Also, O Judah— But for thee, O Judah, a harvest is prepared, then when I shall bring back the captivity of my people. Houbigant. See ch. Hosea 2:15; Hosea 2:21. Harvest-work is cut out for Judah at the season of bringing back the captivity. The tribe of Judah is in some extraordinary way to be an instrument of the general restoration of the Jewish people. Observe, that the vintage is always an image of the season of judgment; but the harvest, of the ingathering of the objects of God's final mercy. I am not aware, that a single unexceptionable instance is to be found, in which the harvest is a type of judgment. In Revelation 14:15-16. "the sickle is thrust into the ripe harvest, and the earth is reaped;" that is, the faithful are gathered from the four winds of heaven. The wheat of God is gathered into his barn, (Matthew 13:30.) After this reaping of the earth, the sickle is applied to the clusters of the vine; and they are cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. Revelation 14:18-20. This is judgment. In Joel 3:13 the ripe harvest is the harvest of the vine, that is, the grapes for gathering, as appears by the context. In Jeremiah 51:33 the act of threshing the corn upon the floor, not the harvest, is the image of judgment. It is true, the burning of the tares in our Saviour's parable, Matthew 13 is a work of judgment, and of the time of harvest, previous to the binding of the sheaves. But it is an accidental adjunct of the business, not the harvest itself. I believe the harvest is never primarily, and in itself, an image of vengeance.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, Their prayers promised a speedy return to God, in the close of the last chapter; and therefore the prophet, with the faithful souls among them, is represented as exciting and encouraging them to put in execution the gracious purposes that they had formed; for good desires should never be suffered to cool.
1. The matter of their exhortation is, Come, and let us return unto the Lord, from whom we have so greatly departed, renouncing now all other confidences and idol-worship, and depending on him alone for help.
2. The motives on which they press such a return, are many and powerful.
[1.] They are assured of his help and healing, if they will return. They had felt by dire experience his power to destroy, and the same hand was as able to save them, and would assuredly be stretched out on their repentance to raise them from their depressed and wretched state. After two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight; though we lie, as to all national honours and advantages, like dead corpses in our graves during the captivity, he will not suffer us utterly to perish as a nation, but after a short time he will restore us again to our own land, and give to our penitent souls a sense of his favour, and the light of his countenance. And this may refer to their restoration from the Babylonish captivity, or look forward to their recovery from their present dispersion. These words also may well relate to Christ rising on the third day from the dead; in whom also his faithful people rise by virtue of their union with him. Note; (1.) If we are torn and smitten, whatever be the instrument, God's appointing, permitting, or suffering hand is to be acknowledged. (2.) Whatever the hurt of the sinner may be, however deep the wounds of his conscience, they are not past the divine Physician's cure. (3.) Nothing is so encouraging a ground to return to God, as a believing view of the riches of his grace in Christ Jesus.
[2.] They shall then have their knowledge of God increased: Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord; we shall in this way know his power, grace, and love; and, encouraged by what we have attained, shall be reaching after greater measures of divine knowledge. Note; (1.) The most desirable of all attainments is the knowledge of God. (2.) They who have any true knowledge of God, desire by prayer, the word, and ordinances, to increase it yet more abundantly, and to attain that heavenly state where they shall know even as they are known.
[3.] They shall then enjoy the richest consolations: His going forth is prepared as the morning; though God had left them to a dark night of affliction, yet, like the returning sun he was ready to arise upon them with healing in his wings; and sure as the return of the morning, and cheering as the light of day, would be the return of his favour and grace to them, whenever they truly sought him: and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth; in the abundance of his blessings, as these seasonable showers caused the barns to be filled with corn, and their vats to overflow with wine and oil. And these promises, whatever particular respect they had to the recovery of the Jews from Babylon, look forward to the days of the Messiah, the glorious Sun of Righteousness, whose blessed Gospel, like the dew of heaven, should drop upon the souls of sinners, and fill the face of the world with fruit: but especially they look forward to the final restoration of the Jewish nation.
2nd, There appeared promising hopes that a reconciliation would be effected: but we have,
1. Their hypocrisy, and the concern that God expressed thereat: O Ephraim, &c. O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? what could be done that he had not done to reclaim them; and, though it had been hitherto ineffectual, he speaks with reluctance, as yet unwilling to give them up, though they had so justly deserved it; for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away, so shortlived was the reformation under Jehu, and in the days of Hezekiah and Josiah. Note; (1.) God's compassion to sinners is amazing, and his patience and dealings with them must leave them without excuse. (2.) Many begin well, and for a while make a fair religious profession, whose goodness has no more abidance than the morning cloud, and vanishes as the early, dew before the sun of persecution or the blasts of temptation.
2. God had severely rebuked them for their unfaithfulness. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets, sharply reproving their hypocrisy, and cutting them to the heart with denunciation of wrath: I have slain them by the words of my mouth, devoting them to death, and then it is as sure if they do not repent, as if every word was a drawn sword; and by judgments are as the light that goeth forth; God's warnings were clear and plain, and the afflictions that they suffered evidently came from his appointing or permissive hand; so that then impenitence was inexcusable, and all that came upon them must needs appear altogether righteous and just. Note; (1.) The hearts of sinners are so hard and knotty, that God's ministers must use the sharp two-edged sword, and hew them by the terrors of the Lord, and with the remonstrances of their baseness and ingratitude. (2.) The threatenings which God pronounces against the ungodly, if they do not repent, are sure to be executed; they are already as dead men.
3. He tells them what he required of them. For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings; for these had in themselves no intrinsic value; their only use was, to point out the necessity of an Atonement, and to lead them to a Saviour; and when they rested in the form of godliness, while they neglected the power of it, the most expensive sacrifices were of no avail. The thing that God required was their heart, not their beasts; that they should know, acknowledge, worship and serve him as their Lord and God, and exercise mercy, חסד chesed, which may be rendered goodness, comprehending the whole scope of practical godliness, and proceeding from the divine principle of the love of God and man in the heart; and this must ever be remembered, since without it all professions of religion are but an empty name.
4. They shamefully transgressed the covenant like Adam the first sinner, or like men, the wicked ones in the old world, or the multitude of the ungodly who still abound; there have they dealt treacherously against me; even in the very sacrifices that they offered, and their other religious acts, they played the hypocrite; their hearts were wrong, and their very services therefore an abomination. And this was evident from their practice; Gilead is the city of them that work iniquity, the whole country was given up to it, or that particular city Ramoth-Gilead, inhabited by priests and Levites, whose wickedness was more criminal, and the influence of their bad examples more extensively fatal; for none do such irreparable hurt to men's souls, or wound the cause of God so deeply, as profligate worldly idolatrous ministers; and is polluted with blood, for ungodly ministers are the bitterest persecutors. Probably, this being a city of refuge, a bribe would protect wilful murderers, and for filthy lucre the innocent were delivered into the hands of the avenger of blood. Nor is it a wonder to see them sell men's bodies, when we daily see the more criminal sale of God's souls. And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent; the general body of them was corrupt, and they connived at and upheld each other in their wicked ways, and were ever ready to assist each other to persecute or oppress those against whom they bore enmity: or they murder in the way to Shechem, lying in wait for those pious Israelites who turned their backs on the calves, and were going up to Jerusalem to worship. They commit lewdness, or enormity, the most infamous crimes, with deep contrivance, as the word signifies; I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel; there is the whoredom of Ephraim, corporal and spiritual; Israel is defiled, the whole nation addicted to idolatry and lasciviousness. Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, the time is fixed; and thou art ripe for ruin: or the words should be rather taken in another sense, and then the prophesy closes with a promise of mercy; But, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, God hath joy in store for thee, when I returned, or return, the captivity of my people from Babylon; which would occasion great gladness through all the tribes; or, rather, it refers to their return to their own land from their present and last dispersion, which will prove the joy of the whole world. Note; (1.) Sin is a horrible thing; it should shock us wherever we see it committed. (2.) God's grace triumphs over our provocations, if we repent and return; and, though we deserve punishment, his thoughts toward us in such case will be thoughts of peace and not of evil.