Hosea 10

Notes

Ver. 1. The Israelites, destitute of true goodness, have done nothing for my glory, but have been intent only upon gratifying their own lusts; and the more their wealth increased the more they multiplied their idolatries. 2. Their heart is divided between me and their idols, and mutual contentions rage among them; but their guilt shall quickly issue in their desolation, and the Assyrians shall destroy their altars and images. 3. Their contempt of my authority shall issue in their having no government of their own that can do them any good in their distressed circumstances. 4. They quite disregard their vows to God and oaths to the Assyrians or to one another; and instead of just judgments, injustice, oppression, and violence overspread the whole land. 5, 6. Dreadfully shall the worshippers mourn, and especially the priests, who lived merrily on their incomes, when their golden calves at Beth-el shall be disgracefully seized by the Assyrians, and sent as a present to their king, and themselves exposed to shame, for their obstinate worshipping of an insignificant idol which cannot protect itself. 7. Their king, in whom they also trusted, shall be quickly and easily murdered. 8. Their high places of Beth-el, where they have committed so much wickedness, and their altars, shall be turned into heaps of rubbish; and their worshippers shall earnestly wish the mountains and hills, on which they had worshipped their idols, to fall on and crush them to death. 9. From the war against the Benjamites, who protected the miscreants of Gibeah, to the present time, ye have sinned in a like or in a more notorious manner. There your fathers were preserved, and became conquerors over the wicked Benjamites. Nay, there the wicked Benjamites stood in their own defence, and gained two battles over your slothful and inactive ancestors. 10. But now I intend effectually to punish you by the Assyrian armies for your attachment to your calves of Dan and Beth-el, and for your revolting from my worship and allegiance to the family of David. 11. And since, notwithstanding all my pains to instruct and engage you to keep my laws, ye love only your own ease, pleasure, and profit, and since lesser judgments do not avail to reform you, I will make you the miserable slaves of the Assyrians; and even the Jews shall be terribly harassed by them, and afterwards more so by the Chaldeans—though both shall issue in a harvest of joyful deliverances. 12. Applying the imparted righteousness of the Messiah, in his strength, live soberly, righteously and godly, that in due time ye may enjoy the gracious reward of eternal life. Study to have your hearts convinced and renewed. It is high time now, when troubles are so near, to cry mightily to God for the gracious bestowal of his righteousness and grace. 13. Ye have, with great pains, laboured in wickedness, and thereby ripened yourselves for destructions and disappointments, because ye trusted in your idols and heathen alliances, and in your carnal projects and numerous armies. 14. Therefore shall your intestine divisions, and the invasion of the Assyrian army, throw you into the most terrible perplexity; and all your forts shall be taken and cruelly destroyed, as at the taking of Beth-arbel, where even the women and children were inhumanly butchered. 15. Your idolatry committed at Beth-el shall draw down the like vengeance upon you. Suddenly, and while ye expect quite other things, shall Hoshea your king be deprived of his authority, and imprisoned or murdered, and your whole civil constitution broken in pieces.

Ver. 9. Gibeah. The scene of the war with Benjamin on account of the infamous outrage on the Levite's concubine; in which case Benjamin doubly sinned—first, in committing the sin, then in protecting the guilty; and then all Israel sinned—first, in exterminating revenge, and, secondly, in a passionate and unbrotherly oath. C.

Reflections.—A selfish spirit defrauds God of his due honours. Nothing can be more criminal than to multiply our sins as God increases his favours; and nothing more just than for God to deprive us of that which we employ in the service of Satan. No inward treachery or dissimulation escapes his notice; highly he detests all deceit in oaths, covenants, and vows, and all injustice in civil dealings or judgments.—If we make creatures our idols it but hastens their destruction. And if God's grace destroy not the love of sin in us, his providence will destroy the fuel of sinful lusts around us. It is kind in God to chastise men that he may not destroy them. He often punishes with hardships those who have indulged themselves in luxurious pleasures. And men's rewards or punishments are framed answerably to their virtue or vice. But, alas, what barbarous work, what dreadful and unexpected calamities, hath sin introduced!