Hosea 11:12

Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints. EPHRAIM COMPASSETH ME ABOUT WITH LIES ... BUT JUDAH ... IS FAITHFUL WITH THE SAINTS. Maurer joins this verse with Hosea 12:1. But as this verse praises Judah, whereas Hosea 12:2 censures him, it must belong rather to Hosea 11:1, and a new prophecy begins at Hosea 12:1. To avoid this, Maurer translates this verse as a censure, 'Judah wanders with God' - i:e., though having the true God, he wanders after false gods. But Judah yet ruleth with Go...

I shall not stay now to recite the opinions of others; nor does it seem necessary. I might have indeed referred in the last verse to what some say respecting the roaring of God, — that his voice will roar through the Gospel: but as this and the like are refinements of which I think the Prophet never thought, it is enough to understand the simple meaning of the Prophet, and not to accumulate the sentiments of others. I indeed know that this makes a great display, and there are some who are delighted with a mass of opinions; but I regard what is more useful. I come now to the last verse, in which the Lord complains,_that he had been compassed with the falsehood and fraud of the people _By these words he means that he had in every thing found the multiplied perfidy of the Israelites; for this is the import of the word, “compassed”. We now then perceive that the Prophet means that the Israel...

8-12 God is slow to anger, and is loth to abandon a people to utter ruin, who have been called by his name. When God was to give a sacrifice for sin, and a Saviour for sinners, he spared not his own Son, that he might spare us. This is the language of the day of his patience; but when men sin that away, then the great day of his wrath comes. Man's compassions are nothing in comparison with the tender mercies of our God, whose thoughts and ways, in receiving returning sinners, are as much above ours as heaven is above the earth. God knows how to pardon poor sinners. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and therein declares his righteousness, now Christ has purchased the pardon, and he has promised it. Holy trembling at the word of Christ will draw us to him, not drive us from him, the children tremble, and flee to him. And all that come at the gospel call, shall have a place a...

Verse Hosea 11:12. _EPHRAIM COMPASSETH ME ABOUT WITH LIES_] I think this verse does not well _unite_ with the _above_; it belongs to _another_ _subject_, and should begin the following chapter, as in the Hebrew. _JUDAH YET RULETH WITH GOD_] There is an allusion here to Genesis 32:24, where _Jacob_, having "wrestled with the Angel," had his name changed to _Israel_, one that _rules with God_. That glory the _Israelites_ had lost by their idolatry; but _Judah_ still retained the true worship, and alone deserved the name of Israel. Bp. _Newcome_ translates this clause thus: - "But hereafter they shall come down a people of God, even a faithful people of saints." Even allowing t

EPHRAIM COMPASSETH ME ABOUT WITH LIES - Having spoken of future repentance, conversion, restoration, he turns back to those around him, and declares why they can have no share in that restoration. Nothing about them was true. If ever they approached God, it was “with lies.” : “God, being infinite, cannot really be “compassed about.” The prophet so speaks, to describe the “great multitude of those who thus lied to God, and the multitude and manifoldness of their lies. Wherever God looked, in all parts of their kingdom, in all their doings, all which He could see was lying to Himself.” All was, as it were, one throng of lies, heaped on one another, jostling with one another. Such is the world now. “Their sin was especially a lie, because they sinned, not through ignorance, but through malice.” Their chief lie was the setting up of the worship of the calves, with a worldly end, yet with pre...

EXPOSITION In Hosea 11:1 Jehovah enumerates the benefits conferred on Israel all along from the time of their departure out of Egypt. But parallel with this enumeration runs the history of Israel's ingratitude. HOSEA 11:1 WHEN ISRAEL WAS A CHILD, THEN I LOVED HIM, AND CALLED MY SON OUT OF EGYPT. Driver uses this verse to exemplify the principle that when the reference is to what is past or certain, rather than to what is future or indefinite, we find the predicate or the apodosis introduced by וַּ, though not with nearly the same frequency as לperfect and _vav _causes (1) with subject or object pre-fixed; (2) after time-determinations. The life of a nation has its stages of rise, progress, and

EPHRAIM COMPASSETH ME ABOUT WITH LIES, AND THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL WITH DECEIT,.... Here properly we should begin a new chapter, as many interpreters and commentators do; for the prophet, or the Lord by him, in Hosea 11:11, having finished his predictions concerning the call and conversion of the Israelites, and their return to their land, here begins a new discourse, by comparing the characters of Ephraim and Judah, and thence descends to the sins and punishment of both. The former, namely, Ephraim or Israel, that is, the ten tribes, surrounded either the prophet, to hear him prophesy, and professed a great regard to what he said; though it was all deceit and flattery: or rather the Lord himself, whom they pretended to serve and worship when they worshipped the calves at Dan and Bethel; and would have it thought they did not worship them, but the Lord in them, and by them, as the Papists no...

Hosea 11:1. _When Israel was a child,_ When the nation was yet young, and had scarcely started on its march among the peoples of the earth: «When Israel was a child,» Hosea 11:1. _Then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt._ God's love does not depend upon the standard of our spiritual attainments. While we are yet children in grace, the Father's love is set upon us, as it was upon Israel in its beginnings as a nation. Hosea 11:2. _As they called them, so they went from them;_ Such was the perversity of this child-nation, whom nevertheless God loved that though galled by Jehovah, he went away, and refused to obey the divine call. The Israelites in Egypt «hear

CHAPTER S 11:12-12:14 THE INDICTMENT _ 1. Ephraim's indictment (Hosea 11:12; Hosea 12:1) _ 2. Remembrance of the past (Hosea 12:3) 3. What Israel had become (Hosea 12:7) Chapter 11:12-12:2. Lying and deceit had been Ephraim's course towards Jehovah; instead of trusting Him and following Him faithfully they had attached themselves to idols, while Judah still outwardly cleaved to Jehovah, though it was in a rambling way. The word translated “ruleth” means rambling. The better rendering of the sentence is “and Judah is also rambling towards God (or unbridled against Him) and towards the faithful Holy One.” But while ou

HOSEA 11:12 TO HOSEA 12:14 (= Hebrews 12:1). EPHRAIM'S INFIDELITY TRACED FROM THE BEGINNING. This is one of the most difficult passages in Hosea. In the text Judah also is mentioned; but this may be due to a later hand. Hosea 12:4 f., Hosea 12:12 f. are probably additions. The chapter-division is wrong in EV and right in the Heb. Israel's sins of treason and deceit as it were surround Yahweh (nor has Judah been faithful). Ephraim loves (see note) wind, symbol of worthlessness and violence, heaps up falsehood and fraud, and faithlessly enters into covenant