Hosea 9:1-17
1 Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor.
2 The floor and the winepressa shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.
3 They shall not dwell in the LORD'S land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.
4 They shall not offer wine offerings to the LORD, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the LORD.
5 What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?
6 For, lo, they are gone because of destruction:b Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles.
7 The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritualc man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.
8 The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his ways, and hatred in the house of his God.
9 They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah: therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.
10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved.
11 As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.
12 Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them!
13 Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.
14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarryingd womb and dry breasts.
15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.
16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall beare no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.
17 My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.
Hosea 9:1. Rejoice not, oh Israel, with the shouts of harvest, and the songs of the vintage, as all heathen nations have done, and have ascribed their harvests to their idols; for God was about to deny them of bread.
Hosea 9:3. Ephraim shall return to Egypt, for refuge from the Chaldeans, while others shall be led away captive as far as the oriental provinces of Assyria. Here they shall eat the bread of mourners, as in Hosea 9:4, meaning the coarsest meat of slaves, and meat forbidden by the law as unclean.
Hosea 9:6. Memphis shall bury them. Noph is the old name of this capital of Egypt. Isaiah 19:13. Wars and afflictions pursued the jews to this land of exile.
Hosea 9:7. The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad. They had mocked the Lord's prophets, as mad and insane; the idol-prophets prophesying of wine and peace are now the fools. God having made them, like the diviners of Babylon, mad. How reproachful and embittered must the existence of such prophets be, when, instead of a harvest of joy, the people were driven to eat the bread of mourners.
Hosea 9:9. They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. When the whole tribe of Benjamin screened the profligate young men who had debauched the Levite's concubine, and perished in the war. So in a similar manner those wicked prophets drove their country to destruction.
Hosea 9:15. All their wickedness is in Gilgal, now the principal seat of their idolatry, and its abominable rites.
Hosea 9:17. They shall be wanderers among the nations, as Moses had long ago foretold. Deuteronomy 28:49.
REFLECTIONS.
What a chapter of darkness, what sombrous images are here; what a prophet of disasters! Yet the prophecies are mild when compared with the strokes that followed.
How deep is the depravity of the heart, and how strong the force of habit, that nothing could reclaim a nation in the high course of error and of crime. Yet the ministry of holy men shamed and lessened many of their sins; and the faithful, few in number, required pastors.
How deplorable is the state of the jews, so often sentenced to wander on the face of the whole earth; to be debarred from a heritage of land, and a fixed home. By leading a wandering life, the strong ties to morality of conduct are relaxed, because the relations of civil society are fluctuating. The ties of honour, truth, and probity are too transient to acquire the stability which subsists in a more settled state of residence. But such was their sentence from the Saviour, to be led captive to all nations and wander on the face of the whole earth, till the times of the gentiles should be fulfilled.