CRITICAL NOTES.] Israel had fallen away from God, would not enjoy the produce of the field, but would be taken captive into Assyria, and be unable to keep the feasts.
Hosea 9:1. Rejoice] Lit. to exultation (Job 3:22). Their rejoicings are out of place; festivity and mirth are reproved. The blessings of harvest were attributed unto the gods of the heathen, and would be taken away. Reward] Lit. hire. In reward for idolatry thou hast desired temporal prosperity, corn on every threshing-floor.
Hosea 9:2. Feed] Crops were abundant, but they would be no better for their plenty.
Hosea 9:3. Land] which God sware to give their fathers (Deuteronomy 30:20). Egypt] A state of bondage and oppression in Assyria. Unclean] A sore trial, seen in the case of Daniel (ch. Hosea 1:8). Eleazar and the Maccabees (2Ma. 6:7). They had wilfully transgressed the law, and would be forced to live in its habitual breach; had lived as heathen, and must be in the condition of heathen.
Hosea 9:4. Wine] i.e. drink-offerings, connected with burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, betokened joy in sacrifice. Hence public service would cease; they would no longer have the means for reconciliation, for pleasing God; and if they should attempt to sacrifice, so far from being acceptable, their sacrifices would defile them as the bread of mourning; food which contracted pollution by being in the place of death. The dead defiled for seven days the house and all that was in it (Numbers 19:14). In offering tithes a man had to declare that he had not touched the bread (Deuteronomy 26:14). Sacrifice could only be offered in God’s land: in captivity it would be a fresh sin to Israel. Their soul] i.e. for themselves, for the support of animal life, and not for worship.
Hosea 9:6. Gather them] in one common grave—none shall escape. Memphis] called Noph (Isaiah 19:13; Jeremiah 2:16; Ezekiel 30:13); at this time the capital of Egypt; the seat of idolatry, the house of the celebrated Apis, the original of Jeroboam’s calf; a favourite burial-place of the Egyptians. “It embraced a circuit of about nineteen miles, with magnificent buildings; it declined after the building of Alexandria; its very ruins gradually perished, after Cairo rose in its neighbourhood” [Pusey]. Pleasant places] Heb. the desire. Silver should be desired, but not found, or nettles should possess their pleasant houses. In either sense thorns indicate utter desolation (Isaiah 34:13).
Hosea 9:7. Visitation] Vengeance now at hand. Fool] False prophets who predicted prosperity will be convicted of folly. The event will test them. Mad] A man of the spirit, lit. maddened; pretending to inspiration (Lamentations 2:14; Ezekiel 13:3; Micah 3:11). Those who mock the true prophets shall themselves become fools. Multitude] Manifold iniquity. Hatred] Great enmity to good men and God. The punishment in proportion to the sin.
Hosea 9:8. The watchman] Looking out, waiting for Divine revelation (Hebrews 2:1). The true prophet always consults God. Ephraim or Israel was designed to be the watchman of God, to witness among the nations for him; but was led by false prophets, whose words were “a snare of the fowler.” In] Lit. upon all his ways, i.e. wherever the people went they were beset with false prophets, who hated intensely the house of God.
Hosea 9:9. Deeply] Lit. gone deep, they are corrupted; deeply immersed themselves in wickedness. Days] when Benjamin espoused the children of Belial (Judges 19:22; Genesis 19:4).
HOMILETICS
THE SINNER’S LIFE A JOYLESS LIFE.—Hosea 9:1-4
Israel is forbidden to rejoice like other nations. They had forsaken God, and sinned wilfully against light and warning. Their prosperity was attributed to wrong sources. The judgment of God was threatened against them. Other people might enjoy the results of their labours, but they would be deprived of the fruits of the earth and the services of religion. Thus God breaks into the mirth and festivity of the sinner. There is no cause of joy in his present condition or future prospects.
I. His present condition affords no joy. “Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy.” All men seek to be happy. The wicked even have a kind of joy, a superficial, short-lived pleasure. But true joy is the good man’s portion. “I have enjoyed almost a fearful amount of happiness,” exclaimed Dr Arnold in reviewing the past.
1. The sinner forsakes God, the fountain of joy. “Thou hast gone a whoring from thy God.” All true joy springs from him, and is enjoyed only in him, in living for him. What joy so pure as “the joy of the Lord”? Carnal joy is a mere flash, which leaves the mind in deeper darkness and greater misery. Joy in God is like the light of the sun, healthy and lasting. It may be overclouded with mists and storms, but breaks out in greater splendour and sweetness. In God’s presence only “is fulness of joy” (Psalms 16:11); pleasures which satisfy; enough to fill every soul with “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Joy is forbidden, withheld from the wicked. The sense of sin robs them of peace (Isaiah 48:22); their present possessions are no security nor advantage to them. Living in distance from God and at enmity with him, gloomy feelings damp their joy and act as an alloy to their comforts. “In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare; but the righteous doth sing and rejoice.”
2. The sinner fails in his efforts to secure joy. “The floor and the winefat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.” Israel doted on prosperity which could not sustain them. The fruits of the earth would fail, and all their efforts would end in bitter disappointment. The sinner turns away from God, and becomes restless and dissatisfied. He loves to hire himself to sin and degradation. He tries first one thing and then another, but all plans and policies utterly “fail them.” Men have recourse to every mean shift, submit to the lowest drudgery, and suffer the greatest hardship in pursuit of sin. Like the prodigal, they become wanderers, spendthrifts, and slaves. But the solemn pause comes. They are arrested, alarmed, and astonished. Their pleasures forsake them, and hopes vanish like vain shadows. God curses the blessings and frustrates the efforts of the sinner. “Doomed to disappointment as usual,” many continually exclaim. “The wicked man travelleth with pain all his days.”
II. His future prospects afford no joy. Israel was to be deprived of inheritance, carried into bondage, robbed of sacrifices and public service. All their religious efforts would be rejected and turned into defilement and mourning. It was a sad prospect to be driven from the house of God and a land of plenty! What brighter future has the sinner before him as long as he remains from God?
1. The sinner’s future will be one of bondage. “Ephraim shall return to Egypt.” They knew how hardly Egypt had dealt with their fathers, and how treacherously with them. They had been warned not to go, but were determined to go. Against their own will God would send them into banishment and distress. The sinner will be held in bondage by lusts which he indulges; driven by former habits into greater misery; and find what he thought a place of refuge to be a place of exile. Captivity and exile were additions to the scarcity of home. Future miseries will succeed present distress to the unbeliever. He cannot expect freedom and joy in the service of sin and Satan. The prospect will be no better than the retrospect, and the future worse than the present. “I know that it shall be well unto them that fear God, which fear before him. But it shall not be well with the wicked” (Ecclesiastes 8:12-13).
2. The sinner’s future will be one of bitterness and sorrow. It was hard when Israel had to “eat unclean things,” things forbidden by their law, when they were forced to eat or starve, when their bread was polluted and their sacrifices “as the bread of mourners.” Sin brings bitterness now and hereafter. (a) Bitterness in the spirit of the sinner. (b) Bitterness in his forlorn condition. From affluence and privileges he comes to poverty and want. His experience and his prospects are bitter, bitterness and sorrow past, present, and future. “Let us live on the past,” exclaimed Napoleon, but the retrospect was a course of selfish aggrandizement. In thoughts of the future he sickened and pined for death. “I am no longer the Great Napoleon. How fallen I am!” “Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart.”
3. The sinner’s future will be one of exclusion from God’s inheritance. “They shall not dwell in the Lord’s land.” God had chosen Canaan to be the residence of his glory and the possession of his people. But as sin drove man from Paradise, so idolatry drove the Jews out of Canaan. They were disinherited, deprived of God’s favour and protection. This is a warning to all who live in the bosom of the Church and under the sound of the gospel. Many professors forfeit present enjoyment and sin away precious privileges. Sinners cannot enter the kingdom of God on earth, and will be excluded from heaven at last. We cannot dwell with God unless we are subject to his authority and obedient to his will. “If thine heart turn away so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hosea 9:1. Israel ever wished to joy as other nations. When they cried for a king, they forsook God and sought to exult in their own ways. But the greater the privileges, the greater the guilt in despising them. Other nations were idolaters, but Israel’s sin was “whoring from thy God.”
There is always a snare in the ways of sin, always a song in the service of God [Bridge].
Hosea 9:2. Not feed them. Punishment attendeth sin at the heels. They had abused their plenty and ascribed it to their idols; therefore shall they be cut short either in their store, as Haggai 1:6; Haggai 1:10; Haggai 2:16, or in their strength, as Hosea 4:10; Hosea 8:7. One way or other their hopes shall be frustrated, the creature shall lie to them and not answer their expectation [Trapp].
Shall fail. Lit. “shall lie to her.” Israel had lied to God (Hosea 7:13). So the fruits of the earth would disappoint and requite her. Men reap as they sow. The punishment as the crime. “When the blessings of God have been abused by sin he in mercy takes them away. He cuts them off, in order to show that he alone, who now withheld them, had before given them. When they thought themselves most secure, when the corn was stored on the floor, and the grapes were in the press, then God would deprive them of them.”
Hosea 9:3. Not dwell in the land.
1. The Assyrian captivity was a mark of God’s displeasure, the loss of liberty and surrender to a foreign enemy. Men are only free through God, and only remain free as long as they serve him. By apostasy nations lose their independent existence and individuals their freedom and enjoyment.
2. This captivity a great contrast to Israel’s former condition as God’s people. They ignored the law, and God abandons them. They are “not my people.”
3. This captivity was the loss of their possession. No possessions are secure to those who forsake God.
4. With the loss of the land there is peculiar distress, the loss of sacrifice, and the sanctification of life connected with it. Thus men are exiled in lands of impurity, fall into bondage, and deprived of the means of serving God. That which they are now able to do, or wish to do, is not acceptable to God, and will occasion bitter sorrow. “The seeds of our punishment are sown when we sin.” They shall eat unclean things. Learn—
1. Sin brings want. Like the prodigal, they were necessitated to eat unclean things, the husks of swine, because they had nothing else.
2. Sin brings disgrace. Perhaps the Assyrians despised them, forced them to eat meats forbidden by the law, in scorn to their religion and the profession of it. Those who willingly slight the word will never be honoured to bear witness to it, or if tested for its principles, will renounce their profession of it. A French Protestant Bishop in the sixteenth century, regarded as a pillar of the Reformation, recanted and brought disgrace upon himself and others. His apostasy staggered many Christians, and was a misfortune to his country. When we forsake God we are left to the mercy of the ungodly.
3. Sin leads to conformity to the world. Israel voluntarily might conform to heathen customs, as they were not humbled by any affliction. Driven from the land, deprived of their own ritual, they adopted the religion of Assyria, and God left them, gave them up to their own course. They would then appear outwardly what they were inwardly. Men who have only outward profession will soon cast off that when tempted or thrown into the world. “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,” &c.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Hosea 9:1-4. Joy. The joy of the ungodly is superficial, but for a moment, and not to be compared with the rejoicing of the godly. It is like water taken from the surface, instead of the deep well, and will end quickly and abruptly. “He that makes this mirth and he that likes it—both are fools, and their pleasantness will soon have an end” [Pemble].