Hosea 13:9

O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. O ISRAEL, THOU HAST DESTROYED THYSELF; BUT IN ME. Thou and ME stand in contrast. HAST DESTROYED THYSELF - Literally, thy destruction is of thyself (, "He that doeth it (adultery) destroyeth his own soul;" ). IN ME is THINE HELP - literally, in thine help - (cf. ). Hadst thou rested thy hope in me, I would have been always ready at hand for thy help (Grotius)....

In the first place, God upbraids the Israelites for having in their perverseness rejected whatever was offered for their safety: but he proceeds farther and says, that they were past hope, and that there was a hidden cause which prevented God from helping them, and bringing them aid when they laboured under extreme necessity. _He has destroyed thee, Israel, _he says. Some consider the word, calf, to be understood, “The calf has destroyed thee:” but this is strained. Others think that there is a change of person: and I am inclined to adopt this opinion, as this mode of speaking we know, is very common: _Destroyed thee has Israel; _thou art the cause of thine own destruction, or, “Israel has destroyed himself.” Though then there is here a verb of the third person, and there is afterwards added an affixed pronoun at the second person, we may yet thus render the passage, “Israel has destroye...

9-16 Israel had destroyed himself by his rebellion; but he could not save himself, his help was from the Lord only. This may well be applied to the case of spiritual redemption, from that lost state into which all have fallen by wilful sins. God often gives in displeasure what we sinfully desire. It is the happiness of the saints, that, whether God gives or takes away, all is in love. But it is the misery of the wicked, that, whether God gives or takes away, it is all in wrath, nothing is comfortable. Except sinners repent and believe the gospel, anguish will soon come upon them. The prophecy of the ruin of Israel as a nation, also showed there would be a merciful and powerful interposition of God, to save a remnant of them. Yet this was but a shadow of the ransom of the true Israel, by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. He will destroy death and the grave. The Lord would no...

Verse Hosea 13:9. _O ISRAEL, THOU HAST DESTROYED THYSELF_] These evils come not by my _immediate infliction_; they are the consequences of _thy_ _own crimes_. In the above terrifying figures of the ferocious beasts, the prophet only shows what they would meet with from the hand of the _Assyrians_ in the war, the famine, and the captivity; God being represented as _doing_ what he only _permits_ to be done. _BUT IN ME_ IS _THINE HELP._] "Though thou hast destroyed thyself, yet in me alone can thy help be found" - _Newcome_. And others read, _And who_ will _help thee_? reading מי _mi, who_, for בי _bi,_ _in me_. Though this is countenanced by the _Syriac_, yet there is no evidence of it in any of the MSS. yet collated, nor do I think it to be the true reading....

O ISRAEL, THOU HAST DESTROYED THYSELF, BUT IN ME IS THY HELP - This is one of the concise sayings of Hosea, which is capable of many shades of meaning. The five words, one by one, are literally, “Israel, thy destruction, for” or “that, in” or “against Me, in” or “against thy help.” Something must be supplied any way; the simplest seems; “O Israel, thy destruction” is, “that” thou hast been, hast rebelled “against Me, against thy help” . Yet, in whatever way the words are filled up, the general sense is the same, that God alone is our help, we are the sources of our own destruction; and “that,” in separating ourselves from God, or rebelling against Him who is our help until we depart from Him, who alone could be, and who if we return, will be, our help. The sum of the meaning is, all our destruction is from ourselves; all our salvation is from God. : “Perdition, reprobation, obduration, d...

EXPOSITION The first eight verses of this chapter form the premises from which the prophet, in the ninth verse, draws the conclusion that the conduct of Israel had been suicidal; that they had brought on themselves the calamities which they had experienced, and ultimately the ruin in which those calamities eventuated. The various particulars of their sin are enumerated, with the provocation caused or the punishment incurred by each. Thus the idolatry of Baal stripped them of the authority they once possessed, and issued in the dissolution of their state. After they had been to some small extent reclaimed from this national sin, and had somewhat retrieved their position, their perseverance in the calf-worship and the progress of their idolatrous practices provoked Jehovah so grievously as to threaten their sudden and entire destruction. Then their gross ingratitude to God for his great go...

O ISRAEL, THOU HAST DESTROYED THYSELF,.... Though the Lord was a lion, a leopard, and a bear to them, yet their destruction was not owing to him, but to themselves; he was not chargeable with it, but they only; the fault and blame was theirs; their own sins brought it on them, and provoked him to such righteous wrath and vengeance before expressed: this is said to clear the Lord from any imputation of this kind, and to lay it where it should be It may be rendered, "it hath destroyed thee" k; either the calf, as Kimchi, and the worshipping of that, their idolatry; or their king, as others, taking it from the following verse by way of anticipation; or rather it may refer to all their sins before observed, their idolatry, luxury, and ingratitude. Gussetius l thinks the word בי has the signification of "burning", as in Isaiah 3:24; and renders it, "burning in me hath destroyed thee, [even] i...

Hosea was full of complaints against the people of God; for, in his day, they had very sadly wandered from the Lord. They had even forgotten him. In Hosea's prophecy, we have the plaintive voice of a loving God chiding his backsliding children. Hosea 13:1. _When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died._ A modest, humble, trembling heart is often by far the sounder heart, but when we begin to sin, and to sin boastfully, and to wrap ourselves about with the robe of self-complacency, then is death very near to us: «When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.» Hosea 13:2. And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to

Part III. The ultimate blessing of Israel in the kingdom, chapter divider. The response of Jehovah continues to the end, but at (Hosea 13:9) changes to entreaty and promise....

CHAPTER 13 EPHRAIM'S RUIN AND JUDGMENT _ 1. Ruin and judgment (Hosea 13:1) _ 2. It is thy destruction, O Israel! (Hosea 13:9) 3. Mercy to follow wrath (Hosea 13:12) 4. The desolation of the nearing judgment (Hosea 13:15) Hosea 13:1. In the beginning Ephraim was humble, and knowing his dependence, he spoke with trembling. Then he became puffed up, exalted himself in Israel, loving the preeminence, it led on to the schism from Judah and the house of David. The next step after this separation from Judah was idolatry, then