CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 7:4. Oven] “In this passionate career the nation resembled a furnace which a baker heats in the evening and leaves burning all night while the dough is leavening, and then causes to burn with a still brighter flame in the morning when the dough is ready for baking” [Keil].
Hosea 7:5. Day] Birth or coronation day, probably a feast day. Bottles] Lit. with heat through wine; bottles, not glasses, drunkenness, excess, and debauchery. Hand] In token of fellowship, health-drinking. Scorners] Ridicule of sacred things, derision of God, natural at intoxicating feasts (Daniel 5:3-4).
Hosea 7:6. Ready] Lit. applied (marg. brought near) their heart to sin. For] The reason for the open sin; their heart is ready, and only waiting for the spark to kindle it.
Hosea 7:7. Devoured] Results of their conduct stated. Judges and kings, inflamed by the passion, here consumed and fell into the abyss, the six last kings in succession (2 Kings 15:10; 2 Kings 15:14; 2 Kings 15:25), B. C. 772. None sought help from God in national calamity.
SIN A FURNACE OF FIRE—Hosea 7:4-7
The passion of Israel for idolatry is likened to a furnace, heated by the baker, and left burning during the process of fermentation. There is little or no cessation to their indulgence. All are guilty, and fan the flames which consume them without reflection and return to God. Keeping up the figure, sin is like a furnace,
I. In the method by which it is kindled. Man is capable of warmth and enthusiasm. We are made for fervour. We feel the glow of friendship and the power of principles fondly cherished and firmly defended. We have properties not simply attributed to matter, but possessed by the Seraphim of heaven and attributed to God himself. “The zeal of the Lord of Hosts.” We are more influenced by evil than good. The heart, with its affections, is kindled into a passion; the temperament warmed, and men are “set on fire” with lust, and “set on fire of hell.” Like “an oven heated by the baker,” they burn with hatred, envy, and adultery; “burned in their lusts one toward another.” In whatever light we look at sin “it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase” (Job 31:12).
II. In the fuel by which it is fed. The same material that kindles must keep alive the fire. It is heated and fed by lust; by constant and unnatural excitement. Respites only ferment; the flames slumber to break out into greater fury. Anger, ambition, and filthy lusts fill the soul, and the fire burns upon the altar and never goes out. Certain sins are mentioned in the text.
1. Prevalent adultery. They are all adulterers. “Given up to vile affections, and punished with impurities of heart and life.” “It is better to marry than burn” (1 Corinthians 7:9).
2. Excessive drink. The princes made the king “sick,” heated him “with bottles of wine.” Intemperance in any is degrading, but especially in men of place and power. Priest and prophet “err through strong drink” (Isaiah 28:7; Isaiah 56:11-12). The glory of Benhadad (1 Kings 20:16), of Belshazzar, and of “the princes of Israel,” was covered with shame. Philip of Macedon, when drunk, unjustly condemned a woman. She boldly said, “I appeal to Philip; but it shall be when he is sober.” Roused by the appeal, the king examined the case, and reversed his judgment. “It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted” (Proverbs 31:4-5).
3. Impious scorning. “He stretched out his hand” in friendship, and associated “with scorners.” The king jested with drunkards, praised idols, and scoffed at God. Atheists and scoffers, wine and mirth, are often found together. “Hypocritical mockers at feasts” give license to their tongue, and lose control over their conduct. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.”
III. In the results which it produces. These are innumerable. The temptations to criminality are fearful. Every kind of “wickedness burneth as the fire” (Isaiah 9:18). “Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals and his feet not be burned?”
1. It influences the heart. “For they have made ready their heart.” It hardens and encrusts it; disposes it to prepare, practise, and perfect evil. The heart is brought nigh, stirred up to sin, though the occasion for it be taken away. This oven, once heated, gives no breathing time, no real rest. Corrupt passions burn with intense heat, until extinguished and overcome by the grace of God.
2. It consumes its abettors. The fire “devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen.” Jeroboam and other kings corrupted the people to establish their own authority; were flattered and slain by those who flattered them. Their sins returned to their own bosom. The flames, like the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, devoured those who were thrown into them and those who kindled them. It is ever thus with sin. The heathens taught that “the artificers of death perished by their own art.” “Kindle not the coals of a sinner, lest thou be burnt with the flame of his fire” (Sir. 8:10).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hosea 7:5. The day of our king. Birthdays and coronation-days of rulers; national fasts and feasts spent in drunkenness and rioting—scenes of revelry, scenes of debauchery, scoffing, and murder. Drinking healths and taking lives! Kings falling in feasting and mirth! What a portrait history gives of human folly and God’s providence! “Their holy days, like those of so many English now, were days of excess. Their festival they turned into an irreligious and anti-religious carousal; making themselves like the brutes that perish, and tempting their king first to forget his royal dignity, and then to blaspheme the majesty of God” [Pusey].
Drink, debauchery, and scoffing a triple association in feasting without God. “Fools make a mock at sin.”
Hosea 7:6. Their heart like an oven. Men who are wicked and vile may seem to be lying by and doing nothing, yet—
1. Their hearts are bent on their course; their oven is heating while they sleep.
2. Their designs are still going on; the heat is tending to burning as a flaming fire while the baker sleeps.
3. Iniquity that is hatched, through abundance of lust, is most violently executed, when opportunity offers; and the more violently that it hath been long delayed [Hutcheson].
Hosea 7:7. Kings are fallen. Those who murdered others are murdered themselves. Plots of sin recoil on those who originate them.
None that calleth on me. God can correct the evils and subdue the sedition of a nation. But mark the stupidity and perversity of sin which make people insensible in danger and neglect God in trouble. Not even distress, in which generally men betake themselves to God, awakened any sense of sin in them. “Those are not only heated with sin, but hardened in sin, that continued to live without prayers, even when they are in trouble and distress.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 7
Hosea 7:4-7. Fire. Some few years ago a noble steamer moored in one of the harbours of the United States was discovered to be on fire. The engines were instantly started, and the prow of the vessel directed to the shore. But the flames soon rendered the helm useless, and such of the crew as were on board were obliged to jump into the small boat, and leave the steamer to her fate. Soon the engines worked more fiercely; the wheels revolved with fearful speed and hurried the vessel through the water. The sight was terrible. At last came one tremendous shock, and all was darkness and ruin. Such is man, when seized and heated by an evil passion, whether the spirit of pride or of envy. He grows worse and worse, and is consumed in eternal ruin, unless God interpose.
Hosea 7:5. Feasting. Times of festivity require a double guard. “Blasphemy is wit, and ribaldry eloquence, to a man that is turned into a brute” [Lawson].