CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 10:5. People] of the calf and idolatrous priests shall mourn for the golden calf; their glory can neither help itself nor them.
Hosea 10:6. It] Emphat. It itself, as well as Israel, shall be carried into exile.
Hosea 10:7. Sam-] The capital and the kingdom itself destroyed. Foam] A straw or bubble on the water, empty, light, and worthless; others, like a splinter carried away by the current.
Hosea 10:8. Sin] The altars, the buildings connected with image worship. Thorn] The place shall be desolate, wild briars shall grow where the victims were once offered. Altars were graves of idols, and monuments of death. The inhabitants in hopeless despair will pray for swift destruction. Fall] To bury us from impending ruin, to escape more terrible doom. Spoken of Jerusalem (Luke 23:30), and of the judgment day (Revelation 6:16).
THE VANITY OF EARTHLY GLORY.—Hosea 10:5-8
God was the true glory of Israel. But they had exchanged God for the golden calves, and turned their glory into shame. A day of visitation was near. Their gods would be taken away and given to others. They would be left in sorrow and shame, in captivity and helplessness. All earthly glory departs from us. God alone abides with us a rock and defence.
I. Earthly glory is unsatisfactory in its nature. “Like foam upon the water.” (a) It is superficial. It is only the outside, the surface of things. It does not belong to the man himself, and does not enter the heart. Honour and applause, position and wealth, obstinately remain outside, and only gild the surface. Like flowers in the icy regions, they may cover the ground, when the soil underneath may be intensely frozen. (b) It is light. Like a straw in the balance of blessings. It stands for nothing in the sight of God and in the estimation of a true man. It may be admired and envied by the vulgar crowd; but it is only “vanity turned into a god.” (c) It is unsatisfactory. What avails the pomp and grandeur of earth? Men have shared all the glory the world can give, and have been willing to resign it for real happiness. Goethe possessed splendid health and power, gained more success and sufficiency than most men, and yet confessed that in the course of his whole life he had not enjoyed five weeks of genuine happiness. The Caliph mentioned by Gibbon, who expended three millions on the palace of Zehra, declared that he had lived 50 years in victory or peace, beloved by subjects, feared by enemies, and respected by all—that riches, honour, power, and pleasure had waited on his call, and that no earthly blessings were wanting to his felicity. But “in this situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot—they amount to fourteen.” Such estimates may be exaggerated, but on all earthly glory is written “vanity of vanities.”
II. Earthly glory is uncertain in its tenure. “For the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.” Kings and princes may be dethroned; palaces and high places consumed by fire; children and friends cut off by death; change in condition, disappointment in purpose, failure in life, may eclipse all our glory, and leave us in privation and sorrow, (a) It is hard to secure. What intense anxiety and self-denial, what severe toil and pressure, it costs! If gained at all, it is often at the sacrifice of comfort and life. (b) It is difficult to retain. When we do secure it, how often, how suddenly, does it elude our grasp! It is transitory in its existence, often taken away and given to others, “carried into Assyria for a present to king Jared.” If it does not leave us, we have often to leave it, just when we should enjoy it. Notwithstanding anxiety and effort to get it, elation and pride in possessing it, men must leave their glory. Power and personal attire, rank and riches, must all be left behind. “And where will ye leave your glory?”
III. Earthly glory will leave its devotees in shame. “Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.” This will be the end, the portion of all pursuits apart from God.
1. This shame often reverses the skilful policy of a nation. The special counsel of Israel was that which Jeroboam took, worldly wise, and admirably suited their immediate design. It was artfully devised, long in its existence, and successful in its stroke. The people were separated from Jehovah, and a kingdom founded apart from Judah. But the policy of rulers often becomes their destruction and shame. Success which may uphold a family or a kingdom, ultimately becomes fatal, “o’erleaps itself, and falls on the other side.” “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.”
2. This shame often covers all ranks of the nation. (a) Kings are dethroned. “Her king is cut off” (Hosea 10:8). Hoshea seemed in a hopeful way of regaining peace and prosperity. But these promising appearances were like the bubble on the water, they soon vanished and came to nothing. The king was slaughtered. Whatever we set up and adore instead of God may be carried away by the current of affairs and leave us vexed and disappointed. (b) Priests will mourn. “The priests thereof that rejoiced in it.” Their gains and their glory were all taken away with their idolatrous worship. Men who derive credit and emoluments from illicit trades and sinful practices will regret their choice, and turn their joy into shame. (c) The people grieved. “The people thereof shall mourn over it.” They would regret the loss of their idols. They were in “fear” when they saw the judgment of God against them (Exodus 12:12). Their protectors were destroyed and they were undone. Ignorant, deluded people will lament bitterly at the loss of their idols. “You have taken away my gods, and what have I more?”
3. This shame often dishonours the whole land of the nation. (a) Its high places are destroyed (Hosea 10:8). Mountains of defence, palaces of splendour, and shrines of religion, if consecrated to evil, will be levelled to the ground. Whatever place or power creates and upholds idolatry will be destroyed. Houses of iniquity will be thrown down, and one stone shall not be left upon another. (b) Its altars are desecrated. “Thorns and thistles shall come up on their altars.” The fires of idolatry should be extinguished, the altars should be broken and covered with briars. Monuments of wickedness are often the grave-stones of hope and monuments of desolation. Seats of idolatry will defeat the governors, tarnish the glory, and terminate the existence of a nation which rears and relies upon them. “Let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
1. The vanity of idols, when those who worship them cannot depend upon them, but have to be concerned about them in sorrow and affliction.
2. The ignominy of idols, when they turn Bethel into Beth-aven, places of holiness into scenes of degradation.
3. The power of idols, when they corrupt the priesthood and draw away the people.
4. The glory of idols, a borrowed glory, nothing to commend it but novelty and success, will at length vanish away by the judgments of God.
Hosea 10:6. Men cast down by their own counsels.
1. Because actuated by false principles.
2. Because they aim at corrupt ends.
3. Because they disregard God. Plans likely to succeed, hindered and rendered abortive by God’s providence. Pharaoh counselled against Israel to his own destruction. The destruction of the wicked caused by their own sin (Job 18:7). Take counsel from God, and consult his word (Psalms 73:24; Psalms 119:24).
It is one of the saddest ingredients of a conquered people’s affliction when conquerors take occasion to triumph over their religion, because they are subdued [Hutcheson].
Without the grace of God men mourn, not their sins, but their idols [Pusey].
Hosea 10:7. Kings cut off.
1. God’s judgments against human authority.
2. The highest human authority unable to ward off God’s judgments. Men of the greatest weight but vain show (Psalms 62:9). Only like grass (James 4:14), and evanescent as spray on the surface of the sea.
The kingdoms of the earth are like “foam upon the waters.”
1. For their seeming brightness.
2. For their great eminence.
3. For their instability and inability to resist.
4. For their sudden fall and disappearance [Trapp].
Separated from God, all seeming power is weakness, all apparent stability is fluctuating and perishing as the foam. “One moment white, then gone for ever.” Let England beware of all complicity with Romish idolatry, on the false plea of state expediency. For idolatry in any form, whether veneration of images, adoration of the mass, or worship of mammon—another of our national temptations—is sure to make the greatest seeming stability to become frailty and transitoriness itself. The fear of God is the only true basis of solidity and permanence [Fausset].
HOMILETICS
DEATH SOMETIMES PREFERABLE TO LIFE.—Hosea 10:8
The high places of Israel were so defenceless, their lot was so severe, and their punishment so great, that they preferred death, entire destruction, to life. Present death would be chosen, rather than future miseries, and the shame that those miseries would bring upon them. Men sometimes prefer death to life.
I. In personal distress. Men in disappointment and fretfulness have wished for death. Impatient of life, they have prayed God to take it away. Elijah (1 Kings 19:4) and Jonah (Jonah 4:3) are striking examples. But in poverty and deep affliction it would often be a relief to die. The soldier on the battle-field, wounded and burning with thirst, feels that death would lessen his misery. When victims of painful and incurable disease, and bereft of those we love dearest, life seems to us to have lost everything attractive and desirable. Job cursed the day of his birth, and would rather have been shut up in the womb (Job 3:11; Job 3:20). Bitter sorrows, added to a bitter spirit, make life a torment, not a blessing. Wherefore is life given “unto the bitter in soul?” Take it away, suggests Satan often, it is better to die than live in such circumstances. If life is a grief, better not have been born, or rid yourself of the trouble by suicide, was the doctrine of heathen philosophy. In times of outward trouble and inward conflict God alone can “administer to a mind diseased.” Grace helps a man to live in the greatest privations and to die in the greatest comforts. We are only prepared to die when we are prepared to live. “All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.”
II. In national calamity. Israel’s glory was consumed; her seats of idolatry, Samaria and Bethel, were destroyed, and there was no way to break through the danger nor escape the judgment. They were surrounded by evils worse than death. Annihilation would have been a blessing. Nations are sometimes covered with shame and dishonour. Famine, sword, and pestilence have destroyed their population. Their idolized gods are worthless as refuse in the street; their defenced cities and mighty men are laid in the dust, and the remnant left to misery and despair. The chosen people becomes an “evil family,” and the splendid nation shall be “for dung upon the face of the earth. And death shall be chosen rather than life, by all the residue of them that remain” (Jeremiah 8:3).
III. At the day of judgment. These words predict the awful misery of some at the great day of accounts. The ungodly will seek annihilation, not from the torment of suffering, but from the wrath of God before whom they stand. Opportunities lost and judgments despised. Life spent and hope for ever gone; despair will seize the soul. There will be no shelter, and prayer will be in vain to the mountains and hills. By the aid of death they cannot escape death (Revelation 6:16). “In those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10
Hosea 10:5-7. “Earthly glory is a mere shadow which eludes our effort, or, if caught, shrinks to nothing in the grasp.” It is transitory, a garland which withers on the brow. “Is this all?” cried Cæsar in the midst of all his glory.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceases to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
Hosea 10:8. Impatient of life. A lady once said to Fred. Robertson: “I thought you of all people were like St. Paul, and that you would wish for a heavenlier life as much as he did.” He replied in words as true of others as of himself: “First of all, you thought wrong; next, if I do wish to die, it is when I am in pain, or out of conceit with life, which happens pretty often, but which I do not consider spirituality. It is only an ungracious way of saying, ‘I am dissatisfied with what Thou hast given me, and do not like the duties that are mine at all. I am in pain, and want to be out of pain;’ and I suppose a great many people could say the same piece of sublime discontent” [Silver].