Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.
Ver. 1. Say unto your brethren, Ammi] Besides the public preaching of this gracious promise, Hosea 1:10, "There it shall be said unto them," &c., charge is here given that this be the subject of their more private discourse also: and that they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, We that were not a people, are now a people: we that had not obtained mercy, have now obtained mercy. Iubet per prophetam ne haec vox in ecclesia taceatur (Mercer). God commands by the prophet that these sweet words, Ammi, Ruhamah, be tossed and spoken of at every friendly meeting; I will not leave you fatherless: in me the fatherless findeth mercy: I will never leave thee, I will not, not, not forsake thee (ουδε, ου μη, Heb 13:5): so many "nots" there are in the original for more assurance. God would have such precious passages as these to be rehearsed (even in the "places of drawing water," Judges 5:11, where the maids met to fetch water, or do other ordinary chars) for mutual encouragement, and for the praise of his name. Oh, the matchless mercy of our God! Oh, the never enough adored depth of his free grace! who would not fear thee, O King of nations! Jeremiah 10:7; who would not be telling of thy goodness in the morning, and of thy faithfulness every night? Read that triumphant Psalms 114:1,8, and be you ever chanting out (as they of old at their daily employments), aliquid Davidicum; so building up one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Think but on these two words in the text, and you cannot want matter. Is it nothing to be in covenant with God, and to be under mercy? Oh, blessed are the people "that have the Lord for their God," saith David, Psalms 144:15. "But I obtained mercy," saith Paul, 1 Timothy 1:16, and that was his μεγαλαυχημα, his confident boasting, wherever he came, being a constant preacher of God's free grace: (as was likewise Augustine, which makes him hardly censured by the Semipelagian Papists and Arminians as an enemy to nature, because so high a friend to grace). Neither is he forgetful to tell his Ephesians and others to whom he writeth, that they were once dead in sins and trespasses, but now "quickened together with Christ," &c. They were foreigners, but now fellow citizens with saints: they were darkness, but now light in the the Lord, and should therefore "walk as children of light," Ephesians 5:8, and talk of his praises, who had drawn them out of dreadful darkness into marvellous light. Come, saith David, and I will tell you what God hath done for my soul, Psalms 66:16. The Lord hath done great things for us, saith the Church, whereat we are glad, Psalms 126:3. He which is mighty hath done to me great things: and holy is his name, saith the blessed Virgin, Luke 1:49. Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi, and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Say it, say it, to brethren and to sisters, upon every opportunity, and with the utmost importunity, that it may take impression upon their spirits, and not be as a seal set upon the water, nor as rain falling upon a rock that leaves no sign behind it. The Grecians being delivered out of servitude by Flaminius, the Roman general, rang out Soter, Soter, that is, Saviour, Saviour, with such a courage, that the very birds of the air, astonished thereat, fell to the earth. The people of Israel gave such a loud shout at the return of the ark, that the earth rang again. A drowning man, being pulled out of the water by Alphonsus, king of Aragon, and rescued from so great a death, cried out (as soon as he came again to himself) by way of thankfulness, Aragon, Aragon. Let us cry as loud Ammi, Ruhamah, hitherto God hath helped us, 1 Samuel 7:12, who were lately (with those Israelites in the wilderness) talking of our graves. Say therefore with the Psalmist, "Because thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, my feet from falling, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living," &c., Psalms 116:8 .