CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 4:1. Controv.] = a legal action (cf. Micah 6:2; Joel 3:2), or ground of complaint with the ten tribes (Hosea 4:15). Truth] i.e. truthfulness in word or deed, no conscience nor uprightness (Proverbs 3:3; Jeremiah 3:4). Mercy] Affection, tenderness, and love; no compassion to the needy. Truth and love cannot be separated. “Truth cannot be sustained without mercy; and mercy without truth makes men negligent; so that the one ought to be mingled with the other.” No know.] which produces love and fear; wilfully ignorant; hence injustice the upper hand.
Hosea 4:2. Swearing] a breach of the second, stealing of the eighth commandment. In Heb. these nouns of action give emphasis and picture the scene, nothing but evil, and that continually. Break] out like waters beyond all bounds and restraint (2 Samuel 5:20). Blood] Lit. bloods, shed with violence. Toucheth] “Murder was so common, that no space was left between its acts” [Henderson].
Hosea 4:3. Mourn] by drought (1 Kings 18:17-18). As a consequence vegetation scorched, animal life wastes away, and pools dry, the greatest calamity that could happen in the East.
Hosea 4:4. Strive] Lit. only man, let him not strive, and let not man reprove. God had taken the matter in his own hands, reproof would only aggravate their guilt, man must not interfere. Some give, let none reprove one another; each must look to his own sins. Priest] The judge and tribunal to decide law-suits (Deuteronomy 17:12-13), to dispute with whom was the highest contumacy.
Hosea 4:5.] People and prophet would fall by night and day without intermission. Mother] The whole nation destroyed.
HOMILETICS
GOD’S CONTROVERSY WITH A GUILTY PEOPLE.—Hosea 4:1-5
The prophet now begins to speak more plainly. Israel was bound to God by legal covenant. God only wishes justice to be done, and will not subject them to disadvantages. But they have infringed upon his rights, neglected their obligations, and forgotten their relation to him. Hence the suit-at-law. The land, swept of fidelity, goodness, and love, is brought to shame and desolation.
I. The nation summoned into court. “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel.” The whole people, with prophets and priests, are called to the judgment-seat of God to make their defence or hear their indictment. Men are inattentive and negligent. They disregard the word of God, and forget things which make for their peace. If Demosthenes had need to reprove the Athenian senate for inattention to his speech on important affairs, how much greater reproof do the careless and indifferent require now. It is sad to be given up to a spirit of slumber, to have eyes and not see, ears and not hear. None so deaf as those who will not hear. God speaks loudly and continually in his providence and word—“once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not.” In creation wisdom, power, and goodness are manifest; in works of judgment and mercy God’s voice is heard; by his prophets and his Son God expostulates, but men neglect the warnings. This needful admonition suggests a sad condition. One would think that every one would gather round the feet of Jesus, and, like Samuel, cry, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth!” But sinners are—
1. Ignorant;
2. Careless;
3. Obdurate. God’s cause will be pleaded by the words of his mouth, and the wonders of his providence. He speaks with authority, demands fair hearing, and gives fair warning. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
II. The nation accused of guilt. The indictment of Israel is given negatively and positively. We have the absence of virtue and the presence of evil. There must be one or the other. The human mind does not like a vacuum. Dethrone good, you set up evil. A mind unoccupied and a life of sin are the impersonations of wretchedness. Some object must engage attention. The heart must have something really good, or thought to be good, to lay hold of. Wrest it away from one thing, without the substitution of another, you leave a void as painful as hunger. It may be dispossessed of one thing, but it cannot be desolated of all. If grace does not abound in thought and conduct, sin will much more abound. In Israel there was—
1. A declension of religion. “There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land” … (a) “No truth.” Truth is the bond of union and the basis of human happiness. “Without this virtue,” says Jeremy Collier, “there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship, and no security in promises and oaths.” Neither talent nor genius can be trusted unless based on truthfulness. This is the foundation of personal excellence and human character; this is the health and ornament of the nation; loyal adherence to truth is the secret of a nation’s power and a nation’s glory. When there is no truth, but falsehood; when men’s acts are at variance with their words; then there is no respect, nor honesty, nor security. What a sad state of society! We depart from truth when we state as true what we do not know to be true, when we intentionally produce a false impression, when we deceive and designedly mislead. Often painful wrongs are inflicted by covert innuendos and malignant insinuations. Half a fact is a whole falsehood, and he who colours truth by false methods of telling it is a liar. “Of all duties,” says a writer, “the love of truth, with faith and constancy in it, ranks first and highest. Truth is God. To love God and to love truth are one and the same.” (b) “Nor mercy.” Mercy is pity or compassion which one man shows toward another in misery; clemency towards our neighbours (Proverbs 20:28; Luke 10:37). “Let not mercy and truth forsake thee; bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart.” Mercy and truth are the glorious perfections of God always in harmony and action. We rest upon them for salvation, and should copy them in life. The want of one neutralizes the effect of the other. A man may be truthful, and yet not merciful. Just in his dealings to others, yet “as hard as flint.” Mercy has been urged upon man from the very beginning to counteract his selfishness and cruelty. “It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown”, and “earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.” Kindness evokes kindness, and our own happiness is increased by our benevolence. “Kind words cost little.” Friendly conduct may meet with ungrateful return; but absence of gratitude on the part of the receiver cannot destroy the pleasure of the giver. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” (c) “Nor knowledge of God.” There was no sense of honesty and obligation, no justice nor humanity. Truth and benevolence had been disregarded. The fragmentary man was seen in disordered society and ignorance of God in a land specially his own, and which should have presented his glory and preserved his name. The knowledge of God is a necessity of our moral nature, and lies at the foundation of all morality and religion. Man can have no obligation to mere laws of nature, and feel no sense of responsibility to an impersonal being. God has revealed himself in his works and word. We are related to him as intelligent and moral beings. We owe duty to ourselves and our fellow-men because God wills and commands it. But God is not recognized, and then forgotten in motive and duty. God is not seen through his works, and in Israel and England we have a succession of human beings instructed in the laws and duties of society, with the character and even the existence of the law-giver omitted. We have the means of knowing and worship ping God, but no true, practical knowledge of God. The supreme influence of God is lost in the family and in the land, in custom and law, hence a spirit of subordination and licentiousness. We have sound creeds but ungodly lives; theoretic, but little practical knowledge of God. If men “hold the truth in unrighteousness,” check the development of it in their lives, and reject the knowledge of God; they begin the downward course to idolatry and grossest sin. The history of the heathen world and the results of the French Revolution prove this knowledge to be the safeguard of the people, to be necessary
(1) to preserve mental vigour. If the knowledge of God is not thought worth keeping in the mind, then the mind itself will become worthless and degenerate, “a reprobate mind” (Romans 1:28).
(2) to preserve true morality. Progressive vice, penal suffering, and fearful lusts are the certain results of rejecting the knowledge of God. “If there be not a God, we must invent one,” cried one of the leading spirits of France. “Some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.”
2. A corrupt morality. “Swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery,” were common practices. These, and nothing but these, were seen all around. Religion and morality are bound together. Without the one there can be no true existence of the other. Ignorance of God is a source of wrong practice, a source of all evils. Where there is no love and truth, no regard to God, there will be vices contrary to these virtues. When the soul or the land is empty of good, it will be full of evil. Evils of every description abounded in Israel. Society was penetrated with vice and profligacy. Perjury and falsehood corrupted the morals and manners of the people. Religion and virtue were swamped. Family and home were alike tainted. Domestic purity, religious sanctity, no longer restrained and bound society together. The laws by which God had fenced the estate, the life, and character of men were broken; violence and bloodshed knew no bounds, carried everything before them, and like a flood swept the nation to ruin.
III. The nation punished. “Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away,” &c. General depravity produces general punishment. God in judgment sent a universal drought, such as that which prevailed in the reign of Ahab. Vegetation was to suffer, animal life decay, and sea and land groaned beneath the visitation. If man will not love God, neither shall God’s creatures help man. For man’s interests and theirs are bound together in the wondrous providence of God.
1. Man’s sins affect inanimate creation. Man was not made for the earth, but the earth was made for man. By successive steps and gradual events the earth was prepared and fitted to be his residence. For him power had stilled the conflict of chaos and restored “the reign of law.” For his sake goodness had beautified the earth and clothed it with vegetation. In wisdom the various animals were subject to his control, and he had dominion over all the earth. Man had to replenish, subdue, and govern the earth (Genesis 1:28). (a) Man is related to material creation by his physical nature. His name (Adam), man, is formed from the (adamah) material of which his body is composed. He is related to the physical laws of the universe as a physical being, and is amenable to gravitation, mechanical force, and chemical action. As an organized being he is subject to organic laws. Every great characteristic by which vegetable life is distinguished from inorganic matter and animal life, is found in him. He also possesses animal instincts like the inferior creatures. Thus man’s constitution in its threefold character, of physical, organic, and sentient, “took up the strain of creation which had preceded his coming, in praise of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God.” (b) Man has brought a curse upon material creation by his first sin. The earth is not like the garden of Eden in which he was placed at first; “cursed is the ground for thy sake.” It does not yield its produce with its original ease and abundance. We have disorder and decay, malformation and barrenness. “Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth,” with all our toil and daily labour. When man fell from his original position with God, the earth lost its fruitfulness and dignity, and now “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain” under its bondage and corruption, and is waiting for its freedom and greater blessing (Romans 8:20-22). (c) Man injures material creation by his immoral conduct. Material forces are largely at his command. He can change and create; beautify and adorn impair and destroy. Solomon saw the field of the slothful “all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.” (Proverbs 24:30-31). A life of mere animal sensual indulgence, manual or mental sloth will bring to poverty. Idleness and neglect will bring drought and failure of crops (Haggai 1:2-11). Vice, idolatry, and licentiousness will spread their effects and spoil the face of nature. Creation is in sympathy with man, responds to his moral life, and is blessed or wasted by his moral conduct. In peace and plenty, under the benediction and providence of God, the valleys shout and sing for joy. In famine and war, under the curse and sin of man, “the land shall mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish.” “How long shall the land mourn and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein?” (Jeremiah 12:4; Psalms 107:34).
2. Man’s sins affect the animal creation. We should regard the animal world with due feeling. Life in its lowest form is the gift of God. We should not abuse any creature which God pronounced good and intended for our welfare. The inferior creatures have been useful to man and subservient to his interests in many ways. (a) They have been a source of sustenance. (b) A source of commerce. (c) The means of training his powers of body and mind. But they have been punished for man’s idolatry. Their growth and continuance have been hindered by man’s sin. As necessities of life they have been cut off, and as objects of adoration they have been smitten with the plague. “He turned their waters into blood and slew their fish” (Psalms 105:29). Internal blessing and outward prosperity shall go hand in hand when man is restored to right relation with God. Then shall the original promise be fulfilled, and God will give peace in the land; rid it of evil beasts: and its inhabitants shall lie down, and nothing shall disturb their rest (Leviticus 26:6).
IV. The nation punished without mercy. They had rejected God, and God would leave them to their fate. They had despised the priests, and he would slay their prophets. By degrees they had hardened themselves and grown stubborn in sin, and thus ripened themselves for destruction. When the Lord has a controversy with a people and they will not hear, it is useless to strive with them. They who resist the Spirit and the ministers of God, resist God himself. “He that despiseth you despiseth me.” Their state is most desperate and deplorable.
1. Punishment without intermission. “Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night.” There would be no time free from destruction, night and day calamities should never cease. Darkness would be no protection, and day would be no security. Terror by night found them helpless and exposed. Arrows from cunning foes and with deadly aims flew by day. Pestilence, shrouded in mystery, marched on unseen, to infect the home and alarm the city. Destruction wasted at noon-day, and there was no shield nor buckler. This reminds us of the Great Plague of London, when evil befell the city, and its inhabitants were stricken with death.
2. Punishment without exemption. People and prophets fell together. God’s judgments are impartial. Rank and title, wealth and worldly distinctions, are of no avail. “Label men how you please,” says Herbert Spencer, “with titles of ‘upper,’ and ‘middle,’ and ‘lower,’ you cannot prevent them from being units of the same society, acted upon by the same spirit of the age, moulded after the same type of character. The mechanical law, that action and reaction are equal, has its moral analogue. The deed of one man to another tends to produce a like effect upon both, be the deed good or bad. In whatever rank you see corruption, be assured it equally pervades all ranks; be assured it is the symptom of a bad social diathesis. Whilst the virus of depravity exists in one part of the body-politic, no other part can remain healthy.” Man’s evil character and influence blend and bind him up with others. Not a particle is lost, but the whole is taken up and produces its results in the general community. Collectively and individually the destruction of all is declared. Root and branch they were to be cut off. As a nation they could not escape. “I will destroy thy mother,” and as individuals they could not flatter themselves with hope. “Thou shalt fall.”
3. Punishment without human sympathy. “Let no man strive nor reprove another.” Man is forbidden to interfere or aid. God will implead them, and none can contradict or evade his judgments. We know not how to judge. We condemn and acquit without cause. We are ignorant and helpless ourselves. “None can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.” All are alike guilty, condemned and exposed to death. Christ alone can deliver us. The redemption of the soul is precious, but human efforts, gold and silver, and a world of rubies, could not purchase it. Riches cannot ward off judgment, nor tears avail with God. The Scripture hath concluded, shut up as in a prison, all in unbelief, not that God might condemn, but that he might have mercy upon all men (Galatians 3:22).
4. Punishment without Divine help. Criminals are sometimes recommended to mercy and delivered from punishment; but Israel was stubborn and incorrigible, and God forbids any to remonstrate or reprove. Christian reproof and expostulation bring sinners to repentance and are of immense service in setting them right. It is one of the duties of friendship. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” But when men hate reproof and defy the judgments of God, then they are let alone to reap their folly. Their doom is certain: “Thou shalt fall,” and “I will destroy.” “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still.” “The fruit of sin in time,” says Chalmers, “when arrived at full and finished maturity, is just the fruit of sin through eternity. It is merely the sinner reaping what he has sown. It makes no violent or desultory step, from sin in time to hell in eternity. The one emerges from the other, as does the fruit from the flower. It is simply that the sinner be filled with his own ways, and that he eat the fruit of his own devices.”
A TERRIBLE DEPRIVATION.—Hosea 4:3-5
The words lead us to consider a lamentable deprivation—a deprivation that comes upon the people in consequence of their heinous iniquities. Two remarks are suggested concerning this deprivation.
I. It is a deprivation both of material and spiritual good. First: Of material good.
(1) A deprivation of health. “Every one that dwelleth therein shall languish.” The physical frame loses its wonted elasticity and vigour, and succumbs to decay and depression. “Languish,” like a dying man on his couch. Sin is inimical to the bodily health and vigour of men and nations; it insidiously saps the constitution.
(2) A deprivation of the means of subsistence. “The beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.” Literally this refers to one of those droughts that occasionally occur in the East, and is ever one of the greatest calamities. What a dependent creature man is! The beasts of the field, the fowls of heaven, and the fish of the sea can do better without him, but he cannot do without them. How soon the Eternal can destroy those means of his subsistence! One hot blast of pestilential air could do the whole. It is a deprivation, secondly: Of spiritual good. “Let no man strive nor reprove another; for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.” The meaning seems to be that their presumptuous guilt was as great as that of one who refused to obey the priest when giving judgment in the name of Jehovah, and who, according to law, for that cause was to be put to death (Deuteronomy 17:12). One of the greatest spiritual blessings of mankind is the strife and reproof of godly men. The expostulations and admonitions of Christly friends, parents, teachers, what on earth is more valuable, is so essential as these? Yet these are to be taken away. “Let no man strive nor reprove another.” The time comes with the sinner when God says, “My spirit shall no more strive with thee; Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.” Men have become so dog-like in nature that holy things are not to be presented to them; so swinish, that you are to cast before them no more pearls (Matthew 7:6).
II. It is a deprivation leading to a terrible doom. First: The destruction of priests and people. “Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night.” The meaning is that no time, night or day, shall be free from slaughter, both of the people and the priests. This was literally true of the ten tribes at this time. And it is true in a more general and universal sense. God’s law is, that “evil shall slay the wicked;” and it is always slaying them, whether they be priests or people—the laity or the clergy. If they are not true to God, day and night they are being slain. Secondly: The destruction of the social state. “And I will destroy thy mother.” Who was the mother? The Israelitish state. And it was destroyed. England is our mother, and our mother will be destroyed unless we banish sin from our midst [The Homilist].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
An expostulating God, Hosea 4:1. “Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel,” &c.
1. It is a marvellous controversy. God might forsake, but he strives with men. Princes might hold a controversy with princes, and nations with nations, but for God to plead with his creatures is wondrous love.
2. It is a just controversy. There is abundant reason for it. We have broken his covenant, reproached his name, and been ungrateful for his favours. The demands of moral government, the interests of the universe, require some rectification, some settlement of matters.
3. It is a continual controversy. God is speaking now day by day by his word and servants, carrying on the controversy yet with the most guilty and rebellious, seeking to convince them of sin, and leave them without excuse.
4. It is a hopeless controversy. The sinner has no excuse, no argument or right on his side. He has sinned against light and truth, the voice of conscience and the warnings of providence. “Let them bring forth their witnesses,” as I do mine, “that they may be justified” in their works and ways. “Or let them hear and say it is truth;” let them hear the arguments on my side, and say, after due consideration, if truth is not with me, and that I am perfectly reasonable in my requirements. The sinner is “speechless” now and will have no plea at the judgment day. The potsherd of the earth may strive with the potsherds, but man is unequal in strife with God. “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!”
Truth and mercy.
1. Rooted in the knowledge of God.
2. Related one to another.
3. Opposite to the five sins mentioned in Hosea 4:2, swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and incontinency. “Truth and love are mutually conditions, the one of the other. ‘Truth cannot be sustained without mercy; and mercy without truth makes men negligent; so that the one ought to be mingled with the other’ [Jerome]. They both have their roots in the knowledge of God, of which they are the fruit (Jeremiah 22:16; Isaiah 11:9); for the knowledge of God is not merely ‘an acquaintance with his nature and will’ [Hitzig], but knowledge of the love, faithfulness, and compassion of God, resting upon the experience of the heart. Such knowledge not only produces fear of God, but also love and truthfulness towards brethren (cf. Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:12). Where this is wanting injustice gains the upper hand” [Keil].
Speculative and practical knowledge are bound up together through the oneness of the relation of the soul to God, whether in its thoughts of him or acts towards him. Wrong practice corrupts belief, and misbelief corrupts practice [Pusey].
Priest-strivers.
1. Strife against the means of knowledge. Priests were repositories of knowledge, the oracles and guides of the people (Malachi 2:7).
2. Strife against Divine authority. All difficult cases were taken to the priests (Deuteronomy 17:8-12), who pronounced judgment, and those who refused the sentence were put to death. They represented God’s authority, and spoke in God’s name.
3. Strife against spiritual interests. (a) Even here they, priest-strivers, are often left alone. Let not man strive with those who strive with God; reproof will only irritate and not correct them. (b) Hereafter they suffer the consequence of their evil ways. “To strive then with the priest was the highest contumacy, and such was their whole life and conduct. It was the character of the whole kingdom of Israel. For they had thrown off the authority of the family of Aaron which God had appointed. Their political existence was based upon the rejection of that authority. The national character influences the individual. When the whole policy is formed on disobedience and revolt, individuals will not tolerate interference. As they had rejected the priest, so would, and did, they reject the prophets. St Stephen gives it as a characteristic of the Jews, “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye” [Pusey].
Hosea 4:5. When false prophets flatter and soothe the people in sin, when sinners rebel against Divine authority and reject Divine teaching, they hasten on their ruin. No degree of prosperity, no human aid, and no mere Church or State can save them from sudden, unexpected, and fearful fall. “Thou shalt fall in the day, and I will destroy thy mother.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Hosea 4:1-5. When God has a “controversy” with a people he appeals to conscience as a witness to his cause. He demands and should secure earnest heed. The speaker is great. The cause is most important, and concerns our spiritual and eternal welfare. If we cannot plead excuse now, how can we stand before the judgment-seat at last?
Consideration is the duty of the Church. Faith cometh by hearing, and every faculty of the mind should be bent to receive Divine teaching.