HOSEA - CHAPTER 10
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2002 James Melough
10:1.
“Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to
the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the
goodness of his land they have made goodly images.”
God had brought Israel out of
Egypt, and planted her like a vine in Canaan (Ps 80:8-11), to produce
spiritual fruit for Him, while He blessed her with abundant harvests, but it
hadn’t been long until she had fallen into idolatry.
“Empty” means luxuriant or
abundant in the sense of multiplying or spreading out, but in the present
context it relates spiritually to an abundant production of evil rather than
good. As Jehovah had blessed them with enlarged crops, they had wickedly
given the credit to Baal, and had responded by increasing the number of altars
and images at which they worshiped him, thus insulting their true Benefactor,
and provoking His anger.
While worshiping the Baalim,
Israel also maintained the outward form of worshiping Jehovah, and some see in
the mention of “altars” an allusion to that hypocritical worship, while taking
the “images” to refer to the idolatrous worship.
10:2.
“Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down
their altars, he shall spoil their images.”
Their heart was divided in
that while worshiping the Baalim, they continued to go through the empty ritual
of also worshiping Jehovah, but according Him the place of being just another
god amongst many, of whom they regarded Baal to be the most important.
Christendom is guilty of the same wickedness, for the god she worships and
considers most important is Mammon, followed by Education, followed by the
goddess Pleasure, with God being given only token recognition because He is
considered of very little importance. But as Jehovah overthrew Israel’s
altars, and destroyed their images, so will He just as surely do the same
with Christendom’s altars and false gods, that destruction coming during the
quickly approaching Tribulation era.
“Faulty” means to be guilty
and thus deserving of punishment or destruction.
A divided heart is the root
cause of all failure in the Christian’s life. When we begin to love the world
and the things that belong to it, our love for Christ cools, with the result
that our zeal ebbs, our interest in spiritual things diminishes; and unless
restored by God’s grace, we will make the same ruin of our lives as did Israel
long ago. As Dr Harry Ironside has very aptly commented, “A single heart for
God’s glory is the prime necessity for a holy life.”
10:3.
“For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what
then should a king do to us?”
God looked to the day, then
very near, when they would be led captive into Assyria, and would realize that
their having no king of their own to rule them would be because they had
refused Jehovah control of their lives, the hopelessness of their plight
causing them to acknowledge that even if they had a king he would be powerless
to help them. In Ro 8:31 it is written, “If God be for us, who can be against
us?” The corollary of that truth, however, is that if God be against us, who
can deliver us?
10:4.
“They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment
springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.”
This refers to their seeking
alliances with more powerful nations such as Assyria and Egypt, in an attempt
to protect themselves; but the false swearing relates to the fact that neither
they nor those with whom they entered into agreements could be trusted to keep
their part of the contract. The result of their perfidy would be that there
would be continual need of redefining the terms of the agreements to the point
where those contracts would be as worthless as weeds growing in a plowed
field.
Christendom is to be charged
with the same sin. A contract is no sooner signed than ways are sought in
which to break it, with the result that there is no trust among men, but
rather costly litigation which enriches the lawyers, and angers God.
10:5.
“The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for
the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced
on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.”
Bethel house of God is
here called Beth-aven house of vanity, for what had once been the
center to which the people gathered to worship Jehovah, had become a principal
center of the vile Canaanite fertility cult.
The plural calves is
generally believed to be related to the fact that the golden calf originally
set up there by Jeroboam, had been reproduced and set up as an object of
worship in many other places throughout the land, so that when the one at
Bethel or Beth-aven was carried away by the Assyrian king, it was as though
all of them had also been carried away. The fear and mourning were
undoubtedly due to the fact that the people would then realize too late that
the calf they had worshiped was not only incapable of delivering them, but was
powerless to prevent its own abduction by mere men. In other words it was a
mere idol, and not a god. Well might the people who worshiped the idol, and
the idolatrous priests to whom it was a source of gain, fear and mourn upon
learning, too late for repentance and mercy, that by their idolatry, they had
been guilty of angering Jehovah, the only true God, and now must perish at His
hand.
So will it be with the
unbelieving inhabitants of earth on the day when Christ returns in power and
glory to end the Tribulation, and execute judgment prior to the inauguration
of His millennial kingdom, that terrible day of judgment being itself but a
figure of earth’s final day of judgment when the unbelievers of all the ages
are arraigned at the Great White Throne and are cast from thence into eternal
torment in the unquenchable flame of the lake of fire.
10:6.
“It shall also be carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim
shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.”
As noted already, Jareb is
unknown as the name of any king, but its meaning let him contend
indicates that it may have been simply a general term used to describe the
militancy of the Assyrian rulers.
Ephraim’s receiving shame
speaks of the shame that will embarrass every individual Israelite, while
Israel’s being ashamed of having heeded the foolish counsel that ever led them
away from Jehovah, speaks of the shame they will suffer as their national
existence is thus brought to an ignominious end, and they become the captives
of a heathen nation.
10:7.
“As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.”
Samaria was the capital and
center of government of the northern kingdom, but all of that was about to be
swept away, the king (Hoshea) who had so arrogantly defied Jehovah, being
likened unto a fleck of foam or a little chip of wood floating helplessly on
the surface of the water and being carried away by the current.
So will it be with apostate
Christendom and with the whole world on the day when Christ returns in power
and glory to execute judgment. The kings and mighty men of the earth will be
banished, with all other unbelievers, into hell by the mere word of Him Who is
King of kings and Lord of lords, their vaunted might being as nothing in His
presence.
10:8.
“The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the
thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the
mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.”
Aven, meaning perverseness,
is literally Beth-aven house of vanity, which as noted already, is
simply a title of disparagement for what Bethel house of God had
become: a principal center of idolatry. Only spiritually blind eyes will fail
to see that this is but a foreshadowing of the truth that Christianity for the
most part has become Christendom: a great system marked by spiritual idolatry,
and destined for the same destruction as overtook ancient Bethel (Beth-aven).
It is instructive also to note
the reference to thorns and thistles as being the evidence of God’s curse upon
the heathen altars at which apostate Israel worshiped the Baalim, for in Ge
3:18 thorns and thistles are recorded as being the evidence of His curse upon
the earth which had become defiled by Adam’s sin.
“... and they shall say to the
mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us,” are virtually the same
words in which the Lord, on His way to Calvary, announced the judgment that
was to fall upon Israel in AD 70, see Lk 23:30. Relative to the terrible
Tribulation judgments, the language is also the same, “And the kings of the
earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the
mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens
and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall
on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from
the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall
be able to stand?” Re 6:15-17.
All of this indicates that
each past judgment which befell Israel is but an adumbration, not only of the
Tribulation judgment which will affect her and the whole earth, but of that
awful final judgment which will bring the destruction of this present world,
and its replacement with the new earth, see 11 Pe 3:10 “But the day of the
Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and
the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up,” and Re
21:1, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”
10:9.
“O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah; there they stood; the
battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.”
The first part of this verse
continues to emphasize that the wickedness of Israel, as displayed in the
outrage committed against the Levite’s concubine in Gibeah, had continued till
the days of Hosea, and they also still stood as defiant of God as they had
been then.
Commentators are in general
agreement that the second part of this verse is better translated
interrogatively, so that it might be paraphrased, “Shall not war overtake
these iniquitous apostates in Gibeah?” Most certainly the judgment of God
would fall upon them. It was, in fact, about to break over their guilty
heads, though they knew it not.
10:10.
“It is in my desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be
gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.”
A Holy God cannot let sin go
unpunished without impugning His own holiness; but because He is of great
mercy His chastisement is always with a view to the salvation of the sinner,
or the restoration of the sinning saint. The generation of Israel addressed
by Hosea, however, and spurned all God’s overtures so often that they had
finally exhausted His patience, and now there was no possibility of mercy.
They must perish, as must all who similarly refuse to repent. In the case of
that generation of Israel, the Assyrians were the people who would be gathered
against them as the instrument appointed by God for their destruction.
“... when they shall bind
themselves in their two furrows,” is difficult to interpret. The figure seems
to be related to plowing: Israel in captivity because of her sin, being like a
heifer yoked to the plow; but the “two furrows” are enigmatic. The plowing of
the two furrows seems to refer to something particularly unpleasant which
Israel will be compelled to endure in captivity, and several such things come
to mind, e.g., the rendering of compelled service without recompense; no
sabbath rest; no opportunity for even ritual worship of Jehovah, He being the
only God left to her following her discovery of the impotence of the Baalim,
etc. But the number of such things is clearly limited to two, and I regret
being able to discover what those two might be.
It is possible, however, that
the reference is not to what Israel will have to endure in captivity, but to
the two great sins with which God charges them, and which had resulted in
their being sent into captivity, “For my people have committed two evils; they
have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns,
broken cisterns, that can hold no water,” Jer 2:13.” The context in which
these words are found is, in fact, remarkably similar to the language of the
book of Hosea.
10:11.
“And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn;
but I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall
plow, and Jacob shall break his clods.”
A heifer trained in treading
out the grain enjoyed that work, because it was easy, and God’s command was
that such an animal was not to be muzzled, and could therefore eat her fill,
see Dt 25:4. The picture is of a once obedient Israel gladly obeying God’s
Word, and walking contentedly in the consequent enjoyment of blessing. But
those days had gone. Allured by the enticements of her idolatrous neighbors,
Israel had rebelled against Jehovah, and had turned from Him to serve the
Baalim, thus making herself the object of His righteous wrath, so that He was
now about to lay upon her neck another yoke, that of the Assyrian captor and
oppressor, and unlike His light and easy yoke, that now to be placed upon her
rebellious neck would be heavy and galling, and the work given her to do would
be that of exhausting slavery to a pitiless master.
It is interesting to note that
Israel’s punishment duplicates that of Adam. He too for transgression was
expelled from the pleasant surroundings and congenial employment of Eden, to
endure the back-breaking labor of tilling a cursed ground as described in Ge
3:17-19, “... cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of
it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to
thee ... in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread....”
The Lord exhorted men, “Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and
ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light,” Mt 11:28-30. Christians, obeying this injunction, have proved it to
be true; but apostate Christendom, like apostate Israel, has rebelled against
God, choosing instead to serve Mammon, Education, and Pleasure, and with the
same result: she too has bound herself to a pitiless master, and is soon to
find herself reaping the earthly consequences of her folly under the tyranny
of the beast in the soon coming Tribulation, that misery to be followed by the
eternal wrath of God, first in hell, and eternally in the torment of the lake
of fire.
“... I will make Ephraim to
ride,” is more accurately translated, “I will make Ephraim to be ridden.” It
is the figurative announcement of the fact that Israel was about to be brought
into captivity where she would have no choice but to serve her Assyrian task
master. Judah’s plowing, and Jacob’s breaking clods, continue to emphasize
the bitterness of the coming bondage, and there is sad irony in the menial
work that would be given them to do, for Judah, the royal tribe, means he
shall be praised; and Jacob, he will take by the heel, i.e., he
will have the supremacy. What contrast between the glory God intended for
Israel, and the degradation she must endure because of her rebellion! And so
is it with all men. The obedient will inherit the bliss of heaven; the
disobedient, the eternal torment of the lake of fire.
The reference here to Judah
and Jacob reminds us that even though Judah’s captivity in Babylon was still
about a hundred and thirty years in the future, God foreknew that she would
disregard the warning presented in Israel’s captivity in Assyria, and would
follow in the footsteps of her evil sister, and suffer a similar fate.
10:12.
“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow
ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness
upon you.”
“... rain righteousness upon
you” is more accurately translated as “... teach righteousness unto you,” or
“rain salvation upon you.”
As already discussed, it was
too late for that rebellious generation. Her long continued refusal to repent
had carried her beyond the pale of mercy. She had exhausted God’s patience.
She was to be destroyed. But for another generation there was hope. If it
would obey and live righteously it would inherit God’s great mercy and
blessing.
Fallow ground is that which
has been left uncultivated for one or more years. Prior to the modern method
of rotating crops, it was the standard method of allowing land to renew
itself. The period of Israel’s absence from Canaan corresponds to the time
during which a field is allowed to lie fallow, so that this verse looks
forward to the day when another generation would be brought back, God’s
exhortation to that generation being conveyed under the figure of plowing
again the land that had lain fallow during the time of Israel’s absence. (In
connection with this matter of fallow ground it is significant that God had
commanded Israel to allow the land to lie fallow every seventh year, see Le
25, failure to obey bringing chastisement, which came in the form of the
Babylonian captivity of Judah, that captivity lasting exactly seventy years,
the number of sabbatic years which Israel had failed to keep in the preceding
four hundred and ninety years! See Le 26:33-35).
The Israel of Christ’s day was
descended from that which had been brought back from the Babylonian
captivity. (As noted already, over the intervening years some had also
returned from Assyria, but their return was not a specific event occurring at
one time as was the return of the remnant of Judah from Babylon, and the
absence of any reference to it in Scripture is simply because God had never
recognized the split which occurred in the days of Jeroboam: He had never
ceased to view Judah as the royal tribe and the representative of the
others). That returned nation had failed to plow the fallow ground, to sow
themselves in righteousness, i.e., to obey Jehovah, and to reap His mercy.
They had abandoned idolatry, but had not returned to Him in repentant faith,
having chosen instead to attempt the impossible task of making themselves
righteous through law-keeping.
In spite of all this, God in
grace beyond comprehension, sent His only Son to expiate their sin by the
sacrifice of Himself at Calvary, and in this connection it is instructive to
note that Scripture envisaged the Lord’s death as being by a Gentile method
(crucifixion), rather than Jewish (stoning), see Ps 22:16. But rebel Israel
would make herself one with the Gentiles in slaying God’s Son, for it was at
her instigation that Rome reluctantly put Christ to death. Thus they crowned
their rebellion with the unbelievable crime of slaying the beloved and only
Son of Him Who had chosen them from among the nations to be His Own peculiar
people, and to reign in supremacy over all others. And still, unbelievably,
His grace hadn’t reached its limit! Having fulfilled all that is written in
His Word relative to the Lord’s death and resurrection, He sent His servant
Peter to assure them of His forgiveness, and to plead with them to avail
themselves of His mercy so that they might even yet enter the long-promised
millennial kingdom, see Ac 3.
But like the generation of
Hosea’s day, those of Christ’s day also refused to repent, with the result
that just thirty-eight years after the Lord’s death and resurrection, the
patience of God ended, and they were delivered up to the sword of the Romans,
the survivors being sold as slaves, or escaping to wander as Cain-like
fugitives amongst the Gentiles for the past two thousand years.
Christendom has followed in
their rebellious footsteps, making herself heiress of the terrible Tribulation
judgments which will culminate in the sweeping of every rebel into hell by the
Lord returning in power and glory to inaugurate His millennial kingdom. Only
a fool will fail to recognize that the outpouring of those judgments is very
near!
10:13.
“Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit
of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty
men.”
They had plowed or sown
wickedness, i.e., they had continued in rebellion against God by continuing to
worship the Baalim, and the result was that they had reaped iniquity: their
sins had multiplied. Their having eaten the fruit of lies means that in
rejecting God’s Word and believing the lies of the Canaanites relative to the
superiority of Baal over Jehovah, they had made themselves the objects of His
wrath rather than His blessing. Trusting in their own way or schemes, and in
their own imagined military might combined with that of the nations (Egypt and
Assyria) with which they had made alliances, they had brought themselves to
ruin under the hand of the God they had thus despised and angered.
Apostate Christendom and the
rest of the world are about to reap a similar harvest of judgment in the
coming Tribulation.
10:14.
“Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall
be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of battle: the mother was
dashed in pieces upon her children.”
“Tumult” is literally the
destruction brought by war. The military might in which they trusted would
prove worthless against the Assyrians. Nothing certain is known of either
Shalman or Beth-arbel, or the nature of the massacre that appears to have
taken place there, but clearly it was an event well known to Israel in the
days of Hosea, and it is instructive to note that Beth-arbel means house of
God’s ambush; and Shalman he spoiled them: their peace-offering.
Israel was being warned that she was about to suffer the same fate at the hand
of the Assyrians, as had Beth-arbel at the hand of Shalman.
10:15.
“So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in the morning
shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.”
“So shall Bethel do unto you”
is more accurately translated “So will it be done to you at Bethel,” and a
better translation of the latter half of the verse is that of The New
English Bible, “... as sure as day dawns, the king of Israel shall be
swept away.”
The Assyrian captivity in 722
BC brought an end to the existence of the ten northern tribes as a separate
national entity, and ended the line of their kings. Ever since then Israel
has been undivided as a nation, and in the Millennium the reign of the Davidic
line of kings will be resumed.
[Hosea 11]