The Lord's Judgment on Priests, Leaders, and a Diseased Nation

Hos 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 (Hos 5:6-10). Hos 5:6. “They will go with their sheep and their oxen to seek Jehovah, and will not find Him: He has withdrawn Himself from them.

Hos 5:7. 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 ” The offering of sacrifices will be no help to them, because God has withdrawn Himself from them, and does not hear their prayers; for God has no pleasure in sacrifices which are offered in an impenitent state of mind (cf.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 1:11. ; Jer 7:21. ; Psa 50:7, Psa 50:8.) The reason for this is given in Hos 5:7. 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. Exo 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 (Deu 25:5), i.

e. , such as have not sprung from the conjugal union. In actual fact, the expression is equivalent to בּני זנוּנים in Hos 1:2; Hos 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 (1Sa 20:6, 1Sa 20:29; 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.

חלקיהם 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.

Hos 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 (Hos 5:6-10). Hos 5:6. “They will go with their sheep and their oxen to seek Jehovah, and will not find Him: He has withdrawn Himself from them.

Hos 5:7. 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 1:11. ; Jer 7:21. ; Psa 50:7, Psa 50:8.) The reason for this is given in Hos 5:7. 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. Exo 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 (Deu 25:5), i.

e. , such as have not sprung from the conjugal union. In actual fact, the expression is equivalent to בּני זנוּנים in Hos 1:2; Hos 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 (1Sa 20:6, 1Sa 20:29; 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.

חלקיהם 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.

Hos 5:8 The prophet sees in spirit the judgment already falling upon the rebellious nation, and therefore addresses the following appeal to the people. Hos 5:8. “Blow ye the horn at Gibeah, the trumpet at Ramah! Raise the cry at Bethaven, Behind thee, Benjamin! ” The blowing of the shōphâr , a far-sounding horn, or of the trumpet ( chătsōtserâh ), was a signal by which the invasion of foes (Hos 8:1; Jer 4:5; Jer 6:1) and other calamities (Joe 2:1, cf.

Amo 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 Jos 18:28) and Ramah (of Samuel; see at Jos 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. הריע, to make a noise, is to be understood here as relating to the alarm given by the war-signals already mentioned, as in Joe 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 בּית is to be taken in the sense of בּבית (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 (Jdg 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 Hos 5:8 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 Hos 5:9, Hos 5:10, which contain the practical explanation of Hos 5:8.

Hos 5:9-10 “Ephraim will become a desert in the day of punishment: over the tribes of Israel have I proclaimed that which lasts. Hos 5:10. 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 נאמנה. This word is to be interpreted as in Deu 28:59, where it is applied to lasting plagues, with which God will chastise the obstinate apostasy of His people. By the perfect הודעתּי, what is here proclaimed is represented as a completed event, which will not be altered. Beshibhtē , not in or among the tribes, but according to ענה ב, in Deu 28:5, against or over the tribes (Hitzig).

Judah also will not escape the punishment of its sins. The unusual expression massı̄gē gebhūl is formed after, and to be explained from Deu 19:14, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark;” or Deu 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.

כּמּים, like a stream of water, so plentifully. For the figure, compare Psa 69:25; Psa 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.

Hos 5:9-10 “Ephraim will become a desert in the day of punishment: over the tribes of Israel have I proclaimed that which lasts. Hos 5:10. 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 נאמנה. This word is to be interpreted as in Deu 28:59, where it is applied to lasting plagues, with which God will chastise the obstinate apostasy of His people. By the perfect הודעתּי, what is here proclaimed is represented as a completed event, which will not be altered. Beshibhtē , not in or among the tribes, but according to ענה ב, in Deu 28:5, against or over the tribes (Hitzig).

Judah also will not escape the punishment of its sins. The unusual expression massı̄gē gebhūl is formed after, and to be explained from Deu 19:14, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark;” or Deu 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.

כּמּים, like a stream of water, so plentifully. For the figure, compare Psa 69:25; Psa 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.

Hos 5:11 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 (Hos 5:11-15). Hos 5:11. “Ephraim is oppressed, broken in pieces by the judgment; for it has wished, has gone according to statute. ” By the participles ‛âshūq and râtsūts , 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 Deu 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. Retsuts 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 mukkēh Elōhı̄m in Isa 53:4.

For it liked to walk according to statute. For הלך אחרי compare Jer 2:5 and 2Ki 18:15. Tsav is a human statute; it stands both here and in Isa 28:10, Isa 28:13, 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.

Hos 5:12 “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; Isa 51:8; Psa 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.

Hos 5:13 The two kingdoms could not defend themselves against this chastisement by the help of any earthly power. Hos 5:13. “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 . , ויּלך, ויּרא, 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 Hos 5:12.

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. Mâzōr does not mean a bandage or the cure of injuries (Ges. , Dietr.) , but is derived from זוּר, 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 מלך may be explained from the fact that Jârēbh is, strictly speaking, an appellative, as in למוּאל מלך in Pro 31:1. We must not supply Yehūdâh 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 ἅπ. λεγ. יגהה from גּהה, in Syriac to by shy, to flee, is used with min in the tropical sense of removing or driving away.

Hos 5:14-15 No help is to be expected from Assyria, because the Lord will punish His people. Hos 5:14. “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. Hos 5:15. “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. אשּׂא denotes the carrying away of booty, as in 1Sa 17:34. For the fact itself, compare Deu 32:39. The first clause of Hos 5:15 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 בּצּר לך in Deu 4:30. Shichēr 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 כּשׁחר in Hos 6:3 unmistakeably shows. For the fact itself, compare Hos 2:9 and Deu 4:29-30.

Hos 5:14-15 No help is to be expected from Assyria, because the Lord will punish His people. Hos 5:14. “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. Hos 5:15. “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. אשּׂא denotes the carrying away of booty, as in 1Sa 17:34. For the fact itself, compare Deu 32:39. The first clause of Hos 5:15 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 בּצּר לך in Deu 4:30. Shichēr 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 כּשׁחר in Hos 6:3 unmistakeably shows. For the fact itself, compare Hos 2:9 and Deu 4:29-30.

Hos 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 Hos 6:1, “Come, and let us return,” to those of Hos 5:15, “I will go, and return,” and in טרף וירפּאנוּ (Hos 6:1) to the similar words in Hos 5:13 and Hos 5:14.

Hos 6:1. “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. Hos 6:2. 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 לאמר, λέγοντες, is interpolated before לכוּ, 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 'etrōph in Hos 5:14, presupposes that the punishment has already begun. The following יך 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 (Exo 15:26), and promised His people healing in the future also (Deu 32:39), surely can.

The allusion in the word ירפּאנוּ to this passage of Deuteronomy, is placed beyond all doubt by Hos 6:2. The words, “He revives after two days,” etc. , are merely a special application of the general declaration, “I kill, and make alive” (Deu 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 Amo 1:3; Job 5:19; Pro 6:16; Pro 30:15, Pro 30:18, in which the last and greater number expresses the highest or utmost that is generally met with.

הקים, to raise the dead (Job 14:12; Psa 88:11; Isa 26:14, Isa 26:19). “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 Eze 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. Hos 6:3. “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. ” ונדעה נר corresponds to לכוּ ונשׁוּבה in Hos 6:1. The object to נדעה is also את־יהוה, and נדעה is merely strengthened by the addition of נרדּפה לדּעת. 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. מוצאו, His (i. e. , Jehovah’s) rising, is to be explained from the figure of the dawn (for יצא applied to the rising of the sun, see Gen 19:23 and Psa 19:7). The dawn is mentioned instead of the sun, as the herald of the dawning day of salvation (compare Isa 58:8 and Isa 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. יורה is hardly a kal participle, but rather the imperfect hiphil in the sense of sprinkling. In Deu 11:14 (cf. Deu 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 Psa 72:6 and 2Sa 23:4 clearly show.

Hos 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 Hos 6:1, “Come, and let us return,” to those of Hos 5:15, “I will go, and return,” and in טרף וירפּאנוּ (Hos 6:1) to the similar words in Hos 5:13 and Hos 5:14.

Hos 6:1. “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. Hos 6:2. 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 לאמר, λέγοντες, is interpolated before לכוּ, 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 'etrōph in Hos 5:14, presupposes that the punishment has already begun. The following יך 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 (Exo 15:26), and promised His people healing in the future also (Deu 32:39), surely can.

The allusion in the word ירפּאנוּ to this passage of Deuteronomy, is placed beyond all doubt by Hos 6:2. The words, “He revives after two days,” etc. , are merely a special application of the general declaration, “I kill, and make alive” (Deu 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 Amo 1:3; Job 5:19; Pro 6:16; Pro 30:15, Pro 30:18, in which the last and greater number expresses the highest or utmost that is generally met with.

הקים, to raise the dead (Job 14:12; Psa 88:11; Isa 26:14, Isa 26:19). “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 Eze 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. Hos 6:3. “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. ” ונדעה נר corresponds to לכוּ ונשׁוּבה in Hos 6:1. The object to נדעה is also את־יהוה, and נדעה is merely strengthened by the addition of נרדּפה לדּעת. 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. מוצאו, His (i. e. , Jehovah’s) rising, is to be explained from the figure of the dawn (for יצא applied to the rising of the sun, see Gen 19:23 and Psa 19:7). The dawn is mentioned instead of the sun, as the herald of the dawning day of salvation (compare Isa 58:8 and Isa 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. יורה is hardly a kal participle, but rather the imperfect hiphil in the sense of sprinkling. In Deu 11:14 (cf. Deu 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 Psa 72:6 and 2Sa 23:4 clearly show.

Hos 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 Hos 6:1, “Come, and let us return,” to those of Hos 5:15, “I will go, and return,” and in טרף וירפּאנוּ (Hos 6:1) to the similar words in Hos 5:13 and Hos 5:14.

Hos 6:1. “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. Hos 6:2. 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 לאמר, λέγοντες, is interpolated before לכוּ, 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 'etrōph in Hos 5:14, presupposes that the punishment has already begun. The following יך 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 (Exo 15:26), and promised His people healing in the future also (Deu 32:39), surely can.

The allusion in the word ירפּאנוּ to this passage of Deuteronomy, is placed beyond all doubt by Hos 6:2. The words, “He revives after two days,” etc. , are merely a special application of the general declaration, “I kill, and make alive” (Deu 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 Amo 1:3; Job 5:19; Pro 6:16; Pro 30:15, Pro 30:18, in which the last and greater number expresses the highest or utmost that is generally met with.

הקים, to raise the dead (Job 14:12; Psa 88:11; Isa 26:14, Isa 26:19). “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 Eze 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. Hos 6:3. “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. ” ונדעה נר corresponds to לכוּ ונשׁוּבה in Hos 6:1. The object to נדעה is also את־יהוה, and נדעה is merely strengthened by the addition of נרדּפה לדּעת. 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. מוצאו, His (i. e. , Jehovah’s) rising, is to be explained from the figure of the dawn (for יצא applied to the rising of the sun, see Gen 19:23 and Psa 19:7). The dawn is mentioned instead of the sun, as the herald of the dawning day of salvation (compare Isa 58:8 and Isa 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. יורה is hardly a kal participle, but rather the imperfect hiphil in the sense of sprinkling. In Deu 11:14 (cf. Deu 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 Psa 72:6 and 2Sa 23:4 clearly show.

Hos 6:4 The prophet’s address commences afresh, as in Hos 2:4, without any introduction, with the denunciation of the incurability of the Israelites. Hos 6:4-11 form the first strophe. Hos 6:4. “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 Hos 6:6, chasdekhem is to be understood as referring to good-will towards other men flowing out of love to God (see at Hos 4:1).