CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 10:14. Tumult] War (Amos 2:2). People] Lit. peoples, “not, as God willed them to be, one people, for they had no principle of oneness or stability, who had no legitimate succession, either of kings or of priests” [Pusey]. Against all Israel and the tribes connected with her should tumultuous war arise. Shal-] Shalmanezer king of Assyria. The mother] and children, inhuman cruelty, commonly practised (2 Kings 8:12; Isaiah 13:16; Psalms 137:8).
Hosea 10:15. Bethel] The seat of idolatry prepares this destruction for the people. Wick-] Lit. the evil of your evil. “Wickedness in its second potency, extreme wickedness” [Keil]. Morning] In the hope from alliance with Egypt against Assyria, when prosperity was expected to dawn; or suddenly and surely shall the kingdom be utterly cut off.
HOMILETICS
THE EVIL OF EVILS.—Hosea 10:14-15
Therefore, such the fruit of departing from God, and trusting in idols and mighty men. Tumults from within would prepare the nation for invasion without. The king would be cut off and the kingdom destroyed by a sudden stroke. Idolatry and the corruption of pure religion will bring judgment upon the Church. Sin is the evil of evils, the source of all sorrows.
I. It creates national wars. Nations get angry and disagree. High attitudes and great tones are assumed, and war must support the dignity and maintain the interests of the throne. Insults to flags and ambassadors, petty offences to rulers, the policy of cabinets and the intrigue of courts, have been motives to war.
1. We have aggressive war. Nations are not satisfied with their natural boundaries; for gain and self-aggrandizement they must invade the territories of others. Ambition, passion for empire and glory, desire for vengeance and plunder, lead them to unjust and unnatural aggression.
2. We have civil war. “Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people.” Nations, one in language and interests, are divided by enmity and tumult. In Israel there was no central principle, no oneness nor stability. Confused noise and war sprang from the midst of their own ranks (Amos 2:2). There were peoples, not, as God willed them to be, one, but many. Foreign wars are dreadful enough, but civil wars are fratricidal and abominably wicked. France, England, and America have been rent asunder by civil discord, and bled to the core through the evil of evils.
II. It creates social revolutions.
1. Kings are dethroned. “The king of Israel shall utterly be cut off.” Israel, like the dislocated state of Rome under the first emperors, was distracted by anarchy and usurpation. There was no legitimate succession of kings or priests, for they made both, but not through God. “Each successor had the same right as his predecessor, the right of might, and furnished an example and precedent and sanction to the murder of himself or of his son.” Monarchs are exalted and dethroned by political factions and civil broils. They rise suddenly from the ranks, crown themselves with honour, and are “cut off” in their projects. Sin creates wars which mingle royal blood with common gore, and starts revolutions which sweep monarchies and republics to destruction, like chaff before the storm.
2. Subjects are enslaved. Obedience to arbitrary power begets servility and slavery. Subsidies have been given for the loan or purchase of armies. Men have been hired to slaughter their fellow-men! The people have been reduced to bondage, intellectual, political, and moral degradation. Taxes, laws, and princes have fettered their freedom. Immorality and crime have undermined the health, and polluted the character of the people. The rule of the oppressor “is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food” in fertile districts (Proverbs 28:3).
III. It leads to cruel deeds. In the wickedness of Israel there was an essence of wickedness, malice within malice. This brought—
1. The devastation of land. The day of battle spoiled all the fortresses of Israel. Their strongholds were taken by the enemy, and their fair cities levelled to the ground. Their land was swept by foreign invasion and domestic strife, filled with violence, and “wasting and destruction within their borders” (Isaiah 60:18).
2. The murder of its inhabitants. With inhuman cruelty “the mother was dashed to pieces upon her children.” Neither sex nor age are spared by barbarity. Men like Herod have been ferocious as brutes. Nations ancient and modern have stained their names with crimes dark as hell. “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning; Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Such are some of the ravages produced by sin. Wars which ravaged fields and sacked cities; kings dethroned and palaces plundered; people enslaved and virtue violated; families murdered and hearts broken in agony and despair; crimes arresting the pursuits of commerce and arts, extinguishing the lights of science and religion, and filling kingdoms with pestilence and murder. These and a thousand other evils spring directly or indirectly from the evil of all evils. “That sin might appear exceeding sinful.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10
Hosea 10:14-15. The evil of sin. It debases body, mind, and soul, robs of domestic peace and enjoyment, and spreads contagion all around. It is rebellion against God and injurious to man. Once all the evil in the world was comprehended in one sinful thought, but now its results are a horrid progeny of evils. Ambition. If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, and the longest life too short, for the full accomplishment of so grand and noble an ambition [Colton].