HOSEA - CHAPTER 13
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2002 James Melough
13:1.
“When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he
offended in Baal, he died.”
The first clause of this verse
means that when Ephraim obeyed God he spoke with the voice of authority so
that the people feared to disobey him. His obedience to God ensured blessing,
and caused him to be exalted or looked up to in Israel. But all of that ended
when he turned from the path of obedience, and worshiped Baal. The Divine
blessing ceased, and Ephraim not only lost his preeminent place in Israel: he
also incurred the sentence of death, which was about to be executed in his
being carried captive into Assyria, for that generation actually died in
Assyria.
The practical lesson to be
learnt from his experience is that whether the disobedience be that of a man,
a tribe, or a nation, it brings death.
13:2.
“And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their
silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of
the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.”
One sin leads to another,
until eventually all fear of God disappears, and there is no limit to the sin
that will be committed without compunction. This had been the case with the
ten tribes (Israel), and eventually also with Judah. They took the silver
with which Jehovah had blessed them, and had craftsmen make it into the shapes
of gods according to their own concept of what those gods should look like.
A common form of idol was that
of a calf, the original idea having been conceived by Jeroboam when he set up
the golden calves at Bethel and Gilgal, in an effort to keep the people from
going to Jerusalem to worship.
“Let the men that sacrifice
kiss the calves” is understood by more than a few translators to mean that the
idolatry included human sacrifice, e.g., “They that sacrifice men kiss
calves,” Jewish Publication Society, and “Those who kiss calf images
offer human sacrifice,” The New English Bible. There is no limit to
the depths of sin into which apostates may plunge. Were it not written in
Scripture, it would be impossible to believe that the nation which had once
worshiped Jehovah in holiness, should now be sacrificing their own children to
idols.
Polite euphemisms such as
“terminating the pregnancy” are used today in Christendom to cover up the
immolation of countless thousands of unborn babies to the goddess Lust, simply
to avoid the consequences of sin! And in China the same slaughter is used to
serve the interests of economic expediency by controlling population growth.
As the judgment of God fell upon rebellious Israel, so will it just as
certainly fall upon today’s wicked world, only sin-blinded eyes failing to see
that that day of judgment is almost here.
13:3.
“Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that
passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the
(threshing) floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.”
The morning cloud and the
early dew speak of what Israel might have been. The cloud suspended in the
air is a figure of believers living in separation from an evil world, and such
was Israel when first redeemed and walking with God in the desert towards
Canaan. The early dew, watering the earth and making it fruitful, portrays
believers bringing blessing to the earth through their witness in the gospel.
It was God’s intention that Israel should have been the equivalent of that
early dew, but sadly she never fulfilled the Divine expectation.
Nor has God chosen His
metaphors haphazardly. The morning cloud suspended in the air, the realm of
the Spirit, speaks of what man is spiritually; the dew, lying on the ground,
speaks of what he is physically.
As previously noted, however,
Israel’s history is but the prewritten history of the Church and of apostate
Christendom, which have also failed to walk in separation from an evil world,
and which have also failed to bring blessing to the world through an effective
witness in the gospel.
Having used the morning cloud
and the dew as metaphors of what Israel’s spiritual state might have been, God
now uses two very different symbols to portray what she had become. Chaff is
the biblical symbol of what is worthless, while the whirlwind represents
Divine judgment. By her apostasy Israel had made herself worthless both to
God and to man, and was about to be carried away in judgment.
“... out of the (threshing)
floor,” (symbol of the land of Canaan) where she might have remained as a heap
of wheat for God’s glory, and man’s blessing, she was about to be carried out
of the land, into captivity in Assyria. Canaan’s being represented by the
threshing floor reminds us that Israel’s tenure in the land was a time of
testing, Jehovah separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were. So is it
also with every man’s life here on earth: it too is God’s threshing floor
where he separates the precious from the vile; the unconverted, like chaff,
being carried away by death out into eternal torment; believers, like wheat,
being gathered into God’s barn, heaven, to enjoy eternal blessing.
“... as the smoke out of the
chimney.” Smoke is the evidence of the presence of fire. As a result of
God’s wrath, portrayed here by fire, Israel would become as smoke carried out
of the house through the chimney, the sole purpose of a chimney being to carry
away the smoke, so that the occupants of the house may enjoy the benefits of
the fire without having to suffer the discomfort caused by the smoke.
Israel’s folly had reduced her to the equivalent of smoke: she had become an
offence to God and man, and as a result was about to be carried captive out of
the “house.”
And again, God has chosen His
metaphors carefully. Chaff, which is the product of the earth, represents
what the unconverted man is physically; smoke, what he is spiritually - a
useless offence to God and men.
13:4.
“Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god
but me: for there is no savior beside me.”
This is not saying that God’s
dealings with them had begun just at the time He had delivered them from
Egyptian bondage. His dealings with them went all the way back, not just to
the days of Abram, but to Adam. Before time began God foreknew all about
Israel, as He does about every man. Having gone down into Egypt as a family
in the days of Jacob, they had multiplied into a nation, and it was God’s
relationship with them as a nation that is being emphasized here. In the
miracles performed in connection with their deliverance from Egypt, He had
demonstrated the extent of His power, that demonstration culminating in His
destruction of all the might of Egypt at the Red Sea. Added to that
demonstration of His power was His dealings with them during the forty years
in the wilderness, during which He miraculously provided them with bread in
the form of manna, and with water from the smitten rock. His guidance and
protecting care were further revealed by the miraculous manner in which He
furnished that guidance and protection: the pillar of cloud by day, and the
pillar of fire by night. Added to these evidences of His power and loving
care was His miraculous division of the overflowing Jordan to permit them
dry-shod crossing into Canaan.
No people could have been
given clearer evidence of Jehovah’s might and power and loving care, but they
had forgotten all this, and had turned from Him to offer their worship to
idols - the figments of their own deluded minds, given tangible form by the
work of human craftsmen shaping molten metal: dumb idols incapable of
anything, yet by the stupidity of apostate Israel, endowed with power superior
to that of Jehovah! Had sin not blinded their minds they ought to have known
that no one but Him could save them, but sadly, their unwillingness to repent
had carried them beyond the line which divides His mercy from His wrath, and
now they must perish in spite of His power to save, for He will not save the
unrepentant.
13:5.
“I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.”
In the present context “know”
goes far beyond mere acquaintanceship, and is more accurately translated
“owned,” in conjunction with loving tender care. During all the years in the
wilderness God acknowledged Israel as His people, His love for them being
demonstrated daily in His faithful provision and watchful protection. But
sadly, rebellious Israel had forgotten all this.
13:6.
“According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their
heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.”
Though they were in the
parched wilderness, such was God’s gracious provision for them and their
cattle that it was as though they were in a place of lush pasture, so that
they lacked nothing; but gradually they came to take all of this for granted,
as though it were their due, so that they became arrogant and proud, and
forgot their Benefactor.
Some take verse six to be
descriptive of the abundance of Canaan.
Christendom has followed all
too faithfully in Israel’s ungrateful footsteps, and is also about to exchange
God’s blessing for His judgment.
13:7.
“Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I
observe them:”
Having exhausted God’s
patience, they were now about to experience His wrath. Having ignored Him as
their Benefactor, they were about to learn to dread His fierce anger as He
became unto them like a lion Having been their Protector, He was now about
to become their Destroyer. And so is it with Christendom. He Who came two
thousand years ago as the Lamb Who died to make possible the remission of
their sin, is about to return as the mighty Lion of Judah, banishing every
unbeliever into hell, inaugurating His millennial kingdom, and ruling the
nations with a rod of iron.
As the lion is synonymous with
destructive power, so is the leopard the epitome of stealth and keen
sightedness. While the lion frequently panics his prey with his roar, the
leopard almost invariably pounces without warning. Jehovah was about to
become as a leopard to Israel, His all seeing eye missing no detail of their
sin, His destruction of them coming with the swiftness of a leopard’s spring.
And again, what befell sinful Israel in the days of Hosea, is also about to
befall equally sinful Christendom, as it is written, “For yourselves know
perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For
when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon
them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape,” 1 Th
5:2-3.
13:8.
“I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the
caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast
shall tear them.”
Few creatures are more
dangerous than a bear robbed of her cubs, so that Jehovah’s likening Himself
to such a bear in His dealings with rebel Israel, conveys something of the
fierceness of His anger. He is a fool who ignores, not only the warning
recorded here, but recorded also in Heb 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God.”
“Caul” is used here of the
breast as that which encloses the heart. God’s tearing their breasts is a
figure of speech meaning that He will destroy them without mercy as would a
lion or other voracious beast.
Dr Harry Ironside sees, and
not without reason, a connection between the animals mentioned here: the lion,
the bear, the leopard, and “the wild beast,” and Daniel chapter 7 where they
represent Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome respectively, the wild beast
representing Rome not only in the past, but also in the future, when the Roman
beast emperor will be the fierce persecutor of believing Jews and Gentiles in
the Tribulation.
13:9.
“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.”
The American Standard Version
renders this, “It is thy destruction, O Israel, that thou art against me,
against thy help.” God is the Source of all help, so that he who chooses to
oppose Him ensures his own destruction. That is exactly what Israel had done,
and what Christendom is doing, as does every man who refuses to confess
himself a sinner, and trust in Christ as his only Savior.
13:10.
“I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities?
and thy judges of whom thou saidest, Give me a king and princes?”
This seems to refer to
Israel’s sin in the time of Samuel when they rejected God’s government, and
demanded a king so that they would be like all the nations, and God gave them
Saul whose tyrannous rule ended in his suicide and Israel’s utter defeat at
the hand of the Philistines, 1 Sa 8 and 31. That experience with their first
king ought to have warned them against putting their trust in any mortal
king. But they had failed to heed the lesson, and having rejected Jehovah in
even fuller measure by worshiping the Baalim, they had run to Egypt and
Assyria for help, but in vain, for the God they ignored delivered them into
the hand of the very king they had looked to for aid!
Apostate Christendom has aped
Israel’s folly, for she has not only rejected God’s rule, but in the fast
approaching Tribulation will place her trust in the Roman beast emperor, only
to be destroyed with him and his armies gathered against Christ at Armageddon.
13:11.
“I gave thee a king in mine anger and took him away in my wrath.”
The reference is clearly to
God’s having given them Saul as their king, and His having taken him away when
He caused him to perish at Gilboa fighting against the Philistines, 1 Sa 31.
A careful study of Saul
reveals that he is a type of the Tribulation age beast ruler, and as Saul’s
reign ended amid destruction, in preparation for the reign of David, so will
that of the beast end amid the destruction of the present world order in
preparation for the inauguration of Christ’s millennial kingdom.
Some understand the given king
to be both Saul and Jeroboam.
13:12.
“The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.”
Taylor translates this verse,
“Ephraim’s sins are harvested and stored away for punishment,” and the NEB
renders it, “Ephraim’s guilt is tied up in a scroll, his sins are kept on
record.”
As it was with the Israel of
Hosea’s day, so is it also with apostate Christendom, and with every
individual who has not trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. A fearful
day of reckoning awaits all whose sins have not been blotted out by that
precious blood shed at Calvary. All such sin is recorded in God’s books, and
will receive an appropriate measure of punishment to be endured eternally in
the lake of fire, see Re 20:12-15, “And I saw the (unbelieving) dead, small
and great, stand before God; and the books were opened ... and the dead were
judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their
works.... And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire.”
It shouldn’t be forgotten,
however, that a record is also being kept of every believer’s life - not of
his sins, which have all been blotted out by Christ’s precious blood, but of
his service so that a just eternal recompense may be given by the Lord on that
day when we stand at His judgment seat.
13:13.
“The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son;
for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.”
Moffatt translates this as,
“The pangs of childbirth are here, but a senseless babe is he, he will not
come to the womb’s mouth at the right moment,” and the NAB translates it, “The
birth pangs shall come for him, but he shall be an unwise child; for when it
is time he shall not present himself where children break forth.”
The birth pangs speak of the
coming Assyrian captivity - a judgment meant to bring Israel to repentance and
to life-giving faith in Jehovah - but foolish Israel would refuse to be born
anew, and would instead be carried away out of the land like a stillborn to
burial.
Unquestionably this goes
beyond the Assyrian invasion, and relates also to the coming terrible
Tribulation judgments which will bring a remnant to repentant faith in Christ,
but which will leave the mass of the nation in unbelief, worshiping the beast,
and thus making themselves heirs of judgment.
“... for he should not stay
long in the place of the breaking forth of children,” sounds the warning that
God has set a limit on the time during which one may be born again. Contrary
to the popular idea that one may be saved at a time of his own choosing, God
warns, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of
salvation,” 2 Cor 6:2, adding the further warning, “My Spirit shall not always
strive with man,” Ge 6:3; “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck,
shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy,” Pr 29:1. As discussed
already, Israel had already passed beyond God’s accepted time!
13:14.
“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from
death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction:
repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”
While a few translators render
this interrogatively “Shall I ransom them ... shall I redeem them?” it seems
that the preferable translation is that which accepts it as a declarative
statement. That evil generation would not be ransomed from the power of the
grave, or redeemed from death; but that didn’t mean that the nation must
perish. God would raise up another generation of Israel in which would be
fulfilled all His promises given to the fathers through the prophets. The
statement, however, goes beyond the bringing of Israel into the enjoyment of
millennial blessing. At the final stage of the resurrection of life, which
will occur at the end of Tribulation, God will bring the bodies of the OT and
Tribulation age saints out of the grave, and, uniting them again to their
redeemed souls, will translate them into the eternal bliss of heaven, the
believers of this Church age having already enjoyed that blessed experience at
the Rapture prior to the beginning of the Tribulation.
It is to be noted that the
resurrection of life, i.e., of believers, will be in three parts: Christ the
firstfruits; afterwards the Church age saints, and finally as noted above, the
saints of the OT and Tribulation ages, see 1 Cor 15:22-23, “For as in Adam all
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own
order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his
coming.” Relative to Christ’s coming: there will be first His coming, before
the Tribulation, to rapture Church age saints to heaven, and then His coming
to end the Tribulation and raise the bodies of the OT and deceased Tribulation
age saints, taking them to heaven to be there with us eternally.
That completion of the
resurrection of life will bring the fulfillment of what is written in 1 Cor
15:53-57, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must
put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption,
and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where
is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the
victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is scarcely necessary to
point out that these verses from Corinthians are a virtual repetition of the
verse we are now considering, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will
be thy destruction.” The three stages of the resurrection of life will bring
the fulfillment of this promise.
“... repentance shall be hid
from mine eyes,” sounds the grim warning, however, that the idolatrous,
unrepentant Israel addressed by Hosea, would not inherit the promises of
ultimate deliverance from the power of death and the grave. They had passed
beyond the pale of mercy. Because they had refused to repent, God would not
repent (change His mind) relative to their eternal punishment; nor will
anything ever induce Him to change His decree concerning all who die
unrepentant: their eternal portion will be in the unquenchable flame of the
lake of fire.
13:15.
“Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind
of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become
dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all
pleasant vessels.”
There is a play here on the
meaning of the name by which the ten tribes were sometimes called, for as
noted already, one of the meanings of Ephraim is I shall be doubly fruitful.
The extent of Israel’s literal fruitfulness is indicated in that another
rendering of the first part of this verse is, “Though he flourish like the
reed-plant in the water....” Sadly his spiritual fruitfulness was of the very
opposite character.
The east is the biblical
direction that always speaks of sin and departure from God, and therefore as
here, of Divine judgment. Israel’s literal fruitfulness was about to be
exchanged for the parched unfruitful condition normally associated with the
wilderness. The term spring is generally used of a spring well, and
here it seems to speak of a well which has been opened by digging, so that it
is associated with man’s labor. Fountain on the other hand indicates a spring
bubbling up apart from any human effort, and speaking therefore of Divine
blessing. In the past, God had added His blessing to man’s work by giving
abundant harvests, but now that blessing was to cease, so that in spite of
strenuous effort on Israel’s part the crops would fail so that famine would
succeed plenty.
“... he shall spoil the
treasure of all pleasant vessels,” is taken by some to mean that God would
strip the land of all its treasures, everything of value having to be sold in
order to buy the necessities of life. Others, however, understand it to refer
to the pillaging of the land by the invading Assyrians.
13:16.
“Samaria (capital of the northern kingdom) shall become desolate; for she hath
rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be
dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.”
Rebellion against God is
always attended by terrible consequences. Not only would the once fertile
land become desolate, but the sword in the hand of a merciless foe, Assyria,
would slaughter indiscriminately. Under the judgment of God death would hang
like a pall over the land that had once burgeoned with life and blessing. And
so will it be with this present evil world in the impending Tribulation, the
book of Revelation presenting the appalling picture, not just of one land, but
of the whole world brought to ruin through anarchy, war, famine, disease, and
supernatural disasters far more terrible than anything the earth has ever
known, all past catastrophes paling into insignificance compared with those
which will devastate the Tribulation age earth.
[Hosea 14]