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 fo... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
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 Exodus 29:38; Numbers 28:3,... [ Continue Reading ]
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 - Man is content to remain far from God, so that God do not show him, that He has withdrawn Himself from him.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... [ Continue Reading ]
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 be... [ Continue Reading ]
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” Amos 6:3. Now it was not at hand only. In God’s purpose, those “days” were “come,” irresistible, inevitable, inextricable... [ Continue Reading ]
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 a... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
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... [ Continue Reading ]
THOUGH THEY BRING UP CHILDREN - God had threatened to deprive them of children, in every stage before or at their birth. Now, beyond this, he tells them, as to those who should escape this sentence, he would bereave them of them, or make them childless. THAT THERE SHALL NOT BE A MAN LEFT - Literall... [ Continue Reading ]
EPHRAIM, AS I SAW TYRUS, IS PLANTED IN A PLEASANT PLACE - Or (better) “as I saw (her) toward Tyre,” or “as I saw as to Tyre.” Ephraim stretched out, in her dependent tribes, “toward” or “to” Tyre itself. Like to Tyrus she was, “in her riches, her glory, her pleasantness, her strength, her pride,” an... [ Continue Reading ]
GIVE THEM A MISCARRYING WOMB - The prophet prays for Israel, and debates with himself what he can ask for, amid this their determined wickedness, and God’s judgments. Since “Ephraim” was “to bring forth children to the murderer,” then it was mercy to ask for them, that they might have no children. S... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THEIR WICKEDNESS IS IN GILGAL - “Gilgal,” having been the scene of so many of God’s mercies, had been, on that very ground, chosen as a popular scene for idol-worship (see the note above at Hosea 4:15). And doubtless, Ephraim still deceived himself, and thought that his idolatrous worship, in a... [ Continue Reading ]
EPHRAIM IS SMITTEN - The prophet, under the image of a tree, repeats the same sentence of God upon Israel. The word “smitten” is used of the smiting of the tree from above, especially by the visitation of God, as by “blasting” and “mildew” Amos 4:9. Yet such smiting, although it falls heavily for th... [ Continue Reading ]
MY GOD HATH CAST THEM AWAY - “My God” (he saith) as if God were his God only who clave to him, not their’s who had, by their disobedience, departed from Him. “My God.” “He had then authority from Him,” whom he owned and who owned “him,” and who bade him so Speak, as though God were “his” God, and no... [ Continue Reading ]