Hosea 11:1

When Israel was a child i. e., in the earliest stage of Israel's national existence, which is here dated, not, as in Hosea 2:3, from the wanderings in the wilderness, but from the sojourn in Egypt. For the figure, see on -gray hairs", Hosea 7:9.

called my son out of Egypt -Called" him, locally, into the land of Canaan, and morally, to set an example of true religion. Comp. Exodus 4:22, -Israel is my son, my firstborn; and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me." The words are quoted in St Matthew (Hosea 2:15), who renders from the Hebrew, in connexion with the sojourn of the child Jesus in Egypt. Like the portraiture of the Servant of Jehovah in the second part of Isaiah, the description of Israel as Jehovah's Son was held to be at least in part applicable to the one perfect Israelite. The national ideal never realized in the nation was realized in the Christ. The divine purpose so often baffled in the one was completed in the other.