HOSEA-MALACHI

by C.F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

HOSEA

INTRODUCTION

1. THE PERSON OF THE PROPHET.

-HOSEA,

[ævewOh , i.e., help, deliverance, or regarding it as abstractum pro concreto, helper, salvator, Wshe> (LXX.) or WJshe> (Rom 9:20), Osee (Vulg.), the son of a certain Beeeri, prophesied, according to the heading to his book (Hos 1:1), in the reigns of the kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, and in that of king Jeroboam, son of Joash, of Israel; and, as the nature of his prophecies clearly proves, he prophesied not only concerning, but in, the kingdom of the ten tribes, so that we must regard him as a subject of that kingdom.

This is favoured not only by the fact that his prophetic addresses are occupied throughout with the kingdom of the ten tribes, but also by the peculiar style and language of his prophecies, which have here and there an Aramaean colouring (for example, such forms as saæm; , Hos 6:6; hk;j; (inf.), Hos 11:9; vwOmyqi for vwOMqi , ch. 9:6; µWq for µWq , Hos 10:14; lgær; , Hos 11:3; lkæa; for lykia\aæ , Hos 11:4; al;f; , in ch. 11:7, ar;p; for hr,p]yæ Hos 13:15; and such words as tter] , ch. 13:1; yhia’ for hYeaæ Hos 13:10,14), and still more by the intimate acquaintance with the circumstances and localities of the northern kingdom apparent in such passages as Hos 5:1; 6:8-9; 12:12; 14:6ff., which even goes so far that he calls the Israelitish kingdom “the land” in Hos 1:2, and afterwards speaks of the king of Israel as “our king” (ch. 7:5).

On the other hand, neither the fact that he mentions the kings of Judah in the heading, to indicate the period of his prophetic labours (Hos 1:1), nor the repeated allusions to Judah in passing (ch. 1:7; 2:2; 4:15; 5:5,10,12-14; 6:4,11; 8:14; 10:11; 12:1,3), furnish any proof that he was a Judaean by birth, as Jahn and Maurer suppose. The allusion to the kings of Judah (Hos 1:1), and that before king Jeroboam of Israel, may be accounted for not from any outward relation to the kingdom of Judah, but from the inward attitude which Hosea assumed towards that kingdom in common with all true prophets. As the separation of the ten tribes from the house of David was in its deepest ground apostasy from Jehovah (see the commentary on 1 Kings 12.), the prophets only recognised the legitimate rulers of the kingdom of Judah as true kings of the people of God, whose throne had the promise of permanent endurance, even though they continued to render civil obedience to the kings of the kingdom of Israel, until God Himself once more broke up the government, which he had given to the ten tribes in His anger to chastise the seed of David which had fallen away from Him (Hos 13:11).

It is from this point of view that Hosea, in the heading to his book, fixes the date of his ministry according to the reigns of the kings of Judah, of whom he gives a complete list, and whom he also places first; whereas he only mentions the name of one king of Israel, viz., the king in whose reign he commenced his prophetic course, and that not merely for the purpose of indicating the commencement of his career with greater precision, as Calvin and Hengstenberg suppose, but still more because of the importance attaching to Jeroboam II in relation to the kingdom of the ten tribes.

Before we can arrive at a correct interpretation of the prophecies of Hosea, it is necessary, as ch. 1 and 2 clearly show, that we should determine with precision the time when he appeared, inasmuch as he not only predicted the overthrow of the house of Jehu, but the destruction of the kingdom of Israel as well. The reference to Uzziah is not sufficient for this; for during the fifty-two years’ reign of this king of Judah, the state of things in the kingdom of the ten tribes was immensely altered. When Uzziah ascended the throne, the Lord had looked in mercy upon the misery of the ten tribes of Israel, and had sent them such help through Jeroboam, that, after gaining certain victories over the Syrians, he was able completely to break down their supremacy over Israel, and to restore the ancient boundaries of the kingdom (2 Kings 14:25-27).

But this elevation of Israel to new power did not last long. In the thirtyseventh year of Uzziah’s reign, Zechariah, the son and successor of Jeroboam, was murdered by Shallum after a reign of only six months, and with him the house of Jehu was overthrown. From this time forward, yea, even from the death of Jeroboam in the twenty-seventh year of Uzziah’s reign, the kingdom advanced with rapid strides towards utter ruin. Now, if Hosea had simply indicated the time of his own labours by the reigns of the kings of Judah, since his ministry lasted till the time of Hezekiah, we might easily be led to assign its commencement to the closing years of Uzziah’s reign, in which the decline of the kingdom of Israel had already begun to show itself and its ruin could be foreseen to be the probable issue.

If, therefore, it was to be made apparent that the Lord does reveal future events to His servants even “before they spring forth” (Isa 42:9), this could only be done by indicating with great precision the time of Hosea’s appearance as a prophet, i.e., by naming king Jeroboam. Jeroboam reigned contemporaneously with Uzziah for twenty-six years, and died in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of the latter, who outlived him about twenty-five years, and did not die till the second year of Pekah (see at Kings 15:1,32). It is evident from this that Hosea commenced his prophetic labours within the twenty-six years of the contemporaneous reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam, that is to say, before the twenty-seventh year of the former, and continued to labour till a very short time before the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, since he prophesied till the time of Hezekiah, in the sixth year of whose reign Samaria was conquered by Shalmanezer, and the kingdom of Israel destroyed.

The fact that of all the kings of Israel Jeroboam only is mentioned, may be explained from the fact that the house of Jehu, to which he belonged, had been called to the throne by the prophet Elisha at the command of God, for the purpose of rooting out the worship of Baal from Israel, in return for which Jehu received the promise that his sons should sit upon the throne to the fourth generation (2 Kings 10:30); and Jeroboam, the great-grandson of Jehu, was the last king through whom the Lord sent any help to the ten tribes (2 Kings 14:27). In his reign the kingdom of the ten tribes reached its greatest glory. After his death a long-continued anarchy prevailed, and his son Zechariah was only able to keep possession of the throne for half a year. The kings who followed fell, one after another by conspiracies, so that the uninterrupted and regular succession to the throne ceased with the death of Jeroboam; and of the six rulers who came to the throne after his death, not one was called by God through the intervention of a prophet, and only two were able to keep possession of it for any length of time, viz., Menahem for ten years, and Pekah for twenty.

Again, the circumstance that Hosea refers repeatedly to Judah in his prophecies, by no means warrants the conclusion that he was a citizen of the kingdom of Judah. The opinion expressed by Maurer, that an Israelitish prophet would not have troubled himself about the Judeans, or would have condemned their sins less harshly, is founded upon the unscriptural assumption, that the prophets suffered themselves to be influenced in their prophecies by subjective sympathies and antipathies as mere morum magistri, whereas they simply proclaimed the truth as organs of the Spirit of God, without any regard to man at all. If Hosea had been sent out of Judah into the kingdom of Israel, like the prophet in 1 Kings 13., or the prophet Amos, this would certainly have been mentioned, at all events in the heading, just as in the case of Amos the native land of the prophet is given.

But cases of this kind formed very rare exceptions to the general rule, since the prophets in Israel were still more numerous than in the kingdom of Judah. In the reign of Jeroboam the prophet Jonah was living and labouring there (2 Kings 14:25); and the death of the prophet Elisha, who had trained a great company of young men for the service of the Lord in the schools of the prophets at Gilgal, Bethel, and Jericho, had only occurred a few years before. The fact that a prophet who was born in the kingdom of the ten tribes, and laboured there, alluded in his prophecies to the kingdom of Judah, may be accounted for very simply, from the importance which this kingdom possessed in relation to Israel as a whole, both on account of the promises it had received, and also in connection with its historical development.

Whilst the promises in the possession of the Davidic government of the kingdom of Judah formed a firm ground of hope for godly men in all Israel, that the Lord could not utterly and for ever cast off His people; the announcement of the judgments, which would burst upon Judah also on account of its apostasy, was intended to warn the ungodly against false trust in the gracious promises of God, and to proclaim the severity and earnestness of the judgment of God. This also explains the fact that whilst, on the one hand, Hosea makes the salvation of the ten tribes dependent upon their return to Jehovah their God and David their king (Hos 1:7; 2:2), and warns Judah against sinning with Israel (Hos 4:15), on the other hand, he announces to Judah also that it is plunging headlong into the very same ruin as Israel, in consequence of its sins (Hos 5:5,10ff., 6:4,11, etc.); whereas the conclusions drawn by Ewald from these passages-namely, that at first Hosea only looked at Judah from the distance, and that it was not till a later period that he became personally acquainted with it, and not till after he had laboured for a long time in the northern part of the kingdom that he came to Judah and composed his book-are not only at variance with the fact, that as early as Hos 2:2 the prophet proclaims indirectly the expulsion of Judah from its own land into captivity, but are founded upon the false notion, that the prophets regarded their own subjective perceptions and individual judgments as inspirations from God.

According to the heading, Hosea held his prophetic office for about sixty or sixty-five years (viz., 27-30 years under Uzziah,31 under Jotham and Ahaz, and 1-3 years under Hezekiah). This also agrees with the contents of his book. In Hos 1:4, the overthrow of the house of Jehu, which occurred about eleven or twelve years after the death of Jeroboam, in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah (2 Kings 15:10,13), is foretold as being near at hand; and in Hos 10:14, according to the most probable explanation of this passage, the expedition of Shalmanezer into Galilee, which occurred, according to Kings 17:3, at the commencement of the reign of Hoshea, the last of the Israelitish kings, is mentioned as having already taken place, whilst a fresh invasion of the Assyrians is threatened, which cannot be any other than the expedition of Shalmanezer against king Hoshea, who had revolted from him, which ended in the capture of Samaria after a three years’ siege, and the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes in the sixth year of Hezekiah. The reproof in Hos 7:11, “They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria,” and that in Hos 12:1, “They do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt,” point to the same period; for they clearly refer to the time of Hoshea, who, notwithstanding the covenant that he had made with Asshur, i.e., notwithstanding the oath of fidelity rendered to Shalmanezer, purchased the assistance of the king of Egypt by means of presents, that he might be able to shake off the Assyrian yoke.

The history knows nothing of any earlier alliances between Israel and Egypt; and the supposition that, in these reproaches, the prophet has in his mind simply two political parties, viz., an Assyrian and an Egyptian, is hardly reconcilable with the words themselves; nor can it be sustained by an appeal to Isa 7:17ff., or even to Zech 10:9-11, at least so far as the times of Menahem are concerned. Nor is it any more possible to infer from Hos 6:8 and 12:11, that the active ministry of the prophet did not extend beyond the reign of Jotham, on the ground that, according to these passages, Gilead and Galilee, which were conquered and depopulated by Tiglath-pileser, whom Ahaz called to his help (2 Kings 15:29), were still in the possession of Israel (Simson). For it is by no means certain that Hos 12:11 presupposes the possession of Galilee, but the words contained in this verse might have been uttered even after the Assyrians had conquered the land to the east of the Jordan; and in that case, the book, which comprises the sum and substance of all that Hosea prophesied during a long period, must of necessity contain historical allusions to events that were already things of the past at the time when his book was prepared (Hengstenberg).

On the other hand, the whole of the attitude assumed by Assyria towards Israel, according to Hos 5:13; 10:6; 11:5, points beyond the times of Menahem and Jotham, even to the Assyrian oppression, which first began with Tiglath-pileser in the time of Ahaz. Consequently there is no ground whatever for shortening the period of our prophet’s active labours. A prophetic career of sixty years is not without parallel. Even Elisha prophesied for at least fifty years (see at 2 Kings 13:20-21). This simply proves, according to the apt remark of Calvin, “how great and indomitable were the fortitude and constancy with which he was endowed by the Holy Spirit.” Nothing certain is known concerning the life of the prophet; but his inner life lies before us in his writings, and from these we may clearly see that he had to sustain severe inward conflicts. For even if such passages as Hos 4:4-5, and 9:7-8, contain no certain indications of the fact, that he had to contend against the most violent hostilities as well as secret plots, as Ewald supposes, the sight of the sins and abominations of his countrymen, which he had to denounce and punish, and the outburst of the divine judgments upon the kingdom thus incessantly ripening for destruction, which he had to experience, could not fail to fill his soul burning as it was for the deliverance of his people, with the deepest anguish, and to involve him in all kinds of conflicts.

2. TIMES OF THE PROPHET

When Hosea was called to be a prophet, the kingdom of the ten tribes of Israel had been elevated to a position of great earthly power by Jeroboam II. Even under Joash the Lord had had compassion upon the children of Israel, and had turned to them again for the sake of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; so that Joash had been able to recover the cities, which Hazael of Syria had conquered in the reign of his father Jehoahaz, from Benhadad the son of Hazael, and to restore them to Israel (2 Kings 8:23-25). The Lord sent still further help through Jeroboam the son of Joash. Because He had not yet spoken to root out the name of Israel under heaven, He gave them victory in war, so that they were able to conquer Damascus and Hamath again, so far as they had belonged to Judah under David and Solomon, and to restore the ancient boundaries of Israel, from the province of Hamath to the Dead Sea, according to the word of Jehovah the God of Israel, which He had spoken through His servant the prophet Jonah (2 Kings 14:25-28).

But this revival of the might and greatness of Israel was only the last display of divine grace, through which the Lord sought to bring back His people from their evil ways, and lead them to repentance. For the roots of corruption, which the kingdom of Israel had within it from its very commencement, were not exterminated either by Joash or Jeroboam. These kings did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin, any more than their predecessors (2 Kings 13:11; 14:24). Jehu, the founder of this dynasty, had indeed rooted out Baal from Israel; but he had not departed from the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, through the setting up of which Jeroboam the son of Nebat had led Israel into sin (2 Kings 10:28-29). Nor did his successors take any more care to walk in the law of Jehovah, the God of Israel, with all their heart.

Neither the severe chastisements which the Lord inflicted upon the people and the kingdom, by delivering Israel up to the power of Hazael king of Syria and his son Benhadad, in the time of Jehu and Jehoahaz, causing it to be smitten in all its borders, and beginning to cut off Israel (2 Kings 10:32-33; 13:3); nor the love and grace which He manifested towards them in the reigns of Joash and Jeroboam, by liberating them from the oppression of the Syrians, and restoring the former greatness of the kingdom-were sufficient to induce the king or the people to relinquish the worship of the calves. This sin of Jeroboam, however, although it was Jehovah who was worshipped under the symbol of the calf, was a transgression of the fundamental law of the covenant, which the Lord had made with Israel, and therefore was a formal departure from Jehovah the true God. And Jeroboam the son of Nebat was not content with simply introducing images or symbols of Jehovah, but had even banished from his kingdom the Levites, who opposed this innovation, and had taken men out of the great body of the people, who were not sons of Levi, and made them priests, and had gone so far as to change the time of celebrating the feast of tabernacles from the seventh month to the eighth (1 Kings 12:31-32), merely for the purpose of making the religious gulf which separated the two kingdoms as wide as possible, and moulding the religious institutions of his kingdom entirely according to his own caprice. Thus the worship of the people became a political institution, in direct opposition to the idea of the kingdom of God; and the sanctuary of Jehovah was changed into a king’s sanctuary (Amos 12:13). But the consequences of this image-worship were even worse than these. Through the representation of the invisible and infinite God under a visible and earthly symbol, the glory of the one true God was brought down within the limits of the finite, and the God of Israel was placed on an equality with the gods of the heathen. This outward levelling was followed, with inevitable necessity, by an inward levelling also. The Jehovah worshipped under the symbol of an ox was no longer essentially different from the Baals of the heathen, by whom Israel was surrounded; but the difference was merely a formal one, consisting simply in a peculiar mode of worship, which had been prescribed in His revelation of Himself, but which could not lay the foundation of any permanently tenable party-wall.

For, whilst the heathen were accustomed to extend to the national Deity of Israel the recognition which they accorded to the different Baals, as various modes of revelation of one and the same Deity; the Israelites, in their turn, were also accustomed to grant toleration to the Baals; and this speedily passed into formal worship. “Outwardly, the Jehovah-worship still continued to predominate; but inwardly, the worship of idols rose almost into exclusive supremacy. When once the boundary lines between the two religions were removed, it necessarily followed that that religion acquired the strongest spiritual force, which was most in accordance with the spirit of the nation. And from the very corruptions of human nature this was not the strict Jehovah religion, which being given by God did not bring down God to the low level of man, but sought to raise man up to its own lofty height, placing the holiness of God in the centre, and founding upon this the demand for holiness which it made upon its professors; but the voluptuous, sensual teaching of idolatry, pandering as it did to human corruption, just because it was from this it had originally sprung” (Hengstenberg’s Christology).

This seems to explain the fact, that whereas, according to the prophecies of Amos and Hosea, the worship of Baal still prevailed in Israel under the kings of the house of Jehu, according to the account given in the books of Kings Jehu had rooted out Baal along with the royal house of Ahab (a Kings 10:28). Jehu had merely broken down the outward supremacy of the Baal worship, and raised up the worship of Jehovah once more, under the symbols of oxen or calves, into the state-religion. But this worship of Jehovah was itself a Baal-worship, since, although it was to Jehovah that the legal sacrifices were offered, and although His name was outwardly confessed, and His feasts were observed (Hos 2:13), yet in heart Jehovah Himself was made into a Baal, so that the people even called Him their Baal (Hos 2:16), and observed “the days of the Baals” (Hos 2:13).

This inward apostasy from the Lord, notwithstanding which the people still continued to worship Him outwardly and rely upon His covenant, had of necessity a very demoralizing influence upon the national life. With the breach of the fundamental law of the covenant, viz., of the prohibition against making any likeness of Jehovah, or worshipping images made by men, more especially in consequence of the manner in which this prohibition was bound up with the divine authority of the law, all reverence not only for the holiness of the law of God, but for the holy God Himself, was undermined. Unfaithfulness towards God and His word begot faithlessness towards men. With the neglect to love God with all the heart, love to brethren also disappeared. And spiritual adultery had carnal adultery as its inevitable consequence, and that all the more because voluptuousness formed a leading trait in the character of the idolatry of Hither Asia. Hence all the bonds of love, of chastity, and of order were loosened and broken, and Hosea uttered this complaint: “There is no truthfulness, and no love, and no knowledge of God in the land. Cursing, and murder, and stealing, and adultery; they break out, and blood reaches to blood” (Hos 4:1-2).

No king of Israel could put an effectual stop to this corruption. By abolishing the worship of the calves, he would have rendered the very existence of the kingdom doubtful. For if once the religious wall of division between the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah had been removed, the political distinction would have been in danger of following.

And this was really what the founder of the kingdom of the ten tribes feared (1 Kings 12:27), inasmuch as the royal family that occupied the throne had received no promise from God of permanent continuance.

Founded as it was in rebellion against the royal house of David, which God Himself had chosen, it bore within itself from the very first the spirit of rebellion and revolution, and therefore the germs of internal selfdestruction.

Under these circumstances, even the long, and in outward respects very prosperous, reign of Jeroboam II. could not possibly heal the deep-seated evils, but only helped to increase the apostasy and immorality; since the people, whilst despising the riches of the goodness and mercy of God, looked upon their existing prosperity as simply a reward for their righteousness before God, and were therefore confirmed in their selfsecurity and sins.

And this was a delusion which false prophets loved to foster by predictions of continued prosperity (cf. Hos 9:7). The consequence was, that when Jeroboam died, the judgments of God began to burst upon the incorrigible nation. There followed, first of all, an anarchy of eleven or twelve years; and it was not till after this that his son Zechariah succeeded in ascending the throne. But at the end of no more than six months he was murdered by Shallum, whilst he in his turn was put to death after a reign of one month by Menahem, who reigned ten years at Samaria (2 Kings 15:14,17). In his reign the Assyrian king Phul invaded the land, and was only induced to leave it by the payment of a heavy tribute (2 Kings 15:19-20). Menahem was followed by his son Pekachiah in the fiftieth year of Uzziah’s reign; but after a reign of hardly two years he was murdered by his charioteer, Pekah the son of Remaliah, who held the throne for twenty years (2 Kings 15:22-27), but who accelerated the ruin of his kingdom by forming an alliance with the king of Syria to attack the brother kingdom of Judah (Isa 7.).

For king Ahaz, when hard pressed by Pekah and the Syrians, called to his help the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser, who not only conquered Damascus and destroyed the Syrian kingdom, but took a portion of the kingdom of Israel, viz., the whole of the land to the east of the Jordan, and carried away its inhabitants into exile (2 Kings 15:29). Hoshea the son of Elah conspired against Pekah, and slew him in the fourth year of the reign of Ahaz; after which, an eight years’ anarchy threw the kingdom into confusion, so that it was not till the twelfth year of Ahaz that Hoshea obtained possession of the throne. Very shortly afterwards, however, he came into subjection to the Assyrian king Shalmanezer, and paid him tribute. But after a time, in reliance upon the help of Egypt, he broke his oath of fealty to the king of Assyria; whereupon Shalmanezer returned, conquered the entire land, including the capital, and led Israel captive into Assyria (2 Kings 15:30; 17:1-6).

3. THE BOOK OF HOSEA

Called as he was at such a time as this to proclaim to his people the word of the Lord, Hosea necessarily occupied himself chiefly in bearing witness against the apostasy and corruption of Israel, and in preaching the judgment of God. The ungodliness and wickedness had become so great, that the destruction of the kingdom was inevitable; and the degenerate nation was obliged to be given up into the power of the Assyrians, the existing representatives of the heathen power of the world. But as God the Lord has no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but that he should turn and live, He would not exterminate the rebellious tribes of the people of His possession from the earth, or put them away for ever from His face, but would humble them deeply by severe and long-continued chastisement, in order that He might bring them to a consciousness of their great guilt and lead them to repentance, so that He might at length have mercy upon them once more, and save them from everlasting destruction.

Consequently, even in the book of Hosea, promises go side by side with threatenings and announcements of punishment, and that not merely as the general hope of better days, kept continually before the corrected nation by the all-pitying love of Jehovah, which forgives even faithlessness, and seeks out that which has gone astray (Sims.), but in the form of a very distinct announcement of the eventual restoration of the nation, when corrected by punishment, and returning in sorrow and repentance to the Lord its God, and to David its king (Hos 3:5)-an announcement founded upon the inviolable character of the divine covenant of grace, and rising up to the thought that the Lord will also redeem from hell and save from death, yea, will destroy both death and hell (Hos 13:14). Because Jehovah had married Israel in His covenant of grace, but Israel, like an unfaithful wife, had broken the covenant with its God, and gone a whoring after idols, God, by virtue of the holiness of His love, must punish its unfaithfulness and apostasy.

His love, however, would not destroy, but would save that which was lost.

This love bursts out in the flame of holy wrath, which burns in all the threatening and reproachful addresses of Hosea. In this wrath, however, it is not the consuming fire of an Elijah that burns so brightly; on the contrary, a gentle sound of divine grace and mercy is ever heard in the midst of the flame, so that the wrath but gives expression to the deepest anguish at the perversity of the nation, which will not suffer itself to be brought to a consciousness of the fact that its salvation rests with Jehovah its God, and with Him alone, either by the severity of the divine chastisements, or by the friendliness with which God has drawn Israel to Himself as with cords of love. This anguish of love at the faithlessness of Israel so completely fills the mind of the prophet, that his rich and lively imagination shines perpetually by means of changes of figure and fresh turns of thought, to open the eyes of the sinful nation to the abyss of destruction by which it is standing, in order if possible to rescue it from ruin. The deepest sympathy gives to his words a character of excitement, so that for the most part he merely hints at the thoughts in the briefest possible manner, instead of carefully elaborating them, passing with rapid changes from one figure and simile to another, and moving forward in short sentences and oracular utterances rather than in a calmly finished address, so that his addresses are frequently obscure, and hardly intelligible. f2 His book does not contain a collection of separate addresses delivered to the people, but, as is generally admitted now, a general summary of the leading thoughts contained in his public addresses. The book is divisible into two parts, viz., ch. 1-3 and 4-14, which give the kernel of his prophetic labours, the one in a more condensed, and the other in a more elaborate form. In the first part, which contains the “beginning of the word of Jehovah by Hosea” (Hos 1:2), the prophet first of all describes, in the symbolical form of a marriage, contracted by the command of God with an adulterous woman, the spiritual adultery of the ten tribes of Israel, i.e., their falling away from Jehovah into idolatry, together with its consequences-namely, the rejection of the rebellious tribes by the Lord, and their eventual return to God, and restoration to favour (Hos 1:2; 2:3). He then announces, in simple prophetic words, not only the chastisements and punishments that will come from God, and bring the people to a knowledge of the ruinous consequences of their departure from God, but also the manifestations of mercy by which the Lord will secure the true conversion of those who are humbled by suffering, and their eventual blessedness through the conclusion of a covenant founded in righteousness and grace (Hosea 2:4-25); and this attitude on the part of God towards His people is then confirmed by a symbolical picture in ch. 3.

In the second part, these truths are expanded in a still more elaborate manner; but the condemnation of the idolatry and moral corruption of Israel, and the announcement of the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, predominate-the saving prediction of the eventual restoration and blessedness of those, who come to the consciousness of the depth of their own fall, being but briefly touched upon. This part, again, cannot be divided into separate addresses, as there is an entire absence of all reliable indices, just as in the last part of Isaiah (ch. 40-66); but, like the latter, it falls into three large, unequal sections, in each of which the prophetic address advances from an accusation of the nation generally and in its several ranks, to a description of the coming punishment, and finishes up with the prospect of the ultimate rescue of the punished nation At the same time, an evident progress is discernible in the three, not indeed of the kind supposed by Ewald, namely, that the address contained in ch. 4-9:9 advances from the accusation itself to the contemplation of the punishment proved to be necessary, and then rises through further retrospective glances at the better days of old, at the destination of the church, and at the everlasting love, to brighter prospects and the firmest hopes; nor in that proposed by De Wette, viz., that the wrath becomes more and more threatening from ch. 8 onwards, and the destruction of Israel comes out more and more clearly before the reader’s eye.

The relation in which the three sections stand to one another is rather the following: In the first, ch. 4-6:3, the religious and moral degradation of Israel is exhibited in all its magnitude, together with the Judgment which follows upon the heels of this corruption; and at the close the conversion and salvation aimed at in this judgment are briefly indicated. In the second and much longer section, Hos 6:4-11:11, the incorrigibility of the sinful nation, or the obstinate persistence of Israel in idolatry and unrighteousness, in spite of the warnings and chastisements of God, is first exposed and condemned (Hos 6:4-7:16); then, secondly, the judgment to which they are liable is elaborately announced as both inevitable and terrible (Hos 8:1-9:9); and thirdly, by pointing out the unfaithfulness which Israel has displayed towards its God from the very earliest times, the prophet shows that it has deserved nothing but destruction from off the face of the earth (9:10-11:8), and that it is only the mercy of God which will restrain the wrath, and render the restoration of Israel possible (Hos 11:9-11).

In the third section (ch. 12-14) the ripeness of Israel for judgment is confirmed by proofs drawn from its falling into Canaanitish ways, notwithstanding the long-suffering, love, and fidelity with which God has always shown Himself to be its helper and redeemer (ch. 12, 13). To this there is appended a solemn appeal to return to the Lord; and the whole concludes with a promise, that the faithful covenant God will display the fulness of His love again to those who return to Him with a sincere confession of their guilt, and will pour upon them the riches of His blessing (ch. 14). This division of the book differs, indeed, from all the attempts that have previously been made; but it has the warrant of its correctness in the three times repeated promise (Hos 6:1-3; 9:9-11, and 14:2-9), by which each of the supposed sections is rounded off. And within these sections we also meet with pauses, by which they are broken up into smaller groups, resembling strophes, although this further grouping of the prophet’s words is not formed into uniform strophes. f3 For further remarks on this point, see the Exposition.

From what has been said, it clearly follows that Hosea himself wrote out the quintessence of his prophecies, as a witness of the Lord against the degenerate nation, at the close of his prophetic career, and in the book which bears his name. The preservation of this book, on the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, may be explained very simply from the fact that, on account of the intercourse carried on between the prophets of the Lord in the two kingdoms, it found its way to Judah soon after the time of its composition, and was there spread abroad in the circle of the prophets, and so preserved. We find, for example, that Jeremiah has used it again and again in his prophecies (compare Aug. Kueper, Jeremias librorum ss. interpres atque vindex. Berol. 1837 p. 67 seq.). For the exegetical writings on Hosea, see my Lehrbuch der Einleitung, p. 275. HOSEA I. ISRAEL’S ADULTERY On the ground of the relation hinted at even in the Pentateuch (Ex 34:15- 16; Lev 17:7; 20:5-6; Num 14:33; Deut 32:16-21), and still further developed in the Song of Solomon and Ps 45, where the gracious bond existing between the Lord and the nation of His choice is represented under the figure of a marriage, which Jehovah had contracted with Israel, the falling away of the ten tribes of Israel from Jehovah into idolatry is exhibited as whoredom and adultery, in the following manner. In the first section (Hos 1:2-2:3), God commands the prophet to marry a wife of whoredoms with children of whoredoms, and gives names to the children born to the prophet by this wife, which indicate the fruits of idolatry, viz., the rejection and putting away of Israel on the part of God (Hos 1:2-9), with the appended promise of the eventual restoration to favour of the nation thus put away (Hos 2:1-3).

In the second section (ch. 2:4-25), the Lord announces that He will put an end to the whoredom, i.e., to the idolatry of Israel, and by means of judgments will awaken in it a longing to return to Him (vv. 4-15), that He will thereupon lead the people once more through the wilderness, and, by the renewal of His covenant mercies and blessings, will betroth Himself to it for ever in righteousness, mercy, and truth (vv. 16-25). In the third section (ch. 3) the prophet is commanded to love once more a wife beloved of her husband, but one who had committed adultery; and after having secured her, to put her into such a position that it will be impossible for her to carry on her whoredom any longer. And the explanation given is, that the Israelites will sit for a long time without a king, without sacrifice, and without divine worship, but that they will afterwards return, will seek Jehovah their God, and David their king, and will rejoice in the goodness of the Lord at the end of the days. Consequently the falling away of the ten tribes from the Lord, their expulsion into exile, and the restoration of those who come to a knowledge of their sin-in other words, the guilt and punishment of Israel, and its restoration to favour-form the common theme of all three sections, and that in the following manner: In the first, the sin, the punishment, and the eventual restoration of Israel, are depicted symbolically in all their magnitude; in the second, the guilt and punishment, and also the restoration and renewal of the relation of grace, are still further explained in simple prophetic words; whilst in the third, this announcement is visibly set forth in a new symbolical act.

In both the first and third sections, the prophet’s announcement is embodied in a symbolical act; and the question arises here, Whether the marriage of the prophet with an adulterous woman, which is twice commanded by God, is to be regarded as a marriage that was actually consummated, or merely as an internal occurrence, or as a parabolical representation. f4 The supporters of a marriage outwardly consummated lay the principal stress upon the simple words of the text. The words of v. 2, “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms,” and of v. 3, “So he went and took Gomer...which conceived,” etc., are so definite and so free from ambiguity, that it is impossible, they think, to take them with a good conscience in any other sense than an outward and historical one. But since even Kurtz, who has thrown the argument into this form, feels obliged to admit, with reference to some of the symbolical actions of the prophets, e.g., Jer 25:15ff. and Zech 11, that they were not actually and outwardly performed, it is obvious that the mere words are not sufficient of themselves to decide the question à priori, whether such an action took place in the objective outer world, or only inwardly, in the spiritual intuition of the prophet himself.

The reference to Isa 7:3, and 8:3-4, as analogous cases, does apparently strengthen the conclusion that the occurrence was an outward one; but on closer examination, the similarity between the two passages in Isaiah and the one under consideration is outweighed by the differences that exist between them. It is true that Isaiah gave his two sons names with symbolical meanings, and that in all probability by divine command; but nothing is said about his having married his wife by the command of God, nor is the birth of the first-named son ever mentioned at all. Consequently, all that can be inferred from Isaiah is, that the symbolical names of the children of the prophet Hosea furnish no evidence against the outward reality of the marriage in question. Again, the objection, that the command to marry a wife of whoredoms, if understood as referring to an outward act, would be opposed to the divine holiness, and the divine command, that priests should not marry a harlot, cannot be taken as decisive.

For what applied to priests cannot be transferred without reserve to prophets; and the remark, which is quite correct in itself, that God as the Holy One could not command an immoral act, does not touch the case, but simply rests upon a misapprehension of the divine command, viz., upon the idea that God commanded the prophet to beget children with an immoral person without a lawful marriage, or that the “children of whoredom,” whom Hosea was to take along with the “wife of whoredom,” were the three children whom she bare to him (Hos 1:3,6,8); in which case either the children begotten by the prophet are designated as “children of whoredom,” or the wife continued her adulterous habits even after the prophet had married her, and bare to the prophet illegitimate children. But neither of these assumptions has any foundation in the text. The divine command, “Take thee a wife of whoredom, and children of whoredom,” neither implies that the wife whom the prophet was to marry was living at that time in virgin chastity, and was called a wife of whoredom simply to indicate that, as the prophet’s lawful wife, she would fall into adultery; nor even that the children of whoredom whom the prophet was to take along with the wife of whoredom are the three children whose birth is recorded in Hos 1:3,6,8.

The meaning is rather that the prophet is to take, along with the wife, the children whom she already had, and whom she had born as a harlot before her marriage with the prophet. If, therefore, we assume that the prophet was commanded to take this woman and her children, for the purpose, as Jerome has explained it, of rescuing the woman from her sinful course, and bringing up her neglected children under paternal discipline and care; such a command as this would be by no means at variance with the holiness of God, but would rather correspond to the compassionate love of God, which accepts the lost sinner, and seeks to save him. And, as Kurtz has well shown, it cannot be objected to this, that by such a command and the prophet’s obedience on his first entering upon his office, all the beneficial effects of that office would inevitably be frustrated. For if it were a wellknown fact, that the woman whom the prophet married had hitherto been leading a profligate life, and if the prophet declared freely and openly that he had taken her as his wife for that very reason, and with this intention, according to the command of God; the marriage, the shame of which the prophet had taken upon himself in obedience to the command of God, and in self-denying love to his people, would be a practical and constant sermon to the nation, which might rather promote than hinder the carrying out of his official work.

For he did with this woman what Jehovah was doing with Israel, to reveal to the nation its own sin in so impressive a manner, that it could not fail to recognise it in all its glaring and damnable character. But however satisfactorily the divine command could be vindicated on the supposition that this was its design, we cannot found any argument upon this in favour of the outward reality of the prophet’s marriage, for the simple reason that the supposed object is neither expressed nor hinted at in the text.

According to the distinct meaning of the words, the prophet was to take a “wife of whoredom,” for the simple purpose of begetting children by her, whose significant names were to set before the people the disastrous fruits of their spiritual whoredom. The behaviour of the woman after the marriage is no more the point in question than the children of whoredom whom the prophet was to take along with the woman; whereas this is what we should necessarily expect, if the object of the marriage commanded had been the reformation of the woman herself and of her illegitimate children.

The very fact that, according to the distinct meaning of the words, there was no other object for the marriage than to beget children, who should receive significant names, renders the assumption of a real marriage, i.e., of a marriage outwardly contracted and consummated, very improbable.

And this supposition becomes absolutely untenable in the case of ch. 3, where Jehovah says to the prophet (v. 1), “Go again, love a woman beloved by the husband, and committing adultery;” and the prophet, in order to fulfil the divine command, purchases the woman for a certain price (v. 2). The indefinite expression ‘isshâh, a wife, instead of thy wife, or at any rate the wife, and still more the purchase of the woman, are quite sufficient of themselves to overthrow the opinion, that the prophet is here directed to seek out once more his former wife Gomer, who has been unfaithful, and has run away, and to be reconciled to her again. Ewald therefore observes, and Kurtz supports the assertion, that the pronoun in “I bought her to me,” according to the simple meaning of the words, cannot refer to any adulteress you please who had left her husband, but must refer to one already known, and therefore points back to ch. 1.

But with such paralogisms as these we may insert all kinds of things in the text of Scripture. The suffix in hr;K; , “I bought her” (v. 2), simply refers to the “woman beloved of her friend” mentioned in v. 1, and does not prove in the remotest degree, that the “woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress,” is the same person as the Gomer mentioned in ch. 1. The indefiniteness of ‘isshâh without the article, is neither removed by the fact that, in the further course of the narrative, this (indefinite) woman is referred to again, nor by the examples adduced by Kurtz, viz., bleAjQæyi in Hos 4:11, and wx;Ayrej\aæ Ëlæh; in Hos 5:11, since any linguist knows that these are examples of a totally different kind. The perfectly indefinite hV;ai receives, no doubt, a more precise definition from the predicates ãaæn; [ære bhæa; , so that we cannot understand it as meaning any adulteress whatever; but it receives no such definition as would refer back to ch. 1.

A woman beloved of her friend, i.e., of her husband, and committing adultery, is a woman who, although beloved by her husband, or notwithstanding the love shown to her by her husband, commits adultery.

Through the participles bhæa; and tp,a,n;m] , the love of the friend (or husband), and the adultery of the wife, are represented as contemporaneous, in precisely the same manner as in the explanatory clauses which follow: “as Jehovah loveth the children of Israel, and they turn to other gods!” If the ‘isshâh thus defined had been the Gomer mentioned in ch. 1, the divine command would necessarily have been thus expressed: either, “Go, and love again the wife beloved by her husband, who has committed adultery;” or, “Love again thy wife, who is still loved by her husband, although she has committed adultery.” But it is quite as evident that this thought cannot be contained in the words of the text, as that out of two co-ordinate participles it is impossible that the one should have the force of the future or present, and the other that of the pluperfect.

Nevertheless, Kurtz has undertaken to prove the possibility of the impossible. He observes, first of all, that we are not justified, of course, in giving to “love” the meaning “love again,” as Hofmann does, because the husband has never ceased to love his wife, in spite of her adultery; but for all that, the explanation, restitue amoris signa (restore the pledges of affection), is the only intelligible one; since it cannot be the love itself, but only the manifestation of love, that is here referred to. But the idea of “again” cannot be smuggled into the text by any such arbitrary distinction as this. There is nothing in the text to the effect that the husband had not ceased to love his wife, in spite of her adultery; and this is simply an inference drawn from Hos 2:11, through the identification of the prophet with Jehovah, and the tacit assumption that the prophet had withdrawn from Gomer the expressions of his love, of all which there is not a single syllable in ch. 1.

This assumption, and the inference drawn from it, would only be admissible, if the identity of the woman, beloved by her husband and committing adultery, with the prophet’s wife Gomer, were an established fact. But so long as this is not proved, the argument merely moves in a circle, assuming the thing to be demonstrated as already proved. But even granting that “love” were equivalent to “love again,” or “manifest thy love again to a woman beloved of her husband, and committing adultery,” this could not mean the same things as “go to thy former wife, and prove to her by word and deed the continuance of thy love,” so long as, according to the simplest rules of logic, “a wife” is not equivalent to “thy wife.” And according to sound logical rules, the identity of the ‘isshâh in Hos 3:1 and the Gomer of Hos 1:3 cannot be inferred from the fact that the expression used in ch. 3:1, is, “Go love a woman,” and not “Go take a wife,” or from the fact that in Hos 1:2 the woman is simply called a shore, not an adulteress, whereas in Hos 3:1 she is described as an adulteress, not as a whore. The words “love a woman,” as distinguished from “take a wife,” may indeed be understood, apart from the connection with v. 2, as implying that the conclusion of a marriage is alluded to; but they can never denote “the restoration of a marriage bond that had existed before,” as Kurtz supposes. And the distinction between Hos 1:2, where the woman is described as “a woman of whoredom,” and ch. 3:1, where she is called “an adulteress,” points far more to a distinction between Gomer and the adulterous woman, than to their identity.

But Hos 3:2, “I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver,” etc., points even more than ch. 3:1 to a difference between the women in ch. 1 and ch. 3. The verb kârâh, to purchase or acquire by trading, presupposes that the woman had not yet been in the prophet’s possession. The only way in which Kurtz is able to evade this conclusion, is by taking the fifteen pieces of silver mentioned in v. 2, not as the price paid by the prophet to purchase the woman as his wife, but in total disregard of lae rmæa; , in Hos 3:3, as the cost of her maintenance, which the prophet gave to the woman for the period of her detention, during which she was to sit, and not go with any man. But the arbitrary nature of this explanation is apparent at once.

According to the reading of the words, the prophet bought the woman to himself for fifteen pieces of silver and an ephah and a half of barley, i.e., bought her to be his wife, and then said to her, “Thou shalt sit for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot,” etc.

There is not only not a word in ch. 3 about his having assigned her the amount stated for her maintenance; but it cannot be inferred from Hos 2:9,11, because there it is not the prophet’s wife who is referred to, but Israel personified as a harlot and adulteress. And that what is there affirmed concerning Israel cannot be applied without reserve to explain the symbolical description in ch. 3, is evident from the simple fact, that the conduct of Jehovah towards Israel is very differently described in ch. 2, from the course which the prophet is said to have observed towards his wife in Hos 3:3. In ch. 2:7, the adulterous woman (Israel) says, “I will go and return to my former husband, for then was it better with me than now;” and Jehovah replies to this (Hos 2:8-9), “Because she has not discovered that I gave her corn and new wine, etc.; therefore will I return, and take away my corn from her in the season thereof, and my wine,” etc.

On the other hand, according to the view adopted by Kurtz, the prophet took his wife back again because she felt remorse, and assigned her the necessary maintenance for many days.

From all this it follows, that by the woman spoken of in ch. 3, we cannot understand the wife Gomer mentioned in ch. 1. The “wife beloved of the companion (i.e., of her husband), and committing adultery,” is a different person from the daughter of Diblathaim, by whom the prophet had three children (ch. 1). If, then, the prophet really contracted and consummated the marriage commanded by God, we must adopt the explanation already favoured by the earlier commentators, viz., that in the interval between ch. 1 and ch. 3 Gomer had either died, or been put away by her husband because she would not repent. But we are only warranted in adopting such a solution as this, provided that the assumption of a marriage consummated outwardly either has been or can be conclusively established. And as this is not the case, we are not at liberty to supply things at which the text does not even remotely hint.

If, then, in accordance with the text, we must understand the divine commands in ch. 1 and 3 as relating to two successive marriages on the part of the prophet with unchaste women, every probability is swept away that the command of God and its execution by the prophet fall within the sphere of external reality. For even if, in case of need, the first command, as explained above, could be vindicated as worthy of God, the same vindication would not apply to the command to contract a second marriage of a similar kind. The very end which God is supposed to have had in view in the command to contract such a marriage as this, could only be attained by one marriage. But if Hosea had no sooner dissolved the first marriage, than he proceeded to conclude a second with a person in still worse odour, no one would ever have believed that he did this also in obedience to the command of God. And the divine command itself to contract this second marriage, if it was intended to be actually consummated, would be quite irreconcilable with the holiness of God. For even if God could command a man to marry a harlot, for the purpose of rescuing her from her life of sin and reforming her, it would certainly be at variance with the divine holiness, to command the prophet to marry a person who had either broken the marriage vow already, or who would break it, notwithstanding her husband’s love; since God, as the Holy One, cannot possibly sanction adultery. f6 Consequently no other course is left to us, than the picture to ourselves Hosea’s marriages as internal events, i.e., as merely carried out in that inward and spiritual intuition in which the word of God was addressed to him; and this removes all the difficulties that beset the assumption of marriages contracted in outward reality. In occurrences which merely happened to a prophet in spiritual intercourse with God, not only would all reflections as to their being worthy or not worthy of God be absent, when the prophet related them to the people, for the purpose of impressing their meaning upon their hearts, inasmuch as it was simply their significance, which came into consideration and was to be laid to heart; but this would also be the case with the other difficulties to which the external view is exposed-such, for example, as the questions, why the prophet was to take not only a woman of whoredom, but children of whoredom also, when they are never referred to again in the course of the narrative; or what became of Gomer, whether she was dead, or had been put away, when the prophet was commanded the second time to love an adulterous womansince the sign falls back behind the thing signified.

But if, according to this, we must regard the marriages enjoined upon the prophet as simply facts of inward experience, which took place in his own spiritual intuition, we must not set them down as nothing more than parables which he related to the people, or as poetical fictions, since such assumptions as these are at variance with the words themselves, and reduce the statement, “God said to Hosea,” to an unmeaning rhetorical phrase. The inward experience has quite as much reality and truth as the outward; whereas a parable or a poetical fiction has simply a certain truth, so far as the subjective imagination is concerned, but no reality.

HOSEA. 1:1

Ch. 1:1 contains the heading to the whole of the book of Hosea, the contents of which have already been discussed in the Introduction, and defended against the objections that have been raised, so that there is no tenable ground for refusing to admit its integrity and genuineness. The techillath dibber-Yehoovâh with which v. 2 introduces the prophecy, necessarily presupposes a heading announcing the period of the prophet’s ministry; and the “twisted, un-Hebrew expression,” which Hitzig properly finds to be so objectionable in the translation, “in the days of Jeroboam, etc., was the commencement of Jehovah’s speaking,” etc., does not prove that the heading is spurious, but simply that Hitzig’s construction is false, i.e., that techillath dibber-Yehoovâh is not in apposition to v. 1, but the heading in v. 1 contains an independent statement; whilst the notice as to time, with which v. 2 opens, does not belong to the heading of the whole book, but simply to the prophecy which follows in ch. 1-3.

ISRAEL THE ADULTERESS, AND HER CHILDREN HOSEA. 1:2

For the purpose of depicting before the eyes of the sinful people the judgment to which Israel has exposed itself through its apostasy from the Lord, Hosea is to marry a prostitute, and beget children by her, whose names are so appointed by Jehovah as to point out the evil fruits of the departure from God.

Verse 2. “At first, when Jehovah spake to Hosea, Jehovah said to him, God, take thee a wife of whoredom, and children of whoredom; for whoring the land whoreth away from Jehovah.” The marriage which the prophet is commanded to contract, is to set forth the fact that the kingdom of Israel has fallen away from the Lord its God, and is sunken in idolatry.

Hosea is to commence his prophetic labours by exhibiting this fact. yy rbæd; hL;jiT] : literally, “at the commencement of ‘Jehovah spake,’” i.e., at the commencement of Jehovah’s speaking (dibber is not an infinitive, but a perfect, and techillath an accusative of time (Ges. §118, 2); and through the constructive the following clause is subordinated to techillath as a substantive idea: see Ges. §123, 3, Anm. 1; Ewald, §332, c.). rbæd; with b] , not to speak to a person, or through any one ( b] is not = lae ), but to speak with (lit., in) a person, expressive of the inwardness or urgency of the speaking (cf. Num 12:6,8; Hab 2:1; Zech 1:9, etc.). “Take to thyself:” i.e., marry (a wife). ˆWnz; hV;ai is stronger than hn;z; .

A woman of whoredom, is a woman whose business or means of livelihood consists in prostitution. Along with the woman, Hosea is to take children of prostitution as well. The meaning of this is, of course, not that he is first of all to take the woman, and then beget children of prostitution by her, which would require that the two objects should be connected with jqæl; per zeugma, in the sense of “accipe uxorem et suscipe ex ea liberos” (Drus.), or “sume tibi uxorem forn. et fac tibi filios forn.” (Vulg.). The children begotten by the prophet from a married harlot-wife, could not be called yaldee zenuuniim, since they were not illegitimate children, but legitimate children of the prophet himself; nor is the assumption, that the three children born by the woman, according to vv. 3, 6, 8, were born in adultery, and that the prophet was not their father, in harmony with v. 3, “he took Gomer, and she conceived and bare him a son.”

Nor can this mode of escaping from the difficulty, which is quite at variance with the text, be vindicated by an appeal to the connection between the figure and the fact. For though this connection “necessarily requires that both the children and the mother should stand in the same relation of estrangement from the lawful husband and father,” as Hengstenberg argues; it neither requires that we should assume that the mother had been a chaste virgin before her marriage to the prophet, nor that the children whom she bare to her husband were begotten in adultery, and merely palmed off upon the prophet as his own. The marriage which the prophet was to contract, was simply intended to symbolize the relation already existing between Jehovah and Israel, and not the way in which it had come into existence. The “wife of whoredoms” does not represent the nation of Israel in its virgin state at the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, but the nation of the ten tribes in its relation to Jehovah at the time of the prophet himself, when the nation, considered as a whole, had become a wife of whoredom, and in its several members resembled children of whoredom.

The reference to the children of whoredom, along with the wife of whoredom, indicates unquestionably à priori, that the divine command did not contemplate an actual and outward marriage, but simply a symbolical representation of the relation in which the idolatrous Israelites were then standing to the Lord their God. The explanatory clause, “for the land whoreth,” etc., clearly points to this. xr,a, , “the land,” for the population of the land (cf. Hos 4:1). yy rjæaæ hn;z; , to whore from Jehovah, i.e., to fall away from Him (see at Hos 4:12).

HOSEA. 1:3

“And he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bare him a son.” Gomer does indeed occur in Gen 10:2-3, as the name of a people; but we never meet with it as the name of either a man or a woman, and judging from the analogy of the names of her children, it is chosen with reference to the meaning of the word itself. Gomer signifies perfection, completion in a passive sense, and is not meant to indicate destruction or death (Chald.

Marck), but the fact that the woman was thoroughly perfected in her whoredom, or that she had gone to the furthest length in prostitution.

Diblaim, also, does not occur again as a proper name, except in the names of Moabitish places in Num 33:46 (‘Almon-diblathaim) and Jer 48:22 (Beth-diblathaim); it is formed from debheelâh, like the form ‘Ephraim, and in the sense of debheeliim, fig-cakes. “Daughter of fig-cakes,” equivalent to liking fig-cakes, in the same sense as “loving grape-cakes” in Hos 3:1, viz., deliciis dedita. f7 The symbolical interpretation of these names is not affected by the fact that they are not explained, like those of the children in vv. 4ff., since this may be accounted for very simply from the circumstance, that the woman does not now receive the names for the first time, but that she had them at the time when the prophet married her. HOSEA 1:4 “And Jehovah said to him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little, and I visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.” The prophet is directed by God as to the names to be given to his children, because the children, as the fruit of the marriage, as well as the marriage itself, are instructive signs for the idolatrous Israel of the ten tribes. The first son is named Jezreel, after the fruitful plain of Jezreel on the north side of the Kishon (see at Josh 17:16); not, however, with any reference to the appellative meaning of the name, viz., “God sows,” which is first of all alluded to in the announcement of salvation in Hosea 2:24-25, but, as the explanation which follows clearly shows, on account of the historical importance which this plain possessed for Israel, and that not merely as the place where the last penal judgment of God was executed in the kingdom of Israel, as Hengstenberg supposes, but on account of the blood-guiltiness of Jezreel, i.e., because Israel had there contracted such blood-guiltiness as was now speedily to be avenged upon the house of Jehu. At the city of Jezreel, which stood in this plain, Ahab had previously filled up the measure of his sin by the ruthless murder of Naboth, and had thus brought upon himself that blood-guiltiness for which he had been threatened with the extermination of all his house (1 Kings 21:19ff.). Then, in order to avenge the blood of all His servants the prophets, which Ahab and Jezebel had shed, the Lord directed Elisha to anoint Jehu king, with a commission to destroy the whole of Ahab’s house (2 Kings 9:1ff.). Jehu obeyed this command.

Not only did he slay the son of Ahab, viz., king Koram, and cause his body to be thrown upon the portion of land belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite, appealing at the same time to the word of the Lord (2 Kings 9; 21), but he also executed the divine judgment upon Jezebel, upon the seventy sons of Ahab, and upon all the rest of the house of Ahab (Hosea 9:30-10:17), and received the following promise from Jehovah in consequence: “Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, because thou hast done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, sons of thine of the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel” (Hosea 10:30). It is evident from this that the blood-guiltiness of Jezreel, which was to be avenged upon the house of Jehu, is not to be sought for in the fact that Jehu had there exterminated the house of Ahab; nor, as Hitzig supposes, in the fact that he had not contented himself with slaying Joram and Jezebel, but had also put Ahaziah of Judah and his brethren to death (2 Kings 9:27; 10:14), and directed the massacre described in Hos 10:11.

For an act which God praises, and for which He gives a promise to the performer, cannot be in itself an act of blood-guiltiness. And the slaughter of Ahaziah and his brethren by Jehu, though not expressly commanded, is not actually blamed in the historical account, because the royal family of Judah had been drawn into the ungodliness of the house of Ahab, through its connection by marriage with that dynasty; and Ahaziah and his brethren, as the sons of Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab, belonged both in descent and disposition to the house of Ahab (2 Kings 8:18,26-27), so that, according to divine appointment, they were to perish with it. Many expositors, therefore, understand by “the blood of Jezreel,” simply the many acts of unrighteousness and cruelty which the descendants of Jehu had committed in Jezreel, or “the grievous sins of all kinds committed in the palace, the city, and the nation generally, which were to be expiated by blood, and demanded as it were the punishment of bloodshed” (Marck).

But we have no warrant for generalizing the idea of demee in this way; more especially as the assumption upon which the explanation is founded, viz., that Jezreel was the royal residence of the kings of the house of Jehu, not only cannot be sustained, but is at variance with 2 Kings 15:8,13, where Samaria is unquestionably described as the royal residence in the times of Jeroboam II and his son Zechariah. The blood-guiltinesses (demee) at Jezreel can only be those which Jehu contracted at Jezreel, viz., the deeds of blood recorded in 2 Kings 9 and 10, by which Jehu opened the way for himself to the throne, since there are no others mentioned.

The apparent discrepancy, however, that whereas the extermination of the royal family of Ahab by Jehu is commended by God in the second book of Kings, and Jehu is promised the possession of the throne even to the fourth generation of this sons in consequence, in the passage before us the very same act is charged against him as an act of blood-guiltiness that has to be punished, may be solved very simply by distinguishing between the act in itself, and the motive by which Jehu was instigated. In itself, i.e., regarded as the fulfilment of the divine command, the extermination of the family of Ahab was an act by which Jehu could not render himself criminal. But even things desired or commanded by God may becomes crimes in the case of the performer of them, when he is not simply carrying out the Lord’s will as the servant of God, but suffers himself to be actuated by evil and selfish motives, that is to say, when he abuses the divine command, and makes it the mere cloak for the lusts of his own evil heart.

That Jehu was actuated by such motives as this, is evident enough from the verdict of the historian in 2 Kings 10:29,31, that Jehu did indeed exterminate Baal out of Israel, but that he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, from the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, to walk in the law of Jehovah the God of Israel with all his heart. “The massacre, therefore,” as Calvin has very correctly affirmed, “was a crime so far as Jehu was concerned, but with God it was righteous vengeance.”

Even if Jehu did not make use of the divine command as a mere pretext for carrying out the plans of his own ambitious heart, the massacre itself became an act of blood-guiltiness that called for vengeance, from the fact that he did not take heed to walk in the law of God with all his heart, but continued the worship of the calves, that fundamental sin of all the kings of the ten tribes. For this reason, the possession of the throne was only promised to him with a restriction to sons of the fourth generation.

On the other hand, it is no argument against this, that “the act referred to cannot be regarded as the chief crime of Jehu and his house,” or that “the bloody act, to which the house of Jehu owed its elevation, never appears elsewhere as the cause of the catastrophe which befall this houses; but in the case of all the members of his family, the only sin to which prominence is given in the books of Kings, is that they did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam (2 Kings 13:2,11; 14:24; 15:9)” (Hengstenberg).

For even though this sin in connection with religion may be the only one mentioned in the books of Kings, according to the plan of the author of those books, and though this may really have been the principal act of sin; it was through that sin that the bloody deeds of Jehu became such a crime as cried to heaven for vengeance, like the sin of Ahab, and such an one also as Hosea could describe as the blood-guiltiness of Jezreel, which the Lord would avenge upon the house of Jehu at Jezreel, since the object in this case was not to enumerate all the sins of Israel, and the fact that the apostasy of the ten tribes, which is condemned in the book of Kings as the sin of Jeroboam, is represented here under the image of whoredom, shows very clearly that the evil root alone is indicated, out of which all the sins sprang that rendered the kingdom ripe for destruction.

Consequently, it is not merely the fall of the existing dynasty which is threatened here, but also the suppression of the kingdom of Israel. The “kingdom of the house of Israel” is obviously not the sovereignty of the house of Jehu in Israel, but the regal sovereignty in Israel. And to this the Lord will put an end f[æm] , i.e., in a short time. The extermination of the house of Jehu occurred not long after the death of Jeroboam, when his son was murdered in connection with Shallum’s conspiracy (2 Kings 15:8ff.).

And the strength of the kingdom was also paralyzed when the house of Jehu fell, although fifty years elapsed before its complete destruction. For of the five kings who followed Zechariah, only one, viz., Menahem, died a natural death, and was succeeded by his son. The rest were all dethroned and murdered by conspirators, so that the overthrow of the house of Jehu may very well be called “the beginning of the end, the commencement of the process of decomposition” (Hengstenberg: compare the remarks on Kings 15:10ff.).

HOSEA. 1:5-6

“And it cometh to pass in that day, that I break in pieces the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” The indication of time, “in that day,” refers not to the overthrow of the house of Jehu, but to the breaking up of the kingdom of Israel, by which it was followed. The bow of Israel, i.e., its might (for the bow, as the principal weapon employed in war, is a synecdochical epithet, used to denote the whole of the military force upon which the continued existence of the kingdom depended (Jer 49:35), and is also a symbol of strength generally; vid., Gen 49:24; 1 Sam 2:4), is to be broken to pieces in the valley of Jezreel. The paronomasia between Israel and Jezreel is here unmistakeable. And here again Jezreel is not introduced with any allusion to its appellative signification, i.e., so that the mention of the name itself is intended to indicate the dispersion or breaking up of the nation, but simply with reference to its natural character, as the great plain in which, from time immemorial, even down to the most recent period, all the great battles have been fought for the possession of the land (cf. v. Raumer, Pal. pp. 40, 41). The nation which the Lord had appointed to be the instrument of His judgment is not mentioned here. But the fulfilment shows that the Assyrians are intended, although the brief historical account given in the books of Kings does not notice the place in which the Assyrians gained the decisive victory over Israel; and the statement made by Jerome, to the effect that it was in the valley of Jezreel, is probably simply an inference drawn from this passage.

With the name of the first child, Jezreel, the prophet had, as it were with a single stroke, set before the king and the kingdom generally the destruction that awaited them. In order, however, to give further keenness to this threat, and cut off every hope of deliverance, he now announces two other births.

Verse 6. “And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And He (Jehovah) said to him, Call her name Unfavoured; for I will no more favour the house of Israel, that I should forgive them.” The second birth is a female one, not in order to symbolize a more degenerate race, or the greater need of help on the part of the nation, but to get a name answering to the idea, and to set forth, under the figure of sons and daughters, the totality of the nation, both men and women. Loo’ ruchâmâh, lit., she is not favoured; for ruchâmâh is hardly a participle with the m dropped, since alo is never found in close connection with the participle (Ewald, §320, c.), but rather the third pers. perf. fem. in the pausal form. The child receives this name to indicate that the Lord will not continue ãsæy; ) to show compassion towards the rebellious nation, as He hitherto has done, even under Jeroboam II (2 Kings 13:23). For the purpose of strengthening µjær; alo , the clause wgw’ ac;n; yKi is added. This can hardly be understood in any other way than in the sense of l] `ˆwO[; ac;n; , viz., to take away sin or guilt, i.e., to forgive it (cf. Gen 18:24,26, etc.).

The explanation, “I will take away from them, sc. everything” (Hengstenberg), has no tenable support in Hos 5:14, because there the object to be supplied is contained in the context, and here this is not the case.

HOSEA. 1:7

“And I will favour the house of Judah, and save them through Jehovah their God; and I will not save them through bow, and sword, and war, through horses and through horsemen.” By a reference to the opposite lot awaiting Judah, all false trust in the mercy of God is taken away from the Israelites. From the fact that deliverance is promised to the kingdom of Judah through Jehovah its God, Israel is to learn that Jehovah is no longer its own God, but that He has dissolved His covenant with the idolatrous race. The expression, “through Jehovah their God,” instead of the pronoun “through me” (as, for example, in Gen 19:24), is introduced with special emphasis, to show that Jehovah only extends His almighty help to those who acknowledge and worship Him as their God. f8 And what follows, viz., “I will not save them by bow,” etc., also serves to sharpen the punishment with which the Israelites are threatened; for it not only implies that the Lord does not stand in need of weapons of war and military force, in order to help and save, but that these earthly resources, on which Israel relied (Hos 10:13), could afford no defence or deliverance from the enemies who would come upon it. Milchâmâh, “war,” in connection with bow and sword, does not stand for weapons of war, but “embraces everything belonging to war-the skill of the commanders, the bravery of heroes, the strength of the army itself, and so forth” (Hengstenberg). Horses and horsemen are specially mentioned, because they constituted the main strength of an army at that time. Lastly, whilst the threat against Israel, and the promise made to Judah, refer primarily, as Hos 2:1-3 clearly show, to the time immediately approaching, when the judgment was to burst upon the kingdom of the ten tribes, that is to say, to that attack upon Israel and Judah on the part of the imperial power of Assyria, to which Israel succumbed, whilst Judah was miraculously delivered (2 Kings 19; Isa 37:1); it has also a meaning which applies to all times, namely, that whoever forsakes the living God, will fall into destruction, and cannot reckon upon the mercy of God in the time of need.

HOSEA. 1:8-9

“And she weaned Unfavoured, and conceived, and bare a son.

And He said, Call his name Not-my-people; for ye are not my people, and I will not be yours.” If weaning is mentioned not merely for the sake of varying the expression, but with a deliberate meaning, it certainly cannot indicate the continued patience of God with the rebellious nation, as Calvin supposes, but rather implies the uninterrupted succession of the calamities set forth by the names of the children. As soon as the Lord ceases to compassionate the rebellious tribes, the state of rejection ensues, so that they are no longer “my people,” and Jehovah belongs to them no more. In the last clause, the words pass with emphasis into the second person, or direct address, “I will not be to you,” i.e., will no more belong to you (cf. Ps 118:6; Ex 19:5; Ezek 16:8). We need not supply ‘Elohim here, and we may not weaken (HSN-3807a ) hy;h; alo into “no more help you, or come to your aid.” For the fulfilment, see 2 Kings 17:18.

HOSEA 1:10,11 Vv. 10, 11 (Heb. Bib. Hos 2:1-3). To the symbolical action, which depicts the judgment that falls blow after blow upon the ten tribes, issuing in the destruction of the kingdom, and the banishment of its inhabitants, there is now appended, quite abruptly, the saving announcement of the final restoration of those who turn to the Lord. f9 Verse 10-11. (Heb. Bib. Hos 2:1). “And the number of the sons of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which is not measured and not counted; and it will come to pass at the place where men say to them, Ye are not my people, it will be said to them, Sons of the living God.” It might appear as though the promise made to the patriarchs, of the innumerable increase of Israel, were abolished by the rejection of the ten tribes of Israel predicted here. But this appearance, which might confirm the ungodly in their false security, is met by the proclamation of salvation, which we must connect by means of a “nevertheless” with the preceding announcement of punishment. The almost verbal agreement between this announcement of salvation and the patriarchal promises, more especially in Gen 22:17 and 32:13, does indeed naturally suggest the idea, that by the “sons of Israel,” whose innumerable increase is here predicted, we are to understand all the descendants of Jacob or of Israel as a whole.

But if we notice the second clause, according to which those who are called “not-my-people” will then be called “sons of the living God;” and still more, if we observe the distinction drawn between the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah in v. 11, this idea is proved to be quite untenable, since the “sons of Israel” can only be the ten tribes. We must assume, therefore, that the prophet had in his mind only one portion of the entire nation, namely, the one with which alone he was here concerned, and that he proclaims that, even with regard to this, the promise in question will one day be fulfilled. In what way, is stated in the second clause. At the place where rv,a µwOqm; does not mean “instead of” or “in the place of,” as the Latin loco does; cf. Lev. 4:24,33; Jer. 22:12; Ezek. 21:35; Neh. 4:14) men called them Loo’-’ammii , they shall be called sons of the living God. This place must be either Palestine, where their rejection was declared by means of this name, or the land of exile, where this name became an actual truth.

The correctness of the latter view, which is the one given in the Chaldee, is proved by v. 11, where their coming up out of the land of exile is spoken of, from which it is evident that the change is to take place in exile.

Jehovah is called El chai, the living God, in opposition to the idols which idolatrous Israel had made for itself; and “sons of the living God” expresses the thought, that Israel would come again into the right relation to the true God, and reach the goal of its divine calling. For the whole nation was called and elevated into the position of sons of Jehovah, through its reception into the covenant with the Lord (compare Deut 14:1; 32:19, with Ex 4:22).

The restoration of Israel will be followed by its return to the Lord.

Verse 11. “And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel gather together, and appoint themselves one head, and come up out of the land; for great is the day of Jezreel.” The gathering together, i.e., the union of Judah and Israel, presupposes that Judah will find itself in the same situation as Israel; that is to say, that it will also be rejected by the Lord. The object of the union is to appoint themselves one head, and go up out of the land. The words of the two clauses recal to mind the departure of the twelve tribes of Israel out of Egypt. The expression, to appoint themselves a head, which resembles Num 14:4, where the rebellious congregation is about to appoint itself a head to return to Egypt, points back to Moses; and the phrase, “going up out of the land,” is borrowed from Ex 1:10, which also serves to explain xr,a, with the definite article.

The correctness of this view is placed beyond all doubt by Hos 2:14-15, where the restoration of rejected Israel is compared to leading it through the desert to Canaan; and a parallel is drawn between it and the leading up out of Egypt in the olden time. It is true that the banishment of the sons of Israel out of Canaan is not predicted disertis verbis in what precedes; but it followed as clearly as possible from the banishment into the land of their enemies, with which even Moses had threatened the people in the case of continued apostasy (Lev 26 and Deut 28). Moses had, in fact, already described the banishment of rebellious Israel among the heathen in so many words, as carrying them back into Egypt (Deut 28:68), and had thereby intimated that Egypt was the type of the heathen world, in the midst of which Israel was to be scattered abroad. On the basis of these threatenings of the law, Hosea also threatens ungodly Ephraim with a return to Egypt in Hos 8:13 and ch. 9:3.

And just as in these passages Egypt is a type of the heathen lands, into which Israel is to be driven away on account of its apostasy from the Lord; so, in the passage before us, Canaan, to which Israel is to be led up out of Egypt, is a type of the land of the Lord, and the guidance of them to Canaan a figurative representation of the reunion of Israel with its God, and of its reinstatement in the full enjoyment of the blessings of salvation, which are shadowed forth in the fruits and productions of Canaan. (For further remarks, see vv. 14, 15.) Another point to be noticed is the use of the word ‘echâd, one (single) head, i.e., one prince or king. The division of the nation into two kingdoms is to cease; and the house of Israel is to turn again to Jehovah, and to its king David (Hos 3:5). The reason assigned for this promise, in the words “for great is (will be) the day of Jezreel,” causes not little difficulty; and this cannot be removed by giving a different meaning to the name Jezreel, on the ground of vv. 24, 25, from that which it has in Hos 1:4-5.

The day of Jezreel can only be the day on which the might of Israel was broken in the valley of Jezreel, and the kingdom of the house of Israel was brought to an end (Hos 1:4). This day is called great, i.e., important, glorious, because of its effects and consequences in relation to Israel. The destruction of the might of the ten tribes, the cessation of their kingdom, and their expulsion into exile, form the turning-point, through which the conversion of the rebellious to the Lord, and their reunion with Judah, are rendered possible. The appellative meaning of la[er]z]yi , to which there was no allusion at all in Hos 1:4-5, is still kept in the background to a great extent even here, and only so far slightly hinted at, that in the results which follow to the nation, from the judgment poured out upon Israel in Jezreel, the valley of Jezreel becomes a place in which God sows seed for the renovation of Israel. HOSEA 2:1 So far as the fulfilment of this prophecy is concerned, the fact that the patriarchal promise of the innumerable multiplication of Israel is to be realized through the pardon and restoration of Israel, as the nation of the living God, shows clearly enough that we are not to look for this in the return of the ten tribes from captivity to Palestine, their native land. Even apart from the fact, that the historical books of the Bible (Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther) simply mention the return of a portion of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites, under Zerubbabel and Ezra, and that the numbers of the ten tribes, who may have attached themselves to the Judaeans on their return, or who returned to Galilee afterwards as years rolled by, formed but a very small fraction of the number that had been carried away (compare the remarks on 2 Kings 17:24); the attachment of these few to Judah could not properly be called a union of the sons of Israel and of the sons of Judah, and still less was it a fulfilment of the word, “They appoint themselves one head.”

As the union of Israel with Judah is to be effected through their gathering together under one head, under Jehovah their God and under David their king, this fulfilment falls within the Messianic times, and hitherto has only been realized in very small beginnings, which furnish a pledge of their complete fulfilment in the last times, when the hardening of Israel will cease, and all Israel be converted to Christ (Rom 11:25-26). It is by no means difficult to bring the application, which is made of our prophecy in Peter 2:10 and Rom 9:25-26, into harmony with this. When Peter quotes the words of this prophecy in his first epistle, which nearly all modern commentators justly suppose to have been written to Gentile Christians, and when Paul quotes the very same words (Hos 2:1, with ch. 1:10) as proofs of the calling of the Gentiles to be the children of God in Christ; this is not merely an application to the Gentiles of what is affirmed of Israel, or simply the clothing of their thoughts in Old Testament words, as Huther and Wiesinger suppose, but an argument based upon the fundamental thought of this prophecy.

Through its apostasy from God, Israel had become like the Gentiles, and had fallen from the covenant of grace with the Lord. Consequently, the readoption of the Israelites as children of God was a practical proof that God had also adopted the Gentile world as His children. “Because God had promised to adopt the children of Israel again, He must adopt the Gentiles also. Otherwise this resolution would rest upon mere caprice, which cannot be thought of in God” (Hengstenberg). Moreover, although membership in the nation of the Old Testament covenant rested primarily upon lineal descent, it was by no means exclusively confined to this; but, from the very first, Gentiles also were received into the citizenship of Israel and the congregation of Jehovah through the rite of circumcision, and could even participate in the covenant mercies, namely, in the passover as a covenant meal (Ex 12:14). There was in this an indirect practical prophecy of the eventual reception of the whole of the Gentile world into the kingdom of God, when it should attain through Christ to faith in the living God. Even through their adoption into the congregation of Jehovah by means of circumcision, believing Gentiles were exalted into children of Abraham, and received a share in the promises made to the fathers.

And accordingly the innumerable multiplication of the children of Israel, predicted in v. 10, is not to be restricted to the actual multiplication of the descendants of the Israelites now banished into exile; but the fulfilment of the promise must also include the incorporation of believing Gentiles into the congregation of the Lord (Isa 44:5). This incorporation commenced with the preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles by the apostles; it has continued through all the centuries in which the church has been spreading in the world; and it will receive its final accomplishment when the fulness of the Gentiles shall enter into the kingdom of God. And as the number of the children of Israel is thus continually increased, this multiplication will be complete when the descendants of the children of Israel, who are still hardened in their hearts, shall turn to Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Redeemer (Rom 11:25-26).

CHASTISEMENT OF IDOLATROUS ISRAEL, AND ITS CONVERSION AND FINAL RESTORATION HOSEA. 2:2-23

What the prophet announced in Hos 1:2-2:1, partly by a symbolical act, and partly also in a direct address, is carried out still further in the section before us. The close connection between the contents of the two sections is formally indicated by the simple fact, that just as the first section closed with a summons to appropriate the predicted salvation, so the section before us commences with a call to conversion. As Rückert aptly says, “The significant pair give place to the thing signified; Israel itself appears as the adulterous woman.” The Lord Himself will set bounds to her adulterous conduct, i.e., to the idolatry of the Israelites. By withdrawing the blessings which they have hitherto enjoyed, and which they fancy that they have received from their idols, He will lead the idolatrous nation to reflection and conversion, and pour the fulness of the blessings of His grace in the most copious measure upon those who have been humbled and improved by the punishment. The threatening and the announcement of punishment extend from v. 2 to v. 13; the proclamation of salvation commences with v. 14, and reaches to the close of v. 23. The threatening of punishment is divided into two strophes, viz., vv. 2-7 and vv. 8-13. In the first, the condemnation of their sinful conduct is the most prominent; in the second, the punishment is more fully developed.

Verse 2-3. “Reason with your mother, reason! for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband: that she put away her whoredom from her countenance, and her adultery from between her breasts.” Jehovah is the speaker, and the command to get rid of the whoredom is addressed to the Israelites, who are represented as the children of the adulterous wife. The distinction between mother and children forms part of the figurative drapery of the thought; for, in fact, the mother had no existence apart from the children. The nation or kingdom, regarded as an ideal unity, is called the mother; whereas the several members of the nation are the children of this mother. The summons addressed to the children to contend or reason with this mother, that she may give up her adultery, presupposes that, although the nation regarded as a whole was sunken in idolatry, the individual members of it were not all equally slaves to it, so as to have lost their susceptibility for the divine warning, or the possibility of conversion.

Not only had the Lord reserved to Himself seven thousand in Elijah’s time who had not bowed their knees to Baal, but at all times there were many individuals in the midst of the corrupt mass, who hearkened to the voice of the Lord and abhorred idolatry. The children had reason to plead, because the mother was no longer the wife of Jehovah, and Jehovah was no longer her husband, i.e., because she had dissolved her marriage with the Lord; and the inward, moral dissolution of the covenant of grace would be inevitably followed by the outward, actual dissolution, viz., by the rejection of the nation. It was therefore the duty of the better-minded of the nation to ward off the coming destruction, and do all they could to bring the adulterous wife to desist from her sins. The object of the pleading is introduced with rWs . The idolatry is described as whoredom and adultery.

Whoredom becomes adultery when it is a wife who commits whoredom.

Israel had entered into the covenant with Jehovah its God; and therefore its idolatry became a breach of the fidelity which it owed to its God, an act of apostasy from God, which was more culpable than the idolatry of the heathen. `The whoredom is attributed to the face, the adultery to the breasts, because it is in these parts of the body that the want of chastity on the part of a woman is openly manifested, and in order to depict more plainly the boldness and shamelessness with which Israel practised idolatry.

The summons to repent is enforced by a reference to the punishment.

Verse 3. “Lest I strip her naked, and put her as in the day of her birth, and set her like the desert, and make her like a barren land, and let her die with thirst.” In the first hemistich the threat of punishment corresponds to the figurative representation of the adulteress; in the second it proceeds from the figure to the fact. In the marriage referred to, the husband had redeemed the wife out of the deepest misery, to unite himself with her. Compare Ezek 16:4ff., where the nation is represented as a naked child covered with filth, which the Lord took to Himself, covering its nakedness with beautiful clothes and costly ornaments, and entering into covenant with it. These gifts, with which the Lord also presented and adorned His wife during the marriage, He would now take away from the apostate wife, and put her once more into a state of nakedness. The day of the wife’s birth is the time of Israel’s oppression and bondage in Egypt, when it was given up in helplessness to its oppressors. The deliverance out of this bondage was the time of the divine courtship; and the conclusion of the covenant with the nation that had been brought out of Egypt, the time of the marriage. The words, “I set (make) her like the desert,” are to be understood as referring not to the land of Israel, which was to be laid waste, but to the nation itself, which was to become like the desert, i.e., to be brought into a state in which it would be destitute of the food that is indispensable to the maintenance of life. The dry land is a land without water, in which men perish from thirst.

There is hardly any need to say that these words to not refer to the sojourn of Israel in the Arabian desert; for there the Lord fed His people with manna from heaven, and gave them water to drink out of the rock.

Verse 4. “And I will not have compassion upon her children, for they are children of whoredom.” This verse is also dependent, so far as the meaning is concerned, upon the pen (lest) in v. 3; but in form it constitutes an independent sentence. Benee zenuuniim (sons of whoredoms) refers back to yaldee zenuuniim in Hos 1:2. The children are the members of the nation, and are called “sons of whoredom,” not merely on account of their origin as begotten in whoredom, but also because they inherit the nature and conduct of their mother. The fact that the children are specially mentioned after and along with the mother, when in reality mother and children are one, serves to give greater keenness to the threat, and guards against that carnal security, in which individuals imagine that, inasmuch as they are free from the sin and guilt of the nation as a whole, they will also be exempted from the threatened punishment.

Verse 5. “For their mother hath committed whoredom; she that bare them hath practised shame: for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give (me) my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” By kii (for) and the suffixes attached to ‘immâm (their mother) and hoorâthâm (that bare them), the first clauses are indeed introduced as though simply explanatory and confirmatory of the last clause of v. 4; but if we look at the train of thought generally, it is obvious that v. 5 is not merely intended to explain the expression sons of whoredom, but to explain and vindicate the main thought, viz., that the children of whoredom, i.e., the idolatrous Israelites, will find no mercy. Now, as the mother and children are identical, if we trace back the figurative drapery to its actual basis, the punishment with which the children are threatened applies to the mother also; and the description of the mother’s whoredom serves also to explain the reason for the punishment with which the mother is threatened in v. 3.

And this also accounts for the fact that, in the threat which follows in v. 6, “I hedge up thy way,” the other herself is again directly addressed. The hiphil hoobhiish, which is traceable to yâbheesh, so far as the form is concerned, but derives its meaning from vWB, is not used here in its ordinary sense of being put to shame, but in the transitive sense of practising shame, analogous to the transitive meaning “to shame,” which we find in 2 Sam 19:5. To explain this thought, the coquetting with idols is more minutely described in the second hemistich. The delusive idea expressed by the wife rmæa; , in the perfect, indicates speaking or thinking which stretches from the past into the present), viz., that the idols give her food (bread and water), clothing (wool and flax), and the delicacies of life (oil and drink, i.e., wine and must and strong drink), that is to say, “everything that conduces to luxury and superfluity,” which we also find expressed in Jer 44:17-18, arose from the sight of the heathen nations round about, who were rich and mighty, and attributed this to their gods. It is impossible, however, that such a thought can ever occur, except in cases where the heart is already estranged from the living God. For so long as a man continues in undisturbed vital fellowship with God, “he sees with the eye of faith the hand in the clouds, from which he receives all, by which he is guided, and on which everything, even that which has apparently the most independence and strength, entirely depends” (Hengstenberg).

Verse 6-8. “Therefore (because the woman says this), behold, thus will I hedge up thy way with thorns, and wall up a wall, and she shall not find her paths.” The hedging up of the way, strengthened by the similar figure of the building of a wall to cut off the way, denotes her transportation into a situation in which she could no longer continue her adultery with the idols.

The reference is to distress and tribulation (compare Hos 5:15 with Deut 4:30; Job 3:23; 19:8; Lam 3:7), especially the distress and anguish of exile, in which, although Israel was in the midst of idolatrous nations, and therefore had even more outward opportunity to practise idolatry, it learned the worthlessness of all trust in idols, and their utter inability to help, and was thus impelled to reflect and turn to the Lord, who smites and heals (Hos 6:1).

This thought is carried out still further in v. 7: “And she will pursue her lovers, and not overtake them; and seek them, and not find them: and will say, I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.” Distress at first increases their zeal in idolatry, but it soon brings them to see that the idols afford no help. The failure to reach or find the lovers, who are sought with zeal (riddeeph, piel in an intensive sense, to pursue eagerly), denotes the failure to secure what is sought from them, viz., the anticipated deliverance from the calamity, which the living God has sent as a punishment. This sad experience awakens the desire to return to the faithful covenant God, and the acknowledgment that prosperity and all good things are to be found in vital fellowship with Him.

The thought that God will fill the idolatrous nation with disgust at its coquetry with strange gods, by taking away all its possessions, and thus putting to shame its delusive fancy that the possessions which it enjoyed really came from the idols, is still further expanded in the second strophe, commencing with the eighth verse.

Verse 8. “And she knows not that I have given her the corn, and the must, and the oil, and have multiplied silver to her, and gold, which they have used for Baal.” Corn, must, and oil are specified with the definite article as being the fruits of the land, which Israel received from year to year. These possessions were the foundation of the nation’s wealth, through which gold and silver were multiplied. Ignorance of the fact that Jehovah was the giver of these blessings, was a sin. That Jehovah had given the land to His people, was impressed upon the minds of the people for all time, together with the recollection of the mighty acts of the Lord, by the manner in which Israel had been put in possession of Canaan; and not only had Moses again and again reminded the Israelites most solemnly that it was He who gave rain to the land, and multiplied and blessed its fruitfulness and its fruits (compare, for example, Deut 7:13; 11:14-15), but this was also perpetually called to their remembrance by the law concerning the offering of the firstfruits at the feasts.

The words ‘âsuu labba’al are to be taken as a relative clause without ‘asher , though not in the sense of “which they have made into Baal,” i.e., out of which they have made Baal-images (Chald., Rabb., Hitzig, Ewald, and others); for even though l] `hc;[; occurs in this sense in Isa 44:17, the article, which is wanting in Isaiah, and also in Gen 12:2 and Ex 32:10, precludes such an explanation here, apart from the fact that habba’al cannot stand by itself for a statue of Baal. Here l] `hc;[; has rather the general meaning “apply to anything,” just as in 2 Chron 24:7, where it occurs in a perfectly similar train of thought. This use of the word may be obtained from the meaning “to prepare for anything,” whereas the meaning “to offer,” which Gesenius adopts (“which they have offered to Baal”), is untenable, since `hc;[; simply denotes the preparation of the sacrifice for the altar, which is out of the question in the case of silver and gold.

They had applied their gold and silver to Baal, however, not merely by using them for the preparation of idols, but by employing them in the maintenance and extension of the worship of Baal, or even by regarding them as gifts of Baal, and thus confirming themselves in the zealous worship of that god. By habba’al we are not simply to understand the Canaanitish or Phoenician Baal in the stricter sense of the word, whose worship Jehu had exterminated from Israel, though not entirely, as is evident from the allusion to an Asherah in Samaria in the reign of Jehoahaz (2 Kings 13:6); but Baal is a general expression for all idols, including the golden calves, which are called other gods in 1 Kings 14:9, and compared to actual idols.

Verse 9. “Therefore will I take back my corn at its time, and my must at its season, and tear away my wool and my flax for the covering of her nakedness.” Because Israel had not regarded the blessings it received as gifts of its God, and used them for His glory, the Lord would take them away from it. jqæl; bWv are to be connected, so that bWv has the force of an adverb, not however in the sense of simple repetition, as it usually does, but with the idea of return, as in Jer 12:15, viz., to take again = to take back. “My corn,” etc., is the corn, the must, which I have given. “At its time,” i.e., at the time when men expect corn, new wine, etc., viz., at the time of harvest, when men feel quite sure of receiving or possessing it. If God suddenly takes away the gifts then, not only is the loss more painfully felt, but regarded as a punishment far more than when they have been prepared beforehand for a bad harvest by the failure of the crop. Through the manner in which God takes the fruits of the land away from the people, He designs to show them that He, and not Baal, is the giver and the taker also.

The words “to cover her nakedness” are not dependent upon lxæn; , but belong to hT,v]pi rm,x, , and are simply a more concise mode of saying, “Such serve, or are meant, to cover her nakedness.” They serve to sharpen the threat, by intimating that if God withdraw His gifts, the nation will be left in utter penury and ignominious nakedness (‘ervâh, pudendum). Verse 10-11. “And now will I uncover her shame before her lovers, and no one shall tear her out of my hand.” The aJ>p leg tWlb]næ , lit., a withered state, from lben; , to be withered or faded, probably denotes, as Hengstenberg says, corpus multa stupra passum, and is rendered freely in the LXX by akaqarsi>a . “Before the eyes of the lovers,” i.e., not so that they shall be obliged to look at it, without being able to avoid it, but so that the woman shall become even to them an object of abhorrence, from which they will turn away (comp. Nah 3:5; Jer 13:26). In this concrete form the general truth is expressed, that “whoever forsakes God for the world, will be put to shame by God before the world itself; and that all the more, the nearer it stood to Him before” (Hengstenberg). By the addition of the words “no one,” etc., all hope is cut off that the threatened punishment can be averted (cf. Hos 5:14).

This punishment is more minutely defined in vv. 11-13, in which the figurative drapery is thrown into the background by the actual fact.

Verse 11. “And I make all her joy keep holiday (i.e., cease), her feast, and her new moon, and her sabbath, and all her festive time.” The feast days and festive times were days of joy, in which Israel was to rejoice before the Lord its God. To bring into prominence this character of the feasts, Hc;wOcm]AlK; , “all her joy,” is placed first, and the different festivals are mentioned afterwards. Châg stands for the three principal festivals of the year, the Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles, which had the character of châg, i.e., of feasts of joy par excellence, as being days of commemoration of the great acts of mercy which the Lord performed on behalf of His people. Then came the day of the new moon every month, and the Sabbath every week. Finally, these feasts are all summed up in Hd;[\wOmAlK; ; for d[ewOm , µydi[\wOm is the general expression for all festive seasons and festive days (Lev 23:2,4). As a parallel, so far as the facts are concerned, comp. Amos 8:10; Jer 7:34, and Lam 1:4; 5:15.

The Lord will put an end to the festive rejoicing, by taking away the fruits of the land, which rejoice man’s heart.

Verse 12. “And I lay waste her vine and her fig-tree, of which she said, They are lovers’ wages to me, which my lovers gave me; and I make them a forest, and the beasts of the field devour them.” Vine and fig-tree, the choicest productions of the land of Canaan, are mentioned as the representatives of the rich means of sustenance with which the Lord had blessed His people (cf. 1 Kings 5:5; Joel 2:22, etc.). The devastation of both of these denotes the withdrawal of the possessions and enjoyments of life (cf. Jer 5:17; Joel 1:7,12), because Israel regarded them as a present from its idols. hn;t]a, , softened down from ˆnæt]a, (Hos 9:1), like hy;r]vi , in Job 41:18, from ˆy;t]a, (1 Kings 22:34; cf. Ewald, §163, h), signifies the wages of prostitution (Deut 23:19).

The derivation is disputed and uncertain, since the verb hn;T; cannot be shown to have been used either in Hebrew or the other Semitic dialects in the sense of dedit, dona porrexit (Ges.), and the word cannot be traced to taanan, to extend; whilst, on the other hand, the verb hn;T; , hn;t]hi (Hos 8:9- 10) is most probably a denominative of hn;t]a, . Consequently, Hengstenberg supposes it to be a bad word formed out of the question put by the prostitute, ttæK; ˆtæn; hm; , and the answer given by the man, ttæK; ˆf,B, (Gen 38:16,18), and used in the language of the brothel in connection with an evil deed. The vineyards and fig-orchards, so carefully hedged about and cultivated, are to be turned into a forest, i.e., to be deprived of their hedges and cultivation, so that the wild beasts may be able to devour them. The suffixes attached to µWc and lkæa; refer to ˆaeT] ˆp,G, (the vine and fig-tree), and not merely to the fruit. Comp. Isa 7:23ff. and Mic 3:12, where a similar figure is used to denote the complete devastation of the land.

In this way will the Lord take away from the people their festivals of joy.

Verse 13. “And I visit upon her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, and adorned herself with her ring and her jewels, and went after her lovers; and she hath forgotten me, is the word of Jehovah.” The days of the Baals are the sacred days and festive seasons mentioned in v. 13, which Israel ought to have sanctified and kept to the Lord its God, but which it celebrated in honour of the Baals, through its fall into idolatry.

There is no ground for thinking of special feast-days dedicated to Baal, in addition to the feasts of Jehovah prescribed by the law. Just as Israel had changed Jehovah into Baal, so had it also turned the feast-days of Jehovah into festive days of the Baals, and on those days had burned incense, i.e., offered sacrifice to the Baals (cf. Hos 4:13; 2 Kings 17:11). In v. 8 we find only l[æBæ mentioned, but here l[æBæ in the plural, because Baal was worshipped under different modifications, from which Beâliim came to be used in the general sense of the various idols of the Canaanites (cf. Judg 2:11; 1 Kings 18:18, etc.). In the second hemistich this spiritual coquetry with the idols is depicted under the figure of the outward coquetry of a woman, who resorts to all kinds of outward ornaments in order to excite the admiration of her lovers (as in Jer 4:30 and Ezek. 22:40ff.). There is no ground for thinking of the wearing of nose-rings and ornaments in honour of the idols. The antithesis to this adorning of themselves is “forgetting Jehovah,” in which the sin is brought out in its true shape. On hwhy µan , see Delitzsch on Isa 1:24.

In v. 14 the promise is introduced quite as abruptly as in v. 1, that the Lord will lead back the rebellious nation step by step to conversion and reunion with Himself, the righteous God. In two strophes we have first the promise of their conversion (vv. 14-17), and secondly, the assurance of the renewal of the covenant mercies (vv. 18-23).

Verse 14, 15. “Therefore, behold, I allure her, and lead her into the desert, and speak to her heart. And I give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor (of tribulation) for the door of hope; and she answers thither, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.” ˆKe , therefore (not utique, profecto, but, nevertheless, which lâkheen in vv. 6 and 9, and is connected primarily with the last clause of v. 13. “Because the wife has forgotten God, He calls Himself to her remembrance again, first of all by punishment (vv. 6 and 9); then, when this has answered its purpose, and after she has said, I will go and return (v. 7), by the manifestations of His love” (Hengstenberg). That the first clause of v. 14 does not refer to the flight of the people out of Canaan into the desert, for the purpose of escaping from their foes, as Hitzig supposes, is sufficiently obvious to need no special proof. The alluring of the nation into the desert to lead it thence to Canaan, presupposes that rejection from the inheritance given to it by the Lord (viz., Canaan), which Israel had brought upon itself through its apostasy.

This rejection is represented as an expulsion from Canaan to Egypt, the land of bondage, out of which Jehovah had redeemed it in the olden time. ht;p; , in the piel to persuade, to decoy by words; here sensu bono, to allure by friendly words. The desert into which the Lord will lead His people cannot be any other than the desert of Arabia, through which the road from Egypt to Canaan passes. Leading into this desert is not a punishment, but a redemption out of bondage. The people are not to remain in the desert, but to be enticed and led through it to Canaan, the land of vineyards. The description is typical throughout. What took place in the olden time is to be repeated, in all that is essential, in the time to come. Egypt, the Arabian desert, and Canaan are types. Egypt is a type of the land of captivity, in which Israel had been oppressed in its fathers by the heathen power of the world.

The Arabian desert, as the intervening stage between Egypt and Canaan, is introduced here, in accordance with the importance which attached to the march of Israel through this desert under the guidance of Moses, as a period or state of probation and trial, as described in Deut 8:2-6, in which the Lord humbled His people, training it on the one hand by want and privation to the knowledge of its need of help, and on the other hand by miraculous deliverance in the time of need (e.g., the manna, the stream of water, and the preservation of their clothing) to trust to His omnipotence, that He might awaken within it a heartfelt love to the fulfilment of His commandments and a faithful attachment to Himself. Canaan, the land promised to the fathers as an everlasting possession, with its costly productions, is a type of the inheritance bestowed by the Lord upon His church, and of blessedness in the enjoyment of the gifts of the Lord which refresh both body and soul. ble `l[æ rbæd; , to speak to the heart, as applied to loving, comforting words (Gen 34:3; 50:21, etc.), is not to be restricted to the comforting addresses of the prophets, but denotes a comforting by action, by manifestations of love, by which her grief is mitigated, and the broken heart is healed. The same love is shown in the renewed gifts of the possessions of which the unfaithful nation had been deprived.

In this way we obtain a close link of connection for v. 15. By ˆtæn; , “I give from thence,” i.e., from the desert onwards, the thought is expressed, that on entering the promised land Israel would be put into immediate possession and enjoyment of its rich blessings. Manger has correctly explained µv; as meaning “as soon as it shall have left this desert,” or better still, “as soon as it shall have reached the border.” “Its vineyards” are the vineyards which it formerly possessed, and which rightfully belonged to the faithful wife, though they had been withdrawn from the unfaithful (v. 12).

The valley of Achor, which was situated to the north of Gilgal and Jericho (see at Josh 7:26), is mentioned by the prophet, not because of its situation on the border of Palestine, nor on account of its fruitfulness, of which nothing is known, but with an evident allusion to the occurrence described in Josh 7, from which it obtained its name of ‘Akhoor, Troubling. This is obvious from the declaration that this valley shall become a door of hope.

Through the sin of Achan, who took some of the spoil of Jericho which had been devoted by the ban to the Lord, Israel had fallen under the ban, so that the Lord withdrew His help, and the army that marched against Ai was defeated. But in answer to the prayer of Joshua and the elders, God showed to Joshua not only the cause of the calamity which had befallen the whole nation, but the means of escaping from the ban and recovering the lost favour of God. Through the name Achor this valley became a memorial, how the Lord restores His favour to the church after the expiation of the guilt by the punishment of the transgressor. And this divine mode of procedure will be repeated in all its essential characteristics. The Lord will make the valley of troubling a door of hope, i.e., He will so expiate the sins of His church, and cover them with His grace, that the covenant of fellowship with Him will no more be rent asunder by them; or He will so display His grace to the sinners, that compassion will manifest itself even in wrath, and through judgment and mercy the pardoned sinners will be more and more firmly and inwardly united to Him. And the church will respond to this movement on the part of the love of God, which reveals itself in justice and mercy.

It will answer to the place, whence the Lord comes to meet it with the fulness of His saving blessings. `hn;[; does not mean “to sing,” but “to answer;” and µv; , pointing back to µv; , must not be regarded as equivalent to µv; . As the comforting address of the Lord is a sermo realis, so the answer of the church is a practical response of grateful acknowledgment and acceptance of the manifestations of divine love, just as was the case in the days of the nation’s youth, i.e., in the time when it was led up from Egypt to Canaan. Israel then answered the Lord, after its redemption from Egypt, by the song of praise and thanksgiving at the Red Sea (Ex 15), and by its willingness to conclude the covenant with the Lord at Sinai, and to keep His commandments (Ex 24).

Verse 16. “And it comes to pass in that day, is the saying of Jehovah, thou wilt call, My husband; and thou wilt no more call to me, My Baal.” The church will then enter once more into the right relation to its God.

This thought is expressed thus, that the wife will no more call her husband Baal, but husband. Ba’al is not to be taken as an appellative in the sense of master, as distinguished from ‘iish, man, i.e., husband, for ba’al does not mean master or lord, but owner, possessor; and whenever it is applied to a husband in an appellative sense, it is used quite promiscuously with ‘iish (e.g., 2 Sam 11:26; Gen 20:3). Moreover, the context in this instance, especially the Be’âliim in v. 19, decidedly requires that Ba’al should be taken as a proper name. Calling or naming is a designation of the nature or the true relation of a person or thing. The church calls God her husband, when she stands in the right relation to Him; when she acknowledges, reveres, and loves Him, as He has revealed Himself, i.e., as the only true God. On the other hand, she calls Him Baal, when she places the true God on the level of the Baals, either by worshipping other gods along with Jehovah, or by obliterating the essential distinction between Jehovah and the Baals, confounding together the worship of God and idolatrous worship, the Jehovah-religion and heathenism.

Verse 17. “And I put away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they are no more remembered by their name.” As soon as the nation ceases to call Jehovah Baal, the custom of taking the names of the Baals into its mouth ceases of itself. And when this also is mentioned here as the work of God, the thought is thereby expressed, that the abolition of polytheism and mixed religion is a work of that divine grace which renews the heart, and fills with such abhorrence of the coarser or more refined forms of idolatry, that men no longer dare to take the names of the idols into their lips. This divine promise rests upon the command in Ex 23:13, “Ye shall make no mention of the names of other gods,” and is repeated almost word for word in Zech 13:2.

With the complete abolition of idolatry and false religion, the church of the Lord will attain to the enjoyment of undisturbed peace.

Verse 18. “And I make a covenant for them in that day with the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the moving creatures of the earth: and I break in pieces bow, and sword, and battle out of the land, and cause them to dwell securely.” God makes a covenant with the beasts, when He imposes the obligation upon them to hurt men no more. “For them:” lâhem is a dat. comm., for the good of the favoured ones. The three classes of beasts that are dangerous to men, are mentioned here, as in Gen 9:2. “Beasts of the field,” as distinguished from the same domestic animals (beheemâh), are beasts that live in freedom in the fields, either wild beasts, or game that devours or injures the fruits of the field. By the “fowls of heaven,” we are to understand chiefly the birds of prey. Remes does not mean reptiles, but that which is active, the smaller animals of the land which move about with velocity. The breaking in pieces of the weapons of war and of battle out of the land, is a pregnant expression for the extinction not only of the instruments of war, but also of war itself, and their extermination from the land. Milchâmâh, war, is connected with shâbhar per zeugma. This promise rests upon Lev 26:3ff., and is still further expanded in Ezek 34:25ff. (Compare the parallels in Isa 2:4,11; 35:9, and Zech 9:10.)

Verse 19-20. “And I betroth thee to myself for ever; and I betroth thee to myself in righteousness, and judgment, and in grace and pity. And I betroth thee to myself in faithfulness; and thou acknowledgest Jehovah.” wOl creae , to betroth to one’s self, to woo, is only applied to the wooing of a maiden, not to the restoration of a wife who has been divorced, and is generally distinguished from the taking of a wife (Deut 20:7). cræa; therefore points, as Calvin observes, to an entirely new marriage. “It was indeed great grace for the unfaithful wife to be taken back again. She might in justice have been put away for ever. The only valid ground for divorce was there, since she had lived for years in adultery. But the grace of God goes further still. The past is not only forgiven, but it is also forgotten” (Hengstenberg). The Lord will now make a new covenant of marriage with His church, such as is made with a spotless virgin.

This new and altogether unexpected grace He now directly announces to her: “I betroth thee to myself;” and repeats this promise three times in ever fresh terms, expressive of the indissoluble character of the new relation.

This is involved in `µl;wO[ , “for ever,” whereas the former covenant had been broken and dissolved by the wife’s own guilt. In the clauses which follow, we have a description of the attributes which God would thereby unfold in order to render the covenant indissoluble. These are, (1) righteousness and judgment; (2) grace and compassion; (3) faithfulness. Tsedeq = tsedâqâh and mishpât are frequently connected. Tsedeq, “being right,” denotes subjective righteousness as an attribute of God or man; and mishpât, objective right, whether in its judicial execution as judgment, or in its existence in actual fact. God betroths His church to Himself in righteousness and judgment, not by doing her justice, and faithfully fulfilling the obligations which He undertook at the conclusion of the covenant (Hengstenberg), but by purifying her, through the medium of just judgment, from all the unholiness and ungodliness that adhere to her still (Isa 1:27), that He may wipe out everything that can injure the covenant on the part of the church.

But with the existing sinfulness of human nature, justice and judgment will not suffice to secure the lasting continuance of the covenant; and therefore God also promises to show mercy and compassion. But as even the love and compassion of God have their limits, the Lord still further adds, “in faithfulness or constancy,” and thereby gives the promise that He will not more withdraw His mercy from her. hn;Wma’ is also to be understood of the faithfulness of God, as in Ps 89:25, not of that of man (Hengstenberg).

This is required by the parallelism of the sentences. In the faithfulness of God the church has a certain pledge, that the covenant founded upon righteousness and judgment, mercy and compassion, will stand for ever.

The consequence of this union is, that the church knows Jehovah. This knowledge is “real.” “He who knows God in this way, cannot fail to love Him, and be faithful to Him” (Hengstenberg); for out of this covenant there flows unconquerable salvation.

Verse 21-23. “And it comes to pass in that day, I will hear, is the word of Jehovah; I will hear heaven, and it hears the earth. And the earth will hear the corn, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will hear Jezreel (God sows).” God will hear all the prayers that ascend to Him from His church (the first `hn;[; is to be taken absolutely; compare the parallel in Isa 58:9), and cause all the blessings of heaven and earth to flow down to His favoured people.

By a prosopopeia, the prophet represents the heaven as praying to God, to allow it to give to the earth that which is requisite to ensure its fertility; whereupon the heaven fulfils the desires of the earth, and the earth yields its produce to the nation. f10 In this way the thought is embodied, that all things in heaven and on earth depend on God; “so that without His bidding not a drop of rain falls from heaven, and the earth produces no germ, and consequently all nature would at length be barren, unless He gave it fertility by His blessing” (Calvin).

The promise rests upon Deut 28:12, and forms the antithesis to the threat in Lev 26:19 and Deut 28:23-24, that God will make the heavens as brass, and the earth as iron, to those who despise His name. In the last clause the prophecy returns to its starting-point with the words, “Hear Jezreel.” The blessing which flows down from heaven to earth flows to Jezreel, the nation which “God sows.” The name Jezreel, which symbolizes the judgment about to burst upon the kingdom of Israel, according to the historical signification of the name in Hos 1:4,11, is used here in the primary sense of the word, to denote the nation as pardoned and reunited to its God.

This is evident from the explanation given in v. 23: “And I sow her for myself in the land, and favour Unfavoured, and say to Not-my-people, Thou art my people; and it says to me, My God.” [ræz, does not mean “to strew,” or scatter (not even in Zech 10:9; cf. Koehler on the passage), but simply “to sow.” The feminine suffix to [ræz; refers, ad sensum, to the wife whom God has betrothed to Himself for ever, i.e., to the favoured church of Israel, which is now to become a true Jezreel, as a rich sowing on the part of God. With this turn in the guidance of Israel, the ominous names of the other children of the prophet’s marriage will also be changed into their opposite, to show that mercy and the restoration of vital fellowship with the Lord will now take the place of judgment, and of the rejection of the idolatrous nation. With regard to the fulfilment of the promise, the remarks made upon this point at Hos 1:11 and 2:1 (pp. 33, 34), are applicable here, since this section is simply a further expansion of the preceding one.

THE ADULTERESS AND HER FRESH MARRIAGE “The significant pair are introduced again, but with a fresh application.” In a second symbolical marriage, the prophet sets forth the faithful, but for that very reason chastising and reforming, love of the Lord to rebellious and adulterous Israel. By the command of God he takes a wife, who lives in continued adultery, notwithstanding his faithful love, and places her in a position in which she is obliged to renounce her lovers, that he may thus lead her to return. Vv. 1-3 contain the symbolical action; vv. 4, 5 the explanation, with an announcement of the reformation which this proceeding is intended to effect.

HOSEA. 3:1

Verse 1. “And Jehovah said to me, Go again, and love a woman beloved of her companion, and committing adultery, as Jehovah loveth the children of Israel, and they turn to other gods, and love raisin-cakes.” The purely symbolical character of this divine command is evident from the nature of the command itself, but more especially from the peculiar epithet applied to the wife. `dwO[ is not to be connected with rmæa; , in opposition to the accents, but belongs to Ëlæy; , and is placed first for the sake of emphasis. Loving the woman, as the carrying out of the divine command in v. 2 clearly shows, is in fact equivalent to taking a wife; and ‘âhabh is chosen instead of lâqach, simply for the purpose of indicating at the very outset the nature of the union enjoined upon the prophet. The woman is characterized as beloved of her companion (friend), and committing adultery. [ære denotes a friend or companion, with whom one cherishes intercourse and fellowship, never a fellow-creature generally, but simply the fellow-creature with whom one lives in the closest intimacy (Ex 20:17- 18; 22:25, etc.). The [ære (companion) of a woman, who loves her, can only be her husband or paramour.

The word is undoubtedly used in Jer 3:1,20, and Song of Sol. 5:16, with reference to a husband, but never of a fornicator or adulterous paramour.

And the second epithet employed here, viz., “committing adultery,” which forms an unmistakeable antithesis to [ræ bhæa; , requires that it should be understood in this instance as signifying a husband; for a woman only becomes an adulteress when she is unfaithful to her loving husband, and goes with other men, but not when she gives up her beloved paramour to live with her husband only. If the epithets referred to the love shown by a paramour, by which the woman had annulled the marriage, this would necessarily have been expressed by the perfect or pluperfect. By the participles bhæa; and tp,a,n;m] , the love of the companion and the adultery of the wife are supposed to be continued and contemporaneous with the love which the prophet is to manifest towards the woman.

This overthrows the assertion made by Kurtz, that we have before us a woman who was already married at the time when the prophet was commanded to love her, as at variance with the grammatical construction, and changing the participle into the pluperfect. For, during the time that the prophet loved the wife he had taken, the [ære who displayed his love to her could only be her husband, i.e., the prophet himself, towards whom she stood in the closest intimacy, founded upon love, i.e., in the relation of marriage. The correctness of this view, that the [ære is the prophet as husband, is put beyond all possibility of doubt by the explanation of the divine command which follows. As Jehovah lovers the sons of Israel, although or whilst they turn to other gods, i.e., break their marriage with Jehovah; so is the prophet to love the woman who commits adultery, or will commit adultery, notwithstanding his love, since the adultery could only take place when the prophet had shown to the woman the love commanded, i.e., had connected himself with her by marriage.

The peculiar epithet applied to the woman can only be explained from the fact intended to be set forth by the symbolical act itself, and, as we have already shown at p. 22, is irreconcilable with the assumption that the command of God refers to a marriage to be really and outwardly consummated. The words yy’ hb;haæ recal Deut 7:8, and wgw hn;p; µhe Deut 31:18. The last clause, “and loving grape-cakes,” does not apply to the idols, who would be thereby represented either as lovers of grape-cakes, or as those to whom grape-cakes were offered (Hitzig), but is a continuation of hn;p; , indicating the reason why Israel turned to other gods. Grape or raisin cakes (on ‘ashiishâh , see at 2 Sam 6:19) are delicacies, figuratively representing that idolatrous worship which appeals to the senses, and gratifies the carnal impulses and desires. Compare Job 20:12, where sin is figuratively described as food which is sweet as new honey in the mouth, but turns into the gall of asps in the belly. Loving grape-cakes is equivalent to indulging in sensuality. Because Israel loves this, it turns to other gods. “The solemn and strict religion of Jehovah is plain but wholesome food; whereas idolatry is relaxing food, which is only sought after by epicures and men of depraved tastes” (Hengstenberg).

HOSEA. 3:2

“And I acquired her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a lethech of barley.” hr;K; , with dagesh lene or dirimens (Ewald, §28, b), from kârâh, to dig, to procure by digging, then generally to acquire (see at Deut 2:6), or obtain by trading (Job 6:27; 40:30). Fifteen keseph are fifteen shekels of silver; the word shekel being frequently omitted in statements as to amount (compare Ges. §120, 4, Anm. 2). According to Ezek 45:11, the homer contained ten baths or ephahs, and a lethech ( hJmi>korov , LXX) was a half homer. Consequently the prophet gave fifteen shekels of silver and fifteen ephahs of barley; and it is a very natural supposition, especially if we refer to 2 Kings 7:1; 16:18, that at that time an ephah of barley was worth a shekel, in which case the whole price would just amount to the sum for which, according to Ex 21:32, it was possible to purchase a slave, and was paid half in money and half in barley.

The reason for the latter it is impossible to determine with certainty. The price generally, for which the prophet obtained the wife, was probably intended to indicate the servile condition out of which Jehovah purchased Israel to be His people; and the circumstance that the prophet gave no more for the wife than the amount at which a slave could be obtained, according to Ecc. 21:32 and Zech 11:12, and that this amount was not even paid in money, but half of it in barley-a kind of food so generally despised throughout antiquity (vile hordeum; see at Num 5:15)-was intended to depict still more strikingly the deeply depressed condition of the woman. The price paid, moreover, is not to be regarded as purchase money, for which the wife was obtained from her parents; for it cannot be shown that the custom of purchasing a bride from her parents had any existence among the Israelites (see my Bibl. Archäologie, ii. §109, 1). It was rather the marriage present (moohar), which a bridegroom gave, not to the parents, but to the bride herself, as soon as her consent had been obtained. If, therefore, the woman was satisfied with fifteen shekels and fifteen ephahs of barley, she must have been in a state of very deep distress.

HOSEA. 3:3

“And I said to her, Many days wilt thou sit for me: and not act the harlot, and not belong to a man; and thus will I also towards thee.” Instead of granting the full conjugal fellowship of a wife to the woman whom he had acquired for himself, the prophet puts her into a state of detention, in which she was debarred from intercourse with any man.

Sitting is equivalent to remaining quiet, and (HSN-3807a )] indicates that this is for the husband’s sake, and that he imposes it upon her out of affection to her, to reform her and grain her up as a faithful wife. vwOna’ hy;h; , to be or become a man’s, signifies conjugal or sexual connection with him. Commentators differ in opinion as to whether the prophet himself is included or not. In all probability he is not included, as his conduct towards the woman is simply indicated in the last clause. The distinction between hn;z; and vwOna’ hy;h; , is that the former signifies intercourse with different paramours, the latter conjugal intercourse; here adulterous intercourse with a single man.

The last words, “and I also to thee” (towards thee), cannot have any other meaning, than that the prophet would act in the same way towards the wife as the wife towards every other man, i.e., would have no conjugal intercourse with her. The other explanations that have been given of these words, in which vegam is rendered “and yet,” or “and then,” are arbitrary.

The parallel is not drawn between the prophet and the wife, but between the prophet and the other man; in other words, he does not promise that during the period of the wife’s detention he will not conclude a marriage with any other woman, but declares that he will have no more conjugal intercourse with her than any other man. This thought is required by the explanation of the figure in v. 4. For, according to the former interpretation, the idea expressed would be this, that the Lord waited with patience and long-suffering for the reformation of His former nation, and would not plunge it into despair by adopting another nation in its place.

But there is no hint whatever at any such though as this in vv. 4, 5; and all that is expressed is, that He will not only cut off all intercourse on the part of His people with idols, but will also suspend, for a very long time, His own relation to Israel.

HOSEA. 3:4

“For the sons of Israel will sit for many days without a king, and without a prince, and without slain-offering, and without monument, and without ephod and teraphim.” The explanation of the figure is introduced with yKi , because it contains the ground of the symbolical action. The objects, which are to be taken away from the Israelites, form three pairs, although only the last two are formally connected together by the omission of ˆyiaæ before µypir;T] , so as to form one pair, whilst the rest are simply arranged one after another by the repetition of ˆyiaæ before every one. As king and prince go together, so also do slain-offering and memorial. King and prince are the upholders of civil government; whilst slain-offering and memorial represent the nation’s worship and religion. hb;Xemæ , monument, is connected with idolatrous worship. The “monuments” were consecrated to Baal (Ex 23:24), and the erection of them was for that reason prohibited even in the law (Lev 26:1; Deut 16:22: see at 1 Kings 14:23); but they were widely spread in the kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 3:2; 10:26-28; 17:10), and they were also erected in Judah under idolatrous kings (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 18:4; 23:14; 2 Chron 14:2; 31:1). The ephod and teraphim did indeed form part of the apparatus of worship, but they are also specially mentioned as media employed in searching into the future. The ephod, the shoulder-dress of the high priest, to which the Urim and Thummim were attached, was the medium through which Jehovah communicated His revelations to the people, and was used for the purpose of asking the will of God (1 Sam 23:9; 30:7); and for the same purpose it was imitated in an idolatrous manner (Judg 17:5; 18:5).

The teraphim were Penates, which were worshipped as the givers of earthly prosperity, and also as oracular deities who revealed future events (see my Bibl. Archäol. §90).

The prophet mentions objects connected with both the worship of Jehovah and that of idols, because they were both mixed together in Israel, and for the purpose of showing to the people that the Lord would take away both the Jehovah-worship and also the worship of idols, along with the independent civil government. With the removal of the monarchy (see at Hos 1:4), or the dissolution of the kingdom, not only was the Jehovahworship abolished, but an end was also put to the idolatry of the nation, since the people discovered the worthlessness of the idols from the fact that, when the judgment burst upon them, they could grant no deliverance; and notwithstanding the circumstance that, when carried into exile, they were transported into the midst of the idolaters, the distress and misery into which they were then plunged filled them with abhorrence of idolatry (see at Hos 2:7).

This threat was fulfilled in the history of the ten tribes, when they were carried away with the Assyrian captivity, in which they continue for the most part to the present day without a monarchy, without Jehovahworship, and without a priesthood. For it is evident that by Israel the ten tribes are intended, not only from the close connection between this prophecy and ch. 1, where Israel is expressly distinguished from Judah (Hos 1:7), but also from the prospect held out in v. 5, that the sons of Israel will return to David their king, which clearly points to the falling away of the ten tribes from the house of David. At the same time, as the carrying away of Judah also is presupposed in Hos 1:7,11, and therefore what is said of Israel is transferred implicite to Judah, we must not restrict the threat contained in this verse to the Israel of the ten tribes alone, but must also understand it as referring to the Babylonian and Roman exile of the Jews, just as in the time of king Asa (2 Chron 15:2-4). The prophet Azariah predicted this to the kingdom of Judah in a manner which furnishes an unmistakeably support to Hosea’s prophecy.

HOSEA. 3:5

“Afterward will the sons of Israel turn and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king, and will go trembling to Jehovah and to His goodness at the end of the days.” This section, like the previous one, closes with the announcement of the eventual conversation of Israel, which was not indicated in the symbolical action which precedes it, but is added to complete the interpretation of the symbol. Seeking Jehovah their God is connected with seeking David their king. For just as the falling away of the ten tribes from the royal house of David was merely the sequel and effect of their inward apostasy from Jehovah, and was openly declared in the setting up of the golden calves; the true return to the Lord cannot take place without a return to David their king, since God has promised the kingdom to David and his seed for ever (2 Sam 7:13,16), and therefore David is the only true king of Israel (their king).

This King David, however, is no other than the Messiah. For although David received the promise of the everlasting continuance of his government, not with reference to his own person, but for his seed, i.e., his family; and on the ground of this promise, the whole of the royal house of David is frequently embraced under the expression “King David,” so that we might imagine that David is introduced here, not as an individual, but as signifying the Davidic family; yet we must not understand it on this account as referring to such historical representatives of the Davidic government as Zerubbabel, and other earthly representatives of the house of David, since the return of the Israelites to “their King David” was not to take place till ‘achariith hayyâmiim (the end of the days). For “the end of the days” does not denote the future generally, but always the closing future of the kingdom of God, commencing with the coming of the Messiah (see at Gen 49:1; Isa 2:2). Pâchad ‘el Yehoovâh, to shake or tremble to Jehovah, is a pregnant expression for “to turn to Jehovah with trembling;” i.e., either trembling at the holiness of God, in the consciousness of their own sinfulness and unworthiness, or else with anguish and distress, in the consciousness of their utter helplessness. It is used here in the latter sense, as the two parallels, Hos 5:15. “in their affliction they will seek me,” and Hos 11:11, “they shall tremble as a bird,” etc., clearly show. This is also required by the following expression, wObWfAla,w] , which is to be understood, according to Hos 2:7, as denoting the goodness of God manifested in His gifts.

Affliction will drive them to seek the Lord, ad His goodness which is inseparable from Himself (Hengstenberg). Compare Jer 31:12, where “the goodness of the Lord” is explained as corn, new wine, oil, lambs, and oxen, these being the gifts that come from the goodness of the Lord (Zech 9:17; Ps 27:13; 31:20). He who has the Lord for his God will want no good thing.

II. THE UNGODLINESS OF ISRAEL. ITS PUNISHMENT, AND FINAL DELIVERANCE The spiritual adultery of Israel, with its consequences, which the prophet has exposed in the first part, and chiefly in a symbolical mode, is more elaborately detailed here, not only with regard to its true nature, viz., the religious apostasy and moral depravity which prevailed throughout the ten tribes, but also in its inevitable consequences, viz., the destruction of the kingdom and rejection of the people; and this is done with a repeated sideglance at Judah. To this there is appended a solemn appeal to return to the Lord, and a promise that the Lord will have compassion upon the penitent, and renew His covenant of grace with them.

1. THE DEPRAVITY OF ISRAEL, AND ITS EXPOSURE TO PUNISHMENT

The first section, in which the prophet demonstrates the necessity for judgment, by exposing the sins and follies of Israel, is divided into two parts by the similar openings, “Hear the word of the Lord” in Hos 4:1, and “Hear ye this” in ch. 5:1. The distinction between the two halves is, that in ch. 4 the reproof of their sins passes from Israel as a whole, to the sins of the priests in particular; whilst in ch. 5 it passes from the ruin of the priesthood to the depravity of the whole nation, and announces the judgment of devastation upon Ephraim, and then closes in Hos 6:1-3 with a command to return to the Lord. The contents of the two chapters, however, are so arranged, that it is difficult to divide them into strophes.

THE SINS OF ISRAEL AND THE VISITATION OF GOD HOSEA. 4:1-5

Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

Verses 1-5 form the first strophe, and contain, so to speak, the theme and the sum and substance of the whole of the following threatening of punishment and judgment.

Verse 1. “Hear the word of Jehovah, ye sons of Israel! for Jehovah has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land; for there is no truth, and no love, and no knowledge of God in the land.” Israel of the ten tribes is here addressed, as v. 15 clearly shows. The Lord has a controversy with it, has to accuse and judge it (cf. Mic 6:2), because truth, love, and the knowledge of God have vanished from the land. ‘Emeth and chesed are frequently associated, not merely as divine attributes, but also as human virtues. They are used here in the latter sense, as in Prov 3:3. “There is no ‘emeth, i.e., no truthfulness, either in speech or action, no one trusting another any more” (cf. Jer 9:3-4). Chesed is not human love generally, but love to inferiors, and to those who need help or compassionate love. Truth and love are mutually conditions, the one of the other. “Truth cannot be sustained without mercy; and mercy without truth makes men negligent; so that the one ought to be mingled with the other” (Jerome). They both have their roots in the knowledge of God, of which they are the fruit (Jer 22:16; Isa 11:9); for the knowledge of God is not merely “an acquaintance with His nature and will” (Hitzig), but knowledge of the love, faithfulness, and compassion of God, resting upon the experience of the heart. Such knowledge not only produces fear of God, but also love and truthfulness towards brethren (cf. Eph 4:32; Col 3:12ff.).

Where this is wanting, injustice gains the upper hand.

Verse 2. “Swearing, and lying, and murdering, and stealing, and committing adultery; they break in, and blood reaches to blood.” The enumeration of the prevailing sins and crimes commences with infin. absoll., to set forth the acts referred to as such with the greater emphasis. ‘Alâh, to swear, in combination with kicheesh, signifies false swearing (= ad]v; hl;a; in Hos 10:4; compare the similar passage in Jer 7:9); but we must not on that account take kicheesh as subordinate to ‘âlâh, or connect them together, so as to form one idea. Swearing refers to the breach of the second commandment, stealing to that of the eighth; and the infinitives which follow enumerate the sins against the fifth, the seventh, and the sixth commandments. With pârâtsuu the address passes into the finite tense (Luther follows the LXX and Vulg., and connects it with what precedes; but this is a mistake). The perfects, pârâtsuu and nâgâ’uu, are not preterites, but express a completed act, reaching from the past into the present. Pârats to tear, to break, signifies in this instance a violent breaking in upon others, for the purpose of robbery and murder, “grassari as prytsym, i.e., as murderers and robbers” (Hitzig), whereby one bloody deed immediately followed another (Ezek 18:10). Dâmiim: blood shed with violence, a bloody deed, a capital crime.

These crimes bring the land to ruin.

Verse 3. “Therefore the land mourns, and every dweller therein, of beasts of the field and birds of the heaven, wastes away; and even the fishes of the sea perish.” These words affirm not only that the inanimate creation suffers in consequence of the sins and crimes of men, but that the moral depravity of men causes the physical destruction of all other creatures. As God has given to man the dominion over all beasts, and over all the earth, that he may use it for the glory of God; so does He punish the wickedness of men by pestilences, or by the devastation of the earth. The mourning of the earth and the wasting away of the animals are the natural result of the want of rain and the great drought that ensues, such as was the case in the time of Ahab throughout the kingdom of the ten tribes (1 Kings 17:18), and judging from Amos 1:2; 8:8, may have occurred repeatedly with the continued idolatry of the people. The verbs are not futures, in which case the punishment would be only threatened, but aorists, expressing what has already happened, and will continue still. HB; bvewOyAlK; (every dweller therein): these are not the men, but the animals, as the further definition wgw yjæ shows. b] is used in the enumeration of the individuals, as in Gen 7:21; 9:10. The fishes are mentioned last, and introduced with the emphasizing µGæ , to show that the drought would prevail to such an extent, that even lakes and other waters would be dried up. ãsæa; , to be collected, to be taken away, to disappear or perish, as in Isa 16:10; 60:20; Jer 48:33.

Notwithstanding the outburst of the divine judgments, the people prove themselves to be incorrigible in their sins.

Verse 4. “Only let no man reason, and let no man punish; yet thy people are like priest-strivers.” Ëaæ is to be explained from the tacit antithesis, that with much depravity there would be much to punish; but this would be useless. The first clause contains a desperatae nequitiae argumentum. The notion that the second ‘iish is to be taken as an object, is decidedly to be rejected, since it cannot be defended either from the expression vyai vyai in Isa 3:5, or by referring to Amos 2:15, and does not yield any meaning at all in harmony with the second half of the verse. For there is no need to prove that it does not mean, “Every one who has a priest blames the priest instead of himself when any misfortune happens to him,” as Hitzig supposes, since `µ[æ signifies the nation, and not an individual. `µ[æ is attached adversatively, giving the reason for the previous thought in the sense of “since thy people,” or simply “thy people are surely like those who dispute with the priest.”

The unusual expression, priest-disputers, equivalent to quarrellers with the priest, an analogous expression to boundary-movers in Hos 5:10, may be explained, as Luther, and Grotius, and others suppose, from the law laid down in Deut 17:12-13, according to which every law-suit was to be ultimately decided by the priest and judge as the supreme tribunal, and in which, whoever presumes to resist the verdict of this tribunal, is threatened with the punishment of death. The meaning is, that the nation resembled those who are described in the law as rebels against the priest (Hengstenberg, Dissertations on Pentateuch, vol. 1. p. 112, translation). The suffix “thy nation” does not refer to the prophet, but to the sons of Israel, the sum total of whom constituted their nation, which is directly addressed in the following verse.

Verse 5. “And so wilt thou stumble by day, and the prophet with thee will also stumble by night, and I will destroy thy mother.” Kâshal is not used here with reference to the sin, as Simson supposes, but for the punishment, and signifies to fall, in the sense of to perish, as in Hos 14:2; Isa 31:3, etc. µwOy is not to-day, or in the day when the punishment shall fall, but “by day,” interdiu, on account of the antithesis lyilæ , as in Neh 4:16. aybin; , used without an article in the most indefinite generality, refers to false prophets-not of Baal, however, but of Jehovah as worshipped under the image of a calf-who practised prophesying as a trade, and judging from Kings 22:6, were very numerous in the kingdom of Israel. The declaration that the people should fall by day and the prophets by night, does not warrant our interpreting the day and night allegorically, the former as the time when the way of right is visible, and the latter as the time when the way is hidden or obscured; but according to the parallelism of the clauses, it is to be understood as signifying that the people and the prophets would fall at all times, by night and by day. “There would be no time free from the slaughter, either of individuals in the nation at large, or of false prophets” (Rosenmüller). In the second half of the verse, the destruction of the whole nation and kingdom is announced (‘eem is the whole nation, as in Hos 2:2; Heb 4:1).

HOSEA. 4:6-10

This thought is carried out still further in the second strophe, vv. 6-10.

Verse 6. “My nation is destroyed for lack of knowledge; for thou, the knowledge hast thou rejected, and so do I reject thee from being a priest to me. Thou didst forget the law of thy God; thy sons will I also forget.” The speaker is Jehovah: my nation, that is to say, the nation of Jehovah.

This nation perishes for lack of the knowledge of God and His salvation. Hadda’ath (the knowledge) with the definite article points back to da’ath Eloohiim (knowledge of God) in v. 1. This knowledge Israel might have drawn from the law, in which God had revealed His counsel and will (Deut 30:15), but it would not. It rejected the knowledge and forgot the law of its God, and would be rejected and forgotten by God in consequence. In ‘attâh (thou) it is not the priests who are addressed-the custodians of the law and promoters of divine knowledge in the nation-but the whole nation of the ten tribes which adhered to the image-worship set up by Jeroboam, with its illegal priesthood (1 Kings 12:26-33), in spite of all the divine threats and judgments, through which one dynasty after another was destroyed, and would not desist from this sin of Jeroboam. The Lord would therefore reject it from being priest, i.e., would deprive it of the privilege of being a priestly nation (Ex 19:6), would strip it of the privilege of being a priestly nation (Ex 19:6), would strip it of its priestly rank, and make it like the heathen. According to Olshausen (Heb. Gram. p. 179), the anomalous form Ëasama is only a copyist’s error for saæm; ; but Ewald (§247, e) regards it as an Aramaean pausal form. “Thy sons,” the children of the national community, regarded as a mother, are the individual members of the nation.

Verse 7. “The more they increased, the more they sinned against me; their glory will I change into shame.” hb;r; , “according to their becoming great,” does not refer to the increase of the population only (Hos 9:11), but also to its growing into a powerful nation, to the increase of its wealth and prosperity, in consequence of which the population multiplied. The progressive increase of the greatness of the nation was only attended by increasing sin. As the nation attributed to its own idols the blessings upon which its prosperity was founded, and by which it was promoted (cf. Hos 2:7), and looked upon them as the fruit and reward of its worship, it was strengthened in this delusion by increasing prosperity, and more and more estranged from the living God.

The Lord would therefore turn the glory of Ephraim, i.e., its greatness or wealth, into shame. dwObK; is probably chosen on account of its assonance with hb;r; . For the fact itself, compare Hos 2:3,9-11.

Verse 8. “The sin of my people they eat, and after their transgression do they lift up their soul.” The reproof advances from the sin of the whole nation to the sin of the priesthood. For it is evident that this is intended, not only from the contents of the present verse, but still more from the commencement of the next.

Chatta’th ‘ammii (the sin of my people) is the sin-offering of the people, the flesh of which the priests were commanded to eat, to wipe away the sin of the people (see Lev 6:26, and the remarks upon this law at Lev 10:17). The fulfilment of this command, however, became a sin on the part of the priests, from the fact that they directed their soul, i.e., their longing desire, to the transgression of the people; in other words, that they wished the sins of the people to be increased, in order that they might receive a good supply of sacrificial meat to eat. The prophet evidently uses the word chattâ’th, which signifies both sin and sin-offering, in a double sense, and intends to designate the eating of the flesh of the sin-offering as eating or swallowing the sin of the people. lae vp,n, ac;n; , to lift up or direct the soul after anything, i.e., to cherish a longing for it, as in Deut 24:15, etc. The singular suffix attached to nafsoJ (his soul) is to be taken distributively: “(they) every one his soul.” f11 Verse 9. “Therefore it will happen as to the people so to the priest; and I will visit his ways upon him, and I repay to him his doing.” Since the priests had abused their office for the purpose of filling their own bellies, they would perish along with the nation. The suffixes in the last clauses refer to the priest, although the retribution threatened would fall upon the people also, since it would happen to the priest as to the people.

This explains the fact that in v. 10 the first clause still applies to the priest; whereas in the second clause the prophecy once more embraces the entire nation.

Verse 10. “They will eat, and not be satisfied; they commit whoredom, and do not increase: for they have left off taking heed to Jehovah.” The first clause, which still refers to the priests on account of the evident retrospect in lkæa; to lkæa; in v. 8, is taken from the threat in Lev 26:16.

The following word hiznuu , to practise whoredom (with the meaning of the kal intensified as in v. 18, not to seduce to whoredom), refers to the whole nation, and is to be taken in its literal sense, as the antithesis xræp alo requires. Pârats, to spread out, to increase in number, as in Ex 1:12 and Gen 28:14. In the last clause rmæv; belongs to Jehovah: they have given up keeping Jehovah, i.e., giving heed to Him (cf. Zech 11:11). This applies to the priests as well as to the people. Therefore God withdraws His blessing from both, so that those who eat are not satisfied, and those who commit whoredom do not increase. HOSEA 4:11-12 The allusion to whoredom leads to the description of the idolatrous conduct of the people in the third strophe, vv. 11-14, which is introduced with a general sentence.

Verse 11. “Whoring and wine and new wine take away the heart (the understanding” ).

Zenuuth is licentiousness in the literal sense of the word, which is always connected with debauchery. What is true of this, namely, that it weakens the mental power, shows itself in the folly of idolatry into which the nation has fallen.

Verse 12. “My nation asks its wood, and its stick prophesies to it: for a spirit of whoredom has seduced, and they go away whoring from under their God.” `x[e laæv; is formed after hwO;hy] laæv; , to ask for a divine revelation of the idols made of wood (Jer 10:3; Hab 2:19), namely, the teraphim (cf. Hos 3:4, and Ezek 21:26). This reproof is strengthened by the antithesis my nation, i.e., the nation of Jehovah, the living God, and its wood, the wood made into idols by the people. The next clause, “and its stick is showing it,” sc. future events (higgiid as in Isa 41:22-23, etc.), is supposed by Cyril of Alexandria to refer to the practice of rhabdomancy, which he calls an invention of the Chaldaeans, and describes as consisting in this, that two rods were held upright, and then allowed to fall while forms of incantation were being uttered; and the oracle was inferred from the way in which they fell, whether forwards or backwards, to the right or to the left. The course pursued was probably similar to that connected with the use of the wishing rods. f12 The people do this because a spirit of whoredom has besotted them.

By ruuach zenuuniim the whoredom is represented as a demoniacal power, which has seized upon the nation. Zenuuniim probably includes both carnal and spiritual whoredom, since idolatry, especially the Asherah-worship, was connected with gross licentiousness. The missing object to h[;T; may easily be supplied from the context. la tjæTæ hn;z; , which differs from rjæaæ hn;z; (Hos 1:2), signifies “to whore away from under God,” i.e., so as to withdraw from subjection to God. HOSEA 4:13 This whoredom is still further explained in the next verse.

Verse 13. “They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and upon the hills they burn incense, under oak and poplar and terebinth, for their shadow is good; therefore your daughters commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.” Mountain-tops and hills were favourite places for idolatrous worship; because men thought, that there they were nearer to heaven and to the deity (see at Deut 12:2). From a comparison of these and other passages, e.g., Jer 2:20 and 3:6, it is evident that the following words, “under oak,” etc., are not to be understood as signifying that trees standing by themselves upon mountains and hills were selected as places for idolatrous worship; but that, in addition to mountains and hills, green shady trees in the plains and valleys were also chosen for this purpose. By the enumeration of the oak, the poplar (liibhneh, the white poplar according to the Sept. in loc. and the Vulg. at Gen 37:30, or the storax-tree, as the LXX render it at Gen 37:30), and the terebinth, the frequent expression “under every green tree” (Deut 12:2; 1 Kings 14:23; Jer 2:20; 3:6) is individualized. Such trees were selected because they gave a good shade, and in the burning lands of the East a shady place fills the mind with sacred awe. ˆKeAl[æ , therefore, on that account, i.e., not because the shadow of the trees invites to it, but because the places for idolatrous worship erected on every hand presented an opportunity for it; therefore the daughters and daughters-in-law carried on prostitution there. The worship of the Canaanitish and Babylonian goddess of nature was associated with prostitution, and with the giving up of young girls and women (compare Movers, Phönizier, i. pp. 583, 595ff.).

HOSEA. 4:14

“I will not visit it upon your daughters that they commit whoredom, nor upon your daughters-in-law that they commit adultery; for they themselves go aside with harlots, and with holy maidens do they sacrifice: and the nation that does not see is ruined.” God would not punish the daughters and daughters-in-law for their whoredom, because the elder ones did still worse. “So great was the number of fornications, that all punishment ceased, in despair of any amendment” (Jerome). With µhe yKi God turns away from the reckless nation, as unworthy of being further addressed or exhorted, in righteous indignation at such presumptuous sinning, and proceed to speak about it in the third person: for “they (the fathers and husbands, not ‘the priest,’ as Simson supposes, since there is no allusion to them here) go,” etc. peereed, piel in an intransitive sense, to separate one’s self, to go aside for the purpose of being alone with the harlots. Sacrificing with the qedeeshooth, i.e., with prostitutes, or Hetairai (see at Gen 38:14), may have taken its rise in the prevailing custom, viz., that fathers of families came with their wives to offer yearly sacrifices, and the wives shared in the sacrificial meals (1 Sam 1:3ff.). Coming to the altar with Hetairai instead of their own wives, was the climax of shameless licentiousness. A nation that had sunk so low and had lost all perception must perish. fbæl; = Arab. lbt: to throw to the earth; or in the niphal, to cast headlong into destruction (Prov 10:8,10).

HOSEA. 4:15

A different turn is now given to the prophecy, viz., that if Israel would not desist from idolatry, Judah ought to beware of participating in the guilt of Israel; and with this the fourth strophe (vv. 15-19) is introduced, containing the announcement of the inevitable destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes.

Verse 15. “If thou commit whoredom, O Israel, let not Judah offend!

Come ye not to Gilgal, go not up to Bethaven, and swear ye not by the life of Jehovah.” µvea; , to render one’s self guilty by participating in the whoredom, i.e., the idolatry, of Israel. This was done by making pilgrimages to the places of idolatrous worship in that kingdom, viz., to Gilgal, i.e., not the Gilgal in the valley of the Jordan, but the northern Gilgal upon the mountains, which has been preserved in the village of Jiljilia to the south-west of Silo (Seilun; see at Deut 11:30 and Josh 8:35).

In the time of Elijah and Elisha it was the seat of a school of the prophets (2 Kings 2:1; 4:38); but it was afterwards chosen as the seat of one form of idolatrous worship, the origin and nature of which are unknown (compare Hos 9:15; 12:12; Amos 4:4; 5:5). Bethaven is not the place of that name mentioned in Josh 7:2, which was situated to the south-east of Bethel; but, as Amos 4:4 and 5:5 clearly show, a name which Hosea adopted from Amos 5:5 for Bethel (the present Beitin), to show that Bethel, the house of God, had become Bethaven, a house of idols, through the setting up of the golden calf there (1 Kings 12:29). Swearing by the name of Jehovah was commanded in the law (Deut 6:13; 10:20; compare Jer 4:2); but this oath was to have its roots in the fear of Jehovah, to be simply an emanation of His worship. The worshippers of idols, therefore, were not to take it into their mouths. The command not to swear by the life of Jehovah is connected with the previous warnings. Going to Gilgal to worship idols, and swearing by Jehovah, cannot go together. The confession of Jehovah in the mouth of an idolater is hypocrisy, pretended piety, which is more dangerous than open ungodliness, because it lulls the conscience to sleep.

HOSEA. 4:16

The reason for this warning is given in vv. 16ff., viz., the punishment which will fall upon Israel.

Verse 16. “For Israel has become refractory like a refractory cow; now will Jehovah feed them like a lamb in a wide field.” rræs; , unmanageable, refractory (Deut 21:18, cf. Zech 7:11). As Israel would not submit to the yoke of the divine law, it should have what it desired. God would feed it like a lamb, which being in a wide field becomes the prey of wolves and wild beasts, i.e., He would give it up to the freedom of banishment and dispersion among the nations.

HOSEA. 4:17

“Ephraim is joined to idols, let it alone.” `bx;[; rbæj; , bound up with idols, so that it cannot give them up. Ephraim, the most powerful of the ten tribes, is frequently used in the loftier style of the prophets for Israel of the ten tribes. hanach-low, as in 2 Sam 16:11; 2 Kings 23:18, let him do as he likes, or remain as he is. Every attempt to bring the nation away from its idolatry is vain. The expression hannach-loo does not necessitate the assumption, however, that these words of Jehovah are addressed to the prophets. They are taken from the language of ordinary life, and simply mean: it may continue in its idolatry, the punishment will not long be delayed. HOSEA 4:18-19 “Their drinking has degenerated; whoring they have committed whoredom; their shields have loved, loved shame. The wind has wrapt it up in its wings, so that they are put to shame because of their sacrifices.” rWs from rWs , to fall off, degenerate, as in Jer 2:21. ab,so is probably strong, intoxicating wine (cf. Isa 1:22; Nah 1:10); here it signifies the effect of this wine, viz., intoxication. Others take sâr in the usual sense of departing, after 1 Sam 1:14, and understand the sentence conditionally: “when their intoxication is gone, they commit whoredom.” But Hitzig has very properly object to this, that it is intoxication which leads to licentiousness, and not temperance. Moreover, the strengthening of hiznuu by the inf. abs. is not in harmony with this explanation. The hiphil hiznâh is used in an emphatic sense, as in v. 10.

The meaning of the last half of the verse is also a disputed point, more especially on account of the word bhæa; , which only occurs here, and which can only be the imperative of bhæy; bhæa; for bhæy; ), or a contraction of bhæa; .

All other explanations are arbitrary. But we are precluded from taking the word as an imperative by ˆwOlq; , which altogether confuses the sense, if we adopt the rendering “their shields love ‘Give ye’-shame.” We therefore prefer taking bhæa; as a contraction of Wbhea; , and bhæa; bhæa; as a construction resembling the pealal form, in which the latter part of the fully formed verb is repeated, with the verbal person as an independent form (Ewald, §120), viz., “their shields loved, loved shame,” which yields a perfectly suitable thought. The princes are figuratively represented as shields, as in Ps. 47:10, as the supporters and protectors of the state.

They love shame, inasmuch as they love the sin which brings shame. This shame will inevitably burst upon the kingdom. The tempest has already seized upon the people, or wrapt them up with its wings (cf. Ps 18:11; 104:3), and will carry them away (Isa 57:13). rræx; , literally to bind together, hence to lay hold of, wrap up. Ruuach, the wind, or tempest, is a figurative term denoting destruction, like µydiq; jæWr in Hos 13:15 and Ezek 5:3-4. tae refers to Ephraim represented as a woman, like the suffix attached to ˆgem; in v. 18. jbæz, vWB, to be put to shame on account of their sacrifices, i.e., to be deceived in their confidence in their idols (boosh with min as in Hos 10:6; Jer 2:36; 12:13, etc.), or to discover that the sacrifices which they offered to Jehovah, whilst their heart was attached to the idols, did not save from ruin. The plural formation twOjb;z] for jbæz, only occurs here, but it has many analogies in its favour, and does not warrant our altering the reading into jæBez]mi , after the Sept. ek tw>n qusiasthri>wn , as Hitzig proposes; whilst the inadmissibility of this proposal is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that there is nothing to justify the omission of the indispensable ˆmi , and the cases which Hitzig cites as instances in which min is omitted (viz., Zech 14:10; Ps 68:14, and Deut 23:11) are based upon a false interpretation.

THE JUDGMENT HOSEA. 5:1-5

With the words “Hear ye this,” the reproof of the sins of Israel makes a new start, and is specially addressed to the priests and the king’s house, i.e., the king and his court, to announce to the leaders of the nation the punishment that will follow their apostasy from God and their idolatry, by which they have plunged the people and the kingdom headlong into destruction. Vv. 1-5 form the first strophe.

Verse 1. “Hear ye this, ye priests; and give heed thereto, O house of Israel; and observe it, O house of the king! for the judgment applies to you; for ye have become a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.” By the word “this,” which points back to v. 4, the prophecy that follows is attached to the preceding one. Beside the priests and the king’s house, i.e., the royal family, in which the counsellors and adjutants surrounding the king are probably included, the house of Israel, that is to say, the people of the ten tribes regarded as a family, is summoned to hear, because what was about to be announced applied to the people and kingdom as a whole.

There is nothing to warrant our understanding by the “house of Israel,” the heads of the nation or elders. Lâkhem hammishpât does not mean, It rests with you to know or to defend the right; nor, “Ye ought to hear the reproof,” as Hitzig explains it, for mishpât in this connection signifies neither “the maintenance of justice” nor “a reproof,” but the judgment about to be executed by God, to> kri>ma (LXX). The thought is this, The judgment will fall upon you; and lâkhem refers chiefly to the priests and the king’s house, as the explanatory clause which follows clearly shows. It is impossible to determine with certainty what king’s house is intended.

Probably that of Zechariah or Menahem; possibly both, since Hosea prophesied in both reigns, and merely gives the quintessence of his prophetical addresses in his book. Going to Asshur refers rather to Menahem than to Zechariah (comp. 2 Kings 15:19-20). In the figures employed, the bird-trap (pach) and the net spread for catching birds, it can only be the rulers of the nation who are represented as a trap and net, and the birds must denote the people generally who are enticed into the net of destruction and caught (cf. Hos 9:8). f13 Mizpah, as a parallel to Tabor, can only be the lofty Mizpah of Gilead (Judg 10:17; 11:29) or Ramah-Mizpah, which probably stood upon the site of the modern es-Salt (see at Deut 4:43); so that, whilst Tabor represents the land on this side of the Jordan, Mizpah, which resembled it in situation, is chosen to represent the land to the east of the river. f14 Both places were probably noted as peculiarly adapted for bird-catching, since Tabor is still thickly wooded. The supposition that they had been used as places of sacrifice in connection with idolatrous worship, cannot be inferred from the verse before us, nor is it rendered probable by other passages.

This accusation is still further vindicated in vv. 2ff., by a fuller exposure of the moral corruption of the nation.

Verse 2. “And excesses they have spread out deeply; but I am a chastisement to them all.” The meaning of the first half of the verse, which is very difficult, and has been very differently interpreted by both ancient and modern expositors, has been brought out best by Delitzsch (Com. on Ps 101:3), who renders it, “they understand from the very foundation how to spread out transgressions.” For the word fce the meaning transgressions is well established by the use of fWc in Ps 101:3, where Hengstenberg, Hupfeld, and Delitzsch all agree that this is the proper rendering (see Ewald’s philological defence of it at §146, e). In the psalm referred to, however, the expression fWc `hc;[; also shows that shachatâh is the inf. piel, and seetiim the accusative of the object. And it follows from this that shachatâh neither means to slaughter or slaughter sacrifices, nor can be used for shchth in the sense of acting injuriously, but that it is to be interpreted according to the shâchuuth in Kings 10:16-17, in the sense of stretching, stretching out; so that there is no necessity to take fjv in the sense of jmv , as Delitzsch does, though the use of `hw;l][æ for `lw,[, in Hos 10:9 may no doubt be adduced in its support. fce , from hf;c; (to turn aside, Num 5:12,19), are literally digressions or excesses, answering to the hiznâh in v. 3, the leading sin of Israel. “They have deepened to stretch out excesses,” i.e., they have gone to great lengths, or are deeply sunken in excesses-a thought quite in harmony with the context, to which the threat is appended. “I (Jehovah) am a chastisement to them all, to the rulers as well as to the people;” i.e., I will punish them all (cf. v. 12), because their idolatrous conduct is well known to me. The way is thus prepared for the two following verses.

Verse 3-4. “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou hast committed whoredom; Israel has defiled itself. Their works do not allow to return to their God, for the spirit of whoredom is in them, and they know not Jehovah.” By `hT;[æ , the whoredom of Ephraim is designated as in fact lying before them, and therefore undeniable; but not, as Hitzig supposes, an act which has taken place once for all, viz., the choice of a king, by which the severance of the kingdoms and the previous idolatry had been sanctioned afresh. amef; , defiled by whoredom, i.e., idolatry. Their works do not allow them to return to their God, because the works are merely an emanation of the character and state of the heart, and in their hearts the demon of whoredom has its seat (cf. Hos 4:12), and the knowledge of the Lord is wanting; that is to say, the demoniacal power of idolatry has taken complete possession of the heart, and stifled the knowledge of the true God. The rendering, “they do not direct their actions to this,” is incorrect, and cannot be sustained by an appeal to the use of ble ˆtæn; in Judg 15:1 and 1 Sam 24:8ff., or to Judg 3:28.

Verse 5. “And the pride of Ephraim will testify against its face, and Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their guilt; Judah has also stumbled with them.” As the meaning “to answer,” to bear witness against a person, is well established in the case of b] `hn;[; (cf. Num 35:30; Deut 19:18, and Isa 3:9), and µynip; `hn;[; also occurs in Job 16:8 in this sense, we must retain the same meaning here, as Jerome and others have done. And there is the more reason for this, because the explanation based upon the LXX, kai> tapeinwqh>setai hJ uJ>briv , “the haughtiness of Israel will be humbled,” can hardly be reconciled with µynip; . “The pride of Israel,” moreover, is not the haughtiness of Israel, but that of which Israel is proud, or rather the glory of Israel. We might understand by this the flourishing condition of the kingdom, after Amos 6:8; but it would be only by its decay that this would bear witness against the sin of Israel, so that “the glory of Israel” would stand for “the decay of that glory,” which would be extremely improbable. We must therefore explain “the glory of Israel” here and in Hos 7:10 in accordance with Amos 8:7, i.e., we must understand it as referring to Jehovah, who is Israel’s eminence and glory; in which case we obtain the following very appropriate thought: They know not Jehovah, they do not concern themselves about Him; therefore He Himself will bear witness by judgments, by the destruction of their false glory (cf. Hos 2:10- 14), against the face of Israel, i.e., bear witness to their face. This thought occurs without ambiguity in Hos 7:10. Israel will stumble in its sin, i.e., will fall and perish (as in Hos 4:5). Judah also falls with Israel, because it has participated in Israel’s sin (Hos 4:15).

HOSEA. 5:6-7

Israel, moreover, will not be able to avert the threatening judgment by sacrifices. Jehovah will withdraw from the faithless generation, and visit it with His judgments. This is the train of thought in the next strophe (vv. 6- 10).

Verse 6. “They will go with their sheep and their oxen to seek Jehovah, and will not find Him: He has withdrawn Himself from them. They acted treacherously against Jehovah, for they have born strange children: now will the new moon devour them with their fields.” The offering of sacrifices will be no help to them, because God has withdrawn Himself from them, and does not hear their prayers; for God has no pleasure in sacrifices which are offered in an impenitent state of mind (cf. Hos 6:6; Isa 1:11ff.; Jer 7:21ff.; Ps 50:7,8ff.). The reason for this is given in v. 7. Bâgad, to act faithlessly, which is frequently applied to the infidelity of a wife towards her husband (e.g., Jer 3:20; Mal 2:14; cf. Ex 21:8), points to the conjugal relation in which Israel stood to Jehovah.

Hence the figure which follows. “Strange children” are such as do not belong to the home (Deut 25:5), i.e., such as have not sprung from the conjugal union. In actual fact, the expression is equivalent to ˆWnz; ˆBe in Hos 1:2; 2:4, though zâr does not expressly mean “adulterous.” Israel ought to have begotten children of God in the maintenance of the covenant with the Lord; but in its apostasy from God it had begotten an adulterous generation, children whom the Lord could not acknowledge as His own. “The new moon will devour them,” viz., those who act so faithlessly. the meaning is not, “they will be destroyed on the next new moon;” but the new moon, as the festal season, on which sacrifices were offered (1 Sam 20:6,29; Isa 1:13-14), stands here for the sacrifices themselves that were offered upon it. The meaning is this: your sacrificial feast, your hypocritical worship, so far from bringing you salvation, will rather prove your sin. ql,je are not sacrificial portions, but the hereditary portions of Israel, the portions of land that fell to the different families and households, and from the produce of which they offered sacrifices to the Lord. f15 HOSEA 5:8 The prophet sees in spirit the judgment already falling upon the rebellious nation, and therefore addresses the following appeal to the people. V. 8. “Blow ye the horn at Gibeah, the trumpet at Ramah! Raise the cry at Bethaven, Behind thee, Benjamin!” The blowing of the shoophâr, a farsounding horn, or of the trumpet (chatsootserâh), was a signal by which the invasion of foes (Hos 8:1; Jer 4:5; 6:1) and other calamities (Joel 2:1, cf. Amos 3:6) were announced, to give the inhabitants warning of the danger that threatened them. The words therefore imply that foes had invaded the land. Gibeah (of Saul; see at Josh 18:28) and Ramah (of Samuel; see at Josh 18:25) were two elevated places on the northern boundary of the tribe of Benjamin, which were well adapted for signals, on account of their lofty situation.

The introduction of these particular towns, which did not belong to the tribe of Israel, but to that of Judah, is intended to intimate that the enemy has already conquered the kingdom of the ten tribes, and has advanced to the border of that of Judah. heeriya`, to make a noise, is to be understood here as relating to the alarm given by the war-signals already mentioned, as in Joel 2:1, cf. Num 10:9. Bethaven is Bethel (Beitin), as in Hos 4:15, the seat of the idolatrous worship of the calves; and tyiBæ is to be taken in the sense of tyiBæ (according to Ges. §118, 1). The difficult words, “behind thee, Benjamin,” cannot indicate the situation or attitude of Benjamin, in relation to Bethel or the kingdom of Israel, or show that “the invasion is to be expected to start from Benjamin,” as Simson supposes. For the latter is no more appropriate in this train of thought than a merely geographical or historical notice.

The words are taken from the ancient war-song of Deborah (Judg 5:14), but in a different sense from that in which they are used there. There they mean that Benjamin marched behind Ephraim, or joined it in attacking the foe; here, on the contrary, they mean that the foe is coming behind Benjamin-that the judgment announced has already broken out in the rear of Benjamin. There is no necessity to supply “the enemy rises” behind thee, O Benjamin, as Jerome proposes, or “the sword rages,” as Hitzig suggests; but what comes behind Benjamin is implied in the words, “Blow ye the horn,” etc. What these signals announce is coming after Benjamin; there is no necessity, therefore, to supply anything more than “it is,” or “it comes.”

The prophet, for example, not only announces in v. 8 that enemies will invade Israel, but that the hosts by which God will punish His rebellious people have already overflowed the kingdom of Israel, and are now standing upon the border of Judah, to punish this kingdom also for its sins.

This is evident from vv. 9, 10, which contain the practical explanation of v. 8.

HOSEA. 5:9-10

“Ephraim will become a desert in the day of punishment: over the tribes of Israel have I proclaimed that which lasts. The princes of Judah have become like boundary-movers; upon them I pour out my wrath like water.” The kingdom of Israel will entirely succumb to the punishment. It will become a desert-will be laid waste not only for a time, but permanently.

The punishment with which it is threatened will be ˆmæa; . This word is to be interpreted as in Deut 28:59, where it is applied to lasting plagues, with which God will chastise the obstinate apostasy of His people. By the perfect [dæy; , what is here proclaimed is represented as a completed event, which will not be altered. Beshibhtee, not in or among the tribes, but according to b] `hn;[; , in v. 5, against or over the tribes (Hitzig). Judah also will not escape the punishment of its sins.

The unusual expression massiigee gebhuul is formed after, and to be explained from Deut 19:14, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark;” or 27:17, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark.” The princes of Judah have become boundary-removers, not by hostile invasions of the kingdom of Israel (Simson); for the boundary-line between Israel and Judah was not so appointed by God, that a violation of it on the part of the princes of Judah could be reckoned a grievous crime, but by removing the boundaries of right which had been determined by God, viz., according to Hos 4:15, by participating in the guilt of Ephraim, i.e., by idolatry, and therefore by the fact that they had removed the boundary between Jehovah and Baal, that is to say, between the one true God and idols. “If he who removes his neighbour’s boundary is cursed, how much more he who removes the border of his God!” (Hengstenberg).

Upon such men the wrath of God would fall in its fullest measure. µyimæ , like a stream of water, so plentifully. For the figure, compare Ps 69:25; 79:6; Jer 10:25. Severe judgments are thus announced to Judah, viz., those of which the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser and Sennacherib were the instruments; but no ruin or lasting devastation is predicted, as was the case with the kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed by the Assyrians.

HOSEA. 5:11-15

From these judgments Israel and Judah will not be set free, until in their distress they seek their God. This thought is expanded in the next strophe (vv. 11-15).

Verse 11. “Ephraim is oppressed, broken in pieces by the judgment; for it has wished, has gone according to statute.” By the participles ‘âshuuq and râtsuuts, the calamity is represented as a lasting condition, which the prophet saw in the spirit as having already begun. The two words are connected together even in Deut 28:33, to indicate the complete subjection of Israel to the power and oppression of its foes, as a punishment for falling away from the Lord. Retsuuts mishpât does not mean “of broken right,” or “injured in its right” (Ewald and Hitzig), but “broken in pieces by the judgment” (of God), with a genitivum efficientis, like mukkeeh Eloohiim in Isa 53:4. For it liked to walk according to statute. For rjæaæ Ëlæy; compare Jer 2:5 and 2 Kings 18:15.

Tsav is a human statute; it stands both here and in Isa 28:10,13, the only other passages in which it occurs, as an antithesis to the word or commandment of God. The statute intended is the one which the kingdom of Israel upheld from beginning to end, viz., the worship of the calves, that root of all the sins, which brought about the dissolution and ruin of the kingdom.

Verse 12. “And I am like the moth to Ephraim, and like the worm to the house of Judah.” The moth and worm are figures employed to represent destructive powers; the moth destroying clothes (Isa 50:9; 51:8; Ps 39:12), the worm injuring both wood and flesh. They are both connected again in Job 13:28, as things which destroy slowly but surely, to represent, as Calvin says, lenta Dei judicia. God becomes a destructive power to the sinner through the thorn of conscience, and the chastisements which are intended to effect his reformation, but which lead inevitably to his ruin when he hardens himself against them. The preaching of the law by the prophets sharpened the thorn in the conscience of Israel and Judah. The chastisement consisted in the infliction of the punishments threatened in the law, viz., in plagues and invasions of their foes.

The two kingdoms could not defend themselves against this chastisement by the help of any earthly power.

Verse 13. “And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his abscess; and Ephraim went to Asshur, and sent to king Jareb (striver): but he cannot cure you, nor drive the abscess away from you.” By the imperfects, with Vav rel., Ëlæy; , ha;r; , the attempts of Ephraim and Judah to save themselves from destruction are represented as the consequence of the coming of God to punish, referred to in v. 12.

Inasmuch as this is to be seen, so far as the historical fulfilment is concerned, not in the present, but in the past and future, the attempts to obtain a cure for the injuries also belong to the present (? past) and future.

Mâzoor does not mean a bandage or the cure of injuries (Ges., Dietr.), but is derived from rWz , to squeeze out (see Del. on Isa 1:6), and signifies literally that which is pressed out, i.e., a festering wound, an abscess. It has this meaning not only here, but also in Jer 30:13, from which the meaning bandage has been derived. On the figure employed, viz., the disease of the body politic, see Delitzsch on Isa 1:5-6. That this disease is not to be sought for specially in anarchy and civil war (Hitzig), is evident from the simple fact, that Judah, which was saved from these evils, is described as being just as sick as Ephraim. The real disease of the two kingdoms was apostasy from the Lord, or idolatry with its train of moral corruption, injustice, crimes, and vices of every kind, which destroyed the vital energy and vital marrow of the two kingdoms, and generated civil war and anarchy in the kingdom of Israel. Ephraim sought for help from the Assyrians, viz., from king Jareb, but without obtaining it. The name Jareb, i.e., warrior, which occurs here and at Hos 10:6, is an epithet formed by the prophet himself, and applied to the king of Assyria, not of Egypt, as Theodoret supposes. The omission of the article from Ël,m, may be explained from the fact that Jâreebh is, strictly speaking, an appellative, as in Ël,m, laeWml] in Prov 31:1. We must not supply Yehuudâh as the subject to vayyishlach. The omission of any reference to Judah in the second half of the verse, may be accounted for from the fact that the prophecy had primarily and principally to do with Ephraim, and that Judah was only cursorily mentioned. The aJ>p leg hh;G; from hh;G; , in Syriac to by shy, to flee, is used with min in the tropical sense of removing or driving away.

No help is to be expected from Assyria, because the Lord will punish His people.

Verse 14, 15. “For I am like a lion to Ephraim, and like the young lion to the house of Judah: I, I tear in pieces, and go; I carry away, and there is no deliverer. “I go, return to my place, till they repent and shall seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early.” For the figure of the lion, which seizes its prey, and tears it in pieces without deliverance, see Hos 13:7 and Isa 5:29. ac;n; denotes the carrying away of booty, as in 1 Sam 17:34. For the fact itself, compare Deut 32:39.

The first clause of v. 15 is still to be interpreted from the figure of the lion.

As the lion withdraws into its cave, so will the Lord withdraw into His own place, viz., heaven, and deprive the Israelites of His gracious, helpful presence, until they repent, i.e., not only feel themselves guilty, but feel the guilt by bearing the punishment. Suffering punishment awakens the need of mercy, and impels them to seek the face of the Lord. The expression, “in the distress to them,” recals ttæK; rxæ in Deut 4:30. Shicheer is to be taken as a denom. of shachar, the morning dawn (Hos 6:3), in the sense of early, i.e., zealously, urgently, as the play upon the word rjævæ in Hos 6:3 unmistakeably shows. For the fact itself, compare Hos 2:9 and Deut 4:29- 30.

HOSEA. 6:1-3

To this threat the prophet appends in the concluding strophe, both the command to return to the Lord, and the promise that the Lord will raise His smitten nation up again, and quicken them anew with His grace. The separation of these three verses from the preceding one, by the division of the chapters, is at variance with the close connection in the actual contents, which is so perfectly obvious in the allusion made in the words of v. 1, “Come, and let us return,” to those of Hos 5:15, “I will go, and return,” and in ap;r; ãræf; (v. 1) to the similar words in Hos 5:13b and 14. V. 1. “Come, and let us return to Jehovah: for He has torn in pieces, and will heal us; He has smitten, and will bind us up.

Verse 2. He will quicken us after two days; on the third He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.” The majority of commentators, following the example of the Chald. and Septuagint, in which rmæa; , le>gontev , is interpolated before Ëlæy; , have taken the first three verses as an appeal to return to the Lord, addressed by the Israelites in exile to one another.

But it would be more simple, and more in harmony with the general style of Hosea, which is characterized by rapid transitions, to take the words as a call addressed by the prophet in the name of the exile. The promise in v. 3 especially is far more suitable to a summons of this kind, than to an appeal addressed by the people to one another. As the endurance of punishment impels to seek the Lord (Hos 5:15), so the motive to return to the Lord is founded upon the knowledge of the fact that the Lord can, and will, heal the wounds which He inflicts. The preterite târaph, as compared with the future ‘etrooph in Hos 5:14, presupposes that the punishment has already begun. The following hk;n; is also a preterite with the Vav consec. omitted. The Assyrian cannot heal (Hos 5:13); but the Lord, who manifested Himself as Israel’s physician in the time of Moses (Ex 15:26), and promised His people healing in the future also (Deut 32:39), surely can.

The allusion in the word ap;r; to this passage of Deuteronomy, is placed beyond all doubt by v. 2. The words, “He revives after two days,” etc., are merely a special application of the general declaration, “I kill, and make alive” (Deut 32:39), to the particular case in hand. What the Lord there promises to all His people, He will also fulfil upon the ten tribes of Israel.

By the definition “after two days,” and “on the third day,” the speedy and certain revival of Israel is set before them. Two and three days are very short periods of time; and the linking together of two numbers following one upon the other, expresses the certainty of what is to take place within this space of time, just as in the so-called numerical sayings in Amos 1:3; Job 5:19; Prov 6:16; 30:15,18, in which the last and greater number expresses the highest or utmost that is generally met with. µWq , to raise the dead (Job 14:12; Ps 88:11; Isa 26:14,19). “That we may live before Him:” i.e., under His sheltering protection and grace (cf. Gen 17:18). The earlier Jewish and Christian expositors have taken the numbers, “after two days, and on the third day,” chronologically.

The Rabbins consequently suppose the prophecy to refer either to the three captivities, the Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Roman, which has not ended yet; or to the three periods of the temple of Solomon, of that of Zerubbabel, and of the one to be erected by the Messiah. Many of the fathers, on the other hand, and many of the early Lutheran commentators, have found in them a prediction of the death of Christ and His resurrection on the third day. Compare, for example, Calovii Bibl. illustr. ad h. l., where this allusion is defended by a long series of undeniably weak arguments, and where a fierce attack is made, not only upon Calvin, who understood these words as “referring to the liberation of Israel from captivity, and the restoration of the church after two days, i.e., in a very short time;” but also upon Grotius, who found, in addition to the immediate historical allusion to the Israelites, whom God would soon liberate from their death-like misery after their conversion, a foretype, in consequence of a special divine indication, of the time “within which Christ would recover His life, and the church its hope.”

But any direct allusion in the hope here uttered to the death and resurrection of Christ, is proved to be untenable by the simple words and their context. The words primarily hold out nothing more than the quickening of Israel out of its death-like state of rejection from the face of God, and that in a very short period after its conversion to the Lord. This restoration to life cannot indeed be understood as referring to the return of the exiles to their earthly fatherland; or, at all events, it cannot be restricted to this. It does not occur till after the conversion of Israel to the Lord its God, on the ground of faith in the redemption effected through the atoning death of Christ, and His resurrection from the grave; so that the words of the prophet may be applied to this great fact in the history of salvation, but without its being either directly or indirectly predicted. Even the resurrection of the dead is not predicted, but simply the spiritual and moral restoration of Israel to life, which no doubt has for its necessary complement the reawakening of the physically dead. And, in this sense, our passage may be reckoned among the prophetic utterances which contain the germ of the hope of a life after death, as in Isa 26:19-21, and in the vision of Ezekiel in Ezek 37:1-14.

That it did not refer to this in its primary sense, and so far as its historical fulfilment was concerned, is evident from the following verse.

Verse 3. “Let us therefore know, hunt after the knowledge of Jehovah. His rising is fixed like the morning dawn, that He may come to us like the rain, and moisten the earth like the latter rain.” rn [dæy; corresponds to bWv Ëlæy; in v. 1. The object to h[dn is also hwO;hy]Ata, , and h[dn is merely strengthened by the addition of t[æDælæ hp;D]r]ni . The knowledge of Jehovah, which they would hunt after, i.e., strive zealously to obtain, is a practical knowledge, consisting in the fulfilment of the divine commandments, and in growth in the love of God with all the heart. This knowledge produces fruit. The Lord will rise upon Israel like the morning dawn, and come down upon it like fertilizing rain. ax;wOm , His (i.e., Jehovah’s) rising, is to be explained from the figure of the dawn (for ax;y; applied to the rising of the sun, see Gen 19:23 and Ps 19:7).

The dawn is mentioned instead of the sun, as the herald of the dawning day of salvation (compare Isa 58:8 and 60:2). This salvation which dawns when the Lord appears, is represented in the last clause as a shower of rain that fertilizes the land. hr,wOy is hardly a kal participle, but rather the imperfect hiphil in the sense of sprinkling. In Deut 11:14 (cf. 28:12 and Lev 26:4-5), the rain, or the early and latter rain, is mentioned among the blessings which the Lord will bestow upon His people, when they serve Him with all the heart and soul. This promise the Lord will so fulfil in the case of His newly quickened nation, that He Himself will refresh it like a fertilizing rain. This will take place through the Messiah, as Ps 72:6 and 2 Sam 23:4 clearly show.

2. THE RIPENESS OF ISRAEL FOR THE JUDGMENT OF DESTRUCTION

Just as, in the middle section of the first part of our book (Hos 2:2-23), the symbolical announcements of judgment contained in ch. 1 were more fully elaborated and explained; so again, in the second part, after the shorter description of the corruption and culpability of Israel contained in ch. 4, 5, we find in the second or middle section, viz., Hos 6:4-11:11, a longer account both of the religious apostasy and moral corruption which have become so injurious, and also of the judgment about to fall upon the sinful kingdom and people. In this, the condemnation of sin and threatening of punishment follow one another throughout; but in such a way that in this longer exposition the progressive development of these truths is clearly indicated in the fact, that in the first section (Hos 6:4-7:16) the description of the religious and moral degradation of the nation and its princes prevails; in the second (Hos 8:1-9:9) the threatening of judgment comes into the foreground; and in the third (Hos 9:10-11:11) evidence is adduced, how, from time immemorial, Israel has resisted the gracious guidance of God, so that nothing but the compassion of God can preserve it from utter annihilation. Each of these divisions may be subdivided again into three strophes.

THE INCURABLENESS OF THE CORRUPTION HOSEA. 6:4-11

The prophet’s address commences afresh, as in Hos 2:4, without any introduction, with the denunciation of the incurability of the Israelites. Vv. 4-11 form the first strophe. Verse 4. “What shall I do to thee, Ephraim? what shall I do to thee, Judah? for your love is like the morning cloud, and like the dew which quickly passes away.” That this verse is not to be taken in connection with the preceding one, as it has been by Luther (“how shall I do such good to thee?”) and by many of the earlier expositors, is evident from the substance of the verse itself. For ‘âsâh, in the sense of doing good, is neither possible in itself, nor reconcilable with the explanatory clause which follows. The chesed, which is like the morning cloud, cannot be the grace of God; for a morning cloud that quickly vanishes away, is, according to Hos 13:3, a figurative representation of that which is evanescent and perishable. The verse does not contain an answer from Jehovah, “who neither receives nor repels the penitent, because though they love God it is only with fickleness,” as Hitzig supposes; but rather the thought, that God has already tried all kinds of punishment to bring the people back to fidelity to Himself, but all in vain (cf. Isa 1:5-6), because the piety of Israel is as evanescent and transient as a morning cloud, which is dispersed by the rising sun. Judging from the chesed in v. 6, chasdekhem is to be understood as referring to good-will towards other men flowing out of love to God (see at Hos 4:1).

Verse 5. “Therefore have I hewn by the prophets, slain them by the words of my mouth: and my judgment goeth forth as light.” ‘Al-keen, therefore, because your love vanishes again and again, God must perpetually punish. b] bxæj; does not mean to strike in among the prophets (Hitzig, after the LXX, Syr., and others); but b] is instrumental, as in Isa 10:15, and châtsabh signifies to hew, not merely to hew off, but to hew out or carve. The nebhii’iim cannot be false prophets, on account of the parallel “by the words of my mouth,” but must be the true prophets.

Through them God had hewed or carved the nation, or, as Jerome and Luther render it, dolavi, i.e., worked it like a piece of hard wood, in other words, had tried to improve it, and shape it into a holy nation, answering to its true calling. “Slain by the words of my mouth,” which the prophets had spoken; i.e., not merely caused death and destruction to be proclaimed to them, but suspended judgment and death over them-as, for example, by Elijah-since there dwells in the word of God the power to kill and to make alive (compare Isa 11:4; 49:2). The last clause, according to the Masoretic pointing and division of the words, does not yield any appropriate meaning. fp;v]mi could only be the judgments inflicted upon the nation; but neither the singular suffix Ú for µk, (v. 4), nor ax;y; rwOa , with the singular verb under the k simil. omitted before rwOa , suits this explanation. For ax;y; rwOa cannot mean “to go forth to the light;” nor can rwOa stand for rwOa . We must therefore regard the reading expressed by the ancient versions, viz., ax;y; rwOa fp;v]mi , “my judgment goeth forth like light,” as the original one.

My penal judgment went forth like the light (the sun); i.e., the judgment inflicted upon the sinners was so obvious, so conspicuous (clear as the sun), that every one ought to have observed it and laid it to heart (cf. Zeph 3:5). The Masoretic division of the words probably arose simply from an unsuitable reminiscence of Ps 37:6.

The reason why God was obliged to punish in this manner is given in the following verses.

Verse 6, 7. “For I take pleasure in love, and not in sacrifices; and in the knowledge of God more than in burnt-offerings. V. 7. But they have transgressed the covenant like Adam: there have they acted treacherously towards me.” Chesed is love to one’s neighbour, manifesting itself in righteousness, love which has its roots in the knowledge of God, and therefore is connected with “the knowledge of God” here as in Hos 4:1. For the thought itself, compare the remarks on the similar declaration made by the prophet Samuel in 1 Sam 15:22; and for parallels as to the fact, see Isa 1:11-17; Mic 6:8; Ps 40:7-9, and Ps 50:8ff., in all which passages it is not sacrifices in themselves, but simply the heartless sacrifices with which the wicked fancied they could cover their sins, that are here rejected as displeasing to God, and as abominations in His eyes.

This is apparent also from the antithesis in v. 7, viz., the reproof of their transgression of the covenant. µhe (they) are Israel and Judah, not the priests, whose sins are first referred to in v. 9. µd;a; , not “after the manner of men,” or “like ordinary men,”-for this explanation would only be admissible if µhe referred to the priests or prophets, or if a contrast were drawn between the rulers and others, as in Ps 82:7-but “like Adam,” who transgressed the commandment of God, that he should not eat of the tree of knowledge. This command was actually a covenant, which God made with him, since the object of its was the preservation of Adam in vital fellowship with the Lord, as was the case with the covenant that God made with Israel (see Job 31:33, and Delitzsch’s Commentary). The local expression “there,” points to the place where the faithless apostasy had occurred, as in Ps 14:5. This is not more precisely defined, but refers no doubt to Bethel as the scene of the idolatrous worship. There is no foundation for the temporal rendering “then.”

The prophet cites a few examples in proof of this faithlessness in the two following verses.

Verse 8, 9. “Gilead is a city of evil-doers, trodden with blood. And like the lurking of the men of the gangs is the covenant of the priests; along the way they murder even to Sichem: yea, they have committed infamy.” Gilead is not a city, for no such city is mentioned in the Old Testament, and its existence cannot be proved from Judg 12:7 and 10:17, any more than from Gen 31:48-49, but it is the name of a district, as it is everywhere else; and here in all probability it stands, as it very frequently does, for the whole of the land of Israel to the east of the Jordan. Hosea calls Gilead a city of evil-doers, as being a rendezvous for wicked men, to express the thought that the whole land was as full of evil-doers as a city is of men. `bqo[; : a denom. of `bqe[; , a footstep, signifying marked with traces, full of traces of blood, which are certainly not to be understood as referring to idolatrous sacrifices, as Schmieder imagines, but which point to murder and bloodshed. It is quite as arbitrary, however, on the part of Hitzig to connect it with the murder of Zechariah, or a massacre associated with it, as it is on the part of Jerome and others to refer it to the deeds of blood by which Jehu secured the throne. The bloody deeds of Jehu took place in Jezreel and Samaria (2 Kings 9-10), and it was only by a false interpretation of the epithet applied to Shallum, viz., Ben-yâbheesh, as signifying citizens of Jabesh, that Hitzig was able to trace a connection between it and Gilead.

Verse 9-10. In these crimes the priests take the lead. Like highway robbers, they form themselves into gangs for the purpose of robbing travellers and putting them to death. hk;j; , so written instead of hk;j; (Ewald, §16, b), is an irregularly formed infinitive for chakowt (Ewald, §238, e). ‘Ish geduudiim, a man of fighting-bands, i.e., in actual fact a highway robber, who lies in wait for travellers. f19 The company (chebher, gang) of the priests resembled such a man. They murder on the way (derekh, an adverbial accusative) to Sichem. Sichem, a place on Mount Ephraim, between Ebal and Gerizim, the present Nablus (see at Josh 17:7), was set apart as a city of refuge and a Levitical city (Josh 20:7; 21:21); from which the more recent commentators have inferred that priests from Sichem, using the privileges of their city to cover crimes of their own, committed acts of murder, either upon fugitives who were hurrying thither, and whom they put to death at the command of the leading men who were ill-disposed towards them (Ewald), or upon other travellers, either from avarice or simple cruelty. But, apart from the fact that the Levitical cities are here confounded with the priests’ cities (for Sichem was only a Levitical city, and not a priests’ city at all), this conclusion is founded upon the erroneous assumption, that the priests who were taken by Jeroboam from the people generally, had special places of abode assigned them, such as the law had assigned for the Levitical priests.

The way to Sichem is mentioned as a place of murders and bloody deeds, because the road from Samaria the capital, and in fact from the northern part of the kingdom generally, to Bethel the principal place of worship belonging to the kingdom of the ten tribes, lay through this city. Pilgrims to the feasts for the most part took this road; and the priests, who were taken from the dregs of the people, appear to have lain in wait for them, either to rob, or, in case of resistance, to murder. The following yKi carries it still higher, and adds another crime to the murderous deeds. Zimmâh most probably refers to an unnatural crime, as in Lev 18:17; 19:29.

Thus does Israel heap up abomination upon abomination.

Verse 10. “In the house of Israel I saw a horrible thing: there Ephraim practises whoredom: Israel has defiled itself.” The house of Israel is the kingdom of the ten tribes. hr;Wr[væ , a horrible thing, signifies abominations and crimes of every kind. In the second hemistich, zenuuth, i.e., spiritual and literal whoredom, is singled out as the principal sin. Ephraim is not the name of a tribe here, as Simson supposes, but is synonymous with the parallel Israel.

In conclusion, Judah is mentioned again, that it may not regard itself as better or less culpable.

Verse 11. “Also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed for thee, when I turn the imprisonment of my people.” Judah stands at the head as an absolute noun, and is then defined by the following ttæK; ]. The subject to shâth cannot be either Israel or Jehovah.

The first, which Hitzig adopts, “Israel has prepared a harvest for thee,” does not supply a thought at all in harmony with the connection; and the second is precluded by the fact that Jehovah Himself is the speaker. Shâth is used here in a passive sense, as in Job 38:11 (cf. Ges. §137, 3*). ryxiq; , harvest, is a figurative term for the judgment, as in Joel 4:13, Jer. 51:33.

As Judah has sinned as well as Israel, it cannot escape the punishment (cf.

Hos 5:5,14). tWbv] bWv never means to bring back the captives; but in every passage in which it occurs it simply means to turn the captivity, and that in the figurative sense of restitutio in integrum (see at Deut 30:3). ‘Ammii, my people, i.e., the people of Jehovah, is not Israel of the ten tribes, but the covenant nation as a whole.

Consequently shebhuuth ‘ammii is the misery into which Israel (of the twelve tribes) had been brought, through its falling away from God, not the Assyrian or Babylonian exile, but the misery brought about by the sins of the people. God could only avert this by means of judgments, through which the ungodly were destroyed and the penitent converted.

Consequently the following is the thought which we obtain from the verse: “When God shall come to punish, that He may root out ungodliness, and bring back His people to their true destination, Judah will also be visited with the judgment.” We must not only reject the explanation adopted by Rosenmüller, Maurer, and Umbreit, “when Israel shall have received its chastisement, and be once more received and restored by the gracious God, the richly merited punishment shall come upon Judah also,” but that of Schmieder as well, who understands by the “harvest” a harvest of joy.

They are both founded upon the false interpretation of shuubh shebhuuth, as signifying the bringing back of the captives; and in the first there is the arbitrary limitation of ‘ammii to the ten tribes. Our verse says nothing as to the question when and how God will turn the captivity of the people and punish Judah; this must be determined from other passages, which announce the driving into exile of both Israel and Judah, and the eventual restoration of those who are converted to the Lord their God. The complete turning of the captivity of the covenant nation will not take place till Israel as a nation shall be converted to Christ its Saviour. HOSEA 7:1-3 In the first strophe (vv. 1-7) the exposure of the moral depravity of Israel is continued.

Verse 1-3. “When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim, reveals itself, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they practise deceit; and the thief cometh, the troop of robbers plundereth without. And they say not in their heart, I should remember all their wickedness. Now their deeds have surrounded them, they have occurred before my face. They delight the king with their wickedness, and princes with their lies.” As the dangerous nature of a wound is often first brought out by the attempt to heal it, so was the corruption of Israel only brought truly to light by the effort to stem it. The first hemistich of v. 1 is not to be referred to the future, nor is the healing to be understood as signifying punishment, as Hitzig supposes; but the allusion is to the attempts made by God to put a stop to the corruption, partly by the preaching of repentance and the reproofs of the prophets, and partly by chastisements designed to promote reformation.

The words contain no threatening of punishment, but a picture of the moral corruption that had become incurable. Here again Ephraim is not the particular tribe, but is synonymous with Israel, the people or kingdom of the ten tribes; and Samaria is especially mentioned in connection with it, as the capital and principal seat of the corruption of morals, just as Judah and Jerusalem are frequently classed together by the prophets. The lamentation concerning the incurability of the kingdom is followed by an explanatory notice of the sins and crimes that are openly committed. Sheqer, lying, i.e., deception both in word and deed towards God and man, theft and highway robbery and not fear of the vengeance of God. “Accedit ad haec facinora securitas eorum ineffabilis” (Marck). They do not consider that God will remember their evil deeds, and punish them; they are surrounded by them on all sides, and perform them without shame or fear before the face of God Himself. These sins delight both king and prince. To such a depth have even the rulers of the nation, who ought to practise justice and righteousness, fallen, that they not only fail to punish the sins, but take pleasure in their being committed. HOSEA 7:4-7 To this there is added the passion with which the people make themselves slave to idolatry, and their rulers give themselves up to debauchery (vv. 4- 7).

Verse 4-7. “They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker, who leaves off stirring from the kneading of the dough until its leavening. In the day of our king the princes are made sick with the heat of wine: he has stretched out his hand with the scorners. For they have brought their heart into their ambush, as into the oven; the whole night their baker sleeps; in the morning it burns like flaming fire. They are all red-hot like the oven, and consume their judges: all their kings have fallen; none among them calls to me.” “All” (kullâm: v. 4) does not refer to the king and princes, but to the whole nation. ni’eep is spiritual adultery, apostasy from the Lord; and literal adultery is only so far to be thought of, that the worship of Baal promoted licentiousness. In this passionate career the nation resembles a furnace which a baker heats in the evening, and leaves burning all night while the dough is leavening, and then causes to turn with a still brighter flame in the morning, when the dough is ready for baking. hp;a; r[æB; , burning from the baker, i.e., heated by the baker. r[æB; is accentuated as milel, either because the Masoretes took offence at rWNTæ being construed as a feminine (Ges.

Lehrgeb. p. 546; Ewald, Gramm. p. 449, note 1), or because tiphchah could not occupy any other place in the short space between zakeph and athnach (Hitzig). `rW[ , excitare, here in the sense of stirring. On the use of the participle in the place of the infinitive, with verbs of beginning and ending, see Ewald, §298, b.

Verse 5-7. Both king and princes are addicted to debauchery (v. 5). “The day of our king” is either the king’s birthday, or the day when he ascended the throne, on either of which he probably gave a feast to his nobles. µwOy is taken most simply as an adverbial accus. loci. On this particular day the princes drink to such an extent, that they become ill with the heat of the wine. hl;j; , generally to make ill, here to make one’s self ill. Hitzig follows the ancient versions, in deriving it from chll, and taking it as equivalent to hl;j; , “they begin,” which gives a very insipid meaning. The difficult expression lAta, wOdy; Ëvæm; , “he draws his hand with the scoffers,” can hardly be understood in any other way than that suggested by Gesenius (Lex.), “the king goes about with scoffers,” i.e., makes himself familiar with them, so that we may compare `im yaadow shuwt (Ex 23:1).

The scoffers are drunkards, just as in Prov 20:1 wine is directly called a scoffer. In vv. 6, 7, the thought of the fourth verse is carried out still further. yKi introduces the explanation and ground of the simile of the furnace; for v. 5 is subordinate to the main thought, and to be taken as a parenthetical remark. The words from bræq; yKi to bræa; form one sentence. qeereeb is construed with b] loci, as in Judg 19:13; Ps 91:10: they have brought their heart near, brought them into their craftiness. “Like a furnace” rWNTæ ) contains an abridged simile. But it is not their heart itself which is here compared to a furnace (their heart = themselves), in the sense of “burning like a flaming furnace with base desires,” as Gesenius supposes; for the idea of bringing a furnace into an ‘oorebh would be unsuitable and unintelligible. “The furnace is rather ‘orbâm (their ambush), that which they have in common, that which keeps them together; whilst the fuel is libbâm, their own disposition” (Hitzig). Their baker is the machinator doli, who kindles the fire in them, i.e., in actual fact, not some person or other who instigates a conspiracy, but the passion of idolatry. This sleeps through the night, i.e., it only rests till the opportunity and time have arrived for carrying out the evil thoughts of their heart, or until the evil thoughts of the heart have become ripe for execution. This time is described in harmony with the figure, as the morning, in which the furnace burns up into bright flames aWh points to the more remote tannuur as the subject). In v. 7 the figure is carried back to the literal fact. With the words, “they are all hot as a furnace,” the expression in v. 4, “adulterous like a furnace,” is resumed; and now the fruit of this conduct is mentioned, viz., “they devour their judges, cast down their kings.”

By the judges we are not to understand the sâriim of v. 5, who are mentioned along with the king as the supreme guardians of the law; but the kings themselves are intended, as the administrators of justice, as in Hos 13:10, where shoophetiim is also used as synonymous with Ël,m, , and embraces both king and princes. The clause, “all their kings are fallen,” adds no new feature to what precedes, and does not affirm that kings have also fallen in addition to or along with the judges; but it sums up what has been stated already, for the purpose of linking on the remark, that no one calls to the Lord concerning the fall of the kings. The suffix µyrit;a ] does not refer to the fallen kings, but to the nation in its entirety, i.e., to those who have devoured their judges. The thought is this: in the passion with which all are inflamed for idolatry, and with which the princes revel with the kings, they give no such heed to the inevitable consequences of their ungodly conduct, as that any one reflects upon the fall of the kings, or perceives that Israel has forsaken the way which leads to salvation, and is plunging headlong into the abyss of destruction, so as to return to the Lord, who alone can help and save.

The prophet has here the times after Jeroboam II in his mind, when Zechariah was overthrown by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, and Menahem the son of Pekahiah by Pekah, and that in the most rapid succession (2 Kings 15:10,14,25), together with the eleven years’ anarchy between Zechariah and Shallum (see at 2 Kings 15:8-12). At the same time, the expression, “all their kings have fallen,” shows clearly, not only that the words are not to be limited to these events, but embrace all the earlier revolutions, but also and still more clearly, that there is no foundation whatever for the widespread historical interpretation of these verses, as relating to a conspiracy against the then reigning king Zechariah, or Shallum, or Pakahiah, according to which the baker is either Menahem (Hitzig) or Pekah (Schmidt).

HOSEA. 7:8-9

In the next strophe (vv. 8-16) the prophecy passes from the internal corruption of the kingdom of the ten tribes to its worthless foreign policy, and the injurious attitude which it had assumed towards the heathen nations, and unfolds the disastrous consequences of such connections.

Verse 8, 9. “Ephraim, it mixes itself among the nations; Ephraim has become a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; grey hair is also sprinkled upon him, and he knoweth it not.” llæB; , from llæB; , to mix or commingle, is not a future in the sense of “it will be dispersed among the Gentiles;” for, according to the context, the reference is not to the punishment of the dispersion of Israel among the nations, but to the state in which Israel then was. The Lord had separated Israel from the nations, that it might be holy to Him (Lev 20:24,26).

As Balaam said of it, it was to be a people dwelling alone (Num 23:9). But in opposition to this object of its divine calling, the ten tribes had mingled with the nations, i.e., with the heathen, learned their works, and served their idols (cf. Ps 106:35-36). The mingling with the nations consisted in the adoption of heathen ways, not in the penetration of the heathen into Israelitish possessions (Hitzig), nor merely in the alliances which it formed with heathen nations. For these were simply the consequence of inward apostasy from its God, of that inward mixing with the nature of heathenism which had already taken place. Israel had thereby become a cake not turned. `hG;[u , a cake baked upon hot ashes or red-hot stones, which, if it be not turned, is burned at the bottom, and not baked at all above. The meaning of this figure is explained by v. 9. As the fire will burn an ash-cake when it is left unturned, so have foreigners consumed the strength of Israel, partly by devastating wars, and partly by the heathenish nature which has penetrated into Israel in their train. “Greyness is also sprinkled upon it;” i.e., the body politic, represented as one person, is already covered with traces of hoary old age, and is ripening for destruction. The object to [dæy; alo may easily be supplied from the previous clauses, namely, that strangers devour its strength, and it is growing old. The rendering non sapit is precluded by the emphatic aWh , and he knoweth it not, i.e., does not perceive the decay of his strength.

HOSEA. 7:10

“And the pride of Israel beareth witness to his face, and they are not converted to Jehovah their God, and for all this they seek Him not.” The first clause is repeated from Hos 5:5. The testimony which the pride of Israel, i.e., Jehovah, bore to its face, consisted in the weakening and wasting away of the kingdom as described in v. 9. But with all this, they do not turn to the Lord who could save them, but seek help from their natural foes. HOSEA 7:11-12 “And Ephraim has become like a simple dove without understanding; they have called Egypt, they are gone to Asshur.

As they go, I spread my net over them; I bring them down like fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, according to the tidings to their assembly.” The perfects in v. 1 describe the conduct of Israel as an accomplished fact, and this is represented by hy;h; as the necessary consequence of its obstinate impenitence. The point of comparison between Israel and the simple dove, is not that the dove misses its proper dwelling and restingplace, and therefore goes fluttering about (Ewald); nor that, in trying to escape from the hawk, it flies into the net of the bird-catcher (Hitzig); but that when flying about in search of food, it does not observe the net that is spread for it (Rosenmüller). ble ˆyiaæ is to be taken as a predicate to Ephraim in spite of the accents, and not to yoonâh phoothâh (a simple dove), since phoothâh does not require either strengthening or explaining.

Thus does Ephraim seek help from Egypt and Assyria. These words do not refer to the fact that there were two parties in the nation-an Assyrian and an Egyptian. Nor do they mean that the whole nation applied at one time to Egypt to get rid of Asshur, and at another time to Asshur to escape from Egypt. “The situation is rather this: the people being sorely pressed by Asshur, at one time seek help from Egypt against Asshur; whilst at another they try to secure the friendship of the latter” (Hengstenberg, Christology, i. p. 164 transl.). For what threatened Israel was the burden of the “king of princes” (Hos 8:10), i.e., the king of Asshur. And this they tried to avert partly by their coquettish arts (Hos 8:9), and partly by appealing to the help of Egypt; and while doing so, they did not observe that they had fallen into the net of destruction, viz., the power of Assyria. In this net will the Lord entangle them as a punishment. As they go thither, God will spread His net over them like a bird-catcher, and bring them down to the earth like flying birds, i.e., bring them down from the open air, that is to say, from freedom, into the net of captivity, or exile. rsæy; , a rare hiphil formation with Yod mobile, as in Prov 4:25 (see Ewald, §131, c). “According to the tidings (announcement) to their assembly:” i.e., in accordance with the threatening already contained in the law (Lev 26:14ff.; Deut 28:15ff.), and repeatedly uttered to the congregation by the prophets, of the judgments that should fall upon the rebellious, which threatening would now be fulfilled upon Ephraim.

HOSEA. 7:13-14

“Woe to them! for they have flown from me; devastation to them! for they have fallen away from me. I would redeem them, but they speak lies concerning me. They did not cry to me in their heart, but howl upon their beds; they crowd together for corn and new wine, and depart against me.” The Lord, thinking of the chastisement, exclaims, Woe to them, because they have fled from Him! Nâdad, which is applied to the flying of birds, points back to the figures employed in vv. 11, 12. Shood, used as an exclamation, gives the literal explanation of ‘ooi (woe). The imperfect ‘ephdeem cannot be taken as referring to the redemption out of Egypt, because it does not stand for the preterite. It is rather voluntative or optative. “I would (should like to) redeem them (still); but they say I cannot and will not do it.” These are the lies which they utter concerning Jehovah, partly with their mouths and partly by their actions, namely, in the fact that they do not seek help from Him, as is explained in v. 14. They cry to the Lord; yet it does not come from the heart, but yKi after alo ) they howl llæy; , cf. Ges. §70, 2, note) upon their beds, in unbelieving despair at the distress that has come upon them. What follows points to this.

Hithgooreer, to assemble, to crowd together (Ps 56:7; 59:4; Isa 54:15); here to gather in troops or crowd together for corn and new wine, because their only desire is to fill their belly. Thus they depart from God. The construction of rWs with b] , instead of with ˆmi or rjæaæ , is a pregnant one: to depart and turn against God.

HOSEA 7:15,16 Yet Jehovah has done still more for Israel.

Verse 15, 16. “And I have instructed, have strengthened their arms, and they think evil against me. They turn, but not upwards: they have become like a false bow. Their princes will fall by the sword, for the defiance of their tongue: this is their derision in the land of Egypt.” rsæy; here is not to chastise, but to instruct, so that [æwOrz] (their arms) is to be taken as the object to both verbs. Instructing the arms, according to the analogy of Ps 18:35, is equivalent to showing where and how strength is to be acquired. And the Lord has not contented Himself with merely instructing. He has also strengthened their arms, and given them power to fight, and victory over their foes (cf. 2 Kings 14:25-26). And yet they think evil of Him; not by speaking lies (v. 13), but by falling away from Him, by their idolatrous calf-worship, by which they rob the Lord of the glory due to Him alone, practically denying His true divinity.

This attitude towards the Lord is summed up in two allegorical sentences in v. 16, and the ruin of their princes is foretold. They turn, or turn round, but not upwards `l[æ , an adverb, or a substantive signifying height, as in Hos 11:7; 2 Sam 23:1, not “the Most High,” i.e., God, although turning upwards is actually turning to God). From the fact that with all their turning about they do not turn upwards, they have become like a treacherous bow, the string of which has lost its elasticity, so that the arrows do not hit the mark (cf. Ps 78:57). And thus Israel also fails to reach its destination. Therefore its princes shall fall. The princes are mentioned as the originators of the enmity against God, and all the misery into which they have plunged the people and kingdom. µ[æzæ , fury, here defiance or rage. Defiance of tongue the princes showed in the lies which they uttered concerning Jehovah (v. 13), and with which they blasphemed in a daring manner the omnipotence and faithfulness of the Lord. hzO stands, according to a dialectical difference in the mode of pronunciation, for hz, , not for tazO (Ewald, §183, a). This, namely their falling by the sword, will be for a derision to them in the land of Egypt: not because they will fall in Egypt, or perish by the sword of the Egyptians; but because they put their trust in Egypt, the derision of Egypt will come upon them when they are overthrown (cf. Isa 30:3,5).

THE JUDGMENT CONSEQUENT UPON APOSTASY The coming judgment, viz., the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, is predicted in three strophes, containing a fresh enumeration of the sins of Israel (Hos 8:1-7), a reference to the fall of the kingdom, which is already about to commence (vv. 8-14), and a warning against false security (Hos 9:1-9).

HOSEA. 8:1-7

The prophecy rises with a vigorous swing, as in Hos 5:8, to the prediction of judgment.

Verse 1. “The trumpet to thy mouth! Like an eagle upon the house of Jehovah! Because they transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law. To me will they cry: My God, we know Thee, we Israel!” The first sentence of v. 1 is an exclamation, and therefore has no verb. The summons issues from Jehovah, as the suffixes in the last sentences show, and is addressed to the prophet, who is to blow the trumpet, as the herald of Jehovah, and give the people tidings of the approaching judgment (see at Hos 5:8). The second sentence gives the alarming message to be delivered: like an eagle comes the foe, or the judgment upon the house of Jehovah. The simile of the eagle, that shoots down upon its prey with the rapidity of lightning, points back to the threat of Moses in Deut 28:49. The “house of Jehovah” is neither the temple at Jerusalem (Jerome, Theod., Cyr.), the introduction of which here would be at variance with the context; nor the principal temple of Samaria, with the fall of which the whole kingdom would be ruined (Ewald, Sim.), since the temples erected for the calf-worship at Dan and Bethel are called Beeth bâmooth, not Beeth Yehoovâh; nor even the land of Jehovah, either here or at Hos 9:15 (Hitzig), for a land is not a house; but Israel was the house of Jehovah, as being a portion of the congregation of the Lord, as in Hos 9:15; Num 12:7; Jer 12:7; Zech 9:8; cf. oi>kov Qeou> in Heb 3:6 and 1 Tim 3:15. The occasion of the judgment was the transgression of the covenant and law of the Lord, which is more particularly described in v. 4. In this distress they will call for help to Jehovah: “My God (i.e., each individual will utter this cry), we know Thee?” Israel is in apposition to the subject implied in the verb. They know Jehovah, so far as He has revealed Himself to the whole nation of Israel; and the name Israel is in itself a proof that they belong to the people of God.

But this knowledge of God, regarded simply as a historical acquaintance with Him, cannot possibly bring salvation.

Verse 3. “Israel dislikes good; let the enemy pursue it.” This is the answer that God will give to those who cry to Him. bwOf denotes neither “Jehovah as the highest good” (Jerome) or as “the good One” (Sims.), nor “the good law of God” (Schmieder), but the good or salvation which Jehovah has guaranteed to the nation through His covenant of grace, and which He bestowed upon those who kept His covenant.

Because Israel has despised this good, let the enemy pursue it.

Verse 4. The proof of Israel’s renunciation of its God is to be found in the facts mentioned in v. 4. “They have set up kings, but not from me, have set up princes, and I know it not: their silver and their gold they have made into idols, that it may be cut off.” The setting up of kings and princes, not from Jehovah, and without His knowledge, i.e., without His having been asked, refers chiefly to the founding of the kingdom by Jeroboam I. It is not to be restricted to this, however, but includes at the same time the obstinate persistence of Israel in this ungodly attitude on all future occasions, when there was either a change or usurpation of the government. And the fact that not only did the prophet Ahijah foretel to Jeroboam I that he would rule over the ten tribes (1 Kings 11:30ff.), but Jehu was anointed king over Israel by Elisha’s command (2 Kings 9), and therefore both of them received the kingdom by the express will of Jehovah, is not at variance with this, so as to require the solution that we have a different view here from that which prevails in the books of Kingsnamely, one which sprang out of the repeated changes of government and anarchies in this kingdom (Simson).

For neither the divine promise of the throne, nor the anointing performed by the command of God, warranted their forcibly seizing upon the government-a crime of which both Jeroboam and Jehu rendered themselves guilty. The way in which both of them paved the way to the throne was not in accordance with the will of God, but was most ungodly (see at 1 Kings 11:40). Jeroboam was already planning a revolt against Solomon (1 Kings 11:27), and led the gathering of the ten tribes when they fell away from the house of David 91 Kings 12:2ff.). Of Jehu, again, it is expressly stated in Kings 9:14, that he conspired against Joram. And the other usurpers, just like the two already named, opened the way to the throne by means of conspiracies, whilst the people not only rebelled against the rightful heir to the throne at Solomon’s death, from pure dislike to the royal house of David, which had been appointed by God, and made Jeroboam king, but expressed their approval of all subsequent conspiracies as soon as they have been successful. This did not come from Jehovah, but was a rebellion against Him-a transgression of His covenant. To this must be added the further sin, viz., the setting up of the idolatrous calf-worship on the part of Jeroboam, to which all the kings of Israel adhered. It was in connection with this, that the application of the silver and gold to idols, by which Israel completely renounced the law of Jehovah, had taken place. It is true that silver was not used in the construction of the golden calves; but it was employed in the maintenance of their worship. træK; ˆ[æmæ : that it (the gold and silver) may be destroyed, as more fully stated in v. 6. ˆ[æmæ describes the consequence of this conduct, which, though not designed, was nevertheless inevitable, as if it had been distinctly intended.

Verse 5-6. “Thy calf disgusts, O Samaria; my wrath is kindled against them: how long are they incapable of purity. For this also is from Israel: a workman made it, and it is not God; but the calf of Samaria will become splinters.” Zânach (disgusts) points back to v. 3. As Israel felt disgust at what was good, so did Jehovah at the golden calf of Samaria. It is true that zânach is used here intransitively in the sense of smelling badly, or being loathsome; but this does not alter the meaning, which is obvious enough from the context, namely, that it is Jehovah whom the calf disgusts. The calf of Samaria is not a golden calf set up in the city of Samaria; as there is no allusion in history to any such calf as this. Samaria is simply mentioned in the place of the kingdom, and the calf is the one that was set up at Bethel, the most celebrated place of worship in the kingdom, which is also the only one mentioned in Hos 10:5,15.

On account of this calf the wrath of Jehovah is kindled against the Israelites, who worship this calf, and cannot desist. This is the thought of the question expressing disgust at these abominations. How long are they incapable of ˆwOyQ;ni , i.e., purity of walk before the Lord, instead of the abominations of idolatry (cf. Jer 19:4); not “freedom from punishment,” as Hitzig supposes. To lkoy; alo , “they are unable,” we may easily supply “to bear,” as in Isa 1:14 and Ps 101:5. “For” (kii, v. 6) follows as an explanation of the main clause in v. 5, “Thy calf disgusts.” The calf of Samaria is an abomination to the Lord, for it is also out of Israel (Israel’s God out of Israel itself!); a workman made it-what folly! aWh is a predicate, brought out with greater emphasis by w, et quidem, in the sense of iste. Therefore will it be destroyed like the golden calf at Sinai, which was burnt and ground to powder (Ex 32:20; Deut 9:21). The aJ>p leg bb;v; , from Arab. sabb, to cut, signifies ruins or splinters.

This will Israel reap from its ungodly conduct.

Verse 7. “For they sow wind, and reap tempest: it has no stalks; shoot brings no fruit; and even if it brought it, foreigners would devour it.” With this figure, which is so frequently and so variously used (cf. Hos 10:13; 12:2; Job 4:8; Prov 22:8), the threat is accounted for by a general thought taken from life. The harvest answers to the sowing (cf. Gal 6:7-8).

Out of the wind comes tempest. Wind is a figurative representation of human exertions; the tempest, of destruction. Instead of ruuach we have ˆw,a; , `lm;[; , `lw,[, (nothingness, weariness, wickedness) in Hos 10:13; Job 4:8, and Prov 22:8. In the second hemistich the figure is carried out still further. µWq , “seed standing upon the stalk,” is not to it (viz., that which has been sowed). Tsemach brings no qemach,-a play upon the words, answering to our shoot and fruit. Qemach: generally meal, here probably the grain-bearing ear, from which the meal is obtained. But even if the shoot, when grown, should yield some meal, strangers, i.e., foreigners, would consume it. In these words not only are the people threatened with failure of the crop; but the failure and worthlessness of all that they do are here predicted. Not only the corn of Israel, but Israel itself, will be swallowed up.

HOSEA. 8:8

With this thought the still further threatening of judgment in the next strophe is introduced.

Verse 8. “Israel is swallowed up; now are they among the nations like a vessel, with which there is no satisfaction.” The advance in the threat of punishment lies less in the extension of the thought, that not only the fruit of the field, but the whole nation, will be swallowed up by foes, than in the perfect [læB; , which indicates that the time of the ripening of the evil seeds has already begun (Jerome, Simson). hy;h; `hT;[æ , now already have they become among the nations like a despised vessel, which men cast away as useless (cf. Jer 22:28; 48:38).

This lot have they prepared for themselves. HOSEA 8:9-10 “For they went up to Asshur; wild ass goes alone by itself; Ephraim sued for loves. Yea, though they sue among the nations, now will I gather them, and they will begin to diminish on account of the burden of the king of the princes.” Going to Assyria is defined still further in the third clause as suing for loves, i.e., for the favour and help of the Assyrians. The folly of this suing is shown in the clause, “wild ass goes by itself alone,” the meaning and object of which have been quite mistaken by those who supply a k] simil.

For neither by connecting it with the preceding words thus, “Israel went to Asshur, like a stubborn ass going by itself” (Ewald), nor by attaching to it those which follow, “like a wild ass going alone, Ephraim sued for loves,” do we get any suitable point of comparison. The thought is rather this: whilst even a wild ass, that stupid animal, keeps by itself to maintain its independence, Ephraim tries to form unnatural alliances with the nations of the world, that is to say, alliances that are quite incompatible with its vocation.

Hithnâh, from tânâh, probably a denom. of ‘ethnâh (see at Hos 2:14), to give the reward of prostitution, here in the sense of bargaining for amours, or endeavouring to secure them by presents. The kal yithnuu has the same meaning in v. 10. The word xbæq; , to which different renderings have been given, can only have a threatening or punitive sense here; and the suffix cannot refer to ywOG, but only to the subject contained in yithnu, viz., the Ephraimites. The Lord will bring them together, sc. among the nations, i.e., bring them all thither. xBeqi is used in a similar sense in Hos 9:6. The more precise definition is added in the next clause, in the difficult expression f[æm] llæj; , in which llæj; may be taken most safely in the sense of “beginning,” as in Judg 20:31; 2 Chron 29:17, and Ezek 9:6, in all of which this form occurs, and mf as an adject. verb., connected with llæj; like the adjective hh,Ke in 1 Sam 3:2: “They begin to be, or become, less (i.e., fewer), on account of the burden of the king of princes,” i.e., under the oppression which they will suffer from the king of Assyria, not by war taxes or deportation, but when carried away into exile. rcæ Ël,m, = Ël,m, Ël,m, is a term applied to the great Assyrian king, who boasted, according to Isa 10:8, that his princes were all kings. HOSEA 8:11-12 This threat is accounted for in vv. 11ff., by an allusion to the sins of Israel.

Verse 11, 12. “For Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, the altars have become to him for sinning. I wrote to him the fulnesses of my law; they were counted as a strange thing.” Israel was to have only one altar, and that in the place where the Lord would reveal His name (Deut 12:5ff.). But instead of that, Ephraim had built a number of altars in different places, to multiply the sin of idolatry, and thereby heap more and more guilt upon itself. af;j; is used, in the first clause, for the act of sin; and in the second, for the consequences of that act. And this was not done from ignorance of the divine will, but from neglect of the divine commandments. bwOf is a historical present, indicating that what had occurred was continuing still. These words refer unquestionably to the great number of the laws written in the Mosaic thorah. hb;r; , according to the chethib wOBr] , with t dropped, equivalent to hb;b;r] , as in 1 Chron 29:7, ten thousand, myriads. The Masoretes, who supposed the number to be used in an arithmetical sense, altered it, as conjecturally unsuitable, into rubeey, multitudes, although bro does not occur anywhere else in the plural. The expression “the myriads of my law” is hyperbolical, to indicate the almost innumerable multitude of the different commandments contained in the law. It was also in a misapprehension of the nature of the hyperbole that the supposition originated, that bwOf was a hypothetical future (Jerome). rWz wOmK] , like something foreign, which does not concern them at all.

HOSEA. 8:13-14

“Slain-offerings for gifts they sacrifice; flesh, and eat: Jehovah has no pleasure in them: now will He remember their transgression, and visit their sins: they will return to Egypt. And Israel forgot its Creator, and built palaces: and Judah multiplied fortified cities: and I shall send fire into its cities, and it will devour its castles.” With the multiplication of the altars they increased the number of the sacrifices. bh;b]hæ is a noun in the plural with the suffix, and is formed from yhb by reduplication. The slain- offerings of my sacrificial gifts, equivalent to the gifts of slain-offerings presented to me continually, they sacrifice as flesh, and eat it; that is to say, they are nothing more than flesh, which they slay and eat, and not sacrifices in which Jehovah takes delight, or which could expiate their sins. Therefore the Lord will punish their sins; they will return to Egypt, i.e., be driven away into the land of bondage, out of which God once redeemed His people. These words are simply a special application of the threat, held out by Moses in Deut 28:68, to the degenerate ten tribes. Egypt is merely a type of the land of bondage, as in Hos 9:3,6. In v. 14 the sin of Israel is traced back to its root. This is forgetfulness of God, and deification of their own power, and manifests itself in the erection of lk;yhe , palaces, not idolatrous temples. Judah also makes itself partaker of this sin, by multiplying the fortified cities, and placing its confidence in fortifications. These castles of false security the Lord will destroy. The ‘armânooth answer to the heekhâloth. The suffixes attached to `ry[i and ˆwOmr]aæ refer to both kingdoms: the masculine suffix to Israel and Judah, as a people; the feminine to the two as a land, as in Lam 2:5.

HOSEA. 9:1-2

Warning against false security.

The earthly prosperity of the people and kingdom was no security against destruction. Because Israel had fallen away from its God, it should not enjoy the blessing of its field-produce, but should be carried away to Assyria, where it would be unable to keep any joyful feasts at all.

Verse 1, 2. “Rejoice not, O Israel, to exult like the nations: for thou hast committed whoredom against thy God: hast loved the wages of whoredom upon all corn-floors. The threshing-floor and press will not feed them, and the new wine will deceive it.” The rejoicing to which Israel was not to give itself up was, according to v. 2, rejoicing at a plentiful harvest. All nations rejoiced, and still rejoice, at this (cf. Isa 9:2), because they regard the blessing of harvest as a sign and pledge of the favour and grace of God, which summon them to gratitude towards the giver.

Now, when the heathen nations ascribed their fights to their gods, and in their way thanked them for them, they did this in the ignorance of their heart, without being specially guilty on that account, since they lived in the world without the light of divine revelation. But when Israel rejoiced in a heathenish way at the blessing of its harvest, and attributed this blessing to the Baals (see Hos 2:7), the Lord could not leave this denial of His gracious benefits unpunished. ‘el-giyl belongs to jmæc; , heightening the idea of joy, as in Job 3:22. hn;z; yKi does not give the object of the joy (“that thou hast committed whoredom:” Ewald and others), but the reason why Israel was not to rejoice over its harvests, namely, because it had become unfaithful to its God, and had fallen into idolatry. `l[æ hn;z; , to commit whoredom out beyond God (by going away from Him). The words, “thou lovest the wages of whoredom upon all corn-floors,” are to be understood, according to Hos 2:7,14, as signifying that Israel would not regard the harvest-blessing upon its corn-floors as gifts of the goodness of its God, but as presents from the Baals, for which it had to serve them with still greater zeal.

There is no ground for thinking of any peculiar form of idolatry connected with the corn-floors. Because of this the Lord would take away from them the produce of the floor and press, namely, according to v. 3, by banishing the people out of the land. Floor and press will not feed them, i.e., will not nourish or satisfy them. The floor and press are mentioned in the place of their contents, or what they yield, viz., for corn and oil, as in 2 Kings 6:27.

By the press we must understand the oil-presses (cf. Joel 2:24), because the new wine is afterwards specially mentioned, and corn, new wine, and oil are connected together in Hosea 2:10,24. The suffix (HSN-871a )] refers to the people regarded as a community.

HOSEA. 9:3-4

“They will not remain in the land of Jehovah: Ephraim returns to Egypt, and they will eat unclean things in the land of Asshur. They will not pour out wine to Jehovah, and their slain-offerings will not please Him: like bread of mourning are they to Him; all who eat it become unclean: for their bread is for themselves, it does not come into the house of Jehovah.” Because they have fallen away from Jehovah, He will drive them out of His land. The driving away is described as a return to Egypt, as in Hos 8:13; but Asshur is mentioned immediately afterwards as the actual land of banishment. That this threat is not to be understood as implying that they will be carried away to Egypt as well as to Assyria, but that Egypt is referred to here and in v. 6, just as in Hos 8:13, simply as a type of the land of captivity, so that Assyria is represented as a new Egypt, may be clearly seen from the words themselves, in which eating unclean bread in Assyria is mentioned as the direct consequence of their return to Egypt; whereas neither here nor in v. 6 is their being carried away to Assyria mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, in v. 6, Egypt only is introduced as the place where they are to find their grave.

This is still more evident from the fact that Hosea throughout speaks of Asshur alone, as the rod of the wrath of God for His rebellious people. The king of Asshur is king Jareb (striver), to whom Ephraim goes for help, and by whom it will be put to shame (Hos 5:13; 10:6); and it is from the Assyrian king Salman that devastation and destruction proceed (Hos 10:14). And, lastly, it is expressly stated in ch. 11:5, that Israel will not return to Egypt, but to Asshur, who will be its king. By the allusion to Egypt, therefore, the carrying away to Assyria is simply represented as a state of bondage and oppression, resembling the sojourn of Israel in Egypt in the olden time, or else the threat contained in Deut 28:68 is simply transferred to Ephraim. They will eat unclean things in Assyria, not only inasmuch as when, under the oppression of their heathen rulers, they will not be able to observe the laws of food laid down in the law, or will be obliged to eat unclean things from simple want and misery; but also inasmuch as all food, which was not sanctified to the Lord by the presentation of the first-fruits, was unclean food to Israel (Hengstenberg).

In Assyria these offerings would cease with the whole of the sacrificial ritual; and the food which was clean in itself would thereby become unclean outside the land of Jehovah (cf. Ezek 4:13). This explanation of amef; is required by v. 4, in which a further reason is assigned for the threat. For what we have there is not a description of the present attitude of Israel towards Jehovah, but a picture of the miserable condition of the people in exile. The verbs are pure futures. In Assyria they will neither be able to offer wine to the Lord as a drink-offering, nor such slain-offerings as we well-pleasing to Him. For Israel could only offer sacrifices to its God at the place where He made known His name by revelation, and therefore not in exile, where He had withdrawn His gracious presence from it. The drink-offerings are mentioned, as pars pro toto, in the place of all the meatofferings and drink-offerings, i.e., of the bloodless gifts, which were connected with the zebhâchiim, or burnt-offerings and thank-offerings (shelâmiim, Num 15:2-15,28-29), and could never be omitted when the first-fruits were offered (Lev 23:13,18). “Their sacrifices:” zibhcheehem belongs to wOlAWbr][,y, (shall be pleasing to Him), notwithstanding the previous segholta, because otherwise the subject to y`rbw would be wanting, and there is evidently quite as little ground for supplying Ës,n, from the preceding clause, as Hitzig proposes, as for assuming that `bræ[; here means to mix. Again, we must not infer from the words, “their slain-offerings will not please Him,” that the Israelites offered sacrifices when in exile. The meaning is simply that the sacrifices, which they might wish to offer to Jehovah there, would not be well-pleasing to Him. We must not repeat µhyjbz as the subject to the next clause ttæK; (HSN-3899), in the sense of “their sacrifices will be to them like mourners’ bread,” which would give no suitable meaning; for though the sacrifices are called bread of God, they are never called the bread of men.

The subject may be supplied very readily from kelechem (like bread) thus: their bread, or food, would be to them like mourners’ bread; and the correctness of this is proved by the explanatory clause, “for their bread,” etc. Lechem ‘ooniim, bread of affliction, i.e., of those who mourn for the dead (cf. Deut 26:14), in other words, the bread eaten at funeral meals.

This was regarded as unclean, because the corpse defiled the house, and all who came in contact with it, for seven days (Num 19:14). Their bread would resemble bread of this kind, because it had not been sanctified by the offering of the first-fruits. “For their bread will not come into the house of Jehovah,” viz., to be sanctified, “for their souls,” i.e., to serve for the preservation of their life.

HOSEA. 9:5-6

Their misery will be felt still more keenly on the feast-days.

Verse 5, 6. “What will ye do on the day of the festival, and on the day of the feast of Jehovah? For behold they have gone away because of the desolation: Egypt will gather them together, Memphis bury them: their valuables in silver, thistles will receive them; thorns in their tents.” As the temple and ritual will both be wanting in their exile, they will be unable to observe any of the feasts of the Lord. No such difference can be shown to exist between yoom moo’eed and yoom chag Yehoovâh, as would permit of our referring moo’eed to feasts of a different kind from chag. In Lev 23, all the feasts recurring at a fixed period, on which holy meetings were held, including the Sabbath, are called hwO;hy] yde[\wOm ; and even though the three feasts at which Israel was to appear before the Lord, viz., the passover, pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles, are described as chaggiim in Ex 34:18ff., every other joyous festival is also called a chag (Ex 32:5; Judg 21:19).

It is therefore just as arbitrary on the part of Grotius and Rosenmüller to understand by moo’eed the three yearly pilgrim-festivals, and by chag Yehoovâh all the rest of the feasts, including the new moon, as it is on the part of Simson to restrict the last expression to the great harvest-feast, i.e., the feast of tabernacles (Lev 23:39,41). The two words are synonymous, but they are so arranged that by chag the idea of joy is brought into greater prominence, and the feast-day is thereby designated as a day of holy joy before Jehovah; whereas moo’eed simply expresses the idea of a feast established by the Lord, and sanctified to Him (see at Lev 23:2). By the addition of the chag Yehoovâh, therefore, greater emphasis is given to the thought, viz., that along with the feasts themselves all festal joy will also vanish. The perfect Ëlæy; (v. 6) may be explained from the fact, that the prophet saw in spirit the people already banished from the land of the Lord. Ëlæy; , to go away out of the land.

Egypt is mentioned as the place of banishment, in the same sense as in v. 3.

There will they all find their graves. xBeqi in combination with rBeqi is the gathering together of the dead for a common burial, like ãsæa; in Ezek 29:5; Jer 8:2; 25:33. ãmo , or ãnO, as in Isa 19:13; Jer 2:16; 44:1; Ezek 30:13,16, probably contracted from ãnOm] , answers rather to the Coptic Membe, Memphe, than to the old Egyptian Men-nefr, i.e., mansio bona, the profane name of the city of Memphis, the ancient capital of Lower Egypt, the ruins of which are to be seen on the western bank of the Nile, to the south of Old Cairo. The sacred name of this city was Ha-ka-ptah, i.e., house of the worship of Phtah (see Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften, i. pp. 234- 5). In their own land thorns and thistles would take the place of silver valuables. The suffix attached to vræy; refers, ad sensum, to the collective ãs,K, dm;j]mæ , the valuables in silver. These are not “silver idols,” as Hitzig imagines, but houses ornamented and filled with the precious metal, as lh,ao in the parallel clause clearly shows. The growth of thorns and thistles presupposes the utter desolation of the abodes of men (Isa 34:13).

HOSEA. 9:7-9

“The days of visitation are come, the days of retribution are come; Israel will learn: a fool the prophet, a madman the man of spirit, for the greatness of thy guilt, and the great enmity. A spy is Ephraim with my God: the prophet a snare of the bird-catcher in all his ways, enmity in the house of his God. They have acted most corruptly, as in the days of Gibeah: He remembers their iniquity, visits their sins.” The perfects in v. 7 are prophetic. The time of visitation and retribution is approaching. Then will Israel learn that its prophets, who only predicted prosperity and good (Ezek 13:10), were infatuated fools. wgw lywia’ introduces, without kii, what Israel will experience, as in Hos 7:2; Amos 5:12. It does not follow, from the use of the expression ‘iish ruuach, that the reference is to true prophets. ‘Ish ruuach (a man of spirit) is synonymous with the ‘iish hooleekh ruuach (a man walking in the spirit) mentioned in Mic 2:11 as prophesying lies, and may be explained from the fact, that even the false prophets stood under the influence of a superior demoniacal power, and were inspired by a ruuach sheqer (“a lying spirit,” Kings 22:22).

The words which follow, viz., “a fool is the prophet,” etc., which cannot possibly mean, that men have treated, despised, and persecuted the prophets as fools and madmen, are a decisive proof that the expression does not refer to true prophets. `ˆwO[; bro `l[æ is attached to the principal clauses, awOB. The punishment and retribution occur because of the greatness of the guilt of Israel. In bræ the preposition `l[æ continues in force, but as a conjunction: “and because the enmity is great” (cf. Ewald, §351, a). Masteemâh, enmity, not merely against their fellow-men generally, but principally against God and His servants the true prophets.

This is sustained by facts in v. 8. The first clause, which is a difficult one and has been interpreted in very different ways, “spying is Ephraim µyhila’ `µ[i ” (with or by my God), cannot contain the thought that Ephraim, the tribe, is, according to its true vocation, a watchman for the rest of the people, whose duty it is to stand with the Lord upon the watch-tower and warn Israel when the Lord threatens punishment and judgment (Jerome, Schmidt); for the idea of a prophet standing with Jehovah upon a watchtower is not only quite foreign to the Old Testament, but irreconcilable with the relation in which the prophets stood to Jehovah. The Lord did indeed appoint prophets as watchmen to His people (Ezek 3:17); but He does take His own stand upon the watch-tower with them.

Tsâphâh in this connection, where prophets are spoken of both before and after, can only denote the eager watching on the part of the prophets for divine revelations, as in Hab 2:1, and not their looking out for help; and µyhila’ `µ[i cannot express their fellowship or agreement with God, if only on account of the suffix “my God,” in which Hosea contrasts the true God as His own, with the God of the people. The thought indicated would require µyhila’ , a reading which is indeed met with in some codices, but is only a worthless conjecture. `µ[i denotes outward fellowship here: “with” = by the side of. Israel looks out for prophecies or divine revelations with the God of the prophet, i.e., at the side of Jehovah; in other words, it does not follow or trust its own prophets, who are not inspired by Jehovah. These are like snares of a bird-catcher in its road, i.e., they cast the people headlong into destruction. aybin; stands at the head, both collectively and absolutely.

In all its ways there is the trap of the bird-catcher: i.e., all its projects and all that it does will only tend to ensnare the people. Hostility to Jehovah and His servants the true prophets, is in the house of the God of the Israelites, i.e., in the temple erected for the calf-worship; a fact of which Amos (Amos 7:10-17) furnishes a practical example. Israel has thereby fallen as deeply into abomination and sins as in the days of Gibeah, i.e., as at the time when the abominable conduct of the men of Gibeah in connection with the concubine of a Levite took place, as related in Judg. 19ff., in consequence of which the tribe of Benjamin was almost exterminated. The same depravity on the part of Israel will be equally punished by the Lord now (cf. Hos 8:13). THE DEGENERACY OF ISRAEL, AND RUIN OF ITS KINGDOM In this section the arrangement of the contents in strophes becomes very apparent. Three times (viz., Hos 9:10; 10:1, and 11:1) does the prophet revert to the early days of Israel, and show how Israel has been unfaithful to its divine calling, and from time immemorial has responded to all the manifestations of the love and grace of God by apostasy and idolatry, so that the Lord is obliged to punish the degenerate and obstinate nation with banishment into exile and the destruction of the kingdom. Nevertheless, as the Holy One, and for the sake of His own unchangeable covenant faithfulness, He will not utterly eradicate it.

HOSEA. 9:10-17

Verse 10. “I found Israel like grapes in the desert, I saw your fathers like early fruit on the fig-tree in the first shooting; but they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to shame, and became abominations like their lover.” Grapes in the desert and early figs are pleasant choice fruits to whoever finds them. This figure therefore indicates the peculiar pleasure which Jehovah found in the people of Israel when He led them out of Egypt, or the great worth which they had in His eyes when He chose them for the people of His possession, and concluded a covenant with them at Sinai (Theod., Cyr.). Bammidbâr (in the desert) belongs, so far as its position is concerned, to ‘anâbhiim: grapes in the dry, barren desert, where you do not expect to find such refreshing fruit; but, so far as the fact is concerned, it also refers to the place in which Israel was thus found by God, since you can only find fruit in the desert when you are there yourself.

The words, moreover, evidently refer to Deut 32:10 (“I found him Israel in the wilderness,” etc.), and point implicite to the helpless condition in which Israel was when God first adopted it. The suffix to beree’shiithâh (at her beginning) refers to ˆaeT] , the first-fruit, which the fig-tree bears in its first time, at the first shooting. But Israel no longer answered to the good pleasure of God. They came to Baal-peor. rwO[P] l[æBæ without the preposition lae is not the idol of that name, but the place where it was worshipped, which was properly called Beth-peor or Peor (see at Num 23:28 and 25:3). rzæn; is chosen instead of dmex;yi (Num 23:3,5), to show that Israel ought to have consecrated itself to Jehovah, to have been the nazir of Jehovah. Boosheth (shame) is the name given to the idol of Baalpeor (cf. Jer 3:24), the worship of which was a shame to Israel. ‘Ohabh, the paramour, is also Baal-peor. Of all the different rebellions on the part of Israel against Jehovah, the prophet singles out only the idolatry with Baal-peor, because the principal sin of the ten tribes was Baal-worship in its coarser or more refined forms.

It is very evident that this is what he has in his mind, and that he regards the apostasy of the ten tribes as merely a continuation of that particular idolatry, from the punishment which is announced in vv. 11, 12, as about to fall upon Ephraim in consequence.

Verse 11, 12. “Ephraim, its glory will fly away like a bird; no birth, and no pregnancy, and no conception. Yea, though they bring up their sons, I make them bereft, without a man; for woe to them when I depart from them!” The glory which God gave to His people through great multiplication, shall vanish away. The licentious worship of luxury will be punished by the diminution of the numbers of the people, by childlessness, and the destruction of the youth that may have grown up. dlæy; , so that there shall be no bearing. ˆf,B, , the womb, for pregnancy or the fruit of the womb.

Even (kii emphatic) if the sons (the children) grow up, God will make them bereft, µd;a; , so that there shall be no men there. The grown-up sons shall be swept away by death, by the sword (cf. Deut 32:25). The last clause gives the reason for the punishment threatened. µGæ adds force; it usually stands at the head of the sentence, and here belongs to ttæK; ]: Yea, woe to them, if I depart from them, or withdraw my favour from them! rWc stands for rWs , according to the interchangeableness of s and c (Aquila and Vulg.). This view has more to support it than the supposition that rWc is an error of the pen for rWv (Ewald, Hitzig, etc.), since rWv , to look, construed with ˆmi , in the sense of to look away from a person, is never met with, although the meaning is just the same.

The vanishing of the glory of Ephraim is carried out still further in what follows. Verse 13, 14. “Ephraim as I selected it for a Tyre planted in the valley; so shall Ephraim lead out its sons to the murderer. Give them, O Jehovah: what shalt Thou give him? Give them a childless womb and dry breasts.” In v. 13 Ephraim is the object to ha;r; (I have seen), but on account of the emphasis it is placed first, as in v. 11; and ha;r; with an accusative and l signifies to select anything for a purpose, as in Gen 22:8. The Lord had selected Ephraim for Himself to be a Tyre planted in the meadow, i.e., in a soil adapted for growth and prosperity, had intended for it the bloom and glory of the rich and powerful Tyre; but now, for its apostasy, He would give it up to desolation, and dedicate its sons, i.e., its people, to death by the sword. The commentators, for the most part, like the LXX, have overlooked this meaning of ha;r; , and therefore have not only been unable to explain letsoor (for a Tyre), but have been driven either to resort to alterations of the text, like letsuurâh, “after the form” (Ewald), or to arbitrary assumptions, e.g., that tsoor signifies “palm” after the Arabic (Arnold, Hitzig), or that letsoor means “as far as Tyre” ( l = `d[æ , in order to bring a more or less forced interpretation into the sentence.

The Vav before ‘Ephraim introduces the apodosis to rv,a : “as I have selected Ephraim, so shall Ephraim lead out,” etc. On the construction ax;y; , see Ewald, §237, c. In v. 14 the threat rises into an appeal to God to execute the threatened punishment. The excited style of the language is indicated in the interpolated mah-titteen (what wilt Thou give?). The words do not contain an intercessory prayer on the part of the prophet, that God will not punish the people too severely but condemn them to barrenness rather than to the loss of the young men (Ewald), but are expressive of holy indignation at the deep corruption of the people.

Verse 15. The Lord thereupon replies in v. 15: “All their wickedness is at Gilgal; for there I took them into hatred: for the evil of their doings will I drive them out of my house, and not love them any more; all their princes are rebellions.” How far all the wickedness of Ephraim was concentrated at Gilgal it is impossible to determine more precisely, since we have no historical accounts of the idolatrous worship practised there (see at Hos 4:15). That Gilgal was the scene of horrible human sacrifices, as Hitzig observes at Hos 12:12, cannot be proved from ch. 13:2. anec; is used here in an inchoative sense, viz., to conceive hatred. On account of their wickedness they should be expelled from the house, i.e., the congregation of Jehovah (see at Hos 8:1). The expression “I will drive them out of my house” (mibbeethii ‘agâresheem) may be explained from Gen 21:10, where Sarah requests Abraham to drive (gârash) Hagar her maid out of the house along with her son, that the son of the maid may not inherit with Isaac, and where God commands the patriarch to carry out Sarah’s will. The expulsion of Israel from the house of the Lord is separation from the fellowship of the covenant nation and its blessings, and is really equivalent to loving it no longer. There is a play upon words in the last clause rræs; rcæ .

Verse 16-17. “Ephraim is smitten: their root is dried up; they will bear no fruit: even if they beget, I slay the treasures of their womb. My God rejects them: for they have not hearkened to Him, and they shall be fugitives among the nations.” In v. 16a Israel is compared to a plant, that is so injured by the heat of the sun (Ps 121:6; 102:5), or by a worm (Jonah 4:7), that it dries up and bears no more fruit. The perfects are a prophetic expression, indicating the certain execution of the threat. This is repeated in v. 16b in figurative language; and the threatening in vv. 11, 12, is thereby strengthened. Lastly, in v. 17 the words of threatening are rounded off by a statement of the reason for the rejection of Israel; and this rejection is described as banishment among the nations, according to Deut 28:65.

HOSEA. 10:1-3

In a fresh turn the concluding thought of the last strophe (Hos 9:10) is resumed, and the guilt and punishment of Israel still more fully described in two sections, vv. 1-8 and 9-15.

Verse 1-3. “Israel is a running vine; it set fruit for itself: the more of its fruit, the more altars did it prepare; the better its land, the better pillars did they make. Smooth was their heart, ow will they atone. He will break in pieces their altars, desolate their pillars. Yea, now will they say, No king to us! for we feared not Jehovah; and the king, what shall he do to us?” Under the figure of a vine running luxuriantly, which did indeed set some good fruit, but bore no sound ripe grapes, the prophet describes Israel as a glorious plantation of God Himself, which did not answer the expectations of its Creator. The figure is simply sketched in a few bold lines. We have an explanatory parallel in Ps 80:9-12.

The participle booqeeq does not mean “empty” or “emptying out” here; for this does not suit the next clause, according to which the fruit was set, but from the primary meaning of bâqaq, to pour out, pouring itself out, overflowing, i.e., running luxuriantly. It has the same meaning, therefore, as corachat g’ in Ezek 17:6, that which extends its branches far and wide, that is to say, grows most vigorously. The next sentence, “it set fruit,” still belongs to the figure; but in the third sentence the figure passes over into a literal prophecy. According to the abundance of its fruit, Israel made many altars; and in proportion to the goodness of its land, it made better hb;Xemæ , Baal’s pillars (see at 1 Kings 14:23); i.e., as Israel multiplied, and under the blessing of God attained to prosperity, wealth, and power in the good land (Ex 3:8), it forgot its God, and fell more and more into idolatry (cf. Hos 2:10; 8:4,11).

The reason of all this was, that their heart was smooth, i.e., dissimulating, not sincerely devoted to the Lord, inasmuch as, under the appearance of devotedness to God, they still clung to idols (for the fact, see 2 Kings 17:9). The word châlâq, to be smooth, was mostly applied by a Hebrew to the tongue, lip, mouth, throat, and speech (Ps 5:10; 12:3; 55:22; Prov 5:3), and not to the heart. But in Ezek 12:24 we read of smooth, i.e., deceitful prophesying; and there is all the more reason for retaining the meaning “smooth” here, that the rendering “their heart is divided,” which is supported by the ancient versions, cannot be grammatically defended. For châlâq is not used in kal in an intransitive sense; and the active rendering, “He (i.e., God) has divided their heart” (Hitzig), gives an unscriptural thought. They will now atone for this, for God will destroy their altars and pillars. `ãræ[; , “to break the neck of the altars,” is a bold expression, applied to the destruction of the altars by breaking off the horns (compare Amos 3:14). Then will the people see and be compelled to confess that it has no longer a king, because it has not feared the Lord, since the king who has been set up in opposition to the will of the Lord (Hos 8:4) cannot bring either help or deliverance (ch. 13:10). `hc;[; , to do, i.e., to help or be of use to a person (cf. Eccl 2:2).

HOSEA. 10:4-6

The thoughts of vv. 2, 3 are carried out still further in vv. 4-7. Verse 4-6. “They have spoken words, sworn falsely, made treaties: thus right springs up like darnel in the furrows of the field. For the calves of Beth-aven the inhabitants of Samaria were afraid: yea, its people mourn over it, and its sacred ministers will tremble at it, at its glory, because it has strayed from them. Men will also carry it to Asshur, as a present for king Jareb: shame will seize upon Ephraim, and Israel will be put to shame for its counsel.” The dissimulation of heart (v. 3) manifested itself in their speaking words which were nothing but words, i.e., in vain talk (cf. Isa 58:13), in false swearing, and in the making of treaties. hl;a; , by virtue of the parallelism, is an infin. abs. for hl;a; , formed like træK; , analogous to shaatowt (Isa 22:13; see Ewald, §240, b). tyriB] træK; , in connection with false swearing, must signify the making of a covenant without any truthfulness in it, i.e., the conclusion of treaties with foreign nations-for example, with Assyriawhich they were inclined to observe only so long as they could promise themselves advantages from them.

In consequence of this, right has become like a bitter plant growing luxuriantly varo = varo ; see at Deut 29:17). Mishpât does not mean judgment here, or the punitive judgment of God (Chald. and many others), for this could hardly be compared with propriety to weeds running over everything, but right in its degeneracy into wrong, or right that men have turned into bitter fruit or poison (Amos 6:12). This spreads about in the kingdom, as weeds spread luxuriantly in the furrows of the field hd,c; a poetical form for hd,c; , like Deut 32:13; Ps 8:8). Therefore the judgment cannot be delayed, and is already approaching in so threatening a manner, that the inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the golden calves. The plural ‘eglooth is used with indefinite generality, and gives no warrant, therefore, for the inference that there were several golden calves set up in Bethel.

Moreover, this would be at variance with the fact, that in the sentences which follow we find “the (one) calf” spoken of.

The feminine form ‘eglooth, which only occurs here, is also probably connected with the abstract use of the plural, inasmuch as the feminine is the proper form for abstracts. Beeth-’âven for Beeth-’eel, as in Hos 4:15.

Shâkheen is construed with the plural, as an adjective used in a collective sense. yKi (v. 5) is emphatic, and the suffixes attached to `µ[æ and rm;K; do not refer to Samaria, but to the idol, i.e., the calf, since the prophet distinctly calls Israel, which ought to have been the nation of Jehovah, the nation of its calf-idol, which mourned with its priests (kemâriim, the priests appointed in connection with the worship of the calves: see at 2 Kings 23:5) for the carrying away of the calf to Assyria. lyGi does not mean to exult or rejoice here, nor to tremble (applied to the leaping of the heart from fear, as it does from joy), but has the same meaning as lyji in Ps 96:9. `l[æ is still further defined by wOdwObK]Al[æ , “for its glory,” i.e., not for the temple-treasure at Bethel (Hitzig), nor the one glorious image of the calf, as the symbol of the state-god (Ewald, Umbreit), but the calf, to which the people attributed the glory of the true God. The perfect, gâlâh, is used prophetically of that which was as good as complete and certain (for the fut. exact., cf. Ewald, §343, a). The golden calf, the glory of the nation, will have to wander into exile. This cannot even save itself; it will be taken to Assyria, to king Jareb (see at Hos 5:13), as minchâh, a present of tribute (see 2 Sam 8:2,6; 1 Kings 5:1). For the construing of the passive with tae , see Ges. §143, 1, a. Then will Ephraim (= Israel) be seized by reproach and shame. Boshnâh, a word only met with here; it is formed from the masculine booshen, which is not used at all (see Ewald, §163, 164).

HOSEA. 10:7-8

With the carrying away of the golden calf the kingdom of Samaria also perishes, and desert plants will grow upon the places of idols.

Verse 7, 8. “Destroyed is Samaria; her king like a splinter on the surface of the water. And destroyed are the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel: thorn and thistle will rise up on their altars; and they will speak to the mountains, Cover us! and to the hills, Fall on us!” Ël,m, ˆwOrm]vo is not an asyndeton, “Samaria and its king;” but Shoomeroon is to be taken absolutely, “as for Samaria,” although, as a matter of fact, not only Samaria, the capital of the kingdom, but the kingdom itself, was destroyed. For malkâh does not refer to any particular king, but is used in a general sense for “the king that Samaria had,” so that the destruction of the monarchy is here predicted (cf. v. 15). The idea that the words refer to one particular king, is not only at variance with the context, which contains no allusion to any one historical occurrence, but does not suit the simile: like a splinter upon the surface of the water, which is carried away by the current, and vanishes without leaving a trace behind. Qetseph is not “foam” (Chald., Symm., Rabb.), but a broken branch, a fagot or a splinter, as qetsâphâh in Joel 1:7 clearly shows. Bâmooth ‘âven are the buildings connected with the image-worship at Bethel (‘âven = Beeth-’eel, v. 5), the temple erected there (beeth bâmooth), together with the altar, possibly also including other illegal places of sacrifice there, which constituted the chief sin of the kingdom of Israel. These were to be so utterly destroyed, that thorns and thistles would grow upon the ruined altars (cf. Gen 3:18). “The sign of extreme solitude, that there are not even the walls left, or any traces of the buildings” (Jerome). When the kingdom shall be thus broken up, together with the monarchy and the sacred places, the inhabitants, in their hopeless despair, will long for swift death and destruction. Saying to the mountains, “Cover us,” etc., implies much more than hiding themselves in the holes and clefts of the rocks (Isa 2:19,21). It expresses the desire to be buried under the falling mountains and hills, that they may no longer have to bear the pains and terrors of the judgment. In this sense are the words transferred by Christ, in Luke 23:30, to the calamities attending the destruction of Jerusalem, and in Rev 6:16 to the terrors of the last judgment.

HOSEA. 10:9-10

After the threatening of punishment has thus been extended in v. 8, even to the utter ruin of the kingdom, the prophet returns in v. 9 to the earlier times, for the purpose of exhibiting in a new form and deeply rooted sinfulness of the people, and then, under cover of an appeal to them to return to righteousness, depicting still further the time of visitation, and (in vv. 14, 15) predicting with still greater clearness the destruction of the kingdom and the overthrow of the monarchy.

Verse 9, 10. “Since the days of Gibeah hast thou sinned, O Israel: there have they remained: the war against the sons of wickedness did not overtake them at Gibeah. According to my desire shall I chastise them; and nations will be gathered together against them, to bind them to their two transgressions.” Just as in Hos 9:9, the days of Gibeah, i.e., the days when that ruthless crime was committed at Gibeah upon the concubine of the Levite, are mentioned as a time of deep corruption; so are those days described in the present passage as the commencement of Israel’s sin. For it is as obvious that µwOy is not to be understood in a comparative sense, as it is that the days of Gibeah are not to be taken as referring to the choice of Saul, who sprang from Gibeah, to be their king (Chald.). The following words, wgw `rmæ[; µv; , which are very difficult, and have been variously explained, do not describe the conduct of Israel in those days; for, in the first place, the statement that the war did not overtake them is by no means in harmony with this, since the other tribes avenged that crime so severely that the tribe of Benjamin was almost exterminated; and secondly, the suffix attached to gvæn; evidently refers to the same persons as that appended to rsæy; in v. 10, i.e., to the Israelites of the ten tribes, to which Hosea foretels the coming judgment. These are therefore the subject to `rmæ[; , and consequently `rmæ[; signifies to stand, to remain, to persevere (cf.

Isa 47:12; Jer 32:14).

There, in Gibeah, did they remain, that is to say, they persevered in the sin of Gibeah, without the war at Gibeah against the sinners overtaking them (the imperfect, in a subordinated clause, used to describe the necessary consequence; and hwl[ transposed from `lw,[, , like hw;[zæ in Deut 28:25 for h[;wOz ). The meaning is, that since the days of Gibeah the Israelites persist in the same sin as the Gibeahites; but whereas those sinners were punished and destroyed by the war, the ten tribes still live on in the same sin without having been destroyed by any similar war. Jehovah will now chastise them for it. hW;aæ , in my desire, equivalent to according to my wish-an anthropomorphic description of the severity of the chastisement. rsæy; from rsæy; (according to Ewald, §139, a), with the Vav of the apodosis.

The chastisement will consist in the fact, that nations will be gathered together against Israel rsæa; , lit., at their binding, i.e., when I shall bind them. The chethib µtny[ cannot well be the plural of `ˆyi[æ , because the plural twny[ is not used for the eyes; and the rendering, “before their two eyes,” in the sense of “without their being able to prevent it” (Ewald), yields the unheard-of conception of binding a person before his own eyes; and, moreover, the use of twOny[e yTev] instead of the simple dual would still be left unexplained. We must therefore give the preference to the keri tnw[ , and regard the chethib as another form, that may be accounted for from the transition of the verbs y[ into w[ , and `ˆwO[; as a contraction of tnOwO[\ , since `ˆwO[; cannot be shown to have either the meaning of “sorrow” (Chald., A. E.), or that of the severe labour of “tributary service.”

And, moreover, neither of these meanings would give us a suitable thought; whilst the very same objection may be brought against the supposition that the doubleness of the work refers to Ephraim and Judah, which has been brought against the rendering “to bind to his furrows,” viz., that it would be non solum ineptum, sed locutionis monstrum. `ˆwO[; µyinæv] , “to their two transgression” to bind them: i.e., to place them in connection with the transgressions by the punishment, so that they will be obliged to drag them along like beasts of burden. By the two transgressions we are to understand neither the two golden calves at Bethel and Dan (Hitzig), nor unfaithfulness towards Jehovah and devotedness to idols, after Jer 2:13 (Cyr., Theod.); but their apostasy from Jehovah and the royal house of David, in accordance with Hos 3:5, where it is distinctly stated that the ultimate conversion of the nation will consist in its seeking Jehovah and David their king.

HOSEA. 10:11

In the next verse the punishment is still further defined, and also extended to Judah.

Verse 11. “And Ephraim is an instructed cow, which loves to thresh; and I, I have come over the beauty of her neck: I yoke Ephraim; Judah will plough, Jacob harrow itself.” Melummâdâh, instructed, trained to work, received its more precise definition from the words “loving to thresh” (‘oohabhtii, a participle with the connecting Yod in the constructive: see Ewald, §211, b), not as being easier work in comparison with the hard task of driving, ploughing, and harrowing, but because in threshing the ox was allowed to eat at pleasure (Deut 25:4), from which Israel became fat and strong (Deut 32:15).

Threshing, therefore, is a figurative representation not of the conquest of other nations (as in Mic 4:13; Isa 41:15), but of pleasant, productive, profitable labour. Israel had accustomed itself to this, from the fact that God had bestowed His blessing upon it (Hos 13:6). But it would be different now. `l[æ `rbæ[; , a prophetic perfect: I come over the neck, used in a hostile sense, and answering to our “rushing in upon a person.” The actual idea is that of putting a heavy yoke upon the neck, not of putting a rider upon it. bkær; not to mount or ride, but to drive, or use for drawing and driving, i.e., to harness, and that, as the following clauses show, to the plough and harrow, for the performance of hard field-labour, which figuratively represents subjugation and bondage. Judah is also mentioned here again, as in Hos 8:14; 6:11, etc. Jacob, in connection with Judah, is not a name for the whole nation (or the twelve tribes), but is synonymous with Ephraim, i.e., Israel of the ten tribes. This is required by the correspondence between the last two clauses, which are simply a further development of the expression ‘p’ ‘rkyb, with an extension of the punishment threatened against Ephraim to Judah also.

HOSEA. 10:12-13

The call to repentance and reformation of life is then appended in vv. 12, 13, clothed in similar figures.

Verse 12, 13. “Sow to yourselves for righteousness, reap according to love; plough for yourselves virgin soil: for it is time to seek Jehovah, till He come and rain righteousness upon you. Ye have ploughed wickedness, ye have reaped crime: eaten the fruit of lying: because thou hast trusted in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.” Sowing and reaping are figures used to denote their spiritual and moral conduct. hq;d;x] , for righteousness, is parallel to dseje hp, ; i.e., sow that righteousness may be able to spring up like seed, i.e., righteousness towards your fellow-men. The fruit of this will be chesed, condescending love towards the poor and wretched. Niir niir, both here and in Jer 4:3 to plough virgin soil, i.e., to make land not yet cultivated arable.

We have an advance in this figure: they are to give up all their previous course of conduct, and create for themselves a new sphere for their activity, i.e., commence a new course of life. `t[e , and indeed it is time, equivalent to, for it is high time to give up your old sinful says and seek the Lord, till `d[æ ) He come, i.e., till He turn His grace to you again, and cause it to rain upon you. Tsedeq , righteousness, not salvation, a meaning which the word never has, and least of all here, where tsedeq corresponds to the tsedâqâh of the first clause. God causes righteousness to rain, inasmuch as He not only gives strength to secure it, like rain for the growth of the seed (cf. Isa 44:3), but must also generate and create it in man by His Spirit (Ps 51:12). The reason for this summons is given in v. 13, in another allusion to the moral conduct of Israel until now. Hitherto they have ploughed as well as reaped unrighteousness and sin, and eaten lies as the fruit thereoflies, inasmuch as they did not promote the prosperity of the kingdom as they imagined, but only led to its decay and ruin. For they did not trust in Jehovah the Creator and rock of salvation, but in their way, i.e., their deeds and their might, in the strength of their army (Amos 6:13), the worthlessness of which they will now discover.

HOSEA. 10:14-15

“And tumult will arise against thy peoples, and all thy fortifications are laid waste, as Shalman laid Beth-Arbeel waste in the day of the war: mother and children are dashed to pieces. Thus hath Bethel done to you because of the wickedness of your wickedness: in the morning dawn the king of Israel is cut off, cut off.” µaq with ynæa as mater lect. (Ewald, §15, e), construed with b] to rise up against a person, as in Ps 27:12; Job 16:8. ˆwOav; , war, tumult, as in Amos 2:2. `µ[æ : against thy people of war. The expression is chosen with a reference to roobh gibbooriim (the multitude of mighty men), in which Israel put its trust. The meaning, countrymen, or tribes, is restricted to the older language of the Pentateuch. The singular ddæv; refers to lKo , as in Isa 64:10, contrary to the ordinary language (cf. Ewald, §317, c).

Nothing is known concerning the devastation of Beth-Arbeel by Shalman; and hence there has always been great uncertainty as to the meaning of the words. Shalman is no doubt a contracted form of Shalmanezer, the king of Assyria, who destroyed the kingdom of the ten tribes (2 Kings 17:6).

Beeth-’arbee’l is hardly Arbela of Assyria, which became celebrated through the victory of Alexander (Strab. 16:1,3), since the Israelites could scarcely have become so well acquainted with such a remote city, as that the prophet could hold up the desolation that befel it as an example to them, but in all probability the Arbela in Galilaea Superior, which is mentioned in 1 Macc. 9:2, and very frequently in Josephus, a place in the tribe of Naphtali, between Sephoris and Tiberias (according to Robinson, Pal. iii. pp. 281-2, and Bibl. Researches, p. 343: the modern Irbid). The objection offered by Hitzig-viz. that shood is a noun in Hos 9:6; 7:13; 12:2, and that the infinitive construct, with l prefixed, is written lish¦dod in Jer 47:4; and lastly, that if Shalman were the subject, we should expect the preposition tae before tyiBæ -is not conclusive, and the attempt which he makes to explain Salman-Beth-Arbel from the Sanscrit is not worth mentioning.

The clause “mother and children,” etc., a proverbial expression denoting inhuman cruelty (see at Gen 32:12), does not merely refer to the conduct of Shalman in connection with Beth-arbel, possibly in the campaign mentioned in 2 Kings 17:3, but is also intended to indicate the fate with which the whole of the kingdom of Israel was threatened. In v. 16 this threat concludes with an announcement of the overthrow of the monarchy, accompanied by another allusion to the guilt of the people. The subject to `hc;[; hk;K; is Beth-el (Chald.), not Shalman or Jehovah. Bethel, the seat of the idolatry, prepares this lot for the people on account of its great wickedness. `hc;[; is a perf. proph.’ and [ræ [ræ , wickedness in its second potency, extreme wickedness (cf. Ewald, §313, c). Basshachar, in the morning-dawn, i.e., at the time when prosperity is once more apparently about to dawn, tempore pacis alluscente (Cocc., Hgst.). The gerund hm;D; adds to the force; and ac;n; Ël,m, is not this or the other king, but as in v. 7, the king generally, i.e., the monarchy of Israel.

HOSEA. 11:1-2

The prophet goes back a third time (cf. Hos 10:1; 9:10) to the early times of Israel, and shows how the people had repaid the Lord, for all the proofs of His love, with nothing but ingratitude and unfaithfulness; so that it would have merited utter destruction from off the earth, if God should not restrain His wrath for the sake of His unchangeable faithfulness, in order that, after severely chastening, He might gather together once more those that were rescued from among the heathen.

Verse 1. “When Israel was young, then I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. Men called to them; so they went away from their countenance: they offer sacrifice to the Baals, and burn incense to the idols.” V. 1 rests upon Ex 4:22-23, where the Lord directs Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Israel is my first-born son; let my son go, that he may serve me.”

Israel was the son of Jehovah, by virtue of its election to be Jehovah’s peculiar people (see at Ex 4:22). In this election lay the ground for the love which God showed to Israel, by bringing it out of Egypt, to give it the land of Canaan, promised to the fathers for its inheritance. The adoption of Israel as the son of Jehovah, which began with its deliverance out of the bondage of Egypt, and was completed in the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, forms the first stage in the carrying out of the divine work of salvation, which was completed in the incarnation of the Son of God for the redemption of mankind from death and ruin. The development and guidance of Israel as the people of God all pointed to Christ; not, however, in any such sense as that the nation of Israel was to bring forth the son of God from within itself, but in this sense, that the relation which the Lord of heaven and earth established and sustained with that nation, was a preparation for the union of God with humanity, and paved the way for the incarnation of His Son, by the fact that Israel was trained to be a vessel of divine grace.

All essential factors in the history of Israel point to this as their end, and thereby become types and material prophecies of the life of Him in whom the reconciliation of man to God was to be realized, and the union of God with the human race to be developed into a personal unity. It is in this sense that the second half of our verse is quoted in Matt 2:15 as a prophecy of Christ, not because the words of the prophet refer directly and immediately to Christ, but because the sojourn in Egypt, and return out of that land, had the same significance in relation to the development of the life of Jesus Christ, as it had to the nation of Israel. Just as Israel grew into a nation in Egypt, where it was out of the reach of Canaanitish ways, so was the child Jesus hidden in Egypt from the hostility of Herod. But v. 2 is attached thus as an antithesis: this love of its God was repaid by Israel with base apostasy. ar;q; , they, viz., the prophets (cf. v. 7; 2 Kings 17:13; Jer 7:25; 25:4; Zech 1:4), called to them, called the Israelites to the Lord and to obedience to Him; but they (the Israelites) went away from their countenance, would not hearken to the prophets, or come to the Lord (Jer 2:31). The thought is strengthened by ˆKe , with the rv,a of the protasis omitted (Ewald, §360, a): as the prophets called, so the Israelites drew back from them, and served idols. l[æBæ as in Hos 2:15, and lysip] as in Kings 17:41 and Deut 7:5,25 (see at Ex 20:4).

HOSEA. 11:3-4

Nevertheless the Lord continued to show love to them. Verse 3, 4. “And I, I have taught Ephraim to walk: He took them in His arms, and they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with bands of a man, with cords of love, and became to them like a lifter up of the yoke upon their jaws, and gently towards him did I give (him) food.” lgær; , a hiphil, formed after the Aramaean fashion (cf. Ges. §55, 5), by hardening the h into t , and construed with l , as the hiphil frequently is (e.g., Hos 10:1; Amos 8:9), a denom. of lg,r, , to teach to walk, to guide in leading-strings, like a child that is being trained to walk. It is a figurative representation of paternal care for a child’s prosperity. jqæl; , per aphaeresin, for jqæl; , like jqæl; for jqæl; in Ezek 17:5. The sudden change from the first person to the third seems very strange to our ears; but it is not uncommon in Hebrew, and is to be accounted for here from the fact, that the prophet could very easily pass from speaking in the name of God to speaking of God Himself. jqæl; cannot be either an infinitive or a participle, on account of the following word [æwOrz] , his arms.

The two clauses refer chiefly to the care and help afforded by the Lord to His people in the Arabian desert; and the prophet had Deut 1:31 floating before his mind: “in the wilderness the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son.” The last clause also refers to this, ap;r; pointing back to Ex 15:26, where the Lord showed Himself as the physician of Israel, by making the bitter water at Marah drinkable, and at the same time as their helper out of every trouble. In v. 4, again, there is a still further reference to the manifestation of the love of God to Israel on the journey through the wilderness. µd;a; xmej; , cords with which men are led, more especially children that are weak upon their feet, in contrast with ropes, with which men control wild, unmanageable beasts (Ps 32:9), are a figurative representation of the paternal, human guidance of Israel, as explained in the next figure, “cords of love.”

This figure leads on to the kindred figure of the yoke laid upon beasts, to harness them for work. As merciful masters lift up the yoke upon the cheeks of their oxen, i.e., push it so far back that the animals can eat their food in comfort, so has the Lord made the yoke of the law, which has been laid upon His people, both soft and light. As `l[æ `l[o µWr does not mean to take the yoke away from `l[æ ) the cheeks, but to lift it above the cheeks, i.e., to make it easier, by pushing it back, we cannot refer the words to the liberation of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, but can only think of what the Lord did, to make it easy for the people to observe the commandments imposed upon them, when they were received into His covenant (Ex 24:3,7), including not only the many manifestations of mercy which might and ought to have allured them to reciprocate His love, and yield a willing obedience to His commandments, but also the means of grace provided in their worship, partly in the institution of sacrifice, by which a way of approach was opened to divine grace to obtain forgiveness of sin, and partly in the institution of feasts, at which they could rejoice in the gracious gifts of their God. faæ is not the first pers. imperf. hiphil of hf;n; (“I inclined myself to him;” Symm., Syr., and others), in which case we should expect hf;n; , but an adverb, softly, comfortably; and lae belongs to it, after the analogy of 2 Sam 18:5. lkæa; is an anomalous formation for lykia\aæ , like dybiwOa for dybia\aæ in Jer 46:8 (cf. Ewald, §192, d; Ges. §68, 2, Anm. 1).

Jerome has given the meaning quite correctly: “and I gave them manna for food in the desert, which they enjoyed.”

HOSEA. 11:5-7

By despising this love, Israel brings severe punishment upon itself.

Verse 5-7. “It will not return into the land of Egypt; but Asshur, he is its king, because they refused to return. And the sword will sweep round in its cities, and destroy its bolts, and devour, because of their counsels. My people is bent upon apostasy from me: and if men call it upwards, it does not raise itself at all.” The apparent contradiction between the words, “It will not return into the land of Egypt,” and the threat contained in Hos 8:13; 9:3, that Israel should return to Egypt, ought not to lead us to resort to alterations of the text, or to take alo in the sense of ttæK; ], and connect it with the previous verse, as is done by the LXX, Mang., and others, or to make an arbitrary paraphrase of the words, either by taking alo in the sense of aOlh\ , and rendering it as a question, “Should it not return?” equivalent to “it will certainly return” (Maurer, Ewald, etc.); or by understanding the return to Egypt as signifying the longing of the people for help from Egypt (Rosenmüller). The emphatic aWh of the second clause is at variance with all these explanations, since they not only fail to explain it, but it points unmistakeably to an antithesis: “Israel will not return to Egypt; but Asshur, it shall be its king,” i.e., it shall come under the dominion of Assyria. The supposed contradiction is removed as soon as we observe that in Hos 8:13; 9:3,6, Egypt is a type of the land of bondage; whereas here the typical interpretation is precluded partly by the contrast to Asshur, and still more by the correspondence in which the words stand to v. 1b. Into the land from which Jehovah called His people, Israel shall not return, lest it should appear as though the object, for which it had been brought out of Egypt and conducted miraculously through the desert, had been frustrated by the impenitence of the people. But it is to be brought into another bondage. rWVaæ is appended adversatively.

Asshur shall rule over it as king, because they refuse to return, sc. to Jehovah. The Assyrians will wage war against the land, and conquer it. The sword (used as a principal weapon, to denote the destructive power of war) will circulate in the cities of Israel, make the round of the cities as it were, and destroy its bolts, i.e., the bolts of the gates of the fortifications of Ephraim. Baddiim, poles (Ex 25:13ff.), cross-poles or cross-beams, with which the gates were fastened, hence bolts in the literal sense, as in Job 17:16, and not tropically for “princes” (Ges.), electi (Jer., Chald., etc.). “On account of their counsels:” this is more fully defined in v. 7. `µ[æ , and my people (= since my people) are harnessed to apostasy from me (meshuubhâthii, with an objective suffix). al;T; , lit., suspended on apostasy, i.e., not “swaying about in consequence of apostasy or in constant danger of falling away” (Chald., Syr., Hengst.), since this would express too little in the present context and would not suit the second half of the verse, but impaled or fastened upon apostasy as upon a stake, so that it cannot get loose.

Hence the constructing of hl;T; with l instead of `l[æ or b (2 Sam 18:10), may be accounted for from the use of the verb in a figurative sense. l[æAla, , upwards `l[æ as in Hos 7:16), do they (the prophets: see v. 2) call them; but it does not rise, sc. to return to God, or seek help from on high. µWr pilel, with the meaning of the kal intensified, to make a rising, i.e., to rise up. This explanation appears simpler than supplying an object, say “the soul” (Ps 25:1), or “the eyes” (Ezek 33:25). HOSEA 11:8-9 They deserved to be utterly destroyed for this, and would have been if the compassion of God had not prevented it. With this turn a transition is made in v. 8 from threatening to promise.

Verse 8, 9. “How could I give thee up, O Ephraim! surrender thee, O Israel! how could I give thee up like Admah, make thee like Zeboim! My heart has changed within me, my compassion is excited all at once. I will not execute the burning heat of my wrath, I will not destroy Ephraim again: for I am God, and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee: and come not into burning wrath.” “How thoroughly could I give thee up!” sc. if I were to punish thy rebellion as it deserved. Nâthan, to surrender to the power of the enemy, like miggeen in Gen 14:20. And not that alone, but I could utterly destroy thee, like Admah and Zeboim, the two cities of the valley of Siddim, which were destroyed by fire from heaven along with Sodom and Gomorrha. Compare Deut 29:22, where Admah and Zeboim are expressly mentioned along with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, which stand alone in Gen 19:24.

With evident reference to this passage, in which Moses threatens idolatrous Israel with the same punishment, Hosea simply mentions the last two as quite sufficient for his purpose, whereas Sodom and Gomorrha are generally mentioned in other passages (Jer 49:18; cf. Matt 10:15; Luke 10:12). The promise that God will show compassion is appended here, without any adversative particle. My heart has turned, changed in me `l[æ , lit., upon or with me, as in the similar phrases in 1 Sam 25:36; Jer 8:18). rmæK] djæyæ , in a body have my feelings of compassion gathered themselves together, i.e., my whole compassion is excited. Compare Gen 43:30 and Kings 3:26, where, instead of the abstract nichuumiim, we find the more definite rachamiim, the bowels as the seat of the emotions. ãaæ ˆwOrj; `hc;[; , to carry out wrath, to execute it as judgment (as in 1 Sam 28:18).

In the expression tjæv; bWv alo , I will not return to destroy, bWv may be explained from the previous ble Ëpæh; . After the heart of God has changed, it will not return to wrath, to destroy Ephraim; for Jehovah is God, who does not alter His purposes like a man (cf. 1 Sam 15:29; Num 23:19; Mal 3:6), and He shows Himself in Israel as the Holy One, i.e., the absolutely pure and perfect one, in whom there is no alternation of light and darkness, and therefore no variableness in His decrees (see at Ex 19:6; Isa 6:3). The difficult expression `ry[i cannot mean “into a city,” although it is so rendered by the ancient versions, the Rabbins, and many Christian expositors; for we cannot attach any meaning to the words “I do not come into a city” at all in harmony with the context. `ry[i signifies here aestus irae, the heat of wrath, from `rW[ , effervescere, just as in Jer 15:8 it signifies the heat of alarm and anxiety, aestus animi.

HOSEA. 11:10-11

“They will go after Jehovah; like a lion will He roar; for He will roar: and sons will tremble from the sea. Tremble like birds out of Egypt, and like doves out of the land of Asshur: and I cause them to dwell in their houses, is the saying of Jehovah.” When the Lord turns His pity towards the people once more, they will follow Him, and hasten, with trembling at His voice, from the lands of their banishment, and be reinstated by Him in their inheritance. The way for this promise was opened indeed by v. 9, but here it is introduced quite abruptly, and without any logical particle of connection, like the same promise in Hos 3:5. yy yrja Ëlæh; , to walk after the Lord, denotes not only “obedience to the gathering voice of the Lord, as manifested by their drawing near” (Simson), but that walking in true obedience to the Lord which follows from conversion (Deut 13:5; 1 Kings 14:8), so that the Chaldee has very properly rendered it, “They will follow the worship of Jehovah.” This faithfulness they will exhibit first of all in practical obedience to the call of the Lord. This call is described as the roaring of a lion, the point of comparison lying simply in the fact that a lion announces its coming by roaring, so that the roaring merely indicates a loud, farreaching call, like the blowing of the trumpet in Isa 27:13.

The reason for what is affirmed is then given: “for He (Jehovah) will really utter His call,” in consequence of which the Israelites, as His children, will come trembling (châreed synonymous with pâchad, Hos 3:5). µy; , from the sea, i.e., from the distant islands and lands of the west (Isa 11:11), as well as from Egypt and Assyria, the lands of the south and east. These three regions are simply a special form of the idea, “out of all quarters of the globe;” compare the more complete enumeration of the several remote countries in Isa 11:11. The comparison to birds and doves expresses the swiftness with which they draw near, as doves fly to their dovecots (Isa 60:8). Then will the Lord cause them to dwell in their houses, i.e., settle them once more in their inheritance, in His own land (cf. Jer 32:37, where jfæB, is added). On the construing of howshiyb with `l[æ , cf. 1 Kings 20:43, and the German auf der Stube sein. The expression yy’ µaun] affixes the seal of confirmation to this promise. The fulfilment takes place in the last says, when Israel as a nation shall enter the kingdom of God. Compare the remarks on this point at Hos 2:1-3 (pp. 33, 34).

HOSEA. 11:12

Ch.Hosea 11:12. (Heb. Bib. Hosea 12:1). “Ephraim has surrounded me with lying, and the house of Israel with deceit: and Judah is moreover unbridled against God, and against the faithful Holy One. Ch. 12:1 (Heb.

Bib. 2). Ephraim grazeth wind, and hunteth after the east: all the day it multiplies lying and desolation, and they make a covenant with Asshur, and oil is carried to Egypt. V. 2. And Jehovah has a controversy with Judah, and to perform a visitation upon Jacob, according to his ways: according to his works will He repay him.” In the name of Jehovah, the prophet raises a charge against Israel once more. Lying and deceit are the terms which he applies, not so much to the idolatry which they preferred to the worship of Jehovah ( yeudh> kai> dussebh> latrei>an , Theod.), as to the hypocrisy with which Israel, in spite of its idolatry, claimed to be still the people of Jehovah, pretended to worship Jehovah under the image of a calf, and turned right into wrong. f20 Beeth Yisrâ’eel (the house of Israel) is the nation of the ten tribes, and is synonymous with Ephraim. The statement concerning Judah has been interpreted in different ways, because the meaning of dWr is open to dispute. Luther’s rendering, “but Judah still holds fast to its God,” is based upon the rabbinical interpretation of dWr , in the sense of hd;r; , to rule, which is decidedly false. According to the Arabic râd, the meaning of ruud is to ramble about (used of cattle that have broken loose, or have not yet been fastened up, as in Jer 2:31); hiphil, to cause to ramble about (Gen 27:40; Ps 55:3). Construed as it is here with `µ[i , it means to ramble about in relation to God, i.e., to be unbridled or unruly towards God. `µ[i , as in many other cases where reciprocal actions are referred to, standing towards or with a person: see Ewald, §217, h. ˆmæa; vwOdq; , the faithful, holy God. Qedooshiim is used of God, as in Prov 9:10 (cf. Josh 24:19), as an intensive pluralis majestatis, construed with a singular adjective (cf. Isa 19:4; 2 Kings 19:4). ˆmæa; , firm, faithful, trustworthy; the opposite of râd.

Judah is unbridled towards the powerful God (‘El), towards the Holy One, who, as the Faithful One, also proves Himself to be holy in relation to His people, both by the sanctification of those who embrace His salvation, and also by the judgment and destruction of those who obstinately resist the leadings of His grace.

HOSEA. 12:1-2

In v. 1 the lying and deceit of Israel are more fully described. jæWr [ræ is not to entertain one’s self on wind, i.e., to take delight in vain things; but [ræ means to eat or graze spiritually; and ruuach, the wind, is equivalent to emptiness. The meaning therefore is, to strive eagerly after what is empty or vain; synonymous with râdaph, to pursue. µydiq; , the east wind, in Palestine a fierce tempestuous wind, which comes with burning heat from the desert of Arabia, and is very destructive to seeds and plants (compare Job 27:21, and Wetzstein’s Appendix to Delitzsch’s Commentary on Job).

It is used, therefore, as a figurative representation, not of vain hopes and ideals, that cannot possibly be reached, but of that destruction which Israel is bringing upon itself. “All the day,” i.e., continually, it multiplies lying and violence, through the sins enumerated in Hos 4:2, by which the kingdom is being internally broken up. Added to this, there is the seeking for alliances with the powers of the world, viz., Assyria and Egypt, by which it hopes to secure their help (Hos 5:13), but only brings about its own destruction. Oil is taken to Egypt from the land abounding in olives (Deut. 8:8; 1 Kings 5:25), not as tribute, but as a present, for the purpose of securing an ally in Egypt. This actually took place during the reign of Hoshea, who endeavoured to liberate himself from the oppression of Assyria by means of a treaty with Egypt (2 Kings 17:4). f21 The Lord will repay both kingdoms for such conduct as this. But just as the attitude of Judah towards God is described more mildly than the guilt of Israel in Hos 11:12, so the punishment of the two is differently described in v. 2. Jehovah has a trial with Judah, i.e., He has to reprove and punish its sins and transgressions (Hos 4:1). Upon Jacob, or Israel of the ten tribes (as in Hos 10:11), He has to perform a visitation, i.e., to punish it according to its ways and its deeds (cf. Hos 4:9). rqæp] , it is to be visited, i.e., He must visit.

HOSEA. 12:3-5

“He held his brother’s heel in the womb, and in his man’s strength he fought with God. He fought against the angel, and overcame; wept, and prayed to Him: at Bethel he found Him, and there He talked with us. And Jehovah, God of hosts, Jehovah is His remembrance.” The name Jacob, which refers to the patriarch himself in v. 3, forms the link between vv. 2 and 3. The Israelites, as descendants of Jacob, were to strive to imitate the example of their forefather. His striving hard for the birthright, and his wrestling with God, in which he conquered by prayer and supplication, are types and pledges of salvation to the tribes of Israel which bear his name. f22 `bqæ[; , a denom. from `bqe[; , “to hold the heel” = `bqe[; zjæa; in Gen 25:26, which the prophet has in his mind, not “to overreach,” as in Gen 27:36 and Jer 9:3.

For the wrestling with God, mentioned in the second clause of the verse, proves most indisputably that Jacob’s conduct is not held up before the people for a warning, as marked by cunning or deceit, as Umbreit and Hitzig suppose, but is set before them for their imitation, as an eager attempt to secure the birthright and the blessing connected with it. This shows at the same time, that the holding of the heel in the mother’s womb is not quoted as a proof of the divine election of grace, and, in fact, that there is no reference at all to the circumstance, that “even when Jacob was still in his mother’s womb, he did this not by his own strength, but by the mercy of God, who knows and loves those whom He has predestinated” (Jerome). ˆwOa , is his manly strength (cf. Gen 49:3) he wrestled with God (Gen 32:25-29). This conflict (for the significance of which in relation to Jacob’s spiritual life, see the discussion at Gen. l.c.) is more fully described in v. 4, for the Israelites to imitate. Ëa;l]m is the angel of Jehovah, the revealer of the invisible God (see the Commentary on the Pentateuch, pp. 118ff. transl.). lkoy; is from Gen 32:29. The explanatory clause, “he wept, and made supplication to Him” (after Gen 32:27), gives the nature of the conflict. It was a contest with the weapons of prayer; and with these he conquered. These weapons are also at the command of the Israelites, if they will only use them. The fruit of the victory was, that he (Jacob) found Him (God) at Bethel. This does not refer to the appearance of God to Jacob on his flight to Mesopotamia (Gen 28:11), but to that recorded in Gen 35:9ff., when God confirmed his name of Israel, and renewed the promises of His blessing. And there, continues the prophet, He (God) spake with us; i.e., not there He speaks with us still, condemning by His prophets the idolatry at Bethel (Amos 5:4-5), as Kimchi supposes; but, as the imperfect rbæd; corresponds to ax;m; , “there did He speak to us through Jacob,” i.e., what He there said to Jacob applies to us. f23 The explanation of this is given in v. 5, where the name is recalled in which God revealed Himself to Moses, when He first called him (Ex 3:15), i.e., in which He made known to him His true nature. Yehoovâh zikhroo is taken literally from rwOD rwOD rk,ze hz, ; but there the name Jehovah is still further defined by “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” here by “the God of hosts.” This difference needs consideration. The Israelites in the time of Moses could only put full confidence in the divine call of Moses to be their deliverer out of the bondage of Egypt, on the ground that He who called him was the God who had manifested Himself to the patriarchs as the God of salvation; but for the Israelites of Hosea’s time, the strength of their confidence in Jehovah arose from the fact that Jehovah was the God of hosts, i.e., the God who, because He commands the forces of heaven, both visible and invisible, rules with unrestricted omnipotence on earth as well as in heaven (see at 1 Sam 1:3).

HOSEA. 12:6

To this God Israel is now to return. “And thou, to thy God shalt thou turn: keep love and right, and hope continually in thy God.” bWv with b] is a pregnant expression, as in Isa 10:22: “so to turn as to enter into vital fellowship with God;” i.e., to be truly converted. The next two clauses, as the omission of the copula before chesed and the change in the tense clearly show, are to be taken as explanatory of bWv . The conversion is to show itself in the perception of love and right towards their brethren, and in constant trust in God. But Israel is far removed from this now. This thought leads the way to the next strophe (vv. 8-15), which commences afresh with a disclosure of the apostasy of the people.

HOSEA. 12:7-8

“Canaan, in his hand is the scale of cheating: he loves to oppress.

And Ephraim says, Yet I have become rich, have acquired property: all my exertions bring me no wrong, which would be sin.” Israel is not a Jacob who wrestles with God; but it has become Canaan, seeking its advantage in deceit and wrong. Israel is called Canaan here, not so much on account of its attachment to Canaanitish idolatry (cf. Ezek 16:3), as according to the appellative meaning of the word Kena’an, which is borrowed from the commercial habits of the Canaanites (Phoenicians), viz., merchant or trader (Isa. 23:8; Job 40:30), because, like a fraudulent merchant, it strove to become great by oppression and cheating; not “because it acted towards God like a fraudulent merchant, offering Him false show for true reverence,” as Schmieder supposes. For however thoroughly this may apply to the worship of the Israelites, it is not to this that the prophet refers, but to fraudulent weights, and the love of oppression or violence.

And this points not to their attitude towards God, but to their conduct towards their fellow-men, which is the very opposite of what, according to the previous verse, the Lord requires (chesed uumishpât), and the very thing which He has forbidden in the law, in Lev 19:36; Deut 24:13-16, and also in the case of ‘âshaq, violence, in Lev 6:2-4; Deut 24:14. Ephraim prides itself upon this unrighteousness, in the idea that it has thereby acquired wealth and riches, and with the still greater self-deception, that with all its acquisition of property it has committed no wrong that was sin, i.e., that would be followed by punishment. ˆwOa does not mean “might” here, but wealth, opes, although as a matter of fact, since Ephraim says this as a nation, the riches and power of the state are intended. y[æygiy]AlK; is not written at the head absolutely, in the sense of “so far as what I have acquired is concerned, men find no injustice in this;” for it that were the case, µyrit;a ] would stand for ttæK; ]; but it is really the subject, and ax;m; is to be taken in the sense of acquiring = bringing in (cf. Lev 5:7; 12:8, etc.). HOSEA 12:9-11 “Yet am I Jehovah thy God, from the land of Egypt hither: I will still cause thee to dwell in tents, as in the days of the feast. I have spoken to the prophets; and I, I have multiplied visions, and spoken similitudes through the prophets. If Gilead (is) worthlessness, they have only come to nothing: in Gilgal they offered bullocks: even their altars are like stone-heaps in the furrows of the field.” The Lord meets the delusion of the people, that they had become great and powerful through their own exertion, by reminding them that He ykinOa; is adversative, yet I) has been Israel’s God from Egypt hither, and that to Him they owe all prosperity and good in both past and present (cf. Hos 13:4). Because they do not recognise this, and because they put their trust in unrighteousness rather than in Him, He will now cause them to dwell in tents again, as in the days of the feast of Tabernacles, i.e., will repeat the leading through the wilderness.

It is evident from the context that moo’eed (the feast) is here the feast of Tabernacles. d[ewOm µwOy (the days of the feast) are the seven days of this festival, during which Israel was to dwell in booths, in remembrance of the fact that when God led them out of Egypt He had caused them to dwell in booths (tabernacles, Lev 23:42-43). Ëb]yviwOa d[O stands in antithesis to bvæy; in Lev 23:43. “The preterite is changed into a future through the ingratitude of the nation” (Hengstenberg). The simile, “as in the days of the feast,” shows that the repetition of the leading through the desert is not thought of here merely as a time of punishment, such as the prolongation of the sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years really was (Num 14:33). For their dwelling in tents, or rather in booths (sukkooth), on the feast of Tabernacles, was intended not so much to remind the people of the privations of their unsettled wandering life in the desert, as to call to their remembrance the shielding and sheltering care and protection of God in their wandering through the great and terrible wilderness (see at Lev 23:42-43).

We must combine the two allusions, therefore: so that whilst the people are threatened indeed with being driven out of the good and glorious land, with its large and beautiful cities and houses full of all that is good (Deut 6:10ff.), into a dry and barren desert, they have also set before them the repetition of the divine guidance through the desert; so that they are not threatened with utter rejection on the part of God, but only with temporary banishment into the desert. In vv. 10 and 11 the two thoughts of v. 9 are still further expanded. In v. 10 they are reminded how the Lord had proved Himself to be the God of Israel from Egypt onwards, by sending prophets and multiplying prophecy, to make known His will and gracious counsel to the people, and to promote their salvation. rbæd; with `l[æ , to speak to, not because the word is something imposed upon a person, but because the inspiration of God came down to the prophets from above. hm;D; , not “I destroy,” for it is only the kal that occurs in this sense, and not the piel, but “to compare,” i.e., speak in similes; as, for example, in ch. 1 and 3, Isa 5:1ff., Ezek 16 etc.: “I have left no means of admonishing them untried” (Rosenmüller).

Israel, however, has not allowed itself to be admonished and warned, but has given itself up to sin and idolatry, the punishment of which cannot be delayed. Gilead and Gilgal represent the two halves of the kingdom of the ten tribes; Gilead the land to the east of the Jordan, and Gilgal the territory to the west. As Gilead is called “a city (i.e., a rendezvous) of evil-doers” ˆw,a; l[æp; ) in Hos 6:8, so is it here called distinctly ˆw,a; , worthlessness, wickedness; and therefore it is to be utterly brought to nought. ˆw,a; and ad]v; are synonymous, denoting moral and physical nonentity (compare Job 15:31). Here the two notions are so distributed, that the former denotes the moral decay, the latter the physical. Worthlessness brings nothingness after it as a punishment. Ëaæ , only = nothing, but equivalent to utterly.

The perfect hy;h; is used for the certain future. Gilgal, which is mentioned in Hos 4:15; 9:15, as the seat of one form of idolatrous worship, is spoken of here as a place of sacrifice, to indicate with a play upon the name the turning of the altars into heaps of stones (Gallim). The desolation or destruction of the altars involves not only the cessation of the idolatrous worship, but the dissolution of the kingdom and the banishment of the people out of the land. rwOv , which only occurs in the plural here, cannot of course be the dative (to sacrifice to oxen), but only the accusative. The sacrifice of oxen was reckoned as a sin on the part of the people, not on account of the animals offers, but on account of the unlawful place of sacrifice. The suffix to mizbechoothâm (their sacrifices) refers to Israel, the subject implied in zibbeechuu. HOSEA 12:12-14 This punishment Israel well deserved. “And Jacob fled to the fields of Aram; and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife did he keep guard. And through a prophet Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt, and through a prophet was he guarded. Ephraim has stirred up bitter wrath; and his Lord will leave his blood upon him, and turn back his shame upon him.” In order to show the people still more impressively what great things the Lord had done for them, the prophet recals the flight of Jacob, the tribefather, to Mesopotamia, and how he was obliged to serve many years there for a wife, and to guard cattle; whereas God had redeemed Israel out of the Egyptian bondage, and had faithfully guarded it through a prophet. The flight of Jacob to Aramaea, and his servitude there, are mentioned not “to give prominence to his zeal for the blessing of the birthright, and his obedience to the commandment of God and his parents” (Cyr., Theod., Th. v. Mops.); nor “to bring out the double servitude of Israel-the first the one which the people had to endure in their forefather, the second the one which they had to endure themselves in Egypt” (Umbreit); nor “to lay stress upon the manifestation of the divine care towards Jacob as well as towards the people of Israel” (Ewald); for there is nothing at all about this in v. 12.

The words point simply to the distress and affliction which Jacob had to endure, according to Gen 29-31, as Calvin has correctly interpreted them. “Their father Jacob,” he says, “who was he? what was his condition?...He was a fugitive from his country. Even if he had always lived at home, his father was only a stranger in the land. But he was compelled to flee into Syria. And how splendidly did he live there? He was with his uncle, no doubt, but he was treated quite as meanly as any common slave: he served for a wife. And how did he serve? He was the man who tended the cattle.”

Shâmar, the tending of cattle, was one of the hardest and lowest descriptions of servitude (cf. Gen 30:31; 31:40; 1 Sam 17:20). Sedeeh ‘arâm (the field of Aram) is no doubt simply the Hebrew rendering of the Aramaean Paddan-’arâm (Gen 28:2; 31:18: see at Gen 25:20). Jacob’s flight to Aramaea, where he had to serve, is contrasted in v. 10 with the leading of Israel, the people sprung from Jacob, out of Egypt by a prophet, i.e., by Moses (cf. Deut 18:18); and the guarding of cattle by Jacob is placed in contrast with the guarding of Israel on the part of God through the prophet Moses, when he led them through the wilderness to Canaan.

The object of this is to call to the nation’s remembrance that elevation from the lowest condition, which they were to acknowledge with humility every year, according to Deut 26:5ff., when the first-fruits were presented before the Lord. For Ephraim had quite forgotten this.

Instead of thanking the Lord for it by love and faithful devotedness to Him, it had provoked Him in the bitterest manner by its sins s[æKæ , to excite wrath, to provoke to anger: tamruuriim, an adverbial accusative = bitterly).

For this should its blood-guiltiness remain upon it. According to Lev 20:9ff., dâmiim denotes grave crimes that are punishable by death. Nâtash, to let a thing alone, as in Ex 23:11; or to leave behind, as in 1 Sam. 17:20; 22:28. Leaving blood-guiltiness upon a person, is the opposite of taking away ac;n; ) or forgiving the sin, and therefore inevitably brings the punishment after it. Cherpâthoo (its reproach or dishonour) is the dishonour which Ephraim had done to the Lord by sin and idolatry (cf. Isa 65:7). And this would be repaid to it by its Lord, i.e., by Jehovah.

ISRAEL’S DEEP FALL HOSEA 13:1-2 Because Israel would not desist from its idolatry, and entirely forgot the goodness of its God, He would destroy its might and glory (vv. 1-8).

Because it did not acknowledge the Lord as its help, its throne would be annihilated along with its capital; but this judgment would become to all that were penitent a regeneration to newness of life.

Verse 1. “When Ephraim spake, there was terror; he exalted himself in Israel; then he offended through Baal, and died. And now they continue to sin, and make themselves molten images out of their silver, idols according to their understanding: manufacture of artists is it all: they say of them, Sacrificers of men: let them kiss calves.” In order to show how deeply Israel had fallen through its apostasy, the prophet points to the great distinction which the tribe of Ephraim formerly enjoyed among the tribes of Israel. The two clauses of v. 1a cannot be so connected together as that ac;n; should be taken as a continuation of the infinitive rbæd; .

The emphatic aWh is irreconcilable with this. We must rather take tter] (hap leg., in Aramaean = ff,r, , Jer 49:24, terror, tremor) as the apodosis to kedabbeer ‘Ephraim (when Ephraim spake), like taec] in Gen 4:7: “As Ephraim spake there was terror,” i.e., men listened with fear and trembling (cf. Job 29:21). ac;n; is used intransitively, as in Nah 1:5; Ps 89:10.

Ephraim, i.e., the tribe of Ephraim, “exalted itself in Israel,”-not “it was distinguished among its brethren” (Hitzig), but “it raised itself to the government.” The prophet has in his mind the attempts made by Ephraim to get the rule among the tribes, which led eventually to the secession of the ten tribes from the royal family of David, and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel by the side of that of Judah. When Ephraim had secured this, the object of its earnest endeavours, it offended through Baal; i.e., not only through the introduction of the worship of Baal in the time of Ahab (1 Kings 16:31ff.), but even through the establishment of the worship of the calves under Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:28), through which Jehovah was turned into a Baal. tWm , used of the state or kingdom, is equivalent to “was given up to destruction” (cf. Amos 2:2).

The dying commenced with the introduction of the unlawful worship (cf. Kings 12:30). From this sin Ephraim (the people of the ten tribes) did not desist: they still continue to sin, and make themselves molten images, etc., contrary to the express prohibition in Lev 19:4 (cf. Ex 20:4). These words are not merely to be understood as signifying, that they added other idolatrous images in Gilgal and Beersheba to the golden calves (Amos 8:14); but they also involve their obstinate adherence to the idolatrous worship introduced by Jeroboam (compare 2 Kings 17:16). µn;Wbt]Bi from ˆWbT; , with the feminine termination dropped on account of the suffix (according to Ewald, §257, d; although in the note Ewald regards this formation as questionable, and doubts the correctness of the reading): “according to their understanding,” i.e., their proficiency in art.

The meaning of the second hemistich, which is very difficult, depends chiefly upon the view we take of µd;a; jbæz; , viz., whether we render these words “they who sacrifice men,” as the LXX, the fathers, and many of the rabbins and Christian expositors have done; or “the sacrificers of (among) men,” as Kimchi, Bochart, Ewald, and others do, after the analogy of µd;a; ynewOyb]a, in Isa 29:19. Apart from this, however, zoobhechee ‘âdâm cannot possibly be taken as an independent sentence, such as “they sacrifice men,” or “human sacrificers are they,” unless with the LXX we change the participle jbæz, arbitrarily into the perfect Wjb]z; . As the words read, they must be connected with what follows or with what precedes. But if we connect them with what follows, we fail to obtain any suitable thought, whether we render it “human sacrificers (those who sacrifice men) kiss calves,” or “the sacrificers among men kiss calves.”

The former is open to the objection that human sacrifices were not offered to the calves (i.e., to Jehovah, as worshipped under the symbol of a calf), but only to Moloch, and that the worshippers of Moloch did not kiss calves. The latter, “men who offer sacrifice kiss calves,” might indeed be understood in this sense, that the prophet intended thereby to denounce the great folly, that men should worship animals; but this does not suit the preceding words rmæa; µhe , and it is impossible to see in what sense they could be employed. There is no other course left, therefore, than to connect zoobhechee ‘âdâm with what precedes, though not in the way proposed by Ewald, viz., “even to these do sacrificers of men say.” This rendering is open to the following objections: (1) that µhe after ttæK; ] would have to be taken as an emphatic repetition of the pronoun, and we cannot find any satisfactory ground for this; and, (2) what is still more important, the fact that ‘âmar would be used absolutely, in the sense of “they speak in prayer,” which, even apart from the “prayer,” cannot be sustained by any other analogous example. These difficulties vanish if we take zoobhechee ‘âdâm as an explanatory apposition to heem: “of them (the ‘atsabbiim) they say, viz., the sacrificers from among men (i.e., men who sacrifice), Let them worship calves.” By the apposition zoobhechee ‘âdâm, and the fact that the object ‘agâliim is placed first, so that it stands in immediate contrast to ‘âdâm, the absurdity of men kissing calves, i.e., worshipping them with kisses (see at 1 Kings 19:18), is painted as it were before the eye.

HOSEA. 13:3

They prepare for themselves swift destruction in consequence “Therefore will they be like the morning cloud, and like the dew that passes early away, as chaff blows away from the threshingfloor, and as smoke out of the window.” Lâkheen, therefore, viz., because they would not let their irrational idolatry go, they would quickly perish. On the figures of the morning cloud and dew, see at Hos 6:4. The figure of the chaff occurs more frequently (vid., Isa 17:13; 41:15-16; Ps 1:4; 35:5, etc.). r[æs; is used relatively: which is stormed away, i.e., blown away from the threshing-floor by a violent wind.

The threshing-floors were situated upon eminences (compare my Bibl.

Archäol. ii. p. 114). “Smoke out of the window,” i.e., smoke from the fire under a saucepan in the room, which passed out of the window-lattice, as the houses were without chimneys (see Ps 68:3).

HOSEA. 13:4-5

“And yet I am Jehovah thy God from the land of Egypt hither; and thou knowest no God beside me, and there is no helper beside me.

I knew thee in the desert, in the land of burning heats.” As in Hos 12:10, a contrast is drawn here again between the idolatry of the people and the uninterrupted self-attestation of Jehovah to the faithless nation. From Egypt hither Israel has known no other God than Jehovah, i.e., has found no other God to be a helper and Saviour. Even in the desert He knew Israel, i.e., adopted it in love. [dæy; , to know, when applied to God, is an attestation of His love and care (compare Amos 3:2; Isa 58:3, etc.). The hap leg. hb;Wal]Tæ , from bal , Arab. lâb, med. Vav, to thirst, signifies burning heat, in which men famish with thirst (for the fact, compare Deut 8:15).

HOSEA. 13:6

But prosperity made Israel proud, so that it forgot its God.

Verse 6. “As they had their pasture, they became full; they became full, and their heart was lifted up: therefore have they forgotten me.” This reproof is taken almost word for word from Deut 8:11ff. (cf. Hosea 31:20; 32:15ff.). ty[ir]mi , answering to their pasture, i.e., because they had such good pasture in the land given them by the Lord. The very thing of which Moses warned the people in Deut 8:11 has come to pass. Therefore are the threats of the law against the rebellious fulfilled upon them.

HOSEA. 13:7-8

“And I became like a lion to them; as a leopard by the wayside do I lie in wait. I fall upon them as a bear robbed of its young, and tear in pieces the enclosure of their heart, and eat them there like a lioness: the beast of the field will tear them in pieces.” The figure of the pasture which made Israel full (v. 6) is founded upon the comparison of Israel to a flock (cf. Hos 4:16). The chastisement of the people is therefore represented as the tearing in pieces and devouring of the fattened flock by wild beasts. God appears as a lion, panther, etc., which fall upon them (cf. Hos 5:14). hy;h; does not stand for the future, but is the preterite, giving the consequence of forgetting God. The punishment has already begun, and will still continue; we have therefore from rWv onwards imperfects or futures. rWv , from rWv , to look round, hence to lie in wait, as in Jer 5:26. It is not to be changed into ‘Asshur, as it is by the LXX and Vulgate. ble dwOgs] , the enclosure of their heart, i.e., their breast.

Shâm (there) points back to ‘al-derekh (by the way).

HOSEA. 13:9-11

Ver. 9 commences a new strophe, in which the prophet once more discloses to the people the reason for their corruption (vv. 9-13); and after pointing to the saving omnipotence of the Lord (v. 14), holds up before them utter destruction as the just punishment for their guilt (v. 15 and Hos 14:1).

Verse 9-11. “O Israel, it hurls thee into destruction, that thou (art) against me, thy help. Where is thy king? that he may help thee in all thy cities: and (where) they judges? of whom thou saidst, Give me king and princes! I give thee kings in my anger, and take them away in my wrath.” tjæv; does not combine together the verbs in v. 8, as Hitzig supposes; nor does v. 9 give the reason for what precedes, but shichethkhâ is explained by v. 10, from which we may see that a new train of thought commences with v. 9. Shicheeth does not mean to act corruptly here, as in Deut 32:5; 9:12, and Ex 32:7, but to bring into corruption, to ruin, as in Gen 6:17; 9:15; Num 32:15, etc.

The sentence wgw µyrit;a yKi cannot be explained in any other way than by supplying the pronoun hT;aæ , as a subject taken from the suffix to tjæv; (Marck, and nearly all the modern commentators). “This throws thee into distress, that thou hast resisted me, who am thy help.” `rz,[e : as in Deut 33:26, except that b is used in the sense of against, as in Gen 16:12; 2 Sam 24:17, etc. This opposition did not take place, however, when all Israel demanded a king of Samuel (1 Sam 8:5). For although this desire is represented there (v. 7) as the rejection of Jehovah, Hosea is speaking here simply of the Israel of the ten tribes. The latter rebelled against Jehovah, when they fell away from the house of David, and made Jeroboam their king, and with contempt of Jehovah put their trust in the might of their kings of their own choosing (1 Kings 12:16ff.). But these kings could not afford them any true help.

The question, “Where” (‘ehii only occurs here and twice in v. 14, for raæ or hya , possibly simply from a dialectical variation-vid. Ewald, §104, cand is strengthened by wOpae , as in Job 17:15), “Where is thy king, that he may help thee?” does not presuppose that Israel had no king at all at that time, and that the kingdom was in a state of anarchy, but simply that it had no king who could save it, when the foe, the Assyrian, attacked it in all its cities. Before shoopheteykhâ (thy judges) we must repeat ‘ehii (where).

The shoophetiim, as the use of the word sâriim (princes) in its stead in the following clause clearly shows, are not simple judges, but royal counsellors and ministers, who managed the affairs of the kingdom along with the king, and superintended the administration of justice. The saying, “Give me a king and princes,” reminds us very forcibly of the demand of the people in the time of Samuel; but they really refer simply to the desire of the ten tribes for a king of their own, which manifested itself in their dissatisfaction with the rule of the house of David, and their consequent secession, and to their persistence in this secession amidst all the subsequent changes of the government.

We cannot therefore take the imperfects ˆf,B, and jqæl; in v. 11 as pure preterites, i.e., we cannot understand them as referring simply to the choice of Jeroboam as king, and to his death. The imperfects denote an action that is repeated again and again, for which we should use the present, and refer to all the kings that the kingdom of the ten tribes had received and was receiving still, and to their removal. God in His wrath gives the sinful nation kings and takes them away, in order to punish the nation through its kings. This applies not merely to the kings who followed one another so rapidly through conspiracy and murder, although through these the kingdom was gradually broken up and its dissolution accelerated, but to the rulers of the ten tribes as a whole. God gave the tribes who were discontented with the theocratical government of David and Solomon a king of their own, that He might punish them for their resistance to His government, which came to light in the rebellion against Rehoboam. He suspended the division of the kingdom not only over Solomon, as a punishment for his idolatry, but also over the rebellious ten tribes, who, when they separated themselves from the royal house to which the promise had been given of everlasting duration, were also separated from the divinely appointed worship and altar, and given up into the power of their kings, who hurled one another from the throne; and God took away this government from them to chastise them for their sins, by giving them into the power of the heathen, and by driving them away from His face. It is to this last thought, that what follows is attached. The removal of the king in wrath would occur, because the sin of Ephraim was reserved for punishment.

HOSEA. 13:12-13

“The guilt of Ephraim is bound together: his sin is preserved. The pains of a travailing woman come upon him: he is an unwise son; that he does not place himself at the time in the breaking forth of children.” V. 12 is a special application of Deut 32:34 to the ten tribes. Tsâruur, bound up in a bundle, like a thing which you wish to take great care of (compare Job 14:17; 1 Sam 25:29). The same thing is applied in tsâphuun, hidden, carefully preserved, so as not to be lost (Job 21:19). “All their sins are preserved for punishment” (Chald.). Therefore will pains overtake Ephraim like a woman in labour. The pains of childbirth are not merely a figurative representation of violent agony, but of the sufferings and calamities connected with the refining judgments of God, by which new life was to be born, and a complete transformation of all things effected (cf.

Mic 4:9-10; Isa 13:8; 26:17; Matt 24:8). He cannot be spared these pains, for he is a foolish son (cf. Deut 32:6,28ff.). But in what respect? This is explained in the words wgw’ `t[e yKi , “for at the time,” or as `t[e cannot stand for `t[e , more correctly “when it is time,” he does not place himself in, i.e., does not enter, the opening of the womb. Mishbar bâniim is to be explained as in 2 Kings 19:3 and Isa 37:3; and `rmæ[; , c. b as in Ezek 22:30.

If the child does not come to the opening at the right time, the birth is retarded, and the life of both mother and child endangered. The mother and child are one person here. And this explains the transition from the pains of the mother to the behaviour of the child at the time of birth. Ephraim is an unwise son, inasmuch as even under the chastening judgment he still delays his conversion, and will not let himself be new-born, like a child, that at the time of the labour-pains will not enter the opening of the womb and so come to the birth.

HOSEA. 13:14

But in order to preserve believers from despair, the Lord announces in v. 14 that He will nevertheless redeem His people from the power of death.

Verse 14. “Out of the hand of hell will I redeem them; from death will I set them free! Where are thy plagues, O death? where thy destruction, O hell! Repentance is hidden from mine eyes.” The fact that this verse contains a promise, and not a threat, would hardly have been overlooked by so many commentators, if they had not been led, out of regard to vv. 13, 15, to put force upon the words, and either take the first clauses as interrogative, “Should I...redeem?” (Calvin and others), or as conditional, “I would redeem them,” with “si resipiscerent” (supplied (Kimchi, Sal. b. Mel. Ros., etc.). But apart from the fact that the words supplied are perfectly arbitrary, with nothing at all to indicate them, both of these explanations are precluded by the sentences which follow: for the questions, “Where are thy plagues, O death?” etc., are obviously meant to affirm the conquest or destruction of hell and death. And this argument retains its force even if we take yhia’ as an optative from hy;h; , without regard to v. 10, since the thought, “I should like to be thy plague, O death,” presupposes that deliverance from the power of death is affirmed in what comes before. But, on account of the style of address, we cannot take yhia’ even as an interrogative, in the sense of “Should I be,” etc. And what would be the object of this gradation of thought, if the redemption from death were only hypothetical, or were represented as altogether questionable?

If we take the words as they stand, therefore, it is evident that they affirm something more than deliverance when life is in danger, or preservation from death. To redeem or ransom from the hand (or power) of hell, i.e., of the under world, the realm of death, is equivalent to depriving hell of its prey, not only by not suffering the living to die, but by bringing back to life those who have fallen victims to hell, i.e., to the region of the dead. The cessation or annihilation of death is expressed still more forcibly in the triumphant words: “Where are thy plagues (pestilences), O death? where thy destruction, O hell?” of which Theodoret has aptly observed, paiani>zein kata> tou> qana>tou keleu>ei . rb;d; is an intensive plural of debher, plague, pestilence, and is to be explained in accordance with Ps 91:6, where we also find the synonym bf,qo in the form bf,q, , pestilence or destruction.

The Apostle Paul has therefore very properly quoted these words in 1 Cor 15:55, in combination with the declaration in Isa 25:8, “Death is swallowed up in victory,” to confirm the truth, that at the resurrection of the last day, death will be annihilated, and that which is corruptible changed into immortality. We must not restrict the substance of this promise, however, to the ultimate issue of the redemption, in which it will receive its complete fulfilment. The suffixes attached to ‘ephdeem and ‘eg’âleem point to Israel of the ten tribes, like the verbal suffixes in v. 8. Consequently the promised redemption from death must stand in intimate connection with the threatened destruction of the kingdom of Israel. Moreover, the idea of the resurrection of the dead was by no means so clearly comprehended in Israel at that time, as that the prophet could point believers to it as a ground of consolation when the kingdom was destroyed.

The only meaning that the promise had for the Israelites of the prophet’s day, was that the Lord possessed the power even to redeem from death, and raise Israel from destruction into newness of life; just as Ezekiel (ch. 37) depicts the restoration of Israel as the giving of life to the dry bones that lay scattered about the field. The full and deeper meaning of these words was but gradually unfolded to believers under the Old Testament, and only attained complete and absolute certainty for all believers through the actual resurrection of Christ. But in order to anticipate all doubt as to this exceedingly great promise, the Lord adds, “repentance is hidden from mine eyes,” i.e., my purpose of salvation will be irrevocably accomplished.

The hap leg. noocham does not mean “resentment” (Ewald), but, as a derivative of nicham, simply consolation or repentance. The former, which the Septuagint adopts, does not suit the context, which the latter alone does. The words are to be interpreted in accordance with Ps 89:36 and Ps 110:4, where the oath of God is still further strengthened by the words µjæn; alo , “and will not repent;” and µjæn; alo corresponds to bzæK; µai in Ps 89:36 (Marck and Krabbe, Quaestion. de Hos. vatic. spec. p. 47). Compare 1 Sam 15:29 and Num 23:19.

HOSEA. 13:15

“For he will bear fruit among brethren. East wind will come, a wind of Jehovah, rising up from the desert; and his fountain will dry up, and his spring become dried. He plunders the treasuries of all splendid vessels.” The connection between the first clause and the previous verse has been correctly pointed out by Marck. “V. 15,” he says, “adduces a reason to prove that the promised grace of redemption would certainly stand firm.” yKi cannot be either a particle of time or of condition here (when, or if); for neither of them yields a suitable thought, since Ephraim neither was at that time, nor could become, fruit-bearing among brethren. Ewald’s hypothetical view, “Should Ephraim be a fruitful child,” cannot be grammatically sustained, since kii is only used in cases where a circumstance is assumed to be real. For one that is merely supposed to be possible, µai is required, as the interchange of µai and yKi , in Num 5:19-20, for example, clearly shows.

The meaning of ar;p; is placed beyond all doubt by the evident play upon the name Ephraim; and this also explains the writing with ynæa instead of h, as well as the idea of the sentence itself: Ephraim will bear fruit among the brethren, i.e., the other tribes, as its name, double-fruitfulness, affirms (see at Gen 41:52). This thought, through which the redemption from death set before Israel is confirmed, is founded not only upon the assumption that the name must become a truth, but chiefly upon the blessing which the patriarch promised to the tribe of Ephraim on the ground of its name, both in Gen 48:4,20, and Gen 49:22ff. Because Ephraim possessed such a pledge of blessing in its very name, the Lord would not let it be overwhelmed for ever in the tempest that was bursting upon it. The same thing applies to the name Ephraim as to the name Israel, with which it is used as synonymous; and what is true of all the promises of God is true of this announcement also, viz., that they are only fulfilled in the case of those who adhere to the conditions under which they were given.

Of Ephraim, those only will bear fruit which abides to everlasting life, who walk as true champions for God in the footsteps of faith and of their forefathers, wrestling for the blessing of the promises. On the other hand, upon the Ephraim that has turned into Canaan (Hos 12:8) an east wind will come, a tempest bursting from the desert (see at Hos 12:2), and that a stormy wind raised by Jehovah, which will dry up his spring, i.e., destroy not only the fruitful land with which God has blessed it (Deut 33:13-16), but all the sources of its power and stability. Like the promise in v. 14, the threatening of the judgment, to which the kingdom of Israel is to succumb, is introduced quite abruptly with the word awOB. The figurative style of address then passes in the last clause into a literal threat. aWh , he, the hostile conqueror, sent as a tempestuous wind by the Lord, viz., the Assyrian, will plunder the treasure of all costly vessels, i.e., all the treasures and valuables of the kingdom. On kelii chemdâh compare Nah 2:10 and Chron 32:27. We understand by it chiefly the treasures of the capital, to which a serious catastrophe is more especially predicted in the next verse (Hos 14:1), which also belongs to this strophe, on account of its rebellion against God.

HOSEA. 13:16

(Heb. Bibl. Hosea 14:1). “Samaria will atone, because it has rebelled against its God: they will fall by the sword; their children will be dashed to pieces, and its women with child ripped up.” µvea; , to atone, to bear the guilt, i.e., the punishment. It is not equivalent to shâmeem in Ezek 6:6, although, as a matter of fact, the expiation consisted in the conquest and devastation of Samaria by Shalmanezer. The subject to yippeluu (will fall) is the inhabitants of Samaria. The suffix to hr,h; (its women, etc.) refers to the nation. The form haariyaah is one derived from hr,h; , for hr,h; (Ewald, §189, c). The construction with the masculine verb [qæB; , in the place of the feminine, is an anomaly, which may be explained from the fact that feminine formations from the plur. imperf. are generally very rare (see Ewald, §191, b). For the fact itself, compare Hos 10:14; 2 Kings 8:12; 15:16; Amos 1:13.

ISRAEL’S CONVERSION AND PARDON HOSEA 14:1-3 After the prophet has set before the sinful nation in various ways its own guilt, and the punishment that awaits it, viz., the destruction of the kingdom, he concludes his addresses with a call to thorough conversion to the Lord, and the promise that the Lord will bestow His grace once more upon those who turn to Him, and will bless them abundantly (vv. 1-8).

Verse 1. (Heb. Bib. v. 2). “Return, O Israel, to Jehovah thy God; for thou hast stumbled through thy guilt. Take with you words, and turn to Jehovah; say ye to Him, Forgive all guilt, and accept what is good, that we may offer our lips as bullocks. Asshur will not help us: we will not ride upon horses, nor say ‘Our God’ any more to the manufacture of our own hands; for with Thee the orphan findeth compassion.” There is no salvation for fallen man without return to God. It is therefore with a call to return to the Lord their God, that the prophet opens the announcement of the salvation with which the Lord will bless His people, whom He has brought to reflection by means of the judgment (cf. Deut 4:30; 30:1ff.). yy `d[æ bWv , to return, to be converted to the Lord, denotes complete conversion; lae bWv is, strictly speaking, simply to turn towards God, to direct heart and mind towards Him. By kâshaltâ sin is represented as a false step, which still leaves it possible to return; so that in a call to conversion it is very appropriately chosen.

But if the conversion is to be of the right kind, it must begin with a prayer for the forgiveness of sin, and attest itself by the renunciation of earthly help and simple trust in the mercy of God. Israel is to draw near to God in this state of mind. “Take with you words,” i.e., do not appear before the Lord empty (Ex 23:15; 34:20); but for this ye do not require outward sacrifices, but simply words, sc. those of confession of your guilt, as the Chaldee has correctly explained it. The correctness of this explanation is evident from the confession of sin which follows, with which they are to come before God. In `aawon kaal-tisaa’, the position of col at the head of the sentence may be accounted for from the emphasis that rests upon it, and the separation of ‘âvoon, from the fact that col was beginning to acquire more of the force of an adjective, like our all (thus 2 Sam 1:9; Job 27:3: cf. Ewald, §289, a; Ges. §114, 3, Anm. 1).

Qach toobh means neither “accept goodness,” i.e., let goodness be shown thee (Hitzig), nor “take it as good,” sc. that we pray (Grotius, Ros.); but in the closest connection with what proceeds: Accept the only good thing that we are able to bring, viz., the sacrifices of our lips. Jerome has given the correct interpretation, viz.: “For unless Thou hadst borne away our evil things, we could not possibly have the good thing which we offer Thee;” according to that which is written elsewhere (Ps 37:27), “Turn from evil, and do good.” µlæv; , literally, “we will repay (pay) as young oxen our lips,” i.e., present the prayers of our lips as thank-offerings. The expression is to be explained from the fact that shilleem, to wipe off what is owing, to pay, is a technical term, applied to the sacrifice offered in fulfilment of a vow (Deut 23:22; Ps 22:26; 50:14, etc.), and that pâriim, young oxen, were the best animals for thank- offerings (Ex 24:5).

As such thank-offerings, i.e., in the place of the best animal sacrifices, they would offer their lips, i.e., their prayers, to God (cf. Ps 51:17-19; 69:31- 32). In the Sept. rendering, apodw>somen karpo>n cei>lewn , to which there is an allusion in Heb 13:15, rpæ has been confounded with yrip] , as Jerome has already observed. but turning to God requires renunciation of the world, of its power, and of all idolatry. Rebellious Israel placed its reliance upon Assyria and Egypt (Hos 5:13; 7:11; 8:9). It will do this no longer. The riding upon horses refers partly to the military force of Egypt (Isa 31:1), and partly to their own (Hos 1:7; Isa 2:7). For the expression, “neither will we say to the work of our hands,” compare Isa 42:17; 44:17. (HSN-871a ) rv,a , not “Thou with whom,” but “for with Thee” (‘asher as in Deut 3:24). The thought, “with Thee the orphan findeth compassion,” as God promises in His word (Ex 22:22; Deut 10:18), serves not only as a reason for the resolution no longer to call the manufacture of their own hands God, but generally for the whole of the penitential prayer, which they are encouraged to offer by the compassionate nature of God. In response to such a penitential prayer, the Lord will heal all His people’s wounds, and bestow upon them once more the fulness of the blessings of His grace. The prophet announces this in vv. 4-8 as the answer from the Lord. HOSEA 14:4-8 Verse 4-8. “I will heal their apostasy, will love them freely: for my wrath has turned away from it. I will be like dew for Israel: it shall blossom like the lily, and strike its roots like Lebanon. Its shoots shall go forth, and its splendour shall become like the olive-tree, and its smell like Lebanon. They that dwell in its shadow shall give life to corn again; and shall blossom like the vine: whose glory is like the wine of Lebanon. Ephraim: What have I further with the idols? I hear, and look upon him: I, like a bursting cypress, in me is thy fruit found.” The Lord promises first of all to heal their apostasy, i.e., all the injuries which have been inflicted by their apostasy from Him, and to love them with perfect spontaneity (nedâbhâh an adverbial accusative, promta animi voluntate), since His anger, which was kindled on account of its idolatry, had now turned away from it (mimmennuu, i.e., from Israel). The reading mimmennii (from me), which the Babylonian Codices have after the Masora, appears to have originated in a misunderstanding of Jer 2:35.

This love of the Lord will manifest itself in abundant blessing. Jehovah will be to Israel a refreshing, enlivening dew (cf. Isa 26:19), through which it will blossom splendidly, strike deep roots, and spread its shoots far and wide. “Like the lily:” the fragrant white lily, which is very common in Palestine, and grows without cultivation, and “which is unsurpassed in its fecundity, often producing fifty bulbs from a single root” (Pliny h. n. xxi. 5). “Strike roots like Lebanon,” i.e., not merely the deeply rooted forest of Lebanon, but the mountain itself, as one of the “foundations of the earth” (Mic 6:2). The deeper the roots, the more the branches spread and cover themselves with splendid green foliage, like the evergreen and fruitful olive-tree (Jer. 11:16; Ps. 52:10). The smell is like Lebanon, which is rendered fragrant by its cedars and spices (Song of Sol. 4:11). The meaning of the several features in the picture has been well explained by Rosenmüller thus: “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.”

In v. 7 a somewhat different turn is given to the figure. The comparison of the growth and flourishing of Israel to the lily and to a tree, that strikes deep roots and spreads its green branches far and wide, passes imperceptibly into the idea that Israel is itself the tree beneath whose shade the members of the nation flourish with freshness and vigour. bWv is to be connected adverbially with hy;j; . Those who sit beneath the shade of Israel, the tree that is bursting into leaf, will revive corn, i.e., cause it to return to life, or produce it for nourishment, satiety, and strengthening. Yea, they themselves will sprout like the vine, whose remembrance is, i.e., which has a renown, like the wine of Lebanon, which has been celebrated from time immemorial (cf. Plin. h. n. xiv. 7; Oedmann, Verbm. Sammlung aus der Naturkunde, ii. p. 193; and Rosenmüller, Bibl. Althk. iv. 1, p. 217).

The divine promise closes in v. 9 with an appeal to Israel to renounce idols altogether, and hold fast by the Lord alone as the source of its life.

Ephraim is a vocative, and is followed immediately by what the Lord has to say to Ephraim, so that we may supply memento in thought. [l dwO[ yLiAhmæ , what have I yet to do with idols? (for this phrase, compare Jer 2:18); that is to say, not “I have now to contend with thee on account of the idols (Schmieder), nor “do not place them by my side any more” (Ros.); but, “I will have nothing more to do with idols,” which also implies that Ephraim is to have nothing more to do with them. To this there is appended a notice of what God has done and will do for Israel, to which greater prominence is given by the emphatic ynæa : I, I hearken (‘âniithii a prophetic perfect), and look upon him. rWv , to look about for a person, to be anxious about him, or care for him, as in Job 24:15. The suffix refers to Ephraim. In the last clause, God compares Himself to a cypress becoming green, not only to denote the shelter which He will afford to the people, but as the true tree of life, on which the nation finds its fruits-a fruit which nourishes and invigorates the spiritual life of the nation. The salvation which this promise sets before the people when they shall return to the Lord, is indeed depicted, according to the circumstances and peculiar views prevailing under the Old Testament, as earthly growth and prosperity; but its real nature is such, that it will receive a spiritual fulfilment in those Israelites alone who are brought to belief in Jesus Christ.

HOSEA. 14:9

Verse 9 (10) contains the epilogue to the whole book. “Who is wise, that he may understand this? understanding, that he may discern it? For the ways of Jehovah are straight, and the righteous walk therein: but the rebellious stumble in them.” The pronoun hL,ae and the suffix to [dæy; refer to everything that the prophet has laid before the people in his book for warning, for reproof, for correction, for chastening in righteousness. He concludes by summing up the whole substance of his teaching in the one general sentence, which points back to Deut 32:4: The ways of the Lord are straight. “The ways of Jehovah” (darkhee Yehoovâh) are the ways taken by God in the guidance and government of men; not only the ways which He prescribes for them, but also His guidance of them. These ways lead some to life and others to death, according to the different attitudes which men assume towards God, as Moses announced to all the Israelites that they would (Deut 30:19-20), and as the Apostle Paul assured the church at Corinth that the gospel of Jesus also would (1 Cor 1:18). JOEL INTRODUCTION 1. Person and Times of the Prophet Joel.

Joel laewOy , i.e., whose God is Jehovah, Iwh>l ) is distinguished from other men of the same name, which occurs very frequently (e.g., 1 Sam 8:2; Chron 4:35; 5:4; 8:12; 6:21; 7:3; 2 Chron 29:12; Neh 11:9), by the epithet “son of Pethuel” laeWtp] , the open-heartedness or sincerity of God).

Nothing is known of the circumstances connected with his life, since the traditional legends as to his springing from Bethom ( Bhqw>n , al. EeJbura>n in Ps. Epiph.), or Bethomeron in the tribe of Reuben (Ps. Doroth.), are quite unsupported. All that can be inferred with any certainty from his writings is, that he lived in Judah, and in all probability prophesied in Jerusalem. The date of his ministry is also a disputed point; though so much is certain, namely, that he did not live in the reign of Manasseh or Josiah, or even later, as some suppose, but was one of the earliest of the twelve minor prophets.

For even Amos (Amos 1:2) commences his prophecy with a passage from Joel (Joel 3:16), and closes it with the same promises, adopting in Joel 9:13 the beautiful imagery of Joel, of the mountains dripping with new wine, and the hills overflowing (Joel 3:18). And Isaiah, again, in his description of the coming judgment in ch. 13, had Joel in his mind; and in v. 6 he actually borrows a sentence from his prophecy (Joel 1:15), which is so peculiar that the agreement cannot be an accidental one. Consequently, Joel prophesied before Amos, i.e., before the twenty-seven years of the contemporaneous reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam II. How long before, can only be inferred with any degree of probability from the historical circumstances to which he refers in his prophecy. The only enemies that he mentions besides Egypt and Edom (Joel 3:19), as those whom the Lord would punish for the hostility they had shown towards the people of God, are Tyre and Zidon, and the coasts of Philistia (Joel 3:4); but not the Syrians, who planned an expedition against Jerusalem after the conquest of Gath, which cost Joash not only the treasures of the temple and palace, but his own life also (2 Kings 12:18ff.; 2 Chron 24:23ff.), on account of which Amos predicted the destruction of the kingdom of Syria, and the transportation of the people to Assyria (Amos 1:3-5).

But inasmuch as this expedition of the Syrians was not “directed against the Philistines, so that only a single detachment made a passing raid into Judah on their return,” as Hengstenberg supposes, but was a direct attack upon the kingdom of Judah, to which the city of Gath, that Rehoboam had fortified, may still have belonged (see at 2 Kings 12:18-19), and inflicted a very severe defeat upon Judah, Joel would surely have mentioned the Syrians along with the other enemies of Judah, if he had prophesied after that event. And even if the absence of any reference to the hostility of the Syrians towards Judah is not strictly conclusive when taken by itself, it acquires great importance from the fact that the whole character of Joel’s prophecy points to the times before Amos and Hosea. We neither meet with any allusion to the sins which Hosea and Amos condemn on the part of Judah, and which brought about the Assyrian judgment; nor is idolatry, as it prevailed under Joram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah, ever mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, the Jehovah-worship, which Jehoiada the high priest restored when Joash ascended the throne (2 Kings 11:17ff.; 2 Chron 23:16ff.), is presupposed with all its well-regulated and priestly ceremonial.

These circumstances speak very decidedly in favour of the conclusion that the first thirty years of the reign of Joash, during which the king had Jehoiada the high priest for his adviser, are to be regarded as the period of Joel’s ministry. No well-founded objection can be brought against this on account of the position which his book occupies among the minor prophets, since there is no ground for the opinion that the writings of the twelve minor prophets are arranged with a strict regard to chronology. 2. The Book of Joel.

The writings of Joel contain a connected prophetic proclamation, which is divided into two equal halves by Joel 2:18 and 19a. In the first half the prophet depicts a terrible devastation of Judah by locusts and scorching heat; and describing this judgment as the harbinger, or rather as the dawn, of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, summons the people of all ranks to a general day of penitence, fasting, and prayer, in the sanctuary upon Zion, that the Lord may have compassion upon His nation (Joel 1:2-2:17). In the second half there follows, as the divine answer to the call of the people to repentance, the promise that the Lord will destroy the army of locusts, and bestow a rich harvest blessing upon the land by sending early and latter rain (Joel 2:19b-27), and then in the future pour out His Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28-32), and sit in judgment upon all nations, who have scattered His people and divided His land among them, and reward them according to their deeds; but that He will shelter His people from Zion, and glorify His land by rivers of abundant blessing (ch. 3). These two halves are connected together by the statement that Jehovah manifests the jealousy of love for His land, and pity towards His people, and answers them (Joel 2:18-19a). So far the commentators are all agreed as to the contents of the book. But there are differences of opinion, more especially as to the true interpretation of the first half-namely, whether the description of the terrible devastation by locusts is to be understood literally or allegorically. f24 The decision of this question depends upon the reply that is given to the prior question, whether Joel 1:2-2:17 contains a description of a present or a future judgment. If we observe, first of all, that the statement in Joel 2:18 and 19a, by which the promise is introduced, is expressed in four successive imperfects with Vav. consec. (the standing form for historical narratives), there can be no doubt whatever that this remark contains a historical announcement of what has taken place on the part of the Lord in consequence of the penitential cry of the people. And if this be established, it follows still further that the first half of our book cannot contain the prediction of a strictly future judgment, but must describe a calamity which has at any rate in part already begun. This is confirmed by the fact that the prophet from the very outset (Joel 1:2-4) described the devastation of the land by locusts as a present calamity, on the ground of which he summons the people to repentance. As Joel begins with an appeal to the old men, to see whether such things have happened in their own days, or the days of their fathers, and to relate them to their children and children’s children, and then describes the thing itself with simple perfects, wgw lkæa; µz;G; rt,y, , it is perfectly obvious that he is not speaking of something that is to take place in the future, but of a divine judgment that has been inflicted already. f25 It is true that the prophets frequently employ preterites in their description of future events, but there is no analogous example that can be found of such a use of them as we find here in Joel 1:2-4; and the remark made by Hengstenberg, to the effect that we find the preterites employed in exactly the same manner in ch. 3, is simply incorrect. But if Joel had an existing calamity before his eye, and depicts it in Joel 1:2ff., the question in dispute from time immemorial, whether the description is to be understood allegorically or literally, is settled in favour of the literal view. “An allegory must contain some significant marks of its being so. Where these are wanting, it is arbitrary to assume that it is an allegory at all.” And we have no such marks here, as we shall show in our exposition in detail. “As it is a fact established by the unanimous testimony of the most credible witnesses, that wherever swarms of locusts descend, all the vegetation in the fields immediately vanishes, just as if a curtain had been rolled up; that they spare neither the juicy bark of woody plants, nor the roots below the ground; that their cloud-like swarms darken the air, and render the sun and even men at a little distance off invisible; that their innumerable and closely compact army advances in military array in a straight course, most obstinately maintained; that it cannot be turned back or dispersed, either by natural obstacles or human force; that on its approach a loud roaring noise is heard like the rushing of a torrent, a waterfall, or a strong wind; that they no sooner settle to eat, than you hear on all sides the grating sound of their mandibles, and, as Volney expresses it, might fancy that you heard the foraging of an invisible army;-if we compare these and other natural observations with the statements of Joel, we shall find everywhere the most faithful picture, and nowhere any hyperbole requiring for its justification and explanation that the army of locusts should be paraphrased into an army of men; more especially as the devastation of a country by an army of locusts is far more terrible than that of an ordinary army; and there is no allusion, either expressed or hinted at, to a massacre among the people.

And if we consider, still further, that the migratory locusts (Acridium migratorium, in Oken, Allg. Naturgesch. v. 3, p. 1514ff.) find their grave sometimes in dry and barren steppes, and sometimes in lakes and seas, it is impossible to comprehend how the promise in Joel 2:20-one part of the army now devastating Judah shall be hurled into the southern desert, the van into the Dead Sea, and the rear into the Mediterranean-can harmonize with the allegorical view” (Delitzsch). f26 The only thing that appears to favour the idea that the locusts are used figuratively to represent hostile armies, is the circumstance that Joel discerns in the devastation of the locusts as depicted by him, the drawing near or coming of the day of the Lord (Joel 1:15; 2:1), connected with the fact that Isaiah speaks of the judgment upon Baal, which was accomplished by a hostile army, in the words of Joel (Joel 1:15; see Isa 13:6). But on closer examination, this appearance does not rise into reality. It is true that by the “day of Jehovah” we cannot understand a different judgment from the devastation of the locusts, since such a supposition would be irreconcilable with Joel 2:1ff. But the expression, “for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty does it come,” shows that the prophet did not so completely identify the day of the Lord with the plague of locusts, as that it was exhausted by it, but that he merely saw in this the approach of the great day of judgment, i.e., merely one element of the judgment, which falls in the course of ages upon the ungodly, and will be completed in the last judgment. One factor in the universal judgment is the judgment pronounced upon Babylon, and carried out by the Medes; so that it by no means follows from the occurrence of the words of Joel in the prophecy of Isaiah, that the latter put an allegorical interpretation upon Joel’s description of the devastation by the locusts.

But even if there are no conclusive indications or hints, that can be adduced in support of the allegorical interpretation, it cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the description, as a whole, contains something more than a poetical painting of one particular instance of the devastation of Judah by a more terrible swarm of locusts than had ever been known before; that is to say, that it bears an ideal character surpassing the reality-a fact which is overlooked by such commentators as can find nothing more in the account than the description of a very remarkable plague. The introduction, “Hear this, ye old men; and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land: hath this been in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the following generation” (Joel 1:2-3); and the lamentation in v. 9, that the meat-offering and drink-offering have been destroyed from the house of Jehovah; and still more, the picture of the day of the Lord as a day of darkness and of gloominess like the morning red spread over the mountains; a great people and a strong, such as has not been from all eternity, and after which there will be none like to for ever and ever (Joel 2:2)-unquestionably show that Joel not only regarded the plague of locusts that came upon Judah in the light of divine revelation, and as a sign, but described it as the breaking of the Lord’s great day of judgment, or that in the advance of the locusts he saw the army of God, at whose head Jehovah marched as captain, and caused His voice, the terrible voice of the Judge of the universe, to be heard in the thunder (Joel 2:11), and that he predicted this coming of the Lord, before which the earth trembles, the heavens shake, and sun, moon, and stars lose their brightness (Joel 2:10), as His coming to judge the world.

This proclamation, however, was no production of mere poetical exaggeration, but had its source in the inspiration of the Spirit of God, which enlightened the prophet; so that in the terrible devastation that had fallen upon Judah he discerned one feature of the day of judgment of the Lord, and on the ground of the judgment of God that had been thus experienced, proclaimed that the coming of the Lord to judgment upon the whole world was near at hand. The medium through which this was conveyed to his mind was meditation upon the history of the olden time, more especially upon the judgments through which Jehovah had effected the redemption of His people out of Egypt, in connection with the punishment with which Moses threatened the transgressors of the law (Deut 28:38-39,42)-namely, that locusts should devour their seed, their plants, their fields, and their fruits.

Hengstenberg has correctly observed, that the words of Joel in Joel 2:10, “There have not been ever the like,” are borrowed from Ex 10:14; but it is not in these words alone that the prophet points to the Egyptian plague of locusts. In the very introduction to his prophecy (Joel 1:2-3), viz., the question whether such a thing has occurred, and the charge, Tell it to your children, etc., there is an unmistakeable allusion to Ex 10:2, where the Lord charges Moses to tell Pharaoh that He will do signs, in order that Pharaoh may relate it to his son and his son’s son, and then announces the plague of locusts in these words: “that thy fathers and thy fathers’ fathers have not seen such things since their existence upon the earth” (Ex 10:6).

As the basis of this judgment of God which fell upon Egypt in the olden time, and by virtue of a higher illumination, Joel discerned in the similar judgment that had burst upon Judah in his own time, a type of the coming of Jehovah’s great day of judgment, and made it the substratum of his prophecy of the judgment of the wrath of the Lord which would come upon Judah, to terrify the sinners out of their self-security, and impel them by earnest repentance, fasting, and prayer, to implore the divine mercy for deliverance from utter destruction. This description of the coming day of Jehovah, i.e., of the judgment of the world, for which the judgment inflicted upon Judah of the devastation by locusts prepared the way, after the foretype of these occurrences of both the olden and present time, is no allegory, however, in which the heathen nations, by whom the judgments upon the covenant nation that had gone further and further from its God would be executed in the time to come, are represented as swarms of locusts coming one after another and devastating the land of Judah; but it has just the same reality as the plague of locusts through which God once sought to humble the pride of the Egyptian Pharaoh. We are no more at liberty to turn the locusts in the prophecy before us into hostile armies, than to pronounce the locusts by which Egypt was devastated, allegorical figures representing enemies or troops of hostile cavalry.

Such a metamorphosis as this is warranted neither by the vision in Amos 7:1-3, where Amos is said to have seen the divine judgment under the figure of a swarm of locusts; nor by that described in Rev 9:3ff., where locusts which come out of the bottomless pit are commanded neither to hurt the grass nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only to torment men with their scorpion-stings: for even in these visions the locusts are not figurative, representing hostile nations; but on the basis of the Egyptian plague of locusts and of Joel’s prophecy, they stand in Amos as a figurative representation of the devastation of the land, and in the Apocalypse as the symbol of a supernatural plague inflicted upon the ungodly. Lastly, another decisive objection to the allegorical interpretation is to be found in the circumstance, that neither in the first nor in the second half of his book does Joel predict the particular judgments which God will inflict in the course of time, partly upon His degenerate people, and partly upon the hostile powers of the world, but that he simply announces the judgment of God upon Judah and the nations of the world in its totality, as the great and terrible day of the Lord, without unfolding more minutely or even suggesting the particular facts in which it will be historically realized.

In this respect, the ideality of his prophecy is maintained throughout; and the only speciality given to it is, that in the first half the judgment upon the covenant people is proclaimed, and in the second the judgment upon the heathen nations: the former as the groundwork of a call to repentance; the latter as the final separation between the church of the Lord and its opponents. And this separation between the covenant nation and the powers of the world is founded on fact. The judgment only falls upon the covenant nation when it is unfaithful to its divine calling, when it falls away from its God, and that not to destroy and annihilate it, but to lead it back by means of chastisement to the Lord its God. If it hearken to the voice of its God, who speaks to it in judgments, the Lord repents of the evil, and turns the calamity into salvation and blessing. It was Joel’s mission to proclaim this truth in Judah, and turn the sinful nation to its God. To this end he proclaimed to the people, that the Lord was coming to judgment in the devastation that the locusts had spread over the land, and by depicting the great and terrible day of the Lord, called upon them to turn to their God with all their heart. This call to repentance was not without effect. The Lord was jealous for His land, and spared His people (Joel 2:18), and sent His prophets to proclaim the removal of the judgment and the bestowal of a bountiful earthly ad spiritual blessing: viz., for the time immediately ensuing the destruction of the army of locusts, the sending of the teacher for righteousness, and a plentiful fall of rain for the fruitful supply of the fruits of the ground (Joel 2:19,27); and in the more remote future, the pouring out of His Spirit upon the whole congregation, and on the day of the judgment upon all nations the deliverance and preservation of His faithful worshippers; and finally, after the judgment, the transformation and eternal glory of Zion (Joel 2:28-3:21).

Here, again, the ideality of the prophetic announcement is maintained throughout, although a distinction is made between the inferior blessing in the immediate future, and the higher benediction of the church of God at a more distant period. The outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh is followed, without any intervening link, by the announcement of the coming of the terrible day of the Lord, as a day of judgment upon all nations, including those who have shown themselves hostile to Judah, either in Joel’s own time or a little while before. The nations are gathered together in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and there judged by Jehovah through His mighty heroes; but the sons of Israel are delivered and sheltered by their God. Here, again, all the separate judgments, which fall upon the nations of the world that are hostile to God, during the many centuries of the gradual development of the kingdom of God upon earth, are summed up in one grand judicial act on the day of Jehovah, through which the separation is completely effected between the church of the Lord and its foes, the ungodly power of the world annihilated, and the kingdom of God perfected; but without the slightest hint, that both the judgment upon the nations and the glorification of the kingdom of God will be fulfilled through a succession of separate judgments.

The book of Joel, therefore, contains two prophetic addresses, which are not only connected together as one work by the historical remark in Joel 2:18-19a, but which stand in the closest relation to each other, so far as their contents are concerned, though the one was not delivered to the people directly after the other, but the first during the devastation by the locusts, to lead the people to observe the judgment of God and to assemble together in the temple for a service of penitence and prayer; and the second not till after the priests had appointed a day of fasting, penitence, and prayer, in the house of the Lord, in consequence of His solemn call to repentance, and in the name of the people had prayed to the Lord to pity and spare His inheritance. The committal of these addresses to writing did not take place, at any rate, till after the destruction of the army of the locusts, when the land began to recover from the devastation that it had suffered. But whether Joel committed these addresses to writings just as he delivered them to the congregation, and merely linked them together into one single work by introducing the historical remark that unites them, or whether he merely inserted in his written work the essential contents of several addresses delivered after this divine judgment, and worked them up into one connected prophecy, it is impossible to decide with certainty. But there is no doubt whatever as to the composition of the written work by the prophet himself.-For the different commentaries upon the book of Joel, see my Introduction to the Old Testament. JOEL I. THE JUDGMENT OF GOD, AND THE PROPHET’S CALL TO REPENTANCE An unparalleled devastation of the land of Judah by several successive swarms of locusts, which destroyed all the seedlings, all field and garden fruits, all plants and trees, and which was accompanied by scorching heat, induced the prophet to utter a loud lamentation at this unparalleled judgment of God, and an earnest call to all classes of the nation to offer prayer to the Lord in the temple, together with fasting, mourning, and weeping, that He might avert the judgment. In the first chapter, the lamentation has reference chiefly to the ruin of the land (Joel 1:2-20); in the second, the judgment is depicted as a foretype and harbinger of the approaching day of the Lord, which the congregation is to anticipate by a day of public fasting, repentance, and prayer (Joel 2:1-17); so that ch. describes rather the magnitude of the judgment, and ch. 2:1-17 its significance in relation to the covenant nation.

LAMENTATION OVER THE DEVASTATION OF JUDAH BY LOCUSTS AND DROUGHT After an appeal to lay to heart the devastation by swarms of locusts, which has fallen upon the land (vv. 2-4), the prophet summons the following to utter lamentation over this calamity: first the drunkards, who are to awake (vv. 5-7); then the congregation generally, which is to mourn with penitence (vv. 8-12); and then the priests, who are to appoint a service of repentance (vv. 13-18). For each of these appeals he gives, as a reason, a further description of the horrible calamity, corresponding to the particular appeal; and finally, he sums up his lamentation in a prayer for the deliverance of the land from destruction (vv. 19, 20). JOEL 1:1 Ver. 1 contains the heading to the book, and has already been noticed in the introduction.

Verse 2-4. “Hear this, ye old men; and attend, all ye inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing indeed happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?. Ye shall tell your sons of it, and your sons their sons, and their sons the next generation. The leavings of the gnawer the multiplier ate, and the leavings of the multiplier the licker ate, and the leavings of the licker the devourer ate.” Not only for the purpose of calling the attention of the hearers to his address, but still more to set forth the event of which he is about to speak as something unheard of-a thing that has never happened before, and therefore is a judgment inflicted by God-the prophet commences with the question addressed to the old men, whose memory went the furthest back, and to all the inhabitants of Judah, whether they had ever experienced anything of the kind, or heard of such a thing from their fathers; and with the command to relate it to their children, and grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren. f27 “The inhabitants of the land” are the inhabitants of Judah, as it was only with this kingdom that Joel was occupied (cf. v. 14 and Joel 2:1). tazO is the occurrence related in v. 4, which is represented by the question “Has this been in your days?” as a fact just experienced. Yether haggâzâm, the leavings of the gnawer, i.e., whatever the gnawer leaves unconsumed of either vegetables or plants. The four names given to the locusts, viz., gâzâm, ‘arbeh, yeleq, and châsiil, are not the names applied in natural history to four distinct species, or four different generations of locusts; nor does Joel describe the swarms of two successive years, so that “gâzâm is the migratory locust, which visits Palestine chiefly in the autumn, ‘arbeh the young brood, yeleq the young locust in the last stage of its transformation, or before changing its skin for the fourth time, and châsiil the perfect locust after this last change, so that as the brood sprang from the gâzâm, châsiil would be equivalent to gâzâm” (Credner).

This explanation is not only at variance with Joel 2:25, where gâzâm stands last, after châsiil, but is founded generally merely upon a false interpretation of Nah 3:15-16 (see the passage) and Jer 51:27, where the adjective sâmâr (horridus, horrible), appended to yeleq, from sâmar, to shudder, by no means refers to the rough, horny, wing-sheath of the young locusts, and cannot be sustained from the usage of the language, It is impossible to point out any difference in usage between gâzâm and châsiil, or between these two words and ‘arbeh. The word gâzâm, from gâzam, to cut off (in Arabic, Ethiopic, and the Rabb.), occurs only in this passage, in Joel 2:25, and in Amos 4:9, where it is applied to a swarm of flying locusts, which leave the vine, fig-tree, and olive, perfectly bare, as it is well known that all locusts do, when, as in Amos, the vegetables and field fruits have been already destroyed. ‘Arbeh, from râbhâh, to be many, is the common name of the locust, and indeed in all probability of the migratory locust, because this always appears in innumerable swarms.

Châsiil, from châsal, to eat off, designates the locust (hâ’arbeh), according to Deut 28:38, by its habit of eating off the field crops and tree fruits, and is therefore used in 1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chron 6:28; Ps 78:46, as synonymous with hâ’arbeh, and in Isa 33:4 in its stead. Yeleq, from yâlaq = lâqaq, to lick, to lick off, occurs in Ps 105:34 as equivalent to ‘arbeh, and in Nahum as synonymous with it; and indeed it there refers expressly to the Egyptian plague of locusts, so that young locusts without wings cannot possibly be thought of. Haggâzâm the gnawer, hayyeleq the licker, hechâsiil the devourer, are therefore simply poetical epithets applied to the ‘arbeh, which never occur in simple plain prose, but are confined to the loftier (rhetorical and poetical) style. Moreover, the assumption that Joel is speaking of swarms of locusts of two successive years, is neither required by Joel 2:25 (see the comm. on this verse), nor reconcilable with the contents of the verse itself. If the ‘arbeh eats what the gâzâm has left, and the yeleq what is left by the ‘arbeh, we cannot possibly think of the field and garden fruits of two successive years, because the fruits of the second year are not the leavings of the previous year, but have grown afresh in the year itself. f28 The thought is rather this: one swarm of locusts after another has invaded the land, and completely devoured its fruit. The use of several different words, and the division of the locusts into four successive swarms, of which each devours what has been left by its precursor, belong to the rhetorical drapery and individualizing of the thought. The only thing that has any real significance is the number four, as the four kinds of punishment in Jer 15:3, and the four destructive judgments in Ezek 14:21, clearly show. The number four, “the stamp of oecumenicity” (Kliefoth), indicates here the spread of the judgment over the whole of Judah in all directions.

JOEL. 1:5-7

In order that Judah may discern in this unparalleled calamity a judgment of God, and the warning voice of God calling to repentance, the prophet first of all summons the wine-bibbers to sober themselves, and observe the visitation of God.

Verse 5-7. “Awake, ye drunken ones, and weep! and howl, all ye drinkers of wine! at the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. For a people has come up over my land, a strong one, and innumerable: its teeth are lion’s teeth, and it has the bite of a lioness. It has made my vine a wilderness, and my fig-tree into sticks. Peeling, it has peeled it off, and cast it away: its shoots have grown white.” xWq to awake out of the reeling of intoxication, as in Prov 23:35. They are to howl for the new wine, the fresh sweet juice of the grape, because with the destruction of the vines it is taken away and destroyed from their mouth.

Vv. 6 and 7 announce through whom. In the expression gooi ‘âlâh (a people has come up) the locusts are represented as a warlike people, because they devastate the land like a hostile army. Gooi furnishes no support to the allegorical view. In Prov 30:25-26, not only are the ants described as a people (‘âm), but the locusts also; although it is said of them that they have no king. And ‘âm is synonymous with gooi, which has indeed very frequently the idea of that which is hostile, and even here is used in this sense; though it by no means signifies a heathen nation, but occurs in Zeph 2:9 by the side of ‘âm, as an epithet applied to the people of Jehovah (i.e., Israel: see also Gen 12:2). The weapons of this army consist in its teeth, its “bite,” which grinds in pieces as effectually as the teeth of the lion or the bite of the lioness h[;L]tæm] ; see at Job 29:17).

The suffix attached to xr,a, does not refer to Jehovah, but to the prophet, who speaks in the name of the people, so that it is the land of the people of God. And this also applies to the suffixes in ˆp,G, and ˆaeT] in v. 7. In the description of the devastation caused by the army of locusts, the vine and fig-tree are mentioned as the noblest productions of the land, which the Lord has given to His people for their inheritance (see at Hos 2:14). hp;x;q] , eiv klasmo>n , literally, for crushing. The suffix in chasâphâh refers, no doubt, simply to the vine as the principal object, the fig-tree being mentioned casually in connection with it. Châsaph, to strip, might be understood as referring simply to the leaves of the vine (cf. Ps 29:9); but what follows shows that the gnawing or eating away of the bark is also included. Hishliikh, to throw away not merely what is uneatable, “that which is not green and contains no sap” (Hitzig), but the vine itself, which the locusts have broken when eating off its leaves and bark. The branches of the vine have become white through the eating off of the bark (sâriigiim, Gen 40:10). f29 JOEL 1:8-12 The whole nation is to mourn over this devastation.

Verse 8-12 “Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The meat-offering and the drink-offering are destroyed from the house of Jehovah. The priests, the servant of Jehovah. mourn. The field is laid waste, the ground mourns: for the corn is laid waste: the new wine is spoiled, the oil decays. Turn pale, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, over wheat and barley: for the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is spoiled, and the fig-tree faded; the pomegranate, also the palm and the apple tree: all the trees of the field are withered away; yea, joy has expired from the children of men.” In v. 8 Judah is addressed as the congregation of Jehovah. hl;a; is the imperative of the verb hl;a; , equivalent to the Syriac ‘elaa’, to lament. The verb only occurs here.

The lamentation of the virgin for the rW[n; l[æBæ , i.e., the beloved of your youth, her bridegroom, whom she has lost by death (Isa 54:6), is the deepest and bitterest lamentation. With reference to chagurat-saq, see Delitzsch on Isa 3:24. The occasion of this deep lamentation, according to v. 9, is the destruction of the meat-offering and drink-offering from the house of the Lord, over which the servants of Jehovah mourn. The meat and drink offerings must of necessity cease, because the corn, the new wine, and the oil are destroyed through the devastation of the field and soil.

Hokhrath minchâh does not affirm that the offering of the daily morning and evening sacrifice (Ex 29:38-42)-for it is to this that Ës,n, hj;n]mi chiefly, if not exclusively, refers-has already ceased; but simply that any further offering is rendered impossible by the failure of meal, wine, and oil.

Now Israel could not suffer any greater calamity than the suspension of the daily sacrifice; for this was a practical suspension of the covenant relation-a sign that God had rejected His people. Therefore, even in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the sacrificial worship was not suspended till it had been brought to the last extremity; and even then it was for the want of sacrificers, and not of the material of sacrifice (Josephus, de bell. Jud. vi. 2, 1). The reason for this anxiety was the devastation of the field and land (v. 10); and this is still further explained by a reference to the devastation and destruction of the fruits of the ground, viz., the corn, i.e., the corn growing in the field, so that the next harvest would be lost, and the new wine and oil, i.e., the vines and olive-trees, so that they could bear no grapes for new wine, and no olives for oil. The verbs in v. 11a are not perfects, but imperatives, as in the fifth verse. vbey; has the same meaning as boosh, as in Jer 2:26; 6:15, etc., to stand ashamed, to turn pale with shame at the disappointment of their hope, and is probably written defectively, without ow, to distinguish it from vbey; , the hiphil of vbey; , to be parched or dried up (vv. 10 and 12).

The hope of the husbandmen was disappointed through the destruction of the wheat and barley, the most important field crops. The vine-growers had to mourn over the destruction of the vine and the choice fruit-trees (v. 12), such as the fig and pomegranate, and even the date-palm (gam-tâmâr), which has neither a fresh green rind nor tender juicy leaves, and therefore is not easily injured by the locusts so as to cause it to dry up; and tappuuach, the apple-tree, and all the trees of the field, i.e., all the rest of the trees, wither. “All trees, whether fruit-bearing or not, are consumed by the devastating locusts” (Jerome). In the concluding clause of v. 12, the last and principal ground assigned for the lamentation is, that joy is taken away and withered from the children of men (hoobhiish min, constr. praegn.). yKi introduces a reason here as elsewhere, though not for the clause immediately preceding, but for the vWB and llæy; in v. 11, the leading thought in both verses; and we may therefore express it by an emphatic yea. JOEL 1:13-14 The affliction is not removed by mourning and lamentation, but only through repentance and supplication to the Lord, who can turn away all evil. The prophet therefore proceeds to call upon the priests to offer to the Lord penitential supplication day and night in the temple, and to call the elders and all the people to observe a day of fasting, penitence, and prayer; and then offers supplication himself to the Lord to have compassion upon them (v. 19). From the motive assigned for this appeal, we may also see that a terrible drought had been associated with the devastation by the locusts, from which both man and beast had endured the most bitter suffering, and that Joel regarded this terrible calamity as a sign of the coming of the day of the Lord.

Verse 13-14. “Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests; howl, ye servants of the altar; come, pass the night in sackcloth, ye servants of my God: for the meat-offering and drink- offering are withdrawn from the house of your God. Sanctify a fast, call out an assembly, assemble the elders, all ye inhabitants of the land, at the house of Jehovah your God, and cry to Jehovah.” From what follows we must supply bassaqqiim (with sackcloth) to chigruu (gird yourselves). Gird yourselves with mourning apparel, i.e., put it on (see v. 8). In this they are to pass the night, to offer supplication day and night, or incessantly, standing between the altar and the porch (Joel 2:17). “Servants of my God,” i.e., of the God whose prophet I am, and from whom I can promise you a hearing. The reason assigned for this appeal is the same as for the lamentation in v. 9. But it is not the priests only who are to pray incessantly to the Lord; the elders and all the people are to do the same. tsowm qideesh, to sanctify a fast, i.e., to appoint a holy fast, a divine service of prayer connected with fasting. To this end the priests are to call an ‘atsârâh, i.e., a meeting of the congregation for religious worship. ‘Atsârâh, or ‘atsereth, panh>guriv , is synonymous with vd,qo ar;q]mi in Lev 23:36 (see the exposition of that passage). In what follows, h ybev]yAlK; is attached asunde>twv to ˆqez; ; and the latter is not a vocative, but an accusative of the object. On the other hand, hwO;hy] tyiBæ is an accus. loci, and dependent upon ãsæa; . q[æz; , to cry, used of loud and importunate prayer. It is only by this that destruction can still be averted. JOEL 1:15 “Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is near, and it comes like violence from the Almighty.” This verse does not contain words which the priests are to speak, so that we should have to supply rmæa; , like the Syriac and others, but words of the prophet himself, with which he justifies the appeal in vv. 13 and 14. µwOy is the time of the judgment, which has fallen upon the land and people through the devastation by the locusts. This “day” is the beginning of the approaching day of Jehovah, which will come like a devastation from the Almighty. Yoom Yehoovâh is the great day of judgment upon all ungodly powers, when God, as the almighty ruler of the world, brings down and destroys everything that has exalted itself against Him; thus making the history of the world, through His rule over all creatures in heaven and earth, into a continuous judgment, which will conclude at the end of this course of the world with a great and universal act of judgment, through which everything that has been brought to eternity by the stream of time unjudged and unadjusted, will be judged and adjusted once for all, to bring to an end the whole development of the world in accordance with its divine appointment, and perfect the kingdom of God by the annihilation of all its foes. (Compare the magnificent description of this day of the Lord in Isa 2:12-21.) And accordingly this particular judgment-through which Jehovah on the one hand chastises His people for their sins, and on the other hand destroys the enemies of His kingdom-forms one element of the day of Jehovah; and each of these separate judgment is a coming of that day, and a sign of His drawing near. This day Joel saw in the judgment that came upon Judah in his time, keshood misshaddai, lit., like a devastation from the Almighty-a play upon the words (since shood and shaddai both come from shâdad), which Rückert renders, though somewhat too freely, by wie ein Graussen vom grossen Gott. k] is the so-called k veritatis, expressing a comparison between the individual and its genus or its idea. On the relation between this verse and Isa 13:6, see the Introduction.

JOEL. 1:16-20

“Is not the food destroyed before our eyes, joy and exulting from the house of our God? The grains have mouldered under their clods, the storehouses are desolate, the barns have fallen down; because the corn is destroyed. How the cattle groan! the herds of oxen are bewildered, for no pasture was left for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer.” As a proof that the day of the Lord is coming like a devastation from the Almighty, the prophet points in v. 16 to the fact that the food is taken away before their eyes, and therewith all joy and exulting from the house of God. “The food of the sinners perishes before their eyes, since the crops they looked for are snatched away from their hands, and the locust anticipates the reaper” (Jerome). lk,ao , food as the means of sustenance; according to v. 19, corn, new wine, and oil. The joy is thereby taken from the house of Jehovah, inasmuch as, when the crops are destroyed, neither first-fruits nor thank-offerings can be brought to the sanctuary to be eaten there at joyful meals (Deut 12:6-7; 16:10-11).

And the calamity became all the more lamentable, from the fact that, in consequence of a terrible drought, the seed perished in the earth, and consequently the prospect of a crop the following year entirely disappeared. The prophet refers to this in v. 17, which has been rendered in extremely different ways by the LXX, Chald., and Vulg., on account of the hap leg `vbæ[; , dræp; , and twOpr;g]m, (compare Pococke, ad h. l.). `vbæ[; signifies to moulder away, or, as the injury was caused by dryness and heat, to dry up; it is used here of grains of corn which lose their germinating power, from the Arabic ‘bs, to become dry or withered, and the Chaldee vp[ , to get mouldy. Perudooth, in Syriac, grains of corn sowed broadcast, probably from pârad, to scatter about. Megrâphooth, according to Ab.

Esr., clods of earth (compare Arab. jurf, gleba terrae), from gâraph, to wash away (Judg 5:21) a detached piece of earth. If the seed-corn loses its germinating power beneath the clod, no corn-harvest can be looked for.

The storehouses (‘ootsârooth; cf. 2 Chron 32:27) moulder away, and the barns (mammeguurâh with dag. dirim. = meguurâh in Hag 2:19) fall, tumble to pieces, because being useless they are not kept in proper condition. The drought also deprives the cattle of their pasture, so that the herds of oxen and flocks of sheep groan and suffer with the rest from the calamity. ËWB, niphal, to be bewildered with fear. ‘Asheem, to expiate, to suffer the consequences of men’s sin.

The fact, that even irrational creatures suffer along with men, impels the prophet to pray for help to the Lord, who helps both man and beast (Ps 36:7). Verse 19, 20. “To Thee, O Jehovah, do I cry: for fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has consumed all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field cry unto Thee; for the water-brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.” Fire and flame are the terms used by the prophet to denote the burning heat of the drought, which consumes the meadows, and even scorches up the trees. This is very obvious from the drying up of the water-brooks (in v. 20). For v. 20a, compare Jer 14:5-6. In v. 20b the address is rhetorically rounded off by the repetition of wgw lkæa; cae from v. 19.

SUMMONS TO PENITENTIAL PRAYER FOR THE REMOVAL OF THE JUDGMENT This section does not contain a fresh or second address of the prophet, but simply forms the second part of his sermon of repentance, in which he repeats with still greater emphasis the command already hinted at in Joel 1:14-15, that there should be a meeting of the congregation for humiliation and prayer, and assigns the reason in a comprehensive picture of the approach of Jehovah’s great and terrible judgment-day (vv. 1-11), coupled with the cheering assurance that the Lord will still take compassion upon His people, according to His great grace, if they will return to Him with all their heart (vv. 12-14); and then closes with another summons to the whole congregation to assemble for this purpose in the house of the Lord, and with instructions how the priests are to pray to the Lord (vv. 15-17).

JOEL. 2:1-17

By blowing the far-sounding horn, the priests are to make known to the people the coming of the judgment, and to gather them together in the temple to pray.

Verse 1. “Blow ye the trumpet upon Zion, and cause it to sound upon my holy mountain! All the inhabitants of the land shall tremble; for the day of Jehovah cometh, for it is near.” That this summons is addressed to the priests, is evident from v. 15, compared with v. 14. On tiq’uu shoophâr and hârii’uu, see at Hos 5:8. “Upon Zion,” i.e., from the top of the temple mountain. Zion is called the holy mountain, as in Ps 2:6, because the Lord was there enthroned in His sanctuary, on the summit of Moriah, which He claimed as His own. Râgaz, to tremble, i.e., to start up from their careless state (Hitzig). On the expression, “for the day of Jehovah cometh,” see Joel 1:15. By the position of awOB at the head of the sentence, and that in the perfect awOB instead of the imperfect, as in Joel 1:15, the coming of the day of Jehovah is represented as indisputably certain.

The addition of kii qâroobh (for it is near) cannot be accounted for, however, from the fact that in the spiritual intuition of the prophet this day had already come, whereas in reality it was only drawing near (Hengstenberg); for such a separation as this between one element of prophesying and another is inconceivable. The explanation is simply, that the day of the Lord runs throughout the history of the kingdom of God, so that it occurs in each particular judgment: not, however, as fully manifested, but simply as being near or approaching, so far as its complete fulfilment is concerned. Joel now proclaims the coming of the day in its full completion, on the basis of the judgment already experienced, as the approach of a terrible army of locusts that darkens the land, at the head of which Jehovah is riding in all the majesty of the Judge of the world. The description is divided into three strophes thus: he first of all depicts the sight of this army of God, as seen afar off, and its terrible appearance in general (vv. 2b and 3); then the appearance and advance of this mighty army (vv. 4-6); and lastly, its irresistible power (vv. 7-11); and closes the first strophe with a figurative description of the devastation caused by this terrible army, whilst in the second and third he gives prominence to the terror which they cause among all nations, and over all the earth.

Verse 2-3. “A day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and cloudy night: like morning dawn spread over the mountains, a people great and strong: there has not been the like from all eternity, nor will there be after it even to the years of generation and generation. Before it burneth fire, and behind it flameth flame: the land before it as the garden of Eden, and behind it like a desolate wilderness; and even that which escaped did not remain to it.” With four words, expressing the idea of darkness and obscurity, the day of Jehovah is described as a day of the manifestation of judgment. The words `xræ[; `ˆn;[; Ëv,j are applied in Deut 4:11 to the cloudy darkness in which Mount Sinai was enveloped, when Jehovah came down upon it in the fire; and in Ex 10:22, the darkness which fell upon Egypt as the ninth plague is called hl;pea . wgw rjævæ does not belong to what precedes, nor does it mean blackness or twilight (as Ewald and some Rabbins suppose), but “the morning dawn.” The subject to pârus (spread) is neither yoom (day), which precedes it, nor ‘am (people), which follows; for neither of these yields a suitable thought at all. The subject is left indefinite: “like morning dawn is it spread over the mountains.” The prophet’s meaning is evident enough from what follows. He clearly refers to the bright glimmer or splendour which is seen in the sky as a swarm of locusts approaches, from the reflection of the sun’s rays from their wings. f30 With `µWx[; bræ `µ[æ (a people great and strong) we must consider the verb awOB (cometh) in v. 1 as still retaining its force. Yoom (day) and ‘âm (people) have the same predicate, because the army of locusts carries away the day, and makes it into a day of cloudy darkness. The darkening of the earth is mentioned in connection with the Egyptian plague of locusts in Ex 10:15, and is confirmed by many witnesses (see the comm. on Ex. l.c.).

The fire and the flame which go both before and behind the great and strong people, viz., the locusts, cannot be understood as referring to the brilliant light kindled as it were by the morning dawn, which proceeds from the fiery armies of the vengeance of God, i.e., the locusts (Umbreit), nor merely to the burning heat of the drought by which everything is consumed (Joel 1:19); but this burning heat is heightened here into devouring flames of fire, which accompany the appearing of God as He comes to judgment at the head of His army, after the analogy of the fiery phenomena connected with the previous manifestations of God, both in Egypt, where a terrible hail fell upon the land before the plague of locusts, accompanied by thunder and balls of fire (Ex 9:23-24), and also at Sinai, upon which the Lord came down amidst thunder and lightning, and spoke to the people out of the fire (Ex 19:16-18; Deut 4:11-12).

The land, which had previously resembled the garden of paradise (Gen 2:8), was changed in consequence into a desolate wilderness. hf;ylep] does not mean escape or deliverance, either here or in Obad 17, but simply that which has run away or escaped. Here it signifies that part of the land which has escaped the devastation; for it is quite contrary to the usage of the language to refer ttæK; ], as most commentators do, to the swarm of locusts, from which there is no escape, no deliverance (cf. 2 Sam 15:14; Judg 21:17; Ezra 9:13, in all of which l] refers to the subject, to which the thing that escaped was assigned). Consequently ttæK; ] can only refer to xr,a, . The perfect hy;h; stands related to rjæaæ , according to which the swarm of locusts had already completed the devastation.

In vv. 4-6 we have a description of this mighty army of God, and of the alarm caused by its appearance among all nations.

Verse 4-6. “Like the appearance of horses is its appearance; and like riding-horses, so do they run. Like rumbling of chariots on the tops of the mountains do they leap, like the crackling of flame which devours stubble, like a strong people equipped for conflict.

Before it nations tremble; all faces withdraw their redness.” The comparison drawn between the appearance of the locusts and that of horses refers chiefly to the head, which, when closely examined, bears a strong resemblance to the head of a horse, as Theodoret has already observed; a fact which gave rise to their being called Heupferde (hayhorses) in German. In v. 4b the rapidity of their motion is compared to the running of riding-horses (pârâshiim); and in v. 5 the noise caused by their springing motion to the rattling of chariots, the small two-wheeled warchariots of the ancients, when driven rapidly over the rough mountain roads.

The noise caused by their devouring the plants and shrubs is also compared to the burning of a flame over a stubble-field that has been set on fire, and their approach to the advance of a war force equipped for conflict. (Compare the adoption and further expansion of these similes in Rev 9:7,9). At the sight of this terrible army of God the nations tremble, so that their faces grow pale. ‘Ammiim means neither people (see at 1 Kings 22:28) nor the tribes of Israel, but nations generally. Joel is no doubt depicting something more here than the devastation caused by the locusts in his own day. There are differences of opinion as to the rendering of the second hemistich, which Nahum repeats in Joel 2:11. The combination of rWrap; with rWrp; , a pot (Chald., Syr., Jer., Luth., and others), is untenable, since rWrp; comes from rræp; , to break in pieces, whereas rWrap; (= rWrap; ) is from the root rap , piel, to adorn, beautify, or glorify; so that the rendering, “they gather redness,” i.e., glow with fear, which has an actual but not a grammatical support in Isa 13:8, is evidently worthless.

We therefore understand rWrap; , as Ab. Esr., Abul Wal., and others have done, in the sense of elegantia, nitor, pulchritudo, and as referring to the splendour or healthy ruddiness of the cheeks, and take qibeets as an intensive form of xbæq; , in the sense of drawing into one’s self, or withdrawing, inasmuch as fear and anguish cause the blood to fly from the face and extremities to the inward parts of the body. For the fact of the face turning pale with terror, see Jer 30:6.

In vv. 7-10 the comparison of the army of locusts to a well-equipped army is carried out still further; and, in the first place, by a description of the irresistible force of its advance.

Verse 7-9. “They run like heroes, like warriors they climb the wall; every one goes on its way, and they do not change their paths. And they do not press one another, they go every one in his path; and they fall headlong through weapons, and do not cut themselves in pieces. They run about in the city, they run upon the wall, they climb into the houses, they come through the windows like a thief.” This description applies for the most part word for word to the advance of the locusts, as Jerome (in loc.) and Theodoret (on v. 8a) attest from their own observation. f31 They run like heroes-namely, to the assault: xWr referring to an attack, as in Job 15:26 and Ps 18:30, “as their nimbleness has already been noticed in v. 4” (Hitzig). Their climbing the walls also points to an assault. Their irresistible march to the object of their attack is the next point described.

No one comes in another’s way; they do not twist ( fb[ ) their path, i.e., do not diverge either to the right hand or to the left, so as to hinder one another. Even the force of arms cannot stop their advance. jlæv, is not a missile, telum, missile (Ges. and others), but a weapon extended or held in front (Hitzig); and the word is not only applied to a sword (2 Chron 23:10; Neh 4:11), but to weapons of defence (2 Chron 32:5). [xæB, , not “to wound themselves” (= [xæp, ), but “to cut in pieces,” used here intransitively, to cut themselves in pieces. This does no doubt transcend the nature even of the locust; but it may be explained on the ground that they are represented as an invincible army of God. f32 On the other hand, the words of v. 9 apply, so far as the first half is concerned, both to the locusts and to an army (cf. Isa 33:4; Nah 2:5); whereas the second half applies only to the former, of which Theodoret relates in the passage quoted just now, that he has frequently seen this occur (compare also Ex 10:6). The whole universe trembles at this judgment of God.

Verse 10, 11. “Before it the earth quakes, the heavens tremble: sun and moon have turned black, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. And Jehovah thunders before His army, for His camp is very great, for the executor of His word is strong; for the day of Jehovah is great and very terrible, and who can endure it?” The remark of Jerome on v. 10, viz., that “it is not that the strength of the locusts is so great that they can move the heavens and shake the earth, but that to those who suffer from such calamities, from the amount of their own terror, the heavens appear to shake and the earth to reel,” is correct enough so far as the first part is concerned, but it by no means exhausts the force of the words. For, as Hitzig properly observes, the earth could only quake because of the locusts when they had settled, and the heavens could only tremble and be darkened when they were flying, so that the words would in any case be very much exaggerated.

But it by no means follows from this, that µynip; is not to be taken as referring to the locusts, like µynip; in v. 6, but to the coming of Jehovah in a storm, and that it is to be understood in this sense: “the earth quakes, the air roars at the voice of Jehovah, i.e., at the thunder, and storm-clouds darken the day.” For although nâthan qooloo (shall utter His voice) in v. 11 is to be understood as referring to the thunder, Joel is not merely describing a storm, which came when the trouble had reached its height and put an end to the plague of locusts (Credner, Hitzig, and others). µynip; cannot be taken in any other sense than that in which it occurs in v. 3; that is to say, it can only refer to “the great people and strong,” viz., the army of locusts, like µynip; . Heaven and earth tremble at the army of locusts, because Jehovah comes with them to judge the world (cf. Isa 13:13; Nah 1:5-6; Jer 10:10). The sun and moon become black, i.e., dark, and the stars withdraw their brightness (‘âsaph, withdraw, as in 1 Sam 14:19), i.e., they let their light shine no more. That these words affirm something infinitely greater than the darkening of the lights of heaven by storm-clouds, is evident partly from the predictions of the judgment of the wrath of the Lord that is coming upon the whole earth and upon the imperial power (Isa 13:10; Ezek 32:7), at which the whole fabric of the universe trembles and nature clothes itself in mourning, and partly from the adoption of this particular feature by Christ in His description of the last judgment (Matt 24:29; Mark 13:24-25). Compare, on the other hand, the poetical description of a storm in Ps 18:8ff., where this feature is wanting. (For further remarks, see at Joel 3:4.) At the head of the army which is to execute His will, the Lord causes His voice of thunder to sound (nâthan qool, to thunder; cf. Ps 18:14, etc.). The reason for this is given in three sentences that are introduced by kii. Jehovah does this because His army is very great; because this powerful army executes His word, i.e., His command; and because the day of judgment is so great and terrible, that no one can endure it, i.e., no one can stand before the fury of the wrath of the Judge (cf. Jer 10:10; Mal 3:1).

But there is still time to avert the completion of the judgment by sincere repentance and mourning; for God is merciful, and ready to forgive the penitent.

Verse 12-14. “Yet even now, is the saying of Jehovah, turn ye to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. And rend your heart and not your garments, and turn back to Jehovah your God; for He is gracious and merciful, long-suffering, and great in kindness, and suffers Himself to repent of the evil. Who knoweth He turns and repents, and leaves behind Him blessing, meat-offering and drink-offering for Jehovah your God?” As the plague of locusts was intended to bring the people to reflect upon their conduct towards the Lord, so was the announcement of the great day of judgment and all its terrors made with no other object than to produce repentance and conversion, and thereby promote the good of the people of God. Joel therefore appends to the threatening of judgment a summons to sincere conversion to the Lord; and this he does by first of all addressing the summons to the people as a saying of Jehovah (v. 12), and then explaining this word of God in the most emphatic manner (vv. 13, 14).

The Lord God requires conversion to Himself with all the heart (cf. 1 Sam 7:3, and Deut 6:5; and for d[æ bWv , Hos 14:2), associated with deeprooted penitence on account of sin, which is to be outwardly manifested in fasting and mourning. But lest the people should content themselves with the outward signs of mourning, he proceeds in v. 13 with the warning admonition, “Rend your heart, and not your garments.” Rending the heart signifies contrition of heart (cf. Ps 51:19; Ezek 36:26). He then assigns the motive for this demand, by pointing to the mercy and grace of God, in the words of Ex 34:6, with which the Lord made known to Moses His inmost nature, except that in the place of we’emet, which we find in this passage, he adds, on the ground of the facts recorded in Ezek 32:14 and 2 Sam 24:16, [ræ `l[æ µjæn; . On the strength of these facts he hopes, even in the present instance, for forgiveness on the part of God, and the removal of the judgment. “Who knoweth?” equivalent to “perhaps;” not because “too confident a hope would have had in it something offensive to Jehovah” (Hitzig), but “lest perchance they might either despair on account of the magnitude of their crimes, or the greatness of the divine clemency might make them careless” (Jerome). f33 bWv , to turn, sc. from coming to judgment. niham as in v. 13. rjæaæ raæv; , to leave behind Him, sc. when He returns to His throne in heaven (Hos 5:15). Berâkhâh, a blessing, viz., harvest-produce for a meat-offering and drink-offering, which had been destroyed by the locusts (Joel 1:9,13).

To make this admonition still more emphatic, the prophet concludes by repeating the appeal for the appointment of a meeting in the temple for prayer, and even gives the litany in which the priests are to offer their supplication.

Verse 15-17. “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, proclaim a meeting. Gather the people together, sanctify an assembly, bring together the old men, gather together the children and sucklings at the breasts. Let the bridegroom go out of his chamber, and the bride out of her room. Between the porch and the altar are the priests, the servants of Jehovah, to weep and say, Spare, O Jehovah, Thy people, and give not up Thine inheritance to shame, so that the heathen scoff at them. Wherefore should men say among the nations, Where is their God?” V. 15 is a literal repetition from v. 1 and Joel 1:14a; v. 16 a more detailed expansion of Joel 1:14b, in which, first of all, the people generally `µ[æ ) are mentioned, and then the objection of the summons explained in the words lh;q; vdæq; , “Call a holy meeting of the congregation.”

But in order that none may think themselves exempt, the people are more precisely defined as old men, children, and sucklings. Even the bride and bridegroom are to give up the delight of their hearts, and take part in the penitential and mournful worship. No age, no rank, is to stay away, because no one, not even the suckling, is free from sin; but all, without exception, are exposed to the judgment. “A stronger proof of the deep and universal guilt of the whole nation could not be found, than that on the great day of penitence and prayer, even new-born infants were to be carried in their arms” (Umbreit). The penitential supplication of the whole nation is to be brought before the Lord by the priests as the mediators of the nation. hk;B; in v. 17 is jussive, like ax;y; in v. 16, though Hitzig disputes this, but on insufficient grounds. The allusion to the priests in the former could only be unsuitable, if they were merely commanded to go to the temple like the rest of the people.

But it is not to this that v. 17 refers, but to the performance of their official duty, when the people had assembled for the penitential festival. They were to stand between the porch of the temple and the altar of burnt-offering, i.e., immediately in front of the door of the holy place, and there with tears entreat the Lord, who was enthroned in the sanctuary, not to give up the people of His possession (nachalâh as in 1 Kings 8:51; cf. Deut 4:20; 32:9) to the reproach of being scoffed at by the heathen. µyiwOG µB;Alv;m]li is rendered by Luther and others, “that heathen rule over them,” after the ancient versions; and Ps 106:41; Deut 15:6, and Lam 5:8, might be appealed to in support of this rendering. But although grammatically allowable, it is not required by the parallelism, as Hengstenberg maintains.

For even if the reproach of Israel could consist in the fact that they, the inheritance of the Lord, were subjected to the government of heathen, this thought is very remote from the idea of the passage before us, where there is no reference at all in the threatening of punishment to subjection to the heathen, but simply to the devastation of the land. lvæm; with b] also signifies to utter a proverb (= to scoff) at any one, for which Ezekiel indeed makes use of lv;m; lvæm; (Ezek 17:2; 18:2, and in 12:23 and 18:3 construed with b] ); but it is evident that mâshal was sometimes used alone in this sense, from the occurrence of moosheliim in Num 21:27 as a term applied to the inventors of proverbs, and also of meshool as a proverb or byword in Job 17:6, whether we take the word as an infinitive or a substantive.

This meaning, as Marck observes, is rendered probable both by the connection with hP;r]j, , and also by the parallel clause which follows, viz., “Wherefore should men among the heathen say,” etc., more especially if we reflect that Joel had in his mind not Deut 15:6, which has nothing in common with the passage before us except the verb mâshal, but rather Deut 28:37, where Moses not only threatens the people with transportation to another land for their apostasy from the Lord, and that they shall become “an astonishment, a proverb (mâshâl), and a byword” among all nations, but (vv. 38, 40-42) also threatens them with the devastation of their seed-crops, their vineyards, and their olive-grounds by locusts.

Compare also 1 Kings 9:7-8, where not only the casting out of Israel among the heathen, but even the destruction of the temple, is mentioned as the object of ridicule on the part of the heathen; also the combination of hP;r]j, and lv;m; in Jer 24:9.

But v. 19 is decisive in favour of this view of g µb lvml . The Lord there promises that He will send His people corn, new wine, and oil, to their complete satisfaction, and no longer make them a reproach among the nations; so that, according to this, it was not subjugation or transportation by heathen foes that gave occasion to the scoffing of the nations at Israel, but the destruction of the harvest by the locusts. The saying among the nations, “Where is their God?” is unquestionably a sneer at the covenant relation of Jehovah to Israel; and to this Jehovah could offer no inducement, since the reproach would fall back upon Himself. Compare for the fact itself, Ex 32:12; Mic 7:10, and Ps 115:2. Thus the prayer closes with the strongest reason why God should avert the judgment, and one that could not die away without effect. II. THE PROMISE OF GOD TO AVERT THE JUDGMENT, AND BESTOW AN ABUNDANT BLESSING The promise, which the Lord conveys to His people through the prophet in answer to the prayer of the priests, refers to the present and the future. In the first part, relating to the present and the times immediately following (Joel 2:19-27), they are promised the destruction of the army of locusts, the gift of a teacher for righteousness, and the pouring out of a plentiful fall of rain for abundant harvests. To this there are appended, by means of the formula, “And it shall come to pass afterward” ˆKe rjæaæ hy;h; ), in Joel 2:28 (Heb. Bib. 3:1), the promise of a higher blessing through the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh, the judgment upon the nations that are hostile to Israel, and the eternal deliverance and benediction of the church of God (Joel 2:28-3:21). The blessing which the Lord promises for the time just coming, and for the remote future, is not a twofold one, so that the outpouring of the fertilizing rain and the outpouring of the Spirit of God answer to one another on the one hand, and the destruction of the army of locusts and that of the army of men on the other, but a threefold one, as v. Hofmann has shown, viz.: What the raising up of the teacher for righteousness, the destruction of the army of locusts, and the return of a fruitful season are to the time present, that will the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh, the judgment upon the army of the heathen world, and the eternal salvation and glorification of the people of God, be in the last times.

DESTRUCTION OF THE ARMY OF LOCUSTS, AND RENEWAL OF THE SPIRITUAL AND EARTHLY BLESSINGS JOEL. 2:18

18,19a. Verses 18 and 19a contain the historical statement, that in consequence of the penitential prayer of the priests, the Lord displayed His mercy to His people, and gave them a promise, the first part of which follows in vv. 19-27. Vv. 18, 19a. “Then Jehovah was jealous for His land, and had compassion upon His people. And Jehovah answered, and said.”

The grammar requires that we should take the imperfects with Vav consec. in these clauses, as statements of what actually occurred. The passages in which imperfects with Vav cons. are either really or apparently used in a prophetic announcement of the future, are of a different kind; e.g., in v. 23, where we find one in a subordinate clause preceded by perfects. As the verb `hn;[; describes the promise which follows, as an answer given by Jehovah to His people, we must assume that the priests had really offered the penitential and supplicatory prayer to which the prophet had summoned them in v. 17.

The circumstance that this is not expressly mentioned, neither warrants us in rendering the verbs in v. 17 in the present, and taking them as statements of what the priest really did (Hitzig), nor in changing the historical tenses in vv. 18, 19 into futures. We have rather simply to supply the execution of the prophet’s command between vv. 17 and 18. an;q; with l] , to be jealous for a person, i.e., to show the jealousy of love towards him, as in Ex 39:25; Zech 1:14 (see at Ex 20:5). lmæj; as in Ex 2:6; 1 Sam 23:21. In the answer from Jehovah which follows, the three features in the promise are not given according to their chronological order; but in order to add force to the description, we have first of all, in v. 19, a promise of the relief of the distress at which both man and beast had sighed, and then, in v. 20, a promise of the destruction of the devastator; and it is not till vv. 21-23b that the third feature is mentioned in the further development of the promise, viz., the teacher for righteousness. Then finally, in vv. 23c-27, the fertilizing fall of rain, and the plentiful supply of the fruits of the ground that had been destroyed by the locusts, are more elaborately described, as the first blessing bestowed upon the people. 19b,20. The promise runs as follows.

Verse 19, 20. “Behold, I send you the corn, and the new wine, and the oil, that ye may become satisfied therewith; and will no more make you a reproach among the nations. And I will remove the northern one far away from you, and drive him into the land of drought and desert; its van into the front sea, and its rear into the hinder sea: and its stink will ascend, and its corruption ascend, for it has done great things.” The Lord promises, first of all, a compensation for the injury done by the devastation, and then the destruction of the devastation itself, so that it may do no further damage. V. 19 stands related to Joel 1:11. Shâlach, to send: the corn is said to be sent instead of given (Hos 2:10), because God sends the rain which causes the corn to grow. Israel shall no longer be a reproach among the nations, “as a poor people, whose God is unable to assist it, or has evidently forsaken it” (Ros.). Marck and Schmieder have already observed that this promise is related to the prayer, that He would not give up His inheritance to the reproach of the scoffings of the heathen (v. 17: see the comm. on this verse). yniwOpx] , the northern one, as an epithet applied to the swarm of locusts, furnishes no decisive argument in favour of the allegorical interpretation of the plague of locusts.

For even if locusts generally come to Palestine from the south, out of the Arabian desert, the remark out of the Arabian desert, the remark made by Jerome, to the effect that “the swarms of locusts are more generally brought by the south wind than by the north,” shows that the rule is not without its exceptions. “Locusts come and go with all winds” (Oedmann, ii. p. 97). In Arabia, Niebuhr (Beschreib. p. 169) saw swarms of locusts come from south, west, north, and east. Their home is not confined to the desert of Arabia, but they are found in all the sandy deserts, which form the southern boundaries of the lands that were, and to some extent still are, the seat of cultivation, viz., in the Sahara, the Libyan desert, Arabia, and Irak (Credner, p. 285); and Niebuhr (l.c.) saw a large tract of land, on the road from Mosul to Nisibis, completely covered with young locusts. They are also met with in the Syrian desert, from which swarms could easily be driven to Palestine by a north-east wind, without having to fly across the mountains of Lebanon. Such a swarm as this might be called the tsephoonii, i.e., the northern one, or northerner, even if the north was not its true home.

For it cannot be philologically proved that tsephoonii can only denote one whose home is in the north. Such explanations as the Typhonian, the barbarian, and others, which we meet with in Hitzig, Ewald, and Meier, and which are obtained by alterations of the text or far-fetched etymologies, must be rejected as arbitrary. That which came from the north shall also be driven away by the north wind, viz., the great mass into the dry and desert land, i.e., the desert of Arabia, the van into the front (or eastern) sea, i.e., the Dead Sea (Ezek 47:18; Zech 14:8), the rear into the hinder (or western) sea, i.e., the Mediterranean (cf. Deut 11:24). This is, of course, not to be understood as signifying that the dispersion was to take place in all these three directions at one and the same moment, in which case three different winds would blow at the same time; but it is a rhetorical picture of rapid and total destruction, which is founded upon the idea that the wind rises in the north-west, then turns to the north, and finally to the north-east, so that the van of the swarm is driven into the eastern sea, the great mass into the southern desert, and the rear into the western sea.

The explanation given by Hitzig and others-namely, that pâniim signifies the eastern border, and sooph the western border of the swarm, which covered the entire breadth of the land, and was driven from north to southcannot be sustained. Joel mentions both the van and the rear after the main body, simply because they both meet with the same fate, both falling into the sea and perishing there; whereupon the dead bodies are thrown up by the waves upon the shore, where their putrefaction fills the air with stench.

The perishing of locusts in seas and lakes is attested by many authorities. f34 For vaB] `hl;[; , compare Isa 34:3 and Amos 4:10. hn;j\xæ is hap leg.; but the meaning corruption is sustained partly by the parallelism, and partly by the Syriac verb, which means to be dirty. The army of locusts had deserved this destruction, because it had done great things. `hc;[; ldæG; , to do great things, is affirmed of men or other creatures, with the subordinate idea of haughtiness; so that it not only means he has done a mighty thing, accomplished a mighty devastation, but is used in the same sense as the German grosstun, via. to brag or be proud of one strength. It does not follow from this, however, that the locusts are simply figurative, and represent hostile nations. For however true it may be that sin and punishment presuppose accountability (Hengst., Hävernick), and conclusion drawn from this-namely, that they cannot be imputed to irrational creatures-is incorrect. The very opposite is taught by the Mosaic law, according to which God will punish every act of violence done by beasts upon man (Gen 9:5), whilst the ox which killed a man was commanded to be stoned (Ex 21:28-32).

JOEL. 2:21-23

This promise is carried out still further in what follows; and Joel summons the earth (v. 21), the beasts of the field (v. 22), and the sons of Zion (v. 23) to joy and exultation at this mighty act of the Lord, by which they have been delivered from the threatening destruction.

Verse 21-23. “Fear not, O earth! exult and rejoice: for Jehovah doeth great things! Fear ye not, O beasts of the field! for the pastures of the desert become green, for the tree bears its fruit; fig-tree and vine yield their strength. And ye sons of Zion, exult and rejoice in the Lord your God; for He giveth you the teacher for righteousness, and causes to come down to you a rain-fall, early rain and latter rain, first of all.” The soil had suffered from the drought connected with the swarms of locusts (Joel 1:9); the beasts of the field had groaned on account of the destruction of all the plants and vegetation of every kind (Joel 1:18); the men had sighed over the unparalleled calamity that had befallen both land and people.

The prophet here calls to all of them not to fear, but to exult and rejoice, and gives in every case an appropriate reason for the call. In that of the earth, he introduces the thought that Jehovah had done great things-had destroyed the foe that did great things; in that of the beasts, he points to the fresh verdure of the pastures, and the growth of the fruit upon the trees; in that of men, he lays stress upon a double fact, viz., the gift of a teacher for righteousness, and the pouring out of a plentiful rain. In this description we have to notice the rhetorical individualizing, which forms its peculiar characteristic, and serves to explain not only the distinction between the earth, the beasts of the field, and the sons of Zion, but the distribution of the divine blessings among the different members of the creation that are mentioned here. For, so far as the fact itself is concerned, the threefold blessing from God benefits all three classes of the earthly creation: the rain does good not only to the sons of Zion, or to men, but also to animals and to the soil; and so again do the green of the pastures and the fruits of the trees; and lastly, even the twOv[\læ yy lyDig]hi not only blesses the earth, but also the beasts and men upon it.

It is only through overlooking this rhetorico-poetical distribution, that any one could infer from v. 22b, that because the fruits are mentioned here as the ordinary food of animals, in direct contrast to Gen 1:28-29, where the fruit of the trees is assigned to men for food, the beasts of the field signify the heathen. The perfects in the explanatory clauses of these three verses are all to be taken alike, and not to be rendered in the preterite in v. 21, and in the present in vv. 22 and 23. The perfect is not only applied to actions, which the speaker looks upon from his own standpoint as actually completed, as having taken place, or as things belonging to the past, but to actions which the will or the lively fancy of the speaker regards as being as good as completed, in other words, assumes as altogether unconditional and certain, and to which in modern languages we should apply the present (Ewald, §135, a, etc.). The latter is the sense in which it is used here, since the prophet sets forth the divine promise as a fact, which is unquestionably certain and complete, even though its historical realization has only just begun, and extends into the nearer or more remote future.

The divine act over which the prophet calls upon them to rejoice, is not to be restricted to the destruction of those swarms of locusts that had at that time invaded Judah, and the revivification of drying nature, but is an act of God that is being constantly repeated whenever the same circumstances occur, or whose influence continues as long as this earth lasts; since it is a tangible pledge, that to all eternity, as is stated in vv. 26, 27, the people of the Lord will not be put to shame. The “sons of Zion” are not merely the inhabitants of Zion itself, but the dwellers in the capital are simply mentioned as the representatives of the kingdom of Judah. As the plague of locusts fell not upon Jerusalem only, but upon the whole land, the call to rejoicing must refer to all the inhabitants of the land (Joel 1:2,14). They are to rejoice in Jehovah, who has proved Himself to be their God by the removal of the judgment and the bestowal of a fresh blessing.

This blessing is twofold in its nature. He gives them lits¦daaqaah ‘ethamowreh.

From time immemorial there has been a diversity of opinion as to the meaning of these words. Most of the Rabbins and earlier commentators have followed the Chaldee and Vulgate, and taken mooreh in the sense of “teacher;”but others, in no small number, have taken it in the sense of “early rain,” e.g., Ab. Ezra, Kimchi, Tanch., Calvin, and most of the Calvinistic and modern commentators. But although mooreh is unquestionably used in the last clause of this verse in the sense of early rain; in every other instance this is called yooreh (Deut 11:14; Jer 5:24); for Ps 84:7 cannot be brought into the account since the meaning is disputed.

Consequently the conjecture is a very natural one, that in the last clause of the verse Joel selected the form mooreh, instead of yooreh, to signify early rain, simply on account of the previous occurrence of hammooreh in the sense of “teacher,” and for the sake of the unison. This rendering of hammooreh is not only favoured by thee article placed before it, since neither mooreh = yooreh (early rain), nor the corresponding and tolerably frequent malqoosh (latter rain), ever has the article, and no reason can be discovered why mooreh should be defined by the article here if it signified early rain; but it is decisively confirmed by the following word hq;d;x] , which is quite inapplicable to early rain, since it cannot mean either “in just measure,” or “at the proper time,” or “in becoming manner,” as tsedâqâh is only used in the ethical sense of righteousness, and is never met with sensu physico, neither in 2 Sam 19:29; Neh 2:20, nor in Ps 23:3 and Lev 19:36, where moreover qd,x, occurs. For tsedeq ma`¦g¦leey (in the Psalm) are not straight or right ways, but ways of righteousness (spiritual ways); and although qd,x, ˆzeamo , qd,x, ˆb,a, , are no doubt really correct scales and weight-stones, this is simply because they correspond to what is ethically right, so that we cannot deduce from this the idea of correct measure in the case of the rain.

Ewald and Umbreit, who both of them recognise the impossibility of proving that tsedâqâh is used in the physical sense of correctness or correct measure, have therefore adopted the rendering “rain for justification,” or “for righteousness;” Ewald regarding the rain as a sign that they are adopted again into the righteousness of God, whilst Umbreit takes it as a manifestation of eternal righteousness in the flowing stream of fertilizing grace. But apart from the question, whether these thoughts are in accordance with the doctrine of Scripture, they are by no means applicable here, where the people have neither doubted the revelation of the righteousness of God, nor prayed to God for justification, but have rather appealed to the compassion and grace of God in the consciousness of their sin and guilt, and prayed to be spared and rescued from destruction (vv. 13, 17). By the “teacher for righteousness,” we are to understand neither the prophet Joel only (v. Hofmann), nor the Messiah directly (Abarbanel), nor the idea teacher or collective body of messengers from God (Hengstenberg), although there is some truth at the foundation of all these suppositions.

The direct or exclusive reference to the Messiah is at variance wit the context, since all the explanatory clauses in vv. 21-23 treat of blessings or gifts of God, which were bestowed at any rate partially at that particular time. Moreover, in v. 23, the sending of the rain-fall is represented by dræy; (imperf. c. Vav cons.), if not as the consequence of the sending of the teacher for righteousness, at any rate as a contemporaneous event. These circumstances apparently favour the application of the expression to the prophet Joel. Nevertheless, it is by no means probable that Joel describes himself directly as the teacher for righteousness, or speaks of his being sent to the people as the object of exultation. No doubt he had induced the people to turn to the Lord, and to offer penitential supplication for His mercy through his call to repentance, and thereby effected the consequent return of rain and fruitful seasons; but his address and summons would not have had this result, if the people had not been already instructed by Moses, by the priests, and by other prophets before himself, concerning the ways of the Lord. All of these were teachers for righteousness, and are included under hammooreh. Still we must not stop at them.

As the blessings of grace, at the reception of which the people were to rejoice, did not merely consist, as we have just observed, in the blessings which came to it at that time, or in Joel’s days, but also embraced those which were continually bestowed upon it by the Lord; we must not exclude the reference to the Messiah, to whom Moses had already pointed as the prophet whom the Lord would raise up unto them, and to whom they were to hearken (Deut 18:18-19), but must rather regard the sending of the Messiah as the final fulfilment of this promise. This view answers to the context, if we simply notice that Joel mentions here both the spiritual and material blessings which the Lord is conveying to His people, and then in what follows expounds the material blessings still further in vv. 23c-27, and the spiritual blessings in vv. 28-32 and ch. 3. They are both of them consequences of the gift of the teacher for righteousness.

Hence the expansion of the earthly saving gifts is attached by dræy; with Vav cons. Joel mentions first of all geshem, a rain-fall, or plentiful rain for the fertilizing of the soil and then defines it more exactly as early rain, which fell in the autumn at the sowing time and promoted the germination and growth of the seed, and latter rain, which occurred in the spring shortly before the time of harvest and brought the crops to maturity (see at Lev 26:3). ˆwOvari , in the beginning, i.e., first (= ˆwOvari in Gen 33:2, just as ˆwOvari is used in Lev 9:15 for ˆwOvari in Num 10:13), not in the first month (Chald., etc.), or in the place of ˆwOvari , as before (LXX, Vulg., and others). For ˆwOvari corresponds to ‘achareey-keen in v. 28 (Heb 3:1), as Ewald, Meier, and Hengstenberg admit. First of all the pouring out of a plentiful rain (an individualizing expression for all kinds of earthly blessings, chosen here with reference to the opposite of blessing occasioned by the drought); and after that, the pouring out of the spiritual blessing (Joel 2:28-3:21).

JOEL. 2:24-25

Effects of the rain.

Verse 24-27. “And the barns become full of corn, and the vats flow over with new wine and oil. And I repay to you the years which the locust has eaten, the licker, and the devourer, and the gnawer, my great army which I sent among you. And ye will eat, eat and be satisfied, and praise the name of Jehovah your God, who hath done wondrously with you; and my people shall not be put to shame to all eternity. And ye will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and I (am) Jehovah your God, and none else, and my people shall not be put to shame to all eternity.” V. 24 is practically the same as v. 19a, and the counterpart to Joel 1:10-12. qWv from qWv , to run, hiphil only here and Joel 4:13, to run over, to overflow; pilel, Ps 65:10, shooqeeq, to cause to overflow. bq,y, , the vats of the wine-presses, into which the wine flows when trodden out; here it also applies to the vats of the oil-presses, into which the oil ran as it was pressed out. Through these bountiful harvests God would repay to the people the years, i.e., the produce of the years, which the locusts ate. The plural, shâniim, furnishes no certain proof that Joel referred in ch. 1 to swarms of locusts of several successive years; but is used either with indefinite generality, as in Gen 21:7, or with a distinct significance, viz., as a poetical expression denoting the greatness and violence of the devastation. On the different names of the locusts, see at Joel 1:4. It is to be observed here that the copula stands before the last two names, but not before yeleq, so that the last three names belong to one another as coordinates (Hitzig), i.e., they are merely different epithets used for ‘arbeh, the locusts.

JOEL. 2:26

On the reception of these benefits the people will praise the Lord, who has shown it such wondrous grace, lit., has acted towards it even to the doing of wonders. JOEL 2:27 They will learn thereby that Jehovah is present among His people, and the only true God, who does not suffer His people to be put to shame. The repetition of wgw’ vWB alo , by which the promised grace is guaranteed to the people for all ages, serves as a rhetorical rounding off of the section (see at Joel 2:20).

OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD UPON ALL FLESH; JUDGMENT UPON THE WORLD OF NATIONS, AND ETERNAL DELIVERANCE AND GLORIFICATION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD These three distinct features in the higher blessing set before the congregation of the Lord are practically connected very closely together: inasmuch as, with the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh, the judgment breaks upon the ungodly world; and with the judgment not only does the rescue of the true worshippers of God ensue, but the sanctification and glorification of the kingdom of God begin. Consequently we do not find these three features kept rigidly separate in the prophetic announcement; but just as in Joel 2:28-32 (ch. 3 according to the ordinary division of the chapters) the signs of the dawning of the judgment are appended to the outpouring of the Spirit of God, so in ch. 3 (Heb. etc. ch. 4) the description of the judgment is framed as it were in the prediction of the restoration of Judah (v. 1), and of the salvation and transfiguration of Zion (vv. 16, 17); and in vv. 18-21 the eternal glorification of the kingdom of God is interwoven, by way of contrast, into the lasting devastation of the power of the world.

JOEL. 2:28-30

(Heb. ch. 3). Outpouring of the Spirit of God, and Announcement of Judgment. f35 “And it will come to pass afterwards, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, and your young men see visions. And also upon the men-servants and maid- servants I will put out my Spirit in those days.” As ‘acharee-kheen points back to bâri’shoon in v. 23, the formula vehâyâh acharee-kheen describes the outpouring of the Spirit as a second and later consequence of the gift of the teacher for righteousness. Ëpæv; , to pour out, signifies communication in rich abundance, like a rain-fall or water-fall. For the communication of the Spirit of God was not entirely wanting to the covenant nation from the very first. In fact, the Spirit of God was the only inward bond between the Lord and His people; but it was confined to the few whom God endowed as prophets with the gift of His Spirit. This limitation was to cease in the future. f36 What Moses expressed as a wish-namely, that the people were all prophets, and the Lord would put His Spirit upon them (Num 11:29)-was to be fulfilled in the future. Ruuach Yehoovâh is not the first principle of the physico-creaturely life (i.e., not equivalent to ruuach Eloohiim in Gen 1:2), but that of the spiritual or ethical and religious life of man, which filled the prophets under the Old Testament as a spirit of prophecy; consequently Joel describes its operations under this form. “All flesh” signifies all men.

The idea that it embraces the irrational animals, even the locusts (Credner), is rejected with perfect justice by Hitzig as an inconceivable thought, and one unheard-of in the Bible; but he is wrong in adding that the Old Testament does not teach a communication of the Spirit of God to all men, but limits it to the people of Israel. A decided protest is entered against this by Gen 6:3, where Jehovah threatens that He will no longer let His Spirit rule bâ’âdâm, i.e., in the human race, because it has become bâsâr (flesh).

Bâsâr, as contrasted with ruuach Yehoovâh, always denotes human nature regarded as incapacitated for spiritual and divine life. Even in this verse we must not restrict the expression “all flesh” to the members of the covenant nation, as most of the commentators have done; for whatever truth there may be in the remark made by Calovius and others (compare Hengstenberg, Christol. i. p. 328 transl.), that the following clause, “your sons, your daughters, your old men, your young men, and men-servants and maid-servants,” contains a specification of kaal-baasaar, it by no means follows with certainty from this, that the word all does not do away with the limitation to one particular nation, but merely that in this one nation even the limits of sex, age, and rank are abolished; since it cannot be proved that the specification in vv. 2 and 3 is intended to exhaust the idea of “all flesh.”

Moreover, as the prophecy of Joel had respect primarily to Judah, Joel may primarily have brought into prominence, and specially singled out of the general idea of kol-bâsâr in vv. 28 and 29, only those points that were of importance to his contemporaries, viz., that all the members of the covenant nation would participate in this outpouring of the Spirit, without regard to sex, age, or rank; and in so doing, he may have looked away from the idea of the entire human race, including all nations, which is involved in the expression “all flesh.” We shall see from v. 32 that this last thought was not a strange one to the prophet. In the specification of the communication of the Spirit, the different forms which it assumes are rhetorically distributed as follows: to the sons and daughters, prophesying is attributed; to the old, dreams; to the young, sights or visions. But it by no means follows from this, that each of these was peculiar to the age mentioned.

For the assertion, that the Spirit of God only manifests itself in the weakened mind of the old man by dreams and visions of the night; that the vigorous and lively fancy of the youth or man has sights by day, or true visions; and lastly, that in the soul of the child the Spirit merely works as furor sacer Tychs., Credner, Hitzig, and others), cannot be historically sustained. According to Num 12:6, visions and dreams are the two forms of the prophetic revelation of God; and ab;n; is the most general manifestation of the prophetic gift, which must not be restricted to the ecstatic state associated with the prophesying. The meaning of this rhetorical individualizing, is simply that their sons, daughters, old persons, and youths, would receive the Spirit of God with all its gifts. The outpouring of the Spirit upon slaves (men-servants and maidens) is connected by vegam, as being something very extraordinary, and under existing circumstances not to be expected.

Not a single case occurs in the whole of the Old Testament of a salve receiving the gift of prophecy. Amos, indeed, was a poor shepherd servant, but not an actual slave. And the communication of this gift to slaves was irreconcilable with the position of slaves under the Old Testament.

Consequently even the Jewish expositors could not reconcile themselves to this announcement. The LXX, by rendering it epi> tou>v dou>louv mou kai> epi> ta>v dou>lav mou , have put servants of God in the place of the slaves of men; and the Pharisees refused to the o>clov even a knowledge of the law (John 7:49). The gospel has therefore also broken the fetters of slavery.

Judgment upon all nations goes side by side with the outpouring of the Spirit of God.

Verse 30-32. “And I give wonders in the heavens and on earth, blood, fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun will turn into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the day of Jehovah, the great and terrible (day), comes. And it comes to pass, every one who shall call upon the name of Jehovah will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem will be fugitives, as Jehovah hath said, and among those that are left will be those whom Jehovah calls.” With the word ˆtæn; , v. 3 is attached to v. 2 as a simple continuation (Hitzig). The wonders which God will give in the heavens and upon earth are the forerunners of judgment. Moophethiim (see at Ex 4:21) are extraordinary and marvellous natural phenomena. The wonders on earth are mentioned first, in v. 30b; then in v. 31 those in the heavens.

Blood and fire recal to mind the plagues which fell upon Egypt as signs of the judgment: the blood, the changing of the water of the Nile into blood (Ex 7:17); the fire, the balls of fire which fell to the earth along with the hail (Ex 9:24). Blood and fire point to bloodshed and war. Timrooth ‘âshân signifies cloud-pillars (here and in Song of Sol. 3:6), whether we regard the form timrooth as original, and trace it to timrâh and the root tâmar, or prefer the reading hr;m;yTi , which we meet with in many codices and editions, and take the word as a derivative of yâmar = muur, as Hengstenberg does (Christol. i. p. 334 transl.). This sign has its type in the descent of Jehovah upon Sinai, at which the whole mountain smoked, and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a smelting-furnace (Ex 19:18). We have not to think, therefore, of columns of cloud ascending from basons of fire, carried in front of caravans or armies on the march to show the way (see at Song of Sol. 3:6), but of pillars of cloud, which roll up from burning towns in time of war (Isa 9:17).

V. 31. In the heavens the sun is darkened, and the moon assumes a dull, blood-red appearance. These signs also have their type in the Egyptian plague of darkness (Ex 10:21ff.). The darkening and extinction of the lights of heaven are frequently mentioned, either as harbingers of approaching judgment, or as signs of the breaking of the day of judgment (it was so in Joel 2:2,10, and is so again in ch. 3:14: see also Isa 13:10; 34:4; Jer 4:23; Ezek 32:1-8; Amos 8:9; Matt 24:29; Mark 13:24; Luke 21:25). What we have to think of here, is not so much periodically returning phenomena of nature, or eclipses of the sun and moon, as extraordinary (not ecliptic) obscurations of the sun and moon, such as frequently occur as accompaniments to great catastrophes in human history. f37 And these earthly and celestial phenomena are forerunners and signs of the approaching or bursting judgment; not only so far as subjective faith is concerned, from the impression which is made upon the human mind by rare and terrible phenomena of nature, exciting a feeling of anxious expectation as to the things that are about to happen, but also in their real connection with the onward progress of humanity towards its divinely appointed goal, which may be explained from the calling of man to be the lord of the earth, though it has not yet received from science its due recognition and weight; in accordance with which connection, they show “that the eternal motion of the heavenly worlds is also appointed by the world-governing righteousness of God; so that the continued secret operation of this peculiar quality manifests itself through a strong cosmicouranian symbolism, in facts of singular historical significance” (Zoeckler, l. c.).

JOEL. 2:31-32

For v. 31b, see at Joel 2:1,11. But it is only by the world and its children that the terrible day of the Lord is to be feared; to the children of God it brings redemption (Luke 21:28). Whoever calls upon the name of Jehovah, i.e., the believing worshippers of the Lord, will be exempted from the judgment. “Calling upon the name of Jehovah” signifies not only the public worship of God, but inward worship also, in which the confession of the mouth is also an expression of the heart. Upon Mount Zion will be peleetâh, i.e., not deliverance, but that which has escaped, or, in a collective sense, those who have escaped the judgment, as the synonym seriidiim, which follows, clearly shows. Mount Zion and Jerusalem are not mentioned here as the capital of the kingdom of Judah, but, according to their spiritual significance, as the place where the Lord was enthroned in the sanctuary in the midst of His people; that is to say, as the central spot of the kingdom of God. Consequently it is not “to the whole nation of Judah as such that deliverance is promised, on the assumption that in those times of distress the population of the land would have streamed to Jerusalem” (Hitzig), but only to those who call upon the name of the Lord, i.e., to the true worshippers of God, upon whom the Spirit of God is poured out.

The words yy rmæa; rv,a are not synonymous with yy µaun] or rBeDi yy yKi (Joel 4:8; Isa. 1:20; 40:5, etc.), but point to a prophetic word already known, viz., to Obad 17, where the saying of the Lord, that in the midst of the judgment there would be rescued ones upon Mount Zion, occurs word for word. dyric; also depends upon yKi : “and among those that remain will be those whom Jehovah calls.” Sâriid is one who is left after a judgment or a battle; hence in Jer 42:17 and Josh 8:22 it is connected with pâliit (one who has escaped from destruction), so that here seriidiim and peleetâh are actually alike, the seriidiim being just the escaped ones upon Mount Zion.

Through this clause there is appended to what precedes the fresh definition, that among the saved will be found those whom the Lord calls.

These may either be the believing portion of Judah, or believers from among the heathen. If we adopted the first view, the sentence would simply contain a more precise definition of the thought, that none are saved but those who call upon the name of the Lord, and therefore would preclude the possibility of including all the inhabitants of Judah among those who call upon the Lord. If we took the second view, the sentence would add this new feature to the thought contained in the first hemistich, that not only citizens of Jerusalem and Judah would be saved in the time of judgment, but all who called upon the Lord out of every nation. The latter view deserves the preference, because the expression yy µvb arq did not need a more precise definition. The salvation of believers from the heathen world is implied in the first half of the verse, since it is simply connected with calling upon the name of the Lord. The Apostle Paul has quoted it in this sense in Rom 10:13, as a proof of the participation of the heathen in the Messianic salvation.

If we proceed now to seek for the fulfilment of this prophecy, the Apostle Peter quoted the whole of these verses (28-32), with the exception of v. 32b, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, on the first Whitsuntide feast of the apostolical church, as having been fulfilled by that Whitsuntide miracle (Acts 2:17-21); and in his subsequent reference to this fulfilment in Joel 2:39, “For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call,” he even adds the closing words of Joel (v. 32b). f39 Consequently the Christian church from time immemorial has recognised in the miracle of Pentecost the outpouring of the Spirit of God predicted in vv. 1, 2: so that the only point upon which there has been a division of opinion has been, whether the fulfilment is to be confined to the feast of Pentecost (as nearly all the fathers and earlier Lutheran commentators suppose); or is to be sought for in certain events of Joel’s own time, as well as the first feast of Pentecost (Ephr. Syr., Grot., and others); or, lastly, whether the occurrence at the first feast of Pentecost is to be regarded as simply the beginning of the fulfilment which has continued throughout the whole of the Christian era (Calov., Hengstenberg, and many others). Even the Rabbins, with the exception of R. Mose Hakkohen in Aben Ezra, who sees only a reference to some event in Joel’s own time, expect the fulfilment to take place in the future on the advent of the Messiah (Yarchi, Kimchi, Abarb.). Of the three views expressed by Christian commentators, the third is the only one that answers to the nature of the prophecy as correctly interpreted.

The outpouring of the Spirit of God, or the communication of it in all its fulness to the covenant nation, without any limitation whatever, is a standing mark with the prophets of the Messianic times (compare Isa 32:15 with 11:9 and 54:13) or new covenant (Jer 31:33-34; Ezek 36:26ff.; Zech 12:10). And even if the way was opened and prepared for this by the prophetic endowment of particular members of the old covenant, these sporadic communications of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament times cannot be regarded as the first steps in the fulfilment of our prophecy, since they were not outpourings of the Spirit of God. This first took place when Christ Jesus the Son of God had completed the work of redemption, i.e., on the first feast of Pentecost after the resurrection and ascension of Christ.

Previous to this the words of John 7:39 applied: ou>pw h>n pneu>ma aJ>gion oJ>ti oJ Ihsou>v oude>pw edoxa>sqh .

The reference in this prophecy to the founding of the new covenant, or Christian church, is also evident from the words, “And it shall come to pass afterwards,” for which Peter substituted, “And it shall come to pass in the last days,” interpreting ˆk yrja , the use of which was occasioned by the retrospective reference to ˆwOvari in Joel 2:23, with perfect correctness so far as the fact was concerned, by the formula answering to µymyh tyrjab , viz., en tai>v esca>taiv hJme>raiv , which always denotes the Messianic future, or times of the completion of the kingdom of God. And just as acharee kheen precludes any reference to an event in Joel’s own time, so does en tai>v esca>taiv hJme>raiv preclude any fulfilment whatever in the times before Christ. But however certain it may be that the fulfilment first took place at the first Christian feast of Pentecost, we must not stop at this one pentecostal miracle.

The address of the Apostle Peter by no means requires this limitation, but rather contains distinct indications that Peter himself saw nothing more therein than the commencement of the fulfilment, “but a commencement, indeed, which embraced the ultimate fulfilment, as the germ enfolds the tree.” We see this in v. 38, where he exhorts his hearers to repent and be baptized, and adds the promise, “and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost;” and again in v. 39, where he observes, “The promise belongs to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off ( toi>v eiv makra>n ), as many as the Lord our God will call.” For if not only the children of the apostle’s contemporaries, but also those that were afar off-i.e., not foreign Jews, but the far-off heathen-were to participate in the gift of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which commenced at Pentecost must continue as long as the Lord shall receive into His kingdom those who re still standing afar off, i.e., until the fulness of the Gentiles shall have entered the kingdom of God. See Hengstenberg, Christology, i. pp. 326ff. transl., where further reasons are adduced for taking this to be the allusion in the prophecy.

There is far greater diversity in the opinions entertained as to the fulfilment of vv. 30-32: some thinking of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (Grotius, Turretius, and the Socinians); and others of judgments upon the enemies of the covenant nation shortly after the return from the Babylonian exile (Ephr. Syr. and others); others, again, of the last judgment (Tertull., Theod., Crus.), or the destruction of Jerusalem and the last judgment (Chrys.). Of all these views, those which refer to events occurring before the Christian era are irreconcilable with the context, according to which the day of the Lord will come after the outpouring of the Spirit of God. Even the wonders connected with the death of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, of which some have thought, cannot properly be taken into account, although the marvellous phenomena occurring at the death of Christ-the darkening of the sun, the shaking of the earth, and the rending of the rocks-were harbingers of the approaching judgment, and were recognised by the o>cloiv as warnings to repent, and so escape from the judgment (Matt 27:45,51; Luke 23:44,48).

For the signs in heaven and earth that are mentioned in vv. 30 and 31 were to take place before the coming of the terrible day of the Lord, which would dawn after the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh, and which came, as history teaches, upon the Jewish nation that had rejected its Saviour on the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and upon the Gentile world-power in the destruction of the Roman empire, and from that time forward breaks in constant succession upon one Gentile nation after another, until all the ungodly powers of this world shall be overthrown (cf. Joel 3:2). On account of this internal connection between the day of Jehovah and the outpouring of the Spirit upon the church of the Lord, Peter also quoted vv. 30-32 of this prophecy, for the purpose of impressing upon the hearts of all the hearers of his address the admonition, “Save yourselves from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40), and also of pointing out the way of deliverance from the threatening judgment to all who were willing to be saved.

JOEL. 3:1

(Heb. Bib. ch. 4.) Judgment upon the World of Nations, and Glorification of Zion Verse 1-3. “For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall turn the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather together all nations, and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will contend with them there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel, which they have scattered among the nations, and my land have they divided. And for my people they cast the lot; and gave the boy for a harlot, and the maiden they have sold for wine, and drunk (it).” The description of the judgment-day predicted in Joel 2:31 commences with an explanatory yKi . The train of thought is the following: When the day of the Lord comes, there will be deliverance upon Zion only for those who call upon the name of the Lord; for then will all the heathen nations that have displayed hostility to Jehovah’s inheritance be judged in the valley of Jehoshaphat. By hinneeh, the fact to be announced is held up as something new and important.

The notice as to the time points back to the “afterward” in Joel 2:28: “in those days,” viz., the days of the outpouring of the Spirit of God. This time is still further described by the apposition, “at that time, when I shall turn the captivity of Judah,” as the time of the redemption of the people of God out of their prostrate condition, and out of every kind of distress. tWbv] tae bWv is not used here in the sense of “to bring back the prisoners,” but, as in Hos 6:11, in the more comprehensive sense of restitutio in integrum, which does indeed include the gathering together of those who were dispersed, and the return of the captives, as one element, though it is not exhausted by this one element, but also embraces their elevation into a new and higher state of glory, transcending their earlier state of grace. In xbæq; the prediction of judgment is appended to the previous definition of the time in the form of an apodosis.

The article in µyiwOGhæAlK; (all the nations) does not refer to “all those nations which were spoken of in ch. 1 and 2 under the figure of the locusts” (Hengstenberg), but is used because the prophet had in his mind all those nations upon which hostility towards Israel, the people of God, is charged immediately afterwards as a crime: so that the article is used in much the same manner as in Jer 49:36, because the notion, though in itself an indefinite one, is more fully defined in what follows (cf. Ewald, §227, a). The valley of Yehooshâphât, i.e., Jehovah judges, is not the valley in which the judgment upon several heathen nations took place under Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 20), and which received the name of Valley of blessing, from the feast of thanksgiving which Jehoshaphat held there (2 Chron 20:22-26), as Ab. Ezra, Hofmann, Ewald, and others suppose; for the “Valley of blessing” was not “the valley of Kidron, which was selected for that festival in the road back from the desert of Tekoah to Jerusalem” (see Bertheau on 2 Chr. l.c.), and still less “the plain of Jezreel” (Kliefoth), but was situated in the neighbourhood of the ruins of Bereikût, which have been discovered by Wolcott (see Ritter, Erdkunde, xv. p. 635, and Van de Velde, Mem. p. 292).

On the other hand, the valley of Jehoshaphat is unquestionably to be sought for, according to this chapter (as compared with Zech 14:4), in or near Jerusalem; and the name, which does not occur anywhere else in either the Old or New Testament, excepting here and in v. 12, is formed by Joel, like the name ‘eemeq hechâruuts in v. 14, from the judgment which Jehovah would hold upon the nations there. The tradition of the church (see Euseb. and Jerome in the Onom. s.v. koila>v , Caelas, and Itiner.

Anton. p. 594; cf. Robinson, Pal. i. pp. 396, 397) has correctly assigned it to the valley of the Kidron, on the eastern side of Jerusalem, or rather to the northern part of that valley (2 Sam 18:18), or valley of Shaveh (Gen 14:17). There would the Lord contend with the nations, hold judgment upon them, because they had attacked His people (nachalâthii, the people of Jehovah, as in Joel 2:17) and His kingdom (‘artsii).

The dispersion of Israel among the nations, and the division qlæj; ) of the Lord’s land, cannot, of course, refer to the invasion of Judah by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Joram (2 Chron 21:16-17). For although these foes did actually conquer Jerusalem and plunder it, and carried off, among other captives, even the sons of the king himself, this transportation of a number of prisoners cannot be called a dispersion of the people of Israel among the heathen; still less can the plundering of the land and capital be called a division of the land of Jehovah; to say nothing of the fact, that the reference here is to the judgment which would come upon all nations after the outpouring of the Spirit of God upon all flesh, and that it is not till vv. 4-8 that Joel proceeds to speak of the calamities which neighbouring nations had inflicted upon the kingdom of Judah. The words presuppose as facts that have already occurred, both the dispersion of the whole nation of Israel in exile among the heathen, and the conquest and capture of the whole land by heathen nations, and that in the extent to which they took place under the Chaldeans and Romans alone.

JOEL. 3:2-8

In vv. 2 and 3 Joel is speaking not of events belonging to his own time, or to the most recent past, but of that dispersion of the whole of the ancient covenant nation among the heathen, which was only completely effected on the conquest of Palestine and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and which continues to this day; though we cannot agree with Hengstenberg, that this furnishes an argument in favour of the allegorical interpretation of the army of locusts in ch. 1 and 2. For since Moses had already foretold that Israel would one day be driven out among the heathen (Lev 26:33ff.; Deut 28:36ff.), Joel might assume that this judgment was a truth well known in Israel, even though he had not expressed it in his threatening of punishment in ch. 1 and 2. V. 3 depicts the ignominious treatment of Israel in connection with this catastrophe. The prisoners of war are distributed by lot among the conquerors, and disposed of by them to slave-dealers at most ridiculous prices-a boy for a harlot, a girl for a drink of wine. Even in Joel’s time, many Israelites may no doubt have been scattered about in distant heathen lands (cf. v. 5); but the heathen nations had not yet cast lots upon the nation as a whole, to dispose of the inhabitants as slaves, and divide the land among themselves. This was not done till the time of the Romans. f41 But, as many of the earlier commentators have clearly seen, we must not stop even at this. The people and inheritance of Jehovah are not merely the Old Testament Israel as such, but the church of the Lord of both the old and new covenants, upon which the Spirit of God is poured out; and the judgment which Jehovah will hold upon the nations, on account of the injuries inflicted upon His people, is the last general judgment upon the nations, which will embrace not merely the heathen Romans and other heathen nations by whom the Jews have been oppressed, but all the enemies of the people of God, both within and without the earthly limits of the church of the Lord, including even carnally-minded Jews, Mohammedans, and nominal Christians, who are heathens in heart. f42 Before depicting the final judgment upon the hostile nations of the world, Joel notices in vv. 4-8 the hostility which the nations round about Judah had manifested towards it in his own day, and foretels to these a righteous retribution for the crimes they had committed against the covenant nation.

Verse 4-8. “And ye also, what would ye with me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all ye coasts of Philistia? will ye repay a doing to me, or do anything to me? Quickly, hastily will I turn back your doing upon your head. That ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have brought my best jewels into your temples. And the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem ye have sold to the sons of Javan, to remove them far from their border. Behold, I waken them from the place whither ye have sold them, and turn back your doing upon your head. And sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of Javan, and they sell them to the Sabaeans, to a people far off; for Jehovah has spoken it.” By vegam the Philistines and Phoenicians are added to the gooyim already mentioned, as being no less culpable than they; not, however, in the sense of, “and also if one would inquire more thoroughly into the fact” (Ewald), or, “and even so far as ye are concerned, who, in the place of the friendship and help which ye were bound to render as neighbours, have oppressed my people” (Rosenmüller), for such additions as these are foreign to the context; but rather in this sense, “and yea also...do not imagine that ye can do wrong with impunity, as though he had a right so to do.” liy maah- ’atem does not mean, “What have I to do with you?” for this would be expressed differently (compare Josh 22:24; Judg 11:12); but, “What would ye with me?”

The question is unfinished, because of its emotional character, and is resumed and completed immediately afterwards in a disjunctive form (Hitzig). Tyre and Sidon, the two chief cities of the Phoenicians (see at Josh 19:29 and 11:8), represent all the Phoenicians. lp hl;ylig] lKo , “all the circles or districts of the Philis- tines,” are the five small princedoms of Philistia (see at Josh 13:2). lWmG] , the doing, or inflicting (sc., of evil), from gâmal, to accomplish, to do (see at Isa 3:9). The disjunctive question, “Will ye perhaps repay to me a deed, i.e., a wrong, that I have done to you, or of your own accord attempt anything against me?” has a negative meaning: “Ye have neither cause to avenge yourselves upon me, i.e., upon my people Israel, nor any occasion to do it harm. But if repayment is the thing in hand, I will, and that very speedily (qal meheerâh, see Isa 5:26), bring back your doing upon your own head” (cf. Ps 7:17).

To explain what is here said, an account is given in vv. 5, 6 of what they have done to the Lord and His people-namely, taken away their gold and silver, and brought their costly treasures into their palaces or temples.

These words are not to be restricted to the plundering of the temple and its treasury, but embrace the plundering of palaces and of the houses of the rich, which always followed the conquest of towns (cf. 1 Kings 14:26; Kings 14:14). lk;yhe also are not temples only, but palaces as well (cf. Isa 13:22; Amos 8:3; Prov 30:28). Joel had no doubt the plundering of Judah and Jerusalem by the Philistines and Arabians in the time of Jehoram in his mind (see 2 Chron 21:17). The share of the Phoenicians in this crime was confined to the fact, that they had purchased from the Philistines the Judaeans who had been taken prisoners, by them, and sold them again as salves to the sons of Javan, i.e., to the Ionians or Greeks of Asia Minor. f43 The clause, “that ye might remove them far from their border,” whence there would be no possibility of their returning to their native land, serves to bring out the magnitude of the crime. This would be repaid to them according to the true lex talionis (vv. 7, 8). The Lord would raise up the members of His own nation from the place to which they had been sold, i.e., would bring them back again into their own land, and deliver up the Philistines and Phoenicians into the power of the Judaeans (mâkhar beyâd as in Judg 2:14; 3:8, etc.), who would then sell their prisoners as slaves to the remote people of the Sabaeans, a celebrated trading people in Arabia Felix (see at 1 Kings 10:1). This threat would certainly be fulfilled, for Jehovah had spoken it (cf. Isa 1:20). This occurred partly on the defeat of the Philistines by Uzziah (2 Chron 26:6-7) and Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:8), where Philistian prisoners of war were certainly sold as slaves; but principally after the captivity, when Alexander the Great and his successors set many of the Jewish prisoners of war in their lands at liberty (compare the promise of King Demetrius to Jonathan, “I will send away in freedom such of the Judaeans as have been made prisoners, and reduced to slavery in our land,” Josephus, Ant. xiii. 2, 3), and portions of the Philistian and Phoenician lands were for a time under Jewish sway; when Jonathan besieged Ashkelon and Gaza (1 Macc. 10:86; 11:60); when King Alexander (Balas) ceded Ekron and the district of Judah (1 Macc. 10:89); when the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeaus conquered Gaza, and destroyed it (Josephus, Ant. xiii. 13, 3; bell. Jud. i. 4, 2); and when, subsequent to the cession of Tyre, which had been conquered by Alexander the Great, to the Seleucidae, Antiochus the younger appointed Simon commander-in-chief from the Ladder of Tyre to the border of Egypt (1 Macc. 1:59).

JOEL. 3:9-14

Fulfilment of the judgment upon all the heathen predicted in v. 2. Compare the similar prediction of judgment in Zech 14:2ff. The call is addressed to all nations to equip themselves for battle, and march into the valley of Jehoshaphat to war against the people of God, but in reality to be judged by the Lord through His heavenly heroes, whom He sends down thither.

Verse 9-12. “Proclaim ye this among the nations; sanctify a war, awaken the heroes, let all the men of war draw near and come up!

Forge your coulters into swords, and your vine-sickles into spears: let the weak one say, A hero am I. Hasten and come, all ye nations round about, and assemble yourselves! Let thy heroes come down thither, O Jehovah! The nations are to rise up, and come into the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there shall I sit to judge all the heathen round about.” The summons to prepare for war (v. 9) is addressed, not to the worshippers of Jehovah or the Israelites scattered among the heathen (Cyr., Calv., Umbreit), but to the heathen nations, though not directly to the heroes and warriors among the heathen, but to heralds, who are to listen to the divine message, and convey it to the heathen nations.

This change belongs to the poetical drapery of thought, that at a sign from the Lord the heathen nations are to assemble together for war against Israel. vDeqi hm;j;l]mi does not mean “to declare war” (Hitzig), but to consecrate a war, i.e., to prepare for war by sacrifices and religious rites of consecration (cf. 1 Sam 7:8-9; Jer 6:4). `rW[ : waken up or arouse (not wake up) the heroes from their peaceful rest to battle. With vgæn; the address passes over from the second person to the third, which Hitzig accounts for on the ground that the words state what the heralds are to say to the nations or heroes; but the continuance of the imperative koottuu in v. 10 does not suit this. This transition is a very frequent one (cf. Isa 41:1; 34:1), and may be very simply explained from the lively nature of the description. `hl;[; is here applied to the advance of hostile armies against a land or city.

The nations are to summon up all their resources and all their strength for this war, because it will be a decisive one. They are to forge the tools of peaceful agriculture into weapons of war (compare Isa 2:4 and Mic 4:3, where the Messianic times of peace are depicted as the turning of weapons of war into instruments of agriculture). Even the weak one is to rouse himself up to be a hero, “as is generally the case when a whole nation is seized with warlike enthusiasm” (Hitzig). This enthusiasm is expressed still further in the appeal in v. 11 to assemble together as speedily as possible.

The hap leg. `vW[ is related to chuwsh, to hasten; whereas no support can be found in the language to the meaning “assemble,” adopted by the LXX, Targ., etc. The expression µyiWNhæAlK; by no means necessitates our taking these words as a summons or challenge on the part of Joel to the heathen, as Hitzig does; for this can be very well interpreted as a summons, with which the nations call one another to battle, as the following xbæq; requires; and the assumption of Hitzig, Ewald, and others, that this form is the imperative for xbæq; , cannot be sustained from Isa 43:9 and Jer 50:5.

It is not till v. 11b that Joel steps in with a prayer addressed to the Lord, that He will send down His heavenly heroes to the place to which the heathen are flowing together. Hanchath an imper. hiph., with pathach instead of tzere, on account of the guttural, from nâchath, to come down.

The heroes of Jehovah are heavenly hosts, or angels, who execute His commands as gibbooree khooach (Ps 103:20, cf. 78:25). This prayer is answered thus by Jehovah in v. 12: “Let the nations rise up, and come into the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will He hold judgment upon them.” `rW[ corresponds to `rW[ in v. 9; and at the close, “all the heathen round about” is deliberately repeated. Still there is no antithesis in this to “all nations” in v. 2, as though here the judgment was simply to come upon the hostile nations in the neighbourhood of Judah, and not upon all the heathen universally (Hitzig). For even in v. 2 ywOG lKo are simply all the heathen who have attacked the people of Jehovah-that is to say, all the nations round about Israel. Only these are not merely the neighbouring nations to Judah, but all heathen nations who have come into contact with the kingdom of God, i.e., all the nations of the earth without exception, inasmuch as before the last judgment the gospel of the kingdom is to be preached in all the world for a testimony to all nations (Matt 24:14; Mark 13:10).

It is to the last decisive judgment, in which all the single judgments find their end, that the command of Jehovah to His strong heroes refers.

Verse 13. “Put ye in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe: come, tread, for the win-press is full, the vats overflow: for their wickedness is great.” The judgment is represented under the double figure of the reaping of the fields and the treading out of the grapes in the wine-press. The angels are first of all summoned to reap the ripe corn (Isa 17:5; Rev 14:16), and then commanded to tread the wine-presses that are filled with grapes. The opposite opinion expressed by Hitzig, viz., that the command to tread the wine-presses is preceded by the command to cut off the grapes, is supported partly by the erroneous assertion, that bâshal is not applied to the ripening of corn, and partly upon the arbitrary assumption that qâtsiir, a harvest, stands for bâtsiir, a vintage; and maggâl, a sickle (cf. Jer 50:16), for mazmeerâh, a vine-dresser’s bill.

But bâshal does not mean “to boil,” either primarily or literally, but to be done, or to be ripe, like the Greek pe>ssw pe>ptw , to ripen, to make soft, to boil (see at Ex 12:9), and hence in the piel both to boil and roast, and in the hiphil to make ripe of ripen (Gen 40:10), applied both to grapes and corn. It is impossible to infer from the fact that Isaiah (Isa 16:9) uses the word qâtsiir for the vintage, on account of the alliteration with qayits, that this is also the meaning of the word in Joel. But we have a decisive proof in the resumption of this passage in Rev 14:15 and 18, where the two figures (of the corn-harvest and the gathering of the grapes) are kept quite distinct, and the clause ryxiq; lvæB; yKi is paraphrased and explained thus: “The time is come for thee to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” The ripeness of the corn is a figurative representation of ripeness for judgment.

Just as in the harvest-namely, at the threshing and winnowing connected with the harvest-the grains of corn are separated from the husk, the wheat being gathered into the barns, the husk blown away by the wind, and the straw burned; so will the good be separated from the wicked by the judgment, the former being gathered into the kingdom of God for the enjoyment of eternal life-the latter, on the other hand, being given up to eternal death. The harvest field is the earth ( hJ gh> , Rev 14:16), i.e., the inhabitants of the earth, the human race. The ripening began at the time of the appearance of Christ upon the earth (John 4:35; Matt 9:38). With the preaching of the gospel among all nations, the judgment of separation and decision ( hJ kri>siv , John 3:18-21) commenced; with the spread of the kingdom of Christ in the earth it passes over all nations; and it will be completed in the last judgment, on the return of Christ in glory at the end of this world.

Joel does not carry out the figure of the harvest any further, but simply presents the judgment under the similar figure of the treading of the grapes that have been gathered. dræy; , not from yârad, to descend, but from râdâh, to trample under foot, tread the press that is filled with grapes. bq,y, qWv is used in Joel 2:24 to denote the most abundant harvest; here it is figuratively employed to denote the great mass of men who are ripe for the judgment, as the explanatory clause, for “their wicked (deed) is much,” or “their wickedness is great,” which recals Gen 6:5, clearly shows. The treading of the wine-press does not express the idea of wading in blood, or the execution of a great massacre; but in Isa 63:3, as well as in Rev 14:20, it is a figure denoting an annihilating judgment upon the enemies of God and of His kingdom. The wine-press is “the wine-press of the wrath of God,” i.e., “what the wine-press is to ordinary grapes, the wrath of God is to the grapes referred to here” (Hengstenberg on Rev 14:19). The execution of this divine command is not expressly mentioned, but in v. 14ff. the judgment is simply depicted thus: first of all we have a description of the streaming of the nations into the valley of judgment, and then of the appearance of Jehovah upon Zion in the terrible glory of the Judge of the world, and as the refuge of His people.

Verse 14. “Tumult, tumult in the valley of decision: for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision.” Hamooniim are noisy crowds, whom the prophet sees in the Spirit pouring into the valley of Jehoshaphat. The repetition of the word is expressive of the great multitude, as in 2 Kings 3:16. xWrj `qm,[e not valley of threshing; for though châruuts is used in Isa 28:27 and 41:15 for the threshing-sledge, it is not used for the threshing itself, but valley of the deciding judgment, from chârats, to decide, to determine irrevocably (Isa 10:22; 1 Kings 20:40), so that châruuts simply defines the name Jehoshaphat with greater precision. wgw bwOrq; yKi (compare Joel 1:15; 2:1) is used here to denote the immediate proximity of the judgment, which bursts at once, according to v. 15.

JOEL. 3:15-17

“Sun and moon have become black, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. And Jehovah roars out of Zion, and He thunders out of Jerusalem; and heaven and earth quake: but Jehovah is a refuge to His people, and a stronghold to the sons of Israel. And ye will perceive that I Jehovah am your God, dwelling upon Zion, my holy mountain: and Jerusalem will be a sanctuary, and strangers will not pass through it any more.” On the forebodings of the judgment in v. 15, see at Joel 2:10. Out of Zion, the place of His throne, will Jehovah cause His thunder-voice to sound, will roar like a lion which is rushing upon its prey (Hos 5:14; Amos 3:4), so that heaven and earth tremble in consequence. But it is only to His enemies that He is terrible; to His people, the true Israel, He is a refuge and strong tower. From the fact that He only destroys His enemies, and protects His own people, the latter will learn that He is their God, and dwells upon Zion in His sanctuary, i.e., that He there completes His kingdom, that He purifies Jerusalem of all foes, all the ungodly through the medium of the judgment, and makes it a holy place which cannot be trodden any more by strangers, by Gentiles, or by the unclean of either Gentiles or Israelites (Isa 35:8), but will be inhabited only by the righteous (Isa 60:21; Zech 14:21), who, as Rev 21:27 affirms, are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

For Zion or Jerusalem is of course not the Jerusalem of the earthly Palestine, but the sanctified and glorified city of the living God, in which the Lord will be eternally united with His redeemed, sanctified, and glorified church. We are forbidden to think of the earthly Jerusalem or the earthly Mount Zion, not only by the circumstance that the gathering of all the heathen nations takes place in the valley of Jehoshaphat, i.e., in a portion of the valley of the Kidron, which is a pure impossibility, but also by the description which follows of the glorification of Judah.

JOEL. 3:18-21

After the judgment upon all nations, the land of the Lord will overflow with streams of divine blessing; but the seat of the world-power will become a barren waste.

Verse 18-21. “And it comes to pass in that day, the mountains will trickle down with new wine, and the hills flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah flow with water; and a fountain will issue from the house of Jehovah, and water the Acacia valley. Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom a barren waste, for the sin upon the sons of Judah, that they have shed innocent blood in their land.

But Judah, it will dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. And I shall expiate their blood that I have not expiated: and Jehovah dwelleth upon Zion.” The end of the ways of the Lord is eternal blessing for His people, whilst the enemies of His kingdom fall victims to the curse. This thought is expressed in figures taken from the state of the covenant land of the Old Testament, and those of the bordering kingdoms of Egypt and Edom which were hostile to Israel. If we bear this in mind, we shall not fall into Volck’s error, of seeking in this description for a clear statement as to the transfiguration of the land of Israel during the thousand years’ reign, whilst the rest of the earth is not yet glorified; for it is evident from v. 18, as compared with the parallel passages, viz., Zech 14:6ff. and Ezek 47:1-12, that this passage does not teach the earthly glorification of Palestine, and desolation of Egypt and Idumaea, but that Judah and Jerusalem are types of the kingdom of God, whilst Egypt and Edom are types of the worldpowers that are at enmity against God; in other words, that this description is not to be understood literally, but spiritually. “In that day,” viz., the period following the final judgment upon the heathen, the mountains and hills of Judah, i.e., the least fruitful portions of the Old Testament kingdom of God in the time of the prophet, will overflow with new wine and milk, and all the brooks of water be filled, i.e., no more dry up in the hot season of the year (Joel 1:20). Thus will the fruitfulness of Canaan, the land of the Lord, flowing with milk and honey, come forth in all its potency. Even the unfruitful acacia valley will be watered by a spring issuing from the house of Jehovah, and turned into a fruitful land. The valley of Shittim is the barren valley of the Jordan, above the Dead Sea. The name Shittim, acacia, is taken from the last encampment of the Israelites in the steppes of Moab, before their entrance into Canaan (Num 25:1; Josh 3:1), and was chosen by the prophet to denote a very dry valley, as the acacia grows in a dry soil (cf. Celsii, Hierob. i. p. 500ff.). The spring which waters this valley, and proceeds from the house of Jehovah, and the living water that flows from Jerusalem, according to Zech 14:8, are of course not earthly streams that are constantly flowing, as distinguished from the streams caused by rain and snow, which very soon dry up again, but spiritual waters of life (John 4:10,14; 7:38); and, in fact, as a comparison of Ezek 47:7-12 with Rev 22:1-2 clearly shows, the “river of the water of life, clear as a crystal,” which in the New Jerusalem coming down from God upon the earth (Rev 21:10) proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and on both sides of which there grows the tree of life, that bears its fruit twelve times a-year, or every month, and the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations. The partially verbal agreement between the description of this river of water in Rev 22:2, and that in Ezek 47:12, overthrows the millenarian view, that the glorification of Judah and Jerusalem, predicted by Joel, Zechariah, and Ezekiel, will be a partial glorification of the earth, viz., of the Holy Land, which takes place before the creation of the new heaven and the new earth.

Verse 19. On the other hand, the curse of desolation will fall upon Egypt and Edom, on account of the sin which they have committed upon the sons of Judah. ˆBe sm;j; , with the genitive of the object, as in Obad 10; Hab 2:8,17, etc. This sin is then more precisely defined, as consisting in the fact that they had shed innocent blood of the sons of Judah, i.e., of the people of God, in their land (‘artsâm, the land of the Egyptians and Edomites, not of the Judaeans): that is to say, in the Egypt in the olden time, more especially by the command to slay all the Hebrew boys (Ex 1:16), and in the Edom of more recent times, probably when throwing off the dominion of Judah (see at Amos 1:11 and Obad 10). These nations and lands had both thereby become types of the power of the world in its hostility to God, in which capacity they are mentioned here, and Edom again in Isa and 63; cf. Jer 49:7ff. and Ezek 35.

Verse 20. On the other hand, Judah and Jerusalem shall dwell for ever-a poetical expression for “be inhabited,” both land and city being personified, as in Isa 13:20, etc. Thus will Jehovah, by means of the final judgment upon the heathen, wipe away the bloodguiltiness that they have contracted in their treatment of His people, and manifest Himself as King of Zion.

With these thoughts the prophecy of Joel closes (v. 21). The verb niqqâh, to cleanse, with dâm, to wipe away or expunge blood-guiltiness by punishment, is chosen with reference to yqin; µD; in v. 19; and hq;n; alo , which follows, is to be taken in a relative sense: so that there is no need to alter hq;n; into µqæn; (Ges.); and the latter has no critical support in the Septuagint rendering kai> ekzhth>sw , which merely reproduces the sense.

Verse 21. Ver. 21a does not contain the announcement of a still further punishment upon Egypt and Edom, but simply the thought with which the proclamation of the judgment closes-namely, that the eternal desolation of the world-kingdoms mentioned here will wipe out all the wrong which they have done to the people of God, and which has hitherto remained unpunished. But Zion will rejoice in the eternal reign of its God. Jehovah dwells upon Zion, when He manifests Himself to all the world as the King of His people, on the one hand by the annihilation of His foes, and on the other hand by the perfecting of His kingdom in glory. AMOS INTRODUCTION 1. The Prophet.

Amos `swOm[; , i.e., Bearer or Burden), according to the heading to his book, was “among the shepherds (nooqediim) of Tekoah” when the Lord called him to be a prophet; that is to say, he was a native of Tekoah, a town situated on the borders of the desert of Judah, two hours to the south of Bethlehem, the ruins of which have been preserved under the ancient name (see at Josh 15:59, LXX), and lived with the shepherds who fed their sheep in the steppe to the east of Tekoah; of course not as a rich owner of flocks, but simply as a shepherd. For even though nooqeed is applied to the Moabitish king in 2 Kings 3:4 as a rich owner of a choice breed of sheep and goats, the word properly signifies only a rearer of sheep, i.e., not merely the owner, but the shepherd of choice sheep, as Bochart (Hieroz. i. p. 483, ed. Ros.) has proved from the Arabic. But Amos himself affirms, in Amos 7:14, that he was a simple shepherd.

He there replies to the priest at Bethel, who wanted to prevent him from prophesying in the kingdom of Israel: “I am not a prophet, nor yet a prophet’s pupil, but a herdman (booqeed) am I, and boolees shiqmiim, a gatherer of sycamores” (see at Amos 7:14)-i.e., one who fed upon this fruit, which resembles figs, and is described by Pliny (hist. n. 13, 14), as praedulcis, but which, according to Strabo, xvii. 823 ( a>timov kata> th>n geu>sin ), was very lightly esteemed as food, and also, according to Dioscor., was a>timov kai> kakosto>macov , and which is only used in Egypt as the food of the common people (Norden, Reise, p. 118).

Consequently we have to regard Amos as a shepherd living in indigent circumstances, not as a prosperous man possessing both a flock of sheep and a sycamore plantation, which many commentators, following the Chaldee and the Rabbins, have made him out to be.

Without having dedicated himself to the calling of a prophet, and without even being trained in the schools of the prophets, he was called by the Lord away from the flock to be a prophet, to prophesy concerning Israel (Amos 7:14-15), under the Judaean king Uzziah and the Israelitish king Jeroboam II, i.e., within the twenty-six years of the contemporaneous rule of these two kings, or between 810 and 783 B.C. Amos therefore commenced his prophetic labours about the same time as Hosea, probably a few years earlier, and prophesied in Bethel, the chief seat of the Israelitish imageworship (Amos 7:10). We cannot fix with any greater exactness either the time of his appearing or the duration of his ministry; for the notice in Amos 1:1, “two years before the earthquake,” furnishes no chronological datum, because the time of the earthquake is unknown.

It is never mentioned in the historical books of the Old Testament, though it can hardly be any other than the terrible earthquake in the time of Uzziah, which the people had not forgotten even after the captivity, inasmuch as Zechariah was able to recal the flight that took place on that occasion (Zech 14:5). As Amos has not given the date of the earthquake, his evident intention was not to fix the time when his ministry commenced, or when his book was composed, but simply to point to the internal connection between this event and his own prophetic mission. According to the teaching of Scripture, the earth quakes when the Lord comes to judgment upon the nations (see at Amos 8:8). The earthquake which shook Jerusalem two years after the appearance of Amos as the prophet, was a harbinger of the judgment threatened by Him against the two kingdoms of Israel and the surrounding nations-a practical declaration on the part of God that He would verify the word of His servant; and the allusion to this divine sign on the part of the prophet was an admonition to Israel to lay to heart the word of the Lord which he had announced to them. So far as the explanation and importance of his prophecies were concerned, it was enough to mention the kings of Judah and Israel in whose reigns he prophesied.

Under these kings the two kingdoms stood at the summit of their prosperity. Uzziah had completely subdued the Edomites, had subjugated the Philistines, and had even made the Ammonites tributary. He had also fortified Jerusalem strongly, and had raised a powerful army; so that his name reached as far as Egypt (2 Chron 26). And Jeroboam had completely overcome the Syrians, and restored the original borders of the kingdom from the country of Hamath to the Dead Sea (2 Kings 14:25-28). After the power of the Syrians had been broken, Israel had no longer any foe to fear, for Assyria had not yet arisen as a conquering power. The supposition that Calneh or Ctesiphon is represented in Amos 6:2 as having already been taken (by the Assyrians), rests upon an incorrect interpretation, and is just as erroneous as the inference, also drawn from the same passage, that Hamath was conquered and Gath destroyed.

Amos does not mention the Assyrians at all; although in Amos 1:5 he threatens the Syrians with transportation to Kir, and in Amos 5:27 predicts that the Israelites will be carried into captivity beyond Damascus. In the existing state of things, the idea of the approaching fall or destruction of the kingdom of Israel was, according to human judgment, a very improbable one indeed. The inhabitants of Samaria and Zion felt themselves perfectly secure in the consciousness of their might (Amos 6:1).

The rulers of the kingdom trusted in the strength of their military resources (Amos 6:13), and were only concerned to increase their wealth by oppressing the poor, and to revel in earthly luxuries and pleasures (Amos 2:6-8; 5:11-12; 6:4-6); so that the prophet denounces woes upon those who are in security upon Zion and without care upon the mountain of Samaria (Amos 6:1), and utters the threat that the Lord will cause the sun to set at noon, and bring darkness over the land in broad daylight (Amos 8:9).

It was at such a time as this that the plain shepherd of Tekoah was sent to Bethel, into the kingdom of the ten tribes, to announce to the careless sinners the approach of the divine judgment, and the destruction of the kingdom. And whilst it was in itself a strange event for a prophet to be sent out of Judah into the kingdom of the ten tribes-so strange, in fact, that in all probability it had never occurred since the kingdom had been founded, or at any rate, that no second instance of the kind is recorded, from the time when the man of God was sent out of Judah to Bethel in the reign of Jeroboam I (1 Kings 13), down to the time of Amos himself-it must have attracted universal attention, for a man to rise up who belonged to the rank of a shepherd, who had had no training at all for a prophet’s vocation, but who nevertheless proved, by the demonstration of the Spirit, that he was a prophet indeed, and who foretold, in the strength of God, what destruction awaited the covenant people, before there was the slightest human probability of any such catastrophe.

The prophet’s style of composition does indeed betray the former shepherd in the use of certain words, which evidently belonged to the dialect of the common people-e.g., `qW[ for qyxime (Amos 2:13), svewOB for ssewOB (Amos 5:11), baæT; for baæT; (Amos 6:8), ãres;m] for ãrev]ni (Amos 6:10), qj;c]yi for qj;x]yi (Amos 7:9,16), [qæv; for [qæv; (Amos 8:8), and in many figures and similes drawn from nature and rural life; but for the rest, it indicates a close acquaintance on the part of the prophet with the Mosaic law and the history of his nation, and also considerable rhetorical power, wealth and depth of thought, vivacity and vigour, more especially in the use of bold antitheses, and a truly poetical roll, which rises by no means unfrequently into actual rhythm; so that Lowth has already expressed the following opinion concerning him (De poesi sacr. ed. Mich. p. 433): “Aequus judex, de re non de homine quaesiturus, censebit, credo, pastorem nostrum mhde>n uJsterhke>nai tw>n uJperli>an profhtw>n , ut sensuum elatione et magnificentia spiritus prope summis parem, ita etiam dictionis splendore et compositionis elegantia vix quoquam inferiorem .”

Beyond these facts, which we gather from the prophet’s won writings, nothing further is known of the circumstances connected with his life. After fulfilling his mission, he probably returned to Judah, his native land, where his prophecies were most likely first committed to writing. The apocryphal accounts of his death, in Pseud.-Epiphanius, c. 12, and Pseudo-Doroth. (see Carpzov, p. 319), have no historical value whatever. 2. The Book.

Although Amos was sent by the Lord to Bethel, to prophesy to the people of Israel there, he does not restrict himself in his prophecy to the kingdom of the ten tribes, but, like his younger contemporary Hosea, notices the kingdom of Judah as well, and even the surrounding nations, that were hostile to the covenant nation. His book is not a mere collection of the addresses delivered in Bethel, but a carefully planned, complete work, in which Amos, after the occurrence of the earthquake in the time of Uzziah, gathered together all the essential contents of the prophecies he had previously uttered at Bethel. It consists of a lengthy introduction (ch. 1, 2) and two parts, viz., simple prophetic addresses (ch. 4-6), and visions with short explanations (ch. 7-19). In the introduction the prophet proclaims, in the following manner, the judgment about to fall upon Damascus, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Judah, and Israel. The storm of the Lord, which bursts upon all these kingdoms, remains suspended over the kingdom of Israel, which is mentioned last. This is evident from the fact, that the sin of Israel is depicted more fully than that of the other nations; and the threatening of judgment is couched in such general terms, that it can only be regarded as a provisional announcement, or as the introduction to the body of the book by which it is followed. The first part contains an extended address, divided into three sections by the recurrence of [mæv; (hear ye) in Amos 3:1; 4:1, and 5:1. The address consists of a “great warning to repent,” in which the prophet holds up before the sinful Israelites, especially the rulers of the kingdom, the arts of injustice and wickedness that are current among them, and proclaims a judgment which embraces the destruction of the palaces and holy places, the overthrow of the kingdom, and the transportation of the people.

In ch. 3 the sin and punishment are described in the most general form. In ch. 4 the prophet sweeps away from the self-secure sinners the false ground of confidence afforded by their own worship, recals to their mind the judgments with which God has already visited them, and summons them to stand before God as their judge. In ch. 5 and 6, after a mournful elegy concerning the fall of the house of Israel (Amos 5:1-3), he points out to the penitent the way to life coupled with the repeated summons to seek the Lord, and that which is good (Amos 5:4,6,14); and then, in the form of a woe, for which a double reason is assigned (ch. 5:18; 6:1), he takes away all hope of deliverance from the impenitent and hardened. Throughout the whole of this address Amos prophesies chiefly to the ten tribes, whom he repeatedly addresses, predicting ruin and exile.

At the same time, he not only addresses his words in the introduction (Amos 3:1-2) to all Israel of the twelve tribes, whom Jehovah brought out of Egypt, but he also pronounces the last woe (Amos 6:1) upon the secure ones on Zion, and the careless ones on the mountain of Samaria; so that his prophecy also applies to the kingdom of Judah, and sets before it the same fate as that of the kingdom of the ten tribes, if it should fall into the same sin. The second part contains five visions, and at the close the proclamation of salvation. the first two visions (Amos 7:1-3 and 4-6) threaten judgments; the next two (Amos 7:7-9; 8:1-3) point out the impossibility of averting the judgment, and the ripeness of the people for it. Between these, viz., in Amos 7:10-17, the conversation between the prophet and the chief priest at Bethel is related.

The substance of the fourth vision is carried out still further, in a simple prophetic address (Amos 8:4-14). Lastly, the fifth vision (ch. 9:1) shows the overthrow and ruin of the whole of Israel, and is also still further expanded in a plain address (Amos 9:2-10). To this there is appended the promise of the restoration of the fallen kingdom of God, of its extension through the adoption of the Gentiles, and of its eternal glorification (Amos 9:11-15). This conclusion corresponds to the introduction (ch. 1 and 2).

Like all the nations that rise up in hostility to the kingdom of God, even Judah and Israel shall fall victims to the judgment, on account of their unrighteousness and idolatry, in order that the kingdom of God may be purified from its dross, be exalted to glory, and so be made perfect.

This is the fundamental thought of the writings of Amos, who was called by the Lord to preach this truth to the nation of Israel. And just as the close of his book points back to the introduction (ch. 1 and 2), so also do the visions of the second part correspond to the addresses of the first, embodying the substance of the addresses in significant symbols. The parallel between the fifth vision and the elegy struck up in Amos 5:1 is very conspicuous; and it is also impossible to overlook the material agreement between the first and second visions and the enumeration in Amos 4:6-11, of the divine visitations that had already fallen upon Israel; whilst the third and fourth visions set clearly before the eye the irrevocable character of the judgments with which careless and wanton sinners are threatened in ch. 3- 6.

There is evidently no foundation for the assumption that the second part contains “the true kernel of his work,” namely, “the addresses which Amos originally delivered at Bethel;” and that the first part, together with the introduction (ch. 1-6) and the Messianic conclusion (Amos 9:11-15), is purely a written description, composed by Amos after his return from Bethel to Judah, to give a further expansion to his original utterances (Ewald, Baur). This by no means follows, either from the fact that the account of what the prophet experienced at Bethel is inserted in the series of visions, as it moves on step by step, and that the place in which it occurs (viz., ch. 7) is evidently its original position, or from the circumstance that Amos commences his work with a saying of Joel (compare Amos 1:2 with Joel 4:16), and evidently refers to Joel (Joel 3:18) even in the promise at the close (Amos 9:13).

For the position of this account in ch. 7 proves nothing further than that Amos related those visions in Bethel; and the allusion to Joel simply presupposes an acquaintance with the predictions of this prophet. If there were no previous addresses, the visions in ch. 7 and 8 would have nothing to explain their occurrence, and would also be lacking in the requisite clearness. Moreover, the work of Amos in Bethel cannot possibly be limited to ch. 7-9. And lastly, the addresses in ch. 4-6 are throughout so individual, so full of life, and so impressive, that they clearly reflect the original oral delivery, even though it may be nothing more than the essential substance of what was orally delivered, that has been given here.

Only ch. 1 and 2 appears to have been really conceived in the form of a written composition, and placed at the head of the book at the time when it was first compiled, although certain thoughts that had been orally expressed may lie at the foundation even there.

For the exegetical writings upon Amos, see my Lehrbuch der Einleitung, pp. 284-5. AMOS I. THE APPROACHING JUDGMENT Starting from the saying of Joel (Joel 3:16), “Jehovah will roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem,” Amos announces the wrath of the Lord, which will discharge itself upon Damascus (Amos 1:3-5), Philistia (1:6-8), Tyre (1:9-10), Edom (1:11-12), Ammon (1:13-15), Moab (2:1-3), Judah (2:4-5), and Israel (2:6-16). The announcement of this judgment maintains a certain uniformity throughout; every one of these nations being threatened with the destruction of the kingdom, or with ruin and exile, “for three or four transgressions;” and the threat, as Rückert has well expressed it, “rolling like a storm, in strophe after strophe, over all the surrounding kingdoms,” touching Judah as it passes along, and eventually resting over Israel. The six heathen nations mentioned, three of which are related to the covenant nation, represent all the Gentile nations, which rise up in hostility to the people or kingdom of God. For the sins on account of which they are to be punished, are not certain general breaches of morality, but crimes which they have committed against the people of God; and in the case of Judah, contempt of the commandments of the Lord, and idolatry.

The whole section, not merely Amos 1:2-2:5, but also ch. 2:6-16, has an introductory character. Whilst, on the one hand, the extension of the prediction of judgment to the Gentile nations indicates the necessity and universality of the judgment, which is sent to promote the interests of the kingdom of God, and preaches the truth that every one will be judged according to his attitude towards the living God; on the other hand, the place assigned to the Gentile nations, viz., before the covenant nation, not only sharpened the conscience, but taught this lesson, that if even the nations which had only sinned indirectly against the living God were visited with severe punishment, those to whom God had so gloriously revealed Himself (Amos 2:9-11; 3:1) would be punished still more surely for their apostasy (Amos 3:2). It is with this design that Judah is also mentioned along with Israel, and in fact before it. “The intention was to impress this truth most strongly upon the people of the ten tribes, that not even the possession of such glorious prerogatives as the temple and the throne of David could avert the merited punishment. If this be the energy of the justice of God, what have we to look for?” (Hengstenberg).

AMOS. 1:1-2

V. 1 contains the heading, which has already been discussed in the Introduction; and hz;j; rv,a (“which he saw”) refers to `swOm[; rb;d; (the words of Amos). V. 2 forms the Introduction, which is attached to the heading by rmæa; , and announces a revelation of the wrath of God upon Israel, or a theocratic judgment.

Verse 2. “Jehovah roars out of Zion, and He utters His voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the head of Carmel withers.” The voice of Jehovah is the thunder, the earthly substratum in which the Lord manifests His coming to judgment (see at Joel 3:16). By the adoption of the first half of the verse word for word from Joel, Amos connects his prophecy with that of his predecessor, not so much with the intention of confirming the latter, as for the purpose of alarming the sinners who were at east in their security, and overthrowing the delusive notion that the judgment of God would only fall upon the heathen world.

This delusion he meets with the declaration, that at the threatening of the wrath of God the pastures of the shepherds, i.e., the pasture-ground of the land of Israel (cf. Joel 1:19), and the head of the forest-crowned Carmel, will fade and wither. Carmel is the oft-recurring promontory at the mouth of the Kishon on the Mediterranean (see the comm. on Josh 19:26 and Kings 18:19), and not the place called Carmel on the mountains of Judah (Josh 15:55), to which the term varo (head) is inapplicable (vid., Amos 9:3 and Mic 7:14). Shepherds’ pastures and Carmel individualized the land of Israel in a manner that was very natural to Amos the shepherd. With this introduction, Amos announces the theme of his prophecies. And if, instead of proceeding at once to describe still further the judgment that threatens the kingdom of Israel, he first of all enumerates the surrounding nations, including Judah, as objects of the manifestation of the wrath of God, this enumeration cannot have any other object than the one described in our survey of the contents of the book. The enumeration opens with the kingdoms of Aram, Philistia, and Tyre (Phoenicia), which were not related to Israel by any ties of kinship whatever. AMOS 1:3-5 Aram-Damascus. “Thus saith Jehovah, For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have threshed Gilead with iron rollers, I send fire into the house of Hazael, and it will eat the palaces of Ben-hadad, And break in pieces the bolt of Damascus, and root out the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and the sceptre-holder out of Beth-eden: and the people of Aram will wander into captivity to Kir, saith Jehovah.” In the formula, which is repeated in the case of every people, “for three transgressions, and for four,” the numbers merely serve to denote the multiplicity of the sins, the exact number of which has no bearing upon the matter. “The number four is added to the number three, to characterize the latter as simply set down at pleasure; in other words, it is as much as to say that the number is not exactly three or four, but probably a still larger number” (Hitzig).

The expression, therefore, denotes not a small but a large number of crimes, or “ungodliness in its worst form” (Luther; see at Hos 6:2) f44 That these numbers are to be understood in this way, and not to be taken in a literal sense, is unquestionably evident from the fact, that nit he more precise account of the sins which follows, as a rule, only one especially grievous crime is mentioned by way of example. bWv alo (I will not reverse it) is inserted before the more minute description of the crimes, to show that the threat is irrevocable. bWv signifies to turn, i.e., to make a thing go back, to withdraw it, as in Num 23:20; Isa 43:13.

The suffix attached to bWv refers neither to qooloo (his voice), nor “to the idea of rb;d; which is implied in rmæa; hKo (thus saith), or the substance of the threatening thunder-voice” (Baur); for heeshiibh dâbhâr signifies to give an answer, and never to make a word ineffectual. The reference is to the punishment threatened afterwards, where the masculine stands in the place of the neuter. Consequently the close of the verse contains the epexegesis of the first clause, and vv. 4 and 5 follow with the explanation of wnbyva al (I will not turn it). The threshing of the Gileadites with iron threshing-machines is mentioned as the principal transgression of the Syrian kingdom, which is here named after the capital Damascus (see at 2 Sam 8:6). This took place at the conquest of the Israelitish land to the east of the Jordan by Hazael during the reign of Jehu (2 Kings 10:32-33, cf.

Amos 13:7), when the conquerors acted so cruelly towards the Gileadites, that they even crushed the prisoners to pieces with iron threshingmachines, according to a barbarous war-custom that is met with elsewhere (see at 2 Sam 12:31).

Châruuts (= châriits, 2 Sam 12:31), lit., sharpened, is a poetical term applied to the threshing-roller, or threshing-cart (moorag châruuts, Isa 41:15). According to Jerome, it was “a kind of cart with toothed iron wheels underneath, which was driven about to crush the straw in the threshing-floors after the grain had been beaten out.” The threat is individualized historically thus: in the case of the capital, the burning of the palaces is predicted; and in that of two other places, the destruction of the people and their rulers; so that both of them apply to both, or rather to the whole kingdom. The palaces of Hazael and Benhadad are to be sought for in Damascus, the capital of the kingdom (Jer 49:27). Hazael was the murderer of Benhadad I, to whom the prophet Elisha foretold that he would reign over Syria, and predicted the cruelties that he would practise towards Israel (2 Kings 8:7ff.). Benhadad is generally regarded as his son; but the plural “palaces” leads us rather to think of both the first and second Benhadad, and this is favoured by the circumstance that it was only during his father’s reign that Benhadad II oppressed Israel, whereas after his death, and when he himself ascended the throne, the conquered provinces were wrested from him by Joash king of Israel (2 Kings 13:22-25).

The breaking of the bar (the bolt of the gate) denotes the conquest of the capital; and the cutting off of the inhabitants of Biq’ath-Aven indicates the slaughter connected with the capture of the towns, and not their deportation; for hikhriith means to exterminate, so that gâlâh (captivity) in the last clause applies to the remainder of the population that had not been slain in war. In the parallel clause fb,ve ËmæT; , the sceptre-holder, i.e., the ruler (either the king or his deputy), corresponds to yoosheebh (the inhabitant); and the thought expressed is, that both prince and people, both high and low, shall perish.

The two places, Valley-Aven and Beth-eden, cannot be discovered with any certainty; but at any rate they were capitals, and possibly they may have been the seat of royal palaces as well as Damascus, which was the first capital of the kingdom. ˆw,a; h[;q]Bi , valley of nothingness, or of idols, is supposed by Ewald and Hitzig to be a name given to Heliopolis or Baalbek, after the analogy of Beth-aven = Bethel (see at Hos 5:8). They base their opinion upon the Alex. rendering ek pedi>ou W>n , taken in connection with the Alex. interpretation of the Egyptian On (Gen 41:45) as Heliopolis. But as the LXX have interpreted ‘on by Heliopolis in the book of Genesis, whereas here they have merely reproduced the Hebrew letters ˆw,a; by W>n , as they have in other places as well (e.g., Hos 4:15; 5:8; 10:5,8), where Heliopolis cannot for a moment be thought of, the pe’dion Oo’n of the LXX furnishes no evidence in favour of Heliopolis, still less does it warrant an alteration of the Hebrew pointing (into ˆwOa ).

Even the Chaldee and Syriac have taken ˆw,a; h[;q]Bi as a proper name, and Ephraem Syrus speaks of it as “a place in the neighbourhood of Damascus, distinguished for idol-chapels.” The supposition that it is a city is also favoured by the analogy of the other threatenings, in which, for the most part, cities only are mentioned. Others understand by it the valley near Damascus, or the present Bekaa between Lebanon and Antilibanus, in which Heliopolis was always the most distinguished city, and Robinson has pronounced in favour of this (Bibl. Res. p. 677). Beeth-’Eden, i.e., house of delight, is not to be sought for in the present village of Eden, on the eastern slope of Lebanon, near to the cedar forest of Bshirrai, as the Arabic name of this village ‘hdn has nothing in common with the Hebrew `dn (see at 2 Kings 19:12); but it is the Para>deisov of the Greeks, which Ptolemy (v. 15, 20) places ten degrees south and five degrees east of Laodicea, and which Robinson imagines that he has found in Old Jusieh, not far from Ribleh, a place belonging to the times before the Saracens, with very extensive ruins (see Bibl. Researches, pp. 542-6, and 556). The rest of the population of Aram would be carried away to Kir, i.e., to the country on the banks of the river Kur, from which, according to Amos 9:7, the Syrians originally emigrated. This prediction was fulfilled when the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser conquered Damascus in the time of Ahaz, and broke up the kingdom of Syria (2 Kings 16:9). The closing words, ‘âmar Yehoovâh (saith the Lord), serve to add strength to the threat, and therefore recur in vv. 8, 15, and Amos 2:3. AMOS 1:6-8 Philistia. “Thus saith Jehovah, For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they carried away captives in full number to deliver them up to Edom, I send fire into the wall of Gaza, and it will eat their palaces; And I exterminate the inhabitant from Ashdod, and the sceptre-holder from Askelon, and turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines will perish, saith the Lord Jehovah.” Instead of the Philistines generally, the prophet mentions Gaza in v. 6. This is still a considerable town, bearing the old name Guzzeh (see the comm. on Josh 13:3), and was the one of the five capitals of the Philistines which had taken the most active part as a great commercial town in handing over the Israelitish prisoners to the Edomites. For it is evident that Gaza is simply regarded as a representative of Philistia, from the fact that in the announcement of the punishment, the other capitals of Philistia are also mentioned.

Gâluuth sheleemâh is correctly explained by Jerome thus: “a captivity so perfect and complete, that not a single captive remained who was not delivered to the Idumaeans.” The reference is to captive Israelites, who were carried off by the Philistines, and disposed of by them to the Edomites, the arch-enemies of Israel. Amos no doubt had in his mind the invasion of Judah by the Philistines and tribes of Arabia Petraea in the time of Joram, which is mentioned in 2 Chron 21:16, and to which Joel had already alluded in Joel 4:3ff., where the Phoenicians and Philistines are threatened with divine retribution for having plundered the land, and sold the captive Judaeans to the Javanites (Ionians). But it by no means follows from this, that the “sons of Javan” mentioned in Joel 4:6 are not Greeks, but the inhabitants of the Arabian Javan noticed in Ezek 27:19. The fact was simply this: the Philistines sold one portion of the many prisoners, taken at that time, to the Edomites, and the rest to the Phoenicians, who disposed of them again to the Greeks. Joel simply mentions the latter circumstance, because, in accordance with the object of his prophecy, his design was to show the wide dispersion of the Jews, and their future gathering out of all the lands of their banishment. Amos, on the other hand, simply condemns the delivering of the captives to Edom, the arch-foe of Israel, to indicate the greatness of the sin involved in this treatment of the covenant nation, or the hatred which the Philistines had displayed thereby. As a punishment for this, the cities of Philistia would be burned by their enemies, the inhabitants would be exterminated, and the remnant perish. Here again, as in vv. 4, 5, the threat is rhetorically individualized, so that in the case of one city the burning of the city itself is predicted, and in that of another the destruction of its inhabitants. (On Ashdod, Askelon, and Ekron, see the comm. on Josh 13:3.) dy; bWv , to return the hand, i.e., to turn or stretch it out again (see comm. on 2 Sam 8:3). The use of this expression may be explained on the ground, that the destruction of the inhabitants of Ashdod and Askelon has already been thought of as a stretching out of the hand.

The fifth of the Philistian capitals, Gath, is not mentioned, though not for the reason assigned by Kimchi, viz., that it belonged to the kings of Judah, or had been conquered by Uzziah, for Uzziah had not only conquered Gath and Jabneh, but had taken Ashdod as well, and thrown down the walls (2 Chron 26:6), and yet Amos mentions Ashdod; nor because Gath had been taken by the Syrians (2 Kings 12:18), for this Syrian conquest was not a lasting one, and in the prophet’s time (cf. Amos 6:2), and even later (cf.

Mic 1:10), it still maintained its independence, and was a very distinguished city; but for the simple reason that the individualizing description given by the prophet did not require the complete enumeration of all the capitals, and the idea of been named, but all that was still in existence, and had escaped destruction” (Amos 9:12 and Jer 6:9), it nevertheless includes not merely the four states just named, but every part of Philistia that had hitherto escaped destruction, so that Gath must be included.

AMOS. 1:9-10

Tyre or Phoenicia. “Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have delivered up prisoners in full number to Edom, and have not remembered the brotherly covenant, I send fire into the wall of Tyrus, and it will devour their palaces.” In the case of Phoenicia, the capital only (Tzoor, i.e., Tyrus; see at Josh 19:29) is mentioned. The crime with which it is charged is similar to the one for which the Philistines were blamed, with this exception, that instead of ryGis]hæl] µt;wOlg]hæAl[æ (v. 6) we have simply µr;yGis]hæAl[æ . If, therefore, Tyre is only charged with delivering up the captives to Edom, and not with having carried them away, it must have bought the prisoners from an enemy of Israel, and then disposed of them to Edom. From what enemy they were purchased, it is impossible to determine with certainty.

Probably from the Syrians, in the wars of Hazael and Benhadad with Israel; for there is nothing at variance with this in the fact that, when they purchased Israelitish captives in the time of Joram, they sold them to Javan.

For a commercial nation, carrying on so extensive a trade as the Phoenicians did, would have purchased prisoners in more than one war, and would also have disposed of them as slaves to more nations than one.

Tyre had contracted all the more guilt through this trade in Israelitish salves, from the fact that it had thereby been ummindful of the brotherly covenant, i.e., of the friendly relation existing between Israel and itself-for example, the friendly alliance into which David and Solomon had entered with the king of Tyre (2 Sam 5:11; 1 Kings 5:15ff.)-and also from the fact that no king of Israel or Judah had ever made war upon Phoenicia.

AMOS. 1:11-12

Edom. “Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because it pursues its brother with the sword, and stifles its compassion, and its anger tears in pieces for ever, and it keeps its wrath for ever, I send fire into Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.” Edom and the two following nations were related to Israel by lineal descent. In the case of Edom, Amos does not condemn any particular sins, but simply its implacable, mortal hatred towards its brother nation Israel, which broke out into acts of cruelty at every possible opportunity. µjæræ tjæv; , he annihilates, i.e., suppresses, stifles his sympathy or his compassionate love; this is still dependent upon ãdær; `l[æ , the preposition `l[æ continuing in force as a conjunction before the infinitive (i.e., as equivalent to rv,a `l[æ ), and the infinitive passing into the finite verb (cf.

Amos 2:4). In the next clause ãaæ is the subject: its wrath tears in pieces, i.e., rages destructively (compare Job 16:9, where târaph is applied to the wrath of God). In the last clause, on the other hand, Edom is again the subject; but it is now regarded as a kingdom, and construed as a feminine, and consequently `hr;b][, is the object, and placed at the head as an absolute noun. rmæv; , with the tone upon the penult. (milel) on account of netsach, which follows with the tone upon the first syllable, stands for rmæv; (it preserves it), the mappik being omitted in the toneless syllable (compare Ewald, §249, b). If `hr;b][, were the subject, the verb would have to be pointed rmæv; . Again, the rendering proposed by Ewald, “his fury lies in wait for ever,” is precluded by the fact that rmæv; , when applied to wrath in Jer 3:5, signifies to keep, or preserve, and also by the fact that lying in wait is generally inapplicable to an emotion. Teman, according to Jerome (ad h. l.), is Idumaeorum regio quae vergit ad australem partem, so that here, just as in Amos 2:2 and 5, the land is mentioned first, and then the capital. f45 Bozrah, an important city, supposed to be the capital of Idumaea (see comm. on Gen 36:33). It was to the south of the Dead Sea, and has been preserved in el-Buseireh, a village with ruins in Jebâl (see Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 570), and must not be confounded with Bossra in Hauran (Burckhardt, Syr. p. 364).

AMOS. 1:13-15

Ammon. “Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of the sons of Ammon, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have ripped up the pregnant women of Gilead, to widen their border, I kindle fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with the war-cry on the day of slaughter, in the storm on the day of the tempest. And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes all at once, saith Jehovah.” The occasion on which the Ammonites were guilty of such cruelty towards the Israelites as is here condemned, is not recorded in the historical books of the Old Testament; possibly during the wars of Hazael with Israel, when they availed themselves of the opportunity to widen their territory by conquering back the land which had been wrested from them by Sihon king of the Amorites, and was then taken possession of by the Israelites, when he was overcome by them-a thing which they had attempted once before in the time of Jephthah the judge (Judg 11:12ff.). We may see from Jer 49:1ff. that they had taken possession of the territory of the tribe of Gad, which lay nearest to them, though probably not till after the carrying away of the tribes beyond Jordan by the Assyrians (2 Kings 15:29).

The ripping up of the women with child (see at 2 Kings 8:12) is singled out as the climax of the cruelties which the Ammonites inflicted upon the Israelites during the war. As a punishment for this, their capital was to be burned, and the king, with the princes, to wander into exile, and consequently their kingdom was to be destroyed. Rabbâh, i.e., the great one, is the abbreviated name of the capital; Rabbah of the children of Ammon, which has been preserved in the ruins of Aurân (see at Deut 3:11). The threat is sharpened by the clause wgw h[;WrT] , at the war-cry on the field of battle, i.e., an actual fact, when the enemy shall take the city by storm. wgw r[æsæ is a figurative expression applied to the storming of a city carried by assault, like hp;Ws in Num 21:14. The reading Ël,m, , “their (the Ammonites’) king,” is confirmed by the LXX and the Chaldee, and required by rcæ (cf. Amos 2:3), whereas Malco>m , Melchom, which is found in Aq., Symm., Jerome, and the Syriac, rests upon a false interpretation.

AMOS. 2:1-3

Moab “Thus saith Jehovah: for three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because it has burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime, I send fire into Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kirioth, and Moab will perish in the tumult, in the war-cry, in the trumpet-blast. And I cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and all its princes do I strangle with it, saith Jehovah.” The burning of the bones of the king of Edom is not burning while he was still alive, but the burning of the corpse into lime, i.e., so completely that the bones turned into powder like lime (D. Kimchi), to cool his wrath still further upon the dead man (cf. 2 Kings 23:16). This is the only thing blamed, not his having put him to death. No record has been preserved of this event in the historical books of the Old Testament; but it was no doubt connected with the war referred to in 2 Kings 3, which Joram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah waged against the Moabites in company with the king of Edom; so that the Jewish tradition found in Jerome, viz., that after this war the Moabites dug up the bones of the king of Edom from the grace, and heaped insults upon them by burning them to ashes, is apparently not without foundation.

As Amos in the case of all the other nations has mentioned only crimes that were committed against the covenant nation, the one with which the Moabites are charged must have been in some way associated with either Israel or Judah, that is to say, it must have been committed upon a king of Edom, who was a vassal of Judah, and therefore not very long after this war, since the Edomites shook off their dependence upon Judah in less than ten years from that time (2 Kings 8:20). As a punishment for this, Moab was to be laid waste by the fire of war, and Keriyoth with its palaces to be burned down. twOYriq] is not an appellative noun ( tw>n po>lewn auth>v , LXX), but a proper name of one of the chief cities of Moab (cf. Jer 48:24,41), the ruins of which have been discovered by Burckhardt (Syr. p. 630) and Seetzen (ii. p. 342, cf. iv. p. 384) in the decayed town of Kereyat or Körriât. The application of the term tWm to Moab is to be explained on the supposition that the nation is personified. ˆwOav; signifies war tumult, and h[;WrT] is explained as in Amos 1:14 by rp;wOv lwOq , blast of the trumpets, the signal for the assault or for the commencement of the battle.

The judge with all the princes shall be cut off miqqirbâh, i.e., out of the land of Moab. The feminine suffix refers to Moab as a land or kingdom, and not to Keriyoth. From the fact that the shoopheet is mentioned instead of the king, it has been concluded by some that Moab had no king at that time, but had only a shoopheet as its ruler; and they have sought to account for this on the ground that Moab was at that time subject to the kingdom of the ten tribes (Hitzig and Ewald). But there is no notice in the history of anything of the kind, and it cannot possibly be inferred from the fact that Jeroboam restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom as far as the Dead Sea (2 Kings 14:25). Shoopheet is analogous to toomeekh sheebhet in Amos 1:5, and is probably nothing more than a rhetorical expression applied to the Ël,m, , who is so called in the threat against Ammon, and simply used for the sake of variety. The threatening prophecies concerning all the nations and kingdoms mentioned from Amos 1:6 onwards were fulfilled by the Chaldeans, who conquered all these kingdoms, and carried the people themselves into captivity. For fuller remarks upon this point, see at Jer. 47:49 and Ezek. 25:28.

AMOS. 2:4-5

Judah. “Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they have despised the law of Jehovah, and have not kept His ordinances, and their lies led them astray, after which their fathers walked, I send fire into Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.” With the announcement that the storm of the wrath of God will also burst upon Judah, Amos prepares the way for passing on to Israel, the principal object of his prophecies. In the case of Judah, he condemns its contempt of the law of its God, and also its idolatry. Toorâh is the sum and substance of all the instructions and all the commandments which Jehovah had given to His people as the rule of life. Chuqqiim are the separate precepts contained in the thoorâh, including not only the ceremonial commands, but the moral commandments also; for the two clauses are not only parallel, but synonymous. bz;K; , their lies, are their idols, as we may see from the relative clause, since “walking after” (hâlakh ‘acharee) is the standing expression for idolatry. Amos calls the idols lies, not only as res quae fallunt (Ges.), but as fabrications and nonentities (‘eliiliim and habhâliim), having no reality in themselves, and therefore quite unable to perform what was expected of them. The “fathers” who walked after these lies were their forefathers generally, since the nation of Israel practised idolatry even in the desert (cf. Amos 5:26), and was more or less addicted to it ever afterwards, with the sole exception of the times of Joshua, Samuel, David, and part of the reign of Solomon, so that even the most godly kings of Judah were unable to eradicate the worship upon the high places. The punishment threatened in consequence, namely, that Jerusalem should be reduced to ashes, was carried out by Nebuchadnezzar.

AMOS. 2:6-8

After this introduction, the prophet’s address turns to Israel of the ten tribes, and in precisely the same form as in the case of the nations already mentioned, announces the judgment as irrevocable. At the same time, he gives a fuller description of the sins of Israel, condemning first of all the prevailing crimes of injustice and oppression, of shameless immorality and daring contempt of God (vv. 6-8); and secondly, its scornful contempt of the benefits conferred by the Lord (vv. 9-12), and threatening inevitable trouble in consequence (vv. 13-16).

Verse 6-8. “Thus saith Jehovah: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I shall not reverse it, because they sell the righteous for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes. They who pant after dust of the earth upon the head of the poor, and bend the way of the meek: and a man and his father go to the same girl, to desecrate my holy name. And they stretch themselves upon pawned clothes by every altar, and they drink the wine of the punished in the house of their God.” The prophet condemns four kinds of crimes. The first is unjust treatment, or condemnation of the innocent in their administration of justice. Selling the righteous for silver, i.e., for money, refers to the judges, who were bribed to punish a man as guilty of the crime of which he was accused, when he was really tsaddiiq, i.e., righteous in a judicial, not in a moral sense, or innocent of any punishable crime. Bakkeseph, for money, i.e., either to obtain money, or for the money which they had already received, viz., from the accuser, for condemning the innocent. `rWb[; , on account of, is not synonymous with b] pretii; for they did not sell the poor man merely to get a pair of sandals for him, as the worst possible slave was certainly worth much more than this (cf. Ex 21:32); but the poor debtor who could not pay for a pair of shoes, i.e., for the merest trifle, the judge would give up to the creditor for a salve, on the strength of the law in Lev 25:39 (cf. Kings 4:1).

As a second crime, Amos reproves in v. 7a their thirst for the oppression of the quiet in the land. lDæ , tapeinoi> , and `wn;[; , praei>v . The address is carried on in participles, in the form of lively appeal, instead of quiet description, as is frequently the case in Amos (cf. Amos 5:7; 6:3ff., 13, 8:14), and also in other books (cf. Isa 40:22,26; Ps 19:11). In the present instance, the article before the participle points back to the suffix in rk,m, , and the finite verb is not introduced till the second clause. ãaæv; , to gasp, to pant, to long eagerly for earth-dust upon the head of the poor, i.e., to long to see the head of the poor covered with earth or dust, or to bring them into such a state of misery, that they scatter dust upon their head (cf. Job 2:12; 2 Sam 1:2). The explanation given by Hitzig is too far-fetched and unnatural, viz., that they grudge the man in distress even the handful of dust that he has strewn upon his head, and avariciously long for it themselves.

To bend the way of the meek, i.e., to bring them into a trap, or cast them headlong into destruction by impediments and stumblingblocks laid in their path. The way is the way of life, their outward course. The idea that the way refers to the judgment or legal process is too contracted. The third crime is their profanation of the name of God by shameless immorality (v. 7b); and the fourth, desecration of the sanctuary by drinking carousals (v. 8). A man and his father, i.e., both son and father, go to the girl, i.e., to the prostitute. The meaning is, to one and the same girl; but ‘achath is omitted, to preclude all possible misunderstanding, as though going to different prostitutes was allowed. This sin was tantamount to incest, which, according to the law, was to be punished with death (cf. Lev 18:7,15, and 20:11). Temple girls (qedeeshooth) are not to be thought of here. The profanation of the name of God by such conduct as this does not indicate prostitution in the temple itself, such as was required by the licentious worship of Baal and Asherah (Ewald, Maurer, etc.), but consisted in a daring contempt of the commandments of God, as the original passage (Lev 22:32) from which Amos took the words clearly shows (cf. Jer 34:16).

By lema’an, in order that (not “so that”), the profanation of the holy name of God is represented as intentional, to bring out the daring character of the sin, and to show that it did not arise from weakness or ignorance, but was practised with studious contempt of the holy God. Begâdiim chabhuliim, pawned clothes, i.e., upper garments, consisting of a large square piece of cloth, which was wrapt all around, and served the poor for a counterpane as well. If a poor man was obliged to pawn his upper garment, it was to be returned to him before night came on (Ex 22:25), and a garment so pawned was not to be slept upon (Deut 24:12-13). But godless usurers kept such pledges, and used them as cloths upon which they stretched their limbs at feasts (yattuu, hiphil, to stretch out, sc. the body or its limbs); and this they did by every altar, at sacrificial meals, without standing in awe of God. It is very evident that Amos is speaking of sacrificial feasting, from the reference in the second clause of the verse to the drinking of wine in the house of God. `vnæ[; , punished in money, i.e., fined.

Wine of the punished is wine purchased by the produce of the fines. Here again the emphasis rests upon the fact, that such drinking carousals were held in the house of God. ‘Elooheehem , not their gods (idols), but their God; for Amos had in his mind the sacred places at Bethel and Dan, in which the Israelites worshipped Jehovah as their God under the symbol of an ox (calf). The expression col-mizbeeach (every altar) is not at variance with this; for even if col pointed to a plurality of altars, these altars were still baamooth, dedicated to Jehovah. If the prophet had also meant to condemn actual idolatry, i.e., the worship of heathen deities, he would have expressed this more clearly; to say nothing of the fact, that in the time of Jeroboam II there was no heathenish idolatry in the kingdom of the ten tribes, or, at any rate, it was not publicly maintained.

AMOS. 2:9-10

And if this daring contempt of the commandments of God was highly reprehensible even in itself, it became perfectly inexcusable if we bear in mind that Israel was indebted to the Lord its God for its elevation into an independent nation, and also for its sacred calling. For this reason, the prophet reminds the people of the manifestations of grace which it had received from its God (vv. 9-11).

Verse 9-10. “And yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was strong as the oaks; and I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. And yet I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the desert, to take possession of the land of the Amorite.” The repeated ykinOa; is used with peculiar emphasis, and serves to bring out the contrast between the conduct of the Israelites towards the Lord, and the fidelity of the Lord towards Israel. Of the two manifestations of divine grace to which Israel owed its existence as an independent nation, Amos mentions first of all the destruction of the former inhabitants of Canaan (Ex 23:27ff., 34:11); and secondly, what was earlier in point of time, namely, the deliverance out of Egypt and guidance through the Arabian desert; not because the former act of God was greater than the latter, but in order to place first what the Lord had done for the nation, that he may be able to append to this what He still continues to do (v. 11).

The nations destroyed before Israel are called Amorites, from the most powerful of the Canaanitish tribes, as in Gen 15:16; Josh 24:15, etc. To show, however, that Israel was not able to destroy this people by its own strength, but that Jehovah the Almighty God alone could accomplish this, he proceeds to transfer to the whole nation what the Israelitish spies reported as to their size, more especially as to the size of particular giants (Num 13:32-33), and describes the Amorites as giants as lofty as trees and as strong as trees, and, continuing the same figure, depicts their utter destruction or extermination as the destruction of their fruit and of their roots. For this figure of speech, in which the posterity of a nation is regarded as its fruit, and the kernel of the nation out of which it springs as the root, see Ezek 17:9; Hos 9:16; Job 18:16. These two manifestations of divine mercy Moses impressed more than once upon the hearts of the people in his last addresses, to urge them in consequence to hold fast to the divine commandments and to the love of God (cf. Deut 8:2ff., Amos 9:1-6; 29:1-8).

AMOS. 2:11-12

But Jehovah had not only put Israel into possession of Canaan; He had also continually manifested Himself to it as the founder and promoter of its spiritual prosperity.

Verse 11-12. “And I raised up some of your sons as prophets, and some of your young men as dedicated ones (Naziraeans). Ah, is it not so, ye sons of Israel? is the saying of Jehovah. But ye made the dedicated drink wine, and ye commanded the prophets, saying, Ye shall not prophesy.” The institution of prophecy and the law of the Nazarite were gifts of grace, in which Israel had an advantage over every other nation, and by which it was distinguished above the heathen as the nation of God and the medium of salvation. Amos simply reminds the people of these, and not of earthly blessings, which the heathen also enjoyed, since the former alone were real pledges of the covenant of grace made by Jehovah with Israel; and it was in the contempt and abuse of these gifts of grace that the ingratitude of the nation was displayed in the most glaring light. The Nazarites are placed by the side of the prophets, who proclaimed to the nation the counsel and will of the Lord, because, although as a rule the condition of a Nazarite was merely the consequence of his own free will and the fulfilment of a particular vow, it was nevertheless so far a gift of grace from the Lord, that the resolution to perform such a vow proceeded from the inward impulse of the Spirit of God, and the performance itself was rendered possible through the power of this Spirit alone. (For a general discussion of the law of the Nazarite, see the commentary on Num 6:2-12, and my biblical Antiquities, §67.) The raising up of Nazarites was not only intended to set before the eyes of the people the object of their divine calling, or their appointment to be a holy nation of God, but also to show them how the Lord bestowed the power to carry out this object. But instead of suffering themselves to be spurred on by these types to strive earnestly after sanctification of life, they tempted the Nazarites to break their vow by drinking wine, from which they were commanded to abstain, as being irreconcilable with the seriousness of their sanctification (see my Bibl. Ant. §67); and the prophets they prohibited from prophesying, because the word of God was burdensome to them (cf. Amos 7:10ff.; Mic 2:6).

AMOS. 2:13-16

This base contempt of their covenant mercies the Lord would visit with a severe punishment.

Verse 13-16. “Behold, I will press you down, as the cart presses that is filled with sheaves. And the flight will be lost to the swift, and the strong one will not fortify his strength, and the hero will not deliver his soul. And the carrier of the bow will not stand, and the swift-footed will not deliver, and the rider of the horse will not save his soul. And the courageous one among the heroes will flee away naked in that day, is the saying of Jehovah.” The Lord threatens as a punishment a severe oppression, which no one will be able to escape. The allusion is to the force of war, under which even the bravest and most able heroes will succumb. `qW[ , from `qW[ , Aramaean for qWx , to press, construed with tachath, in the sense of kata> , downwards, to press down upon a person, i.e., to press him down (Winer, Ges., Ewald). This meaning is established by `hq;[; in Ps 55:4, and by hq;[;Wm in Ps 66:11; so that there is no necessity to resort to the Arabic, as Hitzig does, or to alterations of the text, or to follow Baur, who gives the word the meaning, “to feel one’s self pressed under another,” for which there is no foundation in the language, and which does not even yield a suitable sense.

The comparison instituted here to the pressure of a cart filled with sheaves, does not warrant the conclusion that Jehovah must answer to the cart; the simile is not to be carried out to this extent. The object to `qW[ is wanting, but may easily be supplied from the thought, namely, the ground over which the cart is driven. The ttæK; attached to ha;lem] belongs to the latitude allowed in ordinary speech, and gives to alem; the reflective meaning, which is full in itself, has quite filled itself (cf. Ewald, §315, a). In vv. 14-16 the effects of this pressure are individualized. No one will escape from it. swOnm; dbæa; , flight is lost to the swift, i.e., the swift will not find time enough to flee. The allusion to heroes and bearers of the bow shows that the pressure is caused by war. lg,r, lqæ belong together: “He who is light in his feet.” The swift-footed will no more save his life than the rider upon a horse. vp,n, in v. 15 belongs to both clauses. ble xyMiaæ , the strong in his heart, i.e., the hearty, courageous. `µwOr[; , naked, i.e., so as to leave behind him his garment, by which the enemy seizes him, like the young man in Mark 14:52. This threat, which implies that the kingdom will be destroyed, is carried out still further in the prophet’s following addresses.

II. PROPHECIES CONCERNING ISRAEL Although the expression “Hear this word,” which is repeated at the commencement of ch. 3, 4 and 5, suggests the idea of three addresses, the contents of these chapters show that they do not contain three separate addresses delivered to the people by Amos at different times, but that they group together the leading thoughts of appeals delivered by word of mouth, so as to form one long admonition to repentance. Commencing with the proofs of his right to predict judgment to the nation on account of its sins (Amos 3:1-8), the prophet exposes the wickedness of Israel in general (ch. 3:9-4:3), and then shows the worthlessness of the nation’s trust in idolatry (Amos 4:4-13), and lastly announces the destruction of the kingdom as the inevitable consequence of the prevailing injustice and ungodliness (ch. 5 and 6). ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE JUDGMENT Because the Lord has chosen Israel to be His people, He must visit all its sins (v. 2), and has commissioned the prophet to announce this punishment (vv. 3-8). As Israel has heaped up oppression, violence, and wickedness, an enemy will come upon the land and plunder Samaria, and cause its inhabitants to perish, and demolish the altars of Bethel, and destroy the capital (vv. 9-15).

AMOS. 3:1-2

Verses 1 and 2 contain the introduction and the leading thought of the whole of the prophetic proclamation.

Verse. 1-2. “Hear this word which Jehovah speaketh concerning you, O sons of Israel, concerning the whole family which I have brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying. You only have I acknowledge of all the families of the earth; therefore will I visit all your iniquities upon you.” The word of the Lord is addressed to all the family of Israel, which God had brought up out of Egypt, that is to say, to all the twelve tribes of the covenant nation, although in what follows it is the ten tribes of Israel alone who are primarily threatened with the destruction of the kingdom, to indicate at the very outset that Judah might anticipate a similar fate if it did not turn to its God with sincerity. The threat is introduced by the thought that its divine election would not secure the sinful nation against punishment, but that, on the contrary, the relation of grace into which the Lord had entered with Israel demanded the punishment of all evil deeds.

This cuts off the root of all false confidence in divine election. “To whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required. The greater the measure of grace, the greater also is the punishment if it is neglected or despised.” This is the fundamental law of the kingdom of God. [dæy; does not mean to know, to become acquainted with, or to take knowledge of a person (Hitzig), but acknowledge. Acknowledgment on the part of God is not merely taking notice, but is energetic, embracing man in his inmost being, embracing and penetrating with divine love; so that [dæy; not only includes the idea of love and care, as in Hos 13:5, but expresses generally the gracious fellowship of the Lord with Israel, as in Gen 18:19, and is practically equivalent to electing, including both the motive and the result of election. And because Jehovah had acknowledged, i.e., had singled out and chosen Israel as the nation best fitted to be the vehicle of His salvation, He must of necessity punish all its misdeeds, in order to purify it from the dross of sin, and make it a holy vessel of His saving grace.

AMOS. 3:3-8

But this truth met with contradiction in the nation itself. The proud selfsecure sinners would not hear such prophesying as this (compare Amos 2:4; 7:10ff.). Amos therefore endeavours, before making any further announcement of the judgment of God, to establish his right and duty to prophesy, by a chain-like series of similes drawn from life.

Verse 3-8. “Do two walk together without having agreed? Does the lion roar in the forest, and he has no prey? does the young lion utter his cry out of his den, without having taken anything? Does the bird fall into the trap on the ground, when there is no snare for him? does the trap rise up from the earth without making a capture? Or is the trumpet blown in the city, and the people are not alarmed? or does misfortune happen in the city, and Jehovah has not done it? For the Lord Jehovah does nothing at all, without having revealed His secret to His servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who does not fear? the Lord Jehovah hath spoken; who must not prophesy?” The contents of these verses are not to be reduced to the general thought, that a prophet could no more speak without a divine impulse than any other effect could take place without a cause. There was certainly no need for a long series of examples, such as we have in vv. 3-6, to substantiate or illustrate the thought, which a reflecting hearer would hardly have disputed, that there was a connection between cause and effect. The examples are evidently selected with the view of showing that the utterances of the prophet originate with God. This is obvious enough in vv. 7, 8. The first clause, “Do two men walk together, without having agreed as to their meeting?” (noo’ad, to betake one’s self to a place, to meet together at an appointed place or an appointed time; compare Job 2:11; Josh 11:5; Neh 6:2; not merely to agree together), contains something more than the trivial truth, that two persons do not take a walk together without a previous arrangement. The two who walk together are Jehovah and the prophet (Cyril); not Jehovah and the nation, to which the judgment is predicted (Cocceius, Marck, and others). Amos went as prophet to Samaria or Bethel, because the Lord had sent him thither to preach judgment to the sinful kingdom.

But God would not threaten judgment if He had not a nation ripe for judgment before Him. The lion which roars when it has the prey before it is Jehovah (cf. Amos 1:2; Hos 11:10, etc.). ttæK; ˆyiaæ ãr,f, is not to be interpreted according to the second clause, as signifying “without having got possession of its prey” (Hitzig), for the lion is accustomed to roar when it has the prey before it and there is no possibility of its escape, and before it actually seizes it (cf. Isa 5:29). f46 On the contrary, the perfect lâkhad in the second clause is to be interpreted according to the first clause, not as relating to the roar of satisfaction with which the lion devours the prey in its den (Baur), but as a perfect used to describe a thing which was as certain as if it had already occurred. A lion has made a capture not merely when it has actually seized the prey and torn it in pieces, but when the prey has approached so near that it cannot possibly escape. Kephiir is the young lion which already goes in pursuit of prey, and is to be distinguished from the young of the lion, guur (catulus leonis), which cannot yet go in search of prey (cf. Ezek 19:2-3). The two similes have the same meaning. The second strengthens the first by the assertion that God not only has before Him the nation that is ripe for judgment, but that He has it in His power.

The similes in v. 5 do not affirm the same as those in v. 4, but contain the new thought, that Israel has deserved the destruction which threatens it.

Pach, a snare, and mooqeesh, a trap, are frequently used synonymously; but here they are distinguished, pach denoting a bird-net, and mooqeesh a springe, a snare which holds the bird fast. The earlier translators have taken mooqeesh in the sense of yooqeesh, and understand it as referring to the bird-catcher; and Baur proposes to alter the text accordingly. But there is no necessity for this; and it is evidently unsuitable, since it is not requisite for a bird-catcher to be at hand, in order that the bird should be taken in a snare. The suffix lâh refers to tsippoor, and the thought is this: in order to catch a bird in the net, a springe (gin) must be laid for it. So far as the fact itself is concerned, mooqeesh is “evidently that which is necessarily followed by falling into the net; and in this instance it is sinfulness” (Hitzig); so that the meaning of the figure would be this: “Can destruction possibly overtake you, unless your sin draws you into it?” (cf. Jer 2:35). In the second clause pach is the subject, and `hl;[; is used for the ascent or springing up of the net. Hitzig has given the meaning of the words correctly: “As the net does not spring up without catching the bird, that has sent it up by flying upon it, can ye imagine that when the destruction passes by, ye will not be seized by it, but will escape without injury?” (cf. Isa 28:15). Jehovah, however, causes the evil to be foretold. As the trumpet, when blown in the city, frightens the people out of their self-security, so will the voice of the prophet, who proclaims the coming evil, excite a salutary alarm in the nation (cf. Ezek 33:1-5). For the calamity which is bursting upon the city comes from Jehovah, is sent by Him as a punishment. This thought is explained in vv. 7, 8, and with this explanation the whole series of figurative sentences is made perfectly clear. The approaching evil, which comes from the Lord, is predicted by the prophet, because Jehovah does not carry out His purpose without having µai yKi , for when, except when he has, as in Gen 32:27) first of all revealed it to the prophets, that they may warn the people to repent and to reform. Sood receives a more precise definition from the first clause of the verse, or a limitation to the purposes which God is about to fulfil upon His people.

And since (this is the connection of v. 8) the judgment with which the Lord is drawing near fills every one with fear, and Jehovah has spoken, i.e., has made known His counsel to the prophets, they cannot but prophesy.

AMOS. 3:9-10

Amos has thus vindicated his own calling, and the right of all the prophets, to announce to the people the judgments of God; and now (vv. 9-15) he is able to proclaim without reserve what the Lord has resolved to do upon sinful Israel.

Verse 9-10. “Make it heard over the palaces in Ashdod, and over the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumult in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the heart thereof. And they know not to do the right, is the saying of Jehovah, who heap up violence and devastation in their palaces.” The speaker is Jehovah (v. 10), and the prophets are addressed. Jehovah summons them to send out the cry over the palaces in Ashdod and Egypt `l[æ as in Hos 8:1), and to call the inhabitants of these palaces to hear, (1) that they may see the acts of violence, and the abominations in the palaces of Samaria; and (2) that they may be able to bear witness against Israel (v. 13).

This turn in the prophecy brings out to view the overflowing excess of the sins and abominations of Israel. The call of the prophets, however, is not to be uttered upon the palaces, so as to be heard far and wide (Baur and others), but over the palaces, to cause the inhabitants of them to draw near.

It is they alone, and not the whole population of Ashdod and Egypt, who are to be called nigh; because only the inhabitants of the palace could pronounce a correct sentence as to the mode of life commonly adopted in the palaces of Samaria. Ashdod, one of the Philistian capitals, is mentioned by way of example, as a chief city of the uncircumcised, who were regarded by Israel as godless heathen; and Egypt is mentioned along with it, as the nation whose unrighteousness and ungodliness had once been experienced by Israel to satiety. If therefore such heathen as these are called to behold the unrighteous and dissolute conduct to be seen in the palaces, it must have been great indeed. The mountains of Samaria are not the mountains of the kingdom of Samaria, or the mountains upon which the city of Samaria was situated-for Samaria was not built upon a plurality of mountains, but upon one only (Amos 4:1; 6:1)-but the mountains round about Samaria, from which you could look into the city, built upon one isolated hill. The city, built upon the hill of Semer, was situated in a mountain caldron or basin, about two yours in diameter, which was surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains (see at 1 Kings 16:24). f47 Mehuumâh, noise, tumult, denotes a state of confusion, in which everything is topsy-turvy, and all justice and order are overthrown by open violence (Maurer, Baur). ‘Ashuuqiim, either the oppressed, or, taken as an abstract, the oppression of the poor (cf. Amos 2:6). In v. 10 the description is continued in the finite verb: they do not know how to do right; that is to say, injustice has become their nature; and they who heap up sins and violence in their palaces like treasures.

AMOS. 3:11-12

Thus do they bring about the ruin of the kingdom. “Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, An enemy, and that round about the land; and he will hurl down thy glory from thee, and thy palaces are plundered. Thus saith Jehovah, As the shepherd delivers out of the mouth of the lion two shin-bones or an earlappet, so will the sons of Israel deliver themselves; they who sit on the corner of the couch and on the damask of the bed.” The threat is introduced in the form of an aposiopesis. rxæ , enemy, xr,a, bybis; , and indeed round about the land (w explic. as in Amos 4:10, etc.; and bybis; in the construct state construed as a preposition), i.e., will come, attack the land on all sides, and take possession of it. Others regard rxæ as an abstract: oppression (from the Chaldee); but in this case we should have to supply Jehovah as the subject to dræy; ; and although this is probable, it is by no means natural, as Jehovah is speaking.

There is no foundation, on the other hand, for the remark, that if tsar signified the enemy, we should either find the plural rWx , or rxæ with the article (Baumgarten). The very indefiniteness of tsar suits the sententious brevity of the clause. This enemy will hurl down the splendour of Samaria, “which ornaments the top of the mountain like a crown, Isa 28:1-3” (Hitzig: `z[o , might, with the subordinate idea of glory), and plunder the palaces in which violence, i.e., property unrighteously acquired, is heaped up (v. 10). The words are addressed to the city of Samaria, to which the feminine suffixes refer. On the fall of Samaria, and the plundering thereof, the luxurious grandees, who rest upon costly pillows, will only be able to save their life to the very smallest extent, and that with great difficulty. In the simile used in v. 12 there is a slight want of proportion in the two halves, the object of the deliverance being thrown into the background in the second clause by the passive construction, and only indicated in the verb, to deliver themselves, i.e., to save their life. “A pair of shin-bones and a piece ld;B; aJpax leg .), i.e., a lappet, of the earth,” are most insignificant remnants. The grandees of Samaria, of whom only a few were to escape with their life, are depicted by Amos as those who sit on costly divans, without the least anxiety. hF;mi ha;pe , the corner of the divan, the most convenient for repose. According to Amos 6:4, these divans were ornamented with ivory, and according to the verse before us, they were ornamented with costly stuffs. qc,M,Dæ comes from qc,M,Dæ , Damascus, and signifies damask, an artistically woven material (see Ges. Thes. p. 346). This brings the visitation of God to an end. Even the altars and palaces are to be laid in ruins, and consequently Samaria will be destroyed.

AMOS. 3:13-15

This feature in the threat is brought out into peculiar prominence by a fresh introduction.

Verse 13-15. “Hear ye, and testify it to the house of Jacob, is the utterance of the Lord, Jehovah, the God of hosts: That in the day when I visit the transgressions of the house of Israel upon it, I shall visit it upon the altars of Bethel; and the horns of the altar will be cut off, and fall to the ground. And I smite the winter-house over the summer-house, and the houses of ivory perish, and many houses vanish, is the saying of Jehovah.” The words “Hear ye” cannot be addressed to the Israelites, fore they could not bear witness against the house of Israel, but must either refer to the prophets, as in v. 9a (“publish ye”), or to the heathen, in which case they correspond to “assemble yourselves and behold” in v. 9b. The latter assumption is the only correct one, for the context does not assign a sufficient motive for an address to the prophets.

On the other hand, as the heathen have been summoned to convince themselves by actual observation of the sins that prevail in Samaria, it is perfectly in keeping that they should now hear what is the punishment that God is about to inflict upon Israel in consequence, and that they should bear witness against Israel from what they have heard. b dy[ihe , to bear witness towards or against (not “in,” as Baur supposes). The house of Jacob is the whole of Israel, of the twelve tribes, as in v. 1; for Judah was also to learn a lesson from the destruction of Samaria. As the appeal to the heathen to bear witness against Israel indicates the greatness of the sins of the Israelites, so, on the other hand, does the accumulation of the names of God in v. 13b serve to strengthen the declaration made by the Lord, who possesses as God of hosts the power to execute His threats. yKi introduces the substance of what is to be heard.

The punishment of the sins of Israel is to extend even to the altars of Bethel, the seat of the idolatrous image-worship, the hearth and home of the religious and moral corruption of the ten tribes. The smiting off of the horns of the altar is the destruction of the altars themselves, the significance of which culminated in the horns (see at Ex 27:2). The singular hammizbeeach (the altar) preceded by a plural is the singular of species (cf.

Ges. §108, 1), and does not refer to any particular one-say, for example, to the principal altar. The destruction of the palaces and houses (v. 15) takes place in the capital. In the reference to the winter-house and summerhouse, we have to think primarily of the royal palace (cf. Jer 36:22); at the same time, wealthy noblemen may also have had them. `l[æ , lit., over, so that the ruins of one house fall upon the top of another; then “together with,” as in Gen 32:12. ˆve tyiBæ , ivory houses, houses the rooms of which are decorated by inlaid ivory. Ahab had a palace of this kind (1 Kings 22:39, compare Ps 45:9). bræ tyiBæ , not the large houses, but many houses; for the description is rounded off with these words. Along with the palaces, many houses will also fall to the ground. The fulfilment took place when Samaria was taken by Shalmanezer (2 Kings 17:5-6).

THE IMPENITENCE OF ISRAEL AMOS. 4:1-3

The voluptuous and wanton women of Samaria will be overtaken by a shameful captivity (vv. 1-3). Let the Israelites only continue their idolatry with zeal (vv. 4, 5), the Lord has already visited them with many punishments without their having turned to Him (vv. 6-11); and therefore He must inflict still further chastisements, to see whether they will not at length learn to fear Him as their God (vv. 12, 13).

Verse 1-3. “Hear this word, ye cows of Bashan, that are upon the mountain of Samaria, that oppress there the humble and crush the poor, that say to their lords, Bring hither, that we may drink. The Lord Jehovah hath sworn by His holiness: behold, days come upon you, that they drag you away with hooks, and your last one with fish-hooks. And ye will go out through breaches in the wall, every one before him, and be cast away to Harmon, is the saying of Jehovah.” The commencement of this chapter is closely connected, so far as the contents are concerned, with the chapter immediately preceding. The prophet having there predicted, that when the kingdom was conquered by its enemies, the voluptuous grandees would perish, with the exception of a very few who would hardly succeed in saving their lives, turns now to the voluptuous women of Samaria, to predict in their case a shameful transportation into exile.

The introduction, “Hear this word,” does not point therefore to a new prophecy, but simply to a fresh stage in the prophecy, so that we cannot even agree with Ewald in taking vv. 1-3 as the conclusion of the previous prophecy (ch. 3). The cows of Bashan are well-fed, fat cows, bo>ev eu>trofoi , vaccae pingues (Symm., Jer.), as Bashan had fat pastures, and for that reason the tribes that were richest in flocks and herds had asked for it as their inheritance (Num 32). The fuller definitions which follow show very clearly that by the cows of Bashan, Amos meant the rich, voluptuous, and violent inhabitants of Samaria. It is doubtful, however, whether he meant the rich and wanton wives of the great, as most of the modern commentators follow Theodor., Theodoret, and others, in assuming; or “the rulers of Israel, and all the leading men of the ten tribes, who spent their time in pleasure and robbery” (Jerome); or “those rich, luxurious, and lascivious inhabitants of the palace of whom he had spoken in Amos 3:9- 10” (Maurer), as the Chald., Luther, Calvin, and others suppose, and whom he calls cows, not oxen, to denote their effeminacy and their unbridled licentiousness.

In support of the latter opinion we might adduce not only Hos 10:11, where Ephraim is compared to a young heifer, but also the circumstance that from v. 4 onwards the prophecy refers to the Israelites as a whole. But neither of these arguments proves very much. The simile in Hos 10:11 applies to Ephraim as a kingdom of people, and the natural personification as a woman prepares the way for the comparison to an ‘eglâh; whereas voluptuous and tyrannical grandees would be more likely to be compared to the bulls of Bashan (Ps 22:13). And so, again, the transition in v. 4 to the Israelites as a whole furnishes no help in determining more precisely who are addressed in vv. 1-3. By the cows of Bashan, therefore, we understand the voluptuous women of Samaria, after the analogy of Isa 3:16ff. and 32:9-13, more especially because it is only by forcing the last clause of v. 1 that it can be understood as referring to men. [mæv; for [mæv; , because the verb stands first (compare Isa 32:11). The mountain of Samaria is mentioned in the place of the city built upon the mountain (see at Amos 3:9). The sin of these women consisted in the tyrannical oppression of the poor, whilst they asked their lords, i.e., their husbands, to procure them the means of debauchery. For `qvæ[; and xxær; , compare Deut 28:33 and 1 Sam 12:3-4, where the two words are already connected. awOB stands in the singular, because every wife speaks in this way to her husband.

The announcement of the punishment for such conduct is introduced with a solemn oath, to make an impression, if possible, upon the hardened hearts.

Jehovah swears by His holiness, i.e., as the Holy One, who cannot tolerate unrighteousness. yKi (for) before hNehi introduces the oath. Hitzig takes ac;n; as a niphal, as in the similar formula in 2 Kings 20:17; but he takes it as a passive used impersonally with an accusative, after Gen 35:26 and other passages (though not Ex 13:7). But as ac;n; unquestionably occurs as a piel in 1 Kings 9:11, it is more natural to take the same form as a piel in this instance also, and whilst interpreting it impersonally, to think of the enemy as understood. Tsinnooth = tsinniim, Prov 22:5; Job 5:5, ˆxi = ˆxe , thorns, hence hooks; so also siirooth = siiriim, thorns, Isa 34:13; Hos 2:8.

Duugâh, fishery; hence siirooth duugâh, fish-hooks. ‘Achariith does not mean posterity, or the young brood that has grown up under the instruction and example of the parents (Hitzig), but simply “the end,” the opposite of ree’shiith, the beginning. It is “end,” however, in different senses. Here it signifies the remnant (Chaldee), i.e., those who remain and are not dragged away with tsinnooth; so that the thought expressed is “all, even to the very last” (compare Hengstenberg, Christology, i. p. 368). tyrijaæ has a feminine suffix, whereas masculine suffixes were used before tae , `l[æ ); the universal gender, out of which the feminine was first formed. The figure is not taken from animals, into whose noses hooks and rings are inserted to tame them, or from large fishes that are let down into the water again by nose-hooks; for the technical terms applied to these hooks are jj; , jæwOj , and hK;jæ (cf. Ezek. 29:4; Job 40:25-26); but from the catching of fishes, that are drawn out of the fish-pond with hooks.

Thus shall the voluptuous, wanton women be violently torn away or carried off from the midst of the superfluity and debauchery in which they lived as in their proper element. ax;y; µyxir;p] , to go out of rents in the wall, ax;y; being construed, as it frequently is, with the accusative of the place; we should say, “though rents in the wall,” i.e., through breaches made in the wall at the taking of the city, not out at the gates, because they had been destroyed or choked up with rubbish at the storming of the city. “Every one before her,” i.e., without looking round to the right or to the left (cf. Josh 6:5,20). The words ˆwOmr]hæ Ëlæv; are difficult, on account of the aJp leg hnwmrhh , and have not yet been satisfactorily explained. The form Ëlæv; for ˆT,k]læv]hi is probably chosen simply for the purpose of obtaining a resemblance in sound to ax;y; , and is sustained by hT;aæ for ˆR,aæ in Gen 31:6 and Ezek 13:11. Ëlæv; is applied to thrusting into exile, as in Deut 29:27.

The aJp leg ˆwOmr]hæ with h loc. appears to indicate the place to which they were to be carried away or cast out. But the hiphil Ëlæv; does not suit this, and consequently nearly all the earlier translators have rendered it as a passive, aporriJfh>sesqe (LXX), projiciemini (Jerome); so also the Syr. and Chald. ˆwOht]yæ ˆwOlg]yiw] , “men will carry them away captive.” One Hebrew codex actually gives the hophal. And to this reading we must adhere; for the hiphil furnishes no sense at all, since the intransitive or reflective meaning, to plunge, or cast one’s self, cannot be sustained, and is not supported at all by the passages quoted by Hitzig, viz., 2 Kings 10:25 and Job 27:22; and still less does haharmoonâh denote the object cast away by the women when they go into captivity. f48 The literal meaning of harmoonâh or harmoon still remains uncertain.

According to the etymology of µr;ho , to be high, it apparently denotes a high land: at the same time, it can neither be taken as an appellative, as Hesselberg and Maurer suppose, “the high land;” nor in the sense of ‘armoon, a citadel or palace, as Kimchi and Gesenius maintain. The former interpretation is open to the objection, that we cannot possibly imagine why Amos should have formed a word of his own, and one which never occurs again in the Hebrew language, to express the simple idea of a mountain or high land; and the second to this objection, that “the citadel” would require something to designate it as a citadel or fortress in the land of the enemy. The unusual word certainly points to the name of a land or district, though we have no means of determining it more precisely. f49 AMOS 4:4-5 After this threat directed against the voluptuous women of the capital, the prophecy turns again to all the people. In bitter irony, Amos tells them to go on with zeal in their idolatrous sacrifices, and to multiply their sin. But they will not keep back the divine judgment by so doing.

Verse 4-5. “Go to Bethel, and sin; to Gilgal, multiply sinning; and offer your slain-offerings in the morning, your tithes every three days. And kindle praise-offerings of that which is leavened, and cry out freewill-offerings, proclaim it; for so ye love it, O sons of Israel, is the saying of the Lord, of Jehovah.” “Amos here describes how zealously the people of Israel went on pilgrimage to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Beersheba, those places of sacred associations; with what superabundant diligence they offered sacrifice and paid tithes; who they would rather do too much than too little, so that they even burnt upon the altar a portion of the leavened loaves of the praise-offering, which were only intended for the sacrificial meals, although none but unleavened bread was allowed to be offered; and lastly, how in their pure zeal for multiplying the works of piety, they so completely mistook their nature, as to summon by a public proclamation to the presentation of freewill-offerings, the very peculiarity of which consisted in the fact that they had no other prompting than the will of the offerer” (v. Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, ii. 2, p. 373).

The irony of the summons to maintain their worship comes out very distinctly in the words [væp; , and sin, or fall away from God. lG;l]Gi is not a nominative absolute, “as for Gilgal,” but an accusative, and awOB is to be repeated from the first clause. The absence of the copula before hb;r; does not compel us to reject the Masoretic accentuation, and connect lG;l]Gi with [væp; , as Hitzig does, so as to obtain the unnatural thought, “sin ye towards Gilgal.” On Gilgal mentioned along with Bethel as a place of idolatrous worship (here and Amos 5:5, as in Hos 4:15; 9:15, and 12:12), see at Hos 4:15. Offer your slain-offerings labbooqer, for the morning, i.e., every morning, like layyoom in Jer 37:21. This is required by the parallel lishloosheth yâmiim, on the three of days, i.e., every three days. awOB does not refer to the morning sacrifice prescribed in the law (Num 28:3)-for that is always called ‘oolâh, not zebach-but to slain sacrifices that were offered every morning, although the offering of zebhâchiim every morning presupposes the presentation of the daily morning burnt-offering. What is said concerning the tithe rests upon the Mosaic law of the second tithe, which was to be brought every three years (Deut 14:28; 26:12; compare my Bibl. Archäol. §71, Anm. 7). The two clauses, however, are not to be understood as implying that the Israelites had offered slain sacrifices every morning, and tithe every three days. Amos is speaking hyperbolically, to depict the great zeal displayed in their worship; and the thought is simply this: “If ye would offer slain sacrifices every morning, and tithe every three days, ye would only thereby increase your apostasy from the living God.” The words, “kindle praise-offerings of that which is leavened,” have been misinterpreted in various ways. rfæq; , an inf. absol. used instead of the imperative (see Ges. §131, 4, b). According to Lev 7:12-14, the praise-offering (toodâh) was to consist not only of unleavened cakes and pancakes with oil poured upon them, but also of cakes of leavened bread.

The latter, however, were not to be placed upon the altar, but one of them was to be assigned to the priest who sprinkled the blood, and the rest to be eaten at the sacrificial meal. Amos now charges the people with having offered that which was leavened instead of unleavened cakes and pancakes, and with having burned it upon the altar, contrary to the express prohibition of the law in Lev 2:11. His words are not to be understood as signifying that, although outwardly the praise-offerings consisted of that which was unleavened, according to the command of the law, yet inwardly they were so base that they resembled unleavened cakes, inasmuch as whilst the material of the leaven was absent, the true nature of the leavennamely, malice and wickedness-was there in all the greater quantity (Hengstenberg, Dissertations, vol. i. p. 143 translation). The meaning is rather this, that they were not content with burning upon the altar unleavened cakes made from the materials provided for the sacrifice, but that they burned some of the leavened loaves as well, in order to offer as much as possible to God. What follows answers to this: call out nedâbhooth, i.e., call out that men are to present freewill-offerings.

The emphasis is laid upon ar;q; , which is therefore still further strengthened by [mæv; . Their calling out nedâbhooth, i.e., their ordering freewill-offerings to be presented, was an exaggerated act of zeal, inasmuch as the sacrifices which ought to have been brought out of purely spontaneous impulse (cf. Lev 22:18ff.; Deut 12:6), were turned into a matter of moral compulsion, or rather of legal command. The words, “for so ye love it,” show how this zeal in the worship lay at the heart of the nation. It is also evident from the whole account, that the worship in the kingdom of the ten tribes was conducted generally according to the precepts of the Mosaic law.

AMOS. 4:6-11

But as Israel would not desist from its idolatrous worship, Jehovah would also continue to visit the people with judgments, as He had already done, though without effecting any conversion to their God. This last thought is explained in vv. 6-11 in a series of instances, in which the expression `d[æ bWv alo (and ye have not returned to me), which is repeated five times, depicts in the most thorough manner the unwearied love of the Lord to His rebellious children.

Verse 6. “And I have also given you cleanness of teeth in all your towns, and want of bread in all your places: and ye have not returned to me, is the saying of Jehovah.” The strongly adversative ynæa µGæ forms the antithesis to bhæa; ˆKe : Ye love to persist in your idolatry, and yet I have tried all means of turning you to me. Cleanness of teeth is explained by the parallel “want of bread.” The first chastisement, therefore, consisted in famine, with which God visited the nation, as He had threatened the transgressors that He would do in the law (Deut 28:48,57). For `d[æ bWv , compare Hos 14:2.

Verse 7-8. “And I have also withholden the rain from you, in yet three months to the harvest; and have caused it to rain upon one city, and I do not cause it to rain upon another. One field is rained upon, and the field upon which it does not rain withers. And two, three towns stagger to one town to drink water, and are not satisfied: and ye have not returned to me, is the saying of Jehovah.” The second punishment mentioned is the withholding of rain, or drought, which was followed by the failure of the harvest and the scarcity of water (cf. Lev 26:19-20; Deut 28:23). The rain “in yet (i.e., at the time when there were yet) three months to the harvest” is the so-called latter rain, which falls in the latter half of February and the first half of March, and is of the greatest importance to the vigorous development of the ears of corn and also of the grains. In southern Palestine the harvest commences in the latter half of April (Nisan), and falls for the most part in May and June; but in the northern part of the land it is from two to four weeks later (see my Archäologie, i. pp. 33, 34, ii. pp. 113, 114), so that in round numbers we may reckon three months from the latter rain to the harvest. But in order to show the people more clearly that the sending and withholding of rain belonged to Him, God caused it to rain here and there, upon one town and one field, and not upon others (the imperfects from ‘amtiir onwards express the repetition of a thing, what generally happens, and timmâteer, third pers. fem., is used impersonally). This occasioned such distress, that the inhabitants of the places in which it had not rained were obliged to go to a great distance for the necessary supply of water to drink, and yet could not get enough to satisfy them. nuwa`, to stagger, to totter, expresses the insecure and trembling walk of a man almost fainting with thirst.

Verse 9. “I have smitten you with blight and yellowness; many of your gardens, and of your vineyards, and of your fig-trees, and of your olive-trees, the locust devoured; and ye have not returned to me, is the saying of Jehovah.” The third chastisement consisted in the perishing of the corn by blight, and by the ears turning yellow, and also in the destruction of the produce of the gardens and the fruits of the trees by locusts. The first is threatened in Deut 28:22, against despisers of the commandments of God; the second points to the threatenings in Deut 28:39-40,42. The infin. constr. harbooth is used as a substantive, and stands as a noun in the construct state before the following words; so that it is not to be taken adverbially in the sense of many times, or often, as though used instead of harbeeh (cf. Ewald, §280, c). On gâzâm, see at Joel 1:4. The juxtaposition of these two plagues is not to be understood as implying that they occurred simultaneously, or that the second was the consequence of the first; still less are the two to be placed in causal connection with the drought mentioned in vv. 7, 8. For although such combinations do take place in the course of nature, there is no allusion to this in the present instance, where Amos is simply enumerating a series of judgments, through which Jehovah had already endeavoured to bring the people to repentance, without any regard to the time when they occurred.

Verse 10. The same thing may be said of the fourth chastisement mentioned in v. 10, “I have sent pestilence among you in the manner of Egypt, have slain your young men with the sword, together with the booty of your horses, and caused the stench of your camps to ascend, and that into your nose; and ye have not returned to me, is the saying of Jehovah.” In the combination of pestilence and sword (war), the allusion to Lev 26:25 is unmistakeable (compare Deut 28:60, where the rebellious are threatened with all the diseases of Egypt). µyiræx]mi Ër,D, , in the manner (not in the road) of Egypt (compare Isa 10:24,26; Ezek 20:30), because pestilence is epidemic in Egypt. The idea that there is any allusion to the pestilence with which God visited Egypt (Ex 9:3ff.), is overthrown by the circumstance that it is only a dreadful murrain that is mentioned there. The slaying of the youths or young men points to overthrow in war, which the Israelites endured most grievously in the wars with the Syrians (compare Kings 8:12; 13:3,7). sWs bvæy; `µ[i does not mean together with, or by the side of, the carrying away of your horses, i.e., along with the fact that your horses were carried away; for bvæy; does not mean carrying away captive, but the captivity, or the whole body of captives. The words are still dependent upon græh; , and affirm that even the horses that had been taken perished-a fact which is also referred to in 2 Kings 13:7. From the slain men and animals forming the camp the stench ascended, and that into their noses, “as it were, as an ‘azkârâh of their sins” (Hitzig), but without their turning to their God.

Verse 11. “I have destroyed among you, like the destruction of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were like a brand plucked out of the fire; and ye have not returned to me, is the saying of Jehovah.” Proceeding from the smaller to the greater chastisements, Amos mentions last of all the destruction similar to that of Sodom and Gomorrah, i.e., the utter confusion of the state, by which Israel was brought to the verge of ruin, so that it had only been saved like a firebrand out of the fire. Ëpæh; does not refer to an earthquake, which had laid waste cities and hamlets, or a part of the land, say that mentioned in Amos 1:1, as Kimchi and others suppose; but it denotes the desolation of the whole land in consequence of devastating wars, more especially the Syrian (2 Kings 13:4,7), and other calamities, which had undermined the stability of the kingdom, as in Isa 1:9. The words wgw µyhila’ hk;Peh]mæ are taken from Deut 29:22, where the complete desolation of the land, after the driving away of the people into exile on account of their obstinate apostasy, is compared to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. By thus playing upon this terrible threat uttered by Moses, the prophet seeks to show to the people what has already happened to them, and what still awaits them if they do not eventually turn to their God. They have again been rescued from the threatening destruction like a firebrand out of the fire (Zech 3:2) by the deliverer whom the Lord gave to them, so that they escaped from the power of the Syrians (2 Kings 13:5). But inasmuch as all these chastisements have produced no fruit of repentance, the Lord will now proceed to judgment with His people.

AMOS. 4:12-13

“Therefore thus will I do to thee, O Israel; because I will do this to thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. For, behold, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and maketh known to man what is his thought; who maketh dawn, darkness, and goeth over the high places of the earth, Jehovah God of hosts is His name.” The punishment which God is now about to inflict is introduced with lâkheen (therefore). hc,[‘a, hKo cannot point back to the punishment threatened in vv. 2, 3, and still less to the chastisements mentioned in vv. 6- 11; for lâkheen kooh is always used by Amos to introduce what is about to ensue, and any retrospective allusion to vv. 6-11 is precluded by the future hc,[‘a, . What Jehovah is now about to do is not expressed here more iratorum, but may clearly be discerned from what follows. “When He has said, ‘This will I do to thee,’ He is silent as to what He will do, in order that, whilst Israel is left in uncertainty as to the particular kind of punishment (which is all the more terrible because all kinds of things are imagined), it may repent of its sins, and so avert the things which God threatens here” (Jerome).

Instead of an announcement of the punishment, there follows in the words, “Because I will do this to thee tazO pointing back to hKo ), prepare to meet thy God,” a summons to hold themselves in readiness liqra’th ‘eloohiim (in occursum Dei), i.e., to stand before God thy judge. The meaning of this summons has been correctly explained by Calvin thus: “When thou seest that thou hast resorted in vain to all kinds of subterfuges, since thou never wilt be able to escape from the hand of thy judge; see now at length that thou dost avert this last destruction which is hanging over thee.” But this can only be effected “by true renewal of heart, in which men are dissatisfied with themselves, and submit with changed heart to God, and come as suppliants, praying for forgiveness.” For if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged by the Lord (1 Cor 11:31). This view is shown to be the correct one, by the repeated admonitions to seek the Lord and live (Amos 5:4,6; cf. V. 14).

To give all the greater emphasis to this command, Amos depicts God in v. 13 as the Almighty and Omniscient, who creates prosperity and adversity.

The predicates applied to God are to be regarded as explanations of µyhila’ , prepare to meet thy God; for it is He who formeth mountains, etc., i.e., the Almighty, and also He who maketh known to man mahseechow, what man thinketh, not what God thinketh, since seeach = jæyci is not applicable to God, and is only used ironically of Baal in 1 Kings 18:27.

The thought is this: God is the searcher of the heart (Jer 17:10; Ps 139:2), and reveals to men by prophets the state of their heart, since He judges not only the outward actions, but the inmost emotions of the heart (cf. Heb 4:12). `hp;y[e rjævæ `hc;[; might mean, He turns morning dawn into darkness, since `hc;[; may be construed with the accusative of that into which anything is made (compare Ex 30:25, and the similar thought in Amos 5:8, that God darkens the day into night).

But both of these arguments simply prove the possibility of this explanation, not that it is either necessary or correct. As a rule, where `hc;[; occurs, the thing into which anything is made is introduced with l] (cf. Gen 12:2; Ex 32:10). Here, therefore, l] may be omitted, simply to avoid ambiguity. For these reasons we agree with Calvin and others, who take the words as asyndeton. God makes morning-dawn and darkness, which is more suitable to a description of the creative omnipotence of God; and the omission of the Vav may be explained very simply from the oratorical character of the prophecy. To this there is appended the last statement: He passes along over the high places of the earth, i.e., He rules the earth with unlimited omnipotence (see at Deut 32:13), and manifests Himself thereby as the God of the universe, or God of hosts. THE OVERTHROW OF THE KINGDOM OF THE TEN TRIBES The elegy, which the prophet commences in v. 2, upon the fall of the daughter of Israel, forms the theme of the admonitory addresses in these two chapters. These addresses, which are divided into four parts by the admonitions, “Seek Jehovah, and live,” in vv. 4 and 6, “Seek good” in v. 14, and the two woes (hooi) in ch. 5: 18 and Amos 6:1, have no other purpose than this, to impress upon the people of God the impossibility of averting the threatened destruction, and to take away from the self- secure sinners the false foundations of their trust, by setting the demands of God before them once more. In every one of these sections, therefore, the proclamation of the judgment returns again, and that in a form of greater and greater intensity, till it reaches to the banishment of the whole nation, and the overthrow of Samaria and the kingdom (Amos 5:27; 6:8ff.).

AMOS. 5:1-3

The Elegy. “Hear ye this word, which I raise over you; a lamentation, O house of Israel. The virgin Israel is fallen; she does not rise up again; cast down upon her soil; no one sets her up. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, The city that goes out by a thousand will retain a hundred, and that which goes out by a hundred will retain ten, for the house of Israel.” hz, rb;d; is still further defined in the relative clause wgw’ rv,a as hn;yqi , a mournful song, lit., a lamentation or dirge for one who is dead (cf. 2 Sam 1:17; 2 Chron 35:25). rv,a is a relative pronoun, not a conjunction (for); and qiinâh is an explanatory apposition: which I raise or commence as (or “namely”) a lamentation. “House of Israel” is synonymous with “house of Joseph” (v. 6), hence Israel of the ten tribes.

The lamentation follows in v. 2, showing itself to be a song by the rhythm and by its poetical form. lpæn; , to fall, denotes a violent death (2 Sam 1:19,25), and is here a figure used to denote the overthrow or destruction of the kingdom. The expression virgin Israel (an epexegetical genitive, not “of Israel”) rests upon a poetical personification of the population of a city or of a kingdom, as a daughter, and wherever the further idea of being unconquered is added, as a virgin (see at Isa 23:12). Here, too, the term “virgin” is used to indicate the contrast between the overthrow predicted and the original destination of Israel, as the people of God, to be unconquered by any heathen nation whatever. The second clause of the verse strengthens the first. niTash, to be stretched out or cast down, describes the fall as a violent overthrow. The third verse does not form part of the lamentation, but gives a brief, cursory vindication of it by the announcement that Israel will perish in war, even to a very small remnant. ax;y; refers to their marching out to war, and ãl,a, , ha;me is subordinated to it, as a more precise definition of the manner in which they marched out (cf. Ewald, §279, b).

AMOS. 5:4-9

The short, cursory explanation of the reason for the lamentation opened here, is followed in vv. 4ff. by the more elaborate proof, that Israel has deserved to be destroyed, because it has done the very opposite of what God demands of His people. God requires that they should seek Him, and forsake idolatry, in order to live (vv. 4-6); but Israel on the contrary, turns right into unrighteousness, without fearing the almighty God and His judgment (vv. 7-9). This unrighteousness God must punish (vv. 10-12).

Verse 4-6. “For thus saith Jehovah to the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and live. And seek not Bethel, and come not to Gilgal, and go not over to Beersheba: for Gilgal repays it with captivity, and Bethel comes to nought. Seek Jehovah, and live; that He fall not upon the house of Joseph like fire, and it devour, and there be none to quench it for Bethel.” The kii in v. 4 is co-ordinate to that in v. 3, “Seek me, and live,” for “Seek me, so shall ye live.”

For this meaning of two imperatives, following directly the one upon the other, see Gesenius, §130, 2, and Ewald, §347, b. hy;j; , not merely to remain alive, not to perish, but to obtain possession of true life. God can only be sought, however, in His revelation, or in the manner in which He wishes to be sought and worshipped. This explains the antithesis, “Seek not Bethel,” etc. In addition to Bethel and Gilgal (see at Amos 4:4), Beersheba, which was in the southern part of Judah, is also mentioned here, being the place where Abraham had called upon the Lord (Gen 21:33), and where the Lord had appeared to Isaac and Jacob (Gen 26:24 and 46:1; see also at Gen 21:31). These sacred reminiscences from the olden time had caused Beersheba to be made into a place of idolatrous worship, to which the Israelites went on pilgrimage beyond the border of their own kingdom `rbæ[; ).

But visiting these idolatrous places of worship did no good, for the places themselves would be given up to destruction. Gilgal would wander into captivity (an expression used here on account of the similarity in the ring of lG;l]Gi and hl,G, hl,G, ). Bethel would become ‘âven, that is to say, not “an idol” here, but “nothingness,” though there is an allusion to the change of Beth-el (God’s house) into Beth-’âven (an idol-house; see at Hos 4:15).

The Judaean Beersheba is passed over in the threat, because the primary intention of Amos is simply to predict the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes. After this warning the prophet repeats the exhortation to seek Jehovah, and adds this threatening, “that Jehovah come not like fire upon the house of Joseph” (tsâlach, generally construed with ‘al or ‘el, cf.

Judg 14:19; 15:14; 1 Sam 10:6; here with an accusative, to fall upon a person), “and it (the fire) devour, without there being any to extinguish it for Bethel.” Bethel, as the chief place of worship in Israel, is mentioned here for the kingdom itself, which is called the “house of Joseph,” from Joseph the father of Ephraim, the most powerful tribe in that kingdom.

To add force to this warning, Amos (vv. 7-9) exhibits the moral corruption of the Israelites, in contrast with the omnipotence of Jehovah as it manifests itself in terrible judgments.

Verse 7-9. “They that change right into wormwood, and bring righteousness down to the earth. He that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning, and darkeneth day to night: that calleth to the waters of the sea, and poureth them over the surface of the earth; Jehovah is His name.

Who causeth desolation to flash upon the strong, and desolation cometh upon the fortress.” The sentences in vv. 7 and 8 are written without any connecting link. The participle in v. 7 cannot be taken as an address, for it is carried on in the third person (hinniichuu), not in the second. And hahoophekhiim (who turn) cannot be in apposition to Beth-el, since the latter refers not to the inhabitants, but to the houses.

As Amos is generally fond of a participial construction (cf. Amos 2:7; 4:13), so in a spirited address he likes to utter the thoughts one after another without any logical link of connection. As a matter of fact, hahoophekhiim is connected with beeth-yooseeph (the house of Joseph), “Seek the Lord, ye of the house of Joseph, who turn right into wrong;” but instead of this connection, he proceeds with a simple description, They are turning,” etc. La’anâh, wormwood, a bitter plant, is a figurative term denoting bitter wrong (cf. Amos 6:12), the actions of men being regarded, according to Deut 29:17, as the fruits of their state of mind. Laying righteousness on the ground (hinniiach from nuuach) answers to our “trampling under feet.” Hitzig has correctly explained the train of thought in vv. 7 and 8: “They do this, whereas Jehovah is the Almighty, and can bring destruction suddenly upon them.”

To show this antithesis, the article which takes the place of the relative is omitted from the participles ‘ooseeh and hoopheekh. The description of the divine omnipotence commences with the creation of the brightly shining stars; then follow manifestations of this omnipotence, which are repeated in the government of the world. Kiimâh, lit., the crowd, is the group of seven stars, the constellation of the Pleiades. Kesiil, the gate, according to the ancient versions the giant, is the constellation of Orion. The two are mentioned together in Job 9:9 and 38:31 (see Delitzsch on the latter). And He also turns the darkest night into morning, and darkens the day into night again. These words refer to the regular interchange of day and night; for tsalmâveth, the shadow of death, i.e., thick darkness, never denotes the regularly recurring gloominess of night, but the appalling gloom of night (Job 24:17), more especially of the night of death (Job 3:5; 10:21-22; 38:17; Ps 44:20), the unlighted depth of the heart of the earth (Job 28:3), the darkness of the prison (Ps 107:10,14), also of wickedness (Job 12:22; 34:22), of sufferings (Job 16:16; Jer 13:16; Ps 23:4), and of spiritual misery (Isa 9:1). Consequently the words point to the judicial rule of the Almighty in the world. As the Almighty turns the darkness of death into light, and the deepest misery into prosperity and health, so He darkens the bright day of prosperity into the dark night of adversity, and calls to the waters of the sea to pour themselves over the earth like the flood, and to destroy the ungodly. The idea that by the waters of the sea, which pour themselves out at the call of God over the surface of the earth, we are to understand the moisture which rises from the sea and then falls upon the earth as rain, no more answers to the words themselves, than the idea expressed by Hitzig, that they refer to the water of the rivers and brooks, which flow out of the sea as well as into it (Eccl 1:7). The words suggest the thought of terrible inundations of the earth by the swelling of the sea, and the allusion to the judgment of the flood can hardly be overlooked.

This judicial act of the Almighty, no strong man and no fortress can defy.

With the swiftness of lightning He causes desolation to smite the strong man. Bâlag, lit., micare, used in the Arabic to denote the lighting up of the rays of the dawn, hiphil to cause to light up, is applied here to motion with the swiftness of lightning; it is also employed in a purely metaphorical sense for the lighting up of the countenance (Ps. 39:14; Job 9:27; 10:20).

In v. 9b the address is continued in a descriptive form; awOB has not a causative meaning. The two clauses of this verse point to the fate which awaits the Israelites who trust in their strength and their fortifications (Amos 6:13). And yet they persist in unrighteousness.

AMOS. 5:10-12

“They hate the monitor in the gate, and abhor him that speaketh uprightly. Therefore, because ye tread upon the poor, and take the distribution of corn from him, ye have built houses of square stones, and will not dwell therein; planted pleasant vineyards, and will not drink their wine. For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great your sins; oppressing the righteous, taking atonement money; and ye bow down the poor in the gate.” However natural it may seem to take jkæy; and µymiT; rbæd; in v. 10 as referring to prophets, who charge the ungodly with their acts of unrighteousness, as Jerome does, this explanation is precluded not only by bassha’ar (in the gate), since the gate was not the meeting-place of the people where the prophets were accustomed to stand, but the place where courts of judgment were held, and all the public affairs of the community discussed (see at Deut 21:19); but also by the first half of v. 11, which presupposes judicial proceedings.

Mookhiiach is not merely the judge who puts down unjust accusers, but any one who lifts up his voice in a court of justice against acts of injustice (as in Isa 29:21). µymiT; rbæd; , he who says what is blameless, i.e., what is right and true: this is to be taken generally, and not to be restricted to the accused who seeks to defend his innocence. b[eTi is a stronger expression than anec; . The punishment for this unjust oppression of the poor will be the withdrawal of their possessions. The hap leg. booshees is a dialectically different form for ssewOb , from sWB, to trample down (Rashi, Kimchi), analogous to the interchange of ˆwOyr]vi and ˆwOyr]si , a coat of mail, although as a rule hc, passes into s , and not s into hc, . For the derivation from vWB, according to which svwb would stand for vvwb (Hitzig and Tuch on Gen. p. 85), is opposed both to the construction with `l[æ , and also to the circumstance that bowsheesh means to delay (Ex 32:1; Judg 5:28); and the derivation suggested by Hitzig from an Arabic verb, signifying to carry one’s self haughtily towards others, is a mere loophole.

Taking a gift of corn from the poor refers to unjust extortion on the part of the judge, who will only do justice to a poor man when he is paid for it.

The main clause, which was introduced with lâkheen, is continued with tyziG; tyiBæ : “thus have ye built houses of square stones, and shall not dwell therein;” for “ye shall not dwell in the houses of square stones which ye have built.” The threat is taken from Deut 28:30,39, and sets before them the plundering of the land and the banishment of the people. Houses built of square stones are splendid buildings (see Isa 9:9). The reason for this threat is given in v. 12, where reference is made to the multitude and magnitude of the sins, of which injustice in the administration of justice is again held up as the chief sin. The participles rræx; and jqæl; are attached to the suffixes of [væp, and ha;F;jæ : your sins, who oppress the righteous, attack him, and take atonement money, contrary to the express command of the law in Num 35:31, to take no koopher for the soul of a murderer.

The judges allowed the rich murderer to purchase exemption from capital punishment by the payment of atonement money, whilst they bowed down the right of the poor. Observe the transition from the participle to the third person fem., by which the prophet turns away with disgust from these ungodly judges. Bowing down the poor is a concise expression for bowing down the right of the poor: compare Amos 2:7 and the warnings against this sin (Ex 23:6; Deut 16:19).

AMOS. 5:13-17

With the new turn that all talking is useless, Amos repeats the admonition to seek good and hate evil, if they would live and obtain favour with God (vv. 13-15); and then appends the threat that deep mourning will arise on every hand, since God is drawing near to judgment. V. 13. “Therefore, whoever has prudence at this time is silent, for it is an evil time.” As lâkheen (therefore) always introduces the threatening of divine punishment after the exposure of the sins (cf. vv. 11, 16; Amos 6:7; 4:12; 3:11), we might be disposed to connect v. 13 with the preceding verse; but the contents of the verse require that it should be taken in connection with what follows, so that lâkheen simply denote the close connection of the two turns of speech, i.e., indicates that the new command in vv. 14, 15 is a consequence of the previous warnings. Hammaskiil, the prudent man, he who acts wisely, is silent. aWh `t[e , at a time such as this is, because it is an evil time, not however “a dangerous time to speak, on account of the malignity of those in power,” but a time of moral corruption, in which all speaking and warning are of no avail. It is opposed to the context to refer aWh `t[e to the future, i.e., to the time when God will come to punish, in which case the silence would be equivalent to not murmuring against God (Rashi and others). At the same time, love to his people, and zeal for their deliverance, impel the prophet to repeat his call to them to return.

Verse 14-15. “Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live; and so Jehovah the God of hosts may be with you, as ye say. Hate evil, and love good, and set up justice in the gate; perhaps Jehovah the God of hosts will show favour to the remnant of Joseph.” The command to seek and love good is practically the same as that to seek the Lord in vv. 4, 6; and therefore the promise is the same, “that ye may live.” But it is only in fellowship with God that man has life. This truth the Israelites laid hold of in a perfectly outward sense, fancying that they stood in fellowship with God by virtue of their outward connection with the covenant nation as sons of Israel or Abraham (cf. John 8:39), and that the threatened judgment could not reach them, but that God would deliver them in every time of oppression by the heathen (cf. Mic 3:11; Jer 7:10).

Amos meets this delusion with the remark, “that Jehovah may be so with you as ye say.” ˆKe neither means “in case ye do so” (Rashi, Baur), nor “in like manner as, i.e., if ye strive after good” (Hitzig).

Neither of these meanings can be established, and here they are untenable, for the simple reason that ˆKe unmistakeably corresponds with the following rv,a . It means nothing more than “so as ye say.” The thought is the following: “Seek good, and not evil: then will Jehovah the God of the heavenly hosts be with you as a helper in distress, so as ye say.” This implied that in their present condition, so long as they sought good, they ought not to comfort themselves with the certainty of Jehovah’s help.

Seeking good is explained in v. 15 as loving good, and this is still further defined as setting up justice in the gate, i.e., maintaining a righteous administration of justice at the place of judgment; and to this the hope, so humiliating to carnal security, is attached: perhaps God will then show favour to the remnant of the people. The emphasis in these words is laid as much upon perhaps as upon the remnant of Joseph. The expression “perhaps He will show favour” indicates that the measure of Israel’s sins was full, and no deliverance could be hoped for if God were to proceed to act according to His righteousness.

The “remnant of Joseph” does not refer to “the existing condition of the ten tribes” (Ros., Hitzig). For although Hazael and Benhadad had conquered the whole of the land of Gilead in the times of Jehu and Jehoahaz, and had annihilated the Israelitish army with the exception of a very small remnant (2 Kings 10:32-33; 13:3,7), Joash and Jeroboam II had recovered from the Syrians all the conquered territory, and restored the kingdom to its original bounds (2 Kings 13:23ff., 14:26-28). Consequently Amos could not possibly describe the state of the kingdom of the ten tribes in the time of Jeroboam II as “the remnant of Joseph.” As the Syrians had not attempted any deportation, the nation of the ten tribes during the reign of Jeroboam was still, or was once more, all Israel. If, therefore, Amos merely holds out the possibility of the favouring of the remnant of Joseph, he thereby gives distinctly to understand, that in the approaching judgment Israel will perish with the exception of a remnant, which may possibly be preserved after the great chastisement (cf. v. 3), just as Joel (Joel 3:5) and Isaiah (Isa 6:13; 10:21-23) promise only the salvation of a remnant to the kingdom of Judah.

Verse 16-17. This judgment is announced in vv. 16, 17.

Verse 16-17. “Therefore thus saith Jehovah the God of hosts, the Lord: In all roads lamentation! and in all streets will men say, Alas! alas! and they call the husbandman to mourning, and lamentation to those skilled in lamenting. And in all vineyards lamentation, because I go through the midst of thee, saith Jehovah.” Lâkheen (therefore) is not connected with the admonitions in vv. 14, 15, nor can it point back to the reproaches in vv. 7, 10-12, since they are too far off: it rather links on to the substance of v. 13, which involves the thought that all admonition to return is fruitless, and the ungodly still persist in their unrighteousness-a thought which also forms the background of vv. 14, 15. The meaning of vv. 16, 17 is, that mourning and lamentation for the dead will fill both city and land. On every hand will there be dead to weep for, because Jehovah will go judging through the land.

The roads and streets are not merely those of the capital, although these are primarily to be thought of, but those of all the towns in the kingdom.

Mispeed is the death-wail. This is evident from the parallel ‘âmar hoo hoo, saying, Alas, alas! i.e., striking up the death-wail (cf. Jer 22:18). And this death-wail will not be heard in all the streets of the towns only, but the husbandman will also be called from the field to mourn, i.e., to seep for one who has died in his house. The verb ar;q; , they call, belongs to y’ lae dPes]mi , they call lamentation to those skilled in mourning: for they call out the word mispeed to the professional mourners; in other words, they send for them to strike up their wailing for the dead. yhin] [dæy; (those skilled in mourning) are the public wailing women, who were hired when a death occurred to sing mourning songs (compare Jer 9:16; Matt 9:23, and my Bibl. Archäologie, ii. p. 105).

Even in all the vineyards, the places where rejoicing is generally looked for (v. 11; Isa 16:10), the death-wail will be heard. V. 17b mentions the event which occasions the lamentation everywhere. yKi , for (not “if”) I go through the midst of thee. These words are easily explained from Ex 12:12, from which Amos has taken them. Jehovah there says to Moses, “I pass through the land of Egypt, and smite all the first-born.” And just as the Lord once passed through Egypt, so will He now pass judicially through Israel, and slay the ungodly. For Israel is no longer the nation of the covenant, which He passes over and spares (Amos 7:8; 8:2), but has become an Egypt, which He will pass through as a judge to punish it. This threat is carried out still further in the next two sections, commencing with hooi. AMOS 5:18-20 The first turn.

Verse 18-20. “Woe to those who desire the day of Jehovah! What good is the day of Jehovah to you? It is darkness, and not light. As if a man fleeth before the lion, and the bear meets him; and he comes into the house, and rests his hand upon the wall, and the snake bites him. Alas! is not the day of Jehovah darkness, and not light; and gloom, and no brightness in it?” As the Israelites rested their hope of deliverance from every kind of hostile oppression upon their outward connection with the covenant nation (v. 14); many wished the day to come, on which Jehovah would judge all the heathen, and redeem Israel out of all distress, and exalt it to might and dominion above all nations, and bless it with honour and glory, applying the prophecy of Joel in ch. 3 without the least reserve to Israel as the nation of Jehovah, and without considering that, according to Joel 2:32, those only would be saved on the day of Jehovah who called upon the name of the Lord, and were called by the Lord, i.e., were acknowledged by the Lord as His own.

These infatuated hopes, which confirmed the nation in the security of its life of sin, are met by Amos with an exclamation of woe upon those who long for the day of Jehovah to come, and with the declaration explanatory of the woe, that that day is darkness and not light, and will bring them nothing but harm and destruction, and not prosperity and salvation. He explains this in v. 19 by a figure taken from life. To those who wish the day of Jehovah to come, the same thing will happen as to a man who, when fleeing from a lion, meets a bear, etc. The meaning is perfectly clear: whoever would escape one danger, falls into a second; and whoever escapes this, falls into a third, and perishes therein. The serpent’s bite in the hand is fatal. “In that day every place is full of danger and death; neither indoors nor out-of-doors is any one safe: for out-of-doors lions and bears prowl about, and in-doors snakes lie hidden, even in the holes of the walls” (C. a. Lap.). After this figurative indication of the sufferings and calamities which the day of the Lord will bring, Amos once more repeats in v. 20, in a still more emphatic manner (halo’, nonne = assuredly), that it will be no day of salvation, sc. to those who seek evil and not good, and trample justice and righteousness under foot (vv. 14, 15). AMOS 5:21-24 This threatening judgment will not be averted by the Israelites, even by their feasts and sacrifices (vv. 21, 22). The Lord has no pleasure in the feasts which they celebrate. Their outward, heartless worship, does not make them into the people of God, who can count upon His grace.

Verse 21-24. “I hate, I despise your feasts, and do not like to smell your holy days. For if ye offer me burnt-offerings, and your meat-offerings, I have no pleasure therein; and the thank-offering of your fatted calves I do not regard. Put away from me the noise of thy songs; and I do not like to hear the playing of thy harps.

And let judgment roll like water, and righteousness like an inexhaustible stream.” By the rejection of the opus operatum of the feasts and sacrifices, the roots are cut away from the false reliance of the Israelites upon their connection with the people of God. The combination of the words saæm; anec; expresses in the strongest terms the dislike of God to the feasts of those who were at enmity with Him. Chaggiim are the great annual feasts; ‘atsârooth, the meetings for worship at those feasts, inasmuch as a holy meeting took place at the ‘atsereth of the feast of Passover and feast of Tabernacles (see at Lev 23:36).

Riiach, to smell, is an expression of satisfaction, with an allusion to the jæwOjyni jæyre , which ascended to God from the burning sacrifice (see Lev 26:31). Kii, in v. 22, is explanatory: “for,” not “yea.” The observance of the feast culminated in the sacrificers. God did not like the feasts, because He had no pleasure in the sacrifices. In v. 23a the two kinds of sacrifice, ‘oolâh and minchâh, are divided between the protasis and apodosis, which gives rise to a certain incongruity. The sentences, if written fully, would read thus: When ye offer me burnt-offerings and meat-offerings, I have no pleasure in your burnt-offerings and meat-offerings. To these two kinds the shelem, the health-offering or peace-offering, is added as a third class in v. 22b. ayrim] , fattened things, generally mentioned along with bâqâr as one particular species, for fattened calves (see Isa 1:11).

In rWs (v. 23) Israel is addressed as a whole. ryvi ˆwOmh; , the noise of thy songs, answers to the strong expression rWs . The singing of their psalms is nothing more to God than a wearisome noise, which is to be brought to an end. Singing and playing upon harps formed part of the temple worship (vid., 1 Chron 16:40; 23:5, and 25). Isaiah (Isa 1:11ff.) also refuses the heartless sacrifice and worship of the people, who have fallen away from God in their hearts. It is very clear from the sentence which Amos pronounces here, that the worship at Bethel was an imitation of the temple service at Jerusalem. If, therefore, with Amos 6:1 in view, where the careless upon Mount Zion and in Samaria are addressed, we are warranted in assuming that here also the prophet has the worship in Judah in his mind as well; the words apply primarily and chiefly to the worship of the kingdom of the ten tribes, and therefore even in that case they prove that, with regard to ritual, it was based upon the model of the temple service at Jerusalem. Because the Lord has no pleasure in this hypocritical worship, the judgment shall pour like a flood over the land.