CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hosea 9:15. Gilgal] where they rejected God and chose a king (1 Samuel 8:7; cf. 1 Samuel 11:14-15). Hated] Punished their sin (Malachi 1:3).
Hosea 9:16. Smitten] Under the image of a tree, repeats the sentence of God. Smitten from above, by blasting and mildew (Amos 4:9). Root] withered, and fruit impossible. Though] Before they are entirely dead, fruit may appear, yet will I slay the beloved (lit. the desires) fruit of their bodies.
Hosea 9:17. My God] not theirs; supporting my authority and directing my course. Will cast] Lit. despises them, and banishes them among the nations (Deuteronomy 28:65), a monument of his anger and a warning to all people (Romans 11:20-21).
HOMILETICS
GREAT WICKEDNESS AND GREAT PUNISHMENT.—Hosea 9:15-17
In the last part of this chapter God accuses Israel of idolatry, condemns their princes for abetting it, and threatens to cast them off for ever, for “the wickedness of their doings.” Notice—
I. Their great wickedness. The expressions indicate—
1. Their wickedness began with forgetfulness of God. “They did not hearken unto him.” They rebelled against God, would not do what he commanded, nor abstain from what he forbade. God makes himself known by judgment and mercy; but men disregard his voice, and pursue their ends.
2. Their wickedness was encouraged by their rulers. “All their princes are revolters.” Political power had no check upon the general corruption. Not one rebuked offence, recalled to virtue, or warned of danger. All had departed, were alienated in heart and mind from God. Judges turned aside, and persisted in sinful ways. Princes committed “the sin of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin.” “He who knows how to dissemble knows how to reign,” is the saying of many. But the words of Louis IX. of France are more becoming a prince. “If truth be banished from all the rest of the world, it ought to be found in the breast of princes.”
3. Their wickedness was malicious in its design. “The wickedness of their doings.” Their sins were not infirmities, but presumptuous, daring evils; not common sins, but the wickedness of their wicked works, the essence of wickedness which excited the anger of God. All sins are evils; but some are “presumptuous sins,” sins of greater rebellion and mischief than others. Sins against light and truth, against Divine warnings, and in religious privileges are more wicked than others. Men sin from choice, with eagerness, deliberation, and design. “God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness.”
4. Their wickedness was corrupt in its practice. Gilgal was the centre and scene of their corrupt practices. Here God gave their ancestors the first-fruits of Canaan, renewed his covenant with them, and rolled away their reproach. The service and sanctuary of God once made the place holy. Now it is a place of idolatry, chosen as a pretext to cover their sin and to make it acceptable to the people. The nature of the place adds to the guilt of the sin. Sins in England are worse than sins in heathen lands, and sins in the house of God are more abominable than sins in the world. Provocations turn God’s former loving-kindness into anger, and the place of sanctity may become the place of rejection. “In the land of uprightness they will deal unjustly” (Isaiah 26:10); “the faithful city is become an harlot” (Isaiah 1:21).
II. Great punishment. Great must be that wickedness which provokes God to hate and reject his people. The judgments were national, and involved every individual in the loss of outward privileges and position.
1. Exclusion from the house of God. “I will drive them out of mine house.” He will drive them from the privileges of his house, and drive them out of his land (ch. Hosea 8:1). God will disinherit them, and they shall never be restored to the kingdom. God deprives sinful nations of their prestige and position, removes their candlestick for their ingratitude, and rejects them for their wickedness. Unfaithful professors will be driven from his house and robbed of the means of grace.
2. Smitten by the judgments of God. “Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit.” Their national prosperity was smitten, by visitation from God, by blasting and mildew (Amos 4:9). If a tree be cut down it may sometimes sprout again (Job 14:7); but there was not hope for Ephraim. Root and branch should wither away and die. Nations have flourishing trade, and nobility grand mottoes; but God can destroy their prosperity, pluck them up by their roots, and leave them without power to revive, inwardly or outwardly. He can overturn a people as easily as men uproot a tree. “Utrecht planted me, Louvain watered me, and Cæsar gave the increase,” was the inscription on the gates of the college, built by Pope Adrian. But to reprove his folly, some one wrote underneath, “Here God did nothing.” We cannot flourish without God. God shall destroy thee for ever; he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling-place, and root thee out of the land of the living.
3. Rejected in the providence of God. “My God will cast them away.” This is the climax—hated, forsaken, and cast away. They became objects of aversion to God, and “wanderers among the nations” of the earth. (a.) They were divorced from God. “I will love them no more.” They were not any longer his people, and shared not his love. God put the spouse out of his house (b.) They were forsaken of God. They first forsook him, and he forsook them. Cain was a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. If God scatters his own elect, because they did not hearken unto him, what impunity can any Christian nation or individual professor have, if they neglect Divine warnings, and do not bring forth fruits according to their high calling? “If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations” (Nehemiah 1:8). “And among these nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind” (Deuteronomy 28:65).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hosea 9:15. The great wickedness—idolatry.
1. Turning places of worship and renown into scenes of corruption.
2. Masking present error under the garb of former custom. Plato was reproving a boy for playing at some foolish game on one occasion. “Thou reprovest me,” said the youth, “for a very little thing.” “But custom,” replied Plato, “is not a little thing.” Bad custom, consolidated into habit, becomes a tyrant and a curse.
3. Originating God’s anger, and
4. Terminating in man’s rejection. “Bind not one sin upon another, for in one thou shalt not be unpunished” (Sir. 7:8). “Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same shall he be punished” (Wis. 9:16).
Hosea 9:16. Men, Churches, and nations like trees.
1. Planted and intended to flourish, watered and cared for by God.
2. Sin brings judgments which smite the root and wither the branches. It corrupts and cuts off the offspring. It leaves men to mourn with Edmund Burke at the loss of his only son: “The storm has gone over me, and I am like one of those old oaks which the hurricane scatters around me. I am stripped of all my honours; I am torn up by the roots; I lie prostrate on the earth.” Men give themselves deadly wounds. Professors are cursed as the fig-tree, smitten as the vine, and beaten to the ground. “For the Lord shall smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water,” &c. (1 Kings 14:15).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Hosea 9:13; Hosea 9:16. Root. Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation. The people may seem to be highly civilized, and yet be ready to fall to pieces at the first touch of adversity. Without integrity of individual character they can have no real strength, cohesion, or soundness. They may be rich, polite, and artistic, and yet hovering on the brink of ruin. If living for themselves only, and with no end but pleasure, each little self his own little god, such a nation is doomed, and its decay is inevitable [Smiles].
This is the state of man: To day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And,—when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening,—nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do [Shakespeare].