Comentários bíblicos

1–7. The moral degradation of Israel, especially of its ruling class, which, so far from stemming the tide of corruption, applauds and encourages its progress

1. How foolish is the conduct of Israel! When the great turning-point in her fortunes arrives, the day of mingled punishment and mercy, all his wickedness will be remembered and brought to light. To improve the sense and restore balance to the opening of the verse, it is expedient to read thus, with Ewald, When I turn the fortunes of my people, when I heal Israel, then will be manifest Ephraim’s guilt and Samaria’s wickedness, how they practise falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and bandits roam abroad without. Comp. Hosea 4:2. Samaria is mentioned, as the abode of the princes next spoken of.

2. they consider not in their hearts] Rather, as margin, they say not to their heart. ‘Heart’ here = self; the meaning is therefore they have no pricks of conscience.

now their own doings have beset them about] They are so entangled in sin (to use a more familiar figure) that they cannot even try to repent.

they are before my face] Comp. Psalm 90:8.

3–6. The highest personages are not too refined for the most sensual pleasures. A consuming passion inflames them as if with the heat of a furnace. Their way of celebrating a royal commemoration is to indulge in monstrous excess.

4. as an oven …] The fire corresponds to sensual lust, the oven is the heart. The baker ceaseth from kindling (so we should render), when the oven has reached a certain heat, and then he leaves the fire to smoulder, till the fermentation of the dough is complete, and a fresh heating is necessary. So after passion has once been gratified, it smoulders for a time, but is afterwards kindled to a greater heat than before, when some attractive object comes within its range.

5. Here the figurative description is interrupted by one from real life.

In the day of our king] Either the coronation-day (so the Targum), or (comp. Matthew 14:6) the royal birthday is meant. The prophet quotes the words of the princes. He was himself too loyal to the house of David to adopt the phrase seriously.

have made him sick with bottles of wine] Rather, are become sick with the fever of wine. The Auth. Version probably means to imply that the princes meant to assassinate the king when he was drunk; but there is no evidence of this (see on Hosea 7:7).

he stretched out his hand with scorners] i.e. he (the king) entered into close relations with proud, lawless men (comp. Proverbs 21:24). So Isaiah too calls the politicians of Judah ‘men of scorn’ (Isaiah 28:14). Hosea may perhaps refer to some lawless project decided upon in the intoxication of the revel.

6. For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait] Better, with Ewald, ‘Yea, almost like the oven have they made their heart in their intrigue’, if there were only sufficient justification for the rendering. This view of the verse makes it a climax to Hosea 7:5. Better still, by self-evident corrections of the text, For their inward part is like an oven, their heart burneth in them (the reason for the strong expression ‘scorners’).

their baker] Better, to follow the vocalizing of Targum and Peshito, and render, their anger, viz. against the destined victims of their intrigue.

sleepeth all the night] Rather, still retaining the consonants of the text, smoketh all the night (for the phrase, comp Deuteronomy 29:20). The night is mentioned as the time when evil devices are matured.

7. The consequence of all this licence. King after king falls a victim to the violent passions he has fostered in his subjects. Four regicides are recorded within forty years (2 Kings 15). And yet no one calls to Jehovah for help! Sacrifices indeed were not wanting (Hosea 6:6), but those who offered them had no true ‘knowledge of God’, and so they profited them not.

8–16. The outward evidences of Israel’s decay

8. he hath mixed himself among the people] Rather, he mixeth himself among the peoples. How? By courting the favour now of Egypt, now of Assyria (Hosea 7:11).

a cake not turned] Burnt to a coal at the bottom, raw dough at the top: an apt emblem of a character full of inconsistencies (Bishop Horsley). The explanation is plausible, as long as we look at the figure by itself. But the context, which refers only to Israel’s political decline, favours another view. ‘A brand snatched from the burning’ is a figure of a country, rescued only just in time from destruction. Hosea’s ‘cake not turned’ may equally well be an emblem of a country half ruined by calamities, and not rescued. The calamities of Israel, alas! are of his own making; by mingling with ‘the peoples’ he sought for warmth, but found a destroying conflagration (cf. Isaiah 47:14). The ‘cake’ is the round flat cake of bread which was baked on hot stones (1 Kings 19:6) or on hot ashes, and required frequent turning, to prevent its being burned.