CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 2:21. I will hear] The heavens pray to God, to give to earth its fertility; the earth and all creatures desire to satisfy the wants of God’s people; God is no longer scattering, but providing and planting.
Hosea 2:22 Jez. =] the seed of God.
Hosea 2:23. Will sow] A promise antithetic to the threat (Deuteronomy 28:23; Leviticus 26:19); expressive of prodigious converts and innumerable blessings on the earth (Romans 11:12-15). The children now change names to show mercy and prove restoration. “And with tenderness I will cherish her that had been Lo-Ruhamah (the not-beloved), and I will say to Lo-Ammi (to the no people-of-mine), Ammi (my own people) art thou; and he shall say, My God” [Horsley].
This chapter is an enlargement and application of the first, the symbol of the one is expounded by the other. The sinful conduct of the nation is condemned, punishment is threatened, but salvation is proclaimed in promise of restitution and the blessings of peace and subsistence. The remnant among Israel, for whose sake God preserved a corrupt people, must prove living witnesses for him, testify to his goodness and grace, and urge others to turn to Jehovah. The penitent must plead with the impenitent, the converted with the unconverted, and the children with the parents.
HOMILETICS
THE UNIVERSE GOVERNED IN THE INTERESTS OF HUMANITY.—Hosea 2:21-23
In these verses we have an unbroken chain of causation. The prophet represents God as listening to the prayer of the heavens, to allow them to give fertility to the earth. The heavens fulfil the desire of the earth, and the earth yields its increase to the nation; all things in heaven and earth depend upon God, “so that without his bidding not a drop of rain falls from heaven,” says Calvin, “and the earth produces no germ, and consequently all nature would be barren, unless he gave it fertility by his blessing.”
I. All things are subordinate to God.
1. God is the Creator of all things. All things were made by him at first. He only has absolute being and original essence. Creation is derived from him, The Great First Cause. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” By this simple expression Atheism, Polytheism, Pantheism, and Materialism are denied, and that philosophy which sees nothing apart and distinct from matter is reproved. We have no chance work, no “theory of development” here. Matter is not eternal. The world had a birthday. In the beginning God; God before primordial matter; God before its arrangement into shape and order; God first, and last, and everywhere; God before all things; God the cause of all things, and God the meaning of all things.
2. God is the Conserver of all things. That which was dependent at first cannot afterwards become independent. It requires the same hand to sustain as to create a thing. God did not create the world like a carpenter builds a house, to stand still. Having its very being from him, that being cannot be, or continue to be, without him. “By him all things consist,” or stand together. God is “the Conservation and Correlation of forces.” Not an atom is permitted to fall out of existence. Things may travel far, and take different shapes; but nothing is destroyed. The tiniest dew-drop is long-lived as the mighty ocean, and the feeblest nebule indestructible as the everlasting hills. As in matter, so in mind and morals. “I know whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it.”
3. God is the Governor of all things. Creation carries with it the idea of control and superintendence. We are under law, mild, gracious, paternal law. But laws of themselves are impotent without the law-giver. Second causes depend upon the First Cause, and cannot put forth any causation without God. God works, and is ever active in his dominions. We are not the inhabitants of a fatherless world, nor is the earth a little province in a forsaken universe. God directs and controls all forces, all agencies, and all events, for the accomplishment of his design. There are no localities with God. He is everywhere present, and ruleth over all. In effecting his great designs he is independent also of every other creature, and renders the purpose and plans of every other power subordinate and auxiliary to his own. Here one sovereign forms an alliance with others for mutual interests and protection. If one were to oppose another the opposition might endanger all states under the alliance. But were all kings and kingdoms of the universe to unite against him, they could not succeed. His throne is above the heavens, above the accidents and contingences of earth. The frame of nature might be unhinged, and the universe fall into commotion, but he reigns undisturbed, God over all, and blessed for evermore.
II. All things co-operate, or work together. God hears the heavens; they hear the earth; and “the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel.” Here we have the connection and concatenation of all things. “God is not the author of confusion.” Providence, therefore, which is God’s will in action, is consistent with itself. It is the glory of creation that it everywhere “marches in time, moving to the music of law.” Here is the true “music of the spheres.” A consummate harmony of relationships so dominates over the whole, that we have never an organic demand without the means of satisfying it, that amid innumerable changes and intermediate ends we find designs of final results. The world is not a machine, and the action of God interference; things are not like particles of dust driven in a whirlwind: but “all things work together,” work in harmony, subserve the ends for which they were made, and never cease to conform to God’s will, and be a reflex of his wisdom and goodness. The principle of mediation is seen everywhere in God’s government. “I will hear the heavens.” Heaven intercedes for earth, and the earth for men upon it. In the common intercourse and concerns of life, one man is blessed through another and for the sake of another. Our material and spiritual gifts come through the medium and mediation of another. But this regular system of established agency connects the result with the sovereign will of God. The first power is a link placed at the foot of the eternal throne. “I will act upon the heavens, the powers of nature above us; they shall act upon the earth, the powers and sources of vegetation beneath us; the earth shall act upon the corn, and the wine, and the oil; the results of their combined and mysterious influence. Thus the chain is complete and unbroken.
Where one step broken, the great scale’s destroyed:
From nature’s chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
III. All things are governed in the interests of the Christian Church. “They shall hear Jezreel.” Jez. means the seed of God, the nation pardoned and restored to God. All things not only work together, but good is the result, and this good is “to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). The universe in all its operations and departments contributes to the interests of God’s people. Events do not happen in human society and the Christian Church as if left to the mere causalities of nature, and were not under Divine control. Human happiness is promoted and human wants supplied, and men in Christ are the objects of God’s eternal purpose.
1. Human wants are satisfied. Corn, wine, and oil are given to Jezreel. Chastisements are removed, Divine favour is restored, and men are daily loaded with benefits and blessings. The gifts of nature are emblems of the gifts of grace. Constant bread, common mercies, and spiritual joys are bestowed with a liberal hand. “Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.”
2. There is spiritual increase in the Church. “I will sow her unto me in the earth.” Persecution and affliction did not diminish Israel. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” God restored her, and in her dispersion she was the means of scattering the knowledge of God and the seeds of Divine truth. Gentiles were converted to God, and the earth will yet be the scene of an increase richer than any yet enjoyed. The fields are already white unto harvest.
3. There is restoration to friendship with God. Mercy for those that were unpitied, that had not obtained mercy, and those that were not God’s people were to become his people. God would anew declare them his people, and they would affectionately respond to the call. Jew and Gentile, bond and free, Barbarian and Scythian, will be one in Christ. “All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hosea 2:21-22. All nature is closed and would refuse her office to those who rebel against her God, so when he hath withdrawn his curse, and is reconciled to man, all shall combine together for man’s good, and by a kind of harmony all parts thereof join their ministries for the service of those who are at unity with him. And, as an image of love, all, from the lowest to the highest, are bound together, each depending on the ministry of that beyond it, and the highest on God. At each link the chain might have been broken; but God, who knit their services together, and had before withheld the rain, and made the earth barren, and laid waste the trees, now made each to supply the other, and led the thoughts of man through the course of causes and effects up to himself, who ever causes all which come to pass [Pusey].
Learn—
1. The unworthiness of man. A dependent, sinful creature.
2. The dignity of man. All creatures employed to help him.
1. The abundance of God’s gifts—“corn, wine, and oil.”
2. The goodness of God in supplying them—“I will hear.”
3. The medium through which they come—“heaven and earth.”
4. The certainty of their bestowment—“It shall come to pass.”
Hosea 2:23. “I will sow her.” The Church the channel of blessings to the world. The Church can only bless the world as she is blessed herself.
A beautiful earth.
1. The residence of the Church of God—“I will sow her unto me in the earth.”
2. The theatre of the mercy of God—“I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy.”
3. The scene of obedience and love to God—“Thou art my people.… Thou art my God.”
God’s mercy.
1. The sum of human wants—“not obtained mercy,” “not my people.”
2. The source from which it comes—free grace. “I will have mercy.”
3. The result of its bestowment—“Thou art my people.”
4. The evidence of its possession—“Thou art my God.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Hosea 2:23. My God. All in this life that is truly good is included in this, my God! if said not from habit, but with a full title to its use. This is a word of faith, by which we place our whole reliance upon the almighty, true, and compassionate God; it is a word of hope, by which we provide ourselves with all good perpetually in God, who is a Rock of Eternity; a word of love and fellowship, by which we delight ourselves in the goodness of God, and give ourselves wholly up to him [Rieger.] “This God is our God.” Is it so? Then infinite riches, infinite beauty, infinite excellence is ours. Is it so? Then all he has is ours; his infinite resources are ours; his providence, his Son, his Spirit, his heaven, are ours (1 Corinthians 3:23). If the character of God be paternal, then your character should be filial, and the leading features of that are dependence and love.
Hosea 2:21-22. Providence is God in motion; God teaching by facts, and God fulfilling, explaining, enforcing his own word. Providence is God rendering natural events subservient to spiritual purposes; rousing our attention when we are careless; reminding us of our obligations when we are ungrateful; recalling our confidence when we depart from him by dependence upon his creatures. Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord [The Pathway].