HOSEA CHAPTER 1 The times in which Hosea prophesied, HOSEA 1:1 . To show the idolatrous whoredoms of the land, he marrieth a wife of whoredom, and hath by her Jezreel, HOSEA 1:2 , Lo-ruhamah, HOSEA 1:6,7, and Lo-ammi, HOSEA 1:8,9. The restoration of Judah and Israel under one head, HOSEA 1:10,11. T... [ Continue Reading ]
THE BEGINNING OF THE WORD OF THE LORD: this, say some, gives Hosea the precedence of all the prophets, which perhaps may be allowed to him among all the prophets that have written distinct books of their prophecies, but simply first of all the prophets he was not; in David's and Solomon's times we m... [ Continue Reading ]
So he went and took Gomer; as commanded, so he did, whether you take it parabolically or literally. If you take it literally, this Gomer will be some known harlot, and perhaps she was famous for her beauty, and skill in the courtesan's art, as her name may import. If you take it as a parable, we mus... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE LORD SAID UNTO HIM, Hosea the prophet, who as in taking to wife an adulteress, so in giving name to his son by her, was to presignify Israel's future calamities. Call his name, thy son now born, JEZREEL: the word is, _The seed of the Lord_, or, _The arm of the Lord_, or, _The Lord will scatt... [ Continue Reading ]
IT SHALL COME TO PASS; most certainly this shall be effected. AT THAT DAY; when my vengeance hath overtaken the house of Jehu, when his great-great-grandson shall be slain. I will break; weaken, and by degrees quite break, i.e. by the conspiracies, seditions, and civil wars which will arise among th... [ Continue Reading ]
AND SHE, Gomer, the hieroglyphic wife, who was to be a sign to Israel, CONCEIVED AGAIN, whether visionary or really it comes to one, and bare a daughter; which is to be a sign too, as was her mother. It is too nice which Ribera observes, that the state grew weaker, as appeared by the bringing forth... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT, or _And_, or _Yet_. I; the Lord, who threateneth Israel, proud, flourishing, secure, and sinful Israel: he promiseth mercy to poor, oppressed, and impoverished Judah. WILL HAVE MERCY ON THE HOUSE OF JUDAH; prolonging that kingdom one hundred and thirty-two years after Israel ceased to be a king... [ Continue Reading ]
Though some wrest the words to an allegorical sense, I think the prophet keeps the decorum in the similitude, and therefore, as women ordinarily conceive not whilst they give suck, so this Gomer weaned her daughter ere she conceived the son which is to be an emblem of the final rejection of the ten... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN SAID GOD TO THE PROPHET, as before, HOSEA 1:4,6. CALL HIS NAME; the name of his new-born son, the sign or type of the ten tribes, who had rejected God, and would not be reclaimed. LO-AMMI, NOT MY PEOPLE; though once you were a peculiar people, you are so no more in my account, you are cast off... [ Continue Reading ]
YET: this may anticipate the carnal Israel's objection, that thus God would fail of his word to Abraham, or he would lose his people. Nothing so, yet, though ten tribes be for ever captivated, God will have his Israel. THE NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL; not Israel after the flesh, not those very... [ Continue Reading ]
This verse without doubt hath in it both an historical sense and a mystical or spiritual sense; it looketh somewhat to the return out of the Babylonish captivity, and to their settling in Canaan; but it looketh further to a more glorious deliverance from a more miserable captivity. THEN; in the type... [ Continue Reading ]