Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

By radch z‘ninim the whoredom is represented as a demoniacal power, which has seized upon the nation. Z*niinim probably includes both carnal and spiritual whoredom, since idolatry, especially the Asherah-worship, was connected with gross licentiousness. The missing object to 1YN may easily be supplied from the context. bye nhl n3t, which differs from “AND At (ch. 1. 2), signifies “ to whore away from under God,” i.e. So as to withdraw from subjection to God.

This whoredom is still further explained in the next verse. Ver. 13. “ They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and upon the hills they burn incense, under oak and poplar and

1 According to Herod. iv. 67, this kind of soothsaying was very common among the Scythians (see at Ezek. xxi. 26). Another description of rhabdomancy is described by Abarbanel, according to Maimonides and Moses Mikkotz: cf. Marck and Rosenmiiller on this passage terebinth, for their shadow is good; therefore your daughters commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.” Mountain-tops and hills were favourite places for idolatrous worship; because men thought, that there they were nearer to heaven and to the deity (see at Deut. xii. 2). From a comparison of these and other passages, eg. Jer. ii. 20 and ili. 6, it is evident that the following words, “under oak,” etc., are not to be understood as signifying that trees standing by themselves upon mountains and hills were selected as places for idolatrous worship; but that, in addition to mountains and hills, green shady trees in the plains and valleys were also chosen for this purpose. By the enumeration of the oak, the poplar (libhneh, the white poplar according to the Sept. im loc. and the Vulg. at Gen. xxxvii. 30, or the storax-tree, as the LXX. render it at Gen. xxxvii. 30), and the terebinth, the frequent expression “under every green tree” (Deut. xii. 2, 1 Kings xiv. 23, Jer. u. 20, ili. 6) is individualized. Such trees were selected because they gave a good shade, and in the burning lands of the East a shady place fills the mind with sacred awe. J2°0Y, therefore, on that account, z.c. not because the shadow of the trees invites to it, but because the places for idolatrous worship erected on every hand presented an opportunity for it; therefore the daughters and daughters-in-law carried on prostitution there. The worship of the Canaanitish and Babylonian goddess of nature was associated with prostitution, and with the giving up of young girls and women (compare Movers, Phdnizier, i. pp. 083, 595 sqq.).

Ver. 14. “TL will not visit it upon your daughters that they commit whoredom, nor upon your daughters-in-law that they commit adultery; for they themselves go aside with harlots, and with holy maidens do they sacrifice: and the nation that does not see is ruined.” God would not punish the daughters and daughters-in-law for their whoredom, because the elder ones did still worse. “So great was the number of fornications, that all punishment ceased, in despair of any amendment” (Jerome). With 59°> God turns away from the reckless nation, as unworthy of being further addressed or exhorted, in righteous indignation at such presumptuous sinning, and proceeds to speak about it in the third person: for “they (the fathers and husbands, not ‘ the priests, as Simson supposes, since there is no allusion to them here) go,” ete. 78, piel in an intransitive sense, to separate one’s self, to go aside for the purpose of being alone with the harlots. Sacrificing with the q°déshoth, i.e. with prostitutes, or Hetairai (see at Gen. xxxvill. 14), may have taken its rise in the prevailing custom, viz. that fathers of families came with their wives to offer yearly sacrifices, and the wives shared in the sacrificial meals (1 Sam. 1. 3 sqq.). Coming to the altar with Hetairai instead of their own wives, was the climax of shameless licentiousness. A nation that had sunk so low and had lost all perception must perish. pap = =): to throw to the earth; or in the niphal, to cast headlong into destruction (Prov. x. 8, 10).

A. different turn is now given to the prophecy, viz. that if Israel would not desist from idolatry, Judah ought to beware of participating in the guilt of Israel; and with this the fourth strophe (vers. 15-19) is introduced, containing the announcement of the inevitable destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Ver. 15. “Jf thow commit whoredom, O Israel, let not Judah offend! Come ye not to Gilgal, go not up to Bethaven, and swear ye not by the life of Jehovah.” WS, to render one’s self guilty by participating in the whoredom, i.e. the idolatry, of Israel. his was done by making pilgrimages to the places of idolatrous worship in that kingdom, viz. to Gilgal, i.e. not the Gilgal in the valley of the Jordan, but the northern Gilgal upon the mountains, which has been preserved in the village of Jiljilia to the south-west of Silo (Seilun; see at Deut. xi. 30 and Josh. vil. 85). In the time of Elijah and Elisha it was the seat of a school of the prophets (2 Kings ii. 1, iv. 38); but it was afterwards chosen as the seat of one form of idolatrous worship, the origin and nature of which are unknown (compare ch. ix. 15, xii. 12; Amos iv. 4, v. 5). Bethaven is not the place of that name mentioned in Josh. vil. 2, ce was situated to the south-east of Bethel; but, as eee iv. 4 andy. 5 clearly show, a name which Hosea adopted from Amos v. 5.for Bethel (the present Bectin), to show that Bethel, the house of God, had become Bethaven, a house of idols, through the setting up of the golden calf there (1 Kings xii. 29). Swearing by the name of Jehovah was commanded in the law (Deut. vi. 13, x. 20; compare Jer. iv. 2); but this oath was to have its roots in the fear of Jehovah, to be simply an emanation of His worship. The worshippers of idols, therefore, were not to take it into their mouths. The command not to swear by the life of Jehovah is connected with the previous warnings. Going to Gilgal to worship idols, and swearing by Jehovah, cannot go together. The confession of Jehovah in the mouth of an idolater is hypocrisy, pretended piety, which is more dangerous than open ungodliness, because it lulls the conscience to sleep.

The reason for this warning is given in vers. 16 sqq., viz. the punishment which will fall upon Israel. Ver. 16. “ For Israel has become refractory like a refractory cow; now will Sehovah feed them like a lamb in a wide jield.” “1D, unmanageable, refractory (Deut. xxi. 18, ef. Zech. vii. 11). As Israel would not submit to the yoke of the divine law, it should have what it desired. God would feed it like a lamb, which being in a wide field becomes the prey of wolves and wild beasts, iv. He would give it up to the freedom of banishment and dispersion among the nations.

Ver. 17. “ Ephraim is joined to idols, let it alone.’ AN D’ayy, bound up with idols, so that it cannot give them up. Ephraim, the most powerful of the ten tribes, is frequently used in the loftier style of the prophets for Israel of the ten tribes. iornan, asin 2 Sam. xvi. 11, 2 Kings xxiii. 18, let him do as he likes, or remain as he is. Every attempt to bring the nation away from its idolatry is vain. The expression hannach-lo does not necessitate the assumption, however, that these words of Jehovah are addressed to the prophets. They are taken from the language of ordinary life, and simply mean: it may continue in its idolatry, the punishment will not long be delayed.

Ver. 18. “ Their drinking has degenerated; whoring they have committed whoredom; their shields have loved, loved shame. Ver. 19. The wind has wrapt it up in its wings, so that they are put to shame because of their sacrifices.” 2 from 4D, to fall off, {degenerate, as in Jer. ij. 21. 82D is probably strong, intoxicating wine (cf. Isa. 1. 22; Nah. 1. 10); here it signifies the effect of this wine, viz. intoxication. Others take sd in the usual sense of departing, after 1 Sam. i. 14, and understand the sentence conditionally: “when their intoxication is gone, they commit whoredom.”’ But Hitzig has very properly objected to this, that it is intoxication which leads to licentious- ness, and not temperance. Moreover, the strengthening of hizna by the infin. abs. is not in harmony with this explanation. The hiphil hiznéh is used in an emphatic sense, as in ver. 10. The meaning of the last half of the verse is also a disputed point, more especially on account of the word 33], which only occurs here, and which can only be the caper of 3 Qan for 127), or a contraction of 227%. All other explanations are arbitrary. But we are precluded from taking the word as an imperative by Hep, which altogether confuses the sense, if we adopt the rendering “ their shields love ‘Give ye’—shame.” We therefore prefer taking 037 as a contraction of 1378, and 137 3298 as a construction resembling the pealal form, in which the latter part of the fully formed verb is repeated, with the verbal person as an independent form (Ewald, § 120), viz. “their shields loved, loved shame,” which yields a perfectly suitable thought. The princes are figuratively represented as shields, as in Ps. xlvii. 10, as the supporters and protectors of the state. They love shame, inasmuch as they love the sin which brings shame. This shame will inevitably burst upon the kingdom. The tempest has already seized upon the people, or wrapt them up with its wings (cf. Ps. xviii. 11, civ. 3), and will carry them away (Isa. lvii. 13). ¥, literally to bind together, hence to lay hold of, wrap up. Radich, the wind, or tempest, is a figurative term denoting destruction, like 0% 1 in ch. xiii. 15 and Ezek. v. 3, 4. "Nis refers to Ephraim represented as a woman, like the suffix attached to 222 in ver. 18. aOninay) wa, to be put to shame on account of their sacrifices, 7.e. to be deceived in their confidence in their idols (bosh with min as in ch. x. 6, Jer. ii. 36, xii. 13, etc.), or to discover that the sacrifices which they offered to Jehovah, whilst their heart was attached to the idols, did not save from ruin. The plural formation ninat for Dnt only occurs here, but it has many analogies in its favour, and does not warrant our altering the reading into Anna, Ate the Sept. év Trav picudirc gtlicw: as Hitzig proposes; Stat the inadmissibility of this proposal is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that there is nothing to justify the omission of the indispensable }®, and the cases w ie h Hitzig cites as instances in which min is omitted (viz. Zech. xiv. 10, Ps, Ixviii. 14, and Deut. xxiii. 11) are based upon a false interpretation.

With the words “Hear ye this,” the reproof of the sins of Israel makes a new start, and is specially addressed to the priests and the king’s house, i.e. the king and his court, to announce to the leaders of the nation the punishment that will follow their apostasy from God and their idolatry, by which they have plunged the people and kingdom headlong into destruction. Vers. 1-5 form the first strophe. Ver. 1. “ Hear ye this, ye priests; and give heed thereto, O house of Israel; and observe tt, O house of the king! for the judgment applies to you; for ye have become a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.” By the word “ this,’ which points back to ver. 4, the prophecy that follows is attached to the preceding one. Beside the priests and the king’s house, ze. the royal family, in which the counsellors and adjutants surrounding the king are probably included, the house of Israel, that is to say, the people of the ten tribes regarded as a family, is summoned to hear, because what was about to be announced applied to the people and kingdom as a whole. There is nothing to warrant our understanding by the “house of Israel,” the heads of the nation or elders. Ldkhem hammishpat does not mean, It rests with you to know or to defend the right; nor, “ Ye ought to hear the reproof,” as Hitzig explains it, for mishpdt in this connection signifies neither “the maintenance of justice” nor “a reproof,” but the judgment about to be executed by God, 70 Kpiva (UXX.). The thought is this, The judgment will fall upon you; and lakhem refers chiefly to the priests and the king’s house, as the explanatory clause which follows clearly shows. It is impossible to determine with certainty what king’s house is intended. Probably that of Zechariah or Menahem; possibly both, since Hosea prophesied in both reigns, and merely gives the quintessence of his prophetical addresses in his book. Going to Asshur refers rather to Menahem than to Zechariah (comp. 2 Kings xv. 19, 20). In the figures employed, the bird-trap (pach) and the net spread for catching birds, it can only be the rulers of the nation who are represented as a trap and net, and the birds must denote the people generally who are enticed into the net of destruction and caught (cf. ch. ix. 8).' Mizpah, as a parallel to Tabor, can only be the lofty Mizpah of Gilead (Judg. x. 17, xi. 29) or Ramah- Mizpah, which probably stood upon the site of the modern es-Salt (see at Deut. iv. 43); so that, whilst Tabor represents the land on this side of the Jordan, Mizpah, which resembled it in situation, is chosen to represent the land to the east of the river.” Both places were probably noted as peculiarly adapted for bird-catching, since Tabor is still thickly wooded. The supposition that they had been used as places of sacrifice in connection with idolatrous worship, cannot be inferred from the verse before us, nor is it rendered probable by other passages.

This accusation is still further vindicated in vers. 2 sqq., by a fuller exposure of the moral corruption of the nation. Ver. 2. “ And excesses they have spread out deeply; but I am a chastisement to them all.’ The meaning of the first half of the verse, which is very difficult, and has been very differently interpreted by both ancient and modern expositors, has been brought out best by Delitzsch (Com. on Ps. ci. 3), who renders it, “they understand from the very foundation how to spread out transgressions.” For the word D'»Y the meaning transgressions is well established by the use of O°0D in Ps. ci. 3, where Hengstenberg, Hupfeld, and Delitzsch all agree that this is the proper rendering (see Ewald’s philological defence of it at § 146, ¢). In the psalm referred to, however, the expression DOD nivy also shows that shachdtdh is the inf. piel, and sétim the accusative of the object. And it follows from this that shachctdh neither means to slaughter or slaughter sacrifices, nor can be used for mnnw in the sense of acting injuriously, but that it is to be interpreted according to the shdchith in 1 Kings x. 16, 17, in the sense of stretching, stretching out; so that there is no necessity to take pnw in the

1 Jerome has given a very good explanation of the figure: ‘+I have appointed you as watchmen among the people, and set you in the highest place of honour, that ye might govern the erring people; but ye have become a trap, and are to be called sportsmen rather than watchmen.”

* As Tabor, for instance, rises up as a solitary conical hill (see at Judg. iv. 6), so es-Salt is built about the sides of a round steep hill, which rises up in a narrow rocky valley, and upon the summit of which there stands a strong fortification (see Seetzen in Burckhardt's Reisen in Syrien, p. 1061).

sense of nuw, as Delitzsch does, though the use of moy for now in ch. x. 9 may no doubt be adduced in its support. OY, from nb’ (to turn aside, Num. v. 12, 19), are literally digressions or excesses, answering to the hizndh in ver. 3, the leading sin of Israel. “They have deepened to stretch out excesses,” i.e. they have gone to great lengths, or are deeply sunken in excesses,—a thought quite in harmony with the context, to which the threat is appended. “I (Jehovah) am a chastisement to them all, to the rulers as well as to the people;” ae. I will punish them all (cf. ver. 12), because their idolatrous conduct is well known tome. ‘The way is thus prepared for the two following verses.

Ver. 38. “LI know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou hast comnutted whoredom; Israel has defiled itself. Ver. 4. Their works do not allow to return to their Grod, for the spirit of whovredom is in them, and they know not Jehovah.” By TAY, the whoredom of Ephraim is designated as in fact lying before them, and therefore undeniable; but not, as Hitzig supposes, an act which has taken place once for all, viz. the choice of a king, by which the severance of the kingdoms and the previous idolatry had been sanctioned afresh. x00), defiled by whoredom, 1.e. idolatry. Their works do not allow them to return to their God, because the works are merely an emanation of the character and state of the heart, and in their hearts the demon of whoredom has its seat (cf. ch. iv. 12), and the knowledge of the Lord is wanting; that is to say, the demoniacal power of idolatry has taken complete possession of the heart, and stifled the knowledge of the true God. The rendering, “they do not direct their actions to this,” is incorrect, and cannot be sustained by an appeal to the use of 3 103 in Judg. xv. 1 and 1 Sam. xxiv. 8 sqq., or to Judg. ili. 28.

Ver. 5. “ And the pride of Ephraim will testify against ts jace, and Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their guilt; Judah has also stumbled with them.” As the meaning “to answer,” to bear witness against a person, is well established in the case of 2 my (cf. Num. xxxv. 30, Deut. xix. 18, and Isa. ili. 9), and Dy53 mY also occurs in Job xvi. § in this sense, we must retain the same meaning here, as Jerome and others have done. And there is the more reason for this, because the espn based upon the LX&X., kal tar i n UBprts, “the haughtiness of Israel will be humbled,” can hardly be reconciled with "253, “The pride of Israel,” moreover, is not the haughtiness of Israel, but that of which Israel is proud, or rather the glory of Israel. We might understand by this the flourishing condition of the kingdom, after Amos vi. 8; but it would be only by its decay that this would bear witness against the sin of Israel, so that ‘the glory of Israel” would stand for “the decay of that glory,” which would be extremely improbable. We must therefore explain “the glory of Israel” here and in ch. vii. 10 in accordance with Amos viii. 7, 7.e. we must understand it as referring to Jehovah, who is Israel’s eminence and glory; in which case we obtain the following very appropriate thought: They know not Jehovah, they do not concern themselves about Him; therefore He Himself will bear witness by judgments, by the destruction of their false glory (cf. ch. ii. 10-14), against the face of Israel, t.e. bear witness to their face. This thought occurs without ambiguity in ch. vii. 10. Israel will stumble in its sin, ze. will fall and perish (as in ch. iv. 5). Judah also falls with Israel, because it has participated in Israel’s sin (ch. iv. 15).

Israel, moreover, will not be able to avert the threatening judgment by sacrifices. Jehovah will withdraw from the faithless generation, and visit it with His judgments. This is the train of thought in the next strophe (vers. 6-10). Ver. 6. “ They will go with their sheep and their oxen to seek Jehovah, and will not find Him: He has withdrawn Himself from them. Ver. 7. They acted treacherously against Jehovah, for they have born strange children: now will the new moon devour them with their fields.” The offering of sacrifices will be no help to them, because God has withdrawn Himself from them, and does: not hear their prayers; for God has no pleasure in sacrifices which are offered in an impenitent state of mind (cf. ch. vi. 6; Isa. i. 11 sqq.; Jer. vii. 21 sqq.; Ps. xl. 7, 1. 8 sqq.). The reason for this is given in ver. 7. Bdgad, to act faithlessly, which is frequently applied to the infidelity of a wife towards her husband (eg. Jer. ii. 20; Mal. ii. 14; cf. Ex. xxi. 8), points to the conjugal relation in which Israel stood to Jehovah. Hence the ficure which follows. “ Strange children” are such as do not belong to the home (Deut. xxv. 5), i.e. such as have not sprung from the conjugal union. In actual fact, the expression is equivalent to 0°21 22 in ch. i. 2, ii. 4, though zér does not expressly mean “ adulterous.” Israel fault to have begotten children of God in the maintenance of the covenant with the Lord; but in its apostasy from God it had begotten an adulterous generation, children whom the Lord could not acknowledge as His own. “The new moon will devour them,” viz. those who act so faithlessly. The meaning is not, “ they will be destroyed on the next new moon;” but the new moon, as the festal season, on which sacrifices were offered (1 Sam. xx. 6, 29; Isa. i. 13, 14), stands here for the sacrifices themselves that were offered upon it. The meaning is this: your sacrificial feast, your hypocritical worship, so far from bringing you salvation, will rather prove your ruin. piper are not sacrificial portions, but the hereditary portions of Israel, the portions of land that fell to the different families and snes holds, and from the produce of which they offered sacrifices to the Lord.t

The prophet sees in spirit the judgment already falling upon the rebellious nation, and therefore adddresses the following appeal to the people. Ver. 8. “ Blow ye the horn at Gibeah, the trumpet at Ramah! Raise the ery at Bethaven, Behind thee, Benjamin!” The blowing of the shaphar, a far-sounding horn, or of the trumpet” cosa was a signal by which the invasion of foes (ch. wii, 1; Jer. iv. 5, vi. 1) and other calamities (Joel. ii. 1, cf. Amos iil. 6) were announced, to give the inhabitants warning of the danger that threatened ‘theme The words therefore imply that foes had invaded the land. Gibeah (of Saul; see at Josh. xviii. 28) and Ramah (of Samuel; see at Josh. xviii. 25) were two elevated places on the northern boundary of the tribe of Benjamin, which were well adapted for signals, on account of their lofty situation. The introduction of these particular towns, which did not belong to the tribe of Israel, but to that of Judah, is intended to intimate that the enemy has already conquered the kingdom of the ten tribes,

1 Tt is very evident from this verse, that the feasts and the worship prescribed in the Mosaic law were observed in the kingdom of the ter tribes, at the places of worship in Bethel and Dan.

2 The sophar was a shepherd’s horn, and was made of a carved horn; the tuba (chdisots*rah) was made of brass or silver, and sounded either in the time of war or at festivals.” —Jrrome.

and has advanced to the border of that of Judah. 7, to make a noise, is to he understood here as relating to the alarm given by the war-signals already mentioned, as in Joel ii. 1, cf. Num. x. 9. Bethaven is Bethel (Beitin), as in ch. iv. 15, the seat of the idolatrous worship of the calves; and 2 is to be taken in the sense of M23 (according to Ges. §118, 1). The difficult words, “ behind thee, Benjamin,” cannot indicate the situation or attitude of Benjamin, in relation to Bethel or the kingdom of Israel, or show that “ the invasion is to be expected to start from Benjamin,” as Simson supposes. For the latter is no more appropriate in this train of thought than a merely geographical or historical notice. The words are taken from the ancient war-song of Deborah (Judg. v. 14), but in a different sense from that in which they are used there. There they mean that Benjamin marched behind Ephraim, or joined it in attacking the foe; here, on the contrary, they mean that the foe is coming behind Benjamin—that the judgment announced has already broken out in the rear of Benjamin. There is no necessity to supply “ the enemy rises” behind thee, O Benjamin, as Jerome proposes, or “ the sword rages,” as Hitzig suggests; but what comes behind Benjamin is implied in the words, “ Blow ye the horn,” etc. What these signals announce is coming after Benjamin; there is no necessity, therefore, to supply anything more than “it is,” or “it comes.” The prophet, for example, not only announces in ver. § that enemies will invade Israel, but that the hosts by which God will punish His rebellious people have already overflowed the kingdom of Israel, and are now standing upon the border of Judah, to punish this kingdom also for its sins. This is evident from vers. 9, 10, which contain the practical explanation of ver. 8.

Ver. 9. “ Ephraim will become a desert in the day of punishment: over the tribes of Israel have I proclaimed that which lasts. Ver. 10. The princes of Judah have become like boundary-movers; upon them I pour out my wrath like water.” The kingdom of Israel will entirely succumb to the punishment. It will become a desert—will be laid waste not only for a time, but permanently. The punishment with which it is threatened will be 73982, This word is to be interpreted as in Deut. xxviii. 59, where it is apphed to lasting plagues, with which God will chastise the obstinate apostasy of His people. By the perfect

‘nytin, what is here proclaimed is represented as a completed event, which will not be altered. B’shibhtz, not in or among the tribes but according to 2 739, in ver. 5, against or over the tribes (Hitzig). Judah ae will not escape ihe (panitnent of its sins. The unusual expression massigé g*bhil is formed after, and to be explained from Deut. xix. 14, “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark;” or xxvii. 17, “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark.” The princes of Judah have become boundary-removyers, not by hostile invasions of the kingdom of Israel (Simson); for the boundary-line between Israel and Judah was not so appointed by God, that a violation of it on the part of the princes of Judah could be reckoned a grievous crime, but by removing the boundaries of right which had been determined by God, viz. according to ch. iv. 15, by participating in the guilt of Ephraim, 7.c. by idolatry, and therefore by the fact that they had removed the boundary between Jehovah and Baal, that is to say, between the one true God and idols, “If he who removes his neighbour’s boundary is cursed, how much more he who removes the border of his God!” (Henegstenberg.) Upon such men the wrath of God would fall in its fullest measure. 3, like a stream of water, so plentifully. For the figure, compare Ps. Ixix, 25, Ixxix. 6, Jer. x. 25. Severe judgments are thus announced to Judah, viz. those of which the Assyrians under, Tiglath-pileser and Sennacherib were the instruments; but no ruin or lasting devastation is predicted, as was the case with the kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed by the Assyrians,

From these judgments Israel and Judah will not be set free, until in their distress they seek their God. This thought is expanded in the next strophe (vers. 11-15). Ver. 11. “ Ephraim is oppressed, broken in pieces by the judgment; for vt has wished, has gone according to statute.’ By the participles ‘dshug and ratsits, the calamity is represented as a lasting condition, which the prophet saw in the spirit as having already begun. The two words are connected together even in Deut. xxvili. 33, to indicate the complete salyecien of Israel to the power Anil oppression of its foes, as a punishment for falling away from the Lord. sats mishpdt does not mean “ of broken right,” or “injured in its right” (Ewald and Hitzig), but “broken in pieces by the judgment” (of God), with a gené- tivum efficientis, like mukkeh Elohim in Isa. liii. 4. For it liked to walk according to statute. For “08 qn compare Jer. ii. 5 and 2 Kings xviii. 15. Zsav is a human statute; it stands both here and in Isa, xxviii. 10,13, the only other passages in which it occurs, as an antithesis to the word or commandment of God. The statute intended is the one which the kingdom of Israel upheld from beginning to end, viz. the worship of the calves, that root of all the sins, which brought about the dissolution and ruin of the kingdom.

Ver. 12. “ And Iam like the moth to Ephraim, and like the worm to the house of Judah.” The moth and worm are figures employed to represent destructive powers; the moth destroying clothes (Isa. 1. 9, li. 8; Ps. xxxix. 12), the worm injuring both wood and flesh. They are both connected again in Job xii. 28, as things which destroy slowly but surely, to represent, as Calvin says, lenta Dei judicia. God becomes a destructive power to the sinner through the thorn of conscience, and the chastisements which are intended to effect his reformation, but which lead inevitably to his ruin when he hardens himself against them. The preaching of the law by the prophets sharpened the thorn in the conscience of Israel and Judah. The chastisement consisted in the infliction of the punishments threatened in the law, viz. in plagues and invasions of their foes.

The two kingdoms could not defend themselves against this chastisement by the help of any earthly power. Ver. 18. “And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah lis abscess; and Ephraim went to Asshur, and sent to king Jareb (striver): but he cannot cure you, nor drive the abscess away from you.” By the imperfects, with Vav rel., 1, 5}, the attempts of Ephraim ae Judah to save ther nasalian from Tee are represented a the consequence of the coming of God to punish, referred.: in ver. 12. Inasmuch as ih is to be seen, so far as the historical fulfilment is concerned, not in the present, but in the past and future, the attempts to obtain a cure for the injuries also belong to the present (? past) and future. Wazor does not mean a bandage or the cure of injuries (Ges., Dietr.), but is derived from “st, to squeeze out (see Del. on Isa. i. 6), and signifies literally that which is pressed out, i.e. a festering wound, an abscess. It has this meaning not only here, but also in Jer. xxx. 13, from which the meaning bandage has been derived. On the figure employed, viz. the disease of the body politic, see Delitzsch on Isa. i. 5,6. That this disease is not to be sought for specially in anarchy and civil war (Hitzig), is evident from the simple fact, that Judah, which was saved from these evils, is described as being just as sick as Ephraim. The real disease of the two kingdoms was apostasy from the Lord, or idolatry with its train of moral corruption, injustice, crimes, and vices of every kind, which destroyed the vital energy and vital marrow of the two kingdoms, and generated civil war and anarchy in the kingdom of Israel. Ephraim sought for help from the Assyrians, viz. from king Jareb, but without obtaining it. The name Jareb, i.e. warrior, which occurs here and at ch. x. 6, is an epithet formed by the prophet himself, and applied to the king of Assyria, not of Egypt, as Theodoret supposes. The omission of the article from 42 may be explained from the fact that Jdrébh is, strictly speaking, an appellative, as in 320 ONiio? in Proy. xxxi. 1. We must not supply Y*haddh as the subject to vayyishlach. The omission of any reference to Judah in the second half of the verse, may be accounted for from the fact that the prophecy had primrily and principally to do with Ephraim, and that Judah was only cursorily mentioned. The az. rey. 7173 from 773, in Syriac to be shy, to flee, is used with min in the tropical sense of removing or driving away.

No help is to be expected from Assyria, because the Lord will punish His people. Ver. 14. “Mor I am like a lion to Ephraim, and like the young lion to the house of Judah: I, I tear in pieces, and go; I carry away, and there is no deliverer. Ver. 15. Igo, return to my place, till they repent and shall seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early.” For the figure of the lion, which seizes it prey, and tears it in pieces without deliverance, see ch. xiii. 7 and Isa. v.29. SW denotes the carrying away of booty, as in 1 Sam. xvii. 34. For the fact itself, compare Deut. xxxii. 39. The first clause of ver. 15 is still to be interpreted from the figure of the lion. As the lion withdraws into its cave, so will the Lord withdraw into His own place, viz. heaven, and deprive the Israelites of His gracious, helpful presence, until they repent, i.e. not only feel themselves guilty, but feel the guilt by bearing the punishment.

Suffering punishment awakens the need of mercy, and impels them to seek the face of the Lord. ‘The expression, “in the distress to them,” recals 1 W¥2 in Deut. iv. 80. Shichér is to be taken as a denom. of shachar, the morning dawn (ch. vi. 3), in the sense of early, i.e. zealously, urgently, as the play upon the word WW2 in ch. vi. 3 unmistakeably shows. For the fact itself, compare ch. i. 9 and Deut. iv. 29, 30.

Chap. vi. 1-3. To this threat the prophet appends in the concluding strophe, both the command to return to the Lord, and the promise that the Lord will raise His smitten nation up again, and quicken them anew with His grace. The separation of these three verses from the preceding one, by the division of the chapters, is at variance with the close connection in the actual contents, which is so perfectly obvious in the allusion made in the words of ver. 1, “Come, and let us return,” to those of ch. v. 15, “I will go, and return,” and in 2S8B 1b (ver. 1) to the similar words in ch. v. 138) and 14. Ver: 1. “ Come, and let us return to Jehovah: for He has torn in pieces, and will heal us; He has smitten, and will bind us up. Ver. 2. He will quicken us after two days; on the third He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.” The majority of commentators, following the example of the Chald. and Septuagint, in which i582, Aéyoures, is interpolated before 29, have taken the first three verses as an appeal to return to the Lord, addressed by the Israelites in exile to one another. But it would be more simple, and more in harmony with the general style of Hosea, which is characterized by rapid transitions, to take the words as a call addressed by the prophet in the name of the Lord to the people, whom the Lord had smitten or sent into exile. The promise in ver. 3 especially is far more suitable to a summons of this kind, than to an appeal addressed by the people to one another. As the endurance of punishment impels to seek the Lord (ch. v. 15), so the motive to return to the Lord is founded upon the knowledge of the fact that the Lord ean, and will, heal the wounds which He inflicts. The preterite tdraph, as compared with the future ’etroph in ch. v. 14, presupposes that the punishment has already begun. The following 7} is also a preterite with the Vav consec. omitted. The Assyrian cannot heal (ch. v. 18); but the Lord, who manifested Himself as Isracl’s physician in the time of Moses

(Ex. xv. 26), and promised His people healing in the future also (Deut. xxxil. 89), surely can. The allusion in the word SBN to this passage of Deuteronomy, is placed beyond all doubt by ver. 2. The words, “ He revives after two days,” ete., are merely a special application of the general declaration, “J kill, and make alive” (Deut. xxxii. 39), to the particular ease in hand. What the Lord there promises to all His people, He will also fulfil upon the ten tribes of Israel. By the definition “after two days,” and “on the third day,” the speedy and certain revival of Israel is set before them. Two and three days are very short periods of time; and the linking together of two numbers following one upon the other, expresses the certainty of what is to take place within this space of time, just as in the so-called numerical sayings in Amos i. 3, Job v. 19, Proy. vi. 16, xxx. 15, 18, in which the last and greater number expresses the highest or utmost that is generally met with. DPT, to raise the ied (Job xiv 12.: Tse Iexscviie tesa cat 14, 19). “That we may live ore Hina eae. ie. This sheltering protection and grace (cf. Gen. xvii. 18). The earlier Jewish and Christian expositors have taken the numbers, “after two days, and on the third day,” chronologically. he Rabbins consequently suppose the prophecy to refer either to the three captivities, the Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Roman, which has not ended yet; or to the three periods of the temple of Solomon, of that of Zerubbabel, and of the one to be erected by the Messiah. Many of the fathers, on the other hand, and many of the early Lutheran commentators, have found in them a prediction of the death of Christ and His resurrection on the third day. Compare, for example, Calovii Bibl. illustr. ad h. L., where this allusion is defended by a long serics of undeniably weak arguments, and where a fierce attack is made, not only upon Calvin, who understood these words as “referring to the liberation of Israel from captivity, and the restoration of the church after two days, ¢.2. in a very short time;” but also upon Grotius, who found, in addition to the immediate historical allusion to the Israelites, whom God would soon liberate from their death-like misery after their conversion, a foretype, in consequence of a special divine indication, of the time “within which Christ would recover His life, and the church its hope.” But any direct allusion in the hope here uttered to the death and resurrection of Christ, is proved to be untenable by the simple words and their context. The words primarily hold out nothing more than the quickening of Israel out of its death-like state of rejection from the face of God, and that in a very short period after its conversion to the Lord. This restoration to life cannot indeed be understood as referring to the return of the exiles to their earthly fatherland; or, at all events, it cannot be restricted to this. It does not occur till after the conversion of Israel to the Lord its God, on the ground of faith in the redemption effected through the atoning death of Christ, and His resurrection from the grave; so that the words of the prophet may be applied to this great fact in the history of salvation, but without its being either directly or indirectly predicted. Even the resurrection of the dead is not predicted, but simply the spiritual and moral restoration of Israel to life, which no doubt has for its necessary complement the reawakening of the physically dead. And, in this sense, our passage may be reckoned among the prophetic utterances which contain the germ of the hope of a life after death, as in Isa. xxvi. 19-21, and in the vision of Ezekiel in Ezek. xxxvii. 1-14.

That it did not refer to this in its primary sense, and so far as its historical fulfilment was concerned, is evident from the following verse. Ver. 3. “ Let us therefore know, hunt after the knowledge of Jehovah. His rising is fied like the morning dawn, that He may come to us like the rain, and moisten the earth like the latter rain’? 3 my'I3 corresponds to mw 305 in ver. 1. The object to mya is also INNS, and Ay is merely strengthened by the addition of myad mam. The knowledge of Jehovah, which they would hunt after, i.e. strive zealously to obtain, is a practical knowledge, consisting in the fulfilment of the divine commandments, and in growth in the love of God with al the heart. This knowledge produces fruit. The Lord will rise upon Israel like the morning dawn, and come down upon it like fertilizing rain. inyid, His (i.e. Jehovah’s) rising, is to be explained from the figure of the dawn (for 88. applied to the rising of the sun, see Gen. xix. 23 and Ps. xix. 7). The dawn is mentioned instead of the sun, as the herald of the dawning day of salvation (compare Isa. lviii. 8 and Ix. 2). This salvation which dawns when the Lord appears, is represented in the last clause as a shower of rain that fertilizes the land. AW is hardly a kal participle, but rather the imperfect hiphil in the sense of sprinkling. In Deut. xi. 14 (cf. xxviii. 12 and Lev. xxvi. 4, 5), the rain, or the early and latter rain, is mentioned among the blessings which the Lord will bestow upon His people, when they serve Him with all the heart and soul. This promise the Lord will so fulfil in the case of His newly quickened nation, that He Himself will refresh it like a fertilizing rain. This will take place through the Messiah, as Ps. Ixxii. 6 and 2 Sam. xxii. 4 clearly show.

Just as, in the middle section of the first part of our book (ch. ii. 2-23), the symbolical announcements of judgment contained in ch. i. were more fully elaborated and explained; so again, in the second part, after the shorter description of the corruption and culpability of Israel contained in ch. iv. v., we find in the second or middle section, viz. ch. vi. 4-xi. 11, a longer account both of the religious apostasy and moral corruption which have become so injurious, and also of the judgment about to fall upon the sinful kingdom and people. In this, the condemnation of sin and threatening of punishment follow one another throughout; but in such a way that in this longer exposition the progressive development of these truths is clearly indicated in the fact, that in the first section (ch. vi. 4—vii. 16) the description of the religious and moral degradation of the nation and its princes prevails; in the second (ch. viii. 1-ix. 9) the threatening of judgment comes into the foreground; and in the third (ch. ix. 10-xi. 11) evidence is adduced, how, from time immemorial, Israel has resisted the gracious guidance of God, so that nothing but the compassion of God can preserve it from utter annihilation. Each of these divisions may be subdivided again into three strophes.

The Incurableness of the Corruption—Chap. vi. 4—vii. 16.

The prophet’s address commences afresh, as in ch. u. 4, without any introduction, with the denunciation of the incurability of the Israelites. Vers. 4-11 form the first strophe.

Ver. 4. “ What shall I do to thee, Ephraim? what shall I do to thee, Judah? for your love is like the morning cloud, and like the dew which quickly passes away.’ That this verse is not to be taken in connection with the preceding one, as it has been by Luther (“how shall I do such good to thee?’”) and by many of the earlier expositors, is evident from the substance of the verse itself. For “dsdh, in the sense of doing good, is neither possible in itself, nor reconcilable with the explanatory clause which follows. The chesed, which is like the morning cloud, cannot be the grace of God; for a morning cloud that quickly vanishes away, is, according to ch. xiii. 3, a figurative representation of that which is evanescent and perishable. The verse does not contain an answer from Jehovah, “who neither receives nor repels the penitent, because though they love God it is only with fickleness,” as Hitzig supposes; but rather the thought, that God has already tried all kinds of punishment to bring the people back to fidelity to Himself, but all in vain (cf. Isa. i. 5, 6), because the piety of Israel is as evanescent and transient as a morning cloud, which is dispersed by the rising sun. Judging from the chesed in ver. 6, chasd*khem is to be understood as referring to good-will towards other men flowing out of love to God (see at ch. iy. 1).

Ver. 5. “ Therefore have I hewn by the prophets, slain them by the words of my mouth: and my judgment goeth forth as light.” ‘Al-kén, therefore, because your ae vanishes again and again, God must perpetually punish. 2 287 does not mean to strike in among the prophets (Hitzig, after the LX X. YT: ~ and others); but a is instrumental, as in Isa. x. 15, and chitsabh signifies to hew, not merely to hew off, but to hew out or carve. The n°bh7im cannot be false prophets, on account of the parallel “by the words of my mouth,” but must be the true prophets. Through them God had hewed or carved the nation, or, as Jerome and Luther render it, dolavi, i.e. worked it like a piece of hard wood, in other words, had tried to improve it, and shape it into a holy nation, answering to its true calling. “ Slain by the words of my mouth,” which the prophets had spoken; i.e. not merely caused death and destruction to be proclaimed to them, but suspended judgment and death over them—as, for example, by Elijah—since there dwells in the word of God the power to kill and to make alive (compare Isa. xi. 4, xlix.2). The last clause, according to the Masoretic pointing and division of the words, does not yield-any appropriate meaning. 782Y could only be the judgments inflicted upon the nation; but neither the singular suffix 4 for 03 (ver. 4), nor 3? iN, with the singular verb under the 3 simil. omitted before is, suits this explanation. For 88° 418 cannot mean “to go forth to the light;” nor can 7ix stand for i>. We must therefore regard the reading expressed by the ancient versions,’ viz. X¥. WIND ‘MEY, “my judgment goeth forth like light,” as the original one. My penal judgment went forth like the light’ (the sun); i.e. the judgment inflicted upon the sinners was so obvious, so conspicuous (clear as the sun), that every one ought to have observed it and laid it to heart (cf. Zeph. iii. 5). The Masoretic division of the words probably arose simply from an unsuitable reminiscence of Ps. XXXvil. 6.

The reason why God was obliged to punish in this manner is given in the following verses. Ver. 6. “for I take pleasure in love, and not in sacrifices; and in the knowledge of God more than in burnt-offerings. Ver. 7. But they have transgressed the covenant like Adam: there have they acted treacherously towards me.” Chesed is love to one’s neighbour, manifesting itself in righteousness, love which has its roots in the knowledge of God, and therefore is connected with “ the knowledge of God” here as inch. iv. 1. For the thought itself, compare the remarks on the similar declaration made by the prophet Samuel in 1 Sam. xv. 22; and for parallels as to the fact, see Isa. i. 11-17, Mic. vi. 8, Ps. xl. 7-9, and Ps. 1. 8 sqq., in all which passages it is not sacrifices in themselves, but simply the heartless sacrifices with which the wicked fancied they could cover their sins, that are here rejected as displeasing to God, and as abominations in His eyes. This is apparent also from the antithesis in ver. 7, viz. the reproof of their transgression of the covenant. i199 (they) are Israel and Judah, not the priests, whose sins are first referred to in ver. 9. D83, not “after the manner of men,” or “like ordinary men,’—for this explanation would only be admissible if 183 referred to the priests or prophets, or if a contrast were drawn between the rulers

1 The Vulgate in some of the ancient mss. has also judicium meum, instead of the judicia tua of the Sixtina. See Kennicott, Diss. gener. ed. Bruns. p. 55 sqq.

and others, as in Ps. lxxsii. 7,—but “like Adam,” who transgressed the commandment of God, that he should not eat of the tree of knowledge. This command was actually a covenant, which God made with him, since the object of it was the preservation of Adam in vital fellowship with the Lord, as was the case with the covenant that God made with Israel (see Job xxxi. 33, and Delitzsch’s Commentary). The local expression “there,” points to the place where the faithless apostasy had occurred, as in Ps. xiv. 5. This is not more precisely defined, but refers no doubt to Bethel as the scene of the idolatrous worship. There is no foundation for the temporal rendering “then.”

The prophet cites a few examples in proof of this faithlessness in the two following verses. Ver. 8. “ Gilead ts a city of evil-doers, trodden with blood. Ver. 9. And like the lurking of the men of the gangs is the covenant of the priests; along the way they murder even to Sichem: yea, they have committed infamy.” Gilead is not a city, for no such city is mentioned in the Old Testament, and its existence cannot be proved from Judg. xii. 7 and x. 17, any more than from Gen xxsi. 48, 49," but it is the name of a district, as it is everywhere else; and here in all probability it stands, as it very frequently does, for the whole of the land of Israel to the cast. of the Jordan. Hosea calls Gilead a city of evil-doers, as being a rendezvous for wicked men, to express the thought that the whole land was as full of evil-doers as a city isof men. 73PY: a denom. of 2p¥, a footstep, signifying marked with traces, full of traces of

1 The statement of the Onomast. (s. v. Vaarwed), that there is also a city called Galaad, situated in the mountain which Galaad the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, took from the Amorite, and that of Jerome, **from which mountain the city built in it derived its name, viz. that which was taken,” etc., furnish no proof of the existence of a city called Gilead in the time of the Israelites; since Eusebius and Jerome have merely inferred the existence of such a city from statements in the Old Testament, more especially from the passage quoted by them just before, viz. Jer. xxi. 6, Galaad tu mihi initium Libani, taken in connection with Num. xxxil, 39-42, as the words “‘ which Gilead took” clearly prove. And with regard to the ruined cities Jelaad and Jelaud, which are situated, according to Burckhardt (pp. 599, 600), upon the mountain called Jebel Jelaad or Jelaud, it is not known that they date from antiquity at all. Burckhardt oe no description of them, and does not even appear to have visited the runs.

blood, which are certainly not to be understood as veferring to idolatrous sacrifices, as Schmieder imagines, but which point to murder and bloodshed. It is quite as arbitrary, however, on the part of Hitzig to connect it with the murder of Zechariah, or a massacre associated with it, as it is on the part of Jerome and others to refer it to the deeds of blood by which Jehu secured the throne. The bloody deeds of Jehu took place in Jezreel and Samaria (2 Kings ix. x.), and it was only by a false interpretation of the epithet applied to Shallum, viz. Ben-yabhésh, as signifying citizens of Jabesh, that Hitzig was able to trace a connection between it and Gilead.—Ver. 9. In these crimes the priests take the lead. Like highway robbers, they form themselves into gangs for the purpose of robbing travellers and putting them to death. ‘34, so written instead of 125 (Ewald, § 16, b), is an irregularly formed infinitive for nian (Ewald, § 238, ¢). Ish g’dadim, a man of fighting-bands, i.e. in actual fact a highway robber, who lies in wait for travellers." The company (chebher, gang) of the priests resembled such a man. ‘They murder on the way (derekh, an adverbial accusative) to Sichem. Sichem, a place on Mount Ephraim, between Ebal and Gerizim, the present Nablus (see at Josh. xvil. 7), was set apart as a city of refuge and a Levitical city (Josh. xx. 7, xxi. 21); from which the more recent commentators have inferred that priests from Sichem, using the privileges of their city to cover crimes of their own, committed acts of murder, either upon fugitives who were hurrying thither, and whom they put to death at the command of the leading men who were ill-disposed towards them (wald), or upon other travellers, either from avarice or simple cruelty. But, apart from the fact that the Levitical cities are here confounded with the priests’ cities (for Sichem was only a Levitical city, and not a priests’ city at all), this conclusion is founded upon the

1 The first hemistich has been entirely misunderstood by the LXX., who have confounded ‘3m with 4nd, and rendered the clause zal 4 laxvs cov dvdoes weiparo' txpubay (an or 4Non instead of 7M) icosis cody. Jerome has also rendered »3M> strangely, e¢ quasi fauces (DND) virorum latronum particeps sacerdotum. Luther, on the other hand, has caught the sense quite correctly on the whole, and simply rendered it rather freely: ‘“‘ And the priests with their mobs are like footpads, who lie in wait for people.”

erroneous assumption, that the priests who were taken by Jeroboam from the people generally, had special places of abode assigned them, such as the law had assigned for the Levitical priests. The way to Sichem is mentioned as a place of murders and bloody deeds, because the road from Samaria the capital, and in fact from the northern part of the kingdom generally, to Bethel the principal place of worship telonaig to the kingdom of the ten tribes, lay through this city. Pawns to the feasts for the most part took this road; and the priests, who were taken from the dregs of the people, appear to have lain in wait for them, either to rob, or, in case of resistance, to murder. The following °3 carries it still higher, and adds another crime to the murderous deeds. Zimmdadh most probably refers to an unnatural crime, as in Lev. xviii. 17, xix. 29.

Thus does Israel heap up abomination upon abomination. Ver. 10. “ In the house of Israel I saw a horrible thing: there Ephraim practises whoredom: Israel has defiled itself.” The house of Israel is the kingdom of the ten tribes. TAMMYY, a horrible thing, signifies abominations and crimes of every kind. In the second hemistich, 2°nath, ae. spiritual and literal whoredom, is singled out as the principal sin. Sphraim is not the name of a tribe here, as Simson supposes, but is synonymous with the parallel /srael.

In conclusion, Judah is mentioned again, that it may not regard itself as better or less culpable. Ver. 11. “ Also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed for thee, when I turn the imprisonment of my people.’ Judah stands at the head as an absolute noun, and is then defined by the following 7p. The subject to shdth cannot be either Israel or Jehovah. The first, which Hitzig adopts, “ Israel has prepared a harvest for thee,’ does not supply a thought at all in harmony with the connection; and the second is precluded by the fact that Jehovah Himself is the speaker. Shdth is used here in a passive sense, as in Job xxxvill. 11 (cf. Ges. § 137, 3*). ¥P, harvest, is a figurative term for the judgment, as in Joel iv. 13, Jer. li. 33. As Judah has sinned as well as Israel, it cannot escape the punishment (cf. ch. v. 5, 14). Mav mv never means to bring back the captives; but in every passage in which it occurs it simply means to turn the captivity, and that in the figurative sense of restitutto m integrum (see at Deut. xxx. 3). ‘Ammi, my people,

2.e. the people of Jehovah, is not Israel of the ten tribes, but the covenant nation as a whole. Consequently sh*bhath ‘ammi is the misery into which Israel (of the twelve tribes) had been brought, through its falling away from God, not the Assyrian or Babylonian exile, but the misery brought about by the sins of the people. God could only avert this by means of judgments, through which the ungodly were destroyed and the penitent converted. Consequently the following is the thought which we obtain from the verse: “ When God shall come to punish, that He may root out ungodliness, and bring back His people to their true destination, Judah will also be visited with the judgment.” We must not only reject the explanation adopted by Rosenmiiller, Maurer, and Umbreit, “ when Israel shall have received its chastisement, and be once more received and restored by the gracious God, the richly merited punishment shall come upon Judah also,” but that of Schmieder as well, who understands by the “ harvest” a harvest of joy. They are both founded upon the false interpretation of shabh sh*bhath, as signifying the bringing back of the captives; and in the first there is the arbitrary limitation of ‘ammi to the ten tribes. Our verse says nothing as to the question when and how God will turn the captivity of the people and punish Judah; this must be determined from other passages, which announce the driving into exile of both Israel and Judah, and the eventual restoration of those who are converted to the Lord their God. The complete turning of the captivity of the covenant nation will not take place till Israel as a nation shall be converted to Christ its Saviour.

Chap. vii. In the first strophe (vers. 1-7) the exposure of the moral depravity of Israel is continued. Ver. 1. “ When I heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim reveals ttself, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they practise deceit; and the thief cometh, the troop of robbers plundereth without. Ver. 2. And they say not in their heart, 1 should remember all their wickedness. Now their deeds have surrounded them, they have occurred before my face. Ver. 3. They delight the hing with their wickedness, and princes with their lies.’ As the dangerous nature of a wound is often first brought out by the attempt to heal it, so was the corruption of Israel only brought truly to light by the effort to stem it. The first hemistich of ver. 1 is not to be referred to the future, nor is the healing to be understood as signifying punishment, as Hitzig supposes; but the allusion is to the attempts made by God to put a stop to the corruption, partly by the preaching of repentance and the reproofs of the prophets, and partly by chastisements designed to promote reformation, The words contain no threatening of punishment, but a picture of the moral corruption that had become incurable. Here again Ephraim is not the particular tribe, but is synonymous with Israel, the people or kingdom of the ten tribes; and Samaria is especially mentioned in connection with it, as the capital and principal seat of the corruption of morals, just as Judah and Jerusalem are frequently classed together by the prophets. The lamentation concerning the incurability of the kingdom is followed by an explanatory notice of the sins and crimes that are openly committed. Sheger, lying, i.e. deception both in word and deed towards God and man, theft and highway robbery, and not fear of the vengeance of God. “ Accedit ad hee facinora securitas eorum ineffabilis” (Marck). They do not consider that God will remember their evil deeds, and punish them; they are surrounded by them on all sides, and perform them without shame or fear before the face of God Himself. These sins delight both king and prince. To such a depth have even the rulers of the nation, who ought to practise justice and righteousness, fallen, that they not only fail to punish the sins, but take pleasure in their being committed.

To this there is added the passion with which the people make themselves slaves to idolatry, and their rulers give themselves up to debauchery (vers. 4-7). Ver. 4. “ They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker, who leaves off stirring from the kneading of the dough until its leavening. Ver. 5. In the day of our king the princes are made sick with the heat of wine: he has stretched out his hand with the scorners. Ver. 6. For they have brought their heart into their ambush, as into the oven; the whole night their baker sleeps; in the morning it burns like flaming fire. Ver. 7. They are all red-hot like the oven, and consume their judges: all their kings have fallen; none among them calls tome.” “ All” (kullém: ver. 4) does not refer to the king and princes, but to the whole nation. 8) is spiritual adultery, apostasy from the Lord; and literal adultery is only so far to be thought of, that the worship of Baal promoted licentiousness.

In this passionate career the nation resembles a furnace which a baker heats in the evening, and leaves burning all night while the dough is leavening, and then causes to burn with a still bricks flame in the morning, when the dough is ready for baking. nak NYS, burning from the baker, i.e. heated by the baker. mya is accontaatall as milel, either because the Masoretes took offence at 738 being construed as a feminine (Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 546; Ewald, Gramm. p. 449, note 1), or because tphehah could not occupy any other place in the short space between zakeph and athnach (Hitzig). VY0, excitare, here in the sense of stirring. On the use of the participle in the place of the infinitive, with verbs of beginning and ending, see Ewald, § 298, 0d.

Both king and princes are addicted to debauchery (ver. 5). “'The day of our king” is either the king’s birthday, or the day when he ascended the throne, on either of which he probably gave a feast to his nobles. af is taken most simply as an adverbial aceus. loci. On this particular day the princes drink to such an extent, that they become ill with the heat of the wine. wn, ae, to make ill, here to make one’s self ill. Hitzig fleas the ancient versions, in deriving it from $5n, and taking it as equivalent to #nn, they begin,” which gives a very apd meaning. The difficult expression bom i? qwis, “he draws his hand with the scoffers,” can hardly be understood in any other way than that suggested by Gesenius (Lea.), “ the king goes about with scoffers,” i.e. makes himself familiar with Ae ie so that we may compare OY i1. mv (Kix. xxiii. 1). The scoffers are drunkards, just as in Prov. xx. 1 wine is directly called a scoffer. In vers. 6, 7, the thought of the fourth verse is carried out still further. °2 introduces the explanation and ground of the simile of the furnace; for ver. 5 is subordinate to the main thought, and to be taken as a parenthetical remark. The words from 337? °D to 02782 form one sentence. 27? is construed with 2 loci, as in Jud Cuz gle wires xci, 10:0 they have brought their heart near, brought them into their craftiness. Tier furnace” (7902) contains an abridged simile. 3ut it is not their heart itself which is here compared to a furnace (their heart = themselves), in the sense of “ burning like a flaming furnace with base desires,” as Gesenius supposes; for the idea of bringing a furnace into an ’drebh would be unsuitable and unintelligible. “The furnace is rather ’orbam (their ambush), that which they have in common, that which keeps them together; whilst the fuel is libbém, their own disposition” (Hitzig). Their baker is the machinator doli, who kindles the fire in them, 2.e. in actual fact, not some person or other who instigates a conspiracy, but the passion of idolatry. This sleeps through the night, i.e. it only rests till the opportunity and time have arrived for carrying out the evil thoughts of their heart, or until the evil thoughts of the heart have become ripe for execution. This time is described in harmony with the figure, as the morning, in which the furnace burns up into bright flames (“15 points to the more remote tannir as the subject). In ver. 7 the figure is carried back to the literal fact. With the words, “ they are all hot as a furnace,” the expression in ver. 4, “ adulterous like a furnace,” is resumed; and now the fruit of this conduct is mentioned, viz. “ they devour their judges, cast down their kings.” By the judges we are not to understand the sdrim of ver. 5, who are mentioned along with the king as the supreme guardians of the law; but the kings themselves. are intended, as the administrators of justice, as in ch. xiii. 10, where shaph*tim is also used as synonymous with 720, and embraces both king and princes. The clause, “ all their kings are fallen,” adds no new feature to what precedes, and does not affirm that kings have also fallen in addition to or along with the judges; but it sums up what has been stated already, for the purpose of linking on the remark, that no one calls to the Lord concerning the fall of the kings. The suffix ana does not refer to the fallen kings, but to the nation in its entirety, te. to those who have devoured their judges. The thought is this: in the passion with which all are inflamed for idolatry, and with which the princes revel with the kings, they give no such heed to the inevitable consequences of their ungodly conduct, as that any one reflects upon the fall of the kings, or perceives that Israel has forsaken the way which leads to salvation, and is plunging headlong into the abyss of destruction, so as to return to the Lord, who alone can help and save. The prophet has here the times after Jeroboam um. in his mind, when Zechariah was overthrown by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, and Menahem the son of Pekahiah by Pekah, and that in the most rapid succession (2 Kings xv. 10, 14, 25), together with the eleven years’ anarchy between Zechariah and Shallum (see at 2 Kings xv. 8-12). At the same time, the expression, “ all their kings have fallen,” shows clearly, not only that the words are not to be limited to these events, but embrace all the earlier revolutions, but also and still more clearly, that there is no foundation whatever for the widespread historical interpretation of these verses, as relating to a conspiracy against the then reigning king Zechariah, or Shallum, or Pekahiah, according to which the baker is either Menahem (Hitzig) or Pekah (Schmidt).

In the next strophe (vers. 8-16) the prophecy passes from the internal corruption of the kingdom of the ten tribes to its worthless foreign policy, and the injurious attitude which it had assumed towards the heathen nations, and unfolds the disastrous consequences of such connections. Ver. 8. “Hphraim, it mixes itself among the nations; Ephraim has become a cake not turned. Ver. 9. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; grey hair is also sprinkled upon him, and he knoweth it not.” bbian, from bba, to mix or commingle, is not a future ip the sense of “it will be dispersed among the Gentiles;” for, according to the context, the reference is not to the punishment of the dispersion of Israel among the nations, but to the state in which Israel then was. The Lord had separated Israel from the nations, that it might be holy to Him (Lev. xx. 24, 26). As Balaam said of it, it was to be a people dwelling alone (Num. xxiii. 9). But in opposition to this object of its divine calling, the ten tribes had mingled with the nations, 7e. with the heathen, learned their works, and served their idols (cf. Ps. evi. 35, 36). The mingling with the nations consisted in the adoption of heathen ways, not in the penetration of the heathen into Israelitish possessions (Hitzig), nor merely in the alliances which it formed with heathen nations. Jor these were simply the consequence of inward apostasy from its God, of that inward mixing with the nature of heathenism which had already taken place. Israel had thereby become a cake not turned. 139, a cake baked upon hot ashes or red-hot stones, which, if it be not turned, is burned at the bottom, and not baked at all above. The meaning of this figure is explained by ver. 9. As the fire will burn an ash-cake when it is left unturned, so have foreigners consumed the strength of Israel, partly by devastating wars, and partly by the heathenish nature which has penetrated into Israel in their train. ‘ Greyness is also sprinkled upon it;” de. the body politic, represented as one person, is already covered with traces of hoary old age, and is ripening for destruction. The object to YY x? may easily be supplied from the previous clauses, namely, that strangers devour its strength, and it is growing old. The rendering non saptt is precluded by the emphatic 817), and he knoweth it not, i.e. does not perceive the decay of his strength.

Ver. 10. “ And the pride of Israel beareth witness to his face, and they are not converted to Jehovah thew God, and for all this they seek Him not.” The first clause is repeated from ch. v. 5. The testimony which the pride of Israel, i.e. Jehovah, bore to its face, consisted in the weakening and wasting away of the kingdom as described in ver. 9. But with all this, they do not turn to the Lord who could save them, but seek help from their natural foes.

Ver. 11. “ And Ephraim has become like a simple dove without undenstanding; they have called Egypt, they are gone to Asshwr. Ver. 12. As they go, I spread my net over them; I bring them down like fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, according to the tidings to their assembly.” 'The perfects in ver. 11 describe the conduct of Israel as an accomplished fact, and this is represented by 4 as the necessary consequence of its obstinate impenitence. The point of comparison between Israel and the simple dove, is not that the dove misses its proper dwelling and resting-place, and therefore goes fluttering about (Ewald); nor that, in trying to escape from the hawk, it flies into the net of the bird-catcher (Hitzig); but that when flying about in search of food, it does not observe the net that is spread for it (Rosenmiiller). a PS is to be taken as a predicate to Lphraim in spite of the accents, and not to yondh phothah (a simple dove), since phothih does not require either strengthening or explaining. Thus does Ephraim seek help from Egypt and Assyria. These words do not refer to the fact that there were two parties in the nation—an Assyrian and an Egyptian. Nor do they mean that the whole nation applied at one time to Egypt to get rid of Asshur, and at another time to Asshur to escape from Egypt. “ The situation is rather this: the people being sorely pressed by Asshur, at one time seek help from

Egypt against Asshur; whilst at another they try to secure the friendship of the latter” (Hengstenberg, Christology, i. p. 164 transl.). For what threatened Israel was the burden of the. “king of princes” (ch. viii. 10), zc. the king of Asshur. And this they tried to avert partly by their coquettish arts (ch. vill. 9), and partly by appealing to the help of Egypt; and while doing so, they did not observe that they had fallen into the net of destruction, viz. the power of Assyria. In this net will the Lord entangle them as a punishment. As they go thither, God will spread His net over them like a bird-catcher, and bring them down to the earth like flying birds, i.e. bring them down from the open air, that is to say, from freedom, into the net of captivity, or exile. DVDS, a rare hiphil formation with Yod mobile, as in Prov. iv. 25 (see Ewald, § 131, c). * According to the tidings (announcement) to their assembly:” d.e. in accordance with the threatening already contained in the law (Lev. xxvi. 14 sqq.; Deut. xxviii. 15 sqq.), and repeatedly uttered to the congregation by the prophets, of the judgments that should fall upon the rebellious, which threatening would now be fulfilled upon Ephraim.

Ver. 13. “ Woe to them! for they have flown from me; devastation to them! for they have fallen away from me. I would redeem them, but they speak lies concerning me. Ver. 14. They did not ery to me in their heart, but howl upon their beds; they crowd together for corn and new wine, and depart against me.” The Lord, thinking of the chastisement, exclaims, Woe to them, because they have fled from Him! Nédad, which is applied to the flying of birds, points back to the figures employed in vers. 11, 12. Shod, used as an exclamation, gives the literal explanation of ’oi (woe). The imperfect ’ephdém cannot be taken as referring to the redemption out of Egypt, because it does not stand for the preterite. It is rather voluntative or éptative: “T would (should like to) redeem them (still); but they say I cannot and will not do it.” These are the lies which they utter concerning Jehovah, partly with their mouths and partly by their actions, namely, in the fact that they do not seek help from Him, as is explained in ver. 14. They cry to the Lord; yet it does not come from the heart, but (‘2 after x) they howl (222%, ef. Ges. § 70, 2, note) upon their beds, in unbelieving despair at the distress that has come upon them.

What follows points to this. Hithgdrér, to assemble, or crowd together (Ps. lvi. 7, lix. 4; Isa. liv. 15); here to gather in troops or crowd together for corn and new wine, because their only desire is to fill their belly. Thus they depart from God. The construction of "1D with 2, instead of with 12 or “INN, is a pregnant one: to depart and turn against God.

Vers. 15, 16. Yet Jehovah has done still more for Israel. Ver. 15. “ And I have instructed, have strengthened their arms, and they think evil against me. Ver. 16. They turn, but not upwards: they have become like a false bow. Their princes will fall by the sword, for the defiance of their tongue: this is their derision in the land of Egypt.” 8" here is not to chastise, but to instruct, so that onvint (their arms) is to be taken as the object to both verbs. Instructing the arms, according to the analogy of Ps. xviii. 35, is equivalent to showing where and how strength is to be acquired. And the Lord has not contented Himself with merely instructing. He has also strengthened their arms, and given them power to fight, and victory over their foes (cf. 2 Kings xiv. 25, 26). And yet they think evil of Him; not by speaking lies (ver. 13), but by falling away from Him, by their idolatrous calf-worship, by which they rob the Lord of the glory due to Him alone, practically denying His true divinity. This attitude towards the Lord is summed up in two allegorical sentences in ver. 16, and the ruin of their princes is foretold. They turn, or turn round, but not upwards (OY, an adverb, or a substantive signifying height, as in ch. xi. 7, 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, not “the Most High,” i.e. God, although turning upwards is actually turning to God). From the fact that with all their turning about they do not turn upwards, they have become like a treacherous bow, the string of which has lost its elasticity, so that the arrows do not hit the mark (cf. Ps. Ixxvii. 57). And thus Israel also fails to reach its destination. Therefore its princes shall fall. The princes are mentioned as the originators of the enmity against God, and all the misery into which they have plunged the people and kingdom. BY, fury, here defiance or rage. Defiance of tongue the princes showed in the lies which they uttered concerning Jehovah (ver. 13), and with which they blasphemed in a daring manner the omnipotence and faithfulness of the Lord. ‘t stands, according to a dialectical difference in the mode of pronunciation, for Mt, not for nxt (Ewald, § 183, a). This, namely their falling by the sword, will be for a derision to them in the land of Egypt: not because they will fall in Egypt, or perish by the sword of the Egyptians; but because they put their trust in Egypt, the derision of Egypt will come upon them when they are overthrown (cf. Isa. xxx. 3, 5)..

The Judgment consequent upon Apostasy.— Chap. viii.—ix. 9.

The coming judgment, viz. the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, is predicted in three strophes, containing a fresh enumeration of the sins of Israel (ch. viii. 1-7), a reference to the fall of the kingdom, which is already about to commence (vers. 8-14), and a warning against false security (ch. ix. 1-9).

Ch. vii. 1-7. The prophecy rises with a vigorous swing, as in ch. v. 8, to the prediction of judgment. Ver. 1. “ The trumpet to thy mouth! Like an eagle upon the house of Jehovah! Because they transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law. Ver. 2. To me will they cry: My God, we know Thee, we Israel!” The first sentence of ver. 1 is an exclamation, and therefore has no verb. The summons issues from Jehovah, as the suffixes in the last sentences show, and is addressed to the prophet, who is to blow the trumpet, as the herald of Jehovah, and give the people tidings of the approaching judgment (see at ch. v. 8). The second sentence gives the alarming message to be delivered: like an eagle comes the foe, or the judgment upon the house of Jehovah. The simile of the eagle, that shoots down upon its prey with the rapidity of lightning, points back to the threat of Moses in Deut. xxviii. 49. The “house of Jehovah” is neither the temple at Jerusalem (Jerome, Theod., Cyr.), the introduction of which here would be at variance with the context; nor the principal temple of Samaria, with the fall of which the whole kingdom would be ruined (Ewald, Sims.), since the temples erected for the calf-worship at Dan and Bethel are called Beth baémoth, not Beth Y*hovah; nor even the land of Jehovah, either here or at ch. ix. 15 (Hitzig), for a land is not a house; but Israel was the house of Jehovah, as being a portion of the congregation of the Lord, as in ch. ix. 15, Num. xii. 7, Jer. xii. 7, Zech. ix. 8; cf. otxos @cod in Heb. iii. 6 and 1 Tim. iii. 15. The occasion of the judgment was the transgression of the covenant and law of the Lord, which is more particularly described in ver. 4. In this distress they will call for help to Jehovah: “ My God (ce. each individual will utter this cry), we know Thee!” Israel is in apposition to the subject implied in the verb. They know Jchovah, so far as He has revealed Himself to the whole nation of Israel; and the name Israel is in itself a proof that they belong to the people of God.

But this knowledge of God, regarded simply as a historical acquaintance with Him, cannot possibly bring salvation. Ver. 3. “ [Israel dislikes good; let the enemy pursue it.” This is the answer that God will give to those who cry to Him. ib denotes neither “ Jehovah as the highest good” (Jerome) or as “ the good One” (Sims.), nor “ the good law of God” (Schmieder), but the good or salvation which Jehovah has guaranteed to the nation through His covenant of grace, and which He bestowed upon those who kept His covenant. Because Israel has despised this good, let the enemy pursue it.

The proof of Israel’s renunciation of its God is to be found in the facts mentioned in ver. 4. “ They have set up kings, but not from me, have set up princes, and I know it not: their silver and their gold they have made into idols, that it may be cut off.” The setting up of kings and princes, not from Jehovah, and without His knowledge, i.e. without His having been asked, refers chiefly to the founding of the kingdom by Jeroboam 1. it is not to be restricted to this, however, but includes at the same time the obstinate persistence of Israel in this ungodly attitude on all future occasions, when there was either a change or usurpation of the government. And the fact that not only did the prophet Ahijah foretel to Jeroboam 1. that he would rule over the ten tribes (1 Kings xi. 30 sqq.), but Jehu was anointed king over Israel by Elisha’s command (2 Kings ix.), and therefore both of them received the kingdom by the express will of Jehovah, is not at variance with this, so as to require the solution, that we have a different view here from that which prevails in the books of Kings,—namely, one which sprang out of the repeated changes of government and anarchies in this kingdom (Simson), For neither the divine promise of the throne, nor the anointing performed by the command of God, warranted their forcibly seizing upon the government,— a crime of which both Jeroboam and Jehu rendered themselves guilty. The way in which both of them paved the way to the throne was not in accordance with the will of God, but was most ungodly (see at 1 Kings xi. 40). Jeroboam was already planning a revolt against Solomon (1 Kings xi. 27), and led the gathering of the ten tribes when they fell away from the house of David (1 Kings xii. 2 sqq.). Of Jehu, again, it is expressly stated in 2 Kings ix. 14, that he conspired against Joram. And the other usurpers, just like the two already named, opened the way to the throne by means of conspiracies, whilst the people not only rebelled against the rightful heir to the throne at Solomon’s death, from pure dislike to the royal house of David, which had been appointed by God, and made Jeroboam king, but expressed their approval of all subsequent conspiracies as soon as they had been successful. This did not come from Jehovah, but was a rebellion against Him—a transgression of His covenant. To this must be added the further sin, viz. the setting up of the idolatrous calf-worship on the part of Jeroboam, to which all the kings of Israel adhered. It was in connection with this, that the application of the silver and gold to idols, by which Israel completely renounced the law of Jehovah, had taken place. It is true that silver was not used in the construction of the golden calves; but it was employed in the maintenance of their worship. 2° nd: that it (the gold and silver) may be destroyed, as more fully stated in ver. 6. pnd describes the consequence of this conduct, which, though not designed, was nevertheless inevitable, as if it had been distinctly intended.

Ver. 5. “ Thy calf disgusts, O Samaria; my wrath is kindled against them: how long are they incapable of purity? Ver. 6. For this also is from Israel: a workman made it, and it is not God; but the calf of Samaria will become splinters.” Zanach (disgusts) points back to ver. 3. As Israel felt disgust at what was good, so did Jehovah at the golden calf of Samaria. It is true that zdénach is used here intransitively in the sense of smelling badly, or being loathsome; but this does not alter the meaning, which is obyious enough from the context, namely, that it is Jehovah whom the calf disgusts. The calf of Samaria is not a golden calf set up in the city of Samaria; as there is no allusion in history to any such calf as this. Samaria is simply mentioned in the place of the kingdom, and the calf is the one that was set up at Bethel, the most celebrated place of worship in the kingdom, which is also the only one mentioned in ch. x. 5, 15. On account of this calf the wrath of Jehovah is kindled against the Israelites, who worship this calf, and cannot desist. This is the thought of the question expressing disgust at these abominations. How long are they incapable of {*, ze. purity of walk before the Lord, instead of the abominations of idolatry (cf. Jer. xix. 4); not “freedom from punishment,” as Hitzig supposes. To sa) x5, “they are unable,” we may easily supply “to bear,” as in Isa. i. 14 and Ps. ci. 5. “ For” (Ai, ver. 6) follows as an explanation of the main clause in ver. 5, “ Thy calf disgusts.” The calf of Samaria is an abomination to the Lord, for it is also out of Israel (Israel’s God out of Israel itself!); a workman made it,—what folly! S71 is a predicate, brought out with greater emphasis by 1, e¢ guedem, in the sense of iste. Therefore will it be destroyed like the golden calf at Sinai, which was burnt and ground to powder (Ex. xxxii. 20; Deut. ix. 21). The dz. Aey. maa from — to cut, signifies ruins or splinters. This will Israel reap from its ungodly conduct. Ver. 7. “ Hor they sow wind, and reap tempest: it has no stalks; shoot brings no fruit; and even if it brought it, foreigners would devour it.” With this figure, which is so frequently and so variously used (cf. ch. x, 13, xii, 2; Job iv. 8; Prov. xxii. 8), the threat is accounted for by a general thought taken from life. The harvest answers to the sowing (cf. Gal. vi. 7, 8). Out of the wind comes tempest. Wind is a figurative representation of human exertions; the tempest, of destruction. Instead of riudch we have ji8, DD, ney (nothingness, weariness, wickedness) in ch. x. 13, Job iv. 8, and Prov. xxii. 8. In the second hemistich the figure is carried out still further. 9p, “ seed standing upon the stalk,” is not to 7 (viz. that which has been sowed). T’semach brings no gemach,—a play upon the words, answering to our shoot and fruit. Qemach: generally meal, here probably the grain-bearing ear, from which the meal is obtained. But even if the shoot, when grown, should yield

% some meal, strangers, i.e. foreigners, would consume it. In these words not only are the people threatened with failure of the crop; but the failure and worthlessness of all that they do are here predicted. Not only the corn of Israel, but Israel itself, will be swallowed up.

With this thought the still further threatening of judgment in the next strophe is introduced. Ver. 8. “ Israel is swallowed up; now are they among the nations lke a vessel, with which there is no satisfaction.’ The advance in the threat of punishment lies less in the extension of the thought, that not only the fruit of the field, but the whole nation, will be swallowed up by foes, than in ie perfect yo22, which indicates that the time of the ripening of the evil seeds ne already begun (Jerome, Simson). 17 TAY, now already have they heron among the nations like a despised vessel, which men cast away as useless (cf. Jer. xxii. 28, slvili. 38). This lot have they prepared for themselves.

Ver. 9. “ For they went up to Asshur; wild ass goes alone by itself; Ephraim sued for loves. Ver. 10. Yeu, though they sue among the nations, now will I gather them, and they will begin to diminish on account of the burden of the king of the princes.” Going to Assyria is defined still further in the third clause as suing for loves, z.e. for the favour and help of the Assyrians. The folly of this suing is shown in the clause, “wild ass goes by itself alone,” the meaning and object of which have been quite mistaken by those who supply ad simil. Yor neither by connecting it with the preceding words thus, “‘Tsrael went to Asshur, like a stubborn ass going by itself” (Ewald), nor by attaching it to those which follow, “like a wild ass going alone, Ephraim sued for loves,” do we get any suitable point of comparison. The thought is rather behigs whilst even a wild ass, that stupid animal, keeps by itself to maintain its independence, Ephraim tries to form unnatural alliances with the nations of the world, that is to say, alliances that are quite incompatible with its vocation. Hithnéh, from tdndh, probably a denom. of ’ethndh (see at ch. i, 14), to give the reward of prostitution, here in the sense of bargaining for amours, or endeavouring to secure them by presents. The hal yithna has the same meaning in ver. 10. The word D¥apx, to which different renderings have been given, can only have a threatening or punitive sense here; and the suffix cannot refer to D432, but only to the subject contained in yithnu, viz. the Ephraimites. The Lord will bring them together, sc. among the nations,.e. bring them all thither. 73? is used in a similar sense in ch. ix. 6. The more precise definition is added in the next clause, in the difficult expression DY ‘MM, in which sm may be taken most safely in the sense of “beginning,” as in Judg. xx. 31, 2 Chron. xxix. 17, and Ezek. ix. 6, in all of which this form occurs, and yy as an adject. verb., connected with bn like the adjective mind in 1 Sam. iii. 2: “They begin to be, or become, less (z.e. fewer), on account of the burden of the king of princes,” ¢.¢. under the oppression which they will suffer from the king of Assyria, not by war taxes or deportation, but when carried away into exile. OY 7D = Dae 70 is a term applied to the great Assyrian king, who boasted, according to Isa. x. 8, that his princes were all kings.

This threat is accounted for in vers. 11 sqq., by an allusion to the sins of Israel. Ver. 11. “ For Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, the altars have become to him for sinning. Ver. 12. I wrote to him the fulnesses of my law; they were counted as a strange thing.” Israel was to have only one altar, and that in the place where the Lord would reveal His name (Deut. xii. 5 sqq.). But instead of that, Ephraim had built a number of altars in different places, to multiply the sin of idolatry, and thereby heap more and more guilt upon itself. sin? is used, in the first clause, for the act of sin; and in the second, for the consequences of that act. And this was not done from ignorance of the divine will, but from neglect of the divine commandments. IFN is a historical present, indicating that what had occurred was continuing still. These words refer unquestionably to the great number of the laws written in the Mosaic thorah. 2, according to the chethib 135, with n dropped, equivalent to 122), as in 1 Chron. xxix. 7, ten thousand, myriads. ‘The Masoretes, who supposed the number to be used in an arithmetical sense, altered it, as conjecturally unsuitable, into °29, multitudes, although 25 does not occur anywhere else in the plural. The expression “the myriads of my law” is hyperbolical, to indicate the almost innumerable multitude of the different commandments contained in the law. It was also in a misapprehension of the nature of the hyperbole that the supposition originated, that aiM38 was a hypothetical future (Jerome). “t 103, like something foreign, which does not concern them at all.

Ver. 13. “ Slain-offerings for gifts they sacrifice; flesh, and eat: Jehovah has no pleasure in them: now will He remember their transgression, and visit their sins: they will return to Egypt. Ver. 14. And Israel forgot tts Creator, and built palaces: and Judah multiplied fortified cities: and I shall send fire into its cities, and it will devour its castles.’ With the multiplication of the altars they increased the number of the sacrifices. 92735 is 2 noun in the plural with the suffix, and is formed from 2” by reduplication. The slain-offerings of my sacrificial gifts, equivalent to the gifts of slain-offerings presented to me continually, they sacrifice as flesh, and eat it; that is to say, they are nothing more than flesh, which they slay and eat, and not sacrifices in which Jehovah takes delight, or which could expiate their sins. Therefore the Lord will punish their sins; they will return to Egypt, z.e. be driven away into the land of bondage, out of which God once redeemed His people. These words are simply a special application of the threat, held out by Moses in Deut. xxviil. 68, to the degenerate ten tribes. Heypt is merely a type of the land of bondage, as in ch. ix. 3, 6. in ver. 14 the sin of Israel is traced back to its root. This is forgetfulness of God, and deification of their own power, and ma ichoais itself in the erection of nioon, palaces, not idolatrous temples. Judah also makes itself omen of this sin, by multiplying the fortified cities, and placing its confidence in fortifications. These castles of false security the Lord will destroy. The ’armdnoth answer to the hékhdloth. The suffixes attached to 2 and N30" refer to both kingdoms: the masculine suffix to Israel and J udah, as a people; Sie feminine to the two as a land, as in Lam. ii. 5.

Ch. ix. 1-9. Warning against false security. The earthly prosperity of the people and kingdom was no security against destruction. Because Israel had fallen away from its God, it should not enjoy the blessing of its field-produce, but should be ane away to Assyria, wee it would be unable to keep any joyful feasts at all. Ver. 1. “ Rejoice not, O Israel, to exult like the nations: for thou hast committed whoredom against thy God: hast loved the wages of whoredom upon all corn-floors.

Ver. 2. The threshing-floor and press will not feed them, and the new wine will deceive it.” The rejoicing to which Israel was not to give itself up was, according to ver. 2, rejoicing at a plentiful harvest. All nations rejoiced, and still rejoice, at this (cf. Isa. ix. 2), because they regard the blessing of harvest.as a sign and pledge of the favour and grace of God, which summon them to gratitude towards the giver. Now, when the heathen nations ascribed their gifts to their gods, and in their way thanked them for them, they did this in the ignorance of their heart, without being specially guilty on that account, since they lived in the world without the light of divine revelation. But when Israel rejoiced in a heathenish way at the blessing of its harvest, and attributed this blessing to the Baals (see ene), the Td could not leave this tal of His gracious benefits unpunished. DanON belongs to N2Wn, petohtening the idea of joy, as in Job iii. 22. mt °D does not give ‘the ebjcet of the joy (“that thou hast committed whoredom:” Ewald and others), but the reason why Israel was not to rejoice over its harvests, namely, because it had become unfaithful to its God, and had fallen into idolatry. by Mit, to commit whoredom out beyond God (by going away from Higa: The words, “ thou lovest the wages of whoredom upon all corn-floors,” are to be understood, according to ch. i. 7, 14, as signifying that Israel would not regard the harvest-blessing upon its corn-floors as gifts of the goodness of its God, but as presents from the Baals, for which it had to serve them with still greater zeal. There is no ground for thinking of any peculiar form of idolatry connected with the corn-floors. Because of this the Lord would take away from them the produce of the floor and press, namely, according to ver. 8, by banishing the people out of the land. loor and press will not feed them, 7.e. will not nourish or satisfy them. ‘The floor and press are mentioned in the place of their contents, or what they yield, viz. for corn and oil, as in 2 Kings vi. 27. By the press we must understand the oilpresses (cf. Joel ii. 24), because the new wine is afterwards specially mentioned, and corn, new wine, and oil are connected together in ch. 0. 10, 24. The suffix 72 refers to the people regarded as a community. Ver. 3. “They will not remain in the land of Jehovah: Ephraim returns to Egypt, and they will eat unclean things in the land of Asshur. Ver. 4. They will not pour out wine to Jehovah, and their slain-offerings will not please Him: like bread of mourning are they to Him; all who eat it become unclean: for their bread is for themselves, it does not come into the house of Jehovah.” Because they have fallen away from Jehovah, He will drive them out of His land. The driving away is described as a return to Egypt, as in ch. vill. 13; but Asshur is mentioned immediately afterwards as the actual land of banishment. That this threat is not to be understood as implying that they will be carried away to Egypt as well as to Assyria, but that Egypt is referred to here and in ver. 6, just as in ch. vill. 13, simply as a type of the land of captivity, so that Assyria is represented as a new Egypt, may be clearly seen from the words themselves, in which eating unclean bread in Assyria is mentioned as the direct consequence of their return to Egypt; whereas neither here nor in ver. 6 is their being carried away to Assyria mentioned at all; but, on the contrary, in ver. 6, Hgypt only is introduced as the place where they are to find their grave. This is still more evident from the fact that Hosea throughout speaks of Asshur alone, as the rod of the wrath of God for His rebellious people. The king of Asshur is king Jared (striver), to whom Ephraim goes for help, and by whom it will be put to shame (ch. v. 18, x. 6); and it is from the Assyrian king Salman that devastation and destruction proceed (ch. x. 14). And, lastly, it is expressly stated in ch. xi. 5, that Israel will not return to Egypt, but to Asshur, who will be its king, By the allusion to Egypt, therefore, the carrying away to Assyria is simply represented as a state of bondage and oppression, resembling the sojourn of Israel in Egypt in the olden time, or else the threat contained in Deut. xxvili. 68 is simply transferred to Ephraim. They will eat unclean things in Assyria, not only inasmuch as when, under the oppression of their heathen rulers, they will not be able to observe the laws of food laid down in the law, or will be obliged to eat unclean things from simple want and misery; but also inasmuch as all food, which was not sanctified to the Lord by the presentation of the first-fruits, was unclean food to Israel (Hengstenberg). In Assyria these offerings would cease with the whole of the sacrificial ritual; and the food which was clean in itself would thereby become unclean outside the land of Jehovah (cf. Ezek. iv. 13). This explanation of ND is required by ver. 4, in which a further reason is assigned for the threat. For what we have there is not a description of the present attitude of Israel towards Jehovah, but a picture of the miserable condition of the people in exile. The verbs are pure futures. In Assyria they will neither be able to offer wine to the Lord as a drink-offering, nor such slain-offerings as are well-pleasing to Him. For Israel could only offer sacrifices to its God at the place where He made known His name by revelation, and therefore not in exile, where He had withdrawn His gracious presence from it. The drink-offerings are mentioned, as pars pro toto, in the place of all the meatofferings and drink-offerings, z.c. of the bloodless gifts, which were connected with the 2°bhdchim, or burnt-offerings and thankofferings (sh‘ldmim, Num. xv. 2-15, xxviii, xxix.), and could never be omitted when the first-fruits were offered (Lev. xxiil. 13,18). “Their sacrifices:” zibhchéhem belongs to idray (shall be pleasing to Him), notwithstandmg the previous segholta, because otherwise the subject to 135y would be wanting, and there is evidently quite as little ground for supplying O73D3 from the preceding clause, as Hitzig proposes, as for assuming that 27) here means to mix. Again, we must not infer from the words, “ their slain-offerings will not please Him,” that the Israelites offered sacrifices when in exile. The meaning is simply that the sacrifices, which they might wish to offer to Jehovah there, would not be well-pleasing to Him. We must not repeat amnar as the subject to the next clause nap a ia Dnde, in the sense of “their sacrifices will be to them like mourners’ bread,” which would give no suitable meaning; for though the sacrifices are called bread of God, they are never called the bread of men. The subject may be supplied very readily from k“lechem (like bread) thus: their bread, or food, would be to them like mourners’ bread; and the correctness of this is proved by the explanatory clause, “for their bread,” ete. Lechem ’onim, bread of affliction, zc. of those who mourn for the dead (cf. Deut. xxvi. 14), in other words, the bread eaten at funeral meals. This was regarded as unclean, because the corpse defiled the house, and all who came in contact with it, for seven days (Num. xix. 14). Their bread would resemble bread of this kind, because it had not been sanctified by the offering of the first-fruits. “For their bread will not come into the house of Jehovah,” viz. to be sanctified, “for their souls,” 2.e. to serve for the preservation of their life.

Their misery will be felt still more keenly on the feast-days. Ver. 5. “ What will ye do on the day of the festival, and on the day of the feast of Jehovah? Ver. 6. For behold they have gone away because of the desolation: Egypt will gather them together, Memphis bury them: their valuables in silver, thistles will receive them; thorns in their tents.” As the temple and ritual will both be wanting in their exile, they will be unable to observe any of the feasts of the Lord. No such difference can be shown to exist between yom mo‘ed and yom chag Y ‘hovah, as would permit of our referring mo‘éd to feasts of a different kind from chag. In Lev. xxiii., all the feasts recurring at a fixed period, on which holy meetings were held, including the Sabbath, are called 717) “Iyit2; and even though the three feasts at which Israel was to appear before the Lord, viz. the passover, pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles, are described as chaggim in Ex. xxxiv. 18 sqq., every other joyous festival is also called a chag (Ex. xxxii.5; Jude. xxi. 19). It is therefore just as arbitrary on the part of Grotius and Rosenmiiller to understand by md ‘éd the three yearly pilgrim-festivals, and by chag Y ‘hovah all the rest of the feasts, including the new moon, as it is on the part of Simson to restrict the last expression to the great harvest-feast, i.e. the feast of tabernacles (Lev. xxiii. 39, 41). The two words are synonymous, but they are so arranged that by chag the idea of joy is brought into greater prominence, and the feast-day is thereby designated as a day of holy joy before Jehovah; whereas mo éd simply expresses the idea of a feast established by the Lord, and sanctified to Him (see at Lev. xxiii. 2). By the addition of the chay Y°hdvah, therefore, greater emphasis is given to the thought, viz. that along with the feasts themselves all festal joy will also vanish. The perfect 25m (ver. 6) may be explained from the fact, that the prophet saw in spirit the people already banished from the land of the Lord. yen, to go away out of the land. Egypt is mentioned as the place of banishment, in thé same sense as in ver. 3. There will they all find their graves. /2P in combination with 12? is the gathering together of the dead for a common burial, like }DS in Ezek. xxix. 5, Jer. vill. 2, xxv. 33. 9, or 43, as in