Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
Samaria shall become desolate. This verse and Hosea 13:15 foretell the calamities about to befall Israel before her restoration (Hosea 13:14), owing to her impenitence. For she hath rebelled against her God - the greatest aggravation of her rebellion, that it was against her God (Hosea 13:4).
Their infants shall be dashed in pieces ... - (2 Kings 8:12; 2 Kings 15:16; Amos 1:13).
Remarks:
(1) Sin was the cause of the awful change about to pass on Ephraim, as contrasted with the exalted station which he once held. "The wages of sin is death." Yea, sin has in itself from the first the seed of death, though that seed may not be developed and manifested in its terrible effects until a subsequent time. Thus, from the moment that Ephraim "offended in respect to Baal" "he died" before God. Sin separates from God, the true life of the soul. Let all professors of religion ever remember this, that sin, habitual or unatoned for, and spiritual life, cannot co-exist in the same individual; for, saith the apostle (Romans 8:6), "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."
(2) Sin is essentially cumulative in its nature; one sin entailing another, and that other the third. From rebellion the ten tribes passed on to the adoration of the true God under the form of a calf, and from that lesser form of idolatry to open adoration of false gods-Baal, Ashtaroth, and other pagan abominations. What ingenuity do men display in perverting religion "according to their own understanding"! (Hosea 13:2) They tax their invention, and, though loving money, lavish "silver" to realize their own apostate conceptions. Oh that even as much expenditure of mind and money were devoted to the propagation of truth as there is to that of error! The weight of influence, and even the strong hand of persecuting power, have been again and again exercised in behalf of false systems, virtually insisting, "Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves" (Hosea 13:2). Christian statesmen ought not, then, be ashamed to use all lawful influences in behalf of what they profess to believe is truth, and not to let it appear that Christianity is the only system which is not worthwhile being zealous about.
(3) Ephraim's "goodness" had been as "a morning cloud, and as the early dew that goeth away" (Hosea 6:4). In just retribution, then, Ephraim's prosperity, bright for a season as a gilded morning-cloud or as the glistening dew-drop, should in like manner "pass away." Nay, worse, "as the chaff driven with the whirlwind," and "the smoke out of the chimney," so the worthless people themselves, and their pride and smoke-like inflation, should be swept away. Yet God was the same God as of old, who led them out of Egypt. He had the same power and will to save them then as ever; and none else could be their "Saviour" (Hosea 13:4). Let this truth be engraven on our hearts, that "there is salvation in none other (than the Lord Jesus): for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). He is still the same God who "knew," acknowledged, and treated Israel as His people "in the wilderness, in the land of great drought" (Hosea 13:5). We are sojourning in a moral wilderness, wherein He alone can satisfy the hunger and thirst of our immortal souls. As He "knows them that are his" (2 Timothy 2:19), so their part is to "know no god" and "no saviour besides" him (Hosea 13:4).
(4) The "pasture" (Hosea 13:6) which the worldly seek is carnal gratification. If they seek Christ, it is not because of His doctrine and miracles, but "because they eat of the loaves, and are filled" (John 6:26-27). They "labour for the meat which perisheth, not for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." So the carnal among the Israelites sought only to be filled with pasture for their appetites; and the Lord, in judicial wrath, "gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls" (Psalms 106:15). Their satiety produced "exaltation of heart," and this in turn produced "forgetfulness" of God, which is the root of all evil. Let us make it our chief desire that our Good Shepherd may "make us to lie down in the green pastures" of His Word (Psalms 23:2), and as to earthly things fulfill our desires only so far as is really for our good. (5) How sad the change, when He who had been Israel's Creator and Preserver became her Destroyer! With the fierceness of the lion, the sudden swiftness of the leopard, the determination of the bear robbed of her cubs, the judgments of God would overwhelm them (Hosea 13:7-8). "Their heart" (Hosea 13:8), heretofore closed against God, would be "rent" open. How awful in the last day it will be when the sinner's heart shall be laid bare, with all its impure, uncharitable, malicious, and unholy thoughts, before the Righteous Judge! Two great truths shall then be manifested to the sinner himself-first, that his damnation was solely due to himself; secondly, that "in God" would have been saving "help" for him, if only he had accepted that help (Hosea 13:9). The elect also shall than see that their salvation was due, not to any foreseen merit in them, but solely to the sovereign grace of God. Let every sinner take home to himself, for both warning and encouragement, God's words, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help."
(6) God often punishes men by giving them their wish. Israel had wished to have a king, like the nations around; as though a king could save them in battle, and as though God could not! Again, they had wished to have Jeroboam, instead of the king of David's line whom God had appointed. They got their wish, but not with it the good that they expected. "Where is now thy king? cried the prophet, when their king proved not only unable to help them, but even unable to save himself from captivity (Hosea 13:10). As "God gave them a king in his anger, so he took him away in his wrath" (Hosea 13:11). The demons were heard when they asked to enter into the swine. The apostle's prayer, that the messenger of Satan should depart from him, was not so granted, as he had prayed. Let us jealously watch over our desires, lest they harmonize not with the will of God, and so God should be tempted to "give us up" to our own affections (Romans 1:26).
(7) No greater evil can befall men than that God should treasure up their iniquity, about in due time to bring it forth for condign punishment. Sin is "bound up" (Hosea 13:12) as Ephraim's was, when it is not loosed or remitted. Self-justification and pride cover up transgression, so as to be hidden for a time; and the sinner flatters himself, like Agag, that "the bitterness of death is past" because execution is deferred. But the very way which the sinner takes to escape punishment is the very way whereby he brings it on himself. When he covers his sin, God also covers or binds it up. But God does so in order that in His own time He may bring forth to light the accumulated mass of sin heretofore hidden, and may inflict commensurate condemnation. If we would, instead of covering our sins, lay them all bare before God, He would cover them with the blood of the atonement, and then we should know the blessedness of the man "whose sin is covered" (Psalms 32:1).
(8) Sorrows poignant and sudden as those of a woman in travail are coming upon the impenitent (Hosea 13:13). How fatally "unwise" are all who, though judgment is impending, "stay long," deferring a new birth unto righteousness, whereby they might avert the coming evil! Those who halt between two opinions, reaching the verge of new life, and yet never being born again of the Spirit, shall perish eternally. But in the case of the true "children" of God, God gives them spiritual power to live in His sight now; they are "translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom, of his dear Son" (Colossians 1:13); He hath "ransomed them" already, in title, "from the grasp of the grave" (Hosea 13:14); and hereafter He will, in actual fact, "redeem them from death." When Christ "gave his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28), He by death gave death its death-blow. He will hereafter be the actual destruction of the grave, when "death and hell (the world of separate spirits) shall be cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death." These are God's irrevocable purposes (Hosea 13:14; Revelation 20:14).
(9) Then shall all "fruitfulness" derived from earthly fountains of prosperity be "dried up." All that dazzled the eyes in worldly pomp, glory, wealth, luxury, and beauty, for which men cast away the favour of God, shall leave no memorial behind, except the condemning reflection to the lost, "What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"