CRITICAL NOTES.]
Hosea 12:1. Feed] To eat or graze. Wind] What is empty and vain; to hunt after nothing, labour in vain. East] A fierce and destructive wind, oppressive and violent (Job 27:21); figurative of that destruction which sinners bring upon themselves. Increaseth] i.e. continually, multiplies lies and violence by their sins (ch. Hosea 4:2), by which the kingdom is desolated. To this they add gifts, to win alliance with Assyria and Egypt, but all in vain. God will visit both kingdoms.
Hosea 12:2. Jud.] Whose guilt was not open apostasy. Jacob] The ten tribes or chief part of Israel. God will punish, will visit according to their deeds. The original indicates a purpose to visit. If God spares not the favoured, how shall the deserving escape?
HOMILETICS
FEEDING UPON THE WIND.—Hosea 12:1
God has still complaints to make against his people. They turn from him, seek satisfaction in idolatry and in creature confidence. This is to feed upon the wind and to chase after the east wind. A course most unprofitable and most injurious.
I. This conduct is most unprofitable. In every department of business men look for profit. “What shall I gain by this?” is an all-important question. In a course of sin, in seeking safety and felicity from the creature instead of the Creator, there is no gain whatever.
1. It is labour without satisfaction. The wind will not satisfy the hungry man. Pleasure and mirth, worldly honours and religious formalities, are empty husks. Men can only feed upon bread. Grass for cattle, straw for swine, but “food for man.” Sensitive joys gratify the passions, intensify the eagerness and increase the speed with which men seek pleasure; but it is only spending money for that which is not bread, and labour for that which satisfieth not.
2. It is labour in vain. The sinner delights in vain things, and pursues, hunts after emptiness and vanity. He spends his strength for nought, bestows the gifts of body and mind upon those who cannot help him, and seeks to support himself in things worthless and unsubstantial. His appetite is strengthened, not satisfied; his capacities enlarged, not filled; “an aching void,” a blank, is left behind which the world cannot fill. The wisest man took an inventory of pleasures and the best things in the world, and gives the sum total as “vanity of vanities.”
The world’s all title-page, without contents.
II. This conduct is most injurious. It is not only feeding upon wind, but following after what is most pernicious, “the east wind,” the most destructive of all.
1. It increases injury by increasing lies. “He daily increaseth lies.” Men lie in false speech, false dealing, and false worship. They lie to themselves and to others by declaring the sufficiency of human help, and making covenant with man in forgetfulness of God. All things which prop up the false notions and the false systems of men are lies and delusion. The house built upon this foundation will fall, and great will be the fall of it.
2. It brings ruin instead of shelter. He daily increaseth “desolation.” The Cretians were always liars, and must be rebuked sharply (Titus 1:13). Multiplying lies will multiply sorrows and punishments. (a) This ruin is certain. “He that speaketh lies shall not escape” (Proverbs 19:5). Not escape by devices of his own, nor “covenant with the Assyrians.” Egypt withheld its aid, and Assyria was turned against Ephraim—everything false is a broken reed, a rotten support. (b) The ruin is great. “He that speaketh lies shall perish” (Proverbs 19:9). God is faithful and true; repeats denunciations against lies and deceit, and warns all of their danger. “I will be a swift witness against false swearers, and them that fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts.” What folly, therefore, to expect from the world what it cannot give, what is not in it. What infatuation to be willing to be deceived with the very shadow of profit. In labour like this there is no happiness “under the sun.” “I have no comfort,” said one, “in all this, because I meet death in every walk.” As a punishment for this perversity God says, “Behold, it is not of the Lord of Hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
1. Men are so naturally averse to God that they fly to any source for help. Israel sometimes went to Egypt and sometimes to Assyria; to one or both according to their need.
2. Human helps will be of no avail in the day of trouble. Israel’s allies could not ward off the judgments of God.
3. Men who deal falsely with God will deal falsely with their fellow-men. If the covenant of God be despised, the contracts with man will not be treated with sanctity. A man’s word will not always be his bond.
4. Men who forsake God will find their own ways expensive and ruinous. They get nothing whatever but “wind,” and they bring upon themselves the tempestuous and stormy wind (Jonah and Job 15:2). Oil and labour are lost, solemn leagues and covenants are broken, and the more they increase lies the further they run from their own mercies. “An empty body meeting with tempests will have much ado to bear up. If Ephraim first feed upon the wind, and then fall under the east wind, it must needs go hard with him.”
Hosea 12:2. A controversy with Judah. J. adhered to the house of David and priesthood of Aaron—did not publicly commit idolatry, and was not so guilty as Israel; yet God blamed them and would punish them. Professors may have true forms and sound creeds, but ungodly lives. Men may glory in titles and descent, as Israel gloried in Jacob—be commended for some things, and sadly guilty in others. But God is impartial, and will not spare any sins, but measure out judgment according to the degree and obstinacy of guilt. He admonishes Judah, and indicates his purpose to visit Israel “according to his doings.” “The justice of God falls more severely on those who degenerate from a holy parent than on those who have no incitement to good from the piety of their home.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12
Hosea 12:1. Wind. Plants can feed upon ashes, the worm upon earth, but man’s spiritual appetite requires higher and more nutritious food. Wind will not nourish. To chase after worldly pleasure, and depend upon worldly aid in time of distress, will disappoint and toss the soul in disquietude and misery. The sinner’s labours are a great nothing. “My life is wind.”
Hosea 12:2. Recompense. God would have us read our sins in our judgments, that we might both repent of our sins and give glory to his justice [Bp Hall].