CRITICAL NOTES.
Hosea 11:7. Bent] Lit. hung suspended on backsliding, “impaled or fastened upon apostasy as upon a stake, so that it cannot get loose” [Keil]. None] Lit. together they exalted not, they were all bent downwards, and did not rise, lift themselves upwards to exalt and love God.
Hosea 11:8. Ad. and Zeb.] Two cities destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah (Deuteronomy 29:23). Turned] Heb. upon me (1 Samuel 25:36; Jeremiah 8:18). Repentings] My strong compassions are excited, glow with love and heat. Joseph’s bowels (were hot), did yearn (Genesis 43:30; Luke 24:32; 1 Kings 3:26). In all three places the same word found.
Hosea 11:9. Execute] As fierce conquerors often do; after destroying cities, he will abate his anger and show mercy. For I am God] I do not change my purpose like man (1 Samuel 15:29; Numbers 23:19; Malachi 3:6). The holy, the pure and perfect one, and known to be such in the midst of thee.
BENT ON BACKSLIDING.—Hosea 11:7
In all men there is a tendency to sin. The principle of evil is within us. But sad must it be for the Christian Church, for those who profess to own God, to refuse allegiance to him, and dethrone him in their hearts. How grieving to God for his own chosen people to backslide from him, and to be bent, given up entirely, to this fixed course of aversion from God.
I. They were constant in backsliding. Prophets and teachers continually “called them,” but they did not forsake their ways. God calls men by his word and by his servants, but they turn away from him. They may halt betimes, veer round in a circle of duties, but their continual thoughts and daily life are departure from God.
II. They were unanimous in backsliding. “None at all would exalt him,” all together they apostatized. They refused as one man to return. Evil majorities and idolatrous customs influence in the wrong direction. The lower learn from the higher classes, and the country’s creed becomes the prevalent practice. When all ranks patronize evils, they are established by general consent. Those who corrupt the faith or taint the morals of the community may commit an injury or spread a disease which will ruin generations to come.
III. They were obstinate in backsliding. “They would not.” They were obstinate as an ox, which refused to be driven out of the wrong into the right path. When the will is bent in sin, the current of life follows, overturning all obstacles and defying all counsels. “Ever weaker” the will “grows through acted crime,” until men get stubborn and insensible, unable and unwilling to repent. “Ye will not come.” Well might Edward VI. pray, “Order my living, so that I may do that which thou requirest of me, and give me grace that I may know it, and have will and power to do it.”
IV. They were fixed in backsliding. By continual practice it had become a settled habit. Their whole life was centred and fastened in this course. They were fixed and immoveable in adherence to their sins. The sinner may habituate himself to evil until he is impaled on it, unable to resist and overcome it. It may so absolutely possess a man that he cannot break its dominion, nor free himself from its power. The condition of men is the consequence of life, and the cords of sin the result of evil habits. “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.”
DIVINE JUSTICE AND DIVINE MERCY IN APPARENT CONFLICT FOR THE SINNER.—Hosea 11:8-9
This passage is one of the most mysterious and interesting in the Bible. There actually seems a struggle between one attribute and another. Justice and mercy are in conflict; righteousness and peace kiss each other for the good of the sinner. God is represented after the manner of men, as kindling in compassion, yearning to bless, while anxious to show justice; and at length, though punishing in measure, determining to mitigate the sentence. “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?”
I. Justice is deserved. They deserved to be treated like Admah and the other cities of the plain.
1. They had forgotten God. Favoured with sensible manifestations and unspeakable privileges, they ignored his presence and disregarded his works. The memory of God’s mercies is soon effaced, written in water, not on marble, and one generation after another needs renewal of the blessings. “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number.”
2. They had ill requited God. They repaid with the mouth, not with the heart. There was no depth in their penitence, nor firmness in their conduct, “for their heart was not right with him.” They changed from reverence to apostasy, from fair profession to base ingratitude. The favours of men touch us, but the love of God kindles no fire upon the altar within. Love free, abundant, and precious is the only friendship for which men make no returns. This seems a miracle, a monster of stupidity, if we argued against experience. “Annihilate not the mercies of God by the oblivion of ingratitude.”
II. Mercy prompts to save. Mercy exists with justice in the purpose, and one attribute does not destroy another in the work of God.
1. God is merciful. If God were just, and dealt with us after our sins, mercy would be unknown. Justice might sweep the earth, or rear its monuments of vengeance.
When we slip a little
Out of the way of virtue, are we lost?
Is there no medicine called sweet mercy?
Yes, God is more compassionate than a tender father. “My heart is turned within me,” with deep compassion. Give up? No, how can I do that? I delight in mercy. “My repentings are kindled together,” I have punished enough. “Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.”
2. God’s mercy shall be seen. “I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger.” Mercy prevails over the rigour of justice. God will not “destroy Ephraim,” as soldiers that return a second time to pillage a city they have wasted. God’s mercy is seen—(a) In Christ, who came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. (b) In Christian experience, in the forgiveness of sin, the bestowment of grace, and the gift of glory. Mercy now in proclaimed to all. God is just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth. “For I will not contend for ever with my people, neither will I be always wroth: for the human spirit would fail, be crushed before me” (Isaiah 57:16).
III. God determines to exercise mercy and not justice. “I will not execute,” &c. The reasons for this choice are given.
1. God is unchangeable in his covenant mercy. “For I am God, and not man.” Man is fitful and swayed by human passion. “Man punishes, to destroy; God smites, to amend,” says Jerome. Men are angry, vindictive, and cruel one to another; implacable, unmerciful (Romans 1:31); but God is compassionate and forgiving. Men are mutable, the truest friends are uncertain; but God is not man. “I am Jehovah, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
2. God is revealed among men to be a God of mercy. “The Holy One in the midst of thee.” Hence his procedure does not contradict his known character. God is holy and just, true and faithful, and that might be considered a reason for rejecting a rebellious people. But how can this happen? How can justice be reconciled with mercy, and the providence proclaim the love of God? The difficulty is solved in Jesus Christ. In him. God is “faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” His holiness is the defence of his people, and an argument for a consecrated life. In a corrupt Church and a degenerate age let us “give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Mercy interposeth her four several “hows” (in the original only two, but the other two necessarily understood, and by interpreters fitly supplied) for such pathetical interrogations as the like are not to be found in the whole book of God, and not to be answered by any but God himself; as he doth to each particular in the following words: “My heart is turned within me,” that is the first answer; the second, “My repentings are kindled together;” the third, “I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath;” the fourth, “I will not return to destroy Ephraim.” And why? First, “I am God and not man;” secondly, the “Holy One in the midst of thee” [Trapp].
God’s mercy—
1. Springs from himself. “Repentings kindled together.”
2. Contrasted with men’s conduct. “I am God and not man.”
3. Overcoming God’s justice. “I will not execute.”
4. Supplying man’s need. “Greater is the mercy of God than the misery of all men,” says Augustine.
I am God, &c. God unchangeable.
1. An encouragement to the penitent.
2. A warning to the sinner. As God is in mercy, so in power. Let all be thankful that while man’s pity is soon exhausted God’s pity is great, and displayed to those who carefully seek it with tears.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 11
Hosea 11:7. Backsliding. It is not one of the least miseries of a backsliding state, that every state of departure from God disposes the soul to a greater degree of alienation. As it is said of a sheep, that having once wandered from the fold, it never thinks of returning, but “wanders on still more and more astray;” so it may be affirmed of the wanderer, that in most cases his backslidings are multiplied, until frequent disappointments and direct extremities force him to retrace his steps, or the strong hand of the Good Shepherd brings him back.
Hosea 11:8-9. The perfections of God afford a refuge for the sinner. God is just. Nothing that he does can be unjust, arbitrary, or hard. But naked justice affords no comfort. It may fix the sword to keep the gate of Eden, send the surging sea over Sodom, Gomorrah, and Zeboim, and smite the shepherd and not the sheep with the sword, but it exacts full and perfect obedience to the law, and punishment for every sin. Where, then, can we look? Justice no longer appals when satisfied in Christ. It is the love, the mercy of God, which is our citadel. And God will never cease to be merciful to his Church. He is perpetually and gloriously displaying his mercy to men. To destroy them would frustrate the Divine plan and rob them of hope and consolation. The Eternal One is ever the same. No centuries, no sidereal cycles, measure him whose name is I am that I am. Our lives vanish every moment; not so with God. His mercy is everlasting—his mercy endureth for ever [J. W. Alexander].