Hosea 10:2

Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images. THEIR HEART IS DIVIDED - (1 Kings 18:21, "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him;" Matthew 6:24; James 4:8, "Purify your hearts, ye double-minded"). NOW SHALL THEY BE FOUND FAULTY - "now" i:e., soon. HE SHALL BREAK DOWN THEIR ALTARS - "He," Yahweh Himself: emphatic [ huw' (H1931)]. Not the enemy, who is but God's instrument; but the Lord Himself ...

He says first that _their heart was divided, _that is, from God; for this, we know, is principally required, that people should faithfully cleave to their God. “And now Israel, what does thy God require of thee, but to cleave to him with the whole heart?” Since God then binds us to himself by a holy union, it is the summit of all wickedness, when our heart is divided from him, as it is when an unchaste and perfidious wife alienates her affection from her husband. For as long as the husband keeps the heart of his wife, as it were, tied to himself, conjugal fidelity and chastity continue; but when her heart is divided from her husband, it is all over, and she abandons herself to lewdness. So also the Prophet says here that the heart of the people was divided from God; for they did not devote themselves to God with a pure and sincere affection, as they ought to have done. “This people then...

1-8 A vine is only valuable for its fruit; but Israel now brought no fruit to perfection. Their hearts were divided. God is the Sovereign of the heart; he will have all, or none. Were the stream of the heart wholly after God, it would run strongly, and bear down all before it. Their pretences to covenant with God were false. Even the proceeding of justice was as poisonous hemlock. Alas, how empty a vine is the visible church even at this day! But all earthly prosperity is but a collection of bubbles, soon destroyed like foam upon the water. Sinners will in vain seek shelter from that Judge, whom they now despise as a Saviour....

Verse Hosea 10:2. _THEIR HEART IS DIVIDED_] They wish to serve God and Mammon, Jehovah and Baal: but this is impossible. Now GOD will do in _judgment_ what _they_ should have done in _contrition_, "break down their altars, and spoil their images....

THEIR HEART IS DIVIDED - Between God and their idols, in that they would not wholly part with either, as Elijah upbraided them, “How long halt ye between the two opinions?” 1 Kings 18:21. When the pagan, by whom the king of Assyria replaced them, had been taught by one of the priests whom the king sent back, in order to avert God’s judgments, they still propagated this division. Like Jeroboam 2 Kings 17:32, 2 Kings 17:41, they became fearers of the Lord,” His worshipers, “and made to themselves out of their whole number (i. e., indiscriminately) priests of the high places. They were fearers of the Lord, and they were servers of their gods, according to the manner of the nations whom t

EXPOSITION The concluding thought of the last chapter is the commencing one of this; while the sad subject of Israel's guilt being resumed continues in the first section (Hosea 10:1) of the chapter, and that of their punishment in the second section (Hosea 10:9), with a solemn caution to make a better use of the future than they had clone of the past. HOSEA 10:1 ISRAEL IS AN EMPTY VINE. The comparison of Israel to a vine is frequent; but the epithet _boqeq _is variously rendered; (1) as "empty." Thus Aben Ezra explains it as "empty in which there is no strength to bring forth fruit, nor fruit;" and thus also Kimchi explains it: "An empty vin

THEIR HEART IS DIVIDED,.... Some say from Hoshea their king, who would have reformed them from their idolatry, and returned them to the true worship of God; but of that there is no proof; better from one another, their affections being alienated from each other, by their discords and animosities, their conspiracies against their kings, and the murders of them, and the civil wars among themselves; they also not being of one mind, but disagreeing in their sentiments about their idols; some being for one, and some for another: or rather from God himself, from the fear of him, from his worship and service; or from the law, as the Targum; or their hearts were divided between God and their idols, as in Ahab's time between God and Baal; they pretended to worship God when they worshipped the calves, and so shared the service between them; or it may be rendered, "their heart flatters" r them; as...

Hosea 10:1. _Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself:_ Not to his God. It matters not how much fruit we bear if it is for self, we are really fruitless. A thing which is good in itself may lose all its goodness because stained with a selfish motive. We are to live unto God; and we must always be watchful about this; otherwise we may be doing much, and doing nothing. «Israel is an empty vine. He bringeth forth fruit unto himself.» Hosea 10:1. _According to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images._ It is a very sad thing when, the more men received from God, the more they sin. But just in proportion as the land of Israel was fat and fertile, in that proportion did they set

CHAPTER 9:10-11:11 RETROSPECT, ISRAEL'S FAILURE AND RUIN _ 1. Israel once beloved, now fugitive wanderers (Hosea 9:10) _ 2. Their guilt and punishment (Hosea 10:1) 3. Exhortation and rebuke (Hosea 10:12) 4. The mercy of a merciful God (Hosea 11:1) Hosea 9:10. Like a wayfaring man who finds grapes and figs in the desert and delights in them, so the Lord found Israel in the desert and they were His pleasure when He led them out of Egypt. But they requited His love by going after Baal-peor, one of the filthiest gods of heat

GOD'S ANNIHILATING JUDGMENT ON THE MIXED CULTUS. With the land's abounding prosperity Israel has multiplied altars in the service of the mixed cultus; these Yahweh will destroy (Hosea 10:1 f.) Their puppet-kings they shall find utterly impotent (Hosea 10:3), and their idle, lying words, which never result in performance, shall yield a bitter crop of judgment (Hosea 10:4,? a gloss). Samaria (_i.e._ the northern kingdom) shall find the calves of Beth-Aven (Bethel, _cf._ Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8 *) a source of terror rather than of help, their glory departed, and the idols them