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Introduction
to Hosea
This summary of the book of Hosea provides information about the
title, author(s), date of writing, chronology, theme, theology, outline, a
brief overview, and the chapters of the Book of Hosea.
Hosea son of Beeri prophesied about the middle of the eighth
century b.c., his ministry beginning during or shortly after that of Amos. Amos
threatened God's judgment on Israel at the hands of an unnamed enemy; Hosea
identifies that enemy as Assyria (7:11;
8:9; 10:6; 11:11).
Judging from the kings mentioned in 1:1,
Hosea must have prophesied for at least 38 years, though almost nothing is
known about him from sources outside his book. He was the only one of the
writing prophets to come from the northern kingdom (Israel), and his prophecy
is primarily directed to that kingdom. But since his prophetic activity is
dated by reference to kings of Judah, the book was probably written in Judah
after the fall of the northern capital, Samaria (722-721 b.c.) -- an idea
suggested by references to Judah throughout the book (1:7,11; 4:15;
5:5,10,12-13; 6:4,11; 10:11;
11:12; 12:2).
Whether Hosea himself authored the book that preserves his prophecies is not
known. The book of Hosea stands first in the division of the Bible called the
Book of the Twelve (in the Apocrypha cf. Ecclesiasticus 49:10; see essay, p. 1790) or the
Minor Prophets (a name referring to the brevity of these books as compared to
Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel).
Hosea lived in the tragic final days of the northern kingdom,
during which six kings (following Jeroboam II) reigned within 25 years (2Ki 15:8 -- 17:6). Four (Zechariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, Pekah) were
murdered by their successors while in office, and one (Hoshea) was captured in
battle; only one (Menahem) was succeeded on the throne by his son. These kings,
given to Israel by God "in anger" and taken away "in wrath"
(13:11), floated away "like a twig on the
surface of the waters" (10:7).
"Bloodshed" followed "bloodshed" (4:2).
Assyria was expanding westward, and Menahem accepted that world power as
overlord and paid tribute (2Ki 15:19-20). But shortly afterward, in 733
b.c., Israel was dismembered by Assyria because of the intrigue of Pekah (who
had gained Israel's throne by killing Pekahiah, Menahem's son and successor).
Only the territories of Ephraim and western Manasseh were left to the king of
Israel. Then, because of the disloyalty of Hoshea (Pekah's successor), Samaria
was captured and its people exiled in 722-721, bringing the northern kingdom to
an end.
The first part of the book (chs. 1
- 3) narrates the family life of Hosea as a symbol (similar to
the symbolism in the lives of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel) to convey the message
the prophet had from the Lord for his people. God ordered Hosea to marry an
adulterous wife, Gomer, and their three children were each given a symbolic
name representing part of the ominous message. Ch. 2 alternates between Hosea's
relation to Gomer and its symbolic representation of God's relation to Israel.
The children are told to drive the unfaithful mother out of the house; but it
was her reform, not her riddance, that was sought. The prophet was ordered to
continue loving her, and he took her back and kept her in isolation for a while
(ch. 3). The affair graphically represents the Lord's
relation to the Israelites (cf. 2:4,9,18), who had been disloyal to him by
worshiping Canaanite deities as the source of their abundance. Israel was to go
through a period of exile (cf. 7:16;
9:3,6,17; 11:5).
But the Lord still loved his covenant people and longed to take them back, just
as Hosea took back Gomer. This return is described with imagery recalling the
exodus from Egypt and settlement in Canaan (cf. 1:11;
2:14-23; 3:5;
11:10-11; 14:4-7). Hosea saw Israel's past experiences
with the Lord as the fundamental pattern, or type, of God's future dealings
with his people.
The second part of the book (chs. 4
- 14) gives the details of Israel's involvement in
Canaanite religion, but a systematic outline of the material is difficult. Like
other prophetic books, Hosea issued a call to repentance. Israel's alternative
to destruction was to forsake her idols and return to the Lord (chs. 6;
14).
Information gleaned from materials discovered at Ugarit (dating from the 15th
century b.c.) enables us to know more clearly the religious practices against
which Hosea protested.
Hosea saw the failure to acknowledge God (4:1,6; 8:2-3; 13:4)
as Israel's basic problem. God's relation to Israel was that of love (2:19;
4:1; 6:6; 10:12;
12:6). The intimacy of the covenant relationship
between God and Israel, illustrated in the first part of the book by the
husband-wife relationship, is later amplified by the father-child relationship
(11:1-4). Disloyalty to God was spiritual
adultery (4:13-14; 5:4;
9:1; cf. Jer
3; see note on Ex 34:15). Israel had turned to Baal worship and had
sacrificed at the pagan high places, which included associating with the sacred
prostitutes at the sanctuaries (4:14)
and worshiping the calf images at Samaria (8:5;
10:5-6; 13:2).
There was also international intrigue (5:13;
7:8-11) and materialism. Yet despite God's
condemnation and the harshness of language with which the unavoidable judgment
was announced, the major purpose of the book is to proclaim God's compassion
and covenant love that cannot -- finally -- let Israel go.
The book of Hosea has at least two perplexing problems. The first
concerns the nature of the story told in chs. 1
- 3 and the character of Gomer. While some interpreters have
thought the story to be merely an allegory of the relation between God and
Israel, others claim, more plausibly, that the story is to be taken literally.
Among the latter, some insist that Gomer was faithful at first and later became
unfaithful, others that she was unfaithful even before the marriage.
The second problem of the book is the relation of ch. 3
to ch. 1. Despite the fact that no children are mentioned
in ch. 3, some interpreters claim that the two chapters
are different accounts of the same episode. The traditional interpretation,
however, is more likely, namely, that ch. 3
is a sequel to ch. 1 -- i.e., after Gomer proved unfaithful, Hosea
was instructed to take her back.
I.
Superscription (1:1)
A.
The Children as Signs (1:2;2:1)
C.
The Faithful Husband (ch.
3)
III.
The Unfaithful Nation and the Faithful God (chs. 4-14)
──《New
International Version》
Introduction to Hosea
Hosea is supposed to have been of the kingdom
of Israel. He lived and prophesied during a long period. The scope of his
predictions appears to be, to detect, reprove, and convince the Jewish nation
in general, and the Israelites in particular, of their many sins, particularly
their idolatry: the corrupt state of the kingdom is also noticed. But he
invites them to repentance, with promises of mercy, and gospel predictions of
the future restoration of the Israelites and of the Jews, and their final
conversion to Christianity.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Hosea》
00 Overview
HOSEA
INTRODUCTION
God has many ways by which He prepares His servants for the doing
of His work--many schools to which He sends them. But there is no teacher whom
He uses more frequently than the stern teacher whose name is Sorrow. He makes
His children acquainted with bitter trial and privation and loss; He “brings
them into the wilderness,” as Hosea says, in order that among the barren rocks
and sands He may speak to their hearts; He imparts to them their wisdom and
their strength through the discipline of sacrifice and pain. Moses is sent to
the deserts of Midian, that he may be accustomed there to the endurance of
difficulty and opposition, and that in these lonely solitudes, where he is shut
out from intercourse with his fellow-men, he may learn to hold close fellowship
with his Divine Master and King. Paul writes his loftiest and profoundest
letters from the prison-house of Nero, where for the hope of Israel he is bound
with a chain. It was in the school-house of sorrow that God fashioned the
prophet Hosea into fitness for his life-task.
I. The nature of
the mission which God gave Hosea to fulfil--He was a prophet of the Northern
Kingdom--a preacher to Israel rather than to Judah. Amos had the same sphere of
labour assigned him. But Amos was himself a native of Judea, although his
public career, so far as we know it, was confined to the North. He came to
Bethel and Samaria, a stranger from the wilderness of Tekoa away in the
South--a stranger who had been charged to deliver a terrible message of
denunciation and of impending punishment. He carried out his commission, and
then he withdrew again to his own land and people. Having spent a few stirring
and memorable days in the guilty cities of Israel--having seen their violence
and immorality and forgetfulness of God, and lifted up his voice like a trumpet
against them--he went back to the silent pastures of the desert, to write down
in quietness the story of what he had said and done at the Lord’s commandment,
and to live and die far from the scenes of his brief prophetic labours. It was
different altogether with Hosea, the son of Bceri. That he was himself a child
of that evil Northern land with whose inhabitants he pied on behalf of God is
evident to every one who reads his book. Only one born and brought up in the
very midst of the sinful people whose disobedience he bewails, linked to them
by the tenderest bonds of family affection and national feeling, could pity
them so truly, and yearn over them with so fond a love, and entreat them with
such a beseeching and persistent earnestness to return to the Lord. Then, too,
throughout his prophecy there are constantly recurring allusions to places in
the territory of the ten tribes, to Mount Tabor, and the streams of Gilead, and
the idolatrous shrines of Gilgal, and the splendid woods of Lebanon--references
which speak of the writer’s perfect familiarity with the scenery of the
Northern Kingdom. It was indeed a goodly land. The fairest and grandest regions
within the entire country were to be found in it. Its plains and forests and
rivers were nobler by far than those of Judah. And Hosea knew it well, and was
proud of its beauty, and grieved
much that men and women to whom God had given a home so happy and so richly
dowered should yet be unmindful of Him and rebel against Him. His religion, we
may even venture to say, was colored to some extent by the pleasantness and
geniality of his natural surroundings. It had in it more of freedom and of trust
and of joy than that of the dwellers in the South, where nature was less kindly
and her moods more severe. If it had not been that his heart was kept in
perpetual sadness by the contemplation of his people’s sin his would certainly
have been a very glad and peace-bringing faith. A native of this attractive
land, and gifted himself with a temperament naturally joyous, Hosea was
nevertheless called to work that plunged him into gloom. His lot was cast in a
period when his country had to contend with many fears and fightings from
without, and when it was
full of utter corruption within. His prophetic activity extended over a long
time, and in this respect too he stands in sharp contrast to Amos, whose
ministry was but an episode in his life and was quickly fulfilled. All his days
he seems to have preached righteousness and temperance and judgment to come in
the hearing of men who paid little heed to his message. His labours stretched
over a series of terrible years, during which he saw his people sink from one depth
of degradation and sorrow to other and lower depths. He began to speak in God’s
name while Jeroboam II., the greatest of the rulers of Israel, was still on the
throne. But the reign of this monarch was drawing to its close, and the deluge
came when he was gone.
Amos had, indeed, found much to condemn in Israel even in the days of Jeroboam;
but, bad as things undoubtedly were then, society was compact and pure compared
with what it became after the king’s death. A long interregnum followed, and
for years no governor guided the affairs of the commonwealth. Then one
sovereign after another--Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah--mounted the
throne, placed on it like the later Roman emperors by the rough soldiers of the
palace, and each of them permitted to rule for only a few months. It was in the
midst of this unquiet time that Hosea addressed his countrymen. With these
changes in the state he was familiar. And, while the government of the land was
so unsettled, its inhabitants went from stage to stage in the evil ways of sin.
They seemed to have lost all sense of shame. They had east every restraining
influence to the winds. There was no moral energy in their hearts, and no
self-control in their lives. Few prophets draw such pictures of prevalent
ungodliness as the son of Beeri does. “Whoredom and wine and new wine,” he
tells us, “took away the understanding” of his people “False swearing and
killing, and stealing, and committing adultery broke out, and blood touched
blood,” one dark crime treading close on the heels of another. If princes and
subjects had only been wise, what a glorious history a land so favoured by
heaven might well have had! And now the strength of the nation was spent; it
had fought and finished an evil fight; its powers were wasted; there was no
great future in store for it--only a future of misery during which it would
reap as it had sown; it was already old. “Strangers have devoured the strength
of Israel, and he knows it not.” Hosea mourned, “yea, grey hairs are here and
there upon him, yet he knows not.” The enthusiasm and the possibilities of
youth were gone for ever; the weakness of age had come long before the time;
and so blind were the people that they were unconscious of their sad decay.
Hosea was the prophet of
the decline and fall of the Northern Kingdom. He has been called “the Jeremiah
of Israel,” and the name is a good one, for he preached when his nation was
tottering to its ruin, as Jeremiah preached in the troublous days when the sun of Judah was about to
set in clouds and darkness. God raised him up to speak plain words to his
fellow-countrymen about their sin, and to predict the heavy doom which such sin
must bring on the wrong-doers. This was a sore and bitter duty--was it
not?--for one who had in him a very tender heart, and who loved his people with
an overmastering affection. What wonder was it that he should resemble Jeremiah
in another characteristic also--in this, that he was scarcely able to utter his
message for weeping? The herdsman of Tekoa might journey from his southern home
to Bethel, and proclaim against it God’s exceeding great and fearful woe; and
his voice might never once so much as falter while he thundered out his message
of death; he might show himself stern and inexorable from first to last. It was
little marital that he should be so unflinching; he was himself an alien from the commonwealth of
Israel. But it was impossible for Hosea to fulfil his task in such a fashion.
For they were his brothers and sisters whose transgression he was bidden
expose, and whose punishment he had to foretell. He had grown up among them. He
was bound to them by the strongest ties. He did not hide or extenuate the
tidings of wrath which Jehovah had commanded him to publish abroad; he was too
faithful to do that; but when he tried to announce them he was almost overcome
by his emotion. His prophecy is a succession of sighs and sobs. Each verse is
“one heavy toll in a funeral knell.,” That was the mission entrusted to Hosea.
II. But if the task
itself seemed painful in the extreme, the prophet was made ready for executing
it by a discipline which was more painful still.--It was through sore
experiences in his own history that he was moulded into God’s messenger and
representative. What these experiences were he explains in the opening chapters
of his book. This, then, is the miserable recital. Some time in the reign of
Jeroboam II., when the nation was already far from perfect in God s sight, and
yet was not so confirmed in its wickedness as it afterwards became, Hosea
married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. He hoped, we may be sure, that she
would prove a good and loyal wife to him; for the supposition of some
expositors that Jehovah commanded His prophet to unite himself with a woman who
was already known to be of impure character is absurd and revolting. But the
trustfulness with which Hosea regarded his spouse was not justified in actual
fact: she showed herself unfaithful to him; she left his roof to go after other
lovers, and became the mother of children born in infidelity. Was it not the
most grievous wound which a man could receive? On Ezekiel, another in the
goodly fellowship of the prophets, a great sorrow fell once. His wife, the
desire of his eyes, was taken from him with a stroke. He spake unto the people
in the morning, and at even she died, and God bade him refrain from every token
of mourning, that he might be a sign to the nation of the Jews. But death,
though it overwhelms us with grief, is not so dreadful as dishonour; and they
were deeper floods of trouble into which Hosea went down with his naked feet
than any which Ezekiel knew. And yet, despite Gomer’s disloyalty, he loved her
still. His love was that master-feeling which the Song of Solomon calls “strong
as death” and “obstinate as the grave.” He acknowledged her three children for
his own, and gave them names, to each of which a prophetic lesson was attached.
And by and by he resolved that, if it were possible, he would win her back to
her old allegiance. He went after her, and found her in a state of utter misery,
apparently sold as a slave, for he had to buy her to himself “for fifteen
pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley.” So
she came to dwell once more under her husband’s roof, yet not to dwell there
just as she had done formerly. Things could not go on as though there had been
no faithlessness on her part. For many days the prophet had to watch over his
wife, secluding her from temptation, exercising a wise carefulness and
jealousy. It was with Hosea just as it was with the Arthur of our literature.
Gomer was untrue like Guinevere, and her conduct pierced her lord’s heart and
cut him to the quick. But the prophet was as compassionate and long-suffering,
as changeless in his affection, as willing to pardon, as the blameless king.
And in the end there was a reconciliation. If the past could not be cancelled
quite, it was at least forgiven. The poor foolish wanderer returned to her
loyalty. The truant was welcomed home. These are the details of Hosea’s home
life, so far as they are related in the first and third chapters of his
prophecy. It is difficult to understand why some interpreters should have
denied the literal and historical significance of the account, and should have
resolved the story into nothing more than parable or allegory. The whole
narrative is given with perfect simplicity, and yet with touching reserve. It
has an air of truthfulness about every one of its particulars. It appears only
too real. But many of us may be inclined to ask why the prophet should have
said anything about this great struggle and bitterness of his life. Ought he
not to have kept such a matter with sacred care from the view of the world? Was
it not one of those secret things about which God only should have been told?
He had a very sufficient reason for the disclosure. He wished to show how it
was that he became a prophet, and to explain why he was led to those
conceptions which’ he had formed, of the conduct of Israel and of the character
of God. It was from his own history that he learned at once the disobedience of
his native land and the long-suffering pity of its Lord. He saw that the shame
which had blighted his home was a representation in miniature of that shame
which the seed of Jacob, whom Jehovah had espoused to Himself, had cruelly
inflicted on Him; that the grief which he felt over the erring Gomer--a grief
without an element of anger in it--was symbolic of God’s grief over His
backsliding nation; that the Divine heart was but his own human heart, with all
its feelings deepened and all its emotions intensified. As Hosea passed through
the sad troubles of his household, his eyes were opened, and the thought dawned
on him that his experience was only a type of God’s experience in His dealings
with His people. His sufferings lifted him into fellowship with God, taught him
to think as God thought, gave him a sympathetic insight into God’s heart; and
so he came out of the fires God’s prophet and spokesman.
III. And now let us
inquire how Hosea performed the work for which he had been trained by so
terrible a discipline--how he made known God’s message to Israel. His words are
strong and passionate. His heart seems ready to break with sorrow. His whole
prophecy is a cry of agony. There is no finish or elaboration in his style, for a man whose
spirit is moved to its depths is not careful how he orders his speech. But what
his utterance lacks in sweetness it makes up in pathos and power. And through
all the sudden transitions and swift changes of feeling that are characteristic
of these chapters we can trace the effects of the painful education which Hosea
had undergone to fit him for his duty. Israel at large, he fancied, was like
the wayward Gomer of his home. Unfaithfulness to Jehovah--apostasy from the
heavenly Husband whose kindness surpassed the kindness of men--that was the sin
of his nation. And still, after all the provocations of the past, the aggrieved
and injured Lord cared for His thankless spouse. The framer of hearts felt
towards foolish Israel the same unselfish affection with which Hosea knew that
he had himself followed the unstedfast daughter of Diblaim. Whatever gentleness
and pity dwelt in his breast had been kindled at God’s altar. Whatever
readiness to forgive he might display, God would display far more willingly and
gladly. The disloyalty of Israel and the pitifulness of God--these are the two
prominent ideas of this book. The former--the disloyalty of his nation--Hosea
sets forth with great fulness of detail. He finds many tokens of ingratitude as
he looks around him. There was, for example, the general and flagrant
immorality of the land. How dark that was, and how notorious! Those who should
have been freest from pollution were often ringleaders in crime. The very
priests rejoiced in the spread of iniquity, and were foremost in outraging the
law, lying in wait as robbers and murdering in the way to Shechem. The king and
his princes found an unholy pleasure in conforming to the prevailing licence,
and were glad rather than grieved when they contemplated the wickedness of
their subjects. But besides this abounding lawlessness, and lying at its root
and foundation, there were the religious declension and the false worship of
the people. The prophet knew well that the outward errors of his
fellow-countrymen sprang, as external transgressions so frequently do, from
backsliding in religion. Had not Israel forsaken the spiritual worship of
Jehovah? Had not the nation long since demanded a visible symbol of Him? Was it
not given up to the adoration of the golden calves? Hosea was indeed very
jealous for the honour of his God. No doubt he had heard many Israelites urge
in extenuation of the image worship that it was really the service of Jehovah,
and that those who went up to the local sanctuaries in Samaria and Bethel and
Gilgal simply sought to give definiteness to their idea of the one living and
true God when they knelt before an outward representation of Him. But he
brushed aside with impatience the weak excuse. What was the calf but an idol?”
The workman made it; therefore it was not God.” Moreover, this materialising of
religion was leading only too directly and speedily to unmistakable Baal
worship. The old Phoenician idolatry, against which Elijah had waged so fierce
a battle on the summit of Carmel, was threatening again to overspread the land.
The children of Ephraim were sinning more and more; they had made them molten
images of their silver; they sacrificed upon the tops of the mountains, and
burned incense upon the hills. Another indication of the fickleness of Israel, and
of its want of true and deep attachment to its heavenly Bridegroom, Hosea
discovered in its foolish foreign policy. It would rather lean on the nations
round about its borders than on the strong arm of its Maker, who should have
been its Husband too. It was far from giving Him the whole-hearted devotion
which He claimed as His rightful portion. Sometimes it turned to one side, and
sometimes to another. It fluttered from place to place, like a silly dove,
calling now to Egypt and then going to Assyria. Such conduct the prophet felt
to be not merely a crime but a blunder, for whenever the Israelites should
forsake one of these great empires, the other would become indignant and would
take revenge for the neglect inflicted upon it. But this coquetting with powerful
neighbours--this “hiring lovers among the nations”--was sad and pitiable,
chiefly because it showed that the heart of the chosen generation no longer
beat true to its God. The people had forgotten Him who ought to have been their
fortress and high-tower; and their forgetfulness would bring its chastisement.
Still another proof of Israel’s faithlessness Hosea laid stress upon in his
preaching. Was it not wrong, he asked, that the nation should remain separated
from Judah, its brother? Was there not rebellion against God, disregard of His
purposes, opposition to His will, in this division of the kingdom? Were not the
ten tribes in grievous fault when they continued to foster their quarrel with
the house and dynasty of David--the house which the Lord had blessed? This, the
prophet declared, was part of God’s indictment of the subjects of the North:
“They have set up kings, but not by Me; they have made princes, and I knew it
not.” And he prayed eagerly for the healing of the ancient wound. A bright vision
rose before him even in the midst of his griefs. For a moment he caught a
glimpse of the glory of the latter days, when “the children of Israel should
return and seek Jehovah their God and David their king.” Such was the country’s
infidelity towards God--an infidelity which pierced as with a sharp knife the
heart of Hosea, and wounded him as the unstedfastness of Gomer had done. But
this was not the whole of his message. Over against the fickle and unreliable
nation he saw standing the good and faithful God, and he had much to tell of
the Divine mercy and graciousness. Like his own clinging, inextinguishable
affection for his wife even in the period of her folly, like it, but purer and
stronger and more per severing, was the affection of the Lord Jehovah for the
land which He had wedded to Himself, and of which He was both the Father and
the Husband. It was the high honour of Hosea that, first among all the
prophets, he was prompted to call the feeling with which God regarded His
people by the name of “love” None had used so sweet and pregnant a word before.
Joel had said that the Lord was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of
great kindness. Amos had spoken of His goodness in redeeming the children of
Israel from Egypt and in planting them in Canaan. But Hosea went further than
either of his predecessors had done. He lit upon a treasure which they had not
been permitted to find--he discovered a pearl of great price--when he realised
that the chiefest of God’s perfections, the very glory and crown of His
character, is His love. These were some of the words which this old preacher
put into the lips of the Lord: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him”; and these also, “I
will heal their backslidings; I will love them freely.” No doubt, it was upon
the community as a whole rather than upon individual hearts that Hosea thought
of Jehovah as lavishing this best of all His gifts. He concerned himself with
the kingdom of God in its entirety, and not with the units that went to compose
it. God’s affection for His people was in truth an invincible affection. He
hoped against hope, when they went on in sin. He felt that He could not abandon
them to utter ruin. His soul wept over them. “How can I give thee up, Ephraim?
How can I cast thee away, Israel? My heart burns within Me; I am overcome with
sympathy; I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger; I will not turn to
destroy thee.” These were the thoughts of God which Hosea learned in the time
of his sorrow, when he was taught to find in the emotions of his own breast a
picture of the feelings that throbbed within the breast of the Lord of heaven
and earth. If Israel persisted now in her folly and disobedience, she was
without excuse. Amos had spoken to her of the righteousness and justice of God.
But the knowledge that God is sternly righteous and inflexibly just will help
none of us. But Hosea succeeded Amos; and the burden of Hosea’s message was
this: “God is love; He will save you from your sins, if you seek HIS
forgiveness; He will not retain His anger for ever.” And that is all that we
need. This revelation of God should break down our rebelliousness. It should
drive every suspicious thought far from our minds. It should melt us into
submission. (Original Secession Magazine.)
The homiletic use of Hosea.--
I. The
prophet.--We have no biography of Hosea, but his book leaves upon us such a
clear impression of his character that the person who brings the message is as
real as the message. He has five qualities which especially equip the man who
would save souls.
1. Devotion to God. He loves God, is loyal to Him, is deeply
interested in His cause. He dwells on His very names with fond and tender
stress.
2. Yet he has a wondrous sympathy with Israel in her woes, and, what
is far more, a vicarious fellowship in her guilt.
3. Zeal for righteousness. He denounces formal religion as worthless,
however costly, and elaborate. He denounces the lying, swearing, stealing,
adultery, and murder which pervaded the nation, in spite of its religious show,
and declares that the Lord desires mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of
God rather than burnt-offerings.
4. Fidelity to truth. He declares the whole counsel of God as he
knows it. Even sympathy for Israel does not keep him from affirming that
“Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke.”
5. Hopefulness. With all the sorrow, reproof, and forecast of woe
there is a spirit of hope that rises above all he sees and forebodes.
II. The
times.--Hosea’s ministry certainly lay in the later years of the reign of
Jeroboam II., and the troublous days that came just afterward. The reign of
Jeroboam II. was the most brilliant of all in the kingdom. The brief account in
the Book of Kings suggests power, enterprise, and military glory. But the
account in Kings says: “Jeroboam did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Hosea’s
description accords. This prosperity covers and decorates disease. Israel has
forgotten that God has prospered her. Jeroboam is succeeded by a son,
Zechariah, who is killed by a conspiracy after six months. His assassin, Shallum,
reigns one month and is killed. His slayer and successor, Menahem, reigns
longer. The Book of Kings gives him ten years; the critics say eight. But he
has to pay heavy tribute to Assyria, and loads his people with taxes to do so.
So the history goes on. They look for help now to Assyria, now to Egypt.
Disaster, ruin, exile are close. The homiletic bearing of this is plain. Here
is a picture of material prosperity and religious display gilding spiritual
destitution and moral rottenness, and inevitably ending in overthrow.
III. The teachings
of the prophet.--
1. His doctrine of God. There is a conception here of lasting value
to our theology. Ineffable holiness is combined with yearning love for the
sinner.
2. His doctrine of sin. This is thoroughly practical. Little or
nothing is said of original sin. Actual transgression gets the chief attention.
When people are lying, cheating, stealing, killing, and committing adultery,
the philosophy of sin draws less notice than its phenomena. The indictment under
which the several counts of transgression are to be marshalled is in Hosea 8:12. The progress of sin is shown
in Hosea 13:2; its peril in Hosea 13:9 and in Hosea 13:16. The latter teaches also the
true character of sin to be not misfortune, but rebellion against God.
3. The nature and the duty of the knowledge of God. This is a
doctrine which is valuable to-day as a corrective of agnosticism. Hosea regards
ignorance of God to be not a mishap or a mere limitation, but a grievous sin.
In Hosea 4:1 he says God has a controversy
with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no knowledge of God in the
land; in Hosea 6:3 he says, “So shall we know if
we follow on to know the Lord” (R.V. substitutes “let us” for “shall we”). The
knowledge is experiential and ethical. It is reached by repentance and prayer.
It is retained by obedience. It is lost by transgression and neglect. The
Christian pulpit to-day may fairly face the agnostic with the truth that the
knowledge of God comes by ethical activity rather than metaphysical inquiry,
that the thesaurus of its data is the spiritual consciousness rather than the
realm of material nature, and that the phenomena of the latter can receive
their highest and truest interpretation only in the light of the former.
4. The sin of schism. Hosea was a patriot of the Northern Kingdom,
loyal to that part of the Lord’s people to which he belonged. Yet he exalts the
ideal of unity and predicts the day when the children of Judah and the children
of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint themselves one head. Unity was
lost through folly, sin, oppression, unwillingness to reform abuses. It was
predicted, permitted, ordered in the providence of God; but it was not the
ideal of the kingdom. It was the outgrowth of circumstances, but not a state
wherewith to be content. The same is true of the Church. Historic causes
produced divisions, which were permitted, even ordered, in God’s providence.
But divided Christendom is not the ideal Hosea’s prophecy must he fulfilled in
its broad spiritual meaning. The divided hosts of Jehovah must be gathered
under the one Head. For this Christ prayed; for this we pray. (T. C. Straus.)
HOSEA
INTRODUCTION
God has many ways by which He prepares His servants for the doing
of His work--many schools to which He sends them. But there is no teacher whom
He uses more frequently than the stern teacher whose name is Sorrow. He makes
His children acquainted with bitter trial and privation and loss; He “brings
them into the wilderness,” as Hosea says, in order that among the barren rocks
and sands He may speak to their hearts; He imparts to them their wisdom and
their strength through the discipline of sacrifice and pain. Moses is sent to
the deserts of Midian, that he may be accustomed there to the endurance of
difficulty and opposition, and that in these lonely solitudes, where he is shut
out from intercourse with his fellow-men, he may learn to hold close fellowship
with his Divine Master and King. Paul writes his loftiest and profoundest
letters from the prison-house of Nero, where for the hope of Israel he is bound
with a chain. It was in the school-house of sorrow that God fashioned the
prophet Hosea into fitness for his life-task.
I. The nature of
the mission which God gave Hosea to fulfil--He was a prophet of the Northern
Kingdom--a preacher to Israel rather than to Judah. Amos had the same sphere of
labour assigned him. But Amos was himself a native of Judea, although his
public career, so far as we know it, was confined to the North. He came to
Bethel and Samaria, a stranger from the wilderness of Tekoa away in the
South--a stranger who had been charged to deliver a terrible message of
denunciation and of impending punishment. He carried out his commission, and
then he withdrew again to his own land and people. Having spent a few stirring
and memorable days in the guilty cities of Israel--having seen their violence
and immorality and forgetfulness of God, and lifted up his voice like a trumpet
against them--he went back to the silent pastures of the desert, to write down
in quietness the story of what he had said and done at the Lord’s commandment,
and to live and die far from the scenes of his brief prophetic labours. It was
different altogether with Hosea, the son of Bceri. That he was himself a child
of that evil Northern land with whose inhabitants he pied on behalf of God is
evident to every one who reads his book. Only one born and brought up in the
very midst of the sinful people whose disobedience he bewails, linked to them
by the tenderest bonds of family affection and national feeling, could pity
them so truly, and yearn over them with so fond a love, and entreat them with
such a beseeching and persistent earnestness to return to the Lord. Then, too,
throughout his prophecy there are constantly recurring allusions to places in
the territory of the ten tribes, to Mount Tabor, and the streams of Gilead, and
the idolatrous shrines of Gilgal, and the splendid woods of Lebanon--references
which speak of the writer’s perfect familiarity with the scenery of the
Northern Kingdom. It was indeed a goodly land. The fairest and grandest regions
within the entire country were to be found in it. Its plains and forests and
rivers were nobler by far than those of Judah. And Hosea knew it well, and was
proud of its beauty, and grieved
much that men and women to whom God had given a home so happy and so richly
dowered should yet be unmindful of Him and rebel against Him. His religion, we
may even venture to say, was colored to some extent by the pleasantness and
geniality of his natural surroundings. It had in it more of freedom and of
trust and of joy than that of the dwellers in the South, where nature was less
kindly and her moods more severe. If it had not been that his heart was kept in
perpetual sadness by the contemplation of his people’s sin his would certainly
have been a very glad and peace-bringing faith. A native of this attractive
land, and gifted himself with a temperament naturally joyous, Hosea was
nevertheless called to work that plunged him into gloom. His lot was cast in a
period when his country had to contend with many fears and fightings from
without, and when it was
full of utter corruption within. His prophetic activity extended over a long
time, and in this respect too he stands in sharp contrast to Amos, whose
ministry was but an episode in his life and was quickly fulfilled. All his days
he seems to have preached righteousness and temperance and judgment to come in
the hearing of men who paid little heed to his message. His labours stretched
over a series of terrible years, during which he saw his people sink from one
depth of degradation and sorrow to other and lower depths. He began to speak in
God’s name while Jeroboam II., the greatest of the rulers of Israel, was still
on the throne. But the reign of this monarch was drawing to its close, and the
deluge came when he was gone.
Amos had, indeed, found much to condemn in Israel even in the days of Jeroboam;
but, bad as things undoubtedly were then, society was compact and pure compared
with what it became after the king’s death. A long interregnum followed, and
for years no governor guided the affairs of the commonwealth. Then one
sovereign after another--Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah--mounted the
throne, placed on it like the later Roman emperors by the rough soldiers of the
palace, and each of them permitted to rule for only a few months. It was in the
midst of this unquiet time that Hosea addressed his countrymen. With these
changes in the state he was familiar. And, while the government of the land was
so unsettled, its inhabitants went from stage to stage in the evil ways of sin.
They seemed to have lost all sense of shame. They had east every restraining
influence to the winds. There was no moral energy in their hearts, and no
self-control in their lives. Few prophets draw such pictures of prevalent
ungodliness as the son of Beeri does. “Whoredom and wine and new wine,” he
tells us, “took away the understanding” of his people “False swearing and
killing, and stealing, and committing adultery broke out, and blood touched
blood,” one dark crime treading close on the heels of another. If princes and
subjects had only been wise, what a glorious history a land so favoured by
heaven might well have had! And now the strength of the nation was spent; it
had fought and finished an evil fight; its powers were wasted; there was no
great future in store for it--only a future of misery during which it would
reap as it had sown; it was already old. “Strangers have devoured the strength
of Israel, and he knows it not.” Hosea mourned, “yea, grey hairs are here and
there upon him, yet he knows not.” The enthusiasm and the possibilities of
youth were gone for ever; the weakness of age had come long before the time;
and so blind were the people that they were unconscious of their sad decay.
Hosea was the prophet of
the decline and fall of the Northern Kingdom. He has been called “the Jeremiah
of Israel,” and the name is a good one, for he preached when his nation was
tottering to its ruin, as Jeremiah preached in the troublous days when the sun of Judah was about to
set in clouds and darkness. God raised him up to speak plain words to his
fellow-countrymen about their sin, and to predict the heavy doom which such sin
must bring on the wrong-doers. This was a sore and bitter duty--was it
not?--for one who had in him a very tender heart, and who loved his people with
an overmastering affection. What wonder was it that he should resemble Jeremiah
in another characteristic also--in this, that he was scarcely able to utter his
message for weeping? The herdsman of Tekoa might journey from his southern home
to Bethel, and proclaim against it God’s exceeding great and fearful woe; and
his voice might never once so much as falter while he thundered out his message
of death; he might show himself stern and inexorable from first to last. It was
little marital that he should be so unflinching; he was himself an alien from the commonwealth of
Israel. But it was impossible for Hosea to fulfil his task in such a fashion.
For they were his brothers and sisters whose transgression he was bidden
expose, and whose punishment he had to foretell. He had grown up among them. He
was bound to them by the strongest ties. He did not hide or extenuate the
tidings of wrath which Jehovah had commanded him to publish abroad; he was too
faithful to do that; but when he tried to announce them he was almost overcome
by his emotion. His prophecy is a succession of sighs and sobs. Each verse is
“one heavy toll in a funeral knell.,” That was the mission entrusted to Hosea.
II. But if the task
itself seemed painful in the extreme, the prophet was made ready for executing
it by a discipline which was more painful still.--It was through sore
experiences in his own history that he was moulded into God’s messenger and
representative. What these experiences were he explains in the opening chapters
of his book. This, then, is the miserable recital. Some time in the reign of
Jeroboam II., when the nation was already far from perfect in God s sight, and
yet was not so confirmed in its wickedness as it afterwards became, Hosea
married Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. He hoped, we may be sure, that she
would prove a good and loyal wife to him; for the supposition of some
expositors that Jehovah commanded His prophet to unite himself with a woman who
was already known to be of impure character is absurd and revolting. But the
trustfulness with which Hosea regarded his spouse was not justified in actual
fact: she showed herself unfaithful to him; she left his roof to go after other
lovers, and became the mother of children born in infidelity. Was it not the
most grievous wound which a man could receive? On Ezekiel, another in the
goodly fellowship of the prophets, a great sorrow fell once. His wife, the
desire of his eyes, was taken from him with a stroke. He spake unto the people
in the morning, and at even she died, and God bade him refrain from every token
of mourning, that he might be a sign to the nation of the Jews. But death,
though it overwhelms us with grief, is not so dreadful as dishonour; and they
were deeper floods of trouble into which Hosea went down with his naked feet
than any which Ezekiel knew. And yet, despite Gomer’s disloyalty, he loved her
still. His love was that master-feeling which the Song of Solomon calls “strong
as death” and “obstinate as the grave.” He acknowledged her three children for
his own, and gave them names, to each of which a prophetic lesson was attached.
And by and by he resolved that, if it were possible, he would win her back to
her old allegiance. He went after her, and found her in a state of utter misery,
apparently sold as a slave, for he had to buy her to himself “for fifteen
pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley.” So
she came to dwell once more under her husband’s roof, yet not to dwell there
just as she had done formerly. Things could not go on as though there had been
no faithlessness on her part. For many days the prophet had to watch over his
wife, secluding her from temptation, exercising a wise carefulness and
jealousy. It was with Hosea just as it was with the Arthur of our literature.
Gomer was untrue like Guinevere, and her conduct pierced her lord’s heart and
cut him to the quick. But the prophet was as compassionate and long-suffering,
as changeless in his affection, as willing to pardon, as the blameless king.
And in the end there was a reconciliation. If the past could not be cancelled
quite, it was at least forgiven. The poor foolish wanderer returned to her
loyalty. The truant was welcomed home. These are the details of Hosea’s home
life, so far as they are related in the first and third chapters of his
prophecy. It is difficult to understand why some interpreters should have
denied the literal and historical significance of the account, and should have
resolved the story into nothing more than parable or allegory. The whole
narrative is given with perfect simplicity, and yet with touching reserve. It
has an air of truthfulness about every one of its particulars. It appears only
too real. But many of us may be inclined to ask why the prophet should have
said anything about this great struggle and bitterness of his life. Ought he
not to have kept such a matter with sacred care from the view of the world? Was
it not one of those secret things about which God only should have been told?
He had a very sufficient reason for the disclosure. He wished to show how it
was that he became a prophet, and to explain why he was led to those
conceptions which’ he had formed, of the conduct of Israel and of the character
of God. It was from his own history that he learned at once the disobedience of
his native land and the long-suffering pity of its Lord. He saw that the shame
which had blighted his home was a representation in miniature of that shame
which the seed of Jacob, whom Jehovah had espoused to Himself, had cruelly inflicted
on Him; that the grief which he felt over the erring Gomer--a grief without an
element of anger in it--was symbolic of God’s grief over His backsliding
nation; that the Divine heart was but his own human heart, with all its
feelings deepened and all its emotions intensified. As Hosea passed through the
sad troubles of his household, his eyes were opened, and the thought dawned on
him that his experience was only a type of God’s experience in His dealings
with His people. His sufferings lifted him into fellowship with God, taught him
to think as God thought, gave him a sympathetic insight into God’s heart; and
so he came out of the fires God’s prophet and spokesman.
III. And now let us
inquire how Hosea performed the work for which he had been trained by so
terrible a discipline--how he made known God’s message to Israel. His words are
strong and passionate. His heart seems ready to break with sorrow. His whole
prophecy is a cry of agony. There is no finish or elaboration in his style, for a man whose spirit
is moved to its depths is not careful how he orders his speech. But what his
utterance lacks in sweetness it makes up in pathos and power. And through all
the sudden transitions and swift changes of feeling that are characteristic of
these chapters we can trace the effects of the painful education which Hosea
had undergone to fit him for his duty. Israel at large, he fancied, was like
the wayward Gomer of his home. Unfaithfulness to Jehovah--apostasy from the
heavenly Husband whose kindness surpassed the kindness of men--that was the sin
of his nation. And still, after all the provocations of the past, the aggrieved
and injured Lord cared for His thankless spouse. The framer of hearts felt
towards foolish Israel the same unselfish affection with which Hosea knew that
he had himself followed the unstedfast daughter of Diblaim. Whatever gentleness
and pity dwelt in his breast had been kindled at God’s altar. Whatever
readiness to forgive he might display, God would display far more willingly and
gladly. The disloyalty of Israel and the pitifulness of God--these are the two
prominent ideas of this book. The former--the disloyalty of his nation--Hosea
sets forth with great fulness of detail. He finds many tokens of ingratitude as
he looks around him. There was, for example, the general and flagrant
immorality of the land. How dark that was, and how notorious! Those who should
have been freest from pollution were often ringleaders in crime. The very
priests rejoiced in the spread of iniquity, and were foremost in outraging the
law, lying in wait as robbers and murdering in the way to Shechem. The king and
his princes found an unholy pleasure in conforming to the prevailing licence,
and were glad rather than grieved when they contemplated the wickedness of their
subjects. But besides this abounding lawlessness, and lying at its root and
foundation, there were the religious declension and the false worship of the
people. The prophet knew well that the outward errors of his fellow-countrymen
sprang, as external transgressions so frequently do, from backsliding in
religion. Had not Israel forsaken the spiritual worship of Jehovah? Had not the
nation long since demanded a visible symbol of Him? Was it not given up to the
adoration of the golden calves? Hosea was indeed very jealous for the honour of
his God. No doubt he had heard many Israelites urge in extenuation of the image
worship that it was really the service of Jehovah, and that those who went up
to the local sanctuaries in Samaria and Bethel and Gilgal simply sought to give
definiteness to their idea of the one living and true God when they knelt
before an outward representation of Him. But he brushed aside with impatience
the weak excuse. What was the calf but an idol?” The workman made it; therefore
it was not God.” Moreover, this materialising of religion was leading only too
directly and speedily to unmistakable Baal worship. The old Phoenician
idolatry, against which Elijah had waged so fierce a battle on the summit of
Carmel, was threatening again to overspread the land. The children of Ephraim
were sinning more and more; they had made them molten images of their silver;
they sacrificed upon the tops of the mountains, and burned incense upon the
hills. Another indication of the fickleness of Israel, and of its want of true
and deep attachment to its heavenly Bridegroom, Hosea discovered in its foolish
foreign policy. It would rather lean on the nations round about its borders
than on the strong arm of its Maker, who should have been its Husband too. It
was far from giving Him the whole-hearted devotion which He claimed as His
rightful portion. Sometimes it turned to one side, and sometimes to another. It
fluttered from place to place, like a silly dove, calling now to Egypt and then
going to Assyria. Such conduct the prophet felt to be not merely a crime but a
blunder, for whenever the Israelites should forsake one of these great empires,
the other would become indignant and would take revenge for the neglect
inflicted upon it. But this coquetting with powerful neighbours--this “hiring
lovers among the nations”--was sad and pitiable, chiefly because it showed that
the heart of the chosen generation no longer beat true to its God. The people
had forgotten Him who ought to have been their fortress and high-tower; and
their forgetfulness would bring its chastisement. Still another proof of
Israel’s faithlessness Hosea laid stress upon in his preaching. Was it not
wrong, he asked, that the nation should remain separated from Judah, its
brother? Was there not rebellion against God, disregard of His purposes,
opposition to His will, in this division of the kingdom? Were not the ten
tribes in grievous fault when they continued to foster their quarrel with the
house and dynasty of David--the house which the Lord had blessed? This, the
prophet declared, was part of God’s indictment of the subjects of the North:
“They have set up kings, but not by Me; they have made princes, and I knew it
not.” And he prayed eagerly for the healing of the ancient wound. A bright
vision rose before him even in the midst of his griefs. For a moment he caught
a glimpse of the glory of the latter days, when “the children of Israel should
return and seek Jehovah their God and David their king.” Such was the country’s
infidelity towards God--an infidelity which pierced as with a sharp knife the
heart of Hosea, and wounded him as the unstedfastness of Gomer had done. But
this was not the whole of his message. Over against the fickle and unreliable
nation he saw standing the good and faithful God, and he had much to tell of
the Divine mercy and graciousness. Like his own clinging, inextinguishable
affection for his wife even in the period of her folly, like it, but purer and
stronger and more per severing, was the affection of the Lord Jehovah for the
land which He had wedded to Himself, and of which He was both the Father and
the Husband. It was the high honour of Hosea that, first among all the
prophets, he was prompted to call the feeling with which God regarded His
people by the name of “love” None had used so sweet and pregnant a word before.
Joel had said that the Lord was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of
great kindness. Amos had spoken of His goodness in redeeming the children of
Israel from Egypt and in planting them in Canaan. But Hosea went further than
either of his predecessors had done. He lit upon a treasure which they had not
been permitted to find--he discovered a pearl of great price--when he realised
that the chiefest of God’s perfections, the very glory and crown of His character,
is His love. These were some of the words which this old preacher put into the
lips of the Lord: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him”; and these also, “I
will heal their backslidings; I will love them freely.” No doubt, it was upon
the community as a whole rather than upon individual hearts that Hosea thought
of Jehovah as lavishing this best of all His gifts. He concerned himself with
the kingdom of God in its entirety, and not with the units that went to compose
it. God’s affection for His people was in truth an invincible affection. He
hoped against hope, when they went on in sin. He felt that He could not abandon
them to utter ruin. His soul wept over them. “How can I give thee up, Ephraim?
How can I cast thee away, Israel? My heart burns within Me; I am overcome with
sympathy; I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger; I will not turn to
destroy thee.” These were the thoughts of God which Hosea learned in the time
of his sorrow, when he was taught to find in the emotions of his own breast a
picture of the feelings that throbbed within the breast of the Lord of heaven
and earth. If Israel persisted now in her folly and disobedience, she was
without excuse. Amos had spoken to her of the righteousness and justice of God.
But the knowledge that God is sternly righteous and inflexibly just will help
none of us. But Hosea succeeded Amos; and the burden of Hosea’s message was
this: “God is love; He will save you from your sins, if you seek HIS
forgiveness; He will not retain His anger for ever.” And that is all that we
need. This revelation of God should break down our rebelliousness. It should
drive every suspicious thought far from our minds. It should melt us into
submission. (Original Secession Magazine.)
The homiletic use of Hosea.--
I. The
prophet.--We have no biography of Hosea, but his book leaves upon us such a
clear impression of his character that the person who brings the message is as
real as the message. He has five qualities which especially equip the man who
would save souls.
1. Devotion to God. He loves God, is loyal to Him, is deeply
interested in His cause. He dwells on His very names with fond and tender
stress.
2. Yet he has a wondrous sympathy with Israel in her woes, and, what
is far more, a vicarious fellowship in her guilt.
3. Zeal for righteousness. He denounces formal religion as worthless,
however costly, and elaborate. He denounces the lying, swearing, stealing,
adultery, and murder which pervaded the nation, in spite of its religious show,
and declares that the Lord desires mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of
God rather than burnt-offerings.
4. Fidelity to truth. He declares the whole counsel of God as he
knows it. Even sympathy for Israel does not keep him from affirming that
“Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke.”
5. Hopefulness. With all the sorrow, reproof, and forecast of woe
there is a spirit of hope that rises above all he sees and forebodes.
II. The
times.--Hosea’s ministry certainly lay in the later years of the reign of
Jeroboam II., and the troublous days that came just afterward. The reign of
Jeroboam II. was the most brilliant of all in the kingdom. The brief account in
the Book of Kings suggests power, enterprise, and military glory. But the
account in Kings says: “Jeroboam did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Hosea’s
description accords. This prosperity covers and decorates disease. Israel has
forgotten that God has prospered her. Jeroboam is succeeded by a son,
Zechariah, who is killed by a conspiracy after six months. His assassin, Shallum,
reigns one month and is killed. His slayer and successor, Menahem, reigns
longer. The Book of Kings gives him ten years; the critics say eight. But he
has to pay heavy tribute to Assyria, and loads his people with taxes to do so.
So the history goes on. They look for help now to Assyria, now to Egypt.
Disaster, ruin, exile are close. The homiletic bearing of this is plain. Here
is a picture of material prosperity and religious display gilding spiritual
destitution and moral rottenness, and inevitably ending in overthrow.
III. The teachings
of the prophet.--
1. His doctrine of God. There is a conception here of lasting value
to our theology. Ineffable holiness is combined with yearning love for the
sinner.
2. His doctrine of sin. This is thoroughly practical. Little or
nothing is said of original sin. Actual transgression gets the chief attention.
When people are lying, cheating, stealing, killing, and committing adultery,
the philosophy of sin draws less notice than its phenomena. The indictment
under which the several counts of transgression are to be marshalled is in Hosea 8:12. The progress of sin is shown
in Hosea 13:2; its peril in Hosea 13:9 and in Hosea 13:16. The latter teaches also the
true character of sin to be not misfortune, but rebellion against God.
3. The nature and the duty of the knowledge of God. This is a
doctrine which is valuable to-day as a corrective of agnosticism. Hosea regards
ignorance of God to be not a mishap or a mere limitation, but a grievous sin.
In Hosea 4:1 he says God has a controversy
with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no knowledge of God in the
land; in Hosea 6:3 he says, “So shall we know if
we follow on to know the Lord” (R.V. substitutes “let us” for “shall we”). The
knowledge is experiential and ethical. It is reached by repentance and prayer.
It is retained by obedience. It is lost by transgression and neglect. The
Christian pulpit to-day may fairly face the agnostic with the truth that the
knowledge of God comes by ethical activity rather than metaphysical inquiry,
that the thesaurus of its data is the spiritual consciousness rather than the
realm of material nature, and that the phenomena of the latter can receive
their highest and truest interpretation only in the light of the former.
4. The sin of schism. Hosea was a patriot of the Northern Kingdom,
loyal to that part of the Lord’s people to which he belonged. Yet he exalts the
ideal of unity and predicts the day when the children of Judah and the children
of Israel shall be gathered together and appoint themselves one head. Unity was
lost through folly, sin, oppression, unwillingness to reform abuses. It was
predicted, permitted, ordered in the providence of God; but it was not the
ideal of the kingdom. It was the outgrowth of circumstances, but not a state
wherewith to be content. The same is true of the Church. Historic causes
produced divisions, which were permitted, even ordered, in God’s providence.
But divided Christendom is not the ideal Hosea’s prophecy must he fulfilled in
its broad spiritual meaning. The divided hosts of Jehovah must be gathered
under the one Head. For this Christ prayed; for this we pray. (T. C. Straus.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》