So shall Beth-el do unto you— "This is the fruit of your worshipping the golden calves at Beth-el. As it has happened to the city above mentioned, so shall it happen to you, because of your iniquities." Houbigant reads the verse, after the LXX, So shall it be done unto you, O house of Israel, for the wickedness of your counsels; and with the Vulgate he ends the chapter here: but ours seems the more proper division.
In a morning, &c.— As the morning is brought to nothing, to nothing shall the king of Israel be brought. The sudden and total destruction of the monarchy of the ten tribes is compared to the sudden and total extinction of the beauties of the dawn in the sky, by the instantaneous diffusion of the solar light; by which the ruddy streaks in the East, the glow of orange-coloured light upon the horizon, are at once obliterated, absorbed, and lost in the colourless light of day. The change is sudden even in these climates; it is much more sudden in the tropical; and in all it is one of the most complete that Nature presents.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, Still the sins of the people, and the judgments of God, are the burden of the prophesy.
1. Their sins are charged upon them.
[1.] They are destitute of all goodness. Israel is an empty vine, of no profit to the owner: he bringeth forth fruit unto himself; he thinks not of advancing God's glory, but his own; and his earthly good things are not spent in God's service, but consumed on his lusts, or in the worship of idols; and he is therefore an empty vine, being thus impoverished and exhausted.*
* The reader will be pleased to recollect, that in my Reflections I almost always consider the text according to our public English Version.
[2.] They are devoted to idolatry. According to the multitude of his fruit, as his riches increased, he hath increased the altars, &c. thus turning God's gifts against him, and abusing his blessings to the vilest purposes. Note; We too often see an increase of wealth abused to the increase of wickedness, instead of being employed as a more enlarged opportunity put into men's hands of serving God's cause, and doing good in their generation.
[3.] Their heart is divided; among themselves factions rage, and sects dispute about the preference of idols; or rather, their heart is divided between God and the calves. Now shall they be found faulty, this halting between both being highly criminal, for a divided heart God abhors; or they shall be desolated with his judgments.
[4.] They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant; perjured and profane, making no conscience of oaths or leagues; and, on the very seat of judgment, injustice and oppression sat enthroned. Thus judgment, which should have been administered with impartiality as a medicine, through false witnesses, and a corrupt magistracy, springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field; baleful and poisonous, perverted to the greater loss or ruin of the injured: and God will visit for these things, and avenge the quarrel of those who are oppressed with wrong.
2. Their punishments are denounced.
[1.] They shall say, We have no king; as bad as none, when justice was so ill administered; or they were really without a king, through the frequent assassinations of their monarchs; or having none able to protect them from their enemies; or, as at the last, when they and their king together were led captives into Assyria: because we feared not the Lord, which was the source of all their miseries; what then should a king do to us? If they had one, he could afford them no protection from the judgments of the eternal King whom they had provoked. As for Samaria, the metropolis of Israel, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water. In prophetic language, what shall be is spoken of as already done; Hoshea, the last king, being doomed to fall, weak as the froth which flies on the surface, and easily broken, as the bubbles, before the Assyrian army.
[2.] Their idols shall be destroyed, and be as little able to help them as their king. He shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images; the Assyrian monarch shall do it, the rod of God's indignation. The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven; for them, lest they should be seized by the enemy; or for themselves, as if, now that they were taken, the land would be left defenceless; for the people thereof shall mourn over it; of Beth-aven, or the worshippers of the calves in general shall lament their loss, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it; who shall grieve, as particularly interested for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it, and no more surrounded with crowds of worshippers; or the glory of Beth-aven is now departed, their calf being gone. It shall also be carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb, as a trophy of victory over Samaria and her gods. Ephraim shall receive shame, when they see their idols demolished, and their folly in trusting them manifested: and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel, in paying divine worship to such vanities. The high places also of Aven, of iniquity, the scenes where their idolatries were committed, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed; the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars, being left in ruins, and unfrequented; and in their bitter distress they, the people who were wont to worship there, shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us; as if seeking even under them a covert from their miseries, and desiring to be hidden from the wrath of God. Note; (1.) When we make any creature our idol, God justly breaks it down, and leaves us to mourn our folly. (2.) When the day of vengeance comes, in vain does the sinner cry to rocks and mountains to hide him from the wrath of the Lamb.
2nd, The prophet,
1. Reminds them of their wickedness, committed in a constant series from the days of their predecessors. From the days of Gibeah, when the Levite's concubine was so atrociously abused, thou hast sinned; continued in the practice of such abominations; or, more than the day of Gibeah, exceeding them in iniquity: there they stood, with daring effrontery, on their defence. The battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them: in the first two engagements they were victorious, and at last six hundred men made their escape (see another interpretation in the Critical Notes): but as the sin of Israel now exceeded theirs, the battle should overtake them; notwithstanding their present prosperity in iniquity.
2. God will visit them. It is in my desire that I should chastise them; on this he determined; and the people shall be gathered against them, as Israel was of old against Benjamin; when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows, fortified with a double entrenchment: or, they shall bind them; their enemies shall yoke them as oxen, to plough their ground: or, when I shall bind them for their two transgressions; their forsaking God for idols, and their corporal and spiritual adultery. And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught to plough, and bear the yoke, to submit to God's commands; but with reluctance yielded her neck; and loveth rather to tread out the corn, where the can eat to the full, than labour in the furrows of obedience: but I passed over upon her fair neck; put a yoke upon it. I will make Ephraim to ride, or cause to ride on Ephraim; the Assyrians shall have dominion over them. Judah shall plough, and Jacob shall break his clods; being brought into bondage by their conquerors. Some give a very different sense of the words, as speaking the kind care of God in teaching his penitent returning people, and the gentle methods that he took to engage their obedience; as one strokes the heifer's neck to encourage her, and bring her to the yoke. He laid then his institutions upon them, and set them to their work, that they might bring forth fruit abundantly to his glory and their own comfort. And to this sense the following words seem applicable; which contain,
3. An exhortation to righteousness, prayer, and repentance. Sow to yourselves in righteousness; walk in all holy conversation and godliness, in the practice of every good word and work, which will bring their own reward: reap in mercy; spiritual and also everlasting life being to the faithful the reward, not of debt, but of grace; break up your fallow ground; for such is the heart of man; being naturally hard, unprofitable for any good fruit, overrun with the briers and thorns of corrupt affections, and needs to be broken up by an humbling conviction of our sinfulness, guilt, and misery, that the seed of divine grace may spread and grow, and bring forth abundantly: for it is time to seek the Lord, whose blessing alone can prosper the seed sown, till he come and rain righteousness upon you; give us that Spirit of righteousness, without whom we have no power to produce it. Ye have ploughed wickedness; toiled hard in the service of sin; and an Egyptian task-master had they found it. Ye have reaped iniquity; a plenteous harvest of evil, both of guilt and punishment: ye have eaten the fruit of lies; disappointed in their expectations, and finding nothing of that sweetness and satisfaction which they promised themselves; because thou didst trust in thy way, on idol confidences, or heathen alliances; and in the multitude of thy mighty men; their own armies and garrisons, which were poor defences against the wrath of God, which they had provoked; and thus will all the confidence and comforts of the sinner assuredly disappoint his hopes.
4. An utter destruction awaits them. Therefore, because of their sins and vain confidences, shall a tumult arise among thy people, from insurrections at home, and the invasion of the Assyrian army: and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, so that they should find no place of refuge; as Shalman (the same probably as Salmaneser) spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of battle; a well-known transaction in that day, where the place was sacked, the people most inhumanly massacred; the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children; and such would be their case; so shall Beth-el do unto you, because of your great wickedness; particularly their idolatry committed at Beth-el, which would bring down the like fearful vengeance upon them. Or, so will he do unto you, O Bethel; commit the same ravages in this chief seat of idolatry. In a morning shall the king of Israel be utterly cut off; certainly and speedily as the morning returns; or, when they think the day of prosperity and liberty is dawning upon them, then shall their king Hoshea be cut off, and all the nation perish with him. Note; Whatever miseries we feel or fear, whether national or personal, respecting our bodies or our souls, they all spring from the same cause; sin, sin is the deadly root of bitterness.