Hosea 14

Notes

Ver. 1. But, notwithstanding all the misery ye have brought upon yourselves by your sins, return, by faith and repentance, to me, who have granted myself to you in the gospel, as your reconciled God. 2. Earnestly beg that I may pardon your guilt, mortify your corruptions, accept you into favour, adopt you into my family, and bestow upon you all necessary blessings, that may fill your hearts and mouths with grateful praise. 3. Solemnly renounce all carnal confidence in foreign forces, military preparations, or lying idols, and trust only in me as the helper of the helpless outcasts. 4. And I, as one graciously reconciled in Christ, will, in free mercy, pardon your iniquities, reform you from your evil courses, remove the judgments which ye have deserved, and confer upon you unmerited favours. 5-7. And not only will I, by my favourable dispensations of providence, after the captivity in Babylon, and especially in compassion, render you glorious, well established, numerous, and every way prosperous, useful, and respected as a nation; but by the gracious influences of my Word and Spirit, will render you fruitful, flourishing, and well established in the beauties of holiness. Your converts shall greatly increase in number, and grow in knowledge and grace; and their gracious endowments, and holy conversation, shall be steady, persevering, delightful, and engaging to all around. They who enjoy the ordinances of my grace shall be thereby converted; and after their afflictions, become more fruitful in holiness, to the edification and comfort of all around them. 8. While ye with abhorrence shall renounce all your idolatries, I will graciously hear your prayers, bless, protect, and save you; and from me shall all your happiness and holiness be derived. 9. But it is only they who, being taught of God, seriously inquire into these things that shall understand them: for his oracles and ordinances, and dispensations of providence, are all right, holy, just, and good; and the righteous will walk in them, obedient to his will, and submissive to his providence, but proud, obstinate, and inconsiderate sinners will take occasion from them to fall into wickedness and ruin.

Ver. 2. Calves were offered as thank-offerings for signal mercies, Ex. 24. 5; they were therefore symbols of thanksgiving. The 'calves of the lips' is thus a figurative expression for the 'thanks or praises of the lips,' which the people would render unto God for his pardoning mercy. P.

Ver. 3. Ride upon horses. Allusion is here made to Egypt. The strength of the Egyptian army consisted in cavalry and chariots. P.—Ye are our gods. This resolution against idolatry includes, not merely the renunciation of idols, properly so called; but also of that covetousness which is idolatry; and by which, since their dispersion, the Jews have mainly sinned and suffered. C.

Ver. 4. This is the Lord's response to the prayer which the prophet puts in the mouths of the Israelites. The whole structure of this closing section is dramatic; and the impression which it was calculated to leave on the minds of those to whom it was addressed was deep and solemn. P.—Backsliding is the translation of a Hebrew word descriptive of the restiveness of an ox or other animal unwilling to bear the yoke, and which generally draws back when it should go forward; and is truly emblematic of man when murmuring or repining at the ways of Providence, refusing to take upon him the yoke of Jesus, adopt his precepts, or bear his cross. C.

Ver. 7. The various images here employed are intended to illustrate the manifold grace of God. Rosenmüller has explained with force and clearness the meaning of the figures:—'The rooting indicates stability; the spreading of the branches, propagation and the multitude of inhabitants; the splendour of the olive, beauty and glory, and that constant and lasting; the fragrance, hilarity and loveliness.' To the same effect, but with still greater richness of expression, Dr. Pusey says: 'So the prophet adds one image after another, each supplying a distinct likeness of a distinct grace or excellence. The lily is the emblem of the beauty and purity of the soul in grace: the cedar of Lebanon, of its strength and deep-rootedness, its immovableness and uprightness; the evergreen olive-tree, which remaineth in its beauty both winter and summer, of the unvarying presence of divine grace, continually supplying an ever-sustained freshness, and issuing in fruit; and the fragrance of the aromatic plants with which the lower parts of Mount Lebanon are decked, of its loveliness and sweetness,' P.

Reflections.—Awfully ruinous is sin; and very necessary a gospel repentance for it; and nothing more effectually leads to this than a firm faith in God's gospel grant of himself to us as our God. Great is the condescension that God should instruct us what to pray for, and how to pray, as well as readily grant our requests. And happy and delightful is it to deal with a God of infinite mercy and goodness: for all his promises are answerable to the necessities and prayers of those whom he instructs. Marvellous is the change made on persons and societies by his all-powerful grace, and kind the notice which he takes of his people's penitential resolutions! He is the gracious fountain and root of all blessings and spiritual influences to them. And there is great need therefore seriously to consider his oracles and providences, and what different use is made thereof. To the humble inquirer they are the savour of life unto life—but of death unto death to every impenitent transgressor.

Concluding Remarks on the Book of Hosea.

While the books of Scripture form a uniform whole, uniformly contributing to one great object—the development of the character, vindication of the judgments, and commendation of the love and mercy of God in Christ—the several books may yet be generally distinguished by some special part and object assigned by the Spirit to each historian, prophet, evangelist, or apostle. Like the workmen in Solomon's temple—all are engaged in the erection of one dwelling-place for the glory of God; but some hew timber in the mountains, others square the stones in the quarry, some convey them to Jerusalem, while others rear the walls, or shape and ornament the sacred furniture. To each there is a several and appropriate part; but all are actuated by one spirit, concur in one design, and perfect one result. Accordingly, to Hosea the Spirit seems, in a peculiar manner, to have assigned the subject of national sin and national repentance; with those sharp rebukes that smite the one, and those gracious promises that encourage the other. The prophet lived in a day when all public principle was sunk in idolatry, and its sure companion, licentiousness, ch. 1. 2; 3. 1; yet, during their downward course, the nation had been steadily advancing in agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and riches, as is evident from ch. 2. 5, 8, 9, 12. Yet this prosperity, so far from leading the nation to God as its author, became the incentive to that idolatry (ch. 13. 2), and that dissolution of morals, which the prophet was commissioned to denounce under the name of adultery (ch. 2. 2), the complicated crime of lewdness and of perjury; while, in addition to this general indictment, the destructive sins of profane swearing, lying, stealing, and murder are successively alleged against them, ch. 4. 2; 7. 1. Nor is any rank exempt from the national guilt. The princes, the prophets, the priests, are all included under one common charge, and threatened with one common judgment, ch. 5. 1, 10. Yet, in the midst of all these delinquents, is the prophet commissioned to preach repentance, and to promise pardon. And in this announcement and promise he exhibits the true character of God, who is ever 'long-suffering, slow to wrath, and plenteous in mercy,' while he exemplifies the only way in which a sinful man or sinful nation can ever be brought to repentance—the simple and faithful deliverance of the gospel of the grace of God, the word of reconciliation. The reformation of national manners has been attempted by mere moral instruction; but the philosophers of Greece and Rome utterly failed. It has been attempted by the satire of poets—their strains have been equally unsuccessful. It has been attempted by coercive laws, and by every form of severe and mitigated punishment; and if, by such means, public crime has for a little been restrained, it has only been effectual in producing a temporary calm, and preparing for the more terrible outburst of popular and ruinous commotion. It has been attempted in Christian lands by preaching all the precepts of a holy law, and all the terrors of approaching judgment, and the remedy has no doubt often affrighted the patient, but uniformly aggravated the disease; because it merely discovered the taint of the constitution and the depth of the guilt, Ro. 3. 20; 8. 3, 6-8. The preaching of the gospel in repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, has alone been ever effective in producing real and effective reformation of public principles and morals.

Of this fact the Bible affords the most striking of all examples—the apostolic reforms of heathenism, merely through the preaching of the cross of Christ, and the freeness and fulness of his grace. Nor is modern missionary history wanting in similar examples. The experience of the Moravians in Greenland has borne ample testimony to the fact, that the instruction that reaches the heart is 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ' in dying for us, and that pardon and remission of guilt which sinners find in his blood. And wherever else (as in Africa, the East Indies, or the South Seas) the grace of the gospel has been simply and zealously preached, there either local or national reformation has followed. It may not and it should not be denied, that by means of law, whether of human or divine origin, civilization may be extensively effected and long sustained. But civilization is so far from amelioration, that it is often concurrent with the deepest moral depravity. Such was the case of the Jews when Hosea preached; and the remedy he brought to their deadly disease was a faithful exposure of all its horrors, and a faithful proclamation of the gospel of promise and grace. Such is now the case in not a few of the classes of European Christianity. The fact may be witnessed in the broad scale of cities or kingdoms, where civilization and depravity seem to go hand in hand; and where, unless God totally change the current of his providence—a thing impossible with him who changes not—judgments, either from internal commotion or external foes, with the ruin of that national prosperity which God bestows and man abuses, must speedily and heavily fall. And for all this disease, what is the remedy? Simply the faithful preaching of that gospel of grace which Hosea addressed to the Jews, in which they are invited to 'return unto the Lord,' while the Lord promises to 'heal their backslidings, and love them freely,' ch. 14. 1, 4. C.