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Matthew Henry |
H O S E A.
CHAP. III.
God is still by the prophet inculcating the same thing upon this
careless people, and much in the same manner as before, by a type or
sign, that of the dealings of a husband with an adulterous wife. In
this chapter we have,
I. The bad character which the people of Israel now had; they were, as
is said of the Athenians
“wholly given to idolatry,”
II. The low condition which they should be reduced to by their
captivity, and the other instances of God’s controversy with them,
III. The blessed reformation that should at length be wrought upon them
in the latter days,
| Idolatry of Israel; The Prophet’s Remonstrances; Promises to the Penitent. | B. C. 760. |
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1 Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of
her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the
LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and
love flagons of wine.
2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and
for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley:
3 And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou
shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another
man: so will I also be for thee.
4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a
king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without
an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:
5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the
LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and
his goodness in the latter days.
Some think that this chapter refers to Judah, the two tribes, as the
adulteress the prophet married
(ch. i. 3)
represented the ten tribes; for this was not to be divorced, as
the ten tribes were, but to be left desolate for a long time, and then
to return, as the two tribes did. But these are called the children
of Israel, which was the ten tribes, and therefore it is more
probable that of them this parable, as well as that before, is to be
understood. Go, and repeat it, says God to the prophet; Go
yet again. Note, For the conviction and reduction of sinners it is
necessary that precept be upon precept, and line upon line. If they
will not believe one sign, try another,
Now,
I. In this parable we may observe,
1. God’s goodness and Israel’s badness strangely serving for a foil to
each other,
v. 1.
Israel is as a woman beloved of her friend, either of him that
has married her or of him that only courts her, and yet an
adulteress; such is the case between God and Israel. We say of
those whose affection is mutual that there is no love lost
between them; but here we find a great deal of the love even of God
himself lost and thrown away upon an unworthy ungrateful people. The
God of Israel retains a very great love for the children of
Israel, and yet they are an evil and adulterous generation. Be
astonished, O heavens! at this, and wonder, O earth!
(1.) That God’s goodness has not put an end to their badness; the Lord
loves them, has a kindness for them, and is continually showing
kindness to them; they know it, they cannot but own it, that he has
been as a friend and Father to them; and yet they look to other
gods, gods that they can see, and to the love of which they are
drawn by the eye; they look to them with an eye of adoration (they
offer up all their services to them) and with an eye of dependence
(they expect all their comforts from them); if they were restrained
from bowing the knee to idols, yet they gave them an amorous glance,
and had eyes full of that spiritual adultery. And they
loved flagons of wine; they joined with idolaters because they
lived merrily and drank hard; they had a kindness for other gods
for the sake of the plenty of good wine with which they had been
sometimes treated in their temples. Idolatry and sensuality commonly go
together; those that make a god of their belly, as drunkards do, will
easily be brought to make a god of any thing else. God’s priests were
to drink no wine when they went in to minister, and his
Nazarites none at all. But the worshippers of other gods drank wine
in bowls; nay, no less than flagons of wine would content
them.
(2.) That their badness had not stopped the current of his favours to
them. This is a wonder of mercy indeed, that she is thus beloved of
her friend, though an adulteress; such is the love of the Lord
towards the children of Israel. “Go,” says God, “love such a
woman; see if thou canst find in thy heart to do it. No, thou canst
not, the breast of no man would admit such a love; yet such is my
love to the children of Israel; it is love to the loveless, to
the unlovely, to those that have a thousand times forfeited it.” Note,
In God’s goodwill to poor sinners his thoughts and ways are infinitely
above ours, and his love is more condescending and compassionate than
ours is, or can be; in this, as much as any thing, he is God, and
not man,
Hos. xi. 9.
2. The method found for the bringing of a God so very good and a people
so very bad together again; this is the thing aimed at, and what God
aims at he will accomplish. To our great surprise, we find a breach
thus wide as the sea effectually healed; miracles cease not so long as
divine mercy does not cease. Observe here,
(1.) The course God takes to humble them and make them know themselves
(v. 2):
I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer and a
half of barley, that is, I courted her to be reconciled, to leave
her ill courses, and return to her first husband, as
I allured her, and spoke comfortably to her; as the
Levite who went after his concubine that had played the
harlot from him, and had run away with another man, spoke
friendly to her,
Judg. xix. 3.
But here the present which the prophet brought her for the purchasing
of her favour is observed to be a very small one; but it was all that
was intended for her separate maintenance, and in it she is reduced to
a short allowance, and, to punish her for her pride, is made to look
very mean. When Samson went to be reconciled to his wife that had
disobliged him he visited her with a kid
(Judg. xv. 1),
which was a genteel entertainment. But the prophet here visited his
wife with fifteen pieces of silver, a small sum, which yet she
must be content to live upon a great while, so long as till her husband
thought fit to restore her to her first estate. She shall also have
a homer and a half of barley, for bread-corn, and that is all
she must expect till she be sufficiently humbled, and, by a competent
time of trial, satisfactory proof given that she is indeed reformed.
Let her be made sensible that it is not for her own merit that her
husband makes court to her; it is but a lame price that he values her
at. The price of a servant was thirty shekels,
This was but half so much; yet let her know that it is more than she is
worth. God had given Egypt for Israel’s ransom once, so precious were
they then in his sight, and so honourable,
But now that they have gone a whoring from him he will give but fifteen
pieces of silver for them, so much have they lost in their value by
their iniquity. Note, Those whom God designs honour and comfort for he
first makes sensible of their own worthlessness, and brings them to
acknowledge, with the prodigal, I am no more worthy to be called thy
son. Time was when Israel was fed with the finest of the
wheat, but they grew wanton, and loved flagons of wine, and
therefore, in order to the humbling and reducing of them, they must be
brought in the land of their captivity to eat barley-bread, and be
thankful they can get it, and to eat that too by weight and measure,
whereas they did not use to be stinted. Note, Poverty and disgrace
sometimes prove a happy means of making great sinners true penitents.
(2.) The new terms upon which God is willing to come with them
(v. 3):
Thou shalt abide for me many days, and shalt not be for another, so
will I be for thee. He might justly have given them a bill of
divorce, and have resolved to have no more to do with them; but he is
willing to show them kindness, and that the matter should be
compromised; he deals not with them in strict justice, according to the
rigour of the law, but according to the multitude of his mercies; and
it represents God’s gracious dealings with the apostate race of
mankind, that had gone a whoring from him; he bought them indeed with
an inestimable price, not for their honour, but for the honour of his
own justice; and now this is the proposal he makes to them, the
covenant of grace he is willing to enter into with them–they must be
to him a people, and he will be to them a God, the same with the
proposal here made to Israel.
[1.] They must take to themselves the shame of their apostasy from him,
must submit to, and accept of, the punishment of their iniquity:
Thou shalt abide for me many days in solitude and
silence, as a widow that is desolate and in sorrow; they
must lay aside their ornaments, and wait with patience and
submission to know what God will do with them, and whether he will
please to admit such unworthy wretches into his favour again, as they
did
Their father, their husband, has spit in their face (as
God said concerning Miriam), has put them under the marks of his
displeasure, and therefore, like her, they must be ashamed seven
days, and be shut out of the camp
(Num. xii. 14),
till their uncircumcised hearts be humbled,
Lev. xxvi. 41.
Let them sit alone and keep silence, waiting for the
salvation of the Lord, and in the mean time let them bear the
yoke,
Lam. iii. 26-28.
Let them not expect that God should speedily return in mercy to them,;
no, let them want it, let them wait for it many days, during all
the days of their captivity, and reckon it a miracle of mercy, and well
worth waiting for, it if come at last. Note, Those whom God designs
mercy for he will first bring to abase themselves and to put a high
value upon his favours.
[2.] They must never return to folly again; that is the condition upon
which God will speak peace to his people and to his saints
(Ps. lxxxv. 8),
and no other. “Thou shalt not play the harlot, shalt not worship
idols in the land of thy captivity, while thou art there set apart for
the uncleanness.” Note, It is not enough to take shame to ourselves for
the sins we have committed, and to justify God in correcting us for
them, but we must resolve, in the strength of God’s grace, that we will
not offend any more, that we will not again go a whoring from God,
after the world and the flesh. Blessed be God, though it is the law of
the covenant, it is not the condition of it that we shall never in any
thing do amiss: “But thou shalt not play the harlot; thou shalt
not serve other gods, shalt not be for another man.” In the land
of their captivity they would be courted to worship the idols of the
country; that would be a trial for them, a long trial, many
days: “But if thou keep thy ground, and hold fast thy integrity, if,
when all this comes upon thee, thou dost not stretch out thy
hand to a strange god, thou wilt be qualified for the returns of
God’s favour.” Note, It is a certain sign that our afflictions are
means of much good to us, and earnests of more, when we are kept by the
grace of God from being overcome by the temptations of an afflicted
state.
[3.] Upon these terms their Maker will again be their husband: So
will I also be for thee. This is the covenant between God and
returning sinners, that, if they will be for him to serve him, he will
be for them to save them. Let them renounce and abjure all rivals with
God for the throne in the heart, and devote themselves entirely to him
and him only, and he will be to them a God all-sufficient. If we be
faithful and constant to God in a way of duty, and will never leave nor
forsake him, he will be so to us in a way of mercy, and will never
leave nor forsake us. And a fairer proposal could not be made.
II. In the
we have the interpretation of the parable and the application of it to
Israel.
1. They must long sit like a widow, stripped of all their joys
and honours,
They shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince;
and a nation in this condition may well be called a widow. They
want the blessing,
(1.) Of civil government: They shall abide without a king, and
without a prince, of their own. There were kings and princes
over them to oppress them and rule them with rigour, but they had no
king nor prince to protect them, to fight their battles for them, to
administer justice to them, and to take care of their common safety and
welfare. Note, Magistracy is a very great blessing to a people, and it
is a sad and sore judgment to want it.
(2.) Of public worship: They shall abide without a
sacrifice, and without an image (or a statue, or
pillar; the word is used concerning the pillars Jacob erected,
Gen. xxviii. 18; xxxi. 45; xxxv. 20),
and without an ephod and teraphim. The teraphim being
here closely joined to the ephod, some thing the urim and
thummim were meant by it in the breast-plate of the high priest.
The meaning is that in their captivity they should not only have no
face of a nation upon them, but no face of a church; they should not
have (as a learned expositor speaks) liberty of any public profession
or exercise of religion, either true or false, according to their
choice. They shall have no sacrifice or altar (so the LXX.), and
therefore no sacrifice because no altar. They shall have no
ephod, nor teraphim, no legal priesthood, no means of
knowing God’s mind, no oracle to consult in doubtful cases, but shall
be all in the dark. Note, The case of those is very melancholy that
are deprived of all opportunities to worship God in public. This was
the case of the Jews in their captivity; and it is so far the case of
the scattered Jews at this day that, though they have their synagogues,
they have no temple-service. Desolate indeed is their condition that
are shut out from communion with God, that have no opportunity of
directing their addresses to God by sacrifice and altar, and of
receiving instruction from him by ephod and teraphim.
2. They shall at length be received again as a wife
(v. 5):
Afterwards, in process of time, when they have gone through this
discipline, they shall return, that is, they shall repent of
their idolatries and forsake them, they shall apply themselves to God
and adhere to him, and herein they shall be accepted of him. Two things
are here promised as instances of their return, and steps towards their
acceptance with God in their return:–
(1.) The enquiries they shall make after God: They shall seek the
Lord their God, and David their king. Note, Those that would find
God, and find favour with him, must seek him, must ask after him, covet
acquaintance with him, desire to be reconciled to him, set their love
on him, and labour in this that they may be accepted of him. Their
seeking him implies that they had lost him, that they were lamenting
their loss, and that they were solicitous to retrieve what they had
lost. They shall seek him as their God; for should not a
people seek unto their God? And they shall seek David their
King, who can be no other than the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of David, the root and offspring of David, whom David
himself called Lord
(Ps. cx. 1),
and to whom God gave the throne of his father David,
Luke i. 32.
The Chaldee reads it, They shall seek the service of the Lord their
God, and shall obey Messiah, the Son of David their king.
Compare this with
Jer. xxx. 9; Ezek. xxxiv. 23; xxxvii. 25.
Note, Those that would seek the Lord so as to find him must apply to
Jesus Christ, and must seek to him as their King, and become his
willing people, and take an oath of fealty and allegiance to him.
(2.) The reverence they shall have of God: They shall fear the Lord
and his goodness. Some by his goodness here understand the
temple, towards which they shall look, in worshipping God. The Jews
say, There were three things which Israel cast off in the days of
Rehoboam–the kingdom of heaven, the family of David, and
the house of the sanctuary; and it will never be well with them
till they return, and seek them all three, which is here promised. They
shall seek the kingdom of heaven in the Lord their God, the
royal family in David their King, and the temple in the
goodness of the Lord. Others by his goodness understand
Christ, the same with David their King. But it is rather to be
taken for that attribute of God which he showed as his glory, and by
which he proclaimed his name. Note, It is not only the Lord and his
greatness that we are to fear, but the Lord and his goodness, not only
his majesty, but his mercy. They shall flee for fear to the Lord and
his goodness (so some take it), shall flee to it as their city of
refuge. We must fear God’s goodness, that is, we must admire it,
and stand amazed at it, must adore it, and worship as Moses did
at the proclaiming of this name,
We must be afraid of offending his goodness, of making any ungrateful
returns for it, and so forfeiting it. There is forgiveness with God,
that he may be feared,
Ps. cxxx. 4.
We must rejoice with trembling in the goodness of God, must not
be high-minded, but fear. Now this promise had its
accomplishment when by the gospel of Christ great multitudes both of
Jews and Gentiles were brought home to God, and incorporated in the
New-Testament church, served God in Christ, with a filial fear of
divine grace, and were accepted of God as his Israel. And some think
it is to be yet further accomplished in the conversion of those Jews to
the faith of Christ who shall remain in unbelief, when they shall seek
their Messiah as David their King, and by him all Israel
shall be saved, when the fulness of the Gentiles is brought
in. Time was when they sought him to put him to death, saying,
We have no king but Cæsar; but the day is coming when they
shall seek him to appoint him their head, and to lay their necks
under his yoke. He that has here promised that they shall do it will
enable them to do it, and bring about this great work in his own way
and time, in the latter days of the last times, the times
of the Messiah: but, alas! who shall live when God does this? How far
we are to expect a general conversion of that nation I cannot say; but
I am sure we ought to pray that the Jews may be converted.
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