O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me [is] thine help.
Ver. 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself] Heb. He, or, It hath marred thee, O Israel; that is, either thy sin of self-exaltation and forgetfulness of me, as Hosea 13:6; or thy king, in whom thou trustest, as Hosea 13:10; or thy calf, whom thou worshippedst, hath been the cause of thy confusion. Or thy feigned comforts, as Aben Ezra will have it; thy soothing up thyself in sinful practices. Or, one hath destroyed thee; or; somewhat hath undone thee, but not without thee. Whatever it is that hath done it, it is not I, what hard thoughts soever thou mayest have of me, because I appear thus dreadful to thee, as in the former verse. Fury is not in me, but thou mayest thank thyself, and fault thy sin as the mother of thy misery, as the cause of thy calamity, Sφησιν ατασθαλιησιν υπερ μορον αλγε εχοντες (Hom. Odyss.), thou hast destroyed thyself, and thine own heart may say to thee, as the heart of Apollodorus seemed in a dream to say to him, when he was tortured by the Scythians; It is I that have drawn thee to all this, εφω σοι τουτων αιτια. It is the observation of a great politician: England is a mighty animal, which can never die except it kill itself. Answerable whereunto was the speech of the Lord Rich to the justices in the reign of Edward VI. Never foreign power could yet hurt, or in any part prevail, in this realm but by disobedience and disorder among ourselves; that is the way wherewith God will plague us if he mind to punish us. We use to say, No man is hurt but by himself. "Ye have not injured me at all," saith St Paul to the Galatians, Galatians 4:12; you cannot do it unless I will. The devil can do nothing at us if we give not way to him. And though there were no devil, yet our corrupt nature would act Satan's part against itself; it would have a supply of wickedness (as a serpent hath of poison) from itself; it hath a spring of its own to feed it. Nemo igitur sibi palpet de suo: quisque sibi Satan est, saith an ancient. And it was no ill wish of him that begged of God to deliver him from that naughty man, himself (Domine, libera me a malo heroine, meipso), for he knew, that as in that first chaos, Genesis 1:2, were the seeds of all creatures (πανσπερμα), so in man's heart, of all sins and miseries that follow thereupon. "God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions," Ecclesiastes 7:29, many shifts and sharking tricks. Sin and shifting came into the world together; Genesis 3:12, "The woman whom thou gavest me," &c. God must bear the blame of Adam's sin; so must his decree of reprobation still be alleged as the cause of man's perdition. But this covering is too short; for no man is destroyed because he is reprobated, but because he is a sinner; neither are any damned because they cannot do better, but because they will do no better. If there were no will there would be no hell (Cesset voluntas propria, et non erit infernus), and this indeed will be the very hell of hell, that they have been self-destroyers. The worm of conscience (say divines), that never dying worm, is nothing else but a continual remorse and furious reflection of the soul upon its own wilful folly, and now woeful misery.
But in me is thy help] Heb. In me, in thy help, that is (saith Drusius), I am in thy help, and thy help is in me; whatsoever help thou hast, I am in it. We can easily undo ourselves; as a child can easily break a glass that all the men in the country cannot piece up again. But God both can and will help us, though never so shattered; and repair that image of his, lost in Adam, that one that destroyed Israel. Lord, saith Augustine, Ego admisi unde tu damnare potes me; sed tu non amisisti unde salvare potes me: that is, I have done enough to undo myself for ever, but with thee there is enough for my safety here, and salvation hereafter. God, as he both can and will help his that cry, Give us help from trouble, for vain is the help of man; so he will then chiefly do it when they seem to themselves and others to be in an undone condition. "Thou hast destroyed thyself, in me is thy help": Psalms 9:11, his holy hand is reserved for a dead lift.