Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible · Hosea Chương 1

Hosea 1:1. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri— Hosea signifies a saviour, and Beeri—of a well. Calmet observes, that if Hosea prophesied in the reign of all these princes, he must have lived a very long time; for there are one hundred and twelve years from the beginning of Uzziah's to the end of Hezekiah's reign; add, if you please, twenty or twenty-five years, which might be the age of Hosea when he began to prophesy, and this will make a hundred and thirty-two or a hundred and thirty-seven. And if we were to take ten years from Uzziah, and as many from Hezekiah, during which Hosea might not have prophesied, there will still remain a hundred and twelve or a hundred and seventeen years.

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Hosea 1:2. Take unto thee a wife of whoredoms— That is, a woman, who, before her marriage, had lived an impure life, but who afterward should retire from all bad conversation, and whose children should be legitimate, notwithstanding that, by reason of the blemish which their mother had contracted by her former life, they were called the children of whoredoms. This prostitute woman, and the children to be born of her, were a figure, and a kind of real prophecy, which described the idolatry and infidelity of Samaria and the ten tribes, formerly the Lord's spouse, but afterwards become adulterous and corrupt. God gives these children the names of Jezreel, Loruhamah, or without mercy, and Lo-ammi, or thou art no longer my people; to shew, 1. That God was going to retaliate upon the house of Jehu, king of Israel, the sins which he had committed at Jezreel, when he came to the kingdom of the ten tribes. 2. That the Lord would treat his idolatrous and sinful people without mercy; and lastly, That he would reject them, and no more look upon them as his people. Many interpreters, offended at the irregularity of Hosea's marriage with a woman of a bad life, have thought this relation to be only a parable: that the prophet called the wife whom he had taken a prostitute, with a design only of awakening the attention of the Israelites; or that all this passed only in a vision, without the prophet's coming to the execution of it. But the whole sequel of Hosea's narration sufficiently shews, that this marriage was real, though figurative as to the things which it described, and which were to be afterwards performed. This is the opinion of St. Basil, Theodoret, St. Augustin, and many good interpreters. Dr. Pococke observes, "Seeing each opinion [that for the literal interpretation, and that for the figurative] is backed by great authority, and the maintainers thereof will not yield to one another's reasons; it must be still left to the considerate reader to use his own judgment; only with this caution, that he conceive nothing unworthy of God, or unworthy his holy prophet, nor draw from the words any unfavourable and unhandsome conclusions." See Pococke on Hosea. Besides, God was able to make ample compensation to the prophet in the course of eternity for any sufferings or reproaches which he might endure in consequence of this marriage.

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Hosea 1:3. So he went— He said not, This is a hard saying, who can hear it? He does not reason, but comply: he does not dispute, but obey.

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Hosea 1:4. Call his name Jezreel— For the honourable name of Israel is too good for this people. Call them therefore Jezreel, a people devoted to dispersion, and such as I will scatter unto the four winds of heaven, as the seedsman scattereth his seed.

For yet a little while— And yet this little while was a long while, through God's gracious forbearance. Bad as this people were, they should not perish without repeated wanting.

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Hosea 1:5. That I will break the bow of Israel, &c.— St. Jerome says, the Israelites were overthrown by the Assyrians in a pitched battle in the plain of Jezrael or Jezreel. But of any such battle we have no mention in history, sacred or profane. But Tiglath-pileser took several of the principal cities in that plain, in the reign of Pekah. And afterwards, in the reign of Hoshea, Samaria was taken by Shalmanazer after a siege of three years; and this put an end to the kingdom of the ten tribes; 2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 17:5-6. And the taking of these cities successively, and at last of the capital itself, was "a breaking of the bow of Israel," a demolition of the whole military strength of the kingdom, "in the valley of Jezreel," where all those cities were situated. For the breaking of the bow was a natural image for the overthrow of military strength in general, at a time when the bow and arrow was one of the principal weapons.

Although the valley of Jezreel is here to be understood literally of the tract of country so named, yet perhaps there is an indirect allusion to the mystical import of the name. This being the finest spot of the whole land of promise, the name, the vale of Jezreel, describes it as the property of the holy seed, by whom it is at last to be possessed. So that, in the very terms of the denunciation against the kingdom of Israel, an oblique promise is contained of the restoration of the converted Israelites. The Israel which possessed it, in the time of this prophesy, were not the rightful owners of the soil. It is part of the domain of the Jezrael, or Jezreel, for whom it is reserved.

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Hosea 1:6. For I will no more have mercy, &c.— For I will no more cherish with tenderness the house of Israel, insomuch as to be perpetually forgiving them. Bishop Horsley.

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Hosea 1:7. But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah— This difference in the divine dispensation was owing to the enormous crimes of the Israelites, and to the singular piety of Hezekiah. Judah was saved in a miraculous manner from the sword of the Assyrians. It was not by bow, nor by sword, &c. but by the immediate and miraculous intervention of the Lord, who destroyed the Assyrian army in one night. See 2 Kings 19:35.

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Hosea 1:10. Yet the number, &c.— Though God casts off the ten tribes, yet he will in due time supply their loss by bringing in great numbers of true Israelites into the church, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles; and making them who before were strangers to the covenant of promise fellow-heirs with the Jews. The prophet plainly refers to the final restoration and admission of the Jews into the church of Christ. For these expressions are too magnificent to be understood of any thing but the final rescue of the Jews from the power of Antichrist in the latter ages, by the incarnate God destroying the enemy with the brightness of his coming; of which the destruction of Sennacherib's army in the days of Hezekiah might be a type, but it was nothing more. It may seem, perhaps, that the prophesy points at some deliverance peculiar to the house of Judah, in which the ten tribes will have no share; such as the overthrow of Sennacherib actually was; whereas the destruction of Antichrist will be an universal blessing. But, in the different treatment of the house of Judah and the house of Israel, we see the prophesy hitherto remarkably verified. After the excision of the kingdom of the ten tribes, Judah, though occasionally visited with severe judgments, continued, however, to be cherished with God's love, till they rejected our Lord. Then Judah became Lo-ammi, but still continues to be visibly an object of God's peculiar providence, preserved as a distinct race for gracious purposes of mercy. Perhaps in the last ages the converts of the house of Judah will be the principal objects of Antichrist's malice. Their deliverance may be first wrought, and through them the blessing may be extended to their brethren of the ten tribes, and ultimately to the whole world. This order of things the subsequent prophesy seems to point out.

And it shall come to pass, that in the place, &c.— That is, at Jerusalem, or at least in Judaea, where this prophesy was delivered, and where the execution of the sentence took place. There, in that very place, they, to whom it was said, Ye are no people of mine, shall be called children of the living God. This must relate to the natural Israel of the house of Judah; for to them it was said, "Ye are no people of mine." And since they are to be acknowledged again as the children of the living God, in the same place where this sentence was pronounced and executed, the prophesy clearly promises their restoration to their own land.

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