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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
on the Whole Bible
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Matthew Henry |
H O S E A.
CHAP. I.
The mind of God is revealed to this prophet, and by him to the people,
in the first three chapters, by signs and types, but afterwards only by
discourse. In this chapter we have,
I. The general title of the whole book,
II. Some particular instructions which he was ordered to give to the
people of God.
1. He must convince them of their sin in going a whoring from God, by
marrying a wife of whoredoms,
2. He must foretel the ruin coming upon them for their sin, in the
names of his sons, which signified God’s disowning and abandoning them,
3. He must speak comfortable to the kingdom of Judah, which still
retained the pure worship of God, and assure them of the salvation of
the Lord,
4. He must give an intimation of the great mercy God had in store both
for Israel and Judah, in the latter days
(ver. 10, 11),
for in this prophecy many precious promises of mercy are mixed with the
threatenings of wrath.
| The Time of Hosea’s Prophecy. | B. C. 768. |
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1 The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri,
in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of
Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of
Israel.
1. Here is the prophet’s name and surname; which he himself, as other
prophets, prefixes to his prophecy, for the satisfaction of all that he
is ready to attest what he writes to be of God; he sets his hand to it,
as that which he will stand by. His name, Hosea, or Hosea
(for it is the very same with Joshua’s original name), signifies a
saviour; for prophets were instruments of salvation to the
people of God, so are faithful ministers; they help to save many a soul
from death, by saving it from sin. his surname was Ben-Beeri, or
the son of Beeri. As with us now, so with them then, some had
their surname from their place, as Micah the Morashite, Nahum the
Elkoshite; others from their parents, as Joel the son of Bethuel, and
here Hosea the son of Beeri. And perhaps they made use of that
distinction when the eminence of their parents was such as would bring
honour upon them; but it is a groundless conceit of the Jews that where
a prophet’s father is names he also was a prophet. Beeri
signifies a well, which may put us in mind of the fountain of
life and living waters from which prophets are drawn and must be
continually drawing.
2. Here are his authority and commission: The word of the Lord came
to him. It was to him; it came with power and efficacy to him; it
was revealed to him as a real thing, and not a fancy or imagination of
his own, in some such way as God then discovered himself to his
servants the prophets. What he said and wrote was by divine
inspiration; it was by the word of the Lord, as St. Paul speaks
concerning that which he had purely by revelation,
Therefore this book was always received among the canonical books of
the Old Testament, which is confirmed by what is quoted out of it in
the New Testament,
Rom. ix. 25, 26; 1 Pet. ii. 10.
For the word of the Lord endures for ever.
3. Here is a particular account of the times in which he
prophesied–in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings
of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of
Israel. We have only this general date of his prophecy; and not the
date of any particular part of it, as, before, in Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and Daniel, and, afterwards, in Haggai and Zechariah. Here is
only one king of Israel named, though there were many more within this
time, because, having mentioned the kings of Judah, there was no
necessity of naming the other; and, they being all wicked, he took no
pleasure in naming them, nor would do them the honour. Now by this
account here given of the several reigns in which Hosea prophesied (and
it should seem the word of the Lord still came to him, more or less, at
times, throughout all these reigns) it appears,
(1.) That he prophesied a long time, that he began when he was very
young, which gave him the advantage of strength and sprightliness, and
that he continued at his work till he was very old, which gave him the
advantage of experience and authority. It was a great honour to him to
be thus long employed in such good work, and a great mercy to the
people to have a minister so long among them that so well knew their
state, and naturally cared for it, one they had been long used to and
who therefore was the more likely to be useful to them. And yet, for
aught that appears, he did but little good among them; the longer they
enjoyed him the less they regarded him; they despised his youth first,
and afterwards his age.
(2.) That he passed through a variety of conditions. Some of these
kings were very good, and, it is likely, countenanced and encouraged
him; others were very bad, who (we may suppose) frowned upon him and
discouraged him; and yet he was still the same. God’s ministers must
expect to pass through honour and dishonour, evil report and good
report, and must resolve in both to hold fast their integrity and
keep close to their work.
(3.) That he began to prophesy at a time when the judgments of God were
abroad, when God was himself contending in a more immediate way with
that sinful people, who fell into the hands of the Lord, before
they were turned over into the hands of man; for in the days of
Uzziah, and of Jeroboam his contemporary, the dreadful earthquake was,
mentioned
And then was the plague of locusts,
Joel i. 2-4; Amos vii. 1; Hos. iv. 3.
The rod of God is sent to enforce the word and the word of God is sent
to explain the rod, yet neither prevails till God by his Spirit opens
the ear to instruction and discipline.
(4.) That he began to prophesy in Israel at a time when their kingdom
was in a flourishing prosperous condition, for so it was in the reign
of Jeroboam the second, as we find
He restored the coast of Israel, and God saved them by his
hand; yet then Hosea boldly tells them of their sins and foretels
their destruction. Men are not to be flattered in their sinful ways
because they prosper in the world, but even then must be faithfully
reproved, and plainly told that their prosperity will not be their
security, nor will it last long if they go on still in their
trespasses.
| The Prophet’s Marriage; Threatenings against Israel; Intimation of Mercy to Judah. | B. C. 768. |
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2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD
said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and
children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great
whoredom, departing from the LORD.
3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which
conceived, and bare him a son.
4 And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a
little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the
house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house
of Israel.
5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the
bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
6 And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said
unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah: for I will no more have mercy
upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away.
7 But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save
them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by
sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.
These words, The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea, may
refer either,
1. To that glorious set of prophets which was raised up about this
time. About this time there lived and prophesied Joel, Amos, Micah,
Jonah, Obadiah, and Isaiah; but Hosea was the first of them that
foretold the destruction of Israel; the beginning of this word of
the Lord was by him. We read in the history of this Jeroboam here
named
that the Lord had not yet said he would blot
out the name of Israel, but soon after he said he would, and Hosea
was the man that began to say it, which made it so much the harder task
to him, to be the first that should carry an unpleasing message and
some time before any were raised up to second him. Or, rather,
2. To Hosea’s own prophecies. This was the first message God sent him
upon to this people, to tell them that they were an evil and an
adulterous generation. He might have desired to be excused from
dealing so roughly with them till he had gained authority and
reputation, and some interest in their affections. No; he must begin
with this, that they might know what to expect from a prophet of
the Lord. Nay, he must not only preach this to them, but he must write
it, and publish it, and leave it upon record as a witness against them.
Now here,
I. The prophet must, as it were in a looking-glass, show them their
sin, and show it to be exceedingly sinful, exceedingly hateful. The
prophet is ordered to take unto him a wife of whoredoms and children
of whoredoms,
v. 2.
And he did so,
v. 3.
He married a woman of ill fame, Gomer the daughter of Diblaim,
not one that had been married and had committed adultery, for then she
must have been put to death, but one that had lived scandalously in the
single state. To marry such a one was not malum in se–evil in
itself, but only malum per accidens–incidentally an evil,
not prudent, decent, or expedient, and therefore forbidden to the
priests, and which, if it were really done, would be an affliction to
the prophet (it is threatened as a curse on Amaziah that his wife
should be a harlot,
but not a sin when God commanded it for a holy end; nay, if commanded,
it was his duty, and he must trust God with his reputation. But most
commentators think that it was done in vision, or that it is no
more than a parable; and that was a way of teaching commonly used among
the ancients, particularly prophets; what they meant of others they
transferred to themselves in a figure, as St. Paul speaks,
He must take a wife of whoredoms, and have such children by her
as every one would suspect, though born in wedlock, to be children
of whoredoms, begotten in adultery, because it is too common for
those who have lived lewdly in the single state to live no better in
the married state. “Now” (saith God) “Hosea, this people is to me such
a dishonour, and such a grief and vexation, as a wife of
whoredoms and children of whoredoms would be to thee. For
the land has committed great whoredoms.” In all instances of
wickedness they had departed from the Lord; but their idolatry
especially is the whoredom they are here charged with. Giving that
glory to any creature which is due to God alone is such an injury and
affront to God as for a wife to embrace the bosom of a stranger is to
her husband. It is especially so in those that have made a profession
of religion, and have been taken into covenant with God; it is breaking
the marriage-bond; it is a heinous odious sin, and, as much as any
thing, besots the mind and takes away the heart. Idolatry is
great whoredom, worse than any other; it is departing from
the Lord, to whom we lie under greater obligations than any wife
does or can do to her husband. The land has committed whoredom;
it is not here and there a particular person that is guilty of
idolatry, but the whole land is polluted with it; the sin has become
national, the disease epidemical. What an odious thing would it be for
the prophet, a holy man, to have a whorish wife, and children
whorish like her! What an exercise would it be of his patience, and, if
she persisted in it, what could be expected but that he should give her
a bill of divorce! And is it not then much more offensive to the
holy God to have such a people as this to be called by his name
and have a place in his house? How great is his patience with them! And
how justly may he cast them off! It was as if he should have married
Gomer the daughter of Diblaim, who probably was at that time a noted
harlot. The land of Israel was like Gomer the daughter of Diblaim.
Gomer signifies corruption; Diblaim signifies two
cakes, or lumps of figs; this denotes that Israel was near
to ruin, and that their luxury and sensuality were the cause of it.
They were as the evil figs that could not be eaten, they were so
evil. It intimates sin to be the daughter of plenty and destruction the
daughter of the abuse of plenty. Some give this sense of the command
here given to the prophet: “Go, take thee a wife of whoredoms,
for, if thou shouldst go to seek for an honest modest woman, thou
wouldst not find any such, for the whole land, and all the people of
it, are given to whoredom, the usual concomitant of idolatry.”
II. The prophet must, as it were through a perspective glass, show them
their ruin; and this he does in the names given to the children born of
this adulteress; for as lust, when it has conceived, brings
forth sin, so sin, when it is finished, brings forth
death.
1. He foretels the fall of the royal family in the name he is appointed
to give to his first child, which was a son: Call his name
Jezreel,
v. 4.
We find that the prophet Isaiah gave prophetical names to his children
so this prophet here. Jezreel signifies the seed of God (so they
should have been); but it signifies also the scattered of God;
they shall be as sheep on the mountains that have no shepherds. Call
them not Israel, which signifies dominion, they have lost
all the honour of that name; but call them Jezreel, which signifies
dispersion, for those that have departed from the Lord will
wander endlessly. Hitherto they have been scattered as seek; let them
now be scattered as chaff. Jezreel was the name of one of the royal
seats of the kings of Israel; it was a beautiful city, seated in a
pleasant valley, and it is with allusion to that city that this child
is called Jezreel, for yet a little while and I will avenge
the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, from whom the present
king, Jeroboam, was lineally descended. The house of Jehu smarted for
the sins of Jehu, for God often lays up men’s iniquity for their
children and visits it upon them. It is the kingdom of the house of
Israel, which may be meant either of the present royal family, that
of Jehu, which God did quickly cause to cease (for the son of
this Jeroboam, Zechariah, reigned but six months, and he was the
last of Jehu’s race), or of the whole kingdom in general, which
continued corrupt and wicked, and which was made to cease in the
reign of Hoshea, about seventy years after; and with God that is but a
little while. Note, Note, Neither the pomp of kings nor the
power of kingdoms can secure them from God’s destroying judgments, if
they continue to rebel against him.
(2.) What is the ground of this controversy: I will revenge the
blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, the blood which Jehu shed
at Jezreel, when by commission from God and in obedience to his
command, he utterly destroyed the house of Ahab, and all that were in
alliance with it, with all the worshippers of Baal. God approved of
what he did
Thou has done well in executing that which is right in my eyes;
and yet here God will avenge that blood upon the house of Jehu,
when the time has expired during which it was promised that his family
should reign, even to the fourth generation. But how comes the same
action to be both rewarded and punished? Very justly; the matter of it
was good; it was the execution of a righteous sentence passed upon the
house of Ahab, and, as such, it was rewarded; but Jehu did it not in a
right manner; he aimed at his own advancement, not at the glory of God,
and mingled his own resentments with the execution of God’s justice. He
did it with a malice against the sinners, but not with any antipathy to
the sin; for he kept up the worship of the golden calves, and took
no heed to walk in the law of God,
2 Kings x. 31.
And therefore when the measure of the iniquity of his house was full,
and God came to reckon with them, the first article in the account is
(and, being first, it is put for all the rest) for the blood of the
house of Ahab, here called the blood of Jezreel. Thus when the
house of Baasha was rooted out it was because he did like the house
of Jeroboam, and because he killed him,
1 Kings xvi. 7.
Note, Those that are entrusted with the administration of justice are
concerned to see to it that they do it from a right principle and with
a right intention, and that they do not themselves live in those sins
which they punish in others, lest even their just executions should be
reckoned for, another day, as little less than murders.
(3.) How far the controversy shall proceed; it shall be not a
correction, but a destruction. Some make those words, I will visit,
or appoint, the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, to
signify, not as we read it the revenging of that bloodshed, but the
repeating of that bloodshed: “I will punish the house of Jehu, as I
punished the house of Ahab, because Jehu did not take warning by the
punishment of his predecessors, but trod in the steps of their
idolatry. And after the house of Jehu is destroyed I will cause to
cease the kingdom of the house of Israel; I will begin to bring it
down, though now it flourish.” After the death of Zechariah, the last
of the house of Jehu, the kingdom of the ten tribes went to decay, and
dwindled sensibly. And, in order to the ruin of it, it is threatened
(v. 5),
I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel; the
strength of the warriors of Israel, so the Chaldee. God will
disable them either to defend themselves or to resist their enemies.
And the bow abiding in strength, and being renewed in the
hand, intimates a growing power, so the breaking of the bow
intimates a sinking ruined power. The bow shall be broken in the
valley of Jezreel, where, probably, the armoury was; or, it may be,
in that valley some battle was fought, wherein the kingdom of Israel
was very much weakened. Note, There is no fence against God’s
controversy; when he comes forth against a people their strong bows are
soon broken and their strong-holds broken down. In the valley of
Jezreel they shed that blood which the righteous God would in that very
place avenge upon them; as some notorious malefactors are hanged in
chains just where the villainy they suffer for was perpetrated, that
the punishment may answer the sin.
2. He foretels God’s abandoning the whole nation in the name he gives
to the second child. This was a daughter, as the former was a son, to
intimate that both sons and daughters had corrupted their way. Some
make to signify that Israel grew effeminate, and was thereby enfeebled
and made weak. Call the name of this daughter Lo-ruhamah–not
beloved (so it is translated
or not having obtained mercy, so it is translated
It comes all to one. This reads the doom of the house of Israel: I
will no more have mercy upon them. It intimates that God had shown
them great mercy, but they had abused his favours, and forfeited them,
and now he would show them favour no more. Note, Those that forsake
their own mercies for lying vanities have reason to expect that their
own mercies should forsake them, and that they should be left to their
lying vanities,
Jonah ii. 8.
Sin turns away the mercy of God even from the house of Israel,
his own professing people, whose case is sad indeed when God says that
he will no more have mercy upon them. And then it follows, I will
utterly take them away, will utterly remove them (so some),
will utterly pluck them up, so others. Note, When the streams of
mercy are stopped we can expect no other than that the vials of wrath
should be opened. Those whom God will no more have mercy upon shall be
utterly taken away, as dross and dung. The word for taking away
sometimes signifies to forgive sin; and some take it in that
sense here: I will no more have mercy upon them, though in pardoning
I have pardoned them heretofore. Though God has borne long, he will
not bear always, with a people that hate to be reformed. Or, I will
no more have mercy upon them, that I should in any wise pardon
them, or (as our margin reads it) that I should altogether
pardon them. If pardoning mercy is denied, no other mercy can be
expected, for that opens the door to all the rest. Some make this to
speak comfort: I will no more have mercy upon them till in pardoning
I shall pardon them, that is, till the Redeemer comes to Zion to
turn away ungodliness from Jacob. The Chaldee reads it, But, if they
repent, in pardoning I will pardon them. Even the greatest sinners,
if in time they bethink themselves and return, will find that there
is forgiveness with God.
III. He must show them what mercy God had in store for the house of
Judah, at the same time that he was thus contending with the house of
Israel
(v. 7):
But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah. Note, Though some
are justly cast off for their disobedience, yet God will always secure
to himself a remnant that shall be the vessels and monuments of mercy.
When divine justice is glorified in some, yet there are others in whom
free grace is glorified. And, though some through unbelief are broken
off, yet God will have a church in this world till the end of time. It
aggravates the rejection of Israel that God will have mercy on Judah,
and not on them, and magnifies God’s mercy to Judah that, though they
also have done wickedly, yet God did not reject them, as he rejected
Israel: I will have mercy upon them and will save them. Note,
Our salvation is owing purely to God’s mercy, and not to any merit of
our own. Now,
1. This, without doubt, refers to the temporal salvations which God
wrought for Judah in a distinguishing way, the favours shown to them
and not to Israel. When the Assyrian armies had destroyed Samaria, and
carried the ten tribes away into captivity, they proceeded to besiege
Jerusalem; but God had mercy on the house of Judah, and saved them by
the vast slaughter which an angel made, in one night, in the camp of
the Assyrians; then they were saved by the Lord their God
immediately, and not by sword or bow. When the ten tribes were
continued in their captivity, and their land was possessed by others,
they being utterly taken away, God had mercy on the house of
Judah and saved them, and, after seventy years, brought them
back, not by might or power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of
hosts,
Zech. iv. 6.
I will save them by the Lord their God, that is, by myself. God
will be exalted in his own strength, will take the work into his
own hands. That salvation is sure which he undertakes to be the author
of; for, if he will work, none shall hinder. And that salvation is most
acceptable which he does by himself. So the Lord alone did lead
him. The less there is of man in any salvation, and the more of
God, the brighter it shines and the sweeter it tastes. I will save them
in the word of the Lord (so the Chaldee), for the sake of
Christ, the eternal word, and by his power. I will save them not by
bow nor by sword, that is,
(1.) They shall be saved when they are reduced to so low an ebb that
they have neither bow nor sword to defend themselves with,
(2.) They shall be saved by the Lord when they are brought off from
trusting to their own strength and their weapons of war,
(3.) They shall be saved easily, without the trouble of sword and bow,
v. 7.
I will save them by the Lord their God. In the calling him
their God, he upbraids the ten tribes who had cast him
off from being theirs, for which reason he had cast them
off, and intimates what was the true reason why he had mercy,
distinguishing mercy, for the house of Judah, and saved them: it was in
pursuance of his covenant with them as the Lord their God, and in
recompence for their faithful adherence to him and to his word and
worship. But,
2. This may refer also to the salvation of Judah from idolatry, which
qualified and prepared them for their other salvations. And this is
indeed a salvation by the Lord their God; it is wrought only by
the power of his grace, and can never be wrought by sword or
bow. Just at the time that the kingdom of Israel was utterly
taken away, under Hoshea, the kingdom of Judah was gloriously
reformed, under Hezekiah, and was therefore preserved; and in Babylon
God saved them from their idolatry first, and then from their
captivity.
3. Some make this promise to look forward to the great salvation which,
in the fulness of time, was to be wrought out by the Lord our
God, Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save his people
from their sins.
| Temporary Rejection of Israel; Promises of Mercy. | B. C. 768. |
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8 Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a
son.
9 Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my
people, and I will not be your God.
10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the
sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it
shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto
them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them,
Ye are the sons of the living God.
11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel
be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they
shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of
Jezreel.
We have here a prediction,
I. Of the rejection of Israel for a time, which is signified by the
name of another child that Hosea had by his adulterous spouse,
And still we must observe that those children whose names carried these
direful omens in them to Israel were all children of whoredoms
(v. 2),
all born of the harlot that Hosea married, to intimate that the ruin of
Israel was the natural product of the sin of Israel. If they had not
first revolted from God, they would never have been rejected by him;
God never leaves any till they first leave him. Here is,
1. The birth of this child: When she had weaned her daughter,
she conceived and bore a son. Notice is taken of the delay of
the birth of this child, which was to carry in its name a certain
presage of their utter rejection, to intimate God’s patience with them,
and his unwillingness to proceed to extremity. Some think that her
bearing another son signifies that people’s persisting in their
wickedness; lust still conceived and brought forth sin.
They added to do evil (so the Chaldee paraphrase expounds it);
they were old in adulteries, and obstinate.
2. The name given him: Call him Lo-ammi–Not my people. When
they were told that God would no more have mercy on them they
regarded it not, but buoyed up themselves with this conceit, that they
were God’s people, whom he could not but have mercy on. And therefore
he plucks that staff from under them, and disowns all relation to them:
You are not my people, and I will not be your God. “I will
not be yours (so the word it); I will be in no relation to you,
will have nothing to do with you; I will not be your King, your
Father, your patron and protector.” We supply it very well with
that which includes all, “I will not be your God; I will not be to
you what I have been, nor what you vainly expect I should be, nor
what I would have been if you had kept close to me.” Observe, “You
are not my people; you do not act as becomes my people; you are not
observant of me and obedient to me, as my people should be; you are not
my people, but the people of this and the other dunghill-deity; and
therefore I will not own you for my people, will not protect you, will
not put in any claim to you, not demand you, not deliver you out of the
hands of those that have seized you; let them take you; you are none of
mine. You will not have me to be your God, but pay your homage to the
pretenders, and therefore I will not be your God; you shall have
no interest in me, shall expect no benefit from me.” Note, Our being
taken into covenant with God is owing purely to him and to his grace,
for then it begins on his side: I will be to them a God, and
then they shall be to me a people; we love him because he first
loved us. But our being cast out of covenant is owing purely to
ourselves and our own folly. The breach is on man’s side: You are
not my people, and therefore I will not be your God; if God
hate any, it is because they first hated him. This was
fulfilled in Israel when they were utterly taken away into the
land of Assyria, and their place knew them no more. They were no
longer God’s people, for they lost the knowledge and worship of
him; no prophets were sent to them, no promises made to them, as were
to the two tribes in their captivity; nay, they were no longer a
people, but, for aught that appears, were mingled with the nations
into which they were carried, and lost among them.
II. Of the reduction and restoration of Israel in the fulness of time.
Here, as before, mercy is remembered in the midst of wrath; the
rejection, as it shall not be total, so it shall not be final
(v. 10, 11):
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the
sea. See how the same hand that wounded is stretched forth to heal,
and how tenderly he that has torn binds up; though God cause
grief by his threatenings, yet he will have compassion, and
will gather with everlasting kindness. They are very precious promises
which are here made concerning the Israel of God, and which may be of
use to us now.
1. Some think that these promises had their accomplishment in the
return of the Jews out of their captivity in Babylon, when many of the
ten tribes joined themselves to Judah, and took the benefit of the
liberty which Cyrus proclaimed, came up in great numbers out of the
several countries into which they were dispersed, to their own land,
appointed Zerubbabel their head, and coalesced into one people, whereas
before they had been two distinct nations. And in their own land, where
God had by his prophets disowned and rejected them as none of his, he
would by his prophets own them and appear for them as his children; and
from all parts of the country they should come up to the temple to
worship. And we have reason to think that, though this promise has a
further reference, yet it was graciously intended and piously used for
the support and comfort of the captives in Babylon, as giving them a
general assurance of mercy which God had in store for them and their
land; their nation could not be destroyed so long as this blessing was
in it, was in reserve for it.
2. Some think that these promises will not have their accomplishment,
at least not in full, till the general conversion of the Jews in the
latter days, which is expected yet to come, when the vast incredible
numbers of Jews, that are now dispersed as the sand of the sea, shall
be brought to embrace the faith of Christ and be incorporated in the
gospel-church. Then, and not till then, God will own them as his
people, his children, even there where they had lain under the dismal
tokens of their rejection. The Jewish doctors look upon this promise as
not having had its accomplishment yet. But,
3. It is certain that this promise had its accomplishment in the
setting up of the kingdom of Christ, by the preaching of the gospel,
and the bringing in both of Jews and Gentiles to it, for to this these
words are applied by St. Paul
and by St. Peter when he writes to the Jews of the dispersion,
Israel here is the gospel-church, the spiritual Israel
(Gal. vi. 16),
all believers who follow the steps, and inherit the blessing of
faithful Abraham, who is the father of all that believe, whether Jews
or Gentiles,
Now let us see what is promised concerning this Israel.
(1.) That it shall greatly multiply, and the numbers of it be
increased; it shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be
measured nor numbered. Though Israel according to the flesh be
diminished and made few, the spiritual Israel shall be numerous, shall
be innumerable. In the vast multitudes that by the preaching of the
gospel have been brought to Christ, both in the first ages of
Christianity and ever since, this promise is fulfilled, thousands out
of every tribe in Israel, and out of other nations, a multitude
which no man can number,
Rev. vii. 4, 9; Gal. iv. 27.
In this the promise made to Abraham, when God called him Abraham the
high father of a multitude, had its full accomplishment
(Gen. xvii. 5),
and that
Some observe that they are here compared to the sand of the sea,
not only for their numbers, but as the sand of the sea serves for a
boundary to the waters, that they shall not overflow the earth, so the
Israelites indeed are a wall of defence to the places where they live,
to keep off judgments. God can do nothing against Sodom while Lot is
there.
(2.) That God will renew his covenant with the gospel-Israel, and will
incorporate it a church to himself, by as full and ample a charter as
that whereby the Old-Testament church was incorporated; nay, and its
privileges shall be much greater: “In the place where it was said
unto them, You are not my people, there shall you be again admitted
into covenant, and owned as my people.” The abandoned Gentiles
in their respective places, and the rejected Jews in theirs,
shall be favoured and blessed. There, where the fathers were cast off
for their unbelief, the children, upon their believing, shall be taken
in. This is a blessed resurrection, the making of those the people of
God that were not a people. Nay, but the privilege is enlarged;
now it is not only, You are my people, as formerly, but You
are the sons of the living God, whether by birth you were Jews or
Gentiles. Israel under the law was God’s son, his first-born,
but then they were as children under age; now, under the gospel,
they have grown up both to greater understanding and greater liberty,
Note,
[1.] It is the unspeakable privilege of all believers that they have
the living God for their Father, the ever-living God, and may look upon
themselves as his children by grace and adoption.
[2.] The sonship of believers shall be owned and acknowledged; it shall
be said to them, for their comfort and satisfaction, nay, and it
shall be said for their honour in the hearing of the world, You are
the sons of the living God. Let not the saints disquiet themselves;
let not others despise them; for, sooner or later, there shall be a
manifestation of the children of God, and all the world shall be made
to know their excellency and the value God has for them.
[3.] It will add much to their comfort, very much to their honour, when
they are dignified with the tokens of God’s favour in that very place
where they had long lain under the tokens of his displeasure. This
speaks comfort to the believing Gentiles, that they need not go up to
Jerusalem, to be received and owned as God’s children; no, they may
stay where they are, and in that place, though it be in the
remotest corner of the earth, in that place where they were at a
distance, where it was said to them, “You are not God’s people,”
but are separated from them
even there, without leaving their country and kindred, they may by
faith receive the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with their
spirits that “they are the children of God.“
(3.) That those who had been at variance should be happily brought
together
(v. 11):
Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be
gathered together. This uniting of Judah and Israel, those two
kingdoms that were now so much at variance, biting and devouring one
another, is mentioned only as a specimen, or one instance, of the happy
effect of the setting up of Christ’s kingdom in the world, the bringing
of those that had been at the greatest enmity one against another to a
good understanding one of another and a good affection one to another.
This was literally fulfilled when the Galileans, who inhabited that
part of the country which belonged to the ten tribes, and probably for
the most part descended from them, so heartily joined with those that
were probably called Jews (that were of Judea) in following
Christ and embracing his gospel; and his first disciples were partly
Jews and partly Galileans. The first that were blessed with the light
of the gospel were of the land of Zebulun and Naphtali
(Matt. iv. 15);
and, though there was no good-will at all between the Jews and the
Galileans, yet, upon their believing in Christ, they were happily
consolidated, and there were no remains of the former disaffection they
had to one another; nay, when the Samaritans believed, though between
them and the Jews there was a much greater enmity, yet in Christ there
was a perfect unanimity,
Thus Judah and Israel were gathered together; yet this was but a
type of the much more celebrated coalition between Jews and Gentiles,
when, by the death of Christ, the partition-wall of the ceremonial law
was taken down. See
Christ died, to gather together in one all the children of God that
were scattered abroad,
John xi. 51; Eph. i. 10.
(4.) That Jesus Christ should be the centre of unity to all God’s
spiritual Israel. They shall all agree to appoint to themselves one
head, which can be no other than he whom God has appointed, even
Christ. Note, Jesus Christ is the head of the church, the one only head
of it, not only a head of government, as of the body politic, but a
head of vital influence, as of the natural body. To believe in Christ
is to appoint him to ourselves for our head, that is, to consent to
God’s appointment, and willingly commit ourselves to his guidance and
government; and this in concurrence and communion with all good
Christians that make him their head; so that, though they are many, yet
in him they are one, and so become one with each other. Qui
conveniunt in aliquo tertio inter se conveniunt–Those who agree with a
third agree with each other.
(5.) That, having appointed Christ for their head, they shall come
up out of the land; they shall come, some of all sorts, from all
parts, to join themselves to the church, as, under the Jewish economy,
they came up from all corners of the land of Israel to Jerusalem, to
worship
(Ps. cxxii. 4),
Thither the tribes go up, to which there is a plain allusion in
that prophecy of the accession of the Gentiles to the church
(Isa. ii. 3),
Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. It denotes
not a local remove (for they are said to be in the same place,
v. 10),
but a change of their mind, a spiritual ascent to Christ. They shall
come up from the earth (so it may be read); for those who have
given up themselves to Christ as their head take their affections off
from this earth, and the things of it, to set them upon
things above
for they are not of the world
(John xv. 19),
but have their conversation in heaven. They shall come up out of the
land, though it be the land of their nativity; they shall, in
affection, come out from it, that they may follow the Lamb
withersoever he goes. Thus the learned Dr. Pocock takes it.
(6.) That, when all this comes to pass, great shall be the day of
Jezreel. Though great is the day of Jezreel’s
affliction (so some understand it), yet great shall be the day
of Jezreel’s glory. This shall be Israel’s day; the day shall be
their own, after their enemies have long had their day. Israel
is here called Jezreel, the seed of God, the holy
seed
(Isa. vi. 13),
the substance of the land. This seed is now sown in the earth,
and buried under the clods; but great shall be its day when the harvest
comes. Great was the church’s day when there were added to it daily
such as should be saved; then did the Almighty do great
things for it.
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