Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary

on the Whole Bible

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1712)

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Hosea

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11

Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

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AN

EXPOSITION,

W I T H   P R A C T I C A L   O B S E R V A T I O N S,

OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET

H O S E A.

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I. WE have now before us the twelve minor

prophets, which some of the ancients, in reckoning up the books of the

Old Testament, put all together, and reckon but as one book.

They are called the minor prophets, not because their writings are of

any less authority or usefulness than those of the greater prophets, or

as if these prophets were less in God’s account or might be so in ours

than the other, but only because they are shorter, and less in bulk,

than the other. We have reason to think that these prophets preached as

much as the others, but that they did not write so much, nor is so much

of their preaching kept upon record. Many excellent prophets wrote

nothing, and others but little, who yet were very useful in their day.

And so in the Christian church there have been many burning and shining

lights, who are not known to posterity by their writings, and yet were

no way inferior in gifts, and graces, and serviceableness to their own

generation, than those who are; and some who have left but little

behind them, and make no great figure among authors, were yet as

valuable men as the more voluminous writers. These twelve small

prophets, Josephus says, were put into one volume by the men of the

great synagogue in Ezra’s time, of which learned and pious body of

men the last three of these twelve prophets are supposed to have been

themselves members. These are what remained of the scattered pieces of

inspired writing. Antiquaries value the fragmenta veterum–the

fragments of antiquity; these are the fragments of prophecy, which

are carefully gathered up by the divine Providence and the care of the

church, that nothing might be lost, as St. Paul’s short epistles after

his long ones. The son of Sirach speaks of these twelve prophets with

honour, as men that strengthened Jacob,
Ecclus. xlix. 10.

Nine of these prophets prophesied before the captivity, and the last

three after the return of the Jews to their own land. Some difference

there is in the order of these books. We place them as the ancient

Hebrew did; and all agree to put Hosea first; but the ancient thing is

not material. And, if we covet to place them according to their

seniority, as to some of them we shall find no certainty.

     

II. We have before us the prophecy of Hosea, who was the first of all

the writing prophets, being raised up somewhat before the time of

Isaiah. The ancients say, He was of Bethshemesh, and of the tribe of

Issachar. He continued very long a prophet; the Jews reckoned that he

prophesied nearly fourscore and ten years; so that, as Jerome observes,

he prophesied of the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes when

it was at a great distance, and lived himself to see and lament it, and

to improve it when it was over, for warning to its sister kingdom. The

scope of his prophecy is to discover sin, and to denounce the judgments

of God against a people that would not be reformed. The style is very

concise and sententious, above any of the prophets; and in some places

it seems to be like the book of Proverbs, without connexion, and rather

to be called Hosea’s sayings than Hosea’s sermons. And a

weighty adage may sometimes do more service than a laboured discourse.

Huetius observes that many passages in the prophecies of Jeremiah and

Ezekiel seem to refer to, and to be borrowed from, the prophet Hosea,

who wrote a good while before them. As

Jer. vii. 34; xvi. 9; xxv. 10;

and Ezek. xxvi. 13,

speak the same with

Hos. ii. 11;

so

Ezek. xvi. 16,

&c., is taken from

Hos. ii. 8.

And that promise of serving the Lord their God, and David

their king,
Jer. xxx. 8, 9.

Ezek. xxxiv. 23,

Hosea had before,

ch. iii. 5.

And

Ezek. xix. 12

is taken from

Hos. xiii. 15.

Thus one prophet confirms and corroborates another; and all these

worketh that one and the self-same Spirit.

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Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (1712)

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