite manifest. The superstitions which then prevailed in the land of Moab were no doubt very gross; but Satan had so fascinated their minds that they gave themselves up to a conduct which was worse than shameful. Let us then know that our sin is worthy of a heavier punishment in such a case as this, that is, when every distinction is done away among us, and when we are hurried away by the spirit of giddiness into every impiety and when we no longer distinguish between light and darkness, between white and black; for it is a token of final reprobation. When, therefore, shame ought to have restrained them, he says, that the Israelites had yet “separated themselves to reproach, and became abominable like their lovers”; that is, As Baal-peor is the highest abomination to me, so the people became to me equally abominable. It now follows —

Calvin: Hos 9:11

The Hebrews, we know, have often abrupt sentences as in this place, Ephraim! their glory has fled Ephraim is to be placed by itself; and the speech seems striking, when the Lord thus breaks off the sentence, Ephraim! he does not continue the sense, but immediately adds, Like a bird their glory has fled. When he speaks of Ephraim, he no doubt refers especially to his offspring; and by mentioning a part for the whole, he includes whatever was then deemed to be wealth, or glory, or power. The Prophet, I say, speaks of offspring, for he immediately adds, from the birth, and the womb, and the conception But they are mistaken who confine this sentence to offspring only; for it is, as I have said, a mode of speaking, by which a part is taken for the whole. According to the letter, he mentions children or offspring; but yet he includes generally the whole condition of the people.

Then as a bird the glory of Ephraim fled away In what respect? From the birth, from the womb, from the conception. The Prophet, no doubt, sets forth here the gradations of God’s vengeance, which was yet in part near at hand to the Israelites, and which was in part already evident by clear proofs. He says, from the birth, then from the womb, and, lastly, from the conception If, then, the glory of Ephraim had vanished at the beginning, the Prophet would not have thus spoken; but as the Lord showed signs of his wrath by degrees, that vengeance at length might reach the highest point, the Prophets in the first place, mentions birth, then the womb; as though he said, “The glory of Israel shall vanish from the birth, but if they still continue proud, and seem not subdued by this punishment, I will slay them in the womb itself; nay, in the conception, if they repent not; they shall be suffocated as in the very womb.”

TSK: Hos 9:1

Rejoice : Hos 10:5; Isa 17:11, Isa 22:12; Lam 4:21; Eze 21:10; Amo 6:6, Amo 6:7, Amo 6:13, Amo 8:10; Jam 4:16, Jam 5:1

as : Eze 16:47, Eze 16:48, Eze 20:32; Amo 3:2

gone : Hos 4:12, Hos 5:4, Hos 5:7

thou hast loved : Hos 2:12; Jer 44:17

upon : or, in, etc

TSK: Hos 9:2

floor : Hos 2:9, Hos 2:12; Isa 24:7-12; Joe 1:3-7, Joe 1:9-13; Amo 4:6-9, Amo 4:5-11; Mic 6:13-16; Hag 1:9, Hag 2:16

winepress : or, winefat

TSK: Hos 9:3

shall not : Lev 18:28, Lev 20:22; Deu 4:26, Deu 28:63; Jos 23:15; 1Ki 9:7; Mic 2:10

the Lord’ s : Lev 25:23; Jer 2:7, Jer 16:18

but : Hos 9:6, Hos 8:13, Hos 11:5; Deu 28:68; Isa 11:15, Isa 11:16, ""Not into Egypt itself, but into another bondage as bad as that, ""and, Eze 4:13; Dan 1:8; Act 10:14

in Assyria : Hos 11:11; 2Ki 17:6

TSK: Hos 9:4

shall not : Hos 3:4; Joe 1:13, Joe 2:14

neither : Hos 8:13; Isa 1:11-15, Isa 57:6, Isa 66:3; Jer 6:20; Amo 4:4, Amo 4:5, Amo 5:22; Mal 1:9, Mal 1:10

as : Num 19:11; Deu 26:14; Neh 8:9-12; Eze 24:17, Eze 24:22; Mal 2:13

their bread : Exo 40:23; Lev 17:11, Lev 21:6, Lev 21:8, Lev 21:17, Lev 21:21; Num 4:7, Num 28:2; Amo 8:11, Amo 8:12; Joh 6:51

TSK: Hos 9:5

what : Isa 10:3; Jer 5:31

in : Hos 2:11; Joe 1:13

TSK: Hos 9:6

they : Deu 28:63, Deu 28:64; 1Sa 13:6; 2Ki 13:7

destruction : Heb. spoil, Hos 7:13

Egypt : Hos 9:3, Hos 7:16, Hos 8:13, Hos 11:11; Isa 11:11, Isa 27:12; Zec 10:10,Zec 10:11

nettles : or, their silver shall be desired, the nettle shall, etc. Heb. the desire of. Hos 10:8; Psa 107:34; Pro 24:31; Isa 5:6, Isa 7:23, Isa 32:13, Isa 34:13

TSK: Hos 9:7

days of visitation : Isa 10:3; Jer 10:15, Jer 11:23, Jer 46:21; Eze 7:2-7, Eze 12:22-28; Amo 8:2; Mic 7:4; Zep 1:14-18; Luk 21:22; Rev 16:19

Israel : Isa 26:11; Eze 25:17, Eze 38:23

the prophet : Hos 9:8; Jer 6:14, Jer 8:11, Jer 23:16, Jer 23:17; Lam 2:14; Eze 13:3, Eze 13:10; Mic 2:11; Zep 3:4; Zec 11:15-17

spiritual man : Heb. man of the spirit

mad : 2Ki 9:11; Jer 29:26; Mar 3:21; Act 26:24, Act 26:25; 2Co 5:13

the multitude : Eze 14:9, Eze 14:10; 2Th 2:10-12

TSK: Hos 9:8

watchman : Son 3:3; Isa 62:6; Jer 6:17, Jer 31:6; Eze 3:17, Eze 33:7; Mic 7:4; Heb 13:17

with : 1Ki 17:1, 1Ki 18:1, 1Ki 18:36-39, 1Ki 22:28; 2Ki 2:14, 2Ki 2:21, 2Ki 3:15-20, 2Ki 4:1-7, 2Ki 4:33-37, 2Ki 4:41; 2Ki 4:43, 2Ki 5:14, 2Ki 5:27, 2Ki 6:17, 2Ki 6:18, 2Ki 7:2, 2Ki 7:19, 2Ki 13:21

but : Hos 5:1; 1Ki 18:19, 1Ki 22:6, 1Ki 22:11, 1Ki 22:22; Jer 6:14, Jer 14:13; Lam 2:14, Lam 4:13

in the : or, against the, Joh 15:24; Rom 3:7

TSK: Hos 9:9

deeply : Isa 24:5, Isa 31:6

Gibeah : Hos 10:9; Jdg 19:22-30, 20:1-21:25

therefore : Hos 8:13

TSK: Hos 9:10

found : Hos 11:1; Exo 19:4-6; Deu 32:10; Jer 2:2, Jer 2:3, Jer 31:2

grapes : Hos 2:15; Num 13:23, Num 13:24; Isa 28:4; Mic 7:1

but : Num. 25:3-18; Deu 4:3; Psa 106:28

separated : Hos 4:14; Jdg 6:32; 1Ki 16:31; Jer 11:13; Rom 6:21

and their : Num 15:39; Deu 32:17; Psa 81:12; Jer 5:31; Eze 20:8; Amo 4:5

TSK: Hos 9:11

their : Gen 41:52, Gen 48:16-20, Gen 49:22; Deu 33:17; Job 18:5, Job 18:18, Job 18:19

from the birth : Psa 58:8; Ecc 6:3; Amo 1:13

from the womb : Hos 9:14; Deu 28:18, Deu 28:57; Luk 23:29

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Hos 9:1

Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people - Literally, "rejoice not to exultation,"so as to bound and leap for joy (as in Job 3:22). The prophet seems to come across the people in the midst of their festivity and mirth, and arrests them abruptly stopping it, telling them, that had no cause for joy. Hosea witnessed of Israel’ s prosperity under Jeroboam II; the land had peace under Menahem the departure of Pul; Pekah was even strong, so as, in his alliance with Rezin, to be an object of terror to Judah Isa. 7, until Tiglath-Pileser came against him. At some of these times, Israel seems to have given himself to exuberant mirth, whether at harvest-time, or on any other ground, enjoying the present, secure for the future. On this rejoicing Hosea breaks in with his stern, "rejoice not.""In His presence is fulness of joy,"true, solid, lasting joy"Psa 16:11. How then could Israel joy, "who had gone a whoring from his God?"Other nations might joy, for they had no imminent judgment to fear.

Their sins had been sins of ignorance; none had sinned like Israel. They had not even Jer 2:11 "changed their gods, which were no gods. If"other "people"did not thank God for His gifts, and thanked their idols, they had not been taught otherwise. Israel had been taught. and so his sin was sin against light. Whence God says by Amos, "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities"Amo 3:2. : "It was ever the sin of Israel to wish to joy as other nations. So they said to Samuel, "make us a king to judge us, like all the nations."And when Samuel "told the people the word of God, they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them,"they still said, "Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations"1Sa 8:5, 1Sa 8:10, 1Sa 8:7, 1Sa 8:19-20. This was the joy of the nations, to have another king than God, and with this joy Israel wished to exult, when it asked for Saul as king; when it followed Jeroboam; when it "denied"Christ "before the presence of Pilate, saying, we have no king but Caesar."But the people who received the law, and professed the worship of God, might not exult as other people who had not the knowledge of God, that, like them, it should, after forsaking God, be allowed to enjoy temporal prosperity, like theirs.

He says, "rejoice not like the nations,"namely, for it is not allowed thee. Why? "for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God."The punishment of the adulteress, who departs by unfaithfulness from her husband, is other than that of the harlot, who had never plighted her faith, nor had ever been bound by the bond of marriage. Thou obtainedst God for thy Husband, and didst forsake Him for another, yea, for many others, in the desert, in Samaria, even in Jerusalem, for the golden calves, for Baal, and the other monstrous gods, and lastly, when, denying Christ, thou didst prefer Barabbas. "Rejoice not"then, with the "joy"of the "nations;"for the curses of the law, written against thee, allow thee not. "Cursed shalt thou be in the city, cursed in the field; cursed thy basket and thy store; cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land; the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep; cursed thou in thy coming in, and cursed thou in thy going out"Deu 28:16-19. Other nations enjoyed the fruit of their own labors; thou "tookest the labors"of others as a hire, "to observe His laws"Psa 105:45.

Thou hast loved a reward - (Literally, "the hire"Hos 2:12; Hos 8:9; Eze 21:31, 34; Mic 1:7 of a harlot) "on every grain-floor."Israel had no heart, except for temporal prosperity. This he loved, wheresoever he found it; and so, "on every grain-floor,"whereon the fruits of the earth were gathered for the threshing, he received it from his idols, as the "hire,"for which he praised them "for the good tilings which he had received from a better Giver.": "Perverse love! Thou oughtest to "love"God to use His rewards. "Thou"lovedst "the reward,"despisedst God. So then thou "wentest whoring from thy God,"because thou didst turn away the love, wherewith thou oughtest to love God, to love the hire: and this not sparingly, nor any how, but "on every barnfloor,"with avarice so boundless and so deep, that all the barn-floors could not satisfy thee."The first-fruits, and the free-willoffering, they retained, turned them away from the service of God, and offered them to their idols.

Barnes: Hos 9:2

The floor and winepress shall not feed them - God turneth away wholly from the adulterous people, and telleth others, how justly they shall be dealt with first for this. "Because she loved My reward, and despised Myself, the reward itself shall be taken away from her."When the blessings of God have been abused to sin, He, in mercy and judgment, takes them away. He cut them off, in order to show that He alone, who now withheld them, had before given them. When they thought themselves most secure, when the grain was stored on the floor, and the grapes were in the press, then God would deprive them of them.

And the new wine shall fail in her, or shall fail her - Literally, "shall lie to her."It may be, he would say, that as Israel had lied to his God, and had "spoken lies against Him"Hos 7:13, so, in requital, the fruits of the earth should disappoint her, and holding out hopes which never came to pass, should, as it were, lie to her, and in the bitterness of her disappointment, represent to her her own failure to her God. The prophet teaches through the workings of nature, and gives, as it were, a tongue to them .

Barnes: Hos 9:3

They shall not dwell in the Lord’ s land. The earth is the Lord’ s and the fulness thereof - Yet He had chosen the land of Canaan, there to place His people; there, above others, to work His miracles; there to reveal Himself; there to send His Son to take our flesh. He had put Israel in possession of it, to hold it under Him on condition of obedience. Contrariwise, God had denounced to them again and again; "if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to possess it"Deu 30:17-18. The fifth commandment, "the first commandment with promise"Eph 5:2, still implies the same condition, "that thy days may be logit in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."God makes the express reserve that the land is His. "The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is Mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me."Lev 25:23. It was then an aggravation of their sin, that they had sinned in God’ s land. It was to sin in His special presence. To offer its first-fruits to idols, was to disown God as its Lord, and to own His adversary. In removing them, then, from His land, God removed them from occasions of sin.

But Ephraim shall return to Egypt - He had broken the covenant, whereon God had promised, that they should not return there (see above the note at Hos 8:13). They had recourse to Egypt against the will of God. Against their own will, they should be sent back there, in banishment and distress, as of old, and in separation from their God.

And they shall eat unclean things in Assyria - So in Ezekiel, "The children of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them"Eze 4:13. "Not to eat things common or unclean"was one of the marks which God had given them. whereby he distinguished them as His people. While God owned them as His people, He would protect them against such necessity. The histories of Daniel, of Eleazar and the Maccabees (Dan 1:8; 2 Macc. 6; 7), show how sorely pious Jews felt the compulsion to eat things unclean. Yet this doubtless Israel had done in his own land, if not in other ways, at least in eating things offered to idols. Now then, through necessity or they were to be forced, for their sustenance to eat tilings unclean, such as were, to them, all things killed with the blood in them, i. e., as almost all things are killed now. They who had willfully transgressed God’ s law, should now be forced to live in the habitual breach of that law, in a matter which placed them on a level with the pagan. People, who have no scruple about breaking God’ s moral law, feel keenly the removal of any distinction, which places them above others. They had been as pagan; they should be in the condition of pagan.

Barnes: Hos 9:4

They shall not offer wine-offerings to the Lord - The "wine"or "drink-offering"was annexed to all their burnt-offerings, and so to all their public sacrifices. The burnt-offering (and with it the meal and the wine-offering,) was "the"daily morning and evening sacrifice Exo 29:38-41; Num 28:3-8, and the sacrifice of the Sabbath Num 28:9. It was offered, together with the sin-offering, on the first of the month, the Passover, the feast of the first-fruits, of trumpets, of tabernacles, and the Day of Atonement, besides the special sacrifices of that day Num 28:11, Num 28:15-16, Num 28:19, Num 28:22, Num 28:26, Num 28:7, Num 28:30; Num 29:11, Num 29:1-2, Num 29:5, Num 29:7-8, 12-38. It entered also into private life Lev. 1; Num 15:3, Num 15:10. The drink-offering accompanied also the peace-offering Num 15:8, Num 15:10. As the burnt-offering, on which the offerer laid his hand Lev 1:4, and which was wholly consumed by the sacred fire which at first fell from heaven, expressed the entire self-devotion of the offerer, that he owed himself wholly to his God; and as the peace-offering was the expression of thankfulness, which was at peace with God; so the outpouring of the wine betokened the joy, which accompanies that entire self oblation, that thankfulness in self-oblation of a soul accepted by God. In denying, then, that Israel should "offer wine-offerings,"the prophet says, that all the joy of their service of God, nay all their public service should cease. As he had before said, that they should be "for many days without sacrifice"Lev 3:4, so now, he says, in fact, that they should live without the prescribed means of pleading to God the atonement to come. Whence he adds,

Neither shall they be pleasing to the Lord - For they should no longer have the means prescribed for reconciliation with God. Such is the state of Israel now. God appointed one way of reconciliation with Himself, the Sacrifice of Christ. Sacrifice pictured this, and pleaded it to Him, from the fall until Christ Himself "appeared, once in the end of the world, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself"Heb 9:26. Soon after, when time had been given to the Jews to learn to acknowledge Him, all bloody sacrifices ceased. Since then the Jews have lived without that means of reconciliation, which God appointed. It availed, not in itself, but as being appointed lay God to foreshadow and plead that one sacrifice. So He who, by our poverty and void, awakens in us the longing for Himself, would through the anomalous condition, to which He has, by the orderings of His divine providence, brought His former people, call forth in them that sense of need, which would bring them to Christ. In their half-obedience, they remain under the ceremonial law which He gave them, although He called them, and still calls them, to exchange the shadow for the substance in Christ. But in that they cannot fulfill the requirements of the law, even in its outward form, the law, which they acknowledge, bears witness to them, that they are not living according to the mind of God.

Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners - He had said that they should not sacrifice to God, when no longer in the Lord’ s land. He adds that, if they should attempt it, their sacrifices, so far from being a means of acceptance, should be defiled, and a source of defilement to them. "All"which was "in"the same "tent"or house with a dead body, was "unclean for seven days"Num 19:14. The bread, which they ate then, was defiled. If "one unclean by a dead body touched bread or pottage or any meat, it was unclean"Hag 2:12-13. In offering the tithes, a man was commanded to declare, "I have not eaten of it in my mourning"Deu 26:15. So would God impress on the soul the awfulness of death, and man’ s sinfulness, of which death is the punishment. He does not say, that they would offer sacrifices, but that their sacrifices, if offered as God did not command, would defile, not atone. It is in truman nature, to neglect to serve God, when He wills it, and then to attempt to serve Him when he forbids it. Thus Israel, affrighted by the report of the spies Num. 14, would not go up to the promised land, when God commanded it. When God had sentenced them, not to go up, but to die in the wilderness, "then"they attempted it. Sacrifice, according to God’ s law, could only be offered in the promised land. In their captivity, then, it would be a fresh sin.

For their bread for their soul - Or "is for their soul,"i. e., "for themselves;"it is for whatever use they can make of it for this life’ s needs, to support life. Nothing of it would be admitted "into the house of the Lord,"as offered to Him or accepted by Him.

Barnes: Hos 9:5

What will ye do in the solemn day? - Man is content to remain far from God, so that God do not show him, that He has withdrawn Himself from him. Man would fain have the power of drawing near to God in time of calamity, or when he himself likes. He would fain have God at his command, as it were, not be at the command of God. God cuts off this hope altogether. he singles out the great festivals, which commemorated His great doings for His people, as though they had no more share in those mercies. The more solemn the day, the more total man’ s exclusion, the more manifest God’ s withdrawal. To one shut out from His service, the days of deepest religious joy became the days of deepest sorrow. Mirth is turned into heaviness. To be deprived of the ordinary daily sacrifice was a source of continual sorrow; how much more, "in the days of"their "gladness"Num 10:10, in which they were bidden to rejoice before the Lord, and "in which they seemed to have a nearer and more familiar access to God."True, that having separated themselves from the temple, they had no right to celebrate these feasts, which were to be held in the place "which God had chosen to place His name there."Man, however, clings to the shadow of God’ s service, when he has parted with the substance. And so God foretold them before, that He would "make all their mirth to cease"Hos 2:11.

Barnes: Hos 9:6

For lo, they are gone because of destruction - They had fled, for fear of destruction, to destruction. For fear of the destruction from Assyria, they were fled away and gone to Egypt, hoping, doubtless, to find there some temporary refuge, until the Assyrian invasion should have swept by. But, as befalls those who flee from God, they fell into more certain destruction.

Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them - They had fled singly, in making their escape from the Assyrian. Egypt shall receive them, and shall gather them together, but only to one common burial, so that none should escape. So Jeremiah says, "They shall not be gathered nor buried"Jer 8:2; and Ezekiel, "Thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered"Eze 29:5. "Memphis"is the Greek name for the Egyptian "Mamphta,"whence the Hebrew "Moph"; or "Manuph,"whence the Hebrew "Noph"(Isa 19:13; Jer 2:16; Jer 44:1; Jer 46:14; Eze 30:13 ff). It was at this time the capital of Egypt, whose idols God threatens . Its name, "the dwelling of Phta,"the Greek Vulcan, marked it, as a seat of idolatry; and in it was the celebrated court of Apis , the original of Jeroboam’ s calf. There in the home of the idol for whom they forsook their God, they should be gathered to burial. It was reputed to be the burial-place of Osiris, and hence, was a favorite burial-place of the Egyptians. It once embraced a circuit of almost 19 miles , with magnificent buildings; it declined after the building of Alexandria; its very ruins gradually perished, after Cairo rose in its neighborhood.

The pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them - The English margin gives the same sense in different words; "their silver shall be desired; (as Obadiah saith, "his hidden treasures were searched out) nettles shall inherit them"Oba 1:6. In either way, it is a picture of utter desolation. The long rank grass or the nettle, waving amid man’ s habitations, looks all the sadder, as betokening that man once was there, and is gone. The desolate house looks like the grave of the departed. According to either rendering, the silver which they once had treasured, was gone. As they had "inherited"and "driven"out (the word is one) the nations, whose land God had given them, so now nettles and thorns should "inherit them."These should be the only tenants of their treasure-houses and their dwellings.

Barnes: Hos 9:7

The days of visitation are come - The false prophets had continually hood-winked the people, promising them that those days would never come. "They had put far away the evil day"Amo 6:3. Now it was not at hand only. In God’ s purpose, those "days"were "come,"irresistible, inevitable, inextricable; days in which God would visit, what in His long-suffering, He seemed to overlook, and would "recompense each according to his works."

Israel shall know it - Israel would not know by believing it; now it should "know,"by feeling it.

The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad - The true prophet gives to the false the title which they claimed for themselves, "the prophet"and "the man of the spirit."Only the event showed what spirit was in them, not the spirit of God but a lying spirit. The people of the world called the true prophets, "mad,"literally, maddened, "driven mad,", as Festus thought of Paul; "Thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad"Act 26:24. Jehu’ s captains called by the same name the young prophet whom Elisha sent to anoint him. "Wherefore came this mad fellow unto thee?"2Ki 9:11. Shemaiah, the false prophet, who deposed God’ s priest, set false priests to "be officers in the house of the Lord,"to have an oversight as to "every man who is mad and maketh himself a prophet,"calling Jeremiah both a false prophet and a "madman"(Jer 29:25-26. The word is the same).

The event was the test. Of our Lord Himself, the Jews blaspbemed, "He hath a devil and is mad"Joh 10:20. And long afterward, "madness,""phrensy"were among the names which the pagan gave to the faith in Christ . As Paul says, that "Christ crucified"was "to the Greeks"and to "them that perish, foolishness,"and that the "things of the Spirit of God, are foolishness to the natural man, neither can he know"them, "because they are spiritually discerned"1Co 1:18, 1Co 1:23; 1Co 2:14. The man of the world and the Christian judge of the same things by clean contrary rules, use them for quite contrary ends. The slave of pleasure counts him mad, who foregoes it; the wealthy trader counts him mad, who gives away profusely. In these days, profusion for the love of Christ has been counted a ground for depriving a man of the care of his property. One or the other is mad. And worldlings must count the Christian mad; else they must own themselves to be so most fearfully. In the Day of Judgment, Wisdom says, "They, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit, shall say within themselves, This was he whom we had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach. We fools counted his life madness, and his end to be without honor. How is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints!"(Wisd. 5:3-6).

For the multitude of thine iniquity and the great hatred - The words stand at the close of the verse, as the reason of all which had gone before. Their "manifold iniquity"and their "great hatred"of God were the ground why the "days of visitation"and "recompense"should "come."They were the ground also, why God allowed such prophets to delude them. The words, "the great hatred,"stand quite undefined, so that they may signify alike the hatred of Ephraim against God and good people and His true prophets, or God’ s hatred of them. Yet it, most likely, means, "their"great hatred, since of them the prophet uses it again in the next verse. The sinner first neglects God; then, as the will of God is brought before him, he willfully disobeys Him; then, when, he finds God’ s will irreconcilably at variance with his own, or when God chastens him, he hates Him, and (the prophet speaks out plainly) "hates"Him "greatly."

Barnes: Hos 9:8

The watchman of Ephraim was with my God - These words may well contrast the office of the true prophet with the false. For Israel had had many true prophets, and such was Hosea himself now. The true prophet was at all times with "God."He was "with God,"as holpen by God, "watching"or looking out and on into the future by the help of God. He was "with God,"as walking with God in a constant sense of His presence, and in continual communion with Him. He was "with God,"as associated by God with Himself, in teaching, warning, correcting, exhorting His people, as the Apostle says, "we then as workers together with Him"2Co 6:1.

It might also be rendered in nearly the same sense, "Ephraim was a watchman with my God,"and this is more according to the Hebrew words. As though the whole people of Israel had an office from God , "and God addressed it as a whole, ‘ I made thee, as it were, a watchman and prophet of God to the neighboring nations, that through My providence concerning thee, and thy living according to the law, they too might receive the knowledge of Me. But thou hast acted altogether contrary to this, for thou hast become a snare to them. ‘ "

Yet perhaps, if so construed, it would rather mean, "Ephraim is a watchman, beside my God,"as it is said, "There is none upon earth, that I desire with Thee"Psa 73:25, i. e., beside Thee. In God the Psalmist had all, and desired to have nothing "with,"i. e., beside God. Ephraim was not content with God’ s revelations, but would himself be "a seer, an espier"of future events, the prophet says with indignation, "together with my God."God, in fact, sufficed. Ephraim not. Ahab hated God’ s prophet, "because he did not speak good concerning him but evil"1Ki 22:8, 1Ki 22:18. And so the kings of Israel had court-prophets of their own, an establishment, as it would seem, of four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and four hundred prophets of Ashtaroth 1Ki 18:19, which was filled up again by new impostors 2Ki 3:13; 2Ki 10:19, when after the miracle of Mount Carmel, Elijah, according to the law Deu 13:5; Deu 17:5, put to death the prophets of Baal. These false prophets, as well as those of Judah in her evil days, flattered the kings who supported them, misled them, encouraged them in disbelieving the threatenings of God, and so led to their destruction. By these means, the bad priests maintained their hold over the people. They were the antichrists of the Old Testament, disputing the authority of God, in whose name they prophesied. Ephraim encouraged their sins, as God says of Judah by Jeremiah, "My people love to have it so"Jer 5:31. It willed to be deceived, and was so.

"On searching diligently ancient histories,"says Jerome, "I could not find that any divided the Church, or seduced people from the house of the Lord, except those who have been set by God as priests and prophets, i. e. watchmen. These then are turned into a snare, setting a stumbling-block everywhere, so that whosoever entereth on their ways, falls, and cannot stand in Christ, and is led away by various errors and crooked paths to a precipice.": "No one,"says another great father, "doth wider injury than one who acteth perversely, while he hath a name or an order of holiness.""God endureth no greater prejudice from any than from priests, when He seeth those whom He has set for the correction of others, give from themselves examples of perverseness, when "we"sin, who ought to restrain sin. What shall become of the flock, when the pastors become wolves?"

The false prophet is the snare of a fowler in - (literally, "upon") all his ways i. e., whatever Ephraim would do, wherever the people, as a whole or any of them, would go, there the false prophet beset them, endeavoring to make each and everything a means of holding them back from their God. This they did, "being hatred in the house of his God."As one says, "I am (all) prayer"Psa 109:4, because he was so given up to prayer that he seemed turned into prayer; his whole soul was concentrated in prayer; so of these it is said, "they"were "hatred."They hated so intensely, that their whole soul was turned into hatred; they were as we say, hatred personified; hatred was embodied in them, and they ensouled with hate. They were also the source of hatred against God and man. And this each false prophet was "in the house of his God!"for God was still his God, although not owned by him as God. God is the sinners God to avenge, if he will not allow Him to be his God, to convert and pardon.

Barnes: Hos 9:9

They have deeply corrupted themselves - Literally, "they have gone deep, they are corrupted."They have deeply immersed themselves in wickedness; have gone to the greatest depth they could, in it; they are sunk in it, so that they could hardly be extricated from it; and this, of their own deliberate intent; they contrived it deeply, hiding themselves, as they hoped, from God.

As in, the days of Gibeah - When Benjamin espoused the cause of "the children of Belial"who had worked such horrible brutishness in Gibeah toward the concubine of the Levite. This they maintained with such obstinacy, that, through God’ s judgment, the whole tribe perished, except six hundred men. Deeply they must have already corrupted themselves, who supported such guilt. Such corruption and such obstinacy was their’ s still.

Therefore "he will remember their iniquity."God seemed for a time, as if He overlooked the guilt of Benjamin in the days of Gibeah, for at first He allowed them to be even victorious over Israel, yet in the end, they were punished, almost to extermination, and Gibeah was destroyed. So now, although He bore long with Ephraim, He would, in the end show that He remembered all by visiting all.

Barnes: Hos 9:10

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness - God is not said to find anything, as though "He"had lost it, or knew not where it was, or came suddenly upon it, not expecting it. "They"were lost, as relates to Him, when they were found by Him. As our Lord says of the returned prodigal, "This my son was lost and is found"Luk 15:32. He "found"them and made them pleasant in His own sight, "as grapes which a man finds unexpectedly, in "a great terrible wilderness of fiery serpents and drought"Deu 8:15, where commonly nothing pleasant or refreshing grows; or "as the first ripe in the fig-tree at her fresh time,"whose sweetness passed into a proverb, both from its own freshness and from the long abstinence (see Isa 28:4). God gave to Israel both richness and pleasantness in His own sight; but Israel, from the first, corrupted God’ s good gifts in them. This generation only did as their fathers. So Stephen, setting forth to the Jews how their fathers had rebelled against Moses, and persecuted the prophets, sums up; "as your fathers did, so do ye"Act 7:51. Each generation was filling up the measure of their fathers, until it was full; as the whole world is doing now Rev 14:15.

But they went to Baal-Peor - " They,"the word is emphatic; these same persons to whom God showed such love, to whom He gave such gifts, "went."They left God who called them, and "went"to the idol, which could not call them. Baal-Peor, as his name probably implies, was "the filthiest and foulest of the pagan gods."It appears from the history of the daughters of Midian, that his worship consisted in deeds of shame Num. 25.

And separated themselves unto that shame - that is, to Baal-Peor, "whose"name of "Baal, Lord,"he turns into "Bosheth, shame". Holy Scripture gives disgraceful names to the idols, (as "abominations, nothings, dungy things, vanities, uncleanness,"in order to make people ashamed of them. "To this shame they separated themselves"from God, in order to unite themselves with it. The Nazarite "separated himself from"certain earthly enjoyments, and consecrated himself, for a time or altogether, to God; these "separated themselves from"God, and united, devoted, consecrated themselves "to shame.""They made themselves, as it were, Nazarites to shame."Shame was the object of their worship and their God, "and"their "abominations were according as they loved,"i. e., they had as many "abominations"or abominable idols, "as"they had "loves."They multiplied abominations, "after their heart’ s desire;"their abominations were manifold, because their passions were so; and their love being corrupted, they loved nothing but abominations.

Yet it seems simpler and truer to render it, "and they became abominations, like their loves;"as the Psalmist says, "They that make them are like unto them"Psa 115:8. : "The object which the will desires and loves, transfuses its own goodness or badness into it."Man first makes his god like his own corrupt self, or to some corruption in himself, and then, worshiping this ideal of his own, he becomes the more corrupt through copying that corruption. He makes his god "in his"own "image and likeness,"the essence and concentration of his own bad passions, and then conforms himself to the likeness, not of God, but of what was most evil in himself. Thus the Pagan made gods of lust, cruelty, thirst for war; and the worship of corrupt gods reacted on themselves. They forgot that they were "the work of their own hands,"the conception of their own minds, and professed to "do gladly""what so great gods"had done.

And more widely, says a father , "what a man’ s love is, that he is. Lovest thou earth? thou art earth. Lovest thou God? What shall I say? thou shalt be god.": "Naught else maketh good or evil actions, save good or evil affections."Love has a transforming power over the soul, which the intellect has not. "He who serveth an abomination is himself an abomination", is a thoughtful Jewish saying. "The intellect brings home to the soul the knowledge on which it worketh, impresses it on itself, incorporates it with itself. Love is an impulse whereby he who loves is borne forth toward that which he loves, is united with it, and is transformed into it."Thus in explaining the words, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His Mouth,"Son 1:2, the fathers say , "Then the Word of God kisseth us, when He enlighteneth our heart with the Spirit of divine knowledge, and the soul cleaveth to Him and His Spirit is transfused into him."

Barnes: Hos 9:11

As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away, like a bird - Ephraim had parted with God, his true Glory. In turn, God would quickly take from him all created glory, all which he counted glory, or in which he gloried. When man parts with the substance, his true honor, God takes away the shadow, lest he should content himself therewith, and not see his shame, and, boasting himself to be something, abide in his nothingness and poverty and shame to which he had reduced himself. "Fruitfulness,"and consequent strength, had been God’ s special promise to Ephraim. His name, Ephraim, contained in itself the promise of his future fruitfulness. Gen 41:52. With this Jacob had blessed him. He was to be greater than Manasseh, his older brother, "and his seed shall become a multitude of nations"Gen 48:19. Moses had assigned to him "tens of thousands"Deu 33:17, while to Manasseh he had promised "thousands"only. On this blessing Ephraim had presumed, and had made it to feed his pride; so now God, in his justice and mercy, would withdraw it from him. It should "make"itself "wings, and fly away"Pro 23:5, with the swiftness of a bird, and "like a bird,"not to return again to the place, from where it has been scared.

From the birth - Their children were to perish at every stage in which they received life. This sentence pursued them back to the very beginning of life. First, when their parents should have joy in "their birth,"they were to come into the world only to go out of it; then, their mothers womb was to be itself their grave; then, stricken with barrenness, the womb itself was to refuse to conceive them.

: "The glory of Ephraim passes away, from the birth, the womb, the conception, when the mind which before was, for glory, half-deified, receives, through the just judgment of God, ill report for good report, misery for glory, hatred for favor, contempt for reverence, loss for gain, famine for abundance. Act is the "birth;"intention the "womb;"thought the "conception.""The glory of Ephraim then flies away from the birth, the womb, the conception,"when, in those who before did outwardly live nobly, and gloried in themselves for the outward propriety of their life, the acts are disgraced, the intention corrupted, the thoughts defiled."

Poole: Hos 9:1

Rejoice not: this might seem a morose humour of a discontented, sullen preacher: what! forbid a people to rejoice when things prosper with them? when should a people rejoice if not then? The prophet, who had a deeper reach, and took a larger prospect of things. had good cause to advise, or warn, or forbid as he doth, for he saw more cause to grieve than to rejoice, and to mourn than to be merry; the reason you will have presently.

O Israel you of the ten tribes.

For joy for any thing that is counted just matter of joy; though at present you prosper either under Jeroboam the Second’ s victorious arms, or under Menahem, and the safety he hath procured by a confederacy with Assyria, though at other times these might be matter of rejoicing, now in thy circumstances, O Israel, it is not meet thou shouldst show any gladness.

As other people with feastings, public games, and triumphs, or with solemn sacrifices of thanksgiving, or with erecting statues to the memory of your great and brave commanders, or for continuing the remembrance of their achievements.

For thou hast gone a whoring from thy God with thee, O Israel, it is as unseemly as it is for an adulterous wife to rejoice and be jovial, whilst the guilt of her adulteries, and the shame of her lewdnesses, and the displeasure of her husband, fly in her face and whisper reproofs in her ear.

Thou hast loved a reward such as is given by adulterers to lewd women,

on every corn-floor thou hast loved to see thy floor full, and hast thought, and said thy idols had so furnished thee, and therefore thou didst love them. Though mirth might become an honest woman, it doth not so well suit with a dishonest adulteress; the very place, the Company and occasion, do upbraid such a one rejoicing with her lewd adulterers: besides, this adulteress’ s joys will be short, and end in sorrows and shame; so will thine, O Israel.

Poole: Hos 9:2

The floor the corn which is gathered into the floor and that is threshed there, that plenty which these sottish idolaters have, and think they have it from their idols, the bread they eat. For here the floor is put for the corn, and the bread made of it.

The wine-press by the same figure, put for the wine that is pressed out in it; though there is great plenty, and the vats overflow as well as the press full.

Shall not feed them all this plenty shall not nourish and strengthen them. Since they think their idols give them their corn and wine, let them give also, what I will not give, a blessing on these that they may support and refresh them; they shall be lean and half-starved in their plenty unless their idols can do this for them, i.e. bless their food.

Them who seek to idols for corn and wine, and praise their idols as givers of it. These I will blast, their provision shall be as theirs, Hag 1:6 .

The new wine shall fail in her or lie unto her, or fail her expectation. Samaria and all Israel expect a fair and full vintage, but they expect it from their idols, which are a doctrine of lies, and in this, as in all other, will lie.

Poole: Hos 9:3

They who worship idols, and give my glory to them, depending on them, and ascribing to them what I alone give them,

shall not dwell in the Lord’ s land though they have been in possession many years, and though now they seem out of fear of losing it, being great at home and in peace with neighbours abroad, yet in midst of this prosperity and security, let them note it, they shall not much longer dwell in the Lord’ s land, which God gave them according to promise, with express condition that they should obey him and fear him, and him only, Deu 6:2,3 , and with express menace of exile and ruin if they forgot God, Deu 8:19,20 . This land, which is the Lord’ s propriety, and theirs only on condition, and this condition broken, shall be their possession no longer.

Ephraim shall return to Egypt many of Ephraim, for it is not meant of all or the most part; but of the more timorous, wary, and who consult their safety beforehand, many shall flee into Egypt, and shift out of the enemies’ reach. So again Hos 9:6 .

They shall eat unclean things in Assyria the residue who flee not into Egypt shall be carried captives, and in Assyria be forced to eat forbidden meats, called here unclean, such as polluted the eater.

Poole: Hos 9:4

They captived for their idolatry and other sins,

shall not offer wine-offerings: these were by the law appointed to be offered with the morning and evening sacrifice; the sacrifice representing Christ, and pardon by him, the wine-offering represented the Spirit of grace. The sacrifice repeated daily continued their peace and pardon; the Spirit of grace supported, guided, comforted, and refreshed; all which shall be withheld from these captives, the law of God forbidding on one account, the law of their conquerors forbidding on another account.

Neither shall they be pleasing unto him or if any should venture to do it, and think thereby to appease God’ s anger, they shall miss their aim, it will not please God.

Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners their eucharistical sacrifices, in which they were used to feast with joy, shall be to them as the bread of mourners, as if they had buried a father or mother, and to comfort or support their saddened spirits did force themselves to some larger allowance and choicer meats; so great should be their grief in midst of their joys. Or else thus, their sacrifices should as much pollute them and displease God as if one mourning for the dead, and forbidden to sacrifice in tears and mourning, should yet venture to do it, and, against the law, sacrifice to his God when polluted by the dead, Num 19:11-14 Deu 26:14 .

All that eat thereof shall be polluted so far shall these men’ s sacrifices be from expiating and purifying, that they should increase their guilt and danger, and incur the penalty threatened against the polluted, Num 19:13 .

For or, surely; the particle is not here causal, but assertive, as in many other places it is.

Their bread for their soul their mincha or bread, which they always offered and were bound to offer with their sacrifices. Or else the first-fruits of their corn, which were to be brought to the Lord, and which being rightly offered did sanctify and insure the rest to them, with a blessing. This should not be done, they should be at that distance from the temple, and under the confinement of captives, so that they should not be able to do it if they were willing.

Shall not come be brought in to the priest in the temple, Deu 26:2,3 , &c.

Poole: Hos 9:5

Think with yourselves what you are likely to do then: on those days you were wont to cease from your labours, to offer sacrifices to God, (as you thought and said,) to feast with one another, all was full of seeming religion and real feasting and jollity on those days in your own country; but will your hard masters, that love their own profit, that hate your persons, and despise your religion, will they lose your labour, indulge your ease, encourage your religion, and suffer you to exercise it? Is this imaginable?

Poole: Hos 9:6

For, lo mark it well, and observe the event.

They are gone because of destruction some of the wary and timorous are already withdrawn from the desolation that cometh on their country, and more will flee from the Assyrian invader; and it is very near, and very uncertain, expressed therefore in the perfect tense.

Egypt shall gather them up in Egypt they hope to be quiet, and survive these desolations, and to return into their own land; but they shall die in Egypt, and Egyptians shall lay them out, and prepare them to their grave. So this phrase, Jer 8:2 Eze 29:5 .

Memphis which elsewhere is called Noph , Isa 19:13 , a very greatly traded city in those days, and at this day also known by the name which speaks its greatness, Grand Cairo.

Shall bury them: many of the ten tribes, fleeing their own wasted country, did no doubt remove so far as Memphis, partly for safety, that they might be out of the Assyrian’ s reach, but more principally for convenience of a trade, that they might at least get a livelihood, if not grow rich on their trade; there many of these fugitives died; and perhaps by the pestilence (which is a disease that frequently sweeps that city) multitudes of them might be swept away into their graves in and about that city.

The pleasant places for their silver their beautiful and strong houses built for keeping their wealth in.

Nettles shall possess them they shall be ruined, and lie long in rubbish, till nettles grow up in them.

Thorns or briers, or whatever (one kind for all) worthless and hurtful shrubs used to grow in perpetuated desolations, shall be in their tabernacles, in their dwellingplaces, their houses, which here retain the name of their ancient habitations when they dwelt in tents.

Poole: Hos 9:7

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come: the prophet doubleth the same thing, both to confirm the certainty of it, and to awaken the stupid Israelites: the days of God’ s just displeasure, in which he will punish, and render to these incorrigible idolaters and abominable debauchees as their wickedness deserveth, are come, they are very near, within four years at most.

Israel shall know it Israel will not believe it, though God hath often told them of it, but when it is come, and they feel it, they shall then know indeed, as fools know when they smart for their folly.

The prophet is a fool their false prophets were all, to a man of them, fools and rash, judging by present greatness or alliances of Israel, not observing what were their sins and God’ s wrath. Now when Hosea preached what was contained in this 9th chapter, Israel had made a league with So king of Egypt, cast off the Assyrian, and not sought to God, but vainly trusted to the Egyptian succours; now any wise man might imagine that likely which the prophet Hosea did foretell as certain, that the Assyrian with all his power would fall upon the revolters; none but fools would promise such a people a time of safety when the war was falling upon their heads.

The spiritual man that pretends to be full of the Spirit of prophecy, and foretells good to them, whom we thought a true prophet; but. now find by sad experience that we believed a madman, one much out of his wits; yet were we more, to believe what he promised.

For the multitude of thine iniquity: God was highly displeased with the multitude of their iniquities, and began his punishments in giving them over to believe the lies of their false prophets, and to expect what peace these prophets did promise.

And the great hatred which God had against your sins and ways: you would walk in ways which God hated, yet would have prophets to foretell peace and plenty; such you have had as described Mic 2:11 , and you believed them; and God, out of his just dislike, suffered this to be, left you to your choice.

Poole: Hos 9:8

The watchman of Ephraim was with my God the old true prophets indeed were with God, heard what he spake, and told it to the people; they were for God, for his honour, law, worship, and temple; and so should prophets now be. Ephraim once had such prophets, such were Elijah and Elisha, but none such now, or Ephraim cares not for them. The prophet speaks of God, the true God, as his God, in opposition to idols, on which Ephraim doted now, whose pretended oracles they believed.

But the prophet the prophets now-a-days, who call themselves prophets, and are so accounted by the people, have, as the people, left God, and do no more consult with God.

Is a snare of a fowler their pretended predictions and promises are but a snare, such as fowlers lay to take fowl in; and these impostors are conscious to themselves that they are deceivers; at least they cannot but know that the true God never gave them answer at any of their images, yet they pretend he hath done it, and that he will prosper them; so they insnare the people first in sin, next in punishment.

In all his ways and all they design and endeavour by all means is to keep the people in this opinion and hope.

And hatred in the house of his God so is hatred in the sight of God, he doth hate such deceivers; and he is hatred, i.e. ere long will he hatred, in the sight of the people he deceived; they shall hate their false prophets, who from the house of their God, by answers from the idols in their temples, confirmed the people in their rebellion, and hardened them against returning to God, which ends in their ruin: or else hatred, &c., i.e. cause of the people’ s hatred, against God and one another.

Poole: Hos 9:9

They the people of the ten tribes, prophets, priests, princes, and people, have deeply corrupted themselves, have strangely and horribly debauched one another; beside all their idolatry, there is more than brutish filthiness among them.

As in the days of Gibeah the story whereof you have Jud 19 .

Therefore he God, who hateth such workers of iniquity,

will remember their iniquity he will not pardon their iniquity, but charge it upon them: when God saith he will not remember, it is a promise of pardon; When he threatens he will remember, it is a threat of not pardoning.

He will visit their sins he will punish: see Hos 9:7 .

Poole: Hos 9:10

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness: the Lord speaks of himself in the person of a traveller, who unexpectedly in the wilderness findeth a vine loaded with grapes, which are most delightful and welcome to him; such love did God bear to Israel, i.e. a very strong and hearty love: the simile expresseth the greatness, not the cause, of the Divine love.

I saw your fathers not Abraham, or Isaac, and Jacob, but your fathers whom I brought out of Egypt.

As the first-ripe in the fig tree at her first time as the earliest ripe fruit, either of the fig tree as our version, or the first-ripe of any sweet and delicious fruit tree, as the word will bear, which are most valued and desired; so was Israel dear and valued.

They went to Baalpeor: this evinceth that the prophet speaketh not of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but of those who were brought out of Egypt, as appears in the story of their deportment in Shittim, Num 25:1-3 , where they committed idolatry with Baal-peor, of whose rites authors do variously discourse, some reporting them to have been practised with shameless looseness, as the rites of Bacchus, Venus, or Priapus among the Romans; others say, this idol of Moab had his name from a mountain in Moab where he was worshipped, and had a stately and famous temple; this mountain is mentioned Num 22:41 , with Num 23:28 ; and this is the more likely opinion.

Separated themselves they did consecrate and dedicate themselves; possibly some turned priests to the idol; however, they addicted themselves to and worshipped the idol, and brought their sacrifices.

To that shame: by way of contempt and detestation the prophet speaks of this idol, and gives it the name of shame in the abstract, to express the greatest degree of detestation of it, and of that they did.

Their abominations their idols, and way of worshipping them,

were according as they loved either as they fancied, or as the idolatrous women whom they loved were multiplied, so their idols were, for they took the idols with them.

Poole: Hos 9:11

Their glory their children or posterity, which was as much the glory of Israel, as their multiplying was above the common rate of other nations’ multiplying; it was to them a singular blessing, and performing of promise, and they did greatly rejoice and glory in this blessing, Ps 128 Pr 17:6 .

Shall fly away like a bird: it is proverbial, and speaks a sudden and unexpected loss of children. which vanish and are gone as a bird: see Pro 23:5 , where sudden loss of riches is expressed in the same proverb.

From the birth shall die as soon as born.

From the womb prove abortive, their mothers shall not bring the fruit of the womb to perfection, or alive into the world.

From the conception through barrenness their wives shall not conceive.

Haydock: Hos 9:1

Children, as they have exposed them to the fury of the Assyrians, (Calmet) or to their idols. (Drusius) ---

The prophet appears to demand vengeance through zeal; but it is only a prediction. (Calmet)

Haydock: Hos 9:1

Reward, or "present." The kings took the tithe, 1 Kings viii. 15. Other infidel nations rejoice in their wealth. Israel ought not to do so; and, in punishment of idolatry, it shall be despoiled. After Jeroboam II, all went to ruin.

Haydock: Hos 9:2

Deceive. The grapes shall yield no wine. (Calmet) ---

Spem mentita seges. (Horace ii. ep. 2. and 3. ode 1. and 16.)

Haydock: Hos 9:3

Egypt, through distress, chap viii. 13. (St. Jerome, ver. 6.) (Worthington) ---

Sua afforded no protection, and the country proved a grave to those who retired thither. ---

Unclean. The people observed these prescriptions, though they neglected the more important duties. Only some pious souls, like Tobias, Daniel, &c., refrained from such meats in exile. (Calmet) ---

Ezechiel (iv. 9.) foreshewed this by his bread. (St. Jerome)

Haydock: Hos 9:4

Wine. They shall be at a distance from the temple, and in a country where the wine will not be deemed pure. The Jews will drink none which they have not made; and they usually lift up the cup, and pour out a little in God's honour. This they could not do in Assyria, (Calmet) not having liberty to do all about the wine. ---

Sacrifices. The Israelites had long neglected to offer any in the temple, (Haydock) though they had no hindrance. In exile, the fruits, &c., were all accounted unclean, like meats used in mourning, (Calmet) which defiled those who partook of them, Deuteronomy xxvi. 14., and Numbers xix. 11. "The sacrifices of heretics are the bread of mourning. They offer them not to God, but to the dead, to wicked heresiarchs." (St. Jerome) ---

Soul. They have need enough of it. (Haydock) ---

"Let them gratify their appetite; I love not what is unclean." (St. Jerome)

Haydock: Hos 9:5

Lord, when he shall punish you, Isaias xxxiv. 6. (Haydock) ---

Israel did not go to the temple, but they kept the festivals and banquets in their own manner, the privation of which they would feel.

Haydock: Hos 9:6

Gather into the grave. Yet some shall escape, chap. xi. 11. ---

Silver, which they buried at the approach of the enemy, hoping to recover it when they should depart. The Arabs do so still, (Calmet) and the Indians likewise, that they may have something to support them in the next world! (Bernier) ---

Bur. Hebrew, "thorns." (Calmet)

Haydock: Hos 9:7

Mad. Israel shall promise itself all prosperity, not being inspired by God, but full of madness. (Worthington) ---

There were many false prophets. The true ones were often accounted idols, 4 Kings ix. 11., and Ezechiel iii. 25. (Calmet) ---

"What is said respecting Israel, in this prophet, must be understood of heretics, who being truly mad, utter falsehoods against God. (St. Jerome) ---

Septuagint, "and Israel shall be hurt like the prophet beside himself, the man having ( or hurried away by) the spirit." (Haydock)

Haydock: Hos 9:8

My God. I am such; but the false prophets strive to seduce you. (Calmet) ---

Jeroboam ought to have restrained the people, and he did the reverse, setting up a calf at Bethel, which proved more ruinous than the crime of Gabaa, (Judges xix.) or the election of Saul. "In ancient records, I cannot find that any have divided the Church but those who were appointed by God, priests and prophets, that is watchmen." (St. Jerome) ---

Indeed, almost all heresies owe their rise to the pride or lust of some who have been in high stations. ---

Madness. Hebrew, " and hatred in (marginal note: against) the," &c. (Protestants) (Haydock) ---

Instead of standing up for the people, he provokes God.

Haydock: Hos 9:9

Sin. As they have imitated the citizens of Gabaa, they may expect a similar fate. (Calmet)

Haydock: Hos 9:10

Top. These are the best. (Haydock) ---

The patriarchs were pleasing to God. He chose the Hebrews; but they began to worship Beelphegor or Adonis, even before the death of Moses. This worship was most shameful. What will not passion do when the gods shew the example!

Haydock: Hos 9:11

Conception. Their children, in whom they glory, shall be destroyed (Calmet) in the very embryo. (Haydock)

Gill: Hos 9:1

Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people,.... But rather mourn and lament, since such a load of guilt lay upon them, and they had so highly provoked the Lord to anger by their sins, and punishment would quickly be inflicted on them; and though they might be now in prosperity, through Jeroboam's success against their enemies, who by his victories had enlarged their border; yet they should not rejoice at it, as other people used to do on such occasions, by illumination of houses, making fires in the streets, feasting, and the like, since this prosperity would be but short lived: or if it was on account of the league made by Menahem with the king of Assyria, this would not last long; or on account of a good harvest, they need not so much rejoice as they that rejoice in harvest, since there would quickly be a famine among them: or rather it may respect rejoicing at their idols, and in their idolatrous worship, as other people, which is forbidden; such as instituting plays to the honour of them, making feasts before them, and dancing about them; whatever others might do, who knew not the true God, had not his law before them, nor his prophets sent to them to make known his will; who had been brought up in idolatry, adhered to their gods, and never forsook them; it ill became Israel to do the like. So the words may be rendered, "rejoice not, O Israel", at an idol ^q, or idols, "as other people", idolatrous ones; the word signifies "similitude" ^r or "likeness", which an idol is:

for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God; playing the harlot with many lovers; committing adultery with stocks and stones; worshipping idols, and so departing from God, the true God, they had professed to be their God, their God in covenant; who stood in the relation of a husband to them, but they proved treacherous to him, and were guilty of spiritual adultery, which is idolatry; and therefore had no cause to rejoice as other nations that never left their gods, but to take shame to themselves, and mourn over their sad departure; see Hos 1:3;

thou hast loved a reward upon every corn floor; alluding to the hire of a harlot, prostituting herself for it on a corn floor, or any where else, and that for a measure of corn, or for bread: it may point either at their giving the times of their corn floors to their idols, instead of giving them to the Lord; or to their ascribing their plenty of corn, and all good things to their worship of them, which they called their rewards, or hires their lovers gave them, Hos 2:5; or to their erecting of altars on their corn floors; as David erected one to the true God on the threshing floor of Araunah, 2Sa 24:24; and which they might do, either by way of thanksgiving for a good harvest, which they imputed to them; or in order to obtain one, but in vain, as follows. The Targum is,

"for you have erred from the worship of your God; you have loved to serve idols on all, corn floors.''

Gill: Hos 9:2

The floor and the winepress shall not feed them,.... Though their expectations from their worship of idols were large, they should find themselves mistaken; for there would not be a sufficiency of corn on the floor, nor of wine in the press, to supply them with what was necessary for their sustenance; either through a blight upon their fields and vineyards, or through the invasion of an enemy, treading them down, and spoiling and foraging them: or else supposing a sufficient quantity of corn and wine got in; yet those blessings should be either turned into curses, or carried off by the enemy, that they should do then, no good; or if they enjoyed them, yet they should receive no nourishment from them; but should become lean, and look like starved and famishing creatures in the midst of plenty; by all which it would appear that their idols could neither give them a sufficiency of provisions, nor make those nourishing to them they had:

and the new wine shall fail in her; in the congregation or land of Israel: or, "shall lie to her" ^s; shall not answer their expectations, but disappoint and deceive them; whereas they expected great plenty from the promising prospect of the vines, these by one means or another should be destroyed, so that they would yield but little, and balk them; see Hab 3:17.

Gill: Hos 9:3

They shall not dwell in the Lord's land,.... The land of Israel, or Canaan; which, though all the earth is the Lord's, was peculiarly his; which he had chosen for himself, and for this people; where he had his temple, and caused his Shechinah or divine Majesty to dwell in a very special manner, and where his worship and service were performed. So the Targum calls it the land of the Shechinah or majesty of the Lord. Sometimes it is called Immanuel's land, where the Messiah Immanuel, God with us, was to be born, and dwell, and where he did. Kimchi wrongly interprets this of Jerusalem only; and others of Judea; but it designs the whole land of promise, which God save by promise to the fathers of this people, and put them in the possession of, the tenure of which they held by their obedience; but they not living according to will, and in obedience to his laws, who was Lord of the land, sole Proprietor and Governor of it, he turned them out of it, and would not suffer them to continue any longer in it; and which was a great punishment indeed, to be driven out of such a land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and where they had been favoured with privileges and blessings of every kind;

but Ephraim shall return to Egypt; or the ten tribes; that is, some of them, who should flee thither for refuge and sustenance; when the Assyrian should invade their land, and besiege Samaria, they should go thither again, where their ancestors had formerly been in a state of bondage: this is prophesied of them, Deu 28:68;

and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria; that is, Ephraim or the ten tribes, the far greater part of there, should be taken captive, and carried into Assyria, and there eat food which by their law was unclean, as things sacrificed to idols, swine's flesh, and many others; or food that was not fit for men to eat, which nature abhorred; such bread as Ezekiel was bid to make and eat, Eze 4:9. This may be understood even of them that went to Egypt for help against the Assyrians, or for shelter from them, or for food to eat in the time of famine; who should be brought back again, and carried into Assyria, and there live a miserable and an uncomfortable life; who had been used to enjoy corn and wine, and plenty of all good things, to which these unclean things may be opposed.

Gill: Hos 9:4

They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord,.... This is either a threatening of the cessation of sacrifices, being carried into Assyria, a strange land, where it was not lawful to offer sacrifice, there being no temple nor altar to offer in or at; and so as they would not offer to the Lord when they should, now they shall not if they would: or this respects not, the future time of their exile, but their present time now, as Kimchi observes; and so is a reproof of their present sacrifices, which are forbidden to be observed; because they were offered not in faith, nor in sincerity, but hypocritically, and before their calves: besides, the future tease is sometimes put for the present; and this way goes Schmidt;

neither shall their sacrifices be pleasing unto him; unto the Lord, if they were offered; and is a reason why they should not, because unacceptable to him, and that for the reasons before mentioned:

their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners: all that eat thereof shall be polluted; as all that ate of the bread of such who were mourning for their dead, that partook of their funeral feasts, or ate bread with them at any time during their mourning, were defiled thereby, according to the Levitical law, and were unqualified for service, Lev 21:1; so the sacrifices of these people being offered up with a wicked mind instead of atoning for their sins, more and more defiled them; and, instead of being acceptable to God, were abominable to him:

for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord; in the captivity there was no house of the Lord for them to bring it into; and, when in their own land, they did not bring their offerings to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, as they should have done, but offered them before their calves at Dan and Bethel; and which is the thing complained of, that the bread for their souls, that is, the offerings accompanied with the "minchah", or bread offering, for the expiation of the sins of their souls, were not brought into the house of the Lord (the future for the present); or else, this being the case, their sacrifices were reckoned by the Lord as no other than common bread, which they ate for the sustenance of their lives.

Gill: Hos 9:5

What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the Lord? Since their sacrifices now were so disagreeable and displeasing to the Lord, and so unavailable to themselves, what would they do when in captivity, "in the solemn day", the seventh day of the week, appointed by the Lord for rest and religious worship; and in the first day of the month, which also was to be solemnly observed, by offering sacrifice, &c. and on feast days of the Lord's instituting, as the feasts of the passover, pentecost; and tabernacles? seeing those that carried and held them captive would not allow them time for such solemnities; nor would they be furnished with proper sacrifices; nor could they be accommodated with a proper place to offer them at; nor be able, in a strange land, and under hardships and miseries, to express that joy that is suitable to such occasions: thus should they learn, by sad experience, the want of those means and opportunities of serving the Lord, which in their own land they rejected and despised. Jarchi and Kimchi interpret this of the destruction of Israel, and of punishment inflicted on them at the time appointed by the Lord; and which would be a solemn time, a feast with the Lord, to which he should invite their enemies, and they should spill their blood as the blood of sacrifices; and when he would display the glory of his justice, truth, and faithfulness, before all the world. And it is asked, what will you do then? whither will you flee for help? or what sacrifice can you offer up to the Lord to atone for sin, or appease his wrath? will you be able to rejoice then? no, your joy will be turned into mourning; see Isa 10:3.

Gill: Hos 9:6

For, lo, they are gone, because of destruction,.... That is, many of the people of Israel were gone out of their own land to others, particularly to Egypt, because of the destruction that was coming upon them, and to avoid it; because of the Assyrian army which invaded their land, and besieged Samaria, and threatened them with entire destruction; and upon which a famine ensued, and which is thought by Kimchi to be here particularly meant;

Egypt shall gather them up: being dead; for they shall die there, perhaps by the pestilence, and never return to their own country, as they flattered themselves; and they shall make preparations for their funeral:

Memphis shall bury them; or they shall be buried there; which was a principal city in Egypt, here called Moph, in Isa 19:13, Noph. It was the metropolis of upper Egypt, and the seat of the Egyptian kings. In it, as Plutarch says ^t, was the sepulchre of Osiris; and some say its name so signifies. Near to it were the famous pyramids, as Strabo ^u says, supposed to be built for the sepulchre of them. Herodotus ^w places these pyramids at Memphis, and says there were three of them; the largest had several subterraneous chambers in it; the next in size had none; the smallest was covered with Ethiopic marble. Strabo, in the place referred to, speaks of many pyramids near it, of which three were very remarkable, and expressly says they were the burying places of the kings. Diodorus ^x agrees with these, as to the number of them, but places them fifteen miles from Memphis. Pliny ^y places them between Memphis and the Delta, six miles from Memphis; pretty near to which is Strabo's account, who in the above place says, they stood forty furlongs, or five miles, from the city. Near it was the lake of Charon or Acherusia, over which he ferried dead bodies from Memphis to the pyramids, or to the plains of the mummies, the Elysian fields. Now since this was so famous for the burying places of kings, there may be an allusion to it in this expression. Here also were buried their deities, the Apis or ox when it died;

the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them; such beautiful edifices as were made for the repositories or treasure houses for their silver; or were built or purchased at great expense of silver; or were decorated with it; now should lie in ruins, and be like a waste, desert, and desolate place, all overrun with nettles, and uninhabited:

briers shall be in their tabernacles; their dwelling houses, which being demolished, briers shall grow upon the ground where they stood, and overspread it; another token of desolation. The Targum interprets it of living creatures, beasts of prey, that should dwell there; wild cats particularly.

Gill: Hos 9:7

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come,.... In which the Lord would punish the people of Israel for their sins, and reward them in a righteous manner, according as their evil works deserved; which time, being fixed and appointed by him, are called "days"; and these, because near at hand, are said to be "come"; and this is repeated for the certainty of it:

Israel shall know it; by sad experience, that these days are come; and shall acknowledge the truth of the divine predictions, and the righteousness of God in his judgments. Schultens ^z, from the use of the phrase in the Arabic language, interprets it of Israel's suffering punishment; with which agrees the Septuagint version, "Israel shall be afflicted", or it shall go ill with him; and to the same purpose the Arabic version:

the prophet is a fool; so Israel said, before those days came, of a true prophet of the Lord, that he was a fool for prophesying of evil things, but now they shall find it otherwise. So the Targum,

"they of the house of Israel shall know that they who had prophesied to them were true prophets;''

but rather this is to be understood of false prophets, who, when the day of God's visitation shall come on Israel in a way of wrath and vengeance, will appear both to themselves and others to be fools, for prophesying good things to them, when evil was at hand:

the spiritual man is mad; he that was truly so, and prophesied under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, was accounted a madman for speaking against the idolatry of the times, and foretelling the judgments of God that would come upon the nation for it; but now it would be manifest, that not he, but such who pretended to be spiritual men, and to be directed and dictated by the Spirit of God, when they promised the people peace, though they walked after the imagination of their hearts, were the real madmen; who pursued the frenzies and fancies of their own minds, to the deception of themselves and the people, and called these the revelations of God, and pretended they came from the Spirit of God:

for the multitude of thine iniquities, and the great hatred; that is, either those evil days came upon them for their manifold sins and transgressions, which were hateful to God, and the cause of his hatred of them; or they were suffered to give heed to those foolish and mad prophets, because of their many sins, especially idolatry; and because of their great hatred of God, and of his true prophets, and of his laws and ordinances, of his word, will, and worship, and of one another, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to a judicial blindness and hardness of heart, to believe a lie, and whatsoever those false prophets declared unto them, because they did not like to retain him in their knowledge, to walk according to his law, and to believe his prophets. The Targum is,

"but the false prophets besotted them, so as to increase thy transgression, and strengthen thine iniquities.''

Gill: Hos 9:8

The watchman of Ephraim was with my God,.... Formerly the watchmen of Ephraim, or the prophets of Israel, were with the true God, whom the prophet calls his God; as Elijah and Elisha, who had communion and intimacy with him; had revelations and instructions from him; and were under the direction and inspiration of his Spirit, and prophesied in his name things according to his will, and for the good of his people: or "the watchman of Ephraim should be with my God"; on his side, and promote his worship and service, his honour and interest; and give the people warning from him, having heard the word at his mouth: but now they were not with him, nor for him, nor did as they should: or one that bore this character of a watchman in the ten tribes, pretended to be such a one, and would be thought to be with God, and to have his mind and will, and to be sincere for his glory:

but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways; the false prophet, the same with the watchman, instead of guiding and directing Ephraim in the right way in which he should go, lays snares for him in all the ways he takes, to lead him wrong, and draw him into sin, particularly into idolatry, both by his doctrine and example:

and hatred in the house of his God; and so became detestable and execrable it the house of his own god, the calf at Bethel, in the temple there: prophesying such things as in the event prove false, and drawing into such practices as brought on ruin and desolation. The Targum interprets it, of laying snares for their prophets, their true prophets; and Kimchi and Jarchi of slaying Zechariah the prophet in the temple.

Gill: Hos 9:9

They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah,.... Not the false prophets and watchmen only; but rather Ephraim, or the ten tribes, through their means became extremely corrupt in principle and practice; they had most sadly degenerated, and were deeply sunk and immersed in all manner of wickedness, and rooted in it, and continued obstinate and incorrigible, so that there was no hope of reformation among them; they had got to as great a pitch of wickedness, and were guilty of the like uncleanness, lewdness, barbarity, and cruelty, as were acted by the men of Gibeah, with respect to the Levite and his concubine, Jdg 19:1; for Gibeah of Benjamin is here meant, where the people asked a king, and rebelled against the words of the prophet, as some in Jarchi interpret it:

therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins: that is, God, my God, as the prophet calls him in Hos 9:8, will not forgive and forget their sins; pardon being often expressed by a non-remembrance of sins; but will make inquiry after them, and visit them in a way of wrath and vengeance, and punish for them as they deserve: they being obstinate and impenitent, and persisting in their sins, like the men of Gibeah and Benjamin.

Gill: Hos 9:10

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness,.... Not Jacob or Israel personally, with the few souls that went down with him into Egypt; for these died in Egypt, and never returned from thence, or came into the wilderness to be found; nor Israel in a spiritual sense, the objects of electing, redeeming, and calling grace; though it may be accommodated to them, who in their nature state are as in a wilderness, in a forlorn, hopeless, helpless, and uncomfortable condition; in which the Lord finds them, seeking them by his Son in redemption, and by his Spirit in the effectual calling; when they are like grapes, not in themselves, being destitute of all good, and having nothing but sin and wickedness in them; for, whatever good thing is in them at conversion, it is not found, but put there; but the simile may serve to express the great and unmerited love of God to his people, who are as agreeable to him as grapes in the wilderness to a thirsty traveller; and in whom he takes great delight and complacency, notwithstanding all their sinfulness and unworthiness; and bestows abundance of grace upon them, and makes them like clusters of grapes indeed; and such were many of the Jewish fathers, and who are here intended, even the people of Israel brought out of Egypt into the wilderness of Arabia, through which they travelled to Canaan: here the Lord found them, took notice and care of them, provided for them, and protected them, and gave them, many tokens of his love and affection; see Deu 32:10; and they were as acceptable to him, and he took as much delight and pleasure in them, as one travelling through the deserts of Arabia, or any other desert, would rejoice at finding a vine laden with clusters of grapes. The design of this metaphor is not to compare Israel with grapes, because of any goodness in them, and as a reason of the Lord's delight in them; for neither for quantity nor quality were they like them, being few, and very obstinate and rebellious; but to set forth the great love of God to them, and his delight and complacency in them; which arose and sprung, not from any excellency in them, but from his own sovereign good will and pleasure; see Deu 7:6;

I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time; the Lord looked upon their ancestors when they were settled as a people, in their civil and church state, upon their being brought out of Egypt, with as much pleasure as a man beholds the first ripe fig his fig tree produces after planting it, or the first it produces in the season, the fig tree bearing twice in a year; but the first is commonly most desired, as being most rare and valuable; and such were the Israelites to the Lord at first, Mic 7:1. This is observed, to aggravate their ingratitude to the Lord, which soon discovered itself; and to suggest that their posterity were like them, who, though they had received many favours from the Lord, as tokens of his affection to them, and delight in them; yet behaved in a most shocking and shameful manner to him:

but they went to Baalpeor: or "went into Baalpeor" ^a; committed whoredom with that idol, even in the wilderness where the Lord found them and showed so much regard to them; this refers to the history in Num 25:1. Baalpeor is by some interpreted "the lord" or "god of opening": and was so called, either from his opening his mouth in prophecy, as Ainsworth ^b thinks, as Nebo, a god of Babylon, had his name from prophesying; or from his open mouth, with which this idol was figured, as a Jewish writer ^c observes; whose worshipper took him to be inspired, and opened their mouths to receive the divine afflatus from him: others interpret it "the lord" or "god of nakedness"; because his worshippers exposed to him their posteriors in a shameful manner, and even those parts which ought to be covered; and this is the sense of most of the Jewish writers. So, in the Jerusalem Talmud ^d, the worship of Peor is represented in like manner, and as most filthy and obscene, as it is by Jarchi ^e, who seems to have taken his account from thence; and even Maimonides ^f says it was a known thing that the worship of Peor was by uncovering of the nakedness; and this he makes to be the reason why God commanded the priests to make themselves breeches to cover their nakedness in the time of service, and why they might not go up to the altar by steps, that their nakedness might not be discovered; in short, they took this Peor to be no other than a Priapus; and in this they are followed by many Christians, particularly by Jerom on this place, who observes that Baalpeor is the god of the Moabites, whom we may call Priapus; and so Isidore ^g says, there was an idol in Moab called Baal, on Mount Fegor, whom the this call Priapus, the god of gardens; but Mr. Selden ^h rejects this notion, and contends that Peor is either the name of a mountain, of which Isidore, just now mentioned, speaks; see Num 23:28; where Baal was worshipped, and so was called from thence Baalpeor; as Jupiter Olympius, Capitolinus, &c. is so called from the mountains of Olympus, Capitolinus, &c. where divine honours are paid him; or else the name of a man, of some great person in high esteem, who was deified by the Moabites, and worshipped by them after his death; and so Baalpeor may be the same as "Lord Peor"; and it seems most likely that Peor is the name of a man, at least of an idol, since we read of Bethpeor, or the temple of Peor, in Deu 34:6;

and separated themselves unto that shame; they separated themselves from God and his worship, and joined themselves to that shameful idol, and worshipped it, thought by many, as before observed, to be the Priapus of the Gentiles, in whose worship the greatest of obscenities were used, not fit to be named: so that this epithet of shame is with great propriety given it, and aggravates the sin of Israel, that such a people should be guilty of such filthy practices; though Baal, without supposing him to he a Priapus, may be called "that shame", for Baal and Bosheth, which signifies shame, are some times put for each other; so Jerubbaal, namely Gideon, is called Jerubbesheth, Jdg 8:35; and Eshbaal appears plainly to be the same son of Saul, whose name was Ishbosheth, 1Ch 8:33; and Meribbaal is clearly the same with Mephibosheth 1Ch 8:34; yea, it may be observed that the prophets of Baal are called, in the Septuagint version of 1Ki 18:25; προφητας της αισχυνης, "the prophets of that shame"; every idol, and all idolatry being shameful, and the cause of shame, sooner or later, to their worshippers; especially when things obscene were done in their religious rites, as were in many of the Heathens in which the Jews followed them; see Jer 3:24;

and their abominations were according as they loved: or, "as they loved them", the daughters of Moab; for it was through their impure love of them that they were drawn into these abominations, or to worship idols, which are often called abominations; or, as Joseph Kimchi reads the words, and gives the sense of them, "and they were abominations as I loved them"; that is, according to the measure of the love wherewith I loved them, so they were abominations in mine eyes; they were as detestable now as they were loved before.

Gill: Hos 9:11

As for Ephraim, their glory shall flee away like a bird,.... That is, suddenly, swiftly, and irrecoverably, and never return more; which some understand of God their glory, and of his departure from them, as in Hos 9:12; others of their wealth and riches, and whatever was glorious and valuable among them, which should fly away from them in a moment, when taken and carried captive; rather their numerous posterity, in which they were very fruitful, according to their name, and in which they gloried, as children are the glory of their parents, Pro 17:6; which sense agrees with what follows, and which explains the manner of their fleeing away, and the periods of it:

from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception; that is, some of them, as soon as they were born; others while in the womb, being abortives; or, however, when they should, or as soon as they did, come from thence; and others, as soon as conceived, never come to any thing; or not conceived at all, as Kimchi interprets it, the women being barren.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Hos 9:1

¹ tn Heb “do not rejoice unto jubilation”; KJV “Rejoice not…for joy”; NASB “Do not rejoice…with exultation.”

² tn Heb “you have committed adultery”; NRSV “you have played the whore.”

³ tn Heb “you love the wages of the prostitute” (NIV similar); NAB “loving a harlot’s hire.”

NET Notes: Hos 9:2

¹ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “her” (so KJV, ASV). This is taken as a collective singular (so also most modern English versions).

NET Notes: Hos 9:6

¹ tn The deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “Behold!”) is used frequently in prophetic announcements, introducing a solemn or important declaration, particularly in threats of judgment (BDB 244 s.v. הִנֵּה b.β). Many modern English versions leave this particle untranslated here.

² tn The conjunction כִּי (ki) introduces a concessive clause: “Although, when, if, even if” (BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c.β). It has a force approximating “even if” (so NIV, NCV, NRSV, CEV, NLT), but it represents a situation as more likely to occur than אִם (‘im, “if”). The concessive use of כִּי is normally followed by an imperfect, but occasionally a perfect is used, as is the case here (e.g., Mic 7:8; Nah 1:10; Pss 21:12; 119:83).

³ tn The verb קָבַץ (qavats, “to gather together”) should be nuanced “grab hold” in this context (HALOT 1063 s.v. קבץ). This pictures a personified Egypt taking the fugitives prisoner.

⁴ tn Heb “the treasured things of their silver”; NASB, NIV, TEV, NLT “treasures of silver.”

⁵ tn Heb “their tents” (so NIV, NRSV); CEV “your tents.”

NET Notes: Hos 9:7

¹ tn Heb “the days of the visitation”; NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “the days of punishment.”

² tn Heb “has come” (בָּאוּ, ba’u). The two perfect tense (suffix-conjugation) verbs בָּאוּ (Qal perfect 3rd person common plural from בּוֹא, bo’, “to come”) repeated in this verse are both examples of the so-called “prophetic perfect”: the perfect, which connotes completed or factual action, is used in reference to future events to emphasize the certainty of the announced event taking place.

³ tn Heb “the days of the retribution”; NIV “of reckoning”; NRSV “of recompense.”

⁴ tn Heb “has come”; NIV “are at hand”; NLT “is almost here.”

⁵ tc The Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex (the MT ms employed for BHS) both place the atnach (colon-divider) after יֵדְעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל (yedÿ’u yisra’el, “Let Israel know!”), indicating that this line belongs with 9:7a (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV). However, the LXX reads κακωθήσεται (kakwqhsetai) which reflects an underlying Vorlage of יָרֵעוּ (yare’u, Qal imperfect 3rd person common plural from יָרַע, yara’, “to cry”), as opposed to the MT יֵדְעוּ (yedÿ’u, Qal jussive 3rd common plural from יָדַע, yada’, “to know”). The Old Greek connects יֵדְעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל (“Israel cries out”) with the following lines (cf. NRSV), which appear to be quotations of Israel mocking Hosea. Aquila (ἔγνω, egnw) and Symmachus (γνώσεται, gnwsetai) both reflect the proto-MT tradition. For a discussion of this textual and syntactical problem, see H. W. Wolff, Hosea (Hermeneia), 150.

⁶ tn Or “is distraught”; cf. CEV, NLT “are crazy.”

⁷ tn Heb “the man of the Spirit”; NAB, NRSV “spirit.”

⁸ tn Or “is driven to despair.” The term מְשֻׁגָּע (mÿshugga’, Pual participle masculine singular from שָׁגַע, shaga’, “to be mad”) may be understood in two senses: (1) It could be a predicate adjective which is a figure of speech: “to be maddened,” to be driven to despair (Deut 28:34); or (2) it could be a substantive: “a madman,” referring to prophets who attempted to enter into a prophetic state through whipping themselves into a frenzy (1 Sam 21:16; 2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26; see BDB 993 s.v. שָׁגַע). The prophetic context of 9:7 favors the latter option (which is followed by most English versions). Apparently, the general populace viewed these mantics with suspicion and questioned the legitimacy of their claim to be true prophets (e.g., 2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26).

⁹ tn Heb “great.”

NET Notes: Hos 9:8

¹ tc The Leningrad Codex (the MT ms used for BHS) and Aleppo Codex both place the atnach (colon divider) after אלהי (“my God”) and connect נָבִיא (navi’, “prophet”) with the following colon. On the other hand, BHS suggests that נָבִיא (navi’, “prophet”) belongs with the first colon. For discussion of this syntactical problem, see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Hosea (AB), 533-34.

² tc The syntax of this line is difficult, and the text is questionable. The major options include: (1) Adopt the MT vocalization and BHS line division: צֹפֶה אֶפְרַיִם עִם־אֱלֹהָי נָבִיא (tsofeh ’efrayim ’im-elohay navi’, “The prophet is a watchman over Ephraim with my God [= on behalf of God]”). There are two problems with this: (a) Although BHS places נָבִיא (“prophet”) with this colon, the Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex both connect נָבִיא with the next colon (as do KJV, ASV). (b) The phrase עִם־אֱלֹהָי (“with my God”) is difficult to explain. (2) Adopt the MT vocalization and the MT line division: עִם־אֱלֹהָי צֹפֶה אֶפְרַיִם (“Ephraim is a watchman with my God,” cf. NASB). The problem with this, of course, is that Ephraim hardly fits the description of a prophetic watchman. (3) Revocalize the MT and adopt BHS line division: צֹפֶה אֶפְרַיִם עַם אֱלֹהָי נָבִיא (“Ephraim – the people of my God! – lies in ambush for the prophet”) This involves: (a) revocalization of the preposition עִם (’im, “with”) to the noun עַם (’am, “people”), (b) taking עַם־אֱלֹהָי (“people of my God”) in apposition to אֶפְרַיִם (“Ephraim”), and (c) nuancing צֹפֶה as “to lie in wait (=set ambush)” (e.g., Ps 37:32). This is contextually attractive and harmonizes well with the following line: “traps are laid along all of his paths.” However, it has two problems: (a) there is no textual evidence supporting the revocalization of עם as “people” and (b) the unusual nuance “to lie in wait” for צֹפֶה occurs only in Ps 37:32, where it takes the preposition לְ (lamed, i.e., “to lie in wait for the righteous”; HALOT 1044 s.v. צפה 4). (4) Emend אֱלֹהָי (“my God”) to אֹהֶל (’ohel, “tent”), as suggested in the BHS textual apparatus: אֶפְרַיִם עַם־אֹהֶל נָבִיא צֹפֶה (“Ephraim spies on the prophet’s tent”). The verb צָפָה may mean “to spy” (BDB 859 s.v. צָפָה; HALOT 1044 s.v. צפה 3); however, the preposition עִם (’im) does not normally mean “upon” and צָפָה is not used with עִם elsewhere.

³ tn Or “Ephraim is a watchman with my God”; cf. ASV, NASB.

⁴ tn Heb “with my God” (so ASV, NASB).

⁵ tn Heb “bird trap of a bird catcher” or “snare of a fowler” (so KJV).

⁶ tc Or “The prophet is like a trap along all of his paths.” The Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex (ms used in BHS) both connect נָבִיא (navi’, “prophet”) with this colon. On the other hand, BHS places נָבִיא (“prophet”) at the end of the preceding colon.

⁷ tn Heb “house.” The term בַּיִת (bayit, “house”) is used as a figure of speech, referring to either (1) the temple or official sanctuaries (so TEV, CEV) or (2) the land of Israel (e.g., Hos 9:15).

NET Notes: Hos 9:9

¹ tn Or more literally, “they are deeply corrupted.” The two verbs הֶעְמִיקוּ־שִׁחֵתוּ (he’miqu-shikhetu; literally, “they have made deep, they act corruptly”) are coordinated without a conjunction vav to form a verbal hendiadys: the second verb represents the main idea, while the first functions adverbially (GKC 386-87 §120.g). Here Gesenius suggests “they are deeply/radically corrupted.” Several translations mirror the syntax of this hendiadys: “They have deeply corrupted themselves” (KJV, ASV, NRSV), “They have been grievously corrupt” (NJPS), and “They are hopelessly evil” (TEV). Others reverse the syntax for the sake of a more graphic English idiom: “They have gone deep in depravity” (NASB) and “They have sunk deep into corruption” (NIV). Some translations fail to represent the hendiadys at all: “You are brutal and corrupt” (CEV). The translation “They are deeply corrupted” mirrors the Hebrew syntax, but “They have sunk deep into corruption” is a more graphic English idiom and is preferred here (cf. NAB “They have sunk to the depths of corruption”).

NET Notes: Hos 9:10

¹ tn Heb “fathers”; a number of more recent English versions use the more general “ancestors” here.

NET Notes: Hos 9:11

¹ tn Heb “their glory” (so NASB); TEV “Israel’s greateness.”

² tn Heb “no childbearing, no pregnancy, no conception.” The preposition מִן (min) prefixed to the three parallel nouns functions in a privative sense, indicating deprivation (BDB 583 s.v. מִן 7).

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:1

Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, ^{( a )} as [other] people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved ^{( b )} a reward upon every cornfloor.

^{( a )} For even though all other people should escape, yet you will be punished.

^{( b )} You have committed idolatry in hope of reward, and to have your barns filled ((Jer 44:17)), as a harlot that had rather live by playing the whore, than to be provided for by her own husband.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:2

^{( c )} The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.

^{( c )} These outward things that you seek will be taken from you.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:4

They shall not offer ^{( d )} wine [offerings] to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices [shall be] unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread ^{( e )} for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD.

^{( d )} All their doings both with regard to administration and religion, will be rejected as polluted things.

^{( e )} The meat offering which they offered for themselves.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:5

What will ye do ^{( f )} in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?

^{( f )} When the Lord will take away all the occasions of serving him, which will be the most grievous part of your captivity, when you will see yourselves cut off from God.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:6

For, lo, they are gone because of ^{( g )} destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant [places] for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns [shall be] in their tabernacles.

^{( g )} Even though they think to escape by fleeing the destruction that is at hand, yet they will be destroyed in the place where they flee for help.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:7

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know [it]: ^{( h )} the prophet [is] a fool, the spiritual man [is] mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.

^{( h )} Then they will know that they were deluded by those who claimed themselves to be their prophets and spiritual men.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:8

The watchman of Ephraim ^{( i )} [was] with my God: [but] the prophet [is] a snare of a fowler in all his ways, [and] hatred in the house of his God.

^{( i )} The Prophet's duty is to bring men to God, and not to be a snare to pull them from God.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:9

They ^{( k )} have deeply corrupted [themselves], as in the days of Gibeah: [therefore] he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.

^{( k )} This people is so rooted in their wickedness, that Gibeah, which was similar to Sodom, was never more corrupt; (Jdg 19:22).

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:10

I found Israel like ^{( l )} grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: [but] they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto [that] shame; and [their] abominations were according ^{( m )} as they loved.

^{( l )} Meaning, that he esteemed them and delighted in them in this way.

^{( m )} They were as abominable to me, as their lovers the idols.

Geneva Bible: Hos 9:11

[As for] Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, ^{( n )} and from the womb, and from the conception.

^{( n )} Signifying that God would destroy their children by these different means, and so consume them by little and little.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Hos 9:1-17

1 The distress and captivity of Israel for their sins.

MHCC: Hos 9:1-6

Israel gave rewards to their idols, in the offerings presented to them. It is common for those who are niggardly in religion, to be prodigal upon their lusts. Those are reckoned as idolaters, who love a reward in the corn-floor better than a reward in the favour of God and in eternal life. They are full of the joy of harvest, and have no disposition to mourn for sin. When we make the world, and the things of it, our idol and our portion, it is just with God to show us our folly, and correct us. None may expect to dwell in the Lord's land, who will not be subject to the Lord's laws, or be influenced by his love. When we enjoy the means of grace, we ought to consider what we shall do, if they should be taken from us. While the pleasures of communion with God are out of the reach of change, the pleasant places purchased with silver, or in which men deposit silver, are liable to be laid in ruins. No famine is so dreadful as that of the soul.

MHCC: Hos 9:7-10

Time had been when the spiritual watchmen of Israel were with the Lord, but now they were like the snare of a fowler to entangle persons to their ruin. The people were become as corrupt as those of Gibeah, Judges 19; and their crimes should be visited in like manner. At first God had found Israel pleasing to Him, as grapes to the traveller in the wilderness. He saw them with pleasure as the first ripe figs. This shows the delight God took in them; yet they followed after idolatry.

MHCC: Hos 9:11-17

God departs from a people, or from a person, when he withdraws his goodness and mercy from them; and when the Lord is departed, what can the creature do? Even though, for the present, good things seem to remain, yet the blessing is gone if God is gone. Even the children should perish with the parents. The Divine wrath dries up the root, and withers the fruit of all comforts; and the scattered Jews daily warn us to beware, lest we neglect or abuse the gospel. Yet every smiting is not a drying up of the root. It may be that God intends only to smite so that the sap may be turned to the root, that there may be more of root graces, more humility, patience, faith, and self-denial. It is very just that God should bring judgments on those who slight his offered mercy.

Matthew Henry: Hos 9:1-6

Here, I. The people of Israel are charged with spiritual adultery: O Israel! thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, Hos 9:1. Their covenant with God was a marriage-covenant, by which they were joined to him as their God, renouncing all others. But when they set up idols and worshipped them, when they fled to creatures for succour and put a confidence in them, they went a whoring from God as their God, and honoured the pretenders and rivals with the affection, adoration, and confidence, which were due to God only. Other people were idolaters, but that sin was not, in them, going a whoring from God, as it was in Israel that had been married to him. Note, The sins of those who have made a profession of religion and relation to God are more provoking to him than the sins of others. As a proof of their going a whoring from God, it is charged upon them that they loved a reward upon every corn-floor. 1. They loved to give rewards to their idols, in the offerings and first-fruits they presented to them out of every corn-floor. They took a strange pleasure in serving their idols with that which they would have grudged to consecrate to God and employ in his service. Note, It is common for those that are niggardly in the expenses of their religion to be very prodigal in spending upon their lusts. Or, 2. They loved to receive rewards from their idols; and such they reckoned the fruits of the earth to be: These are my rewards, which my lovers have given me, Hos 2:12. Note, Those are directly disposed to spiritual idolatry that love a reward in the corn-floor better than a reward in the favour of God and eternal life.

II. They are forbidden to rejoice as other people do: " Rejoice not, O Israel! for joy. Do not expect to rejoice. What peace, what joy, what hast thou to do with either, while thy whoredoms and witchcrafts are so many?"2Ki 9:19-22. Be not disposed to rejoice, for it does not become thee, but rather to be afflicted, and mourn, and weep, Jam 4:9. Judah, that keeps close to the true God, nay, and other people that never knew him nor could ever be charged with revolting from him, may be allowed to rejoice, as not having so much cause to be ashamed as Israel has, that has gone a whoring from him. Some think that they had at this time particular occasions for joy, probably upon the account of some losses recovered, or some advantages gained, or some league made with a potent ally, for which they had public rejoicings, as other people used to have upon such occasions; but God sends to them not to rejoice. Note, Joy is forbidden fruit to wicked people. They must not rejoice, because they have gone a whoring from their God; and therefore, 1. Whatever it was that they rejoiced in, it would be no security nor advantage to them, so long as they were at a distance from God and at war with him. Note, We are likely to have small joy of any of our creature-comforts if we make not God our chief joy. 2. The sense of sin and dread of wrath ought to be a damp upon their joy and a strong alloy to all their comforts. Note, Those who by departing from God have made work for repentance have thereby marred their own mirth, till they return and make their peace with God.

III. They are threatened with destroying judgments for their spiritual whoredoms, according to what was said long before. Psa 73:27, Thou hast destroyed all those that go a whoring from thee. It is here threatened,

1. That their land shall not yield its wonted increase. Canaan, that fruitful land, shall be turned into barrenness for the wickedness of those that dwell therein. They love the reward in the corn-floor, and are so full of the joy of harvest that they have no disposition at all to mourn for their sins; and therefore God will, for their effectual humiliation, take away from them, not only their delights and dainties, but even their necessary food (Hos 9:2): The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, much less feast them; they shall either be blasted by the hand of God or plundered by the hand of man. The new wine with which they used to make merry shall fail in her. Note, When we make the world, and the things of it, our idol and portion, above what they were designed for, it is just with God to deny us even support and nourishment from them, according to that which they were designed for, to show us our folly and correct us for it. Let those miss of their food in the corn-floor that look for their reward in the corn-floor. We forfeit the good things of this world if we love them as the best things.

2. That their land shall not only cease to feed them, but cease to lodge them and to be a habitation for them; it shall spue them out, as it had done the Canaanites before them (Hos 9:3): They shall not dwell any longer in the Lord's land. The land of Canaan was in a peculiar manner the Lord's land, the land of the Shechinah (so the Chaldee), the land of the Lord of the world (so the Arabic); he whose all the earth is (Psa 24:1) took that for his demesne. The land is mine, says God, Lev 25:23. They had used it, or abused it rather, as if it had been their own, had not paid the rent, nor done the services, due to God as their landlord, and therefore God justly enters, and takes possession of it, they having forfeited their lease. "It is my land "(says God) "and I will make it appear, for they shall be turned off, as bad tenants, and be made to know that, though they thought themselves freeholders, they were but tenants at will."Note, It is for the honour of God's justice and holiness that those who go a whoring from God should not be suffered to dwell upon his land; and therefore, sooner or later, the wicked shall be chased out of the world. Or it is called the Lord's land because it was the holy land, Immanuel's land, the land that had peculiar tokens of God's favour to it, and presence in it, where God was known and his name was great, where God's prophets and oracles were; it was a kind of copy of the earthly paradise, and a type of the heavenly one. It was a great privilege to have a lot in such a land as this. It was a great sin and folly to rebel against God, and go a whoring from him, in such a land as this, to deal unjustly in a land of uprightness, Isa 26:10. And it was a sad and sore judgment to be driven out from such a land as this; it was like driving our first parents out of the garden of Eden, and almost amounted to an exclusion out of the heavenly Canaan. Note, Those cannot expect to dwell in the Lord's land that will not be subject to the Lord's laws, nor be influenced by his love. Those have forfeited the privileges of the church that conform not to the rules of it.

3. That, when they are turned out from the Lord's land, they shall have no rest nor satisfaction in any other land. When Cain was driven out from the presence of the Lord he was a fugitive and a vagabond ever after, and dwelt in the land of trembling. So Israel here. Some shall return into Egypt, the old house of bondage; thither they shall flee from the Assyrian (Hos 8:13) and they shall lose and ruin themselves where they thought to hide and help themselves. Others shall be carried captives to Assyria and there shall be forced to eat unclean things, either (1.) Such things as were not fit for men to eat, that which is rotten and putrefied, intimating that they shall be reduced to the utmost poverty, as the prodigal that would fain have filled his belly with the husks. Or, (2.) Such things as were not fit for Jews to eat, being prohibited by their law. It is probable that while they were in their own land, however disobedient in other things, they kept up the distinction of meats, and prided themselves in that; but, since they would not keep the law of God in other things, they should not be suffered to keep it in that, and it was a just punishment of their sin in eating things offered to idols. Note, When at any time we suffer in our food, and either through want or for our health are forced to eat or drink that which is unpleasing, we must acknowledge that God is righteous, because we have sinned about our food, and have indulged ourselves too much in that which is pleasing.

4. That in the land of their enemies, to which they shall be driven, they shall have no opportunity either of giving honour to God or obtaining favour with God, by offering any acceptable sacrifice to him; they should not be in a capacity of keeping up any face or show of religion among them; "and so"(as Dr. Pocock expresses it) "should be as it were quite cut off from any expression of relation to him, from all signs of grace, and means of reconciliation with him, which would be to them a token of their being rejected of God, estranged from him, and no more owned by him as his people."(1.) They shall have no sacrifices to offer, nor any altar to offer them on, nor priests to offer them; they shall not so much as offer drink-offerings to the Lord, much less any other sacrifices. (2.) If they should offer them, neither they nor their sacrifices shall be pleasing to him, for they cannot have any legal offerings, nor are their hearts humbled. (3.) Instead of their sacrifices of joy and praise, they shall eat the bread of mourners; they shall live desolate, and disconsolate, mourning for the death of their relations and their own miseries, so that if they had opportunity of sacrificing they should never be themselves in a frame fit for it; for they were forbidden to eat of the holy things in their mourning, Deu 26:14. All that eat of the bread of mourners are polluted, and incapacitated to partake of the altar. (4.) Their bread for their soul, the bread which they must either eat or starve, the bread which they shall have for the support of their lives, shall not come into the house of the Lord; they shall have no house of the Lord to bring it to, or, if they had, it is such as is not fit to be brought, nor are they rightly disposed to bring it. (5.) The return of the days of their sacred and solemn feasts would therefore be very melancholy and uncomfortable to them (Hos 9:5): What will you do in the solemn day, in the sabbath, the solemn day of every week, in the new moons, the solemn days of every month, at the return of the times for keeping the passover, pentecost, and feast of the tabernacles, the solemn days of every year, the days of the feasts of the Lord? Note, The feasts of the Lord are solemn days; and, when we are invited to those feasts, we ought to consider seriously what we shall do. But the question is here put to those who were to be deprived of the benefit and comfort of those solemn feasts, " What will you do then? You will then spend those days in sorrow and lamentation which, if it had not been your own fault, you might have been spending in joy and praise. You will then be made to know the worth of mercies by the want of them and to prize spiritual bread by being made to feel a famine of it."Note, When we enjoy the means of grace we ought to consider what we shall do if ever we should know the want of them, if either they should be taken from us or we be disabled to attend upon them.

5. That they should perish in the land of their dispersion (Hos 9:6): For, lo, they have gone out of the Lord's land, where they might have spent both their sabbath days and other days with comfort, gone because of destruction, gone to Egypt because of the destruction of their own country by the Assyrians, flattering themselves with hopes that they shall return when the storm is over; but those hopes also shall fail them; they shall find there are graves in Egypt, as their murmuring ancestors said (Exo 14:11), graves for them; for Egypt shall gather them up, as dead men are gathered up and carried forth to the grave, and Memphis (one of the chief cities of Egypt) shall bury them. Gathering and burying are put together, Jer 8:2; Job 27:19. Note, Those that think presumptuously to flee from the judgments of God are likely enough tp meet their death where they hoped to save their lives.

6. That their land, which they left behind and to which they hoped to return, should become a desolation: As for their tabernacles, where they formerly dwelt and where they kept their stores, the pleasant places for their silver, they shall be demolished and laid in ruins, to such a degree that they shall be overgrown with nettles; so that if they should survive the trouble, and return to their own land again, they would find it neither fruitful nor habitable; it would afford them neither food nor lodging. Note, Those that make their money their god reckon the places of their silver their pleasant places, as those that make the Lord their God reckon his tabernacles amiable and his ordinances their pleasant things, Isa 64:11. But, while the pleasures of communion with God are out of the reach of chance and change, the pleasant places of men's silver, which were purchased with silver, or in which they deposited their silver, or which were beautified and adorned with silver, are liable to be laid in ruins, in nettles, and therewith all the pleasure men took in them.

Matthew Henry: Hos 9:7-10

For their further awakening, it is here threatened,

I. That the destruction spoken of shall come speedily. They shall have no reason to hope for a long reprieve, for the judgment slumbers not; it is at the door (Hos 9:7): The days of visitation have come, and there shall be no more delay; the days of recompence have come, which they have been so often warned to expect; their prophets have told them that destruction would come, and now it has come, and the time of the divine patience has expired. Note, 1. The day of God's judgments is both a day of visitation, in which men's sins are enquired into and brought to light, and a day of recompence, in which men's doom will be passed, and a reward given to every man according to his work; the strict visitation is in order to a just retribution. 2. This day of visitation and recompence is hastening on apace. It is sure; it is near; as if it had already come.

II. That hereby they shall be made ashamed of their sentiments concerning their prophets. When the day of visitation comes Israel shall know it, shall be made to know that by sad experience which they would not know by instruction. Israel shall know then what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart from God, and what a fearful thing it is to fall into his hands. When thy hand is lifted up they will not see, but they shall see. Israel shall know the difference between true prophets and false. 1. They shall know then that the pretenders to prophecy, who flattered them in their sins, and rocked them asleep in their security, and told them that they should have peace though they went on, however they pretended to be spiritual men (as Ahab's prophets did, 1Ki 22:24) were fools and madmen, and not true prophets; they deceived themselves and those to whom they prophesied. But why would God suffer his people Israel to be imposed upon by those false prophets? He answers, " It is for the multitude of thy iniquity which, in contempt of the divine law, thou hast persisted in, and, for the great hatred of the true prophets, that reproved thee, in God's name, for it."Note, Because men receive not the love of the truth, but conceive a hatred of it, and by the multitude of their iniquities bid defiance to it, therefore God shall send them strong delusions, to believe a lie, so strong that they shall not be undeceived till the day of visitation and recompence comes, which will convince them of the folly and madness of those that seduced them and of their own folly and madness in suffering themselves to be seduced by them. 2. They shall know then whether the true prophets, that were really spiritual men, guided by the Spirit of God, were such as they called and counted them, fools and madmen; and they shall be convinced that they were so far from being so that they were the wise men of their times, and God's faithful ambassadors to them. When Israel saw that none of Samuel's words fell to the ground they knew he was established to be a prophet (1Sa 3:20); and so here, when God fulfils the word of his messengers, by bringing the days of recompence they foretold, then those that despised and ridiculed them, and thought Bedlam the fittest place for them, will be ashamed of the multitude of their iniquities of that kind, and of their great hatred, for which God brings upon them this swift destruction. Mocking the messengers of the Lord was the sin they were punished for, and so made ashamed of.

III. That hereby the wickedness of the false prophets themselves shall be manifested to their shame (Hos 9:8): " The watchman of Ephraim was with my God; he had been formerly. They had a set of worthy good ministers, that kept close to God and maintained communion with him; but now they have a race of corrupt, malignant, persecuting prophets, that are the ring-leaders of all mischief."Or, "The watchman of Ephraim now pretends to have been with my God, and prefaces his lies with, Thus saith the Lord; but he is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and is cunning to draw the simple into sin and the upright into trouble; and he is so full of hatred and enmity to goodness and good men that he has become hatred itself in the house of his God, or against the house of his God. "Note, Wicked prophets are the worst of men; their sins against God are most heinous, and their plots against religion most dangerous. They may boast that they are watchmen, speculators, and, as far as speculation goes, they may be right, and with my God, may have their heads full of good notions; but look into their lives, and they are the snare of a fowler in all their ways, catching for themselves and making a prey of others; look into their hearts, and they are hatred in the house of my God, very malicious and spiteful against good ministers and good people. Woe unto thee, O land! unto thee, O church! that hast such watchmen, such prophets, that are seers, but not doers! Corruptio optimi est pessima - The best things, when corrupted, become the worst.

IV. That God will now reckon with them for the sins of their fathers, which they have trod in the steps of, Hos 9:9, Hos 9:10. 1. They were as bad as their fathers: They have deeply corrupted themselves; they are rooted and riveted in sin; they are far gone in the depths of Satan (Isa 31:6), so that it is next to impossible that they should be recovered; the stain of their corruption is deep, not to be got out; it is as scarlet and crimson, or as the spots of the leopard: and it is their own fault; they have corrupted themselves, have polluted and hardened their own hearts, as in the days of Gibeah, when the Levite's concubine was abused to death by the men of Gibeah and the whole tribe of Benjamin patronised the villany; that was a time of deep corruption indeed, and such were the present days. Lewdness and wickedness were as impudent and daring now as in the days of Gibeah; and therefore what can be expected but such a vengeance as was then taken on Gibeah? Every tribe is now as bad as the tribe of Benjamin then was, and therefore may expect to be brought as low as that tribe then was. 2. They shall therefore be reckoned with for their fathers' sins: He will remember their iniquity and visit their sins, the iniquity they have by kind and by entail, the sin that runs in the blood; the sin of the father shall now be visited upon the children. Hence God takes occasion to upbraid them with the degeneracy and apostasy of their ancestors, their perfidiousness and base ingratitude, Hos 9:10. Here observe, (1.) The great honour God put upon Israel when he first formed them into a people: I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. He took as much delight and pleasure in them as a poor traveller would do if he found grapes in a wilderness, where he most needed them and least expected them. Or when they were in the wilderness he found them as grapes, not precious in themselves, but precious to him, and pleasant as the first-ripe grapes to the lord of the vineyard. They were precious in his sight, and honourable (Isa 43:4); he planted them a choice vine, a right seed (Jer 2:21), and found them no better than he himself made them, good grapes at first. I saw them with pleasure, as the first-ripe in the fig-tree at the first time. Good people are compared to the good things that are first ripe, Jer 24:2. One then is worth more than many afterwards. This intimates the delight God took in them and in doing them good, not for their sakes, but because he loved their fathers. He preserved them carefully, as a man does the first and choicest fruits of his vineyard. Now when he put all this honour upon them, and they stood so fair for preferment, one would think they should have maintained their excellency; but, (2.) See the great disgrace they put upon themselves. God set them apart for himself as a peculiar people, but they went to Baal-peor, joined with the Moabites in sacrificing to that dirty dunghill deity (Num 25:2, Num 25:3), and they separated themselves unto that shame, that shameful idol, so Baal-peor was in a particular manner, if (as should seem) the whoredom which the people committed with the daughters of Moab was a part of the service done to Baal-peor. Note, Whatever those separate themselves to that forsake God it will certainly be a shame to them, first or last. Their abominations are here said to be as they loved; their practices which were an abomination to God were as the best-beloved of their souls. Or when they had once forsaken God they multiplied their abominations, their idols and abominable idolatries, at their pleasure. This was the way of their fathers; God had done well for them, but they had acted ungratefully towards him, and in the same manner had the present generation deeply corrupted themselves.

Matthew Henry: Hos 9:11-17

In the foregoing verses we saw the sin of Israel derived from their fathers; here we see the punishment of Israel derived to their children; for, as death entered by sin at first, so it is still entailed with it. We may observe, in these verses,

I. The sin of Ephraim. Some expressions are here which describe that. 1. They did not hearken to God (Hos 9:17); they did not give attention to the voice either of his word or of his rod; they did not believe what he said, nor would they be ruled by him. He told them their duty, their interest, their danger, but they regarded him not; all he said to them by his words and by his prophets was to them as a tale that is told; and then no wonder that we hear, 2. Of the wickedness of their doings (Hos 9:15), the downright malice that was in their sins; they were not infirmities, but daring presumptions. How can those but do wickedly who will not hearken to the word of God, that would teach and persuade them to do well? And no wonder that there were wicked doings among them when, 3. Their worship was corrupt (Hos 9:15): All their wickedness is in Gilgal, which was a place infamous for idolatry, as appears, Hos 4:15; Hos 12:11; Amo 4:4; Amo 5:5. It is probable that the idolaters chose that place for their head-quarters because it had been famous in other ages for solemn transactions between God and Israel, as Jos 5:2, Jos 5:10; 1Sa 10:8; 1Sa 11:15. There, where the source of idolatry was, whence it spread through the kingdom, there it might be said that all their wickedness was, for all other wickedness owed its origin to that. Corruptions in worship make way for corruptions in morals. The mother of harlots is the mother of all other abominations, Rev 17:5. The learned Grotius conjectures that there is a mystical sense here. Golgotha in Syriac is the same with Gilgal in Hebrew, and therefore he thinks this may have reference to the putting of Christ to death at Golgotha, which was the greatest sin of the Jewish nation, and of which it might truly be said, All their wickedness was summed up in that. And no wonder that the people did wickedly, both in worship and conversation, when 4. All their princes were revolters; the whole succession of the kings of the ten tribes did evil in the sight of the Lord, or all the set of judges and magistrates at this time were wicked; they turned aside to sinful ways and persisted in those ways.

II. The displeasure of God against Ephraim for sin. This is variously expressed here, to show what a provocation sin is to the pure eyes of his glory, and how odious it makes the sinner to him. 1. He departs from them, Hos 9:12. When they revolt from him, and withdraw from their allegiance to him, how can they expect but that he should depart from them and withdraw both his protection and his bounty? And well may his threatening be enforced as it is, and made terrible: Woe also unto them when I depart from them! Note, Those are in a woeful condition indeed whom God has forsaken. Our weal or woe depends upon the gracious presence of God with us; and, if he goes, all weal goes with him and all woes come upon us. God has forsaken him; persecute and take him. Saul knew this when he laid such an emphasis upon this part of his complaint, The Philistines make war against me, and God has departed from me. Nay, he does not only depart from them, but, 2. He hates them. In Gilgal, where all their wickedness is, there I hated them. There, where the abominations of sin are committed, there God abominates the sinners. In Gilgal he had bestowed many tokens of his favour upon their ancestors, but now that is the place where he hates them for their base ingratitude. Nay, he not only hates them, but, 3. He will love them no more, will never take them into his favour again; the breach between God and Israel is wide as the sea, which cannot be healed. This agrees with what he had said, (Hos 1:6, Hos 1:7), I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, the ten tribes. 4. He will discard them, and have no more to do with them: For the wickedness of their doings, I will drive them out of my house. He will no longer own them as his, or as belonging to his family in the world; he will turn them out of doors as unfaithful tenants that pay him no rent, as unprofitable servants that do him neither credit nor work. Note, Those that profane God's house can expect no other than to be expelled his house, and no longer suffered to be either lodgers in it or retainers to it. Nay, he will not only drive them out of his house, but, 5. He will drive them far enough (Hos 9:17): My God will cast them away, not only out of his house, but out of his sight; he will quite abandon and reject them; they shall be cast-aways. God said that he would drive them out of his house, and here the prophet seconds it, as one that knew his Master's mind very well: My God will cast them away. See with what comfort and pleasure he calls God his God. Note, When others disown God, and are disowned by him, it is a very great satisfaction to good people that they can call God their God, can cheerfully own him and see themselves owned by him - all revolters, all ruined, yet God is my God.

III. The fruit of this displeasure, in the cutting off and abandoning of their posterity, which is the judgment here threatened again and again. Observe here,

1. How numerous Ephraim seemed likely to be. The name Ephraim is derived from fruitfulness, Gen 41:51. Joseph is a fruitful bough, Gen 49:22. And Moses's blessing foretold the ten thousands of Ephraim, Deu 33:17. This was his glory, Hos 9:11. For this he seemed designed by him that appoints the bounds of men's habitation; for Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place, to encourage his increase, which one may expect as from a tree planted by the river's side. Ephraim is as strong and rich as ever Tyre was, and as proud and secure. The Chaldee paraphrase gives this sense of it, The congregation of Israel, while they observed the law, was like to Tyrus in prosperity and security.

2. How few Ephraim should be (Hos 9:11): Their glory shall fly away like a bird; their children shall be taken away and the hopes of their families cut off. All their glory shall fly as an eagle towards heaven, swiftly and irrecoverably. Note, Worldly glory is glory that will fly away; but those that have their God their glory have in him an unfading everlasting glory. Ephraim has been as a fruitful tree. But now Ephraim is smitten, is blasted; their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit, Hos 9:16. If the root be dried, the branch must wither of course. Observe,

(1.) God's threatening this judgment of the destroying of their children. [1.] They shall perish of themselves by the immediate hand of God (Hos 9:11): They shall fly away from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. Some of their children shall die as soon as they are born; the cradle shall be presently turned into a coffin. Others of them shall be still-born, or the womb shall be their grave, and their death there their mothers' death too. Of others their mothers shall miscarry almost as soon as they have conceived, and they shall be as untimely fruit. See how easily God can, and how justly we are sure he might, root out the whole race of mankind, that degenerate, guilty, obnoxious race, and blot out the name of it from under heaven; it is but doing as he does by Ephraim here, writing them all childless, making all their glory to fly away from the birth, the womb, and the conception, drying up their root, that they bear no fruit, and their business is done in a few years. [2.] They shall perish by the hand of their enemies; they shall die violent deaths (Hos 9:12): " Though they bring up their children to some maturity, though they escape the diseases and deaths which the infant age is liable to, and are thought to be reared past danger, yet will I bereave them (Hos 9:12), by one judgment or other, so that there shall not be a man left to build up their families and bear up their name."Again (Hos 9:13), Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. The mothers shall travail with pain to bear their children, and a great deal of care, and pains, and cost shall be bestowed upon the nursing of them, and when a cruel enemy comes and puts all to the word, young and old, without mercy, then they seem but as lambs that were all this while fed for the slaughter. Note, It is a great alloy to the comfort parents have in their children that they know not what they have brought them forth and brought them up for, perhaps for the murderer, or, which is worse, to be themselves the plagues of their generation. It is threatened again (Hos 9:16), Though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb, those children that they are most fond of. Note, The parents' love is no security to the children's lives; nay, sometimes death is commissioned to take the darlings of the family and leave the burdens of it. When sentence was passed upon Israel in the wilderness, that they should all perish there, this mercy was mixed with the wrath, that their children should nevertheless enter into that rest which they through unbelief could not enter into. But this is a total and final rejection; even their children shall be cut off, and the land shall escheat to the crown, ob defectum sanguinis - shall be lost for want of heirs. The Chaldee-paraphrase, and many of the rabbin, by the murderers to whom the children were brought forth, understand those that sacrificed their children to Moloch, a sin which was its own punishment, which showed the parents void of bowels and justly left them void of blessings. [3.] Those few that escape and remain shall be dispersed (Hos 9:17): They shall be wanderers among the nations; so the remains of the Jews are at this day, and there is no place in the world where they are a distinct nation.

(2.) The prophet's prayer relating to it (Hos 9:14): Give them, O Lord! what wilt thou give? What shall I ask for a people thus doomed to destruction? It is this; since the decree has gone forth, that they must either die from the womb or be brought forth for the murderer, of the two let them rather die from the womb. Rather let them have no children than have them to be made miserable; for the same reason, when a total ruin was coming on the Jewish nation, Christ said, Blessed is the womb that never bore and the paps that never gave suck, Luk 23:29. "Give therefore a miscarrying womb and dry breasts; for it is better to fall into the hands of the Lord, whose mercies are great, than into the hands of man."Note, Those that are childless may with this reconcile themselves to the will of God herein, that the time may come when, if they were not so, they would wish they had been so.

Keil-Delitzsch: Hos 9:1-2

Warning against false security. The earthly prosperity of the people and kingdom was no security against destruction. Because Israel had fallen away from its God, it should not enjoy the blessing of its field-produce, but should be carried away to Assyria, where it would be unable to keep any joyful feasts at all. Hos 9:1. "Rejoice not, O Israel, to exult like the nations: for thou hast committed whoredom against thy God: hast loved the wages of whoredom upon all corn-floors. Hos 9:2. The threshing-floor and press will not feed them, and the new wine will deceive it." The rejoicing to which Israel was not to give itself up was, according to Hos 9:2, rejoicing at a plentiful harvest. All nations rejoiced, and still rejoice, at this (cf. Isa 9:2), because they regard the blessing of harvest as a sign and pledge of the favour and grace of God, which summon them to gratitude towards the giver. Now, when the heathen nations ascribed their fights to their gods, and in their way thanked them for them, they did this in the ignorance of their heart, without being specially guilty on that account, since they lived in the world without the light of divine revelation. But when Israel rejoiced in a heathenish way at the blessing of its harvest, and attributed this blessing to the Baals (see Hos 2:7), the Lord could not leave this denial of His gracious benefits unpunished. אל־גּיל belongs to תּשׂמח , heightening the idea of joy, as in Job 3:22. כּי זנית does not give the object of the joy ("that thou hast committed whoredom:"Ewald and others), but the reason why Israel was not to rejoice over its harvests, namely, because it had become unfaithful to its God, and had fallen into idolatry. זנה מעל , to commit whoredom out beyond God (by going away from Him). The words, "thou lovest the wages of whoredom upon all corn-floors,"are to be understood, according to Hos 2:7, Hos 2:14, as signifying that Israel would not regard the harvest-blessing upon its corn-floors as gifts of the goodness of its God, but as presents from the Baals, for which it had to serve them with still greater zeal. There is no ground for thinking of any peculiar form of idolatry connected with the corn-floors. Because of this the Lord would take away from them the produce of the floor and press, namely, according to Hos 9:3, by banishing the people out of the land. Floor and press will not feed them, i.e., will not nourish or satisfy them. The floor and press are mentioned in the place of their contents, or what they yield, viz., for corn and oil, as in 2Ki 6:27. By the press we must understand the oil-presses (cf. Joe 2:24), because the new wine is afterwards specially mentioned, and corn, new wine, and oil are connected together in Hos 2:10, 24. The suffix בּהּ refers to the people regarded as a community.

Keil-Delitzsch: Hos 9:3-4

"They will not remain in the land of Jehovah: Ephraim returns to Egypt, and they will eat unclean things in the land of Asshur. Hos 9:4. They will not pour out wine to Jehovah, and their slain-offerings will not please Him: like bread of mourning are they to Him; all who eat it become unclean: for their bread is for themselves, it does not come into the house of Jehovah." Because they have fallen away from Jehovah, He will drive them out of His land. The driving away is described as a return to Egypt, as in Hos 8:13; but Asshur is mentioned immediately afterwards as the actual land of banishment. That this threat is not to be understood as implying that they will be carried away to Egypt as well as to Assyria, but that Egypt is referred to here and in Hos 9:6, just as in Hos 8:13, simply as a type of the land of captivity, so that Assyria is represented as a new Egypt, may be clearly seen from the words themselves, in which eating unclean bread in Assyria is mentioned as the direct consequence of their return to Egypt; whereas neither here nor in Hos 9:6 is their being carried away to Assyria mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, in Hos 9:6, Egypt only is introduced as the place where they are to find their grave. This is still more evident from the fact that Hosea throughout speaks of Asshur alone, as the rod of the wrath of God for His rebellious people. The king of Asshur is king Jareb (striver), to whom Ephraim goes for help, and by whom it will be put to shame (Hos 5:13; Hos 10:6); and it is from the Assyrian king Salman that devastation and destruction proceed (Hos 10:14). And, lastly, it is expressly stated in Hos 11:5, that Israel will not return to Egypt, but to Asshur, who will be its king. By the allusion to Egypt, therefore, the carrying away to Assyria is simply represented as a state of bondage and oppression, resembling the sojourn of Israel in Egypt in the olden time, or else the threat contained in Deu 28:68 is simply transferred to Ephraim. They will eat unclean things in Assyria, not only inasmuch as when, under the oppression of their heathen rulers, they will not be able to observe the laws of food laid down in the law, or will be obliged to eat unclean things from simple want and misery; but also inasmuch as all food, which was not sanctified to the Lord by the presentation of the first-fruits, was unclean food to Israel (Hengstenberg). In Assyria these offerings would cease with the whole of the sacrificial ritual; and the food which was clean in itself would thereby become unclean outside the land of Jehovah (cf. Eze 4:13). This explanation of טמא is required by Hos 9:4, in which a further reason is assigned for the threat. For what we have there is not a description of the present attitude of Israel towards Jehovah, but a picture of the miserable condition of the people in exile. The verbs are pure futures. In Assyria they will neither be able to offer wine to the Lord as a drink-offering, nor such slain-offerings as we well-pleasing to Him. For Israel could only offer sacrifices to its God at the place where He made known His name by revelation, and therefore not in exile, where He had withdrawn His gracious presence from it. The drink-offerings are mentioned, as pars pro toto , in the place of all the meat-offerings and drink-offerings, i.e., of the bloodless gifts, which were connected with the z^e bhâchı̄m , or burnt-offerings and thank-offerings ( sh^e lâmı̄m , Num 15:2-15, Num 15:28-29), and could never be omitted when the first-fruits were offered (Lev 23:13, Lev 23:18). "Their sacrifices:" zibhchēhem belongs to יערבוּ־לו (shall be pleasing to Him), notwithstanding the previous segholta , because otherwise the subject to יערבו would be wanting, and there is evidently quite as little ground for supplying נס'כיהם from the preceding clause, as Hitzig proposes, as for assuming that ערב here means to mix. Again, we must not infer from the words, "their slain-offerings will not please Him,"that the Israelites offered sacrifices when in exile. The meaning is simply that the sacrifices, which they might wish to offer to Jehovah there, would not be well-pleasing to Him. We must not repeat זבחיהם as the subject to the next clause להם ... כּלחם , in the sense of "their sacrifices will be to them like mourners' bread,"which would give no suitable meaning; for though the sacrifices are called bread of God, they are never called the bread of men. The subject may be supplied very readily from k^e lechem (like bread) thus: their bread, or food, would be to them like mourners' bread; and the correctness of this is proved by the explanatory clause, "for their bread,"etc. Lechem 'ōnı̄m , bread of affliction, i.e., of those who mourn for the dead (cf. Deu 26:14), in other words, the bread eaten at funeral meals. This was regarded as unclean, because the corpse defiled the house, and all who came in contact with it, for seven days (Num 19:14). Their bread would resemble bread of this kind, because it had not been sanctified by the offering of the first-fruits. "For their bread will not come into the house of Jehovah,"viz., to be sanctified, "for their souls,"i.e., to serve for the preservation of their life.

Keil-Delitzsch: Hos 9:5-6

Their misery will be felt still more keenly on the feast-days. Hos 9:5. "What will ye do on the day of the festival, and on the day of the feast of Jehovah? Hos 9:6. For behold they have gone away because of the desolation: Egypt will gather them together, Memphis bury them: their valuables in silver, thistles will receive them; thorns in their tents." As the temple and ritual will both be wanting in their exile, they will be unable to observe any of the feasts of the Lord. No such difference can be shown to exist between yōm mō‛ēd and yōm chag Y^e hōvâh , as would permit of our referring mō‛ēd to feasts of a different kind from chag . In Leviticus 23, all the feasts recurring at a fixed period, on which holy meetings were held, including the Sabbath, are called מועדי יהוהּ ; and even though the three feasts at which Israel was to appear before the Lord, viz., the passover, pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles, are described as chaggı̄m in Exo 34:18., every other joyous festival is also called a chag (Exo 32:5; Jdg 21:19). It is therefore just as arbitrary on the part of Grotius and Rosenmüller to understand by mō‛ēd the three yearly pilgrim-festivals, and by chag Y^e hōvâh all the rest of the feasts, including the new moon, as it is on the part of Simson to restrict the last expression to the great harvest-feast, i.e., the feast of tabernacles (Lev 23:39, Lev 23:41). The two words are synonymous, but they are so arranged that by chag the idea of joy is brought into greater prominence, and the feast-day is thereby designated as a day of holy joy before Jehovah; whereas mō‛ēd simply expresses the idea of a feast established by the Lord, and sanctified to Him (see at Lev 23:2). By the addition of the chag Y^e hōvâh , therefore, greater emphasis is given to the thought, viz., that along with the feasts themselves all festal joy will also vanish. The perfect הלכוּ (Exo 34:6) may be explained from the fact, that the prophet saw in spirit the people already banished from the land of the Lord. הלך , to go away out of the land. Egypt is mentioned as the place of banishment, in the same sense as in Hos 9:3. There will they all find their graves. קבּץ in combination with קבּר is the gathering together of the dead for a common burial, like אסף in Eze 29:5; Jer 8:2; Jer 25:33. מף , or נף , as in Isa 19:13; Jer 2:16; Jer 44:1; Eze 30:13, Eze 30:16, probably contracted from מנף , answers rather to the Coptic Membe , Memphe , than to the old Egyptian Men - nefr , i.e., mansio bona , the profane name of the city of Memphis , the ancient capital of Lower Egypt, the ruins of which are to be seen on the western bank of the Nile, to the south of Old Cairo. The sacred name of this city was Ha-ka-ptah , i.e., house of the worship of Phtah (see Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften , i. pp. 234-5). In their own land thorns and thistles would take the place of silver valuables. The suffix attached to יירשׁם refers, ad sensum , to the collective מחמד לכספּם , the valuables in silver. These are not "silver idols,"as Hitzig imagines, but houses ornamented and filled with the precious metal, as בּאהליהם in the parallel clause clearly shows. The growth of thorns and thistles presupposes the utter desolation of the abodes of men (Isa 34:13).

Keil-Delitzsch: Hos 9:7-9

"The days of visitation are come, the days of retribution are come; Israel will learn: a fool the prophet, a madman the man of spirit, for the greatness of thy guilt, and the great enmity. Hos 9:8. A spy is Ephraim with my God: the prophet a snare of the bird-catcher in all his ways, enmity in the house of his God. Hos 9:9. They have acted most corruptly, as in the days of Gibeah: He remembers their iniquity, visits their sins." The perfects in Hos 9:7 are prophetic. The time of visitation and retribution is approaching. Then will Israel learn that its prophets, who only predicted prosperity and good (Eze 13:10), were infatuated fools. אויל וגו introduces, without kı̄ , what Israel will experience, as in Hos 7:2; Amo 5:12. It does not follow, from the use of the expression 'ı̄sh rūăch , that the reference is to true prophets. 'Ish rūăch (a man of spirit) is synonymous with the 'ı̄sh hōlēkh rūăch (a man walking in the spirit) mentioned in Mic 2:11 as prophesying lies, and may be explained from the fact, that even the false prophets stood under the influence of a superior demoniacal power, and were inspired by a rūăch sheqer ("a lying spirit,"1Ki 22:22). The words which follow, viz., "a fool is the prophet,"etc., which cannot possibly mean, that men have treated, despised, and persecuted the prophets as fools and madmen, are a decisive proof that the expression does not refer to true prophets. על רב עונך is attached to the principal clauses, השּׁלּם ... בּאוּ . The punishment and retribution occur because of the greatness of the guilt of Israel. In ורבּה the preposition על continues in force, but as a conjunction: "and because the enmity is great"(cf. Ewald, §351, a ). Mastēmâh , enmity, not merely against their fellow-men generally, but principally against God and His servants the true prophets. This is sustained by facts in Hos 9:8. The first clause, which is a difficult one and has been interpreted in very different ways, "spying is Ephraim עם אלהי "(with or by my God), cannot contain the thought that Ephraim, the tribe, is, according to its true vocation, a watchman for the rest of the people, whose duty it is to stand with the Lord upon the watch-tower and warn Israel when the Lord threatens punishment and judgment (Jerome, Schmidt); for the idea of a prophet standing with Jehovah upon a watch-tower is not only quite foreign to the Old Testament, but irreconcilable with the relation in which the prophets stood to Jehovah. The Lord did indeed appoint prophets as watchmen to His people (Eze 3:17); but He does take His own stand upon the watch-tower with them. Tsâphâh in this connection, where prophets are spoken of both before and after, can only denote the eager watching on the part of the prophets for divine revelations, as in Hab 2:1, and not their looking out for help; and עם אלהי cannot express their fellowship or agreement with God, if only on account of the suffix " my God,"in which Hosea contrasts the true God as His own, with the God of the people. The thought indicated would require אלהיו , a reading which is indeed met with in some codices, but is only a worthless conjecture. עם denotes outward fellowship here: "with"= by the side of. Israel looks out for prophecies or divine revelations with the God of the prophet, i.e., at the side of Jehovah; in other words, it does not follow or trust its own prophets, who are not inspired by Jehovah. These are like snares of a bird-catcher in its road, i.e., they cast the people headlong into destruction. נביא stands at the head, both collectively and absolutely. In all its ways there is the trap of the bird-catcher: i.e., all its projects and all that it does will only tend to ensnare the people. Hostility to Jehovah and His servants the true prophets, is in the house of the God of the Israelites, i.e., in the temple erected for the calf-worship; a fact of which Amos (Amo 7:10-17) furnishes a practical example. Israel has thereby fallen as deeply into abomination and sins as in the days of Gibeah, i.e., as at the time when the abominable conduct of the men of Gibeah in connection with the concubine of a Levite took place, as related in Judg. 19ff., in consequence of which the tribe of Benjamin was almost exterminated. The same depravity on the part of Israel will be equally punished by the Lord now (cf. Hos 8:13).

Keil-Delitzsch: Hos 9:10

Hos 9:10. "I found Israel like grapes in the desert, I saw your fathers like early fruit on the fig-tree in the first shooting; but they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to shame, and became abominations like their lover." Grapes in the desert and early figs are pleasant choice fruits to whoever finds them. This figure therefore indicates the peculiar pleasure which Jehovah found in the people of Israel when He led them out of Egypt, or the great worth which they had in His eyes when He chose them for the people of His possession, and concluded a covenant with them at Sinai (Theod., Cyr.). Bammidbâr (in the desert) belongs, so far as its position is concerned, to ‛ănâbhı̄m : grapes in the dry, barren desert, where you do not expect to find such refreshing fruit; but, so far as the fact is concerned, it also refers to the place in which Israel was thus found by God, since you can only find fruit in the desert when you are there yourself. The words, moreover, evidently refer to Deu 32:10 ("I found him Israel in the wilderness,"etc.), and point implicite to the helpless condition in which Israel was when God first adopted it. The suffix to berē'shı̄thâh (at her beginning) refers to תּאנה , the first-fruit, which the fig-tree bears in its first time, at the first shooting. But Israel no longer answered to the good pleasure of God. They came to Baal-peor. בּעל־פּעור without the preposition אל is not the idol of that name, but the place where it was worshipped, which was properly called Beth-peor or Peor (see at Num 23:28 and Num 25:3). ינּזרוּ is chosen instead of יצּמד (Num 23:3, Num 23:5), to show that Israel ought to have consecrated itself to Jehovah, to have been the nazir of Jehovah. Bōsheth (shame) is the name given to the idol of Baal-peor (cf. Jer 3:24), the worship of which was a shame to Israel. 'Ohabh , the paramour, is also Baal-peor. Of all the different rebellions on the part of Israel against Jehovah, the prophet singles out only the idolatry with Baal-peor, because the principal sin of the ten tribes was Baal-worship in its coarser or more refined forms.

Keil-Delitzsch: Hos 9:11-12

It is very evident that this is what he has in his mind, and that he regards the apostasy of the ten tribes as merely a continuation of that particular idolatry, from the punishment which is announced in Hos 9:11, Hos 9:12, as about to fall upon Ephraim in consequence. Hos 9:11. "Ephraim, its glory will fly away like a bird; no birth, and no pregnancy, and no conception. Hos 9:12. Yea, though they bring up their sons, I make them bereft, without a man; for woe to them when I depart from them!" The glory which God gave to His people through great multiplication, shall vanish away. The licentious worship of luxury will be punished by the diminution of the numbers of the people, by childlessness, and the destruction of the youth that may have grown up. מלּדה , so that there shall be no bearing. בּטן , the womb, for pregnancy or the fruit of the womb. Even ( kı̄ emphatic) if the sons (the children) grow up, God will make them bereft, מאדם , so that there shall be no men there. The grown-up sons shall be swept away by death, by the sword (cf. Deu 32:25). The last clause gives the reason for the punishment threatened. גּם adds force; it usually stands at the head of the sentence, and here belongs to להם : Yea, woe to them, if I depart from them, or withdraw my favour from them! שׂוּר stands for סוּר , according to the interchangeableness of שׂ and ס (Aquila and Vulg.). This view has more to support it than the supposition that שׂוּר is an error of the pen for שׁוּר (Ewald, Hitzig, etc.), since שׁוּר , to look, construed with מן , in the sense of to look away from a person, is never met with, although the meaning is just the same.

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 the book contains another series of messages that deal, first, with the judgment coming on Israel and, second, the restoration that will follow. There are three major addresses in this section each introduced by a direct address (6:4; 9:1; 11:8).

Constable: Hos 6:4--11:8

A. More messages on coming judgment 6:4-11:7

The subject of Israel's ingratitude is particularly prominent in these messages. Each of the two major messages of judgment ends with a reference to Israel returning to Egypt (8:13; 11:5). The message on restoration that follows these two (11:8-11) refers to the Israelites returning from Egypt (11:11).

Constable: Hos 6:4--9:1

1. Israel's ingratitude and rebellion 6:4-8:14

Two oracles of judgment compose this section. Each one begins by referring to Israel's breach of covenant (6:7; 8:1), and each one contains a reference to Egypt near the end (7:17; 8:13).

Constable: Hos 9:1--11:8

2. Israel's inevitable judgment 9:1-11:7

This section of prophecies continues to record accusations against Israel, but the emphasis on the inevitability of coming judgment increases. Also in contrast to chapter 8, this section is not a speech by Yahweh but one that Hosea delivered about Him.

Constable: Hos 9:1-9

Israel's sorrow 9:1-9

Israel's would sorrow greatly because of her sins. Description of her sorrow precedes the explanation for it.

Constable: Hos 9:1-6

The result: termination of festivals 9:1-6

9:1-2 The Lord told Israel not to rejoice like other nations at the prospect of an abundant harvest; that would not be her experience. He promised to remove her grain and wine. These were threatened curses for covenant unfaithfulness (cf. Deut. 28:30, 38-42, 51). Her unfaithfulness to Him had precluded further blessing. She had credited Baal with providing the blessings that she enjoyed rather than Yahweh. The prophet envisioned Israel as a harlot committing adultery on a threshing floor by worshipping idols there. Threshing floors and wine presses were common places where ritual prostitution took place. It was through these rites that the worshippers sought to stimulate the gods to engage in sex and so bestow fruitfulness on them and their land.

9:3 Israel would not remain in the Promised Land but would go into captivity (cf. Deut. 11:8-21). Assyria, likened here to Egypt (cf. 7:16; 8:13; 11:5), would be the place the Israelites would eat unclean food (i.e., no longer be independent; 2 Kings 17:6; Ezek. 4:13; Amos 7:17). She would eat defiled food in a defiled land because she had defiled herself with sin.

"The place of their captivity was first called Egypt' (cf. 8:13) in order to show its general character; then Assyria was named as the actual place the people would be taken to (cf. 11:5)."⁶²

9:4 Opportunities for legitimate worship would end in exile since Israel had corrupted legitimate worship in the land. Drink offerings of wine, which accompanied certain sacrifices, would cease (cf. Num. 15:1-12), and sacrifices offered there would be unacceptable to Yahweh. They would be similar to the bread that mourners ate, namely, ceremonially unclean because of contact with dead bodies (cf. Num. 19:14-15, 22). Such bread might be suitable for human consumption, but it was unacceptable as an offering to God. Cultic celebration would give way to disease and death.

9:5 Consequently the Israelites would have nothing to offer the Lord when their annual feasts rolled around. These feasts centered around offerings to the Lord, but those offerings would be unacceptable in exile.

9:6 The Israelites would leave their land because of the destruction Yahweh would send. Egypt and Memphis, as two undertakers, would bury the exiles. Memphis (near modern Cairo) was an Egyptian city famous as a burial site because of the pyramid tombs there. Back in the land weeds would overgrow the Israelites' abandoned treasures, and thorns would take over their houses.

Constable: Hos 9:7-9

The cause: opposition to prophets 9:7-9

9:7 Israel was to know that the days of her punishment and retribution were imminent because the nation's iniquity was fat and its hostility to the Lord was great. Another reason for her judgment was that the Israelites had regarded the prophets whom the Lord had sent to them as demented fools (cf. 2 Kings 9:11; Jer. 29:26-27). This probably included Hosea.

9:8 Ephraim tried to function as a prophet of God warning others of approaching danger. But Ephraim had tried to snare the prophets God had sent the people like a hunter catches birds in a net. Thus there was nothing but hostility in the land of Israel between the Ephraimites and the true prophets of Yahweh. Ephraim saw nothing as a prophet and criticized the prophets for preaching what they saw, namely, coming judgment.

9:9 The Israelites had delved deep into depravity, as when the men of Gibeah raped and murdered the visiting Levite's concubine (Judg. 19). This was another occasion in which the Israelites punished one of their own rather than protecting her. The Lord would remember their iniquities and punish their sins. This sin had resulted in war in Israel and almost the obliteration of the tribe of Benjamin (Judg. 20). War would come again, and God would almost entirely obliterate all the Israelites for their sins.

Constable: Hos 9:10-17

Israel's humiliation 9:10-17

This section is one in a series that looks back on Israel's previous history, and its reflective mood colors its prophecies (cf. 10:1-8, 9-15; 11:1-7).

"Divine speech and prophetic speech combine in this passage to pronounce upon the disobedient Israelites the fulfillment of the curses for disobedience contained in the Mosaic covenant. Here for the first time Hosea himself calls down the wrath of God upon his own compatriots (vv 14, 17). He is thus both announcer and imprecator of punishment."⁶³

Constable: Hos 9:10-14

Diminished fruitfulness 9:10-14

9:10 In the early days of Israel's history in the wilderness, the Lord took great delight in His people, as one rejoices to find grapes in a desert or the first figs of the season. However, when they came to Baal-Peor, where they worshipped Baal and committed ritual sex with the Moabite and Midianite women (Num. 25), they became as detestable to Yahweh as the idols they loved. This first instance of Baal worship set the pattern of Israel's idolatry that followed in the land and resulted in her present judgment.

9:11 The glory of the Ephraimites, their numerous children, would fly away like a bird, quickly and irretrievably. There would be few births, or even pregnancies, or even conceptions. There is a play on the name "Ephraim" here, which sounds somewhat like the Hebrew word meaning "twice fruitful." The Ephraimites had looked to Baal for the blessing of human fertility, but Yahweh would withhold it in judgment. Ephraim, the doubly fruitful, would become Ephraim, the completely fruitless.

9:12 Most of the children born would die prematurely, and few of them would remain, probably because of the coming invasion (cf. Deut. 32:25). When Yahweh withdrew His protection from His people their doom would be great.

9:13 Yahweh saw that Ephraim had been fertile in the past, comparable to the prosperity of Tyre. Yet in the future Ephraim's sons were destined to become prey to the enemy.

9:14 Hosea called on Yahweh, after reflecting on her punishments, to disappoint Ephraim's hopes concerning descendants and the inability to sustain their children. The combination of "womb" and "breasts" is a pairing that describes human fruitfulness (cf. Gen. 49:25).

Guzik: Hos 9:1-17

Hosea 9 - Exiled and Dried Up

A. Israel exiled in judgment.

1. (1-4) The end of the good life in Israel.

Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples, for you have played the harlot against your God. You have made love for hire on every threshing floor. The threshing floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land, but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and shall eat unclean things in Assyria. They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, nor shall their sacrifices be pleasing to Him. It shall be like bread of mourners to them; all who eat it shall be defiled. For their bread shall be for their own life; it shall not come into the house of the LORD.

a. Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples: At the time Hosea brought this prophecy, things perhaps were not so bad in Israel. Maybe there were plenty of fun and good times among the people. But they shouldn't rejoice like other peoples, because judgment was on the way.

i. "It was probably the case, though we do not know this for sure, that Hosea delivered the opening part of this oracle as a sermon on the occasion of a harvest festival . . . characterized by feasting, mirth, and dancing." (Boice)

b. You have made love for hire on every threshing floor: Israel practiced idolatry on the threshing floor, a place where grain was processed. They worshipped idols here because they believed that it helped the harvest. Because of their idolatry, the LORD would curse their harvest, and the threshing floor and the winepress shall not feed them.

c. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land: Not only would God curse their grain and grape harvest, but He would also cast them out of the land in exile to both Egypt and Assyria. In the lands of exile there would be no bread or food for sacrifice to the LORD, only for survival (their bread shall be for their own life).

2. (5-9) The days of Israel's punishment in Egypt.

What will you do in the appointed day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD? For indeed they are gone because of destruction. Egypt shall gather them up; Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess their valuables of silver; thorns shall be in their tents. The days of punishment have come; the days of recompense have come. Israel knows! The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and great enmity. The watchman of Ephraim is with my God; but the prophet is a fowler's snare in all his ways; enmity in the house of his God. They are deeply corrupted, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.

a. They are gone because of destruction: Israel did not honor the LORD in their appointed feast days, so they LORD will take them away. In their lands of exile, they will not be able to honor the feasts of the LORD.

b. The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane: This is what the people of Israel said about Hosea. When things prospered and everyone was happy, Hosea announced coming judgment and called for repentance. They thought he was a fool and crazy.

i. "They said in effect, 'Who in his right mind would prophesy a judgment like this when we are in the midst of such a bountiful harvest, in itself a proof of God's blessing?'" (Boice)

c. As in the days of Gibeah: Judges 19 describes horrific crimes of perversion and violence in Israel in the days of the Judges. Hosea says that in his day it is just as bad in Israel.

B. Israel barren and dried up in judgment.

1. (10-14) God sends barrenness and bereavement.

"I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal Peor, and separated themselves to that shame; they became an abomination like the thing they loved. As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird; no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception! Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them to the last man. Yes, woe to them when I depart from them! Just as I saw Ephraim like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place, so Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer." Give them, O LORD; what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts!

a. Like grapes in the wilderness . . . as the firstfruits on the fig tree: God fondly remembers the days when Israel was faithful and fruitful unto Him. Grapes in the wilderness and the firstfruits on the fig tree are unexpected blessings. There was a time when Israel was something special to God, as if one found luscious grapes in the wilderness.

i. "While they were faithful, they were as acceptable to me as ripe grapes would be to a thirsty traveler in the desert." (Clarke)

b. But they went to Baal Peor: Israel's sin and idolatry in the days of Hosea is like their sin at Baal Peor in Numbers 25, associated with sexual immorality and idolatry.

c. They became an abomination like the thing they loved: Israel loved their disgraceful idols, and they have become like them. We will become like the god we love and serve, whether it is the Lord or like an abomination.

d. No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception: In contrast to their past fruitfulness, now Israel will experience barrenness and bereavement (I will be bereave them to the last man), given to them by the God they rejected.

e. Give them, O LORD - What will You give? The idea is that Hosea began an angry prayer against the people ("Give them, O LORD"), then he stopped because he checked his heart and didn't know what to pray ("What will you give?"). In the end, he asked for a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. Really, Hosea prayed for mercy. Knowing the coming judgment, he prayed "LORD, give them few children so those children will not have to face the horrors of Your coming judgment."

i. Sometimes those who see themselves - perhaps accurately - as more spiritual and closer to God than others in a church or group get angry and frustrated with those who don't seem to have hearts burning for the LORD. Their frustration is understandable but the pause in Hosea's prayer should give them pause. It is a good thing to long for revival and spiritual passion among God's people, but if that makes us proud, angry, or bitter against others then Satan has won a great victory.

2. (15-17) God sends dryness and wandering upon Israel.

"All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them. Because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them from My house; I will love them no more. All their princes are rebellious. Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit. Yes, were they to bear children, I would kill the darlings of their womb." My God will cast them away, because they did not obey Him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations.

a. All their wickedness is in Gilgal, for there I hated them: As mentioned before in Hosea 4:15, God despised the city of Gilgal as a center of idolatry in Israel. At one time, Gilgal was a place where prophets were trained under Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:1; 4:38). But in Hosea's day it had become a center of false worship (Hosea 4:15, 12:11; Amos 4:4, 5:5).

b. I will drive them from My house: In this sense, exile was the perfect punishment for Israel. They had disgraced God's house, His land, so He would "evict" them.

c. They shall bear no fruit . . . I would kill the beloved fruit of their womb: One of the major reasons Israel went after idols like Baal and Ashtoreth was because those gods were thought to bring fertility and fruitfulness. God reminds Israel that He is really the Lord over the womb, and that He will turn their fruitfulness into barrenness.

d. My God will cast them away, because they did not obey Him: This is exactly what the Lord promised under the terms of the Old Covenant (Deuteronomy 30:24-28). Thankfully, we can come to God by faith in a new and better covenant, where He promises to remember our sins no more (Hebrews 8:12, 10:16-17).

© 2001 David Guzik - No distribution beyond personal use without permission

Commentary -- Other

Evidence: Hos 9:4

I fear the preachers have been more studious to please than to awaken, or there would have been a deeper work. JOHN WESLEY

Evidence: Hos 9:7

Unrepentant sin comes back with a terrible vengeance, both on individuals and on nations.

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 size). The twelve are first mentioned by Jesus, the son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus 49:10). St. Stephen, in Act 7:42 (in referring to Amo 5:27), quotes them as forming one collective body of writings, "the book of the prophets." So JEROME and MELITO, the first Greek father who has left us a catalogue of these books. The collection of the sacred books is by Jewish tradition attributed to the great synagogue of learned scribes formed by Ezra. Many think Nehemiah completed this collection by adding to the books already in the canon those of his own times. Malachi, the last in the series, probably aided him in determining with infallible authority what books were entitled to be ranked in the inspired canon. The chronological order differs from the canonical. Joel, about 810 B.C.; Jonah, about 810 B.C., or, as others, first, 862 B.C.; Amos, about 790 B.C.; Hosea, about 784 B.C. Hosea, the contemporary of Isaiah, Micah, and Amos, seems to have entered on his prophetical office in the last years of Jeroboam (contemporary in part with Uzziah), and to have ended it in the beginning of Hezekiah's reign, 722 B.C., that is, about sixty years in all, from 784 B.C. to 722 B.C. The prophets, however, were not uninterruptedly engaged in prophesying. Considerable intervals elapsed, though their office as divinely commissioned public teachers was never wholly laid aside. The Book of Hosea which we have constitutes only that portion of his public teachings which the Holy Spirit saw fit to preserve for the benefit of the Church. The cause of his being placed first of the twelve was, probably, the length, the vivid earnestness, and patriotism of his prophecies, as well as their closer resemblance to those of the greater prophets. His style is abrupt, sententious, and unrounded; the connecting particles are few; there are changes of person, and anomalies of gender, number, and construction. His name means Salvation. He was son of Beeri, of the tribe of Issachar, born in Beth-shemesh [JEROME]. His mention, in the inscription, of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, is no proof that he belonged to Judah: for the prophets in Israel regarded its separation from Judah, civil as well as religious, as an apostasy from God, who promised the dominion of the theocracy to the line of David. Hence Elijah in Israel took twelve stones to represent Judah, as well as Israel (1Ki 18:31). Hence Hosea dates from Judah's kings, as well as from Jeroboam of Israel, though he belonged to Israel, with whose sins and fate his book is chiefly occupied. He, however, makes incidental references to Judah. His first prophecy foretells the overthrow of Jehu's house, fulfilled on the death of Jeroboam, Jehu's great-grandson (2Ki 15:12), in Zachariah, Jeroboam's son, the fourth and last from Jehu, conspired against by Shallum. This first prediction was doubtless in Jeroboam's life, as Zachariah, his son, was only suffered to reign six months; thus the inscription is verified that "the word of the Lord came unto him in the days of Jeroboam" (Hos 1:1). Again, in Hos 10:14, Shalmaneser's expedition against Israel is alluded to as past, that is, the first inroad against King Hoshea, who began to reign in the twelfth year of Ahaz; so that as Ahaz' whole reign was sixteen years, the prophecy seems to have been given about the beginning of Hezekiah's reign. Thus the inscription is confirmed that the exercise of his prophetical functions was of such a protracted duration.

Hosea (Hos 11:1) is quoted in Mat 2:15; also Hos 6:6 in Mat 9:13; Mat 12:7; compare Rom 9:25-26, quoting Hos 1:10; Hos 2:1, Hos 2:23; 1Co 15:55, quoting Hos 13:14; 1Pe 2:10, quoting Hos 1:9-10; Hos 2:23. Messianic references are not frequent; but the predictions of the future conversion of Israel to the Lord their God, and David their king, and of the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham that his spiritual seed should be as the sand of the sea (Hos 1:10; Hos 3:5), clearly refer to the New Testament dispensation.

The first and third chapters are in prose, the rest of the book is rhythmical.

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 Lo-Ammi, the children. Yet a promise of Judah and Israel's restoration.
• APPLICATION OF THE SYMBOLS IN THE FIRST CHAPTER. (Hos. 2:1-23) Israel's spiritual fornication, and her threatened punishment: yet a promise of God's restored favor, when chastisements have produced their designed effect.
• ISRAEL'S CONDITION IN THEIR PRESENT DISPERSION, SUBSEQUENT TO THEIR RETURN FROM BABYLON, SYMBOLIZED. (Hos 3:1-5) The prophet is to take back his wife, though unfaithful, as foretold in Hos 1:2. He purchases her from her paramour, stipulating she should wait for a long period before she should be restored to her conjugal rights. So Israel is to live for a long period without her ancient rites of religion, and yet be free from idolatry; then at last she shall acknowledge Messiah, and know Jehovah's goodness restored to her.
• HENCEFORTH THE PROPHET SPEAKS PLAINLY AND WITHOUT SYMBOL, IN TERSE, SENTENTIOUS PROPOSITIONS. (Hos. 4:1-19) In this chapter he reproves the people and priests for their sins in the interregnum which followed Jeroboam's death; hence there is no mention of the king or his family; and in Hos 4:2 bloodshed and other evils usual in a civil war are specified.
• GOD'S JUDGMENTS ON THE PRIESTS, PEOPLE, AND PRINCES OF ISRAEL FOR THEIR SINS. (Hos 5:1-5) Judah, too, being guilty shall be punished; nor shall Assyria, whose aid they both sought, save them; judgments shall at last lead them to repentance.
• THE ISRAELITES' EXHORTATION TO ONE ANOTHER TO SEEK THE LORD. (Hos 6:1-11) At Hos 6:4 a new discourse, complaining of them, begins; for Hos 6:1-3 evidently belong to Hos 5:15, and form the happy termination of Israel's punishment: primarily, the return from Babylon; ultimately, the return from their present long dispersion. Hos 6:8 perhaps refers to the murder of Pekahiah; the discourse cannot be later than Pekah's reign, for it was under it that Gilead was carried into captivity (2Ki 15:29).
• REPROOF OF ISRAEL. (Hos. 7:1-16) Probably delivered in the interreign and civil war at Pekah's death; for Hos 7:7, "all their kings . . . fallen," refers to the murder of Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah. In Hos 7:8 the reference seems to be to Menahem's payment of tribute to Pul, in order to secure himself in the usurped throne, also to Pekah's league with Rezin of Syria, and to Hoshea's connection with Assyria during the interregnum at Pekah's death [MAURER].
• PROPHECY OF THE IRRUPTION OF THE ASSYRIANS, IN PUNISHMENT FOR ISRAEL'S APOSTASY, IDOLATRY, AND SETTING UP OF KINGS WITHOUT GOD'S SANCTION. (Hos 8:1-14) In Hos 8:14, Judah is said to multiply fenced cities; and in Hos 8:7-9, Israel, to its great hurt, is said to have gone up to Assyria for help. This answers best to the reign of Menahem. For it was then that Uzziah of Judah, his contemporary, built fenced cities (2Ch 26:6, 2Ch 26:9-10). Then also Israel turned to Assyria and had to pay for their sinful folly a thousand talents of silver (2Ki 15:19) [MAURER].
• WARNING AGAINST ISRAEL'S JOY AT PARTIAL RELIEF FROM THEIR TROUBLES: THEIR CROPS SHALL FAIL, AND THE PEOPLE LEAVE THE LORD'S LAND FOR EGYPT AND ASSYRIA, WHERE THEY CANNOT, IF SO INCLINED, SERVE GOD ACCORDING TO THE ANCIENT RITUAL: FOLLY OF THEIR FALSE PROPHETS. (Hos. 9:1-17)
• ISRAEL'S IDOLATRY, THE SOURCE OF PERJURIES AND UNLAWFUL LEAGUES, SOON DESTINED TO BE THE RUIN OF THE STATE, THEIR KING AND THEIR IMAGES BEING ABOUT TO BE CARRIED OFF; A JUST CHASTISEMENT, THE REAPING CORRESPONDING TO THE SOWING. (Hos 10:1-15) The prophecy was uttered between Shalmaneser's first and second invasions of Israel. Compare Hos 10:14; also Hos 10:6, referring to Hoshea's calling So of Egypt to his aid; also Hos 10:4, Hos 10:13.
• REPROOF OF EPHRAIM AND JUDAH: THEIR FATHER JACOB OUGHT TO BE A PATTERN TO THEM. (Hos 12:1-14) This prophecy was delivered about the time of Israel's seeking the aid of the Egyptian king So, in violation of their covenant with Assyria (see Hos 12:1). He exhorts them to follow their father Jacob's persevering prayerfulness, which brought God's favor upon him. As God is unchangeable, He will show the same favor to Jacob's posterity as He did to Jacob, if, like him, they seek God.
• EPHRAIM'S SINFUL INGRATITUDE TO GOD, AND ITS FATAL CONSEQUENCE; GOD'S PROMISE AT LAST. (Hos. 13:1-16) This chapter and the fourteenth chapter probably belong to the troubled times that followed Pekah's murder by Hoshea (compare Hos 13:11; 2Ki 15:30). The subject is the idolatry of Ephraim, notwithstanding God's past benefits, destined to be his ruin.
• GOD'S PROMISE OF BLESSING, ON THEIR REPENTANCE: THEIR ABANDONMENT OF IDOLATRY FORETOLD: THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE, THE JUST SHALL WALK IN GOD'S WAYS, BUT THE TRANSGRESSOR SHALL FALL THEREIN. (Hos 14:1-9)

TSK: Hosea 9 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Hos 9:1, The distress and captivity of Israel for their sins.

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 Amos do sometimes, nor as Ezekiel and Zechariah do frequently, with visions; yet his sententious and concise style, peculiar to himself, renders it many times difficult to find out first, and to declare next the genuine and undoubted sense of his words. In expounding this prophet, the expositor needs the candour of his reader, and the reader owes his expositor thanks if he make some darker passages fairly intelligible, though he do not demonstrate his exposition to be the only sense of the place. This latter is not pretended to; the former it is hoped the reader will find in the most, if not in every obscure passage. It was a very debauched age our prophet did live in, and you will find him very sharp against the vices of the ten tribes, and very plain and open in his threats for their sins, which he saw punished; for he lived to see Samaria taken, and Hoshea made a prisoner, and the people carried captives. As it is not agreed when he began, so nor is it agreed how long he continued to prophesy.

The kings of Judah and of Israel, in whose time he first appeared a prophet, were of long reigns; the one forty-one, the other fifty-two; in which long space of time very different beginnings may be conjectured. All agree that he continued a prophet very long, seventy years at least, and some add more years, and make them up ninety. The sum of what he prophesied is here given us in short heads, rather than in a continued discourse. And as it was preached in Israel. (though we read not of the places where Hosea either lived, or died, or did preach, it is most likely within the hearing of the court,) so it doth more particularly refer to Israel or the ten tribes: declaring to them what were their sins; advising them to repent; promising them mercy upon sincere repentance; threatening grievous judgments on their impenitence; foretelling their rejection if they did not amend; and, for the comfort of the godly, predicting mercy to them; intermixing many promises of the future kingdom and coming of the Messiah, to whom many should be converted, and by him be saved, and especially many of the two tribes, who hear from our prophet a more comfortable message (viz. of returning to their own land) than Israel, which must not expect any such return, i.e. for the whole body of the people. And he closeth his whole prophecy either with a form of confession and supplication for the remnant returned, or a prediction in what manner they would return, confess, supplicate, and rely upon God alone; to which duty performed, he adjoineth sweet and excellent promises, containing both temporal and spiritual blessings, Ho 14 .

Poole: Hosea 9 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 9

The distress and captivity of Israel for their sins, especially their idolatry.

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 detect, reprove, and convince the Jewish nation in general, and the Israelites in particular, of their many sins, particularly their idolatry: the corrupt state of the kingdom is also noticed. But he invites them to repentance, with promises of mercy, and gospel predictions of the future restoration of the Israelites and of the Jews, and their final conversion to Christianity.

MHCC: Hosea 9 (Chapter Introduction)

(Hos 9:1-6) The distress to come upon Israel.

(Hos 9:7-10) The approach of the day of trouble.

(Hos 9:11-17) Judgments on Israel.

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 ancients, in reckoning up the books of the Old Testament, put all together, and reckon but as one book. They are called the minor prophets, not because their writings are of any less authority or usefulness than those of the greater prophets, or as if these prophets were less in God's account or might be so in ours than the other, but only because they are shorter, and less in bulk, than the other. We have reason to think that these prophets preached as much as the others, but that they did not write so much, nor is so much of their preaching kept upon record. Many excellent prophets wrote nothing, and others but little, who yet were very useful in their day. And so in the Christian church there have been many burning and shining lights, who are not known to posterity by their writings, and yet were no way inferior in gifts, and graces, and serviceableness to their own generation, than those who are; and some who have left but little behind them, and make no great figure among authors, were yet as valuable men as the more voluminous writers. These twelve small prophets, Josephus says, were put into one volume by the men of the great synagogue in Ezra's time, of which learned and pious body of men the last three of these twelve prophets are supposed to have been themselves members. These are what remained of the scattered pieces of inspired writing. Antiquaries value the fragmenta veterum - the fragments of antiquity; these are the fragments of prophecy, which are carefully gathered up by the divine Providence and the care of the church, that nothing might be lost, as St. Paul's short epistles after his long ones. The son of Sirach speaks of these twelve prophets with honour, as men that strengthened Jacob, Ecclus. 49:10. Nine of these prophets prophesied before the captivity, and the last three after the return of the Jews to their own land. Some difference there is in the order of these books. We place them as the ancient Hebrew did; and all agree to put Hosea first; but the ancient thing is not material. And, if we covet to place them according to their seniority, as to some of them we shall find no certainty.

II. We have before us the prophecy of Hosea, who was the first of all the writing prophets, being raised up somewhat before the time of Isaiah. The ancients say, He was of Bethshemesh, and of the tribe of Issachar. He continued very long a prophet; the Jews reckoned that he prophesied nearly fourscore and ten years; so that, as Jerome observes, he prophesied of the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes when it was at a great distance, and lived himself to see and lament it, and to improve it when it was over, for warning to its sister kingdom. The scope of his prophecy is to discover sin, and to denounce the judgments of God against a people that would not be reformed. The style is very concise and sententious, above any of the prophets; and in some places it seems to be like the book of Proverbs, without connexion, and rather to be called Hosea's sayings than Hosea's sermons. And a weighty adage may sometimes do more service than a laboured discourse. Huetius observes that many passages in the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel seem to refer to, and to be borrowed from, the prophet Hosea, who wrote a good while before them. As Jer 7:34; Jer 16:9; Jer 25:10; and Eze 26:13, speak the same with Hos 2:11; so Eze 16:16, etc., is taken from Hos 2:8. And that promise of serving the Lord their God, and David their king, Jer 30:8, Jer 30:9. Eze 34:23, Hosea had before, Hos 3:5. And Eze 19:12 is taken from Hos 13:15. Thus one prophet confirms and corroborates another; and all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit.

Matthew Henry: Hosea 9 (Chapter Introduction)

In this chapter, I. God threatens to deprive this degenerate seed of Israel of all their worldly enjoyments, because by sin they had forfeited their title to them; so that they should have no comfort either in receiving them themselves or in offering them to God (Hos 9:1-5). II. He dooms them to utter ruin, for their own sins and the sins of their prophets (Hos 9:6-8). III. He upbraids them with the wickedness of their fathers before them, whose steps they trod in (Hos 9:9, Hos 9:10). IV. He threatens them with the destruction of their children and the rooting out of their posterity (Hos 9:11-17).

Constable: Hosea (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title and Writer

The prophet's name is the title of the book. The book claims to be the word of the Lord that Hosea received (1:1). Thus he appears to have been the writer.

Unity

Historically almost all Jewish and Christian scholars have regarded the whole book as the product of Hosea. Some critics, however, believe later editors (redactors) added the prophecies concerning Judah (e.g., 4:15; 5:5, 10, 12-14; 6:4, 11; et al.), since most of the book contains prophecies against Israel, the Northern Kingdom.¹ Yet there is no good reason to deny Hosea the Judean prophecies.² All the other eighth-century prophets also spoke about Judah, including Amos, who ministered to the Northern Kingdom at this time. Some critics say the salvation passages in Hosea (e.g., 11:8-11; 14:2-9) are so different from the judgment passages that someone else must have written them. However, the mixing of judgment and salvation messages is very common in all the prophets.

Date

Hosea's ministry spanned the reigns of four Judean kings (Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; cf. Isa. 1:1) and one Israelite king (Jeroboam II; 1:1). King Uzziah (Azariah) of Judah began reigning in 792 B.C., and King Hezekiah of Judah stopped reigning in 686 B.C., spanning a period of 107 years. Probably Hosea's ministry began near the end of Jeroboam II's (793-753 B.C.) and Uzziah's (792-740 B.C.) reigns and ended in the early years of Hezekiah's reign (715-686 B.C.). This would mean that the prophet's ministry lasted perhaps 45 years (ca. 760-715 B.C.).³ It also means that Hosea's ministry extended beyond the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C. since Hezekiah began ruling in 715 B.C. Hosea did not date any of his prophecies.

There were six other kings of Israel who followed Jeroboam II that Hosea did not mention in 1:1 that ruled during the reigns of the four Judean kings he named. They were Zechariah (753 B.C.), Shallum (752 B.C.), Menahem (752-742 B.C.), Pekah (752-732 B.C.), Pekahiah (742-740 B.C.), and Hoshea (732-723 B.C.). Hosea evidently prophesied during the reigns of more kings of Israel and Judah than any other prophet, probably eleven. It seems unusual that Hosea would mention four Judean kings and only one Israelite king, especially since he ministered primarily to the Northern Kingdom. He may have done this because the six Israelite kings named above were less significant in Israel's history than the other kings Hosea did mention. Another possibility is that Hosea did this because he regarded the Judean kings as Israel's legitimate kings in contrast to those of the North. He may have mentioned Jeroboam II because he was the primary king of the Northern Kingdom during his ministry or because he was the strongest king of that kingdom during that period.

Historical Background

Hosea began ministering near the end of an era of great material prosperity and military success for both Israel and Judah (cf. 2 Kings 14:25-28; 2 Chron. 26:2, 6-15). In the first half of the eighth-century B.C. Assyrian influence in the West had declined temporarily allowing both Jeroboam II and Uzziah to flourish. However, under Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 B.C) Assyria began to grow stronger and to expand westward again. In 734 B.C. the Northern Kingdom became a puppet nation within the Assyrian Empire (2 Kings 15:29). After Israel tried to revolt, Assyria defeated Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom, in 722 B.C. and deported the people of Israel into captivity (2 Kings 17:1-6; 18:10-12). Judah also became a vassal state in the Assyrian Empire during Hosea's ministry (2 Kings 16:5-10).

Hosea's prophecy reflects conditions of economic prosperity, religious formalism and apostasy, and political stability that marked Jeroboam II's reign. The historical background of the Book of Amos is almost identical.

Place of Composition

Beside the fact that Hosea ministered to the Northern Kingdom, his reference to the king of Samaria as "our king" (7:5) seems to make his residence in Israel certain. The book never states the location of any of his preaching, however.

Audience and Purpose

Hosea, like Amos, addressed the Northern Kingdom of Israel primarily.⁴ His purpose was to announce that because the nation had broken Yahweh's covenant (the Mosaic Covenant) judgment was coming (cf. Deut. 28:15-68). The people needed to repent and to return to the Lord and to His covenant. If they did, they might avoid His judgment. However, the prophet announced that the nation as a whole would not repent, though individuals could, so judgment was coming. Hosea also reaffirmed God's promise to bless His people Israel eventually, in the distant future (cf. Deut. 30:1-10).

"Understanding the message of the book of Hosea depends upon understanding the Sinai covenant. The book contains a series of blessings and curses announced for Israel by God through Hosea. Each blessing or curse is based upon a corresponding type in the Mosaic law."⁵

Theology

The major biblical doctrines that Hosea stressed were sin, judgment, salvation, and the loyal love of God.

Regarding sin, the prophet stressed the idolatry of the Israelites, which he compared to spiritual adultery. Israel had turned from Yahweh to worship Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility. The Lord told Hosea to marry a woman who would prove to be unfaithful to him so he could appreciate and communicate how the Lord felt about His wife's (Israel's) unfaithfulness to Him. Hosea also pointed out other sins that the Israelites needed to forsake: violent crimes (4:2; 6:9; 12:1), political revolt (7:3-7), foreign alliances (7:11; 8:9), spiritual ingratitude (7:15), social injustice (12:7), and selfish arrogance (13:6).

Hosea called for repentance, but he was not hopeful of a positive response because most of the people did not want to change. God's judgment would, therefore, descend in the form of infertility, military invasion, and exile. Hosea stressed the fact that God was just in sending judgment on the Israelites. He would do it by making their punishments match their crimes.

The prophet assured the Israelites that God would not abandon them completely. After judgment would come salvation. Eventually the people would return to Yahweh, as Hosea's wayward wife returned to him. In Hosea passages on salvation follow sections announcing judgment, though there are more predictions of punishment than promises of deliverance.

Judgment	Restoration
1:2-9	1:10-2:1
2:2-13	2:14-3:5
4:1-5:14	5:15-6:3
6:4-11:7	11:8-11
11:12-13:16	ch. 14

The outstanding revelation concerning God that this book contributes is the loyal love of Yahweh for His own. The great illustration of how committed God is to His people is how He instructed Hosea to relate to his unfaithful wife. The Lord will not forsake those with whom He has joined in covenant commitment even if they become unfaithful to Him repeatedly. He will be patient with them and will eventually save them (cf. 11:1-4; 14).⁶

"The Lord's covenantal relationship with His people Israel is central to the messages of the eighth-century prophets Hosea, Amos, and Micah. Each of these prophets accused God's people of violating the obligations of the Mosaic Covenant and warned that judgment was impending. Despite painting such a bleak picture of the immediate future, these prophets also saw a bright light at the end of the dark tunnel of punishment and exile. Each anticipated a time when the Lord, on the basis of His eternal covenantal promises to Abraham and David, would restore Israel to a position of favor and blessing. In fact, the coming judgment would purify God's people and thus prepare the way for a glorious new era in Israel's history."⁷

Message⁸

The book of Hosea is an unusually powerful book because the prophet ministered out of his deep personal emotions. His intellectual appeals to the Israelites in his day, and to us in ours, arose out of great personal tragedy in his own life. We might say that he cried out as he bled. Hosea appreciated the pain that God felt over His people's apostasy, as no other prophet did, because he felt the intense pain of his wife's unfaithfulness. Hosea could speak of the deepest things in the economy of God because he entered into fellowship with God in God's sufferings (cf. Phil. 3:10). That is the reason this book is so appealing and so powerful.

The permanent values of this book are its revelations of sin, judgment, and love. Hosea reveals what sin is at its worst. It also reveals the nature of judgment. Third, it reveals the unconquerable force of true love.

With regard to sin, Hosea reveals the very nature of sin, what makes it so appalling, not just the various forms of sin. Hosea was able to penetrate to the very heart of sin.

What made the sin of the Israelites so great was the fact that they had sinned against light and love.

The more light (revelation from God) that people have, the greater is their responsibility (cf. Rom. 1-3). What made Israel's sin so bad was that they were the Chosen People of God, the people of all peoples on earth who enjoyed the most revelation of the gracious person and the loving plans of Yahweh for their blessing. They had the Law, they had God's presence among them, and they had God's covenant promises (cf. Rom. 9). Yet they rebelled against Him and chose to walk in darkness rather than light.

Furthermore, they had sinned against God's love. They had experienced Yahweh's election, His provisions, His protection, and more of His blessings than any other people on the earth, but they walked away from Him and spent His gifts to them to satisfy their lewd desires. They had not only committed spiritual adultery, but they had become spiritual prostitutes. They had sinned against His love as well as against His light.

In some respects all sins are equally bad in that they are all offenses against God. But in another sense some sins are worse than others because people who have experienced much of the light and love of God have greater responsibility to respond to that light and love than people who have fewer of these blessings. In Romans 2 Paul explained that God will judge people according to the light that they had. The Israelites had much light and they had experienced much love. This made their sin especially heinous.

Hosea declared that the human marriage relationship symbolized the relationship that existed between Yahweh and His people. Israel had become unfaithful to God. God taught Hosea the seriousness of this unfaithfulness and how He felt about it through the prophet's own marriage relationship. Hosea experienced the tragedy and heartbreak of an unfaithful wife, not just an adulteress, which is bad enough, but an adulteress turned prostitute, which enabled him to enter into the fellowship of God's sufferings over the behavior of His wife, Israel. Hosea's heart was broken, and he felt the most unutterable sorrow that a man can feel when he feels his wife abandon him. He learned how God felt, and he denounced kings, priests, and people out of that broken heart that mirrored the broken heart of God. Hosea, then, revealed the deepest nature of sin, namely infidelity to the elective grace of God. The worst thing in the realm of sin is apathy to the love of God.

Hosea also revealed the nature of judgment. In view of the essential nature of sin, namely violation of covenant love, judgment will inevitably fall, unless there is genuine repentance. In view of their sin, the Israelites had no basis for hoping that God would pardon them. Hosea referred to the past love of God for Israel, His present love, and His future love for His Chosen People. Interspersed between these reminders of God's love through the book we have Hosea's tracing of Israel's history downward to the place where judgment was inevitable. Such great sinners against God's light and love had no reason to expect divine mercy. No one can see this as clearly or feel it so intensely as the man who has been sinned against so long and persistently as Hosea had been. Hosea felt the divine justice in God's action, and so he could announce it in the clearest and most forceful terms, as this book shows.

Nevertheless, in spite of the great revelations of sin and judgment that this book contains, its greatest revelation is that of love, divine love. In the midst of Hosea's personal overwhelming sorrow because of Gomer's actions, God told him to seek out his sinning wife, to go after her and bring her back, first into a wilderness seclusion for a while, but then back into a place of love and privilege at his own side. Through his wife's unfaithfulness Hosea learned the awfulness of sin, and in obedience to God's command to seek out and accept his traitorous wife, he learned God's love in spite of sin.

These three great revelations, sin, judgment, and love, constitute the living message of the Book of Hosea. These are the great lessons that we must apply to ourselves and to those to whom we minister. We need a constant reemphasis of each of these truths because we tend to get away from them individually and corporately, as the church. We fail to appreciate the love of God because we fail to appreciate the essential nature of our sin and that it makes judgment inevitable.

Hosea teaches that the most heinous and damnable sin of which people are capable is infidelity to love. This is the sin that damns unbelievers; they fail to respond to the love of God in reaching out to them. It is also the sin that will bring judgment on believers who are apathetic to the love of their Savior. Apathy toward divine love will inevitably lead to spiritual adultery. Compared to this the animalism and violence of the heathen are as nothing. It would be better not to have the light or to have known divine love than to have them and then to be unfaithful to them (cf. 2 Pet. 2:21).

Hosea also teaches that divine judgment is the fruit of sin. Infidelity to love can lead only to degradation. Israel thought she was repenting, but this prophet pointed out that her repentance was only superficial (6:4; 13:3). Just as faithfulness to the covenant brought blessing, so unfaithfulness brought discipline, and discipline in proportion to the light and love violated.

Hosea teaches too that true love will triumph over unfaithfulness. Though unfaithfulness inevitably results in chastening, and unfaithfulness to divine light and love leads unquestionably to the worst kind of misery, true love does not forsake the one loved. In fact, true love bears the judgment, the heartache and suffering, that the unfaithful lover causes. It takes this judgment on itself so that final restoration can be possible. This book closes with the Lord saying at last, "I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely" (14:4). God will not cast off those who sin against Him even in the most heinous way. He will disciple them, but He will not cast them away from His presence but will give them a new heart of faithfulness to Himself (Jer. 32:39).

The application of the message of Hosea to our generation touches the church and the Christian. It is a message to God's people, not to unbelievers, primarily. It is a message to those who walk in great light and enjoy great love, to those who are married to God.

Like Israel of old, the modern church has become apathetic to the love of God and has wandered away from Him, has become unfaithful to Him, and has even prostituted herself to the world to find satisfaction and approval. The evidence of spiritual adultery in our time is worldliness, the paganism of our day that is part of church life. The church is going after the things that the world values at the expense of faithfulness to the Word and will of God. This is due ultimately to our dissatisfaction with the love of God. We take the resources that God has given us and spend them to satisfy unworthy ambitions and pleasures. We are enflaming ourselves with carnality under every green tree as Israel did. Consequently, we are failing to bear the testimony to the light and love of God that we should be proclaiming, and unbelievers are not taking God seriously.

Hosea spoke of God's judgment coming on His people in three figures.

He said He would weaken His people's strength, as a moth and rottenness weakens clothing (5:12). That judgment is evident in the church today. We see it in the church's lack of influence in the world, the lack of conversions as the gospel is preached, and the world's indifference to the church's testimony, for example. This is because the church has turned to other sources of strength beside the Lord, as Israel did to Egypt and Assyria. The church, like Israel, has only repented superficially. This judgment is already in effect.

Second, Hosea said judgment would come like a young lion and a bear (11:10; 13:7-8). This is a manifestation of the fiercer anger of the Lord. This form of judgment is also evident in some churches. They have lost their testimony completely. They have no spiritual impact because they have abandoned the Lord. They have rejected His Word and His will and pursue other interests, like a prostitute.

The third form of judgment is God's withdrawal from His own people (5:6). When they call on Him, He does not answer them because they have refused to listen to Him for so long. His presence and blessing have departed from them so there is no more indication that they even belong to Him. Of course, God will not fully abandon His own, but He will remove His presence from them to such an extent that they are without His help. God did this to Israel when He allowed them to go into captivity.

Nevertheless, after all the failure, heartbreak, and desolation caused by the unfaithfulness of God's people, He will gather them to Himself. As He promised to restore and revive Israel's love for Himself, so He has promised to take the church to abide forever with Himself one day. What God will do for Israel at the Second Coming, He will do for the church at the Rapture. These restorations are in spite of, not because of, His people's responses to His light and love. They are due to the love of God, a love that remains committed to those whom He has chosen regardless of their faithful commitment to Him. May His love for us move us to remain faithful to Him and to practice that kind of love with those who have been unfaithful to us as well.

Constable: Hosea (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction 1:1

II. The first series of messages of judgment and restoration: Hosea's family 1:2-2:1

A. Signs of coming judgment 1:2-9

B. A promise of restoration 1:10-2:1

III. The second series of messages of judgment and restoration: marital unfaithfulness 2:2-3:5

A. Oracles of judgment 2:2-13

1. Judgment on Gomer as a figure of Israel 2:2-7

2. Judgment on Israel 2:8-13

B. Promises of restoration 2:14-3:5

1. Renewed love and restored marriage 2:14-20

2. Renewed fertility and restored favor 2:21-23

3. The restoration of Hosea's and Yahweh's wives ch. 3

IV. The third series of messages on judgment and restoration: widespread guilt 4:1-6:3

A. The judgment oracles chs. 4-5

1. Yahweh's case against Israel ch. 4

2. The guilt of both Israel and Judah ch. 5

B. The restoration promises 6:1-3

V. The fourth series of messages on judgment and restoration: Israel's ingratitude 6:4-11:11

A. More messages on coming judgment 6:4-11:7

1. Israel's ingratitude and rebellion 6:4-8:14

2. Israel's inevitable judgment 9:1-11:7

B. Another assurance of restoration 11:8-11

VI. The fifth series of messages on judgment and restoration: historical unfaithfulness 11:12-14:9

A. Judgment for unfaithfulness 11:12-13:16

1. The deceitfulness of Israel 11:12-12:14

2. Israel's impending doom ch. 13

B. Restoration in spite of unfaithfulness 14:1-8

VII. Conclusion 14:9

Constable: Hosea

Hosea

Bibliography

Andersen, Francis I., and David Noel Freedman. Hosea: A New Translation, Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible commentary series. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1980.

Chisholm, Robert B., Jr. "Hosea." In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, pp. 1377-1407. Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Wheaton: Scripture Press Publications, Victor Books, 1985.

_____. "A Theology of the Minor Prophets." In A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, pp. 397-433. Edited by Roy B. Zuck. Chicago: Moody Press, 1991.

Dyer, Charles H., and Eugene H. Merrill. The Old Testament Explorer. Nashville: Word Publishing, 2001.

Harper, William Rainey. A Critical and Exegetical Commentery on Amos and Hosea. International Critical Commentaries series. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1905.

Harrison, R. K. Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1969.

Hillers, D. Treaty Curses and the Old Testament Prophets. Biblica et orientalia 16. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1964.

Keil, Carl Friedrich. The Twelve Minor Prophets. 2 vols. Translated by James Martin. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949.

Kidner, Derek. Love to the Loveless: The Message of Hosea. The Bible Speaks Today series. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1981.

Mays, James Luther. Hosea: A Commentary. The Old Testament Library series. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969.

Stuart, Douglas. Hosea-Jonah. Word Biblical Commentary series. Waco: Word Books, 1987.

Wolff, Hans Walter. Hosea. Translated by Gary Stansell. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974.

Wood, Leon J. "Hosea." In Daniel-Minor Prophets. Vol. 7 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 12 vols. Edited by Frank E. Gaebelein and Richard P. Polcyn. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985.

Young, Edward J. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Revised ed. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960.

Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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 commonly called lesser prophets, because their prophecies are short. He prophesied in the kingdom of Israel, (that is, of the ten tribes) about the same time that Isaias prophesied in the kingdom of Juda. (Challoner) --- The chronological order is not observed in any edition. The Septuagint very from the rest. They place the less before the greater prophets, and read some of the names rather differently, as Protestants do also, though they have nothing but novelty to recommend the change. We shall here specify the Protestant names, (Haydock) in the order in which these prophets appeared: (Calmet) 1. Hosea, 2. Amos, 3. Jonah, 4. Micah, 5. Nahum, 6. Joel, 7. Zephaniah, 8. Habakkuk, 9. Obadiah, 10. Haggai, 11. Zechariah, 12. Malachi. (Haydock) --- It is not known who collected them into one volume. but the book of Ecclesiasticus (xlix. 12.) speaks of the twelve; and 4 Esdras i. 39., specifies them as they are found in the Septuagint: Osee, Amos, Micheas, Joel, Abdias, Jonas, Nahum, &c., as in the Vulgate. (Calmet) --- Many other prophets appeared before these, (Worthington) but Osee is the first of the sixteen whose works are extant. He must have continued his ministry about eighty-five years, and lived above one hundred and ten, if the first verse speaks of him alone. But some take it to regard the whole collection, and may be added by another hand. (Calmet) --- The style of Osee is sententious and very hard to be understood, (St. Jerome) as but little is known of the last kings of Israel, in whose dominions he lived, and to whom he chiefly refers, though he speaks sometimes of Juda, &c. (Calmet) --- By taking a wife, and other parables, he shews their criminal conduct and chastisment, and foretells their future deliverance and the benefits to be conferred by Christ. We must observe that the prophets often style the kingdom of the two tribes, Juda, Benjamin, Jerusalem, or the house of David; and that of the ten tribes, Ephraim, Joseph, Samaria, Jezrahel, Bethel, or Bethaven; and often Israel or Jacob till after the captivity of these tribes, when the latter titles refer to Juda, who imitated the virtues of Jacob better than the other kingdom. (Worthington) --- Then all distinction of this nature was at an end. (Haydock)

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 Latin and Arabic versions, "the Prophecy of Hoses": and, in the Syriac version, "the Prophecy of Hoses the Prophet". It is the first of the twelve lesser prophets, so called, not because they were of less value, credit, and authority, than the other prophets; but because of their smallness in bulk; and which, as Kimchi says, upon the authority of their Rabbins, were put together in one book, that no one of them might be lost, because of their smallness; and Josephus ^a reckons them but as one book; and they are quoted in the New Testament under the name of the Book of the Prophets ^b. This prophet was one of them, and therefore placed here; though, as Kimchi, in his preface to this book, and R. David Ganz ^c, observe, his prophecy was before the prophecy of Isaiah; and yet he was not the first of these minor prophets, as to order of time; not only Jonah, but Joel and Amos, were before him; and so they are placed by some writers; according to Mr. Whiston ^d, he began to prophesy about the year of the world 3196 A.M. and 808 B.C. Mr. Bedford ^e places him in 804 B.C. His name is the same with Joshua and Jesus, and signifies a saviour; and he was not only, as all the true prophets of the Lord and faithful ministers of the word are, the means and instruments in the hand of God of saving people; but he was a type of Christ the Saviour, as well as prophesied concerning him, and salvation by him. Of his parentage, and the time of his prophesying, see Hos 1:1, by which it appears that he lived in several reigns, and to a very great age. He chiefly prophesied against the ten tribes of Israel; reproved them for their sins; exhorted them to repentance; threatened them with destruction in case of impenitence; and comforted the truly godly with the promise of the Messiah, and of the happy state of the church in the latter day. His style, is short and concise; in some places sententious, and without connection, obscure and difficult of interpretation; and in others very pathetic and moving. Of the divine inspiration and authority of this book there is no room to doubt; since passages out of it are quoted and referred to by Christ and his apostles; by Christ himself, Mat 9:13 1Pe 2:10 There are some things said of the descent, death, and burial of this prophet, not to be depended on. Pseudo Epiphanius ^f and Isidorus ^g say he was of the tribe of Issachar, and born in Belomoth or Bethlemoth; and that he died in peace, and was buried in his own country; but, according to a tradition of the Jews ^h, he died in Babylon, and was buried in Tzapheth, a city in upper Galilee; but all this is uncertain, and not very probable, and is of no importance to be known.

Gill: Hosea 9 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 9

This chapter is an address to Israel or the ten tribes, and contains either a new sermon, or is a very considerable part of the former upon the same subject, the sins and punishment of that people. It begins with an instruction to them, not to rejoice in their prosperity, as others did; since it would soon be at an end, because of their idolatry, which was everywhere committed, and for which they expected a reward of temporal good things, Hos 9:1; but, on the contrary, they are threatened with famine, with want both of corn and wine, Hos 9:2; and with an ejection out of their land into foreign countries; where they should be obliged to eat things unclean by their law, Hos 9:3; and where their sacrifices and solemnities should be no more attended to, Hos 9:4; yea, where their carcasses should fall and be buried, while their own country and houses lay waste and desolate, Hos 9:6; for, whatsoever their foolish and mad prophets said to the contrary, who pretended to be with God, and know his will, and were a snare to them that gave heed unto them, and brought hatred on them, the time of their punishment would certainly come, Hos 9:7; and their iniquities would be remembered and visited; seeing their corruptions were deep, like those that appeared in Gibeah, in the days of old, Hos 9:9; they acting the same ungrateful part their fathers had done, of whom they were a degenerate offspring, Hos 9:10; wherefore for these, and other offences mentioned, they are threatened with being bereaved of their children, and drove out of their land, to wander among the nations, Hos 9:11.