CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 5:1. Hear] A fresh beginning of reproof, connected with chapter 4, addressed to the priests, the royal family, and the whole kingdom. Judg.] Lit. the judgment announced in preceding chapter. You] Priests and court. Snare] A net laid to entice the people, like birds in a trap. Miz. and Tab.] Noted places, and peculiarly adapted for bird-catching.
Hosea 5:2. Profound] Lit. they have made slaughter deep, i.e. they have sunk deeply into it. Their sacrifices were slaughter, butcheri’s, and not offerings to God (cf. Isaiah 31:6). Some, that the allusion is to deep pits covered over for beasts to fall in. Others give the sense of stretching out (Psalms 101:3). They have deepened to stretch out excesses, i.e. they have gone to great lengths, are deeply sunken in excesses. The ringleaders laid deep designs to ensnare in idolatry, Rebuker] Lit. a rebuke or correction. God’s attributes and conduct had taken the form of rebuke only towards them.
Hosea 5:3. Know] their plans, deceit, and profound cunning (Revelation 2:29). All things are naked and opened to God. Now] Even at the present time, when they forget me. Their wickedness is done in public and is undeniable.
HOMILETICS
NATIONAL SINS AND DIVINE DETECTION.—Hosea 5:1-3
In this chapter God proceeds in the same method and carries on the same controversy as before. The kingdoms are first cited and then accused. All ranks are guilty of idolatry and pollutions, of obstinacy and impenitency in guilt. It is not an ordinary challenge, as of one displeased only, but the judicial procedure and sentence of the Supreme Judge. “Hear ye this.” The words set forth national sins, the Divine detection, and open rebuke of them.
I. The national sins. All ranks are accused: the priests, the rulers, and the people. Though some were enticed by others, that does not render them without excuse. The prophet rebukes all, without respect of persons, and shows how justly God was angry with their sins.
1. The priests were guilty. They used their sacred office and their high position to ensnare the people.
(1.) They corrupted the law of God. They were the depositaries of this sacred trust; were appointed to expound and keep unsullied the truth of God. They had to teach the statutes which the Lord had spoken unto them by Moses (Leviticus 10:11). The people inquired from them, and they gave judgment (Deuteronomy 17:9; Deuteronomy 17:11). They were the messengers of the Lord of hosts, and should have preserved knowledge (Malachi 2:7). But instead of feeding the people they starved them, lead them into error and sin. There was neither freshness nor power in their ministry. The science of salvation, the word and the work of God, were not the study of their life. When ministers study and prepare to consume it upon pride and self-confidence; when they seek to please the fancy rather than gain the souls of men; when they grow cold and careless of their own, then they get dull and pitiless concerning the souls of others. Unto them are committed the oracles of God. These oracles they must consult and declare to the people. Their word and doctrine, their life and example, like the breastplate of Aaron, must be a bright reflection of them. The truth of God must not be mixed with human tradition, nor displaced by commandments of men. To teach the law to others and profane it ourselves is mockery.
“I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause.”
(2.) They corrupted the worship of God. The spirituality of God is a practical truth demanding corresponding spirituality in worship. God has absolute and sole right to prescribe how he will be worshipped. But the history of mankind abundantly proves a disposition in human beings to devise and act for themselves in this respect. In the patriarchal and prophetic periods the worship of God was mixed with idolatry. Heroes and beasts have been deified. The heavens and the earth, the ocean and the air, have been peopled with gods. Even now men are dissatisfied with the simplicity and forgetful of the authority of Divine institutes. Worship is thought to consist in words, forms, and gestures. The body assumes the posture and the lips utter the language of devotion, but often there is neither prayer nor praise. It is sad when the priests of God are guilty of innovation, and teach that “fear towards him was taught by the precepts of men” (Isaiah 29:13). The apostles were exceedingly jealous of any defect, redundancy, or admixture in the worship of God. But Jewish priests debased the institutions and corrupted the law of God. They had embraced and strengthened the idolatry by which they were surrounded, and by apostasy had seduced the people. Their teaching was a snare and their lives a curse.
(3.) They despised the reproof of God. “Though I have been a rebuker of them all.” God by his prophet and by his providence had sought to correct them in vain. Rebuke after rebuke had been given, forbidding idolatry and urging amendment, but Israel was immersed in sin; kings and priests revolted more and more. God warns his Church and his servants, and gives smaller corrections to reclaim them; but if these are despised, the sin becomes more aggravated and the punishment more severe. Apostates and revolters are often given up to gross superstitions, cruel rites, and deeper courses. They may have ability to adorn and defend their crafty designs, but they will be caught by their own deceits. The rebuke of the formalist is solemn; but to immoral teachers, who make grace a cover for sin, and soundness of creed for rottenness of life, God speaks in thunder. Scribes and Pharisees were openly reproved for rejecting the law and misleading the people. “Unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.”
2. The rulers were guilty. “Give ye ear, O house of the king.” The priest had to teach and the king enforce the law; but king and priest were alike guilty for corrupting it. Both had been crafty and cruel in carrying out their designs, by patronizing idolatry and leading the nation from Jehovah. Monarchs fulfil a high vocation as representatives of God and his law. They should care for the purity of religion and the administration of justice. If they neglect and violate the law, pervert justice, and encourage vice, they are recreant to God, from whom they receive authority and to whom they are responsible. They are not to assume undue authority, but to establish and preserve good and just laws; to govern in wisdom, equity, and love; to punish evil-doers and encourage them that do well. Asa removed wickedness from the throne, and Amaziah punished it with death. Nehemiah was a great reformer, and Alfred the Great a witness for truth in an age of darkness. But the court of Israel was as corrupt as the priesthood. Instead of being benefactors, they were contaminators to their race. Priests in their saintly robes and kings in their royal garbs have oft been foes in human forms; solemn warnings to the ungodly and profane. They are the greatest sinners, in seducing others, and must suffer the severest punishment.
(1.) They enticed to idolatry;
(2.) They enticed to destruction. “Judgment is toward you.”
3. The People were guilty. Though ensnared by their teachers and princes, they were to blame and had no excuse for their sin. We are to think and act for ourselves. Neither the enticement of the priest nor the terror of the king can force us to do wrong; neither the laws nor the lives of superiors can make us bow down to sin. Like the three Hebrew youths, we should not regard the fashions of the court nor the dictum of the priest. We must not partake of other men’s sins lest we share other men’s sufferings. Ephraim was duped willingly and therefore inexcusably. “He willingly walked after the commandment” and was “oppressed and broken in judgment” (Hosea 5:11).
(1.) The people followed bad examples;
(2.) Voluntarily corrupted themselves by idolatry. National sins are the sum of individual contributions. God here arraigns and condemns all classes in the threefold summons. The privileges of the priest, the dignity of the prince, and the number of the people, cannot excuse and do not exempt them from Divine judgments. “Daniel Webster,” says Dr Thomas, “was once asked, ‘What is the most important thought you ever entertained?’ He replied after a moment’s reflection, ‘The most important thought I ever had was my individual responsibility to God.’ ” “Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.”
II. The Divine detection. “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me.” God intimately knows and observes the conduct of men. His knowledge is without defect and his judgment without error. Nothing can be hid or concealed from him. Men may deceive themselves, think God does not notice them, and vail their ways from others, but the omniscient eye of God penetrates the covering and brings all things to light. By his word and providence he discovers sin, puts it before us in true colours, and warns us to flee from it. All excuses and plausible pretexts are torn away, and the sinner is exposed in nakedness and danger. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”
1. Sin is detected notwithstanding human ingenuity to cover it. Men excuse and plead infirmity and mistake.
(1.) Sin is often covered by ignorance. Ignorance itself is a sin when it can be removed. Ignorance in daily calling is “not bliss,” for lessened power involves lessened earnings and fewer comforts and conveniences of life. Men always pay for ignorance. They cannot justify themselves when they sin against light and truth. Ministers will not be able to plead at last, “We knew it not.” They should watch for souls as those that must give account.
(2.) Sin is often covered by cunning craft. Jewish leaders were crafty in their designs and deep in their schemes. They pretended friendship and goodwill, but they were snares and nets to the people (Ecclesiastes 7:26). Their rulers with great subtlety laid hold of Israel’s love for idols and reverence for their ancestors, and sought to replace the presence of God by the symbols of nature. Around the worship of Baal were gathered the rites of Moses. The services were decked out and adorned with feasts and fasts, instrumental music and songs; upheld by tithes, by civil authority, by prophet, priest, and king. Leaders sought to please that they might ruin; to flatter that they might devour; but “God taketh the wise in their own craftiness.”
2. Sin is detected notwithstanding State policy to uphold it. In Israel selfish interests were put before eternal; policy before principle; and the welfare of the State must be upheld though the people be ruined. In these modern days expediency is often put before morality, State revenues before virtue, and immorality sanctioned by legislators and teachers. We shall do well to heed what a writer says concerning England. “We may succeed for a time by fraud, by surprise, by violence, but we can succeed permanently only by means directly opposite. It is not alone the courage, the intelligence, the activity of the merchant and manufacturer which maintain the superiority of their productions and the character of their country; it is far more their wisdom, their economy, and above all their probity. If ever in the British Islands the useful citizen should lose these virtues, we may be sure that, for England, as for every other country, the vessels of a degenerate commerce, repulsed from every shore, would speedily disappear from those seas whose surface they now cover with the treasures of the universe, bartered for the treasures of the industry of the three kingdoms.” Religion raises, strengthens, and dignifies a nation. Its industry and civilization depend upon true character and not false policy. Even in war Napoleon said the moral was ten to one to the physical. State policy is often State folly and God-dishonouring policy. “It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness, for the throne is established by righteousness.”
III. The solemn call. “Hear ye this.”
1. A universal call. A call to all classes in Israel to hear and consider their ways.
2. An urgent call. “For judgment is toward you.” The judges are summoned before the Judge of judges and the King of kings. This is a matter that must be attended to. All ranks are guilty when God has a controversy with a nation.
3. A present call. Hear and repent now; delays are dangerous. “Now is the accepted time.” Indifference, moral insensibility, are seen on every hand. Ignorance, carelessness, and opposition to the gospel abound. The authority of the caller, and the interests at stake, urge attention to the message: “Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Kings and priests snares to the people, by erroneous doctrine, fraudulent counsels, evil example, and subtle edicts, and by employing exalted position to lead astray.
Men-trappers—their motive, efforts, pretences, and punishment. Why not attack openly? Why plot and scheme? Because subtlety is the nature of sin and the serpent, and most likely to succeed. “Great ill is an achievement of great powers. Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray.”
Silly people—led astray; like beasts and birds, always exposed and easily overcome by “the snare of the fowler.” We are foolish and weak, and apt to be lured to destruction by cunning foes. Hence the need of (a) watchfulness, (b) prayer, and (c) dependence upon God.
Cunning policy.
1. Most impudent.
2. Most guilty.
3. Most degrading.
4. Most ruinous.
Hear ye this. Preachers should rebuke the sins of rulers as well as those of subjects, so that they bear not the guilt of the souls that are lost, whose blood God will require at their hands [Lange].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Hosea 5:1-3. Inferiors are very apt to be formed up according to the mould and manners of those above them. The example of kings and princes are seldom unconformed to by their subjects. There is a great power in example; what is done persuades, as well as what is spoken. And the errors of those that rule, become rules of error; men sin with a kind of authority, through the sins of those who are in authority. Jeroboam made Israel to sin, not only by commanding them to worship the calves at Dan and Bethel, but by commending that idolatrous worship to them in his own practice and example [Caryl].
The common people are like tempered wax, easily receiving impressions from the seals of great men’s vices; they care not to sin by prescription, and damn themselves with authority [Harding].