Hosea 12

Notes

The Israelites flatter themselves that their idols, or their Assyrian or Egyptian allies, will help and protect them; whereas, notwithstanding the labour and expense they cost them, they will at last be the instruments of ruin to their kingdom. Ver. 2. Yea, even the kingdom of Judah shall, by the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Romans, share a punishment similar to that of the Israelites, on account of their wickedness. 3-6. And since ye have so degenerated from the piety of Jacob your father, who at Peniel wrestled with God himself, the Angel of the promise, the infinite Father, who gives being to all his promises, and by strong faith and earnest supplications obtained a remarkable blessing, and at Beth-el had the covenant of God confirmed to himself, and to you in him, see that, by faith and repentance, ye turn to this God of mercy and equity, study to imitate him therein, and wait upon him in all the ordinances of his grace, for whatever is necessary to enable you to fulfil your duty. 7, 8. But ye Israelites, like the heathen Canaanites, make a trade of cheating, and take delight in oppressing your neighbours; and yet ye impudently pretend that your success and wealth are an evidence of your being chargeable with no gross iniquity. 9, 10. Nevertheless, I, the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, will, after the captivity in Babylon, and especially in the apostolic and coming periods, bring you into my church, give you the ordinances thereof; and, as I have, so will I instruct you by my prophets and gospel ministers in divers forms. 11. And yet now, after all my instructions, not only Ramoth-gilead, a city of priests and refuge; and Gilgal, once so famous for the mercies and tabernacle of God, and tents of his people; but all the country, on both sides of Jordan, are polluted with the worship of useless idols and their altars, as numerous and as much contemned by God as heaps of stones in the furrows. 12-14. Yea, notwithstanding God has raised you up from so low an origin as a mere keeper of sheep, who was obliged to serve like a slave for his wife; and miraculously, by Moses, conducted you from Egypt and through the wilderness; ye have bitterly provoked him to anger with your wickedness; and therefore shall he avenge all your reproaches against him and his prophets upon you, in rendering you base and contemptible.

Ver. 1. The meaning is that the Israelites, feeling their own weakness, instead of looking to God for help, look to other nations. First they apply to Assyria, and enter into alliance with it; then for some reason they turn to Egypt, and in order to propitiate its king they send presents of the choice products of their land. Oil is abundant in Palestine, and is greatly prized throughout the East. It is probably taken here as the representative of all presents. P.

Ver. 4. The reference to Beth-el conveys a tacit but most intelligible rebuke to those descendants of Jacob who had converted the place into a scene of idolatry. There Jacob had met and prevailed with the Angel of the presence—'the Lord of hosts,' where his degenerate children bowed down to a calf! C.

Ver. 7. A merchant. Rather, a Canaanite. Having degenerated from the heir of the blessing, and passed, by his own selection, into the family of the curse. C.

Ver. 8. There are certain practices claiming to be tolerated in almost every class and profession which others condemn, but the perpetrators excuse, palliate, or justify. Among these rank certain commercial practices both of the buyer and seller, which Ephraim, by aid of his own peculiar code, complacently and confidently denies to be sins, but which God threatens with exile from his commercial cities into a state as poor, unsettled, and profitless as that of his fathers in the wilderness. See ch. 13. 5; and Chalmers' Commercial Discourses. C.

Reflections.—Alas! what a cheat many put upon their own souls, and what vexation and misery they prepare for themselves, who make creatures their confidence! God often sharply corrects those who are right in the main, that he may draw and keep them still nearer to himself: and great and lasting is that honour which is obtained by intimacy with him; and glorious the victories which saints obtain by their prayers and tears. Thrice happy are they who have august memorials of God inscribed on their heart, and who can improve his declared relation to them as an effectual spur to a genuine repentance. But alarming is the situation, when neither the kindness of God, nor the example of pious progenitors, animate us to a holy conversation: and awful is it to consider that, in mercantile dealings, men should be so rarely honest in God's sight. Most men think all is well if they grow rich and retain a fair character before the world. But infinite is the mercy of God: for his grace abounds where sin had abounded! Strict is the account which God keeps of all the mercies that he bestows on us, and of our improvement of them. And all our education and advancements are his free gifts. But if we employ our grandeur and wealth to his dishonour, it is but just that he should strip us of them, and punish our shameful transgressions with shameful punishments.