Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible · 호세아 5장

Hosea 5:1. Hear this, O priests— We may collect from this passage, that there was on Mizpah, beyond Jordan, and upon Tabor, on this side of it, either golden calves or other idols, whose worship was favoured by the great men of Israel. The rabbies tell us, that Jeroboam placed garrisons at Tabor and Mizpah, to prevent the people from going up to Jerusalem. But if Hosea alluded to garrisons, he would rather have spoken of force than of snares. See Houbigant.

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Hosea 5:2. And the revolters are profound, &c.— Have gone deep in slaughter: I will call them all to discipline. Calmet. The Hebrew word שׂטים setiim, which we translate the revolters, signifies scouts on horseback, attendants on the chace, whose business it was to scour the country all around, and drive the wild beasts into the toils. The priests and rulers are accused as the seducers of the people to apostacy and idolatry, not merely by their own ill example but with premeditated design, under the image of hunters deliberately spreading their nets and snares upon the mountains. And their agents and emissaries, in this nefarious project, are represented under the image of scouts on horseback in this destructive chace. The toils and nets are whatever in the external form of idolatry was calculated to captivate the minds of men: magnificent temples, stately altars, images richly adorned, the gaiety of festivals, the pomp, and, in many instances, even the horror of the public rites. All which was supported by the government at a vast expence. The imagery therefore in this passage represents a spiritual chace. The wild beasts are men, not influenced and re-retained by the true principles of religion: the principal hunters, the kings of Israel and the apostate priests, who, from motives of self-interest, and a mistaken and wicked policy, encouraged idolatry, and supported its institutions: the scouts on horseback, the subordinate agents in the business: the slaughter, spiritual slaughter of the souls of men.

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Hosea 5:4. They will not frame their doings— They will not give their thoughts, or minds. Houbigant.

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Hosea 5:5. And the pride— The arrogance of Israel is discovered in his countenance. Houbigant.

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Hosea 5:6. They shall go with their flocks, &c.— They shall run up and down, from altar to altar, with all their stock, as if they could buy off their sins and redeem their sorrows by hecatombs and holocausts. They think that they have merited better at the hands of Jehovah by their thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of oil, (Micah 6:7.) than to fall, as in the former verse; or to be relinquished by him, as here. Lo, this is the conduct of graceless hypocrites: by their mere outward performances they think to oblige God, and by their good deeds to atone for their bad.

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Hosea 5:7. For they have begotten, &c.— By their alliance with strange women, contrary to the law. Or, it may have a spiritual allusion to their vices and deviations. Instead of, Now shall a month, &c. Houbigant reads, Now shall the canker consume their inheritance. Some, however, understand it as alluding to the space of time in which the Assyrians should come and devour Israel.

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Hosea 5:8. Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah— Lo! the cornet is sounded in Gibeah; and the trumpet in Ramah: howlings are heard at Beth-aven, behind thee, O Benjamin. Houbigant. The prophet here declares the approach of the Assyrian, in the same animated style and manner as Isaiah, chap. Isaiah 10:28, &c.

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Hosea 5:9. Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke— God has his day of sharp rebukes or chidings for every impenitent sinner; in which sufficient arguments shall be used to render him utterly inexcusable, if he reject them: so that Ephraim shall have nothing to say, why he should not be desolated; yea, so desolated, as to make the beholders amazed thereat, as the Hebrew word שׁמה shammah, imports: the day which now comes, is a day, not of correction but of execution.

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Hosea 5:10. The princes of Judah, &c.— "They have violated the most sacred laws of the Almighty, upon which not only the ordinances of his worship, but also the rights and properties of men depend; and are become guilty of the same injustice and confusion with those who remove the ancient land-marks." See Eze 46:18 and Pococke.

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Hosea 5:11. Ephraim is oppressed— Ephraim shall be oppressed, shall be broken in judgment, because it pleased him to walk after vain things. Houbigant.

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Hosea 5:12. Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth— A moth in the garment, a worm in the flesh. From small and unperceived beginnings, working a slow, but certain and complete destruction.

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Hosea 5:13. When Ephraim saw his sickness, &c.— Houbigant translates this verse throughout in the future. Ephraim shall see,—shall go, &c. and instead of king Jareb, he reads, to the king his avenger; meaning the Assyrian, Tiglath-Pileser, before mentioned.

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