Hosea 11:2

As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. AS THEY CALLED THEM - "they", namely, monitors sent by me. "Called," in , suggests the idea of the many subsequent calls by the prophets, besides the earlier one by God, through Moses, and originally in the person of Abraham. WENT FROM THEM - the Israelites turned away in contempt () the monitors sent by me. "They have turned their back unto me, and not their face." THEY SACRIFICED UNTO BAALIM - images of Baal, set up in various places....

The Prophet now repeats the ingratitude of the people in neglecting to keep in mind their redemption. The word, “called,” is here to be taken in a different sense. For God effectually called, as they say, the people, or his Son, from Egypt: he has again called by the outward voice or teaching through his Prophets. Hence, when he said before that he called his Son from Egypt, it ought to be understood, as they say, of actual liberation: but now when he says, _They have called them, _it is to be understood of teaching. The name of the Prophets is not expressed; but that they are intended is plain. And the Prophet seems designedly to have said in an indefinite manner, that the people had been called, that the indignity might appear more evident, as they had been called so often and by so many, and yet had refused. Hence _they have called them _When he thus speaks, he is not to be understood...

1-7 When Israel were weak and helpless as children, foolish and froward as children, then God loved them; he bore them as the nurse does the sucking child, nourished them, and suffered their manners. All who are grown up, ought often to reflect upon the goodness of God to them in their childhood. He took care of them, took pains with them, not only as a father, or a tutor, but as a mother, or nurse. When they were in the wilderness, God showed them the way in which they should go, and bore them up, taking them by the arms. He taught them the way of his commandments by the ceremonial law given by Moses. He took them by the arms, to guide them, that they might not stray, and to hold them up, that they might not stumble and fall. God's spiritual Israel are all thus supported. It is God's work to draw poor souls to himself; and none can come to him except he draw them. With bands of love; t...

AS THEY CALLED THEM, SO THEY WENT FROM THEM - The prophet changes his tone, no longer speaking of that one first call of God to Israel as a whole, whereby He brought out Israel as one man, His one son; which one call he obeyed. Here he speaks of God’s manifold calls to the people, throughout their whole history, which they as often disobeyed, and not disobeyed only, but went contrariwise. “They called them.” Whether God employed Moses, or the judges, or priests, or kings, or prophets, to call them, it was all one. Whenever or by whomsoever they were called, they turned away in the opposite direction, to serve their idols. They proportioned and fitted, as it were, their disobedience to God’s long-suffering. : “Then chiefly they threw off obedience, despised their admonitions, and worked themselves up the more franticly to a zeal for the sin which they had begun.” “They,” God’s messengers,...

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

[AS] THEY CALLED THEM, SO THEY WENT FROM THEM,.... That is, the prophets of the Lord, the true prophets, called Israel to the worship and service of God; but they turned a deaf ear to them, and their backs upon them; and the more they called to them, the further they went from them, and from the way of their duty; see Hosea 11:7. So the Targum, "I sent the prophets to teach them, but they wandered from them;'' Moses and Aaron were sent unto them, and called them out of Egypt, but they hearkened not unto them; see Exodus 6:9; in later times the prophets were sent unto them, to exhort them to their duty, and to reclaim them from their evil ways, but they despised and refused to attend to their advice and instructions; and this was continued to the times of Israel, or the ten tribes, departing fr

Hosea 11:1. _When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt._ God's love was very early love. He began with the nation of Israel when it was a mere handful of men in Egypt. There he multiplied them; and, in due time, he called them out from among the heathen. God's love to some of us manifested itself at a very early period of our lives, when we were yet children. It is among our most joyous memories that we have known the Lord from our youth up. Happy man, happy woman, of whom God can say, as he said concerning his ancient people, «When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.» Hosea 11:2. _As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images._ The nation of Israe

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

THE DIVINE FATHER'S LOVE FOR ISRAEL. In Israel's youth Yahweh loved him, and called him from Egypt to be His son, but he proved disloyal, sacrificing to the Baalim (Hosea 11:1 f.). Yet it was Yahweh who guided and protected him as a father, and healed him in sickness (Hosea 11:3). The figure now changes (but see notes). Yahweh has treated Israel as a humane master who gently leads and eases the yoke for the tired team of oxen (Hosea 11:4). The ungrateful son must return to Egypt be exiled; his cities shall be given up to the sword, because of incurable idolatry (Hosea 11:6 f.). Here the prophet movingly expresses Yahweh's love for His people: How shall I giv

THEY. The callers: i.e. the prophets, &c. who called to them. THEM. The Septuagint and Syriac read "Me". THEY. Israel. SACRIFICED. kept sacrificing. Compare Hosea 2:13. Hos 13:2. 2 Kings 17:16....