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Hosea Chapter
Four
Hosea 4
Chapter Contents
God's judgments against the sins of the people. (1-5) and
of the priests. (6-11) Idolatry is reproved, and Judah is admonished. (12-19)
Commentary on Hosea 4:1-5
Hosea reproves for immorality, as well as idolatry. There
was no truth, mercy, or knowledge of God in the land: it was full of murders, 2 Kings 21:16. Therefore calamities were near,
which would desolate the country. Our sins, as separate persons, as a family,
as a neighbourhood, as a nation, cause the Lord to have a controversy with us;
let us submit and humble ourselves before Him, that he may not go on to
destroy.
Commentary on Hosea 4:6-11
Both priests and people rejected knowledge; God will
justly reject them. They forgot the law of God, neither desired nor endeavoured
to retain it in mind, and to transmit the remembrance to their posterity;
therefore God will justly forget them and their children. If we dishonour God
with that which is our honour, it will, sooner or later, be turned into shame
to us. Instead of warning the people against sin, from the consideration of the
sacrifices, which showed what an offence sin was to God, since it needed an
atonement, the priests encouraged the people to sin, since atonement might be
made at so small an expense. It is very wicked to be pleased with the sins of
others, because they may turn to our advantage. What is unlawfully gained,
cannot be comfortably used. The people and the priests hardened one another in
sin; therefore justly shall they share in the punishment. Sharers in sin must
expect to share in ruin. Any lust harboured in the heart, in time will eat out
all its strength and vigour. That is the reason why many professors grow so
heavy, so dull, so dead in the way of religion. They have a liking for some
secret lust, which takes away their hearts.
Commentary on Hosea 4:12-19
The people consulted images, and not the Divine word.
This would lead to disorder and sin. Thus men prepare scourges for themselves,
and vice is spread through a people. Let not Judah come near the idolatrous
worship of Israel. For Israel was devoted to idols, and must now be let alone.
When sinners cast off the easy yoke of Christ, they go on in sin till the Lord
saith, Let them alone. Then they receive no more warnings, feel no more
convictions: Satan takes full possession of them, and they ripen for destruction.
It is a sad and sore judgment for any man to be let alone in sin. Those who are
not disturbed in their sin, will be destroyed for their sin. May we be kept
from this awful state; for the wrath of God, like a strong tempest, will soon
hurry impenitent sinners into ruin.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Hosea》
Hosea 4
Verse 2
[2] By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and
committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
Break out — As waters that swell above all
banks.
Toucheth blood — Slaughters are multiplied; so
that the end of one is the beginning of another.
Verse 3
[3] Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that
dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the
fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.
Shall languish — Shall pine away.
With the beasts of the field — God punishes man in
cutting off what was made for man's benefit; and 'tis probable the tamer cattle
were starved for want of grass or fodder, all being consumed by the wasting
armies. The tamer either were killed by enemies, or offended with stench,
forsook the country, or were devoured by birds of prey.
Taken away — Whether by drying up the waters,
or by corrupting them with blood and carcasses.
Verse 4
[4] Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy
people are as they that strive with the priest.
Let no man strive — They are so hardened,
it is to no purpose to warn them any more.
As they that strive — There is no modesty,
or fear of God or man left among them, they will contend with their teachers,
reprovers, and counsellors.
Verse 5
[5] Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet
also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.
Therefore — The prophet turns his speech to
the people, thou O Israel; he speaks to them as to one person.
Fall — Stumble, and fall, and be broken.
This day — Very suddenly; your fall shall be no longer delayed.
The prophet — Prophesied lies.
In the night — In the darkest calamities.
Thy mother — Both the state, or kingdom; and
the synagogues, or churches: the publick is as a mother to private persons, so
all shall be destroyed.
Verse 6
[6] My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because
thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no
priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget
thy children.
Destroyed — Many were already cut off by Pul
king of Assyria, and many destroyed by the bloody tyranny of Menahem.
Of knowledge — Of God, his law, his providence,
his holy nature, his hatred of sin and power to punish it.
Because thou — The prophet now turns from the
people to the priests, to whom he speaks as to one person.
Rejected knowledge — Art and wilt be
ignorant.
Seeing thou — O Israel, and you O priests, you
have broken all the precepts of it.
Thy children — The people of Israel, the whole
kingdom of the ten tribes.
Verse 7
[7] As they were increased, so they sinned against me:
therefore will I change their glory into shame.
As they — Kings, priests, and people.
Were increased — In number, in riches, and honour.
So they sinned — Sin grew with their wealth and
honour.
Their glory — They turned all that in which
they might glory above others, into sin. I will turn it into their dishonour.
Verse 8
[8] They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their
heart on their iniquity.
They — The priests who minister to the idols.
The sin — Probably by sin is meant sin-offering, in which the
priest had his share.
And they — Covetous, luxurious, idolatrous priests.
Verse 10
[10] For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall
commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take
heed to the LORD.
Not have enough — They shall not be nourished, nor
satisfied with what they eat.
Shall not increase — They shall not hereby
increase the number of their children, either the women shall not bear, or the
children shall not live.
Verse 11
[11] Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
Take away the heart — Deprive men of their
understanding and judgment.
Verse 12
[12] My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff
declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and
they have gone a whoring from under their God.
Stocks — Wooden statues.
The spirit of whoredom — A heart ensnared with
whoredoms, spiritual and corporal.
Caused them to err — Hath blinded, and
deceived them.
Verse 13
[13] They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn
incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow
thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your
spouses shall commit adultery.
Good — Convenient for the sacrificers.
Shall commit whoredom — Shall dishonour
themselves, and their families, with fornicators.
Verse 14
[14] I will not punish your daughters when they commit
whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are
separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people
that doth not understand shall fall.
Nor your spouses — I will give them up
to their own hearts.
For themselves — The husband and fathers are
examples to their wives and daughters.
Therefore the people — The sottish ignorant
people, that know not God.
Shall fall — Be utterly ruined.
Verse 15
[15] Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah
offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven, nor swear,
The LORD liveth.
Offend — Commit like sins.
Gilgal — Gilgal was chosen by Jeroboam, or by succeeding
idolaters for the solemn worship of their idols.
Beth-aven — Beth-el, where Jacob lodged, who
called it Beth-el, the house of God; but when Jeroboam made it the place for
his calf-worship, it became Beth-aven, the house of vanity or iniquity.
Nor swear — This is a part put for the whole
worship of God, which the prophet warns them not to blend with their
idolatries.
Verse 16
[16] For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now the
LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place.
Israel — The ten tribes.
As a back-sliding heifer — Which when grown
lusty, and wanton, will neither endure the yoke nor be confined in her allowed
pastures.
In a large place — In a large place or
wilderness, where is no rest, safety or provision; such shall be the condition
of the ten tribes.
Verse 17
[17] Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
Ephraim — The children of Ephraim were numerous and potent, and
here put for the whole ten tribes.
Let him alone — He is obstinate, as such, throw
him up.
Verse 18
[18] Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom
continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye.
Their drink — Their wine is corrupt and
hurtful.
Continually — Without ceasing from Jeroboam's
time to this day.
Give ye — Beside there is shameful oppression and bribery among
them.
Verse 19
[19] The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall
be ashamed because of their sacrifices.
The wind — The whirlwind of wrath from God hath seized this old
adulteress, and carried some of her children away already.
They shall be ashamed — What they made their
confidence, shall be their shame.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Hosea》
04 Chapter 4
Verses 1-19
Verse 1
Hear the Word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord
hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land.
A corrupt people and an expostulating God
In the previous chapters the prophet’s language had been highly
and somewhat perplexingly symbolical. In this chapter he begins to speak more
plainly and in sententious utterances.
I. A corrupt
people. The depravity of Israel is represented--
1. Negatively. “There is no truth,” etc. These are the great fontal
virtues in the universe; and where they are not, there is a moral abjectness of
the most terrible description. A people without reality, their very life a lie.
No acts of beneficence performed, and the very spirit of kindliness extinct.
The greatest, the holiest Being in the universe utterly ignored.
2. Positively. The absence of these great virtues gives rise to
tremendous crimes.
II. An
expostulating God. “The Lord hath controversy.” Of all controversies this is
the most awful.
1. It is a just controversy. Has not the great Ruler of the universe
a right to contend against such evils?
2. It is a continuous controversy.
3. It is an unequal controversy. What are all human intellects to
His? Sparks to the sun. The sinner has no argument to put before Him. He cannot
deny his sins. He cannot plead accidents. He cannot plead compulsion. He cannot
plead some merit as a set-off, for he has none. This controversy is still going
on. It is held in the court of conscience, and you must know of its existence
and character. (Homilist.)
Jehovah’s controversy with Israel
In this chapter Israel is cited to appear at God’s tribunal. There
the Lord makes the following accusations--
1. Gross violation of both Tables of the Law, both by omission and by
commission. God threatens, because of this, to send extreme desolation.
2. Desperate incorrigibleness. He threatens to destroy such, and the
false prophets, and the body of the people and Church.
3. God accuseth the priests in Israel, that, through their fault, the
people were kept in ignorance. He threatens to cast them and their posterity off.
He further accuses the priests of ingratitude towards Elm, for which He
threatens to turn their glory into ignominy. And tie even accuses them of
sensuality and covetousness, rendering them unfaithful to their calling.
4. He accuses the whole people of gross idolatry, and threatens not
to restrain their sin by corrections.
5. He accuses them of the idolatry of the calves, from which He
dissuades Judah, as being an evidence of Israel’s wantonness, and the cause of
their ensuing exile.
6. He accuses Ephraim, the kingly tribe, of their incorrigibleness in
idolatry, their intemperance, filthiness, and corruption of justice through
covetousness. For this He threatens sudden and violent destruction and
captivity, where they should be ashamed of their corrupt worship. (George
Hutcheson.)
The Divine suit with Israel
I. The suit
commenced.
1. The knowledge that any truth is the Word of the Lord is a special
means to prepare the heart to receive it with reverence and all due respect,
even though it be hard and grievous to flesh and blood.
2. The nearness of a people to God does not exempt them from God’s
contending with them for sin.
3. The nearer the relationship the more grievous the controversy.
II. The pleading of
God. A suit first is entered against a man; when the court day comes, there is
calling for a declaration.
1. God contends not with a people without a cause.
2. God contends not against a people for little things. These are not
little things “No truth, no mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.”
3. It is in vain for any man to talk of his religion, if he make no
conscience of the second table as well as the first.
III. Judgment
pronounced (Hosea 4:3, etc.). “Therefore shall the
land mourn.”
1. All the glory and pomp of the men of the world is but as a flower.
2. Times of affliction take down the jollity and bravery of men’s
spirits, and make them fade, wither, and pine away.
3. The good or evil of the creature depends on man.
4. God, when in a way of wrath, can cause His wrath to reach to those
things that seem to be most remote.
5. No creature can help man in the time of God’s wrath, for every
creature suffers as well as man.
IV. Exhortation to
Judah to beware that she come not into the same condition (Hosea 4:15). The prophet Hosea was sent
especially to Israel, to the Ten Tribes, but here we see he turns his speech to
Judah.
1. Ministers should especially look to those whom they are bound unto
by office, but yet so as to labour to benefit others when occasion offers.
2. When we see our labour lost on those we most desire to benefit, we
should try what we can do with others. There were many arguments why Judah
should not do as Israel did.
V. Execution, God
in his wrath giving up Ephraim to himself (verse 17).
1. Ephraim engaging himself in false worship is now so inwrapped in
that sin and guilt that he cannot tell how to extricate himself.
2. The Lord has given him up to his idols.
The Lord’s controversy
The court is set, and both attendance and attention are demanded.
Whom may God expect to give Him a fair hearing, and take from Him a fair
warning, but the children of Israel, His own professing people? Sin is the great
mischief-maker; it sows discord between God and Israel. God sees sin in His own
people, and a good action He has against them for it. He has a controversy with
them for breaking covenant with Him, for bringing a reproach upon Him, and for
an ungrateful return to Him for His favours. God’s controversies will be
pleaded, pleaded by the judgments of His mouth before they are pleaded by the
judgments of His hand, that He may be justified in all He does, and may make it
appear that He desires not the death of sinners; and God’s pleadings ought to
be attended to, for, sooner or later, they shall have a hearing. (Matthew
Henry.)
There is no truth, nor
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
Things that go with the knowledge of God
Truth and mercy are often spoken of as to Almighty God. Truth
takes in all which is right, and to which God has bound Himself; mercy all
beyond which God does out of His boundless love. When God says of Israel there
is no truth nor mercy, He says that there is absolutely none of those two great
qualities under which He comprises all His own goodness. “There is no truth,”
none whatever, “no regard for known truth; no conscience, no sincerity, no
uprightness; no truth of words; no truth of promises; no truth in witnessing;
no making good in deeds what they said in words.” “Nor mercy.” This word has a
wide meaning; it includes all love to one another, a love issuing in acts. It
includes lovingkindness, piety to parents, natural affection, forgiveness,
tenderness, beneficence, mercy, goodness. The prophet, in declaring the absence
of this grace, declares the absence of all included under it. Whatever could be
comprised under love, whatever feelings are influenced by love, of that there
was nothing. “Nor knowledge of God.” The union of right knowledge and wrong
practice is hideous in itself; and it must be especially offensive to Almighty
God that His creatures should know whom they offend, how they offend Him, and
yet, amid and against their knowledge, choose that which displeases Him. And on
that ground, perhaps, He has so created us, that when our acts are wrong, our
knowledge becomes darkened. The knowledge of God is not merely to know some
things of God, as that He is the Creator and Preserver of the world and of
ourselves. To know things of God is not to know God Himself. We cannot know God
in any respect unless we are so far made like unto Him. Knowledge of God being
tim gift of the Holy Ghost, he who hath not grace, cannot have that knowledge.
A certain degree of speculative knowledge of God a bad man may have. But even
this knowledge is not retained without love. Those who “held the truth in
unrighteousness” ended (St. Paul says) by corrupting it. Certainly, the
speculative and practical, knowledge are bound up together through the oneness
of the relation of the soul to God, whether in its thoughts of Him, or its acts
towards Him. Wrong practice corrupts belief, as misbelief corrupts practice.
The prophet then probably denies that there was any true knowledge of God, of
any sort, whether of life or faith, or understanding or love. Ignorance of God,
then, is a great evil, a source of all other sins. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
A national duty
No one can fail to acknowledge in this terrible picture a
representation of every people which habitually breaks the laws of God; and
who, having set themselves free from the restraints of religion, or, through
ignorance, being unconscious of their obligation, are delivered up to the
working of their own heart’s lusts, and to follow their own imaginations. This
consummation of depravity is even found in the chosen people of God. There was
no truth where the great Source of all truth had announced the laws of moral
perfection: there was no mercy where the prodigies of Divine compassion had
been manifested from one generation to another: there was no knowledge of God
where alone God could be known, and in the only place in which the principles
of His government, and the attributes of His person, had been revealed to man.
What rendered the case of Israel desperate, and remedy impossible, was this,
that those who had been set apart as the depositaries of Divine knowledge, and
who, by their life and doctrine, had been intended by the Almighty to act
constantly, as a conservative power, against the corruptions of the mass, had
yielded themselves to the popular torrent, and turned rank and station, the
dignity of a holy vocation, and the talents of knowledge and intellect to the
promotion of those vices which God had given them a solemn commission to
withstand. They were weary of resisting the tendencies of the age and the
godless spirit which found too complete an echo in their own hearts. So the
princes and priests of Israel deserted their post, sealed up the records of
God’s Word, and by ceasing to inculcate the awful sanctions of His law, and
concealing from the people those oracles in which alone knowledge and wisdom
are to be found,
filled up to the brim the measure of their iniquity. That measure was filled up
because they who had knowledge and had the guardianship of God’s heritage had
turned traitors and withheld the Bread of Life from the famishing people. To
whatever privileges a people may have been elected, no outward marks of
distinction, apart from a corresponding holiness, will avail in the sight of
Him who is no respecter of persons, and who trieth the very reins and hearts.
The history of Israel is nothing but the annals of those judgments with which
tie has visited their abuse of mercies, and their never-ending neglect or
perversion of that most awful of all deposits, spiritual knowledge. If men in
all times have been made accountable to God for the fate of their
fellowcreatures, and most assuredly they have, it behoves us to look well to
our own case, and beware how we involve ourselves in the participation of such
guilt. Let us not deceive ourselves by supposing that the sins and the
sanctions, the moral actions and the moral dealings of the eider covenant are
inapplicable to ourselves. Considerable differences there may be, but they are
all against us, and an increase of our responsibility. It is known to few of us
how vast are the masses of ignorance and vice which undermine the surface of
this favoured land. (J. Garbett.)
Verse 3
Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth
therein shall languish.
The social causes of human misery
It is a principle illustrated by the holy records, that when
immorality has thoroughly infected a state, in defiance of all warning and
ordinary discipline, it is given up to destruction, as was Sodom, and also many
of the most renowned empires of ancient times. Nothing is more certain and
calculable in action and result than are social evils and social virtues. To
inquire into their nature and operation is the way to discover a remedy for a
most serious evil, and to furnish the most powerful motives for its rigorous
and incessant application. There is much misery in the world. A primary cause
of it is to be found in man himself. We are not to blame society, or social relations in any of their
forms, for all the evils that exist in, and seem to be developed by them. Man,
by his very constitution, is a social creature. The depravity of man, both as
the judicial result of his sin, and as aggravated by his habits both of thought
and sensual indulgence, insinuates itself into all that he does, and corrupts
every relation into which he enters. Each relation, therefore, however fitted
to produce and increase his happiness, is found to contribute something to his
misery, and presents to the observer some new form and modification of human
suffering. Consider the common relations of human society.
I. The political.
If justice were enthroned in every heart there would be no necessity for any
political economy. The authority of God in every man’s conscience would render
all human government totally unnecessary. Government as a human institution can
be traced no higher than to the necessities that spring from the fall. So long
as government is the administration of justice- the agency by which wrong and
outrage are repressed and punished--it must contribute in a most effectual
manner to the good of a community. It is not because of this relation between
the governor and governed that political evils exist. When the governor ceases
to be the administrator of justice at all, and when the abettors of wrong
obtain power and influence, then righteousness is hurled from her throne, and
law trampled in the mire under the feet of a lawless and licentious mob. The ruin of a state has
generally commenced with the corruption of its government. The amount of
calamity and woe inflicted on our species by corrupt and despotic governments
forms too serious an item to be passed over in silence.
II. The causes of
human misery operating through the medium of the relations of commerce. These
we take in their most extensive sense, including the intercourse and the
arrangements, agreed upon generally, for conducting the manufacturing and
mercantile depart ments of trade. The morals of trade, it is to be feared, are
but indefinite at the best. Gain is the object pursued; but the means of
acquiring it are as various as the dispositions and amount of principle felt by
the candidates will admit. There are certainly parts of the economy of trade
that require attention and no slight measure of reform. There is much of
suffering and unhappiness observable in the commercial relations of life; and
these may be clearly traced either to causes originating in something defective
in the moral principles on which the economy of trade is based, or in the
dispositions of those who take a part in conducting its several departments.
Illustrate from the relation of master and servant, of the employer and the
employed. Late hours; time for payment of wages; speculation; getting out of
temporary difficulties by giving accommodation bills, etc.
III. The causes of
human misery in the relations of friendship and private society.
1. Society has its temptations, and these, if not carefully watched,
may lead us into much evil. One of the first consequences of a fondness for
society is the diminished fervour of the domestic affections. Another
temptation is a love of display. A certain indolence too is generally induced
by the kind of social intercourse to which we are now referring.
2. Society has its actual vices. What so pernicious as envy? Consider
the conventional estimate formed of the character of vices, such as gambling.
There never was a day in which the debauching indulgence of the appetites was
so inexcusable as the present. The cure of all the evil and misery is the
adoption of the principle and rule,--“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.” (J. Robinson.)
A terrible deprivation
A deprivation that comes upon the people in consequence of their heinous
iniquities.
I. A deprivation
of both material and spiritual good.
1. Of material good.
2. Of spiritual good. Their presumptuous guilt was as great as that
of one who refused to obey the priest when giving judgment in the name of Jehovah
(Deuteronomy 17:12). One of the greatest
spiritual blessings of mankind is the strife and reproof of godly men. What a
derivation for these to be taken away!
II. A deprivation
leading to a terrible doom.
1. The destruction of both priests and people. The meaning is that no
time, night or day, shall be free from the slaughter both of the priests and of
the people. This was literally true of the Ten Tribes at this time.
2. The destruction of the social state. “And I will destroy thy
mother.” Who was the mother? The Israelitish state. And it was destroyed. (Homilist.)
With the beasts of the
field, and with the fowls of heaven.
The sharers in Divine judgment
The Lord’s sentence or threatening for these sins is that
extreme desolation shall come, not only on the people, but on the land, and on
all the creatures for their sakes, even on the fishes which were in lakes and
ponds in the land. Doctrine--
1. The judgments of God upon the visible Church will be very sad and
grievous, when they are inflicted, and as universal as sin hath been.
2. Albeit the Lord’s judgments on sinful and impenitent people do at
first utterly consume them, yet that will be only that they may live awhile to
feel their own miseries, and then be consumed by them, if they repent not.
3. Sinful man is a great enemy to all the creatures, as well as to
himself; he makes both himself and them to mourn and pine away, because he will
not mourn indeed.
4. As the glory
of all the creatures is but a flower, which God will soon make to wither and
languish when He pursueth for sin, so the creatures will not help man when God
is angry at him; but as these draw him from God, so God is provoked to cut him
short in them, as here they are consumed with him. (George Hutcheson.)
All creatures share the calamities of sin
As beasts, birds, and fishes, and in a word, all other things,
have been created for the use of men, it is no wonder that God should extend
the tokens of His curse to all creatures, above and below, when His purpose is
to punish men. When God curses innocent animals for our sake, we then dread the
more, except, indeed, we be under the influence of extreme stupor. (John Calvin.)
Verse 4
Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another.
Restraint of converting agencies
Here is given an order of court that no pains should be taken with
the condemned criminal to bring him to repentance, and the reason for that
order.
I. The order
itself. “Let no man strive, nor reprove another.” Let.no means be used to
reduce or reclaim them; let their physicians give them up as desperate and past
cure. It intimates that as long as there is any hope we ought to reprove
sinners for their sins. It is a duty we owe to one another to give and take
reproof. Sometimes there is need to rebuke sharply, not only to reprove but to
strive, so loth are men to part with their sins. But it is a sign that persons
and people are abandoned to ruin when God says, “Let them not be reproved.”
They are so hardened in sin, and so ripened for ruin, that it will be to little
purpose either to deal with them, or to deal with God for them. It bodes ill to
a people when reprovers are silenced.
II. The reasons of
this order.
1. They are determined to go on in sin, and no reproofs will cure
them of that. “Thy people are as those that strive with the priests”; they have
grown so very impudent in sin that they will fly in the face even of a priest
himself if he should but give them the least check. Those sinners have their
hearts wickedly hardened who quarrel with their ministers for dealing
faithfully with them.
2. God also is determined to proceed in their ruin. “Therefore shalt
thou fall.” The ruin of those who have helped to ruin ethers will, in a special
manner, be intolerable. When all are involved in guilt nothing less can be
expected than that all should be involved in ruin. (Matthew Henry.)
Verse 5
Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall
fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.
Common destruction
The threatening is that destruction should come upon such sinners
and on the false prophets who flattered and soothed them up in this course.
Learn--
1. Men’s opposing of the Word, their rejecting of reproof, and
blessing themselves when they are rid of it, will not avail them, nor hold off
wrath, but rather hasten it.
2. How high soever men exalt themselves in their opposition to God
and His truth, yet that guilt will bring them down, and when God begins to
reckon, He will teach every sinner particularly.
3. Vengeance can reach sinners in the height of their prosperity, and
can ruin them suddenly and unavoidably.
4. It is a plague upon sinners that when they go farthest wrong, and
oppose the faithful servants of God, yet they will never want corrupt men
pretending to come in God’s name to bolster them up in their evil way, and God
hath a sad controversy against such seducers.
5. However sinners shelter themselves under the privileges of a
visible Church or state, yet the Lord may let them find that their sin doth not
only undo themselves, but bring utter desolation also on the Church and nation
whereof they are. Therefore it is subjoined, “And I will destroy thy mother.” (George
Hutcheson.)
Verse 6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
The perils of ignorance
If there is a knowledge on which not only the improvements and the
refinements but the very being of society depends, the state of this must be in
its nature most deeply awful and interesting. It was the language of pagan
philosophy that such a knowledge did exist. The heathen wisdom was enabled to
discern that all science, as exercised in its inferior provinces, required some
principle of a sublimer nature, which might afford cement, consistence, and
basis to every subordinate effort and exertion of the human intellect. In
exploring this principle they however failed--and instead of substantial truth,
were lost in the delusive twilight of a magnificent though ineffectual and
perpetually baffled metaphysical speculation. Those on whom the daystar of
revelation arose, found in the distinct discovery of a moral Governor of the
universe, and the full and unequivocal display of His attributes, that
knowledge which marks the origin, the limits, and the destination of every
faculty, talent, and acquisition. When God tells us there is a knowledge “for
the lack of which a people is destroyed,” we must infer that it is the
“knowledge of Himself, His nature, His providence, and His power. If it be true
that “knowledge and wisdom are the stability of prosperous times,” the converse
will equally claim our attention. Inquire into the moral causes of both these
propositions. It is not my intention to institute a regular comparison between
the various acquisitions and exertions of ourselves and our predecessors. I
mark those intellectual habits which interfere with the cultivation of that
knowledge which directs, superintends, and sanctifies every portion of wisdom
we can acquire. Whatever was the region of science which our predecessors
explored, they steadily kept in view the great Source of every good and perfect
gift. And this not only in theology proper, but also in history, moral science,
and natural philosophy. Every work was in some measure a school of Divine
knowledge. Now it is rarely indeed that, except in works directly treating of
theology, any pious reference, even when the subject most points to it, is made
to the dispensation and moral government of Almighty God. To a variety of
causes this may be traced; to none more than to pride, or to its abortion,
vanity. This engenders a fondness for paradox, than which nothing can be a
greater obstruction to all knowledge, and particularly to the knowledge of God
and His dispensations. All paradox, even in its most ingenious forms, is mere
debility, and in no instance a mark of energy or strength of mind. It is
observable that, in proportion to the love for this, the intellectual appetite
is palled and vitiated for the perception and investigation of genuine truth.
Hence those mischievous abstractions, which when introduced into religion,
morals, and politics have, from causes comparatively mean, produced the most
extended and tremendous effects. In a short time there will (we have reason to
fear) remain but two kinds of persons among us, either those who think not at
all, or those whose imaginations are active indeed, but continually evil. Of
these latter it may be said, “Their foolish heart was darkened.” Of the
principles, I do not say of the detail, of political science, a sound theology
is the only sure and steady basis. Now we trace the operations by which a
destruction so extended in its consequences has been effected. The
master-spring of every principle which can permanently secure the stability of
a people is the fear and knowledge of Almighty God. The first operation of a
principle of atheism, and perhaps one of the most formidable in its
consequences, is that which leads political men to conceive of Christianity as
a mere auxiliary to the State. Religion was not instituted (in the Divine
council I mean) for the purpose of society and government, but society and
government for the purposes of religion. As atheism presumptuously attempts to
discard a moral government, in order to open a fearless unrestrained indulgence
for the impetuosity of passion, so superstition administers, upon a principle
of commutation, to those same indulgences. It is utterly subversive of the two
grand pillars of the Divine administration, His justice and His mercy. Thus
both atheism and superstition are instruments of the general adversary of mankind.
Their origin is in the wilful ignorance of God, and their operation in the
merciless destruction of His creatures. The present disastrous state of human
affairs can only be ascribed to one source, a corruption of morals, produced by
a previous depravation of the opinions of mankind. If the events we deplore and
deprecate arise from
ignorance, error, and false opinion; and this ignorance is specifically the
ignorance of Almighty God and His dispensations, to revive and disseminate with
activity the principles of a sound, Christian, and orthodox theology will be
our best interest, as it is our bounden duty. (T. Rennell, D. D.)
The sin of public teachers
Here made responsible for the ignorance of the people.
1. As ignorance is a very rife and destroying sin in the visible
Church, so the guilt thereof doth ofttimes lie in great part at preachers’
doors.
2. Such as would be able to teach others, ought to take much pains
that they may be instructed themselves from God in His Word.
3. The more familiar occasion of converse men have with holy things,
wanting holiness, their contempt and dislike of them will be the greater, and
their opposition to light have the more perversity and the less infirmity in
it.
4. Such as do for a time reject and resist means of knowledge, may at
last come to lose the light they had.
5. The more relation any pretend to God, by virtue of their general
or particular calling, the Lord will make use thereof to aggravate their sin
and unanswerable walking.
6. Unfaithfulness in offices will cast men out of the Church, as
unsavoury salt is cast out, which is a sad judgment.
7. It is a righteous judgment on unfaithful ministers that God
suffers their posterity to be neglected. (George Hutcheson.)
Lack of knowledge
As if he had said, If they had the knowledge of God, they might
have prevented all this, but they were ignorant and sottish people, and this
was the forerunner of misery and destruction. The heathens were wont to say
that if their god Jupiter would destroy one, he would first besot him; so these
people were first besotted and then destroyed. Ignorance is not the mother of
devotion, but rather the father and mother too of destruction. In the beginning
of this chapter we have the sin of ignorance set forth, here we have its
danger. There we had the charge, that they had “no knowledge in the land”; here
we have the judgment, that they “are destroyed for want of knowledge.”
Ignorance is not only the deformity of the soul as blindness is the deformity
of the face; though a man or woman have never such a comely face otherwise, yet
if they be blind, or have but one eye, it mars their beauty; so ignorance takes
away the beauty of the soul; and not only so, but is dangerous and destructive,
and that in these respects--
1. The rational creature is very active of itself, and will always be
in motion, always working. Then, wanting knowledge, and surrounded by pits and
snares, how dangerous is his situation!
2. Man’s way is for eternity, and there is but one way that leads to
an eternity of happiness, and that lies in the midst of a hundred crossways and
bypaths. If he have not light, if he want knowledge, what is to become of him?
3. Man is not only going onward through dangers and byways, but he
must go on with his own light. The soul that is ignorant no angel in heaven can
help, except as an instrument of God to bring sight into his eyes.
4. The work we are to do about our souls and eternal estates is the
most curious and most difficult piece of work, and we must do it by our own
light.
5. Blindness in this world makes men objects of pity and compassion,
but this ignorance and blindness make men to be the objects of the hatred and
curse of God. God gave us light at first, we have brought ignorance upon
ourselves. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Lack of knowledge the destruction of a people
The tide of human affairs is ever throwing up upon the surface of
society some one particular subject of special and engrossing interest. One of
the prominent subjects of our time is education. It has been forced on the
minds of thoughtful men by the lamentable results of allowing an exuberant
population to outgrow the means of their moral and religious training,
bequeathed by the wisdom and piety of their forefathers. Hosea the prophet was
commissioned to denounce God’s just displeasure, and His determination to
inflict punishment upon a people that refused to be reformed. God had a
controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there was no truth, nor
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. It is a serious question how far such
language may befit ourselves. It is certain that there is a fearful lack of
“knowledge of God” in our times.
I. What is the
knowledge, the lack of which destroys a people? The question is analogous to
another, What is education? Are we agreed among ourselves as to what is to be
understood by this expression? There is a class of men whose ideas of knowledge
and education are almost confined to the acquisition and communication of the
facts and principles of physical and general science. Education, in their
estimation, is training up the young to be in mature life well-informed and
philosophical men: men who can keep pace with and help on the forward movements
of an inquiring and intellectual age. But this is not knowledge, in the true
and full sense of the term, neither is this education. We are still short of
the truth if we define knowledge to be acquaintance with duties as well as
facts, with the world within a man, as well as the world without him; and
education to be a process of training for the moral as well as the intellectual
part of man, the discipline of the will as well as that of the mind. This is
well as far as it goes; but it is not the whole truth. It is indeed based upon
a false principle, that the inculcation
of moral truths, and cultivation of moral habits will suffice to regulate and
control the heart and will of man. It dreams of a moral regeneration without an
adequate regenerating principle, of moral obedience without a sufficiently
constraining motive. It assumes that a man may be lifted up above the influence
of evil by presenting to his mind the cold abstraction of goodness. The
advocates of these moral systems are ignorant of the materials upon which they
would work. They do not know the nature of man. They forget that he is corrupt
and depraved. The moral sense of man is so beclouded by sin that to behold the
beauty of virtue is neither to love nor to embrace it. Education, in its
primary idea, is the knowledge of God in His relation to man: the communication
of this knowledge to the heart, through the medium of the understanding.
Education is training as well as teaching. It teaches moral duties based upon
the knowledge of God as a reconciled Father in Christ Jesus. Education is
worthless when severed from religion. Lay the foundation deeply in the
principles of true religion, and you may then proceed to build up a goodly
superstructure of all that is worthy of the name of useful knowledge.
II. The anxious
conditions of society are explained by the lack of this knowledge. Reflecting
minds have serious thoughts upon the present aspect of our domestic national
affairs. We have been appalled by the frightful statistics of ignorance and
vice, of the mass of corruption fermenting amidst our overgrown population.
While the prodigious multiplication of human beings has been advancing, there
has been no corresponding multiplication cf appliances for the moral and
religious training of their souls, either as children or adults. Can it be
wondered at that irreligion and infidelity, and principles of anarchy and
insubordination, and vice in some of its most revolting forms have overspread
these densely peopled districts? We cannot shut our eyes to what is going on
around us. A population has grown up unlearned in true knowledge. The demoralising
process is going on. It is a self-propagating evil. One uneducated generation
begets another, and probably a worse. Our fathers did much for national
education, according to the exigencies of their own times. We must follow along
their line in this, that religion entered, as a component element, into all
their foundations. (W. Nicholson, M. A.)
The danger of a lack of knowledge
I. The persons.
“My people.” A frequent designation of the Israelitish people. Jehovah was
emphatically to them a God, and they were emphatically to Him a people. But is
God’s greatest goodness to Israel to be compared with the civil and religious
privileges with which He has distinguished this favoured country? There is a
tendency in nations as well as in individuals to be rendered careless and
secure by the long possession of privileges and advantages. And the history of
Israel is intended to teach a lesson of national warning.
II. Their
condition. “My people are destroyed.” Notwithstanding all God’s favour towards
them, yet He abandoned them to desolation, He gave them over to destruction.
And what ground of security has Britain any more than Israel, except in the
favour and protection of God? It is impossible for any reflecting person to
consider the internal state of our country without feeling that we have within
ourselves the elements of destruction, the materials for a wide-wasting
desolation.
III. The cause of
that condition. “For lack of knowledge.” Lack of the knowledge of God and
religion. This was God’s ground of complaint, and for this He entered into
judgment with them. This lack of knowledge was accompanied and followed by a
general corruption of morals, as the next words to our text show. When the
corruption became general, and the fruit, of this religious ignorance were
ripe, God thrust in the sharp sickle of His judgments, and reaped the harvest
in His wrath. Observe then the bearing which the state of the collective body
of the people as to religious knowledge must have upon the question of national
safety and national ruin. If there be a lack of the knowledge of God and His
truth in the bulk of the people, the destruction of the nation will be
inevitable. And if ruin come upon any land, who are the sufferers? If the body
be crushed by a fall, which of the members will escape the anguish? Hence the
state of the people is the concern of all. God has bound all classes in one
common bond of interest: all must rejoice, or all must suffer together. What
then is the state of our population with respect to religious knowledge? And
what must be the end of these things? (Thomas Best, M. A.)
Neglect of teaching
God here attacks the priests, but includes the whole people. For
teaching prevailed not among them, as it ought to have done. The Lord
reproaches the Israelites for their ingratitude, seeing He had kindled among
them the light of celestial wisdom. How did the Israelites perish through
ignorance? They closed their eyes against the celestial light, because they
deigned not to become teachable, so as to learn the wisdom of the eternal
Father. We see the guilt of the people in that they had malignantly suppressed
the teaching of the law. The people perished without knowledge, because they
would perish. (John Calvin.)
The lack of knowledge
I. The statement
of the text is no exaggeration. Look at the Jewish nation. The whole nation was
a school, and the law was their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. But it
failed--utterly failed--to accomplish this. The enmity of the human heart came
out amongst the Jewish people.
II. Some of the
endeavours men make to rectify existing evils. Emphatically this is an age of
progress; of progress in many things that have rendered man wiser, and the
world happier. Philosophy takes a higher range of thought. Literature is nobler
and healthier in its tone. Art is purer than Grecian art. Science is not
atheistic. Many run to and fro, and knowledge is multiplied. We recognise this
progress thankfully; it is all good, though not the highest good. It is all
capable of being turned to spiritual advantage. But by it society is not
regenerated: there arc social questions of the deepest importance that are not
yet settled. There are forms of ignorance most appalling, developments of
ignorance most deplorable, and a general spirit of scepticism widely spread.
Man has done, and is doing, his very utmost to set the world right, and yet the
world continues wrong.
III. The Gospel
announces itself as sufficient to meet and to remove all the miseries of
humanity.
1. It is this which distinguishes the Gospel from all other schemes.
Many things are palliatives, but you can find nothing that pretends to do all
the work that man requires to have done for him but the Gospel. Then
indifference to the Gospel is the most fearful proof that could be presented to
the mind of my voluntary ignorance and sin.
2. We may with confidence say that the Gospel not only professes to
do this but has done all this. It has proved itself the great salvation. (W.
G. Barrett.)
Religious ignorance
I. It is
destructive. It is not the mother of devotion, it is the mother of destruction.
1. What does it destroy? The growth of the soul in power, beauty, and
fruitfulness.
2. How does it destroy? How can the lack of a thing destroy? The lack
of heat and moisture will kill the vegetable kingdom; the lack of air will
cause the extinction of all animal life. The soul without knowledge of God is
like a plant without heat or moisture, an animal without the salubrious breeze.
II. It is wilful.
No culpability in a man being ignorant of some things. The knowledge of God
comes to him whether he will or not. In nature, in reason, in intuitions of his
moral being. Ignorance of God is a criminal ignorance.
III. It is
God-offending. He deals out retribution--
1. To themselves.
2. To their children.
It is a Divine law springing from the constitution of society,
that the iniquities of the fathers shall be visited on their children. (Homilist.)
Ignorance destructive
Ignorance disqualifies a man for those situations in life that
require the exercise of wisdom and discretion: it degrades him in society below
the rank of those who would otherwise be deemed his equals or inferiors; and it
not unfrequently leads to idleness, dissipation, and vice. But ignorance of
religion is of infinitely worse consequence, because it ensures the everlasting
destruction of the soul.
I. The ignorance
of the Christian world. Among nominal Christians there is a great lack of
knowledge: an ignorance--
1. Of themselves. Of their blindness, guilt, depravity, helplessness.
2. Of God. Of His holiness, justice, truth.
3. Of Christ. They may confess His Godhead, and acknowledge Him as a
Saviour. But what do they know of Him as He is in Himself, or as He is to us?
II. The fatal
consequences of this ignorance. Lack of spiritual knowledge--
1. Tends to men’s destruction.
2. Will issue in their destruction.
Infer--
1. How carefully should we improve the means of grace,
2. How earnestly should we pray for the teachings of God’s Spirit.
3. How thankful we should be for any measure of Divine knowledge. (Skeletons
of Sermons.)
True knowledge for the people
Neither wealth nor political forms of government give knowledge to
a people. They may give them, or obtain for them, technical information in most
things, but they do not give that know ledge which is the height of
wisdom--that knowledge which will guide a man aright in his intercourse with
the world. On the contrary, a continuously changing government and an
accumulation of wealth have a great tendency to demoralise a nation, and to
retard, rather than to foster, the knowledge of that which is righteous and
true. As it was in the early ages, so it has continued through the various
nations which have existed upon the earth down to the present time; and the
Jewish nation fell under the ordinary laws of social progress when they
departed from the directions which were given, and the advice which was offered
by God Himself. Even the chosen people of the Almighty fell under the power of
the tyrant custom; and notwithstanding their advance in civilisation and wealth,
they erred and were “destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Why was this? Because
the technical information which they obtained from their teachers was not that
which would support the actions of their daily life, was not that which would
assist in guiding them through the devious windings of the world in which they
lived, but had relation merely to the subject which was then in hand, and was
of no further avail when once that subject was laid on one side. As a natural
consequence of this narrow and superficial training, the minds of the people
generally became contracted until they could not see any political or religious
question in its proper bearings, or to its whole extent. They saw what related
to the question of the hour, and being content with this, they ultimately sank
under a despotism of body and mind; for the mind sank and was debased long
before the body felt any evil effects from the narrowing of views which had
been going on for some time amongst the people. In the time of Hosea the people
were wandering to and fro from lack of knowledge, and the prejudices of the age
were being stirred up for the services of party, instead of being laid aside in
the desire to teach the people only that which was true. Prejudice is one of
the most difficult things which men have to encounter in their desire to obtain
a know ledge of the truth. When once the mind has taken up any opinion it lays
hold of it as its own, and follows it out regardless of what may be said by
others to the contrary. It considers that which it holds to he the truth; and,
as a natural consequence, looks upon the sayings of those who oppose it as
absolutely false, and without any legitimate foundation upon which to stand.
Nor is it in the ordinary course of events worth while to try and disabuse
people of their prejudices. And not only do our prejudices impel us to hold
with tenacity that which we have taken up as the truth, but they impel us to
dislike and to hate those who may differ from us. A man is truly orthodox when
he thinks as we think; but let him differ from us only in one jot or tittle,
and then his opinions are at once pronounced to be heterodox, and he himself
adjudged as an enemy. There are some conclusions which must be admitted by
every reflecting mind as soon as they are presented to it, and they must also
be acknowledged as truths the moment they are offered for consideration. When
we reflect upon the matter for a moment, it is evident that each one ought” to
live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world,” because it is clearly an
offence against the well-being of society that men should live otherwise. Then
let us not be the servants of men, for there is One greater than they. Let us
not be the followers of a party, for there is One wiser than it. But let us
seek honestly after the truth wherever it may be found; and whilst we hold
Augustine as a friend, and Luther and Calvin as friends,--whilst we respect men
of every party--let us ever bear in mind that we have a duty to perform far
higher than that of clansmen: we have to teach the truth as it is in Jesus, to
proclaim His name above that of every other name, and to endeavour above all
things to strive manfully to learn and to do that which is right. (F. T.
Swinbourne.)
The importance of religious knowledge
Both philosophers and divines agree that the first step to true
know ledge is a discovery of our own ignorance; all wise men will confess that
the more they know the more a modest sense of the narrow limits of their
understanding increases. The recovery of true knowledge, with a constant
improvement therein ourselves, and the using our utmost endeavours to propagate
it among mankind, are some of the most noble and rational ends of our
existence. Not withstanding His severe reproachings and threatenings of
Ephraim, how tenderly the Lord expostulates with them! A wilful neglect of true
knowledge is represented as the spring of all their provocations and their
danger. Ignorance is represented as the occasion of their ruin.
I. The title given
to the people who are exposed to this destruction. Still, spite of their sin,
they are called “My people.” This title may be applied to mankind in general,
and in a strict manner to those who are known as the “elect.” Here it is
applied to the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, under the name Ephraim. Though they
had revolted from Him, God still condescends to own His relation to them. And
this relation materially aggravates their crimes.
II. What is this
knowledge which is of such importance? Men may be great strangers to
philosophy, to human arts, and carnal wisdom, and yet not be involved in that
destruction which is certainly connected with the ignorance mentioned in the
text. As true religion is the only effectual security of private persons from
this ruin, so it is with respect to society. Religious knowledge must be
intended in this text.
1. Men might learn much by seriously observing what is presented to
their view all round about them; and much more if they would examine their own
frame, and reflect on the various warnings of that monitor which is in every
breast.
2. It is the knowledge which God has been pleased to reveal, which is
chiefly intended here. This was, in Hosea’s time, to be found in the books of
Moses and the prophets. This is, for us, the knowledge that is conveyed by the
Gospel.
III. The sad
occasions of the want of this knowledge, especially in what is called a land of
light.
1. A thoughtless neglect of those sober reflections to which we are
led even by that measure of natural light, which, in the midst of all our
depravity, is mercifully continued to us. Observation teaches us what effect
negligence will have on our temporal affairs. When men come to divide precious
time principally between the cares about the enlargement of their worldly
substance, and the various methods their own corruptions will dictate, very
little will be left for nobler improvements.
2. The want of the written revelation must Deeds be attended with the
most deplorable ignorance. As may be seen in the history of those nations which
have wanted this glorious advantage.
3. Ignorance of religion must needs prevail where there is the want
of a skilful, faithful, and laborious ministry.
4. A pious education of our youth is another method of cultivating
religious knowledge. This foundation must be chiefly laid in family
instruction. We have lived to see the day when the impression of religious
sentiments on young minds is not only by many laid aside, but such a neglect is
defended. It is said to prevent any bar being put to what is called “free
thinking.” The great neglect of family religion, and the pious example which
superiors by the laws of reason are indispensably obliged to set before those
under their care, as it has long been complained of, if not soon reformed must
bring peril on our Churches and on our land.
5. The growth of ignorance among the poorer sort is a matter of
peculiar consequence.
6. Among good men there is too great a neglect of application to
Heaven for a blessing on such attempts as are made to promote useful knowledge,
and of a dependence on the Spirit of God, who is only able to make them
successful.
IV. The destruction
which is the natural and sad consequence of this ignorance. Reference is first
to those temporal calamities which befell these people for their sins; or it
relates to future temporal calamities which Hosea predicted. But ignorance
persisted in exposes public communities to almost every criminal anal dangerous
disorder, and in the end brings on national ruin; and it is big with every
spiritual as well as temporal mischief to private persons where it prevails. Ignorance of Divine
things keeps the conscience under a fatal stupidity, it exposes men to the
devices of the old serpent, and to the crafty attempts of every seducer; it exposes us to every
kind of error in conduct, and obstructs our usefulness both in public and in private
life.
V. The remedies
which should be applied to so dangerous a disease.
1. We should cheerfully and constantly attend on those advantages
Heaven has bestowed on us, that we read and hear, that we inquire and meditate,
and watch and pray, as those who are convinced that ignorance has been their
ruin, and that happiness in this life is absolutely connected with religious
knowledge, and that the lives of our souls depend upon it.
2. We should do all we can to promote the influence of religious
knowledge on the minds of others, by the careful instruction of our families,
and the support of a well-qualified ministry.
VI. Some
applications cf what has been said.
1. How deplorable is the state of multitudes among us, who lie under
the grossest ignorance.
2. We ought to rejoice in our civil constitution, and to encourage
and defend our religious advantages. (Joseph Stennett, D. D.)
Ignorance of God among professing Christians
The ungodliness of Israel in Hosea’s time was in a great measure
to be traced to ignorance of the true God; an ignorance for which they were
responsible, because there was the light of God’s truth in their land. It was
peculiarly sinful, inasmuch as it was ignorance in God’s professing people. And
the ignorance involved their ruin.
I. The present and
future misery of ignorance of God. No real earthly happiness can be enjoyed
where there is ignorance of God. The pleasures of sin are not happiness, though
they often pass for it. Nor is the pursuit of happiness, or the acquisition of
wealth. Happiness must be sought in a knowledge of, and obedience to, the will
and ways of God. Where there is the true knowledge of God, there is no real
wretchedness, though there may be much tribulation
II. That which
aggravates the misery is our relation to God as his people.
1. It aggravates their sin, because it is the bounden duty of every
man to seek the knowledge of God as the “one thing needful.” We are not to wait
to have this knowledge forced upon us, we are bound to seek it. If the guilt of
God’s people who remain in ignorance of Him be aggravated by their relation to
Him, so likewise is the guilt of those aggravated who are bound to teach God’s
people. Civil government stands upon religious grounds, and has religious
obligations. The Church is the bulwark of every Christian State. (W. J.
Brodrick, M. A.)
The necessity of a union between religion and education
I. The necessary
connection between religion and education. The word “education” suggests the
idea of preparing the young for the great duties incumbent on them in the
various relations of life; and with a view to this object, includes the
communication of knowledge, the inculcation of right principles, and the
formation of corresponding habits in those who are thus to be the subjects of
it. But what are we to understand by the great duties incumbent upon us in the
different relations of life? Some think that the end and purpose of their
existence have been met when they have fairly performed their present duties,
and honourably met their obligations. But these are practical atheists, for they completely
exclude God from any right to the homage of His rational creatures, and reduce
man to the degradation and wretchedness of a being who, whatever other heights
he may attain, is incapable of rising to the knowledge, the love, the service,
and the everlasting enjoyment of his Maker. In opposition to such views, we
say, that even reason and conscience, above all the Word of God, declare that
man is endowed with a nature that renders him capable of communion with the
great, eternal, glorious God; nay, that the advancement of the praise of this
God is the very end of his existence; and in pursuing this end he secures
present and everlasting happiness. This duty may, however, be acknowledged, and
yet the proper principles and conduct attending it may be repudiated. If the
former view was practical atheism, this is practical infidelity. Milton says.
“The end of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents, by regaining
to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, to imitate Him, to
be like Him as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue,
which, being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest
perfection.” Can Christian training be efficiently, and ought it to be
exclusively discharged by parents?
II. The importance
and advantages of a union between religion and education. Man was originally
framed so as to derive happiness from the knowledge, love, and service of God.
It is when the love of God is shed abroad on the heart of fallen man that the
different parts of his moral constitution will resume, as it were, their proper
place and connection, and that he himself will be enabled to act as he was
designed for the glory of God, in all the varied relations in which he stands.
When religious knowledge is communicated and made effectual for the conversion
of the soul to God, man is under the influence of that principle which will
most certainly and with increasing strength constrain him to the discharge of
every obligation in regard to God, to himself, and to his fellow-creatures, and
thus fit him for the attainment of the great end of his being. Put forth this
knowledge in all its bearings, and you will do that which, with the Divine
blessing, will enable him to discharge with consistency and perseverance, with
honour, comfort, and usefulness, the great duties of life. But how sad, and
morally helpless, is the condition of those who are allowed to grow up, not
only without a religious education, but without an education of any kind! (Abercromby
L. Gordon.)
Hindrances to knowledge
Very different and almost opposite things are said of knowledge in
the Holy Scriptures. Such may be found in the writings of St. Paul. Following
the sound rather than the sense of some of St. Paul’s expressions, it has been
the fashion with some to decry altogether the value of knowledge, whether on
religious or common subjects. What is knowledge? The old definition is,
“Knowledge is the firm belief of something true, on sufficient grounds.” Belief
is necessary, but belief is not enough. Fully testing our knowledge, it may be
said that we know almost nothing. In later life we become aware of this, and
very painfully. But the charge of ignorance (in the true meaning of that word)
may be brought as justly against the so-called enlightenment of this age, as
against the less showy pretensions of that which is now gone by. Two or three
causes for the lack of real knowledge may be given.
1. The multiplication of outward helps and facilities for learning
has a direct tendency to counteract true knowledge. It seems to be a condition
of knowledge that it shall not come too easily. Knowledge must be fetched by
exertions of our own.
2. A misuse of stimulus in the pursuit of knowledge is an impediment.
One reason why many of us do not know mere is that we have made knowledge a
means instead of an end--a means of getting distinction. The use of emulation
as a stimulus to knowledge is a perilous, though it may be a necessary
expedient. Be on your guard, too, against a misuse of a temporary stimulus
acting upon parts of your nature which are, by comparison, the lower rather
than the higher. Emulation is higher than appetite, but it is lower than that
to which manly principle and Christian motive appeal.
3. The effect of light reading upon the acquisition of knowledge
truly so called. In the days of our fathers, any one who could read at all
would scarcely fail to read with a view to knowledge. The supply of amusement
by literature, the command of books as a mere pastime, was then scarcely
thought of. Now young people greedily devour fictitious tales till indulgence
produces a surfeit. Sometimes an absolute vacancy follows upon excess of such
reading. Fiction has two legitimate provinces. It is a salutary relaxation for
an overwrought brain. And it may be employed as a study of life. But the
knowledge, the lack of which destroys, is the knowledge not of things but of
per-sons. It is the acquaintance of soul with soul, and spirit with spirit; the
contact of the unseen inmost self of man with the unseen inmost essence of
another, even of Him in whom man lives, and whom truly to know is eternal life.
What we need is to know God. It is no metaphysical, scarcely even a theological,
knowledge you need. It is the knowledge as of a friend. (C. J. Vaughan, D.
D.)
The evils of ignorance
I. Ignorance is
destructive.
1. Destructive of the dignity of man. The faculties of knowledge,
reason, judgment, and voluntary determination distinguish us from the beasts
that perish, and constitute the true dignity of our nature. But faculties and
powers are of little value until they are brought into exercise and directed to
their proper objects. Instruction is to man What culture is to the plant.
Without it, life is spent in a vacant stupidity, or distracted by irregular
imagination and heated passions.
2. Destructive of the usefulness of man. Knowledge constitutes the
whole difference betwixt savage and civilised society. To the improvement of the
mind all nations have owed the improvement of their condition. Ignorance is the
negative of everything good and useful. It not only renders the members of a
community useless to each other, it opposes, and frequently triumphs over, all
the endeavours of humane and enlightened individuals. The despotism of
ignorance is of the most imperious nature. Minds wholly uncultivated are averse
to serious thought., and are only conversant with sensible objects. From this
springs their aversion to the Gospel; for whoever receives it must become
serious and thoughtful.
3. Destructive of virtue. Virtue can no more exist without knowledge,
than an animal can exist without life. In proportion as ignorance prevails in
society, virtue is destroyed. Ignorant men may possibly be made enthusiasts;
they may be made superstitious; but before they can be made rational, steady,
and consistent Christians, they must be enlightened. That ignorance is
destructive of virtue is proved by facts as well as arguments. Illustration may
be taken from the records of heathen nations, and from the history of the
Christian Church.
4. Destructive of happiness. There is pleasure in knowledge of a kind
more pure and elevated than can possibly be found in any of the gratifications
of sense, and for which the latter are but unworthy substitutes. Of the
pleasures which spring from knowledge, and especially sacred knowledge, we
cannot conceive too highly. To know God, to contemplate the perfections of His
nature and the wonders of His hand, to observe His providential regard, to
behold the mystery of redemption, the character and undertaking of Jesus,--such
subjects, when opened to the mind, not only give pleasure as speculative
discoveries and the solutions of distressing doubts, but by awakening virtuous
sentiments, kindling an ardent and elevated devotion, producing the present
possession of the peace of the Gospel, and the prospect of fulness of joy.
II. To counteract
the destructive effects of ignorance is the work of humanity. None oppose the
communication of knowledge to the lower ranks of society save those who are
altogether unreasonable. Special importance attaches to Sunday school. The
dissemination of knowledge may be treated as--
1. A work of humanity;
2. Of patriotism;
3. Of virtue.
Christianity exhibits a Founder who went about doing good; and His
disciples in every age have devoted their time, their talents, their property,
their influence to the instruction and blessing of mankind. (R. Watson.)
Ignorance destructive
Ignorance disqualifies a man for those situations in life that
require the exercise of wisdom and discretion: it degrades him in society below
the rank of those who would otherwise be deemed his equals or inferiors; and it
not infrequently leads to idleness, dissipation, and vice. Ignorance of
religion ensures the everlasting destruction of the soul.
I. The ignorance
of the Christian world.
1. An ignorance of themselves. They know little of their blindness,
guilt, depravity, helplessness.
2. Ignorance of God. His holiness, justice, truth.
3. Ignorance of Christ. As He is in Himself. As He is to us.
II. The fatal
consequences of it. The degrees of criminality attached to ignorance vary
according to the opportunities men have enjoyed of obtaining knowledge. A lack
of spiritual knowledge--
1. Tends to destruction.
2. Will issue in destruction.
Then--
Rejecting knowledge
The word used signifies to reject with despite and contempt. Knowledge is
rejected in two ways.
1. When the means of knowledge are rejected, then knowledge is
rejected.
2. When the directions of our knowledge are rejected, when we refuse
to be guided by it, upon this our knowledge decays, and eventually is
contemned. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Lack of knowledge
The lack of this knowledge causes people to perish. Knowing
God as a Father, Saviour, Sanctifier, gives the soul the consciousness of
pardon, life, purity, power--the power of love--that is almost irresistible.
Knowledge is power to the inventor, civil engineer, teacher and lawyer. But the
knowledge of God is the greatest power. It enables all, even the weakest, to do
great things. “Oh, for a knowledge and baptism of power from God. Then
everywhere the people that do know God shall do exploits.” (H. W. Bailey.)
Ignorance impoverishes
Among the Scotch lairds, there is one whose father died in a
poorhouse, like a beggar, notwithstanding his possession of the very same
riches his heir at present has at his disposal; but he simply did not know how
rich he was. Shortly after his decease, rich metallic ore was discovered on the
estate; the mines, which were worked at once, gave such returns, that very soon
all mortgages and debts could be paid off, and, moreover, put the present owner
in possession of a nobleman’s fortune. His father possessed no less, but he
knew it not. Alas, for how many the blessed Word of God is worth no more than
waste paper! Therein are contained the richest promises of fulness of grace, of
victory over every enemy, of exceeding glory; but because they do not explore these mines,
they live like beggars, who can hardly manage to obtain a morsel of bread. (A.
J. Gordon, D. D.)
I will also forget thy
children.
Getting at parents through their children
The Lord must in some way find our life that He may either reward or
chastise it. In this case He will get at the parents through their children. He
would not have done this if there had been any other way into their rebellious
and obdurate hearts. We must leave Him to explain Himself in reference to the
children; He will do that which
is right and merciful; we need not plague ourselves about that aspect of
mystery; rather let us fasten attention upon the fact that God means for our
good to get at our souls somehow. He will try all the gates, and even if He has
to break down the child-gate He will come in. That is the point upon which we
are to fix our devout attention. We can of course be tempted in another direction: why attack
the children, why conduct Himself towards the innocent as if they were guilty?
Why punish the innocent., for those who have transgressed? So we metaphysically
fritter away God’s meaning; we endeavour to solve the insoluble, when we might
be accepting with grace and gratitude the inevitable, the disciplinary, and the
high administration of Divine righteousness. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Verse 7
As they were increased, so they sinned against me.
Secular prosperity
The “increase” is in the number of the population; but it may
refer to increase of wealth.
I. Secular prosperity
attained by the wicked.
1. That is a common fact. Wicked men in all ages have, as a rule,
been more prosperous than their contemporaries. Two things account for this
fact--
2. That is a trying fact. Men of incorruptible truth, honesty, and
high devotion have in all ages been baffled and distressed by this fact.
II. Secular
prosperity abused. In the hands of the wicked wealth can--
1. Promote injustice. It fattens the despotic in human nature.
2. It promotes sensuality. It provides means to inflame the low
passions of human nature, and to pamper the brutal appetites.
3. It promotes practical atheism. The man with wealth, and without
God in his heart, sinks into an utter forgetfulness of the Author of all good.
III. Secular
prosperity is ruinous to the wicked. God will strip them of all they now glory
in, all their worldly prosperity, and give them shame instead. “Therefore will
I change their glory into shame.” I will quench all the lights which they have
kindled. I will bring them into wretchedness and contempt. (Homilist.)
Prosperity encouraging sin
The Lord accuses them of ingratitude, that the more they
prospered, or increased in number or glory, they were the more bold on sin;
therefore He threatens them with ignominy to come in place of that glory which
made them miscarry so far. Learn--
1. Such as do
provoke God highly, may yet, in His long-suffering patience, not only continue
as they are, but increase in prosperity, issue, and glory for a time.
2. As there is no outward mercy conferred on wicked or unrenewed men,
but they do make it a snare to draw them into sin, and harden them in it, so
this abuse of God’s goodness doth aggravate sin exceedingly, for it is a
challenge that “as they were increased, so they sinned against Me.”
3. Any glory or splendour which men abuse to harden themselves in
sin, neglecting that which is their true honour, will certainly end in
ignominy; and especially when ministers glory of worldly state or riches as
their chief excellency, neglecting that true honour of being faithful in their
station. (George Hutcheson.)
Worldly prosperity an insidious danger
Once an English friend found Jenny Lind sitting on the steps of a
bathing-machine, on the sands, with a Lutheran Bible open on her knee, and
looking out into the glory of a sunset that was shining over the waters. They
talked, and the talk drew near to the inevitable question: “Oh, Madame
Goldschmidt, how was it that you ever came to abandon the stage, at the very
height of your success?” “When, every day,” was the quiet answer, “it made me
think less of this” (laying a finger on the Bible) “and nothing at all of that”
(pointing to the sunset), “what else could I do?” (“Life of Jenny Lind,”
by Canon Scott Holland.)
Spiritual ruin through temporal prosperity
It is not an unmixed blessing to be born with a silver spoon in
one’s mouth, for we all need the benefit of the struggle. I knew a man who
commenced business on a small scale, and at that time he attended the chapel
twice every Sunday. The business increased rapidly, and he attended chapel once
a Sunday, and then once a month, and now he spends his Sundays in a house-boat
on the river, and has lost all taste for sacred things! He is the miserable
slave of his gold--he worships it by day and dreams of it by night- and one would
not be surprised to hear of his seeking his euthanasia in suicide! A man alone
with his money is a sorry sight, for his heart is petrified, his spirit
materialised, and his life poisoned. The gold mines of Peru helped to wreck the
fortunes of Spain, for men abandoned honest work, and became avaricious
adventurers. Excessive luxury and avarice are the sure forerunners of national
decadence, and we Britons must be on our guard against it, or the fate of Spain
will be ours. Life is qualitative rather than quantitative, and our prosperity
will spoil us unless we give to soul-culture the first and highest place. As
Seneca says: “One of the most serious calamities which can befall any man is
not to know something of adversity.” (J. Ossian Davies.)
Therefore will I turn
their glory into shame.
Perverted gifts
God bestows on man gifts, which may be to him matter of praise and
glory, if only ordered aright to their highest and only true end, the glory of
God. Man perverts them to vainglory, and therefore to sin; God turns the gifts,
so abused, to shame. He not only gives them shame instead of their glory; He
makes the glory itself the means and occasion of their shame. Beauty becomes
the occasion of degradation; pride is proverbially near a fall; “vaulting ambition
overleaps itself and falls on the other side.” (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Man’s glory changed into shame
The very blessings which God had bestowed on these priests for
their glory, in order to their good, were to be converted into their shame, and
be made instrumental to their injury.
I. The threatening
in its relation to the Jews. There never was a nation upon which were poured
with such profusion things which should have been for their good and for their
glory. But in a very wonderful manner the Jews perverted all their privileges,
and thus turned their glory into shame. Their national mercies only
strengthened the national apostasy, and then the threatening took literal
effect, though only through their own misuse of their many advantages.
II. The threatening
in its relation to ourselves. Constantly things which should have turned to our
glory have been instrumental to our shame. But this cannot occur without fatal
injury.
1. How may our temporal blessings be turned into shame? Nothing tries
a man more than prosperity. There are many tempers and dispositions which are
comparatively repressed by straitness of condition, but which walk abroad in full
liberty when that condition is enlarged. Nevertheless, riches are designed of
God to be for man’s glory. Alas! there too often occurs the reverse of this,
and riches are turned into shame. This is also true of intellectual riches. Genius has often
been the ruin of its possessor; the powers which ought to have been for their
glory, needing nothing but righteous employment in order to the rendering their
possessors happy in themselves, and benefactors to the world, have been given
to the cause of vice and infidelity. But illustrations had better be taken from
commonplace than from rare instances.
2. How may our spiritual advantages be turned into shame? Every
doctrine of religion,
every leading of providence may clearly be for our own glory if rightly
employed, and as clearly for our shame if misused and perverted. Illustrate by
the doctrine of human helplessness, or of the forbearance God manifests to
sinners. In dealing with the dispensations of providence, illustrate by
affections. They are our glory, but, unsanctified, they become our shame. The
prophet Malachi has this threatening in the name of God, “I will curse your
blessings.” (Henry Melvill, B. D.)
Shame for glory
God loves to stain the pride and haughtiness of men.
I. He would bring
shame instead of glory. So God is wont to do. Women that glory in their beauty
and splendour should mark well (Isaiah 3:16-24). If any will glory in
parts, the Lord justly brings shame on them, blasting their gifts. It is
reported of Albertus Magnus, that great scholar, that for five years before his
death, he lost his faculties so completely that he could not read. If any glory
in riches, God can soon turn that into shame. If any glory in honour, God can
soon turn that into shame, as in the case of Herod. According to the glory of
men in external things, so is their shame when God takes them away. Here is the
difference between the saints and the wicked when they lose these outward
things.
II. God makes the
very things they glory in turn to their shame. He makes their very gifts to be
their undoing. When men glory in this, that they had such success, and such a
victory at such a time, and thence infer, “Surely God is with us, and blesses
and owns us,” God will turn this glorying into shame when He blasts their
success, and makes it manifest to all that though they have all outward means,
yet they avail nothing. When the saints suffer any shame for God, they can
glory. What the world accounts their shame is their glory; and that which the
world judges to be their glory is their shame. The prophet is speaking here more
especially of the priests. God casts shame upon wicked priests. (Jeremiah
Burroughs.)
Verse 8
They eat up the sin of My people.
Feeding on sin
Dr. Henderson renders these words, “They devour the sin-offering
of My people.” The priests lived upon the sacrificial meat (Leviticus 6:26), and the more they had of
this the more they were pleased. But this increased with the increase of the sins of the people.
The more the people sinned, the more sin-offerings, and the more sin-offerings,
the more priestly banquets. So in truth, without a figure, they “feed upon the
sin of the people.” Such men can be found now--
I. In the
ecclesiastical world.
II. In the
commercial world.
1. Men who have vested interest in the sin of intemperance.
2. Men who have vested interest in the sin of war.
III. In the
professional world. What could lawyers do without chicaneries, breach of
contracts, and all kinds of social immoralities and crimes? What would popular
journalists do were there no scandals, no tragedies, no crimes, no fraudulent
advertisements? What would become of the sensational novelist, if there were no
sinful love in the people for the horrible and the prurient? Herein is the
great obstruction to moral reformations. Destroy a popular sin, and you destroy
the livelihood of hundreds, and the pomp and splendour of many. (Homilist.)
Verse 9
And there shall be, like people, like priest.
Hosea’s proverb
“Like princes, like people”; but also, alas! “like people, like
priests,”--a proverb which has acquired currency from its fatal truth, but which
Hosea originated. The causes for the widespread immorality were twofold, as
Hosea, resident perhaps in Samaria, saw more clearly, and pointed out more
definitely than Amos. They were--
1. The detestable vileness and hypocrisy of the priests, with whom,
as usual, the false prophets were in league. From Hosea, the earliest of the
northern prophets whose works are extant, to Malachi the latest prophet of the
returned exiles, the priests had very little right to be proud of their title.
Their pretensions were, for the most part, in inverse proportion to their
merits. The neutrality, or the direct wickedness, of the religious teachers of
a country, torpid in callous indifference and stereotyped in false traditions,
is always the worst sign of a nation’s decadence. Hosea was no exception to the
rule that the true teacher must be prepared to bear the beatitude of
malediction, and not least from those who ought to share his responsibilities.
Amos had found by experience that for any man who desired a reputation for
worldly prudence, the wisest rule was to hold his tongue; but for Hosea, for
whom there was no escape from his native land, nothing remained but to bear the
reproach that” the prophet is a fool, and the spiritual man is mad,” uttered by
men full of iniquity and hatred. A fowler’s snare was laid for him in all his
ways, and he found nothing but enmity in the house of his God. The priests
suffered the people to perish for lack of knowledge. They set their hearts on
their iniquity, and contentedly connived at, if they did not directly foster,
the sinfulness of the people, which at any rate secured them an abundance of
sin-offerings. So far had they apostatised from their functions as moral
teachers. And there was worse behind. They were active fomenters of evil. But
the second cause of the national apostasy lay deeper still.
2. The corruption of worship and religion at its source. The
“calf-worship” was now beginning to produce its natural fruit. It would have
indignantly disclaimed the stigma of idolatry. It was represented as
“image-worship,” the adoration of cherubic symbols, which were in themselves
regarded as being so little a violation of the second commandment that they
were consecrated even in the temple at Jerusalem. The centralisation of
worship, it must be borne in mind, was a new thing. Local sanctuaries and local
altars had been sanctioned by kings and used by prophets from time immemorial.
The worship at Dan and Bethel could have claimed to be, in the fullest sense of
the word, a worship of Jehovah, as national and as ancient as that at
Jerusalem. For the ox was the most distinctive emblem of the cherub, and even
in the wilderness, cherubs--possibly winged oxen--had bent over the mercy-seat
and been woven on the curtains, and in the temple of Solomon had been embossed
upon the walls, and formed the support of the great brazen laver. We read of no
protest against this symbolism either by Elijah, Elisha, or Jonah. Hosea could
more truly estimate its effects, and he judged it by its fruits. He saw the
fatal facility with which the title Baal, “Lord,” might be transferred from the
Lord of lords to the heathen Baalim. He saw how readily the emblem of Jehovah
might be identified with the idol of Phoenicia. Jehovah-worship was perverted
into nature-worship, and the coarse emblems of Asherah and Ashtoreth smoothed
the way for a cultus of which the basis was open sensuality. The festal dances
of Israel, in honour of God, which were as old as the days of the Judges,
became polluted with all the abominations of Phoenician worship. The “adultery”
and “whoredom,” which are denounced so incessantly on the page of Hosea, are
not only the metaphors for idolatry, but the literal description of the lives
which that idolatry corrupted. (Dean Farrar, D. D.)
Priests become time-servers
No greater calamity can come upon a people, because--
1. Such priests cannot exert the influence which they should exert.
They should be men of God, supremely loyal to God, and witnessing for the
supreme claim of spiritual and eternal things.
2. Their example is positively mischievous. Men need no aid from
their leaders in living selfish, self-indulgent, covetous lives.
3. Time-serving utterly ruins personal character. Nobility, heroism,
devotion can only be nourished by living outside ourselves, for God and our
fellows. Time-servers are self-servers. (Robert Tuck, B. A.)
The degradation of holy office
The people may have what they like, and the priest will say, “You
could not help it.” The priest will reproduce what the people are doing, and the
people will take encouragement from the priest to go out and do double
wickedness, and thus they shall keep the action even. To this degree of
corruption may holiest institutions be dragged. The priest--meaning by that
word teacher, preacher, minister, apostle--should always be strong enough to
condemn; he can condemn generally, but not particularly; he can damn the
distant, he must pet and flatter and gratify the near. He will outgrow
this--when he knows Christ better; when he is enabled to complete his faith by
feeling that it is not necessary for him to live, but it is necessary for him
to speak the truth; when he comes to the point of feeling, that it is not at
all needful he should have a roof over his head, but it is necessary that he
should have an approving conscience; when he completes his theology by this
Divinest morality, he will be a rare man in the earth, with a great voice
thundering its judgments, and with a tender voice uttering its benedictions and
solaces where hearts are broken with real contrition. Priests should lead;
priests should not neglect denunciation, even where they are unable to follow
their denunciations with examples to the contrary. The Word should be spoken
boldly, roundly, grandly, in all its simplicity, purity, rigour, tenderness.
(Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The reciprocal influence of priest-hood and people
I. There is
sometimes a disgraceful reciprocal influence.
1. It is a disgrace to a true priest to become like the people. One
who is not above the average man is no priest, he is out of his place. A priest
is a man to mould, not to be moulded; to control, not to cringe; to lead, not
to be led. His thoughts should sway the thoughts of the people, and his
character should command their reverence. Sometimes you see priests become like
the people, mean, sordid, grovelling.
2. It is a disgrace to a people to become like a bad priest. There
are priests whose natures are lean, whose capacities are feeble, whose religion
is sensuous, whose sympathies are exclusive, whose opinions are stereotyped,
whose spirit is intolerant. Shame on the people who allow them selves to become
like such a priest!”
II. There is
sometimes an honourable reciprocal influence.
1. It is honourable when people become like a true priest; when they
feel one with him in spiritual interests and Christly pursuits.
2. It is honourable to the true priest when he has succeeded in
making the people like him. He may well feel a devout exultation as he moves
amongst them that their moral hearts beat in unison with his, that their lives
are set to the same keynote, that they are of one mind and one heart in
relation to the grand purpose of life. (Homilist.)
Naughty ministers
1. Evil ministers are a great cause of sin and misery upon the people
they have charge of. It is an addition to the priests’ judgment that they drag
so many with them into it.
2. Albeit naughty ministers be great plagues and snares to people,
yet that will not excuse a people’s sin, nor exempt them from judgment, and
therefore the people are threatened also. The sending of evil ministers may be
so much the fruit of people’s former sins, and they may be so well satisfied
with it as may justly ripen them for a stroke.
3. As pastors and people are ordinarily like each other in sin, and
mutual plagues to each other, so will they be joined together in judgments, for
“there shall be, like people, like priest,” that is, both shall be involved in
judgment (though possibly in different measure, according to the degree Of
their sin), and none of them able to help or comfort another.
4. Albeit the Lord may spare for a time, and seem to let things lie
in confusion, yet He hath a day of visitation, wherein He will call men to an
account, and recompense them, not according to their pretences, but their real
deeds and practices.
5. When men have made no conscience of sin, so they might compass
these delights, which they think will make them up, yet it is easy for God to
prove that the blessing of these delights is only in His hand.
6. As no means can prosper where God deserts and withdraws His
blessing, so what a man prosecutes unlawfully, He cannot look it should be
blessed. (George Hutcheson.)
A courageous ministerial reproof
The great northern apostle, Bernard Gilpin, who refused a
bishopric, did not confine his Christian labours to the church of Houghton, of
which he was minister, but at his own expense visited the then desolate
churches of Northumberland once every year to preach the Gospel. The Bishop of
Durham commanded him to preach before the clergy. Gilpin then went into the
pulpit, and selected for his subject the important charge of a Christian
bishop. Having exposed the corruption of the clergy, he boldly addressed
himself to his lordship, who was present. “Let not your lordship,” said he,
“say these crimes have been committed without your knowledge; for whatever you
yourself do in person, or suffer through your connivance to be done by others,
is wholly your own; therefore in the presence of God, angels, and men, I
pronounce your fatherhood to be the author of all these evils; and I, and this
whole congregation, will be a witness in the day of judgment that these things
have come to your ears.” The bishop thanked Mr. Gilpin for his faithful words,
and gave him permission to preach throughout his diocese.
Verse 11
Verses 11-14
Verse 12
Their staff declareth unto them.
Rhabdomania, or divining by the stick or staff
There was a kind of idolatry which the Jews had, a way to ask counsel
by the staff, and with this the prophet here charges them. The Romans practised
the same, calling it divination by rods, sticks, arrows, or staves. There were
four ways in which they divined with these things. The first was to put arrows
or staves into a closed case, having the names written on them of what they
divined about; and then, drawing out one or two, they determined their business
according to what they found written; thus their staff declared unto them
either good or bad. A second was by casting up staves or arrows into the air, and according as
they fell, on the right hand or on the left, before or behind, so they divined
their good or ill luck, as they called it. A third way was this, they used to
peel off the bark of some part of a stick, and then cast it up, and divined
according to which part of the pith, either black or white, appeared first. A
fourth was, as we find in the Roman antiquities, that their augurs or
soothsayers used to sit upon the top of a tower or castle, in clear and fair
weather, with a crooked staff in their hand, which the Latins call Lituus, and
having quartered out the regions of heaven, so far as to answer their purpose,
and offered sacrifices and prayers, they stretched it forth upon the head of
the person or thing they would divine for, and so foreboded good or ill luck,
according to what at that time they observed in the heavens, the birds flying,
etc. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Verse 13
They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense
upon the hills.
Blustering sinners
That is the bold aspect, that is the public phase; instead of
doing all these things, as Ezekiel would say, in a chamber of imagery far down,
at which you get through a hole in the wall, they go up to high places, and invite the sun to look
upon them; they kiss the calf in public. Some credit should be due to audacity,
but there is another sin which cannot be done on the tops of the mountains, so
the charge continues,--“under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow
thereof is good.” Here is the secret aspect of rebellion. Do not believe that
the blusterer lives only in public as fool and criminal; do not say, There is a fine
frankness about this man anyhow; when he sins, he sins in high places; he goes
upon the mountains, and stamps his foot upon the high hills, and the great hill
throbs and vibrates under his sturdy step. That is not the whole man; he will
seek the oak, the poplar, and the elm, because the shadow thereof is good. It
is a broad shadow; it makes night in daytime; it casts such a shadow upon the
earth which it covers that it amounts to practical darkness. So the blustering
sinner is upon the mountain, trying to perpetrate some trick that shall deserve
the commendation of being frank, and when he has achieved that commendation he
will seek the shadow that is good, the shadow at daytime, the darkness
underneath the noontide sun. How the Lord searches us, and tries our life, and
puts His fingers through and through us, that nothing may be hidden from Him!
He touches us at every point, and looks through us, and understands us
altogether. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Verse 16
Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer.
The evil and danger of backsliding
I. When we may be
said to resemble a backsliding heifer.
1. When we will not draw in God’s yoke at all.
2. When we draw in it only by fits and starts.
3. When we grow weary of the yoke. Weary of performing our duties,
exercising our graces, mortifying our lusts.
II. The evil and
danger of such a state.
1. The evil of it. It is a contemning of God. It is a justifying of
the wicked. It is a discouraging of the weak.
2. The danger of it. This is an iniquity which God marks with
peculiar indignation. The first symptoms of declension lead, if not speedily
mourned over and resisted, to utter apostasy. The misery that will be incurred
by means of it will far exceed all that had been endured if no profession of
religion had been ever made. Let these consequences be duly weighed, and
nothing need be added to show the importance of “holding fast our profession
without wavering.”
Improve the subject.
1. Assist you in ascertaining your state before God. Examine
diligently the cause, the duration, and the effects of your backslidings.
2. Give a word of counsel to those in different states. Are you
altogether backslidden from God? He invites you to return. Are you drawing in
His yoke? Bless and adore your God, who has inclined and enabled you to do so.
(O. Simeon, M. A.)
A backslider
It is a striking fact to which careful observers of the feathered
tribe will bear witness, that no birds are able to fly backward. A bird may
allow itself to fall backward by slowing its wings, until its weight overcomes
their sustaining power, as a swallow will do from the eaves of a house. But the
bird can do no other than fly forward, and but few with the rarest skill can
stand still in the air. Now if mankind would only “consider the birds of the
air “ in the way in which Christ enjoined, there would be considerably less
backsliding than there is. Like the wings of the soaring eagle, the wings of
faith were never intended for flying backward. A minister’s little girl and her
playmate were talking about serious things. “Do you know what a backslider is?”
she questioned. “Yes; it’s a person that used to be a Christian and isn’t,”
said the playmate promptly. “But what do you s’pose makes them call them backsliders?
Oh, that’s easy. You see, when people are good they go to church and sit up in
front. When they get a little tired of being good they slide back a seat, and
keep on sliding till they get clear back to the door. After awhile they slide
clear out and never come to church at all.”
The stubborn heifer
What is a backsliding heifer? We do not know; there is no such
creature. But read: “Israel acts stubbornly, like a heifer,” and the meaning is
clear. The heifer will not go as its owner wants it to go. The heifer stands
back when it ought to go forward; turns aside when it ought to move straight
on; wriggles and twists, and, as it were, protests; and only by greater
strength, or by the infliction of suffering, can the heifer be made to go to
its destined place. The prophet, looking upon that heifer, now on the right,
now on the left, now stooping, now throwing up its head in defiance, says, Such
is Israel, such is Ephraim. The metaphor is full of suggestion, and full of
high philosophy. Israel complained of limitation; Israel was chafed by the
yoke; Israel resented the puncture of the goad. Israel said, “I want liberty, I
do not want this moral bondage any longer; I do not want to be surrounded by
commandments, I do not want to live in a cage of ten bars called the ten
commandments of God; I want liberty; let me follow my reason, my instincts; let
me obey myself.” The Lord said, “So be it. Thou shalt have liberty enough, but
it shall be the liberty of a wilderness.” You can have liberty, but you will
find no garden in it; if you want the garden, you must have the law. Let us
take care how we trifle with law, obligation, responsibility, limitation. (Joseph
Parker, D. D.)
Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
Beware of unholy companionships
These words do not mean that nothing was to be done for Ephraim.
The prophets again and again pleaded with that people. “O Israel, thou hast
destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help.” Our text is addressed to Judah. “Let
Ephraim alone.” The best thing to do is not to associate with that people, keep
clear of them, let them alone.
I. This applies to
companionship. If you want to keep your own life pure, be careful with whom you
associate. Ephraim was more prosperous and wealthy, and consequently Judah
might be allured and led to offend (Hosea 4:15). We are influenced by those
with whom we keep company. You may think you are strong enough to stand against
the insidious influence of the world, but it touches you before you are aware.
If Judah associates with Ephraim, the contact must prove baneful, and Judah
will become corrupt. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate.”
II. It applies also
to places we visit and frequent. “Come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to
Beth-aven.” There sacrifices were offered to Baal, and the golden calf adored.
Are there not Beth-avens (house of vanity) which we had better avoid? (J.
Hampden Lee.)
Influence of companions
When visiting a gentleman in England, Mr. Moody observed a fine
canary. Admiring his beauty, the gentleman replied, “Yes, he is beautiful, but
he has lost his voice. He used to be a fine singer, but I was in the habit of
hanging his cage out of the window; the sparrows came round him with their
incessant chirping; gradually he ceased to sing and learned their twitter.” Oh,
how truly does this represent many Christians! They used to delight in the
songs of Zion, but they came into close association with those whose notes
never rise so high, until at last, like the canary, they can do nothing but
twitter, twitter.
Dangers of carnal security
Jeroboam made Israel to sin. From one sin they passed into
another, and each succeeding year plunged them deeper in the mire of
sensuality, idolatry, and corruption. At last Divine judgment came. It is
expressed in the text. Because Ephraim repaid all the offers of God to receive
him back to Himself with anger, therefore henceforth he was to be left to his
own devices--alone, without God, to ward off or to alleviate the coming
destruction. From the fate of Ephraim we draw a lesson for ourselves. God’s
dealings with nations and with individuals are the same in principle, though
differing necessarily in form and extent; and therefore there are the same
fearful signs of God’s wrath to be traced when we are let alone in a course of
known sin, without troubles, without warnings to stay us, as when a nation is
suffered to run its course of accustomed riot unrestrained. In both cases this
state of unnatural quiet is but the calm before the thunderstorm--the cessation
of pain in some mortal disease, which marks that nature is exhausted and death
at hand. He who is accepted in Jesus, the child of God, is never let alone,
but, forgetting those things that are behind, he is constantly pressing forward
to those things which are before. We can never be forced into sin. Our danger
is that we be deceived into supposing that we have no enemies, that there is
peace when there is no peace; lest we imagine that all is well with us when, it
may be, God is in fact letting us alone in bitter indignation and overhanging
vengeance. Anything is better than that God should leave us--let us alone in
our sin. The grave is a remedy for all earthly woe, but there is no remedy for
this either in time or in eternity. Consider then, all you who are living in
any known sin--who are quenching the Spirit of life by not acting or striving
to act up to what you know well is required from Christians--the horrible
danger of settling upon your lees; of thinking no evil shall come nigh you,
that your sin shall not find you out, that God will always strive with you. But
the words of the text whisper strong consolation to the man of a broken spirit
and contrite heart. Grant that he be afflicted and mourn, that he is in
heaviness through manifold temptations, that he go mourning all the day long by
reason of his sin, that he is heart-broken; yet, God be thanked, these very
feelings show that he is not let alone. He is not considered as joined unto
idols; and therefore, if he persevere, and be not weary in well-doing, he may
rightly expect his God will turn, and leave a blessing behind Him. (H.I.
Swale, M. A.)
The sin of Ephraim
As in the days before the flood, God’s Spirit does “not always
strive with man”: even long-suffering itself has been exhausted, and the
despisers and mockers have been either suddenly destroyed, or given over to
impenitence and insensibility. The precise period, or closing of what has been
called “the day of grace,” being mercifully concealed from man, its existence
can form no rule or guide for his procedure.
I. The sin of
Ephraim. “Joined to idols.” Idolatry is represented in Scripture as being
twofold; it is both outward and inward, public and retired. It does not consist
chiefly in acts of religious homage. There are idols in the heart, the family,
the Church. Loving and serving the creature more than the Creator is idolatry.
It is a present and existing evil, and a prevailing, constitutional, besetting,
and most abhorrent sin. It falls in easily with our inbred and corrupt
propensities.
II. The judgment
upon Ephraim. The punishment of his crime. The text is an admonition to Judah
not to hold any familiar intercourse with idolatrous and backsliding Israel.
We, however, regard it as a sentence of dereliction. “Let him alone.” The
phrase is elliptical. It is addressed to some one, but we do not know to whom.
May be angels, providences, ministers of the sanctuary, conscience, ordinances.
We may therefore wisely pray, “Say anything of or to Thy servant, rather than
let him alone.” (W. B. Williams, M. A.)
God abandons the incorrigible
While anything detains the heart from God, the man is in a
state of perdition. “He is joined to his idols.” There is something very
dreadful in this declaration--
I. If you
distinguish this desertion from another, which may befall even the subjects of
Divine grace. God sometimes leaves His people when they are becoming
high-minded, to convince them of their dependence upon Him. He leaves them to
their own strength to show them their weakness, and to their own wisdom to make
them sensible of their ignorance. But this differs exceedingly from the
abandoning of the incorrigible.
II. This leaving of
the sinner is a withdrawing from him everything that has a tendency to do him
good. Ministers, saints, conscience, providence--“let him alone,” Ye
afflictions, say nothing to him of the vanity of the world. Let all his schemes
be completely successful. Let his grounds bring forth plentifully. Let him have
more than heart can wish.
III. Consider the
importance of the being who thus abandons. It would be much better if all your
friends and neighbours, if all your fellow-creatures on whom you depend for
assistance in a thousand ways, were to league together and resolve to have
nothing to do with you, than for God to leave you. While God is with us we can
spare other things. But what is everything, else without God?
IV. What will be
the consequences of this determination? It will be a freedom to sin; it will be
the removal of every hindrance in the way to perdition. When God dismisses a
man, and resolves he shall have no more assistance from Him--he is sure of
being ensnared by error, enslaved by lust, and “led captive by the devil at his
will.” It is as if we had taken poison, and all that is necessary to its
killing us is not to counteract its malignity. Such is the judgment here
denounced. Notice--
1. The justice of this doom. All the punishments God inflicts are
deserved, and He never inflicts without reluctance. Your condemnation turns
upon a principle that will at once justify Him and silence you. “Ye will not
come unto Me that ye might have life.”
2. Let me call on you to fear this judgment. And surely some of you
have reason to be alarmed. With some of you the Spirit of God has long been
striving, and you have “done despite unto the Spirit of grace.” Now you know what He has
said, and you know what He has done. If you say you have no forebodings, the symptoms
are so much the worse. Spiritual judgments are the most awful, because they are
insensibly executed.
3. Perhaps some of you say, “I am afraid this is my doom already. My
convictions seem to have been stifled.” Perhaps this is true. Perhaps it is a
groundless apprehension. Remember, it is a blessed proof that God does not let
you alone, if you cannot let Him alone. (William Jay.)
Ephraim abandoned to idols
one of the consequences and proofs of our depravity is that we are
prone to turn every blessing into a curse. We are too apt to despise the
forbearance of God, and to draw encouragement from it to continue in sin.
Because God is slow to punish, we conclude that He never will punish. The
consequence is, we become more fearless and hardened. No conduct can be more
base than this, none more dangerous, and yet there is none more common. There
is a propensity to it in our very nature. But God’s time of patience will have
an end.
I. Ephraim’s sin.
The tendency of the Israelites in the early ages of their history to
idol-worship almost surpasses belief. It is seen in their making a calf at
Horeb, and in Solomon’s licence to surrounding idolaters. The evil became
ruinous in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. So it is said of Ephraim, “they were
joined to idols.” They sinned against light and knowledge, they transgressed
the plainest and most unequivocal declaration of the Divine will; and this they
did in the face of the most peremptory threatenings, the most solemn warnings,
and the most affectionate entreaties. It is painful and humiliating to reflect
that human beings possessed of reason and understanding should have been capable of acting
in a manner so unworthy of their high origin and their exalted privileges. We
are not liable to the charge of gross outward idolatry, but are there no idols
set up within the temple of our hearts? Are we free from the guilt of spiritual
idolatry? What is idolatry? The rendering to any creature whatever that
worship, honour, and love which belong to God alone.
1. Covetousness is declared in Scripture to be idolatry. The
intemperate and lovers of pleasure are idolaters. Pride is only another form of
idolatry. Those are idolaters who are inordinately attached to any earthly
comforts. On what things then are our affections placed? Few of us are there
who have not yielded that love, fear, and confidence to the creature, which are
due to God alone.
II. Ephraim’s
punishment. “Let him alone.” Some regard this as the language of caution
addressed to others, rather than as a threatening against Ephraim. We regard it
in the latter sense. It is expressive of the severest judgment that could be
inflicted on any nation or individual. It imports God’s final abandonment of
them, and delivering them up to final impenitence, never more to be visited
with salutary compunction or regret. The awful state in which Ephraim was thus
left resembles that of incorrigible sinners in every age, especially those who
appear to be given up to final impenitence and unbelief. Instances in which
this threatening is carried into effect may be given.
1. When the usual means of instruction and reproof are no longer
employed or afforded.
2. When the conscience becomes seared, and the Spirit of God ceases
to strive with the sinner.
3. When afflictions are withheld, and providence no longer frowns
upon the sinner, but suffers him to take his course unreproved. Whom the Lord
loves He rebukes and chastens; but He manifests His displeasure against the
impenitent by letting them alone. (R. Davies, M. A.)
A call to separation
These words are not intended as a threatening of the cessation of
the Divine pleadings with an obstinate transgressor--there are no people about
whom God says that they are so wedded to their sin that it is useless to try to
do anything with them, and they are not a commandment to God’s servants to
fling up in despair or in impatience the effort to benefit obstinate and
stiff-necked evil-doers. This Book of Hosea is one long pleading with this very
Ephraim, just because he is” “joined to idols.” Hosea was a prophet of
the northern nation, but it is the southern nation, Judah, that is here
addressed. What is meant by letting alone is plainly enough expressed in a
previous verse,--“Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, let not Judah offend.”
The calf-worship of Israel is held up as a warning to Judah, which is commanded
to keep clear of all complicity with it, and to avoid all entangling alliances
with backsliding Israel. The prophet with his “Let him alone” is saying the
very same thing as the apostle with his “Come out from among them, and
be ye separate.” Ephraim is wedded to his idols, as parasite to elm-tree, and
so if you are joined to it you will be joined to its idols. Translate this into
plain simple English, and it means this--It is a very bad sign of a Christian
man when his chosen companions are people that have no sympathy with him in his
religion. A great many of us will have to plead guilty to this indictment.
There are many things--such as differences of position, culture, and
temperament which cannot but modify the association of Christian people with
one another, and may sometimes make them feel more near to un-Christian
associates who are like themselves in these respects than to Christians who are
not. What deadens so much of our Christianity to-day, and makes it fail as an
aggressive power, is that Christian people get mixed up in utterly irreligious
association with irreligious men and women, and sink their own Christianity, or
at all events hide it. The sad thing is that their religion is so defective
that it takes no trouble to hide it. The other sad thing is that so many
Christians, so called, have so little Christianity that they never feel they
are out of their element in such associations. We cannot be too intimately
associated with irreligious people, if only we take our religion with us. A
lesson may be learned from the separate existence of the Jews since their
dispersion. They mix in the occupations of common life, and yet are as
absolutely distinct as oil from the water on which it floats. So should the
Church be in the world; mixing in all outward affairs, and exercising a
Christianising influence on all with whom its members come in contact; and yet,
by manifest diversity of sympathies and desires and affections, keeping itself
absolutely distinct from the world with which it is to blend. The primitive and
fundamental meaning of “holy” is “set apart.” You Christian people are
set apart for the Master’s use. Let it be every man to his own company. (A.
Maclaren, D. D.)
The disturbing effects of Divine discipline
Sin essentially consists in a determination to have our own way--a
determination planted behind the movements of thought and action, and directing
them steadily to its own ends. To live, no matter what special turn our course
may take, without having the main current of our life controlled by anything
superior to itself, to push it all on before the energy of our own will--this
is the very essence of sin. Accordingly, the action of the Divine Spirit upon
the human heart is almost always, in the first instance, one of disturbance.
You can detect His presence by the discomfort it creates. He awakens new
thoughts, begets the suspicion that all is not within as it ought to be, and
that our own way, if followed to the end, will terminate in bitterness. Because
our own way is wrong, and will, if persisted in, lead to loss, God’s first
endeavour is to make us uneasy in it, and, if possible, turn us out of it. With
this view all His dealings are planned, and planned so wisely as to suit each
successive stage of our growth and progress. In childhood we are surrounded by
God’s gentle ministries. It would not be strange if God should use rougher
means when His gentle ministry fails. He has recourse to the more potent voice
of conscience which He seeks to rouse and to make articulate. As life advances
He throws into the heart the light of His revelation. He alarms us, too, with
the guilt of past sin till our heart is troubled and its peace is gone. Or He
stirs up a longing for a nobler life. Unutterably sad it is when all this
notwithstanding, a man moves on unchanged, still following his own way, still
disobedient to the heavenly vision. It seems as if one other means, of
discipline, and only one, were left. An avenue to conscience must be opened by
some resistless stroke. So in middle age God oftentimes in mercy sends
judgments. He breaks suddenly into the midst of life and snatches away the idol
of your heart. He visits you with reverses in trade, and disappointment after
disappointment, till your bewilderment grows into agony. Strange it is there
should be those who have been thus emptied from vessel to vessel, still
ignorant of what it means, still cleaving with a dull or desperate blindness to
their own way. There is a point at which His discipline ends, just because it
is useless to continue it farther. He never squanders the means of grace. He
always looks for a return. It is a terrible thing that we should possess such a
power of resistance as to be able to withstand God; that after He has done His
best He should be obliged to leave us alone. But so it is.
I. The point at
which the withdrawal of Divine discipline takes place. It is a point which is
gradually reached, and not by the casual commission of a single sin, even of
unusual gravity or guilt. “Being joined to idols” is a state of sin in which
some wickedness is deliberately adhered to. It describes not an isolated act,
but a habit which has grown easy, natural, fixed. Now a habit is not formed at
once. It is the result of the repetition of an act which has become so
ingrafted into a man it has grown to be part of himself. Being “joined to
idols” describes a state or habit of sin that constitutes pre-eminent danger.
One may be hurried into some trespass; but no one was ever hurried into a habit.
Whatever excuse a man may have for a solitary evil act, he can have next to
none for an evil habit. It is of such sins as those of the Pharisees we have
most need to beware. They moved and breathed in an atmosphere of insincerity
and self-righteousness. And this being joined to idols also describes a
condition which we refuse to renounce. A man may have contracted a habit which
he would willingly surrender if he could. But its grasp may have become too
strong to be shaken off, his will too weak to rouse itself to the effort. But
the desire for deliverance is the only door of escape. Let that depart, and
there is no avenue open to your heart.
II. The manner in
which the withdrawal of Divine discipline is here described. It is represented
as a “letting alone.” This is marked by the cessation of all those disturbing
effects which had hitherto appeared. Restraints are removed. The remonstrances
of friends are given up. Truth relaxes its hold. Conscience is silent. Hence
outward prosperity and ease are not by any means always a sign of God’s favour.
Sometimes they may be quite the reverse. When outward prosperity co-exists with
an utter indifference to Divine things, and a resolute pursuit of selfish ends,
there can be no state more hazardous. But the terrible thing about this letting
alone is that it may go on so silently. Even religious duties may be
scrupulously maintained, though the heart will long since have ceased to enter
into them. So God may even let a man alone when to all seeming He has as fast a
hold of him as ever, or faster. There is only one preventive against our
reaching this terrible condition, but it always proves effectual. Be loyal to
the light within you, and obey the truth. Shun every compromise with evil. Make
no tarrying on debatable ground. Our supreme aim as Christians is not comfort,
but holiness; not to make things easy all round for ourselves, but to grow in
clearness of spiritual vision, and readiness to hear the voice Divine. And to
be let alone, even though it may not be to be joined to an idol, is to become
drowsy and heavy-hearted, and when the Bridegroom comes, to be found slumbering
and asleep. (C. Moinet, M. A.)
Warning to Judah
The Lord has given Ephraim up to his idols. The curse of God rests
on him, and says, “ Let him alone.” O Judah, take heed then what you do. These
words are introduced as an argument to persuade Judah not to do as Israel had
done. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Can man sin himself out of all saving possibilities
The words of the text are a dire spectre to some.
1. The view of it taken by the alarmed sinner. Ephraim is understood
by him to represent the sinner at a supposed point in his career, at which he
has exhausted all the resources of Gospel grace, and sinned himself out of hope
into doom. He is still a living man, and enveloped in the showers of spiritual
influence; but only seemingly, so far as he is concerned. The Spirit has
abandoned him for ever. All saving agencies and influences are commanded to do
the same. This view still lamentably prevails. It is often preached, in
austerest terms, from the pulpit, and found grimly enshrined in our popular
commentaries. There are indeed some awful truths which God forbid that we
should blink. A sinner may harden himself into insensibility till he is twine
dead, last feeling, defiant of God, and even regardless of man. And his is a
very hopeless case. More over, if we misuse privileges and opportunities, God
may withdraw some of them in His judicial wisdom,--as, in the contrary case, He
may enlarge them. But the vicious view so often taken of the prophet’s words is
quite another thing. That view is rooted in certain dogmas of absolute
predestination and partial grace, which agree as ill with the Gospel as fire
does with water.
2. Look at the common view critically. Scripture contradicts it. The
Gospel contradicts it. Hosea himself, throughout this book, emphatically
contradicts it.
3. What is the true view to be taken of the text? The key to it is to
be found in the context. While Ephraim had become hopelessly wedded to
idolatry, Judah, the adjoining kingdom of the two tribes, had not yet plunged
into that foul and ruinous abyss (Hosea 11:12). Judah was, however, in
imminent danger of drifting after Ephraim into that terrible vortex. Hence the
twofold warning in the passage now before us--the formal warning to Judah, and
the yet more awful undertone of warning to Ephraim. “Ephraim is joined to
idols.” “Let not Judah offend”; that is, “Judah, hold aloof; let Ephraim
alone.” Ephraim is the consociate of idolatries; Judah, be not Ephraim’s
associate. Partake not Ephraim’s sins, lest ye partake Ephraim’s plagues. The
very expression, “Let him alone,” is used by our Lord in this same sense, when
warning His disciples against the Pharisees--“They be blind leaders of the
blind; let them alone.” The meaning is--beware of their companionship. Have
nothing to do with them. Gilgal and Bethel, which Judah was warned not to
visit, were on the very border between the rival kingdoms. This conterminous
position, and the sacred associations of the places made them specially
perilous. The moral is obvious.
1. Beware of freedom, falsely so called. There is a liberty which
means libertinism, and which always “genders to bondage.”
2. Beware of evil company. It has been the ruin of myriads (1 John 2:15-17; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18). Faithful
Judah, however strong in purpose, ran a terrible risk if he associated with
treacherous Ephraim.
3. Let us beware of doubting the fulness and freeness of God’s
pardoning mercy, as revealed in the Gospel, to all men everywhere. Nothing but
a desperate bent in this direction can account for the perversion of such
simple texts as the one we have been investigating. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Ephraim let alone
These words give us this important instruction, that God may be so
provoked, and become finally so full of wrath, as to leave the guilty creature
to himself, and remonstrate with him no more.
I. Ephraim’s
conditions. “Joined to idols.” That is, as having withdrawn and transferred his
allegiance; as having resisted the means used with him for his recovery; and as
having come into close affinity with that which was antagonistic to God. It was
the curse of Israel that it loved strange gods, and was ever ready to leave the
Lord and join itself to them. And what is Ephraim but a counterpart of many a one
in the present day? The sin which seemed so terrible in him is common enough if
men’s eyes were only opened wide enough to see. Worldly men will repudiate the
idea of being under the same circumstances as Ephraim. Because the outward
symbols arc not the same, men argue that the main principles are distinct; but
in the eyes of God covetousness is idolatry, and a man can be an idolater
without worshipping a god of wood or stone. A wife or child may be the finely
sculptured idol; or gain anticipated or acquired may be the great image, like
Nebuchadnezzar’s, all overlaid with gold. Remember that a practical withdrawal
from Christ is abundantly enough to prove the ruin of a soul. The transfer of
allegiance may be a silent reality. The position of an idolater may be assumed
without one’s attracting even the attention of his fellows. But Ephraim had
added sin to sin, by resisting all the means which were used to bring him back.
God did not lightly part with Israel. The hand of justice long lingered on the
hilt before it drew the sword. The hand of mercy long trembled before it let go
its grasp. A dull, inactive, heavy resistance to the means of grace is a
fearful proof of the state of practical idolatry in which some men are. The
work of a soul’s ruin is carried on quietly. Many a gracious influence has been
resisted. Many a teaching providence has been thrown away. The heart has
become, by the very order of nature, harder and harder; the conscience has
become less impressible; the soul has become more habituated to being away from
God. Then the sentence may go forth, “Let him alone.”
II. Ephraim’s
curse. The words are as fearful as any which ever passed from the lips of God.
To secure their ruin, and to bring down full vengeance upon them, all that was
required was that they should be left to themselves. It involved--
1. A withdrawal of enlightening influence. This may occur gradually
or suddenly. It is possible for this curse to be in operation, and yet for no
outward change of any kind to be detected in the man upon whom it is laid.
2. Disturbing influences are also purposely withheld. The cutting
dispensations under which some of us now smart so much, are perhaps the only
means to keep us away from that fatal ease whose end is death. When God’s work
is done in us, all trial will be taken away, but woe betide the man who gains
freedom from trial by being let alone. Beware, then, how you trifle with the
present, how you continue unmoved beneath the gracious influences which are now
being brought to bear on your soul. (P. B. Power, M. A.)
Let him alone
“In a sense, all men are idolaters.” Since man by nature is, in
spirit although not in fact, as much an idolater as the pagans of any heathen
land, it may be justly said of all who have been converted by the grace of God,
that He has “taken them from among the heathen.” Whatever comes between the
soul and God, whatever supplants His love in the heart is an “idol.” It may be
the love of what is unlawful to be loved, or it may be the unlawful love of
what in itself is allowed.
I. The sinful
alliance. “Joined to idols.” There are several particulars characterising this
union.
1. It is illegal. All the inhibitions of God are but the voice of
perfect love and wisdom enforcing the perfect laws of parental government. In a
properly regulated family there are laws, and these have a threefold purpose--
The Divine laws are illustrated by the human. To be “joined to
idols “ is to be allied with claims which are foreign to the nature and opposed
to the claims of God, and such an alliance is illegal.
2. It is unnatural. Redeemed and justified man is among the sublime
confederacy of loyal subjects of the Creator. But the sinner has allied himself
with the dark forces of hell--he is an alienated being.
3. It is degrading. For a member of a large and noble family to become
united with guilt and ignominy would be to entail upon himself utter disgrace,
to cast a shade over the honour of his family name, and to forfeit all claims
to the love of kindred or respect of friends. And every sinner, in the eye of
purity, is a walking plague, a moral Cain.
4. It is irrational. Sin is a disease producing madness.
II. The ruinous
alliance.
1. The soul may be said to be “let alone” when it seeks satisfaction
apart from God.
2. When the blood of the atonement is set at nought,
3. When the truth of God loses its wonted power to “convince of sin,
righteousness,” etc. The Bible speaks, ministers speak, providence speaks, as
usual, but conscience hears not.
4. The sentence, “let him alone,” will have a future application to
the sinner’s state. “Let him alone” is the burning inscription on the walls of
hell’s prison-house. (G. Hunt Jackson.)
Spiritual abandonment
I. The sin of
Ephraim--idolatry. We are apt to be surprised at the proneness of the
Israelites to the sin of idolatry. Yet it may be doubted whether we have not a
great deal in common with idolaters. The same vice is apt to show itself in
different forms--forms produced by circumstances of age and country. There is
the same heart in the man and the boy; but the result of the same passions is
different at the two different periods of life. And so we may not worship
idols, and yet we may be partakers of the iniquity of those who did. Tim
fountain-head and origin of Israel’s sin was their own wilfulness, Wilfulness
and impatience of old took the shape of idolatry; they now wear the form of
heresy, and separation, and divisions. It was a zeal for religion which
prostrated Israel at the footstool of idols; it is zeal without knowledge which
makes men forsake the Catholic faith for crude theories of their own.
II. The punishment
of Ephraim--let alone. God did not, in so speaking, design to let idolatry go
unpunished. “Let him alone” proclaims that idolatry would prove its own
punishment; so sure, so inevitable, so miserable would be the consequences of
forsaking the true God, that it would need no further outbreak of wrath to
vindicate the honour of the Almighty. To forsake God is to forsake our own
mercies. You cannot drop a single doctrine of the Catholic faith, without that
doctrine, sooner or later, avenging itself. Truth neglected will make itself
felt. God lets matters take their course, saying of those who follow their own
devices, “He is joined to idols: let him alone.”
III. What is it for
an individual to be let alone of the Almighty? God has implanted in the heart
of every man
something which chides him whenever he rejects the right and chooses what is
wrong. Very wonderful is our mental organisation. More sublime seems conscience
on her judgment seat, weighing and balancing every idea which memory or
invention suggests; and if her judgment be not adopted, if we will not act by
her verdict, chastising with a whip of scorpions. If, although remonstrated
with as we are by our natural consciences and by the Eternal Spirit, we still
fall into presumptuous sin,--what should we become? The judgment threatened in
the text is one which would reduce us to the position of Satan himself. For
what will follow God letting a man alone? That man will experience no further
promptings and warnings, but be left unrestrained by any secret reluctance to
work all manner of iniquity. Assure me that a man is troubled when he has done
wrong, that he feels disquieted and restless, that after indulging his
passions, he is sensible of disgust and loathing, and I have hope that the day
will come when he will throw off the bondage of his lusts. But assure me that
he is happy in his iniquity, that he can rob and cheat, and lie and be drunken
without being miserable afterwards, and I shudder lest indeed he has come to
such a point as to be left alone of God. (J. R. Woodford, M. A.)
A sin and its punishment
This passage exhibits against this people a charge and a
threatening.
I. A charge. “He
is joined to idols.”
1. All true believers are said to be “joined to the Lord.” Faith not
only forms an union, but, as it were, an identity with the Saviour, so that
they are no longer twain, but one, one mystical person, one spirit.
2. The prodigal son is said to have “joined himself to a citizen in a
far country.” He fastened himself to him.
3. Of Israel it is said, he has “joined himself unto Baal-peor,” an
impure idol of the Ammonites. Christianity has abolished idolatry from the
nations of Europe: yet the world is still full of mental idolatry, not less sinful
or less dangerous, though not equally degrading in the eye of reason. To trust
in an arm of flesh, to love the creature more than the Creator, is to be joined
to idols. The sin of idolatry appears in such variety of forms that perhaps no
one in the present life is entirely free from it. It exists in every inordinate
affection, in every undue attachment to created good.
II. A threatening.
This may be the language of caution--Do not enter into any friendship with such
an idolatrous people. It may, however, be regarded as a warning and threatening
against Ephraim. The sinner is delivered up to final impenitence, never more to
be visited with compunction or regret. God suffers the sinner unchecked to
pursue his own way, and take the consequences. The instances in which this
awful threatening may be inflicted are the following--
1. When the usual means of instruction and reproof are no longer
employed or afforded.
2. When conscience becomes seared, and the Spirit of God ceases to
strive with the sinner, then also may he be said to be given up.
3. This fearful state may be apprehended when afflictions are
withheld, and providence no longer frowns upon the sinner s way, but suffers
him to take his course unreproved. When a physician ceases to administer his
bitter potions, or a surgeon to search the wound, it is a sign that they look
upon the case as desperate.
1. The wretched state into which sin may have brought us.
2. The necessity of constant watchfulness and prayer, that none of
these evils come upon us. It is better to endure the deepest distress than to
enjoy a false and delusive peace. Let us dread nothing so much as a state of
insensibility; a being “ past feeling” is the certain sign of perdition. (B.
Beddome, M. A.)
The derelict
I. The meaning of
the verse and the kernel-truth contained in it. Under the seductive influence
and example of Ahab and his queen Jezebel, the revolt of Israel had become
complete. From the false worship of the true God they had turned further aside
to the worship of false gods, and were as really idolaters as the heathen
nations around them. But it was not all at once, or without many measures aimed
at their reformation, that God finally abandoned them. The spirit of His
dealings with them, for a long period, was expressed in those tender words, as
if spoken by a father over a prodigal son, “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?”
A succession of prophets, like Elijah and Elisha, was sent to remonstrate with
them; severe chastisements, such as famine and other national calamities, were
commissioned to “hedge up their way with thorns,” to bring their sins to their
remembrance, and to lead them to a penitent return to God. But while
individuals were thereby recovered, any good effects upon the nation were
temporary and partial. And then, at length, the patience of a long-suffering
God becoming exhausted, He declares His holy purpose to suspend all further
measures for their recovery. This unfolds the meaning and presents the
remarkable central doctrine of the verse. Some have indeed understood it to
bear a different sense, and to convey a seasonable warning to the neighbouring
kingdom of Judah, rather than to announce the final rejection of Israel. As if
it were said: “He is joined to idols; beware of following his evil example;
keep aloof, yea, at a far distance from him. You cannot touch pitch and not be
defiled. When the dove associates with the raven, it soon begins to smell of
carrion. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, hut rather
reprove them.” And this is a most seasonable thought in itself, which has been
anticipated in a previous verse; but it is not the immediate truth expressed in
these solemn words. Their general meaning is, that when individuals or a nation
continue and obstinately persist in sin, especially in the face of providential
chastisement and means of grace, it is not an uncommon thing with God at length
to give up His gracious dealings with them, and to abandon them to ruin. The
same doctrine, declaring one of the laws of the Divine procedure, comes out
with startling distinctness in other passages of Scripture. Thus in Ezekiel:
“As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, Go ye, serve ye every
one his idols.” And in the Book of Psalms: “My people would not hearken to My
voice, and Israel would none of Me: so I gave them to their own hearts’ lusts,
and they walked in their own counsels.”
II. And this
doctrine or law of God’s moral government has written itself in many
retributive facts on the history of not a few of the nations of the earth.
Thus, when a people have shown a disposition, in the mass of their population,
to reject and persecute the religion of Christ, and they have persisted in this
even when lengthened opportunities for repentance have been given them and they
have been tried by various agencies to bring them to a right state of mind,
they have at length been abandoned and given over to the error and darkness
which they preferred. It would be easy to name more than one nation in Europe
which, at the great Protestant reformation three centuries ago, drove away the
Gospel from their gates, and turned its messengers into martyrs, and which have
been sinking lower and lower in the scale of nations ever since. The same thing
holds true of individuals, only with a depth of meaning which, from the nature
of the case, is not applicable in its full extent to organised communities.
When men persist, in indifference and unbelief, and in following after their
hearts’ idols, and all this in the face of measures to break them off from their
forbidden attachments, God at length withdraws every means of recovering them,
and gives them over to their merited doom. This terrible experience is not
indeed to be confounded with that temporary withdrawal of the light of His
countenance with which the Father sometimes punishes those children who have
partially wandered from Him. This form of Divine dealing is wise, merciful, and
paternal, and is referred to in a subsequent verse: “I will go,” says Jehovah,
“and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offence and seek My face:
in their affliction they will seek Me early.” But the dealing of which this
verse speaks is judicial and punitive. And so it also was with the miserable, blighted,
heaven-deserted Saul, like his own mountain of Gilboa, with no dew resting on
it. It is a melancholy thing to see a physician leaving the sick-chamber, and
declaring that he can do no more for his patient. It is sad to hear of a crew
leaving a wrecked ship, escaping from the doomed thing, and making no more efforts
to keep it from sinking. But what is this to God’s abandoning an incorrigible
human spirit! Lord, afflict me with chastisements, bereave me with strokes, do
anything to me rather than say, “He is joined to idols: let him alone.” (A.
Thomson, D. D.)
.
Verse 19
The wind hath bound her up in her wings.
Retributive justice
The simple meaning is that Israel shall be borne away from her
land, suddenly and violently, as by the winds of heaven. There is retributive
justice in the universe.
I. Its emblem. The
wind. It is like wind--
1. In its agitation. Wind is a disturbance or agitation of the
atmosphere, The average condition of the air is silence and serenity. The
normal condition of Divine government is quiet. It has no tempest where there
is no wickedness.
2. In its violence. Power is in the wind. Cambyses being once in the
wilderness with the soldiers, a strong and violent wind broke forth and buried
thousands of them in the sand. Who can stand before retributive justice when it
comes forth in its power?
II. Its effect.
“Ashamed because of the sacrifices.”
1. The shame of disappointment. All plans broken, all purposes
thwarted, all hopes destroyed.
2. The shame of exposure. The wicked always live in masquerade, they
always appear to be what they are not. Retributive justice takes off the mask.
3. The shame of remorse. This is the most burning shame of all. It
sends its fires down into the very centre of man’s being, and sets all the
moral nerves aflame. Let the wicked take warning. Let not the present stillness
of their atmosphere deceive them. Their sins are generating a heat that must,
sooner or later, so disturb the elements about them as to bring on ruin. (Homilist.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》