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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
H O S E A.
CHAP. VII.
In this chapter we have,
I. A general charge drawn up against Israel for those high crimes and
misdemeanors by which they had obstructed the course of God’s favours
to them,
II. A particular accusation,
1. Of the court–the king, princes, and judges,
2. Of the country. Ephraim is here charged with conforming to the
nations
(ver. 8),
senselessness and stupidity under the judgments of God
(ver. 9-11),
ingratitude to God for his mercies
(ver. 13),
incorrigibleness under his judgments
(ver. 14),
contempt of God
(ver. 15),
and hypocrisy in their pretences to return to him,
They are also threatened with a severe chastisement, which shall humble
them
(ver. 12),
and, if that prevail not, then with an utter destruction
(ver. 13),
particularly their princes,
| Charge Drawn up against Israel; The Crimes of the Princes. | B. C. 750. |
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1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim
was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit
falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers
spoileth without.
2 And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all
their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about;
they are before my face.
3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the
princes with their lies.
4 They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker,
who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until
it be leavened.
5 In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with
bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.
6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles
they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the
morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
7 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges;
all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that
calleth unto me.
Some take away the last words of the foregoing chapter, and make them
the beginning of this: “When I returned, or would have
returned, the captivity of my people, when I was about to come
towards them in ways of mercy, even when I would have healed Israel,
then the iniquity of Ephraim (the country and common people) was
discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria, the court and the chief
city.” Now, in these verses, we may observe,
I. A general idea given of the present state of Israel,
See how the case now stood with them.
1. God graciously designed to do well for them: I would have healed
Israel. Israel were sick and wounded; their disease was dangerous
and malignant, and likely to be fatal,
But God offered to be their physician, to undertake the cure, and there
was balm in Gilead sufficient to recover the health of the daughter of
his people; their case was bad, but it was not desperate, nay, it was
hopeful, when God would have healed Israel.
(1.) He would have reformed them, would have separated between them and
their sins, would have purged out the corruptions that were among them,
by his laws and prophets.
(2.) He would have delivered them out of their troubles, and restored
to them their peace and prosperity. Several healing attempts were
made, and their declining state seemed sometimes to be in a hopeful way
of recovery; but their own folly put them back again. Note, If sinful
miserable souls be not healed and helped, but perish in their sin and
misery, they cannot lay the blame on God, for he both could and
would have healed them; he offered to take the ruin under his
hand. And there are some special seasons when God manifests his
readiness to heal a distempered church and nation, now and then a
hopeful crisis, which, if carefully watched and improved, might, even
when the case is very bad, turn the scale for life and health.
2. They stood in their own light and put a bar in their own door. When
God would have healed them, when they bade fair for reformation
and peace, then their iniquity was discovered and their
wickedness, which stopped that current of God’s favours, and
undid all again.
(1.) Then, when their case came to be examined and enquired
into, in order to their cure, that wickedness which had been concealed
and palliated was found out; not that it was ever hid from God,
but he speaks after the manner of men; as a surgeon, when he probes a
wound in order to the cure of it and finds that it touches the vitals
and is incurable, goes no further in his endeavour to cure it, so, when
God came down to see the case of Israel (as the expression is,
with kind intentions towards them, he found their wickedness so very
flagrant, and them so hardened in it, so impudent and impenitent, that
he could not in honour show them the favour he designed them. Note,
Sinners are not healed because they would not be healed. Christ
would have gathered them, and they would not.
(2.) Then, when some endeavours were used to reform and reclaim
them, that wickedness which had been restrained and kept under broke
out; and from God’s steps towards the healing of them they took
occasion to be so much the more provoking. When endeavours were used to
reform them vice grew more impetuous, more outrageous, and swelled so
much the higher, as a stream when it is damned up. When they began to
prosper they grew more proud, wanton, and secure, and so stopped the
progress of their cure. Note, It is sin that turns away good things
from us when they are coming towards us; and it is the folly and ruin
of multitudes that, when God would do well for them, they do ill for
themselves. And what was it that did them this mischief? In one word,
they commit falsehood; they worship idols (so some), defraud one
another (so others), or, rather, they dissemble with God in their
professions of repentance and regard to him. They say that they are
desirous to be healed by him, and, in order to that, willing to be
ruled by him; but they lie unto him with their mouth and flatter him
with their tongue.
3. A practical disbelief of God’s omniscience and government was at the
bottom of all their wickedness
(v. 2):
“They consider not in their hearts, they never say it to their
own hearts, never think of this, that I remember all their
wickedness.” As if God could not see it, though he is all eye, or
did not heed it, though his name is Jealous, or had forgotten it,
though he is an eternal mind that can never be unmindful, or would not
reckon for it, though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This
is the sinner’s atheism; as good say that there is no God as say
that he is either ignorant or forgetful, that there is none that
judges in the earth as that he remembers not the things he is to
give judgment upon. It is a high affront they put upon God; it is a
damning cheat they put upon themselves; they say, The Lord shall not
see,
Ps. xciv. 7.
They cannot but know that God remembers all their works; they
have been told it many a time; nay, if you ask them, they cannot but
own it, and yet they do not consider it; they do not think of it
when they should, and with application to themselves and their own
works, else they would not, they durst not, do as they do. But the time
will come when those who thus deceive themselves shall be undeceived:
“Now their own doings have beset them about, that is, they have
come at length to such a pitch of wickedness that their sins appear on
every side of them; all their neighbours see how bad they are, and can
they think that God does not see it?” Or, rather, “The punishment of
their doings besets them about; they are surrounded and embarrassed
with troubles, so that they cannot get out, by which it appears that
the sins they smart for are before my face, not only that I have
seen them, but that I am displeased at them;” for, till God by
pardoning our sins has cast them behind his back, they are still before
his face. Note, Sooner or later, God will convince those who do not now
consider it that he remembers all their works.
4. God had begun to contend with them by his judgments, in earnest of
what was further coming: The thief comes in, and the troop of
robbers spoils without. Some take this as an instance of their
wickedness, that they robbed and spoiled one another. Nec hospes ab
hospite tutus–The host and the guest stand in fear of each other.
It seems rather to be a punishment of their sin; they were infested
with secret thieves among themselves, that robbed their houses and
shops and picked their pockets, and troops of robbers, foreign
invaders, that with open violence spoiled abroad; so far was
Israel from being healed that they had fresh wounds given them daily by
robbers and spoilers; and all this the effect of sin, all to punish
them for robbing God,
Isa. xlii. 24; Mal. iii. 8, 11.
II. A particular account of the sins of the court, of the king and
princes, and those about them, and the tokens of God’s displeasure that
they were under for them.
1. Their king and princes were pleased with the wickedness and
profaneness of their subjects, who were emboldened thereby to be so
much them ore wicked
(v. 3):
They make the king and princes glad with their wickedness. It
pleased them to see the people conform to their wicked laws and
examples, in the worship of their idols, and other instances of impiety
and immorality, and to hear them flatter and applaud them in their
wicked ways. When Herod saw that his wickedness pleased the people he
proceeded further in it, much more will the people do so when they see
that it pleases the prince,
Particularly, they made them glad with their lies, with the
lying praises with which they crowned the favourites of the prince and
the lying calumnies and censures with which they blackened those whom
they knew the princes had a dislike to. Those who show themselves
pleased with slanders and ill-natured stories shall never want those
about them who will fill their ears with such stories.
If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked, and
will make him glad with their lies.
2. Drunkenness and revelling abound much at the court,
v. 5.
The day of our king was a merry day with them, either his
birth-day or his inauguration-day, of which it is probable that they
had an anniversary observation, or perhaps it was some holiday of his
appointing, which was therefore called his day; on that day the
princes met to drink the king’s health, and got him among them, to be
merry, and made him sick with bottles of wine. It should seem
the king did not ordinarily drink to excess, but he was not upon a high
day brought to it by the artifices of the princes, tempted by the
goodness of the wine, the gaiety of the company, or the healths they
urged; and so little was he used to it that it made him sick;
and it is justly charged as a crime, as crimen læsæ
majestatis–treason, upon those who thus imposed upon him and
made him sick; nor would it serve for an excuse that it was
the day of their king, but was rather an aggravation of the
crime, that, whey they pretended to do him honour, they dishonoured him
to the highest degree. If it is a great affront and injury to a common
person to make him drunk, and there is a woe to those that do it
(Hab. ii. 15),
much more to a crowned head; for the greater any man’s dignity is the
greater disgrace it is to him to be drunk. It is not for kings, O
Lemuel! it is not for kings, to drink wine,
Prov. xxxi. 4, 5.
See what a prejudice the sin of drunkenness is to a man, to a king.
(1.) In his health; it made him sick. It is a force upon nature;
and strange it is by what charms men, otherwise rational enough, can be
drawn to that which besides the offence it gives to God, and the damage
it does to their spiritual and eternal welfare, is a present disorder
and distemper to their own bodies.
(2.) In his honour; for, when he was thus intoxicated, he stretched
out his hand with scorners; then he that was entrusted with the
government of a kingdom lost the government of himself, and so far
forgot,
[1.] The dignity of a king that he made himself familiar with players
and buffoons, and those whose company was a scandal.
[2.] The duty of a king that he joined in confederacy with atheists,
and the profane scoffers at religion, whom he ought to have silenced
and put to shame; he sat in the seat of the scornful, of those
that had arrived at the highest pitch of impiety; he struck in with
them, said as they said, did as they did, and exerted his power, and
stretched forth the hand of his government, in concurrence with
them. Goodness and good men are often made the song of the
drunkards
but woe unto thee, O land! when thy king is such a child
as to stretch forth his hand with those that make them so,
3. Adultery and uncleanness prevailed much among the courtiers. This is
spoken of
and the charge of drunkenness comes in in the midst of this article;
for wine is oil to the fire of lust,
Those that are inflamed with fleshly lusts, that are adulterers
(v. 4),
are here again and again compared to an oven heated by the baker
(v. 4):
They have made ready their heart like an oven
(v. 6);
they are all hot as an oven,
v. 7.
Note,
(1.) An unclean heart is like an oven heated; and the unclean lusts and
affections of it are as the fuel that makes it hot. It is an inward
fire, it keeps the heat within itself; so adulterers and fornicators
secretly burn in lust, as the expression is,
The heat of the oven is an intense heat, especially as it is here
described; he that heats it stirs up the fire, and ceases not
from raising it up, till the bread is ready to be put in, being
kneaded and leavened, all which only signifies that they
are like an oven when it is at the hottest; nay, when it is too hot
for the baker (so the learned Dr. Pocock), when it is hotter
than he would have it, so that the raiser up of the fire ceases as
long as while the dough that is kneaded is in the fermenting, that the
heat may abate a little. Thus fiery hot are the lusts of an unclean
heart.
(2.) The unclean wait for an opportunity to compass their wicked
desires; having made ready their heart like an oven, they lie in wait
to catch their prey. The eye of the adulterer waits for the
twilight,
Job xxiv. 15.
Their baker sleeps all the night, but in the morning it burns as a
flaming fire. As the baker, having kindled a fire in his oven and
laid sufficient fuel to it, goes to bed, and sleeps all night, and in
the morning finds his oven well heated, and ready for his purpose, so
these wicked people, when they have laid some wicked plot, and formed a
design for the gratifying of some covetous, ambitious, revengeful, or
unclean lusts, have their hearts so fully set in them to do evil that,
though they may stifle them for a while, yet the fire of corrupt
affections is still glowing within, and, as soon as ever there is an
opportunity for it, their purposes which they have compassed and
imagined break out into overt acts, as a fire flames out when it has
vent given it. Thus they are all hot as an oven. Note, Lust in
the heart is like fire in an oven, puts it into a heat; but the day is
coming when those who thus make themselves like a fiery oven with their
own vile affections, if that fire be not extinguished by divine grace,
shall be made as a fiery oven by divine wrath
(Ps. xxi. 9),
when the day comes that shall burn as an oven,
Mal. iv. 1.
4. They resist the proper methods of reformation and redress: They
have devoured their judges, those few good judges that were among
them, that would have put out these fires with which they were heated;
they fell foul upon them, and would not suffer them to do justice, but
were ready to stone them, and perhaps did so; or, as some think, they
provoked God to deprive them of the blessing of magistracy and to leave
all in confusion: All their kings have fallen one after
another, and their families with them, which could not but put the
kingdom into confusion, crumble it into contending parties, and
occasion a great deal of bloodshed. There are heart-burnings among
them; they are hot as an oven with rage and malice at one
another, and this occasions the devouring of their judges, the
falling of their kings. For the transgressions of a land many
are the princes thereof,
Prov. xxviii. 2.
But in the midst of all this trouble and disorder there is none
among them that calls unto God, that sees his hand stretched out
against them in these judgments, and deprecates the strokes of it,
none, or next to none, that stir up themselves to take hold on God,
Note, Those are not only heated with sin, but hardened in sin, that
continue to live without prayer even when they are in trouble and
distress.
| The Crimes of the People; Infatuation of Ephraim; Ephraim’s Obstinate Rebellion; Ephraim’s Hypocrisy. | B. C. 750. |
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8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a
cake not turned.
9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it
not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth
not.
10 And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do
not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.
11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call
to Egypt, they go to Assyria.
12 When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will
bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them,
as their congregation hath heard.
13 Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto
them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have
redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
14 And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they
howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and
wine, and they rebel against me.
15 Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do
they imagine mischief against me.
16 They return, but not to the most High: they are like a
deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage
of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of
Egypt.
Having seen how vicious and corrupt the court was, we now come to
enquire how it is with the country, and we find that to be no better;
and no marvel if the distemper that has so seized the head affect the
whole body, so that there is no soundness in it; the iniquity
of Ephraim is discovered, as well as the sin of Samaria, of
the people as well as the princes, of which here are divers
instances.
I. They were not peculiar and entire for God, as they should have been,
v. 8.
1. They did not distinguish themselves from the heathen, as God had
distinguished them: Ephraim, he has mingled himself among the
people, has associated with them, and conformed himself to them,
and has in a manner confounded himself with them and lost his character
among them. God had said, The people shall dwell alone; but they
mingled themselves with the heathen and learned their works,
Ps. xvi. 35.
They went up and down among the heathen, to beg help of one of them
against another (so some); whereas, if they had kept close to God, they
would not have needed the help of any of them.
2. They were not entirely devoted to God: Ephraim is a cake not
turned, and so is burnt on one side and dough on the other side,
but good for nothing on either side. As in Ahab’s time, so now, they
halted between God and Baal; sometimes they seemed zealous for
God, but at other times as hot for Baal. Note, It is sad to think how
many, who, after a sort, profess religion, are made up of contraries
and inconsistencies, as a cake not turned, a constant
self-contradiction, and always in one extreme or the other.
II. They were strangely insensible of the judgments of God, which they
were under, and which threatened their ruin,
v. 9.
Observe,
1. The condition they were in. God was not to them, in his judgments,
as a moth and as rottenness; they were silently and
slowly drawing towards the ruin of their state partly by the
encroachments of foreigners upon them: Strangers have devoured his
strength, and eaten him up; they have wasted his wealth and
treasure, lessened his numbers, and consumed the fruits of the earth.
Some devoured them by open wars (as
when the king of Syria made them like the dust by threshing),
others by pretending treaties of peace and amity, in which they
extorted abundance of wealth from them, and made them pay dearly for
that which did them no good, but which afterwards they paid more dearly
for, as
This Ephraim got by mingling with the heathen, and suffering them to
mingle with him; they devoured that which he rested upon and supported
himself with. Note, Those that make not God their strength
make that their strength which will soon be devoured by strangers. They
were thus reduced partly by their own mal-administrations among
themselves: Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him (are
sprinkled upon him, so the word is), that is, the sad symptoms
of a decaying declining state, which is waxing old and ready
to vanish away, and the effects of trouble and vexation. Cura
facit canos–Care turns gray. The almond-tree does not as
yet flourish, but it begins to turn colour, which speaks aloud
to him that the evil days are coming, and the years of which
he shall say, I have no pleasure in them,
Eccl. xii. 1, 5.
2. Their regardlessness of these warnings: He knows it not; he
is not aware of the hand of God gone out against him; it is lifted up,
but he will not see,
Isa. xxvi. 11.
He does not know how near his ruin is, and takes no care to prevent it.
Note, Stupidity under less judgments is a presage of greater
coming.
III. They went on frowardly in their wicked ways, and were not
reclaimed by the rebukes they were under
(v. 10):
The pride of Israel still testifies to his face, as it
had done before
(ch. v. 5);
under humbling providences their hearts were still unhumbled, their
lusts unmortified; and it is through the pride of their
countenance that they will not seek after God
(Ps. x. 4);
they do not return to the Lord their God by repentance and
reformation, nor do they seek him by faith and prayer for all
this; though they suffer for going astray from him, though it can
never be well with them till they come back to him, and though they
have in vain sought to others for relief, yet they think not of
applying to God.
IV. They were infatuated in their counsels, and took very wrong methods
when they were in distress
(v. 11, 12):
Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart. To be harmless as a
dove, without gall, and not to hurt or injure others, is commendable;
but to be sottish as a dove, without heart, that knows not how to
defend herself and provide for her own safety, is a shame.
1. The silliness of this dove is,
(1.) That she laments not the loss of her young that are taken from
her, but will make her nest again in the same place; so they have their
people carried away by the enemy, and are not affected with it, but
continue their dealings with those that deal barbarously with them.
(2.) That she is easily enticed by the bait into the net, and has no
heart, no understanding, to discern her danger, as many other fowls
do,
She hastes to the snare, and knows not that it is for her life
so they were drawn into leagues with neighbouring nations that were
their ruin.
(3.) That, when she is frightened, she has not courage to stay in the
dove-house, where she is safe, and under the careful protection of her
owner, but flutters and hovers, seeking shelter first in one place,
then in another, and thereby exposes herself so much the more; so this
people, when they were in distress, sought not to God, did not fly
like the doves to their windows where they might have been
secured from all the birds of prey that struck at them, but threw
themselves out of God’s protection, and then called to Egypt to
help them, and went in all haste to Assyria, to seek for that
aid in vain which they might, by repentance and prayer, have found
nearer home, in their God. Note, It is a silly senseless thing for
those who have a God in heaven to trust to creatures for the refuge and
relief which are to be had in him only; and those that do so are a
people of no understanding, they are without heart.
Now,
2. See what becomes of this silly dove
(v. 12):
When they shall go to Egypt and Assyria, I will spread my net
upon them. Note, Those that will not abide by the mercy of God must
expect to be pursued by the justice of God. Here,
(1.) They are ensnared: “I will spread my net upon them, bring
them into straits, that they may see their folly and think of
returning.” Note, It is common for those that go away from God to find
snares where they expected shelters.
(2.) They are humbled; they soar upward, proud of their foreign
alliances and confiding in them; but I will bring them down, let
them fly ever so high, as the fowls of heaven, that are shot
flying. Note, God can and will bring those down that exalt
themselves as the eagle,
Obad. 3, 4.
(3.) They are made to smart for their folly: I will chastise
them. Note, The disappointments we meet with in the creature, when
we put a confidence in it, are a necessary chastisement, or discipline,
that we may learn to be wiser another time.
(4.) In all this the scripture is fulfilled. It is as their
congregation has heard; they have been many a time told by the word
of God, read, and preached, and sung, in their religious assemblies,
that “vain is the help of man, that in the son of man there
is no help; they have heard both from the law and from the prophets
what judgments God would bring upon them for their wickedness; and
as they have heard now they shall see, they shall feel.”
Note, It concerns us to take notice of the word of God which we hear
from time to time in the congregation, and to be governed by it,
for we must shortly be judged by it; and it will justify God in the
condemnation of sinners, and aggravate it to them, that they have had
plain public warning given them of it; it is what their congregation
has heard many a time, but they would not take warning. “Son,
remember thou wast told what would come of it; and now thou seest
they were not vain words.” See
V. They revolted from God and rebelled against him, notwithstanding the
various methods he took to retain them in their allegiance,
Here observe,
1. How kindly and tenderly God had dealt with them, as a gracious
sovereign towards a people dear unto him, and whose prosperity he had
much at heart. He had redeemed them
(v. 13),
brought them, at first, out of the land of Egypt, and, since, delivered
them out of many a distress. He had bound and strengthened their
arms,
v. 15.
When their power was weakened, like an arm broken or out of joint, God
set it again, and bound it, as a surgeon does a broken bone, to make it
knit. God had given Israel victories over the Syrians
had restored their coast
had girded them with strength for battle. “Though I have
chastened them” (so the margin reads it), “sometimes corrected them
for their faults and thereby taught them, at other times
strengthened their arms and relieved them, though I have used
both fair means and foul to work upon them, it was all to no purpose;
they were mercy-proof and judgment-proof.”
2. How impudent their conduct had been towards him notwithstanding,
which is described here for the conviction and humiliation of all those
who have gone on in any way of wickedness, that they may see how
exceedingly sinful their sin is, how heinous, how the God of heaven
interprets it, how he resents it.
(1.) He had courted them to him, and taken them into covenant with
himself; but they fled from him, as if he had been their
dangerous enemy who had always approved himself their faithful friend.
They wandered from him, as the silly dove from her nest, for those who
forsake God will find no rest nor settlement in the creature, but
wander endlessly. They fled from God when they forsook the worship of
him, and ran away from his service, and withdrew themselves from their
allegiance to him.
(2.) He had given them his laws, which were all holy, just, and good,
by which he designed to keep them in the right way; but they
transgressed against him; they sinned with a high hand and a
stiff neck, wilfully and presumptuously (so the words signifies); they
broke through the fence of the divine law, and therein thwarted the
design of the divine love.
(3.) He had made known his truths to them, and given them all possible
proofs of the sincerity of his good-will to them; and yet they spoke
lies against him. They set up false gods in competition with him;
they denied his providence and power; thus they belied the Lord,
Jer. v. 12.
They rejected his messages sent them by his prophets, and said that
they should have peace, though they went on in sin, directly against
what he said. In their hypocritical professions of religion, shows of
devotion, and promises of amendment, they lied to the Lord, which he
took as lying against him.
(4.) He was their rightful Lord and King, and had always ruled in Jacob
with equity, and for the public good; and yet they rebelled against
him,
v. 14.
They not only went off from him, but took up arms against him, would
have deposed him if they could and set up another.
(5.) He designed well for them, but they imagined mischief against
him,
v. 15.
Sin is a mischievous thin; it is mischief against God, for it is
treason against his crown and dignity; not that the sinners can do any
thing to hurt their Creator (as one of the ancients observes on these
words), but what they can they do; and it is so much the worse
when it is not done by surprise, or through inadvertency, but
designedly and with contrivance. The Jews have a saying, which Dr.
Pocock quotes here, The thoughts of transgression are worse than the
transgression. The designing of mischief is doing it, in God’s
account. Compassing and imagining the death of the king is
treason by our law. Those that imagine an evil thing, though it prove a
vain thing
(Ps. ii. 1),
will be reckoned with for the imagination.
3. How they shall be punished for this
(v. 13):
Woe unto them! for they have fled from me. Note, Those who flee
from God have woes sent after them, and are, without doubt, in a woeful
case. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them; the word
of God says, Woe to them! And observe what follows immediately,
Destruction unto them! Note, The woes of God’s word have real
effects; destruction makes them good. The judgments of his hand shall
verify the judgments of his mouth. Those whom he curses, and
pronounces woeful, they are cursed, they are woeful indeed.
VI. Their shows of devotion and reformation were but shows, and in them
they did but mock God.
1. They pretended devotion, but it was not sincere,
When the hand of God had gone forth against them they made some sort of
application to him. When he slew them, then they sought him. Lord,
in trouble have they visited thee. But it was all in hypocrisy.
(1.) When they were under personal troubles, and called upon God in
secret, they were not sincere in that: They have not cried unto me
with their heart, when they howled upon their beds. When they were
chastened with pain upon their beds, and the multitude of
their bones with strong pains, perhaps ill of the wounds they
received in war, they cried, and groaned, and complained in the forms
of devotion, and, it may be, they used many good words, proper enough
for the circumstances they were in; they cried, God help us,
and, Lord, look upon us. But they did not cry with their
heart, and therefore God reckons it as no crying to him. Moses is
said to cry unto God when he spoke not a word, only his heart
prayed with faith and fervency,
These made a great noise, and said a great deal, and yet did not cry
to God, because their hearts were not right with him, not
subjected to his will, devoted to his honour, nor employed in his
service. To pray is to lift up the soul to God, this is the
essence of prayer. If this be not done, words, though ever so
well chosen, are but wind; but, if it be, it is an acceptable
prayer, though the groanings cannot be uttered. Note, Those do
not pray to God at all that do not pray in the spirit. Nay, God
is so far from approving their prayer and accepting it that he calls it
howling. Some think it intimates the noisiness of their
prayers (they cried to God as they used to cry to Baal, when they
thought he must be awakened), or the brutish violent passions which
they vented in their prayers; they snarled at the stone, and howled
under the whip, but regarded not the hand. Or it denotes that their
hypocritical prayers were so far from being pleasing to God that they
were offensive to him; he was angry at their prayers. The
songs of the temple shall be howlings,
Amos viii. 3.
God will be so far from pitying them that he will justly laugh at
their calamity, who have so often laughed at his authority.
(2.) When they were under public troubles, and met together to implore
God’s favour, in that also they were hypocritical; they assembled
themselves, for fashion-sake, because it was usual to call a
solemn assembly in times of general mourning,
But it was only to pray for corn and wine that they came
together, which were the things they wanted, and feared being deprived
of by the want of rain, the judgment they now laboured under. They did
not pray for the favour or grace of God, that God would give them
repentance, pardon their sins, and turn away his wrath, but only that
he would not take away from them their corn and wine. Note,
Carnal hearts, in their prayers to God, covet temporal mercies only,
and dread and deprecate no other but temporal judgments, for they have
no sense of any other.
2. They pretended reformation, but neither was that sincere,
Here is,
(1.) The sin of Israel: They return, that is, they make as if
they would return; they pretend to repent and amend their doings, but
they make nothing of it; they do not come home to God nor return to
their allegiance, whereas God says
(Jer. iv. 1),
If thou wilt return, O Israel! return to me; do not only turn
towards me, but return to me. This dissimulation of theirs
makes them like a deceitful bow, which looks as if it were fit
for business, and is bent and drawn accordingly, but, when strength
comes to be laid to it, either the bow or the string breaks, and the
arrow, instead of flying to the mark, drops at the archer’s foot. Such
were their essays towards repentance and reformation.
(2.) The sin of the princes of Israel. That which is charged upon them
is the rage of their tongue, quarrelling with God and his
providence and with all about them when they are crossed. Princes think
they may say what they will, and that it is their prerogative to huff
and bluster, to curse and rail, and to call names at their pleasure,
but let them know there is a God above them that will call them to an
account for the rage of their tongues and make their own
tongues to fall upon them.
(3.) The punishment of Israel and their princes for their sin. As for
the princes, they shall fall by the sword either of their
enemies or of their own people, some by one and some by the other; and
this shall be their derision, this is that for which they shall
be derided in the land of Egypt, when they flee to the Egyptians
for succour,
Their sin and punishment shall make them a laughing-stock to all about
them. Note, Those that are treacherous and deceitful in their dealings
with God, and passionate and outrageous in their conduct towards men,
will justly be made a derision to their neighbours, for they make
themselves ridiculous.
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