Hosea 11:1

When Israel was a child.

The national unit

The meaning is not, necessarily, when Israel was an infant, a child in mere years, but when Israel was a child in spirit, docile, simple of mind, sincere of purpose, true in worship. When Israel lifted his eyes heavenward, and sought for Me, then I stooped over him as a man might stoop over his child to lift him into his arms, and press him closely to his heart. There is a unit of the individual; let us take care lest we rest there, and so miss the ever-enlarging revelation of the Divine purpose in human history. There is not only a unit of the individual, there is a unit of the nation. Israel is here spoken of as if he were one man, a little child; though a million strong in population, yet there was in the million a unit. This is one aspect of Divine providence. We must not regard nations as if they ceased to have status and responsibility, name and destiny before God. A nation is one, a world is one, the universe is one. What does God know of our little divisions and distributions into pluralities and relationships? The nation may have a character. The Church is one, and has a reputation and influence. So we come upon the Divine handling of great occasions. The Lord is not fretted by details. All the details of His providence come out of and return to one great principle of redeeming Fatherhood. The locks are innumerable; the key is one, and it is in the Father’s hand. Let Him hold it. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)

God’s love to us the pattern of our love to others

The leading topic of this chapter appears to be the calling of the people of Israel out of the prison-house of Egypt. It gives a gracious account of our heavenly Father’s love, and a fearful picture of man’s ingratitude. Under figures and emblems there is a lively representation of God’s dealings with His redeemed ones--with the Israel that now is, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The call of Israel from Egypt, as typical of Christ and of His people, is our subject. It is typical of us, as we are called from sin to the holiness of the heavenly Canaan.

I. God’s love to Christ, as a child, manifested to us by His calling Him from egypt. In the fulness of time the beloved of the Father became flesh, and dwelt among us. But no sooner did He appear than His life was threatened. The child was borne for safety into Egypt. In due time Christ was called out of Egypt, brought again to the Holy Land, there to exercise His ministry and perform the will of God.

II. God’s love to us, whilst we were yet at a distance from Him. We who are redeemed are loved with the self-same love with which God loved His only begotten Son.

II. The effect which the possession of this love will naturally produce in our hearts. It will produce love to others. What should be the effect of God’s love in our minds? A disinterested love to our fellow-creatures. Thus shall we have a scriptural evidence that we are of the spiritual Israel, whom God hath loved and called out of Egypt. (G. C. Tomlinson.)

A typical portrait of a people

I. A highly favoured people.

1. God loved them.

2. God emancipated them.

3. God educated them.

4. God healed them.

5. God guided them.

6. God relieved them.

7. God fed them.

II. A signally ungrateful people.

1. They disobeyed, God’s teaching.

2. They gave themselves to idolatry.

3. They ignored God s kindness.

4. They persistently backslided.

III. A righteously punished people. The judgment would be--

1. Extensive; and

2. It should continue; and

3. It should be destructive.

Is not this history of this people typical? Do not they represent especi ally the peoples of modern Christendom, highly favoured of God, signally ungrateful to God, and exposed to punishment from God? (Homilist.)

Backsliding

1. This is the great sin of the visible Church, to which she hath a strong inclination naturally, even in her best frame.

2. Men’s hanging sometimes in suspense, and having some inclinations to return, will neither double out their point against the power of corruption within them, nor will it extenuate their backsliding.

3. The great backsliding of God’s people is their backsliding from God and communion with Him; which draweth on all other apostasies and defections.

4. It is of the Lord’s great mercy that He ceaseth not to follow backsliders with messages from His Word. (George Hutcheson.)

A fivefold view of God’s love

1. It is adopting love. God loved Israel in Egypt, Israel in captivity, Israel among the brick-kilns, and called him “His son.” It is by no merit or righteousness of our own that we are made sons of God. We become children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. God’s love is adopting love. God delights in adopting children, and giving them the spirit of adoption, and taking them to the home of the ransomed family.

2. It is a tender love. The Lord describes the manner of a mother teaching her babe to walk. “I taught Ephraim to go.” The Omnipotent became as a nurse to Israel. When difficulties arose He bore him in His arms as a man doth bear his little child. And the heavenly Father is ever the same.

3. His inviting love. “Called My son out of Egypt.” We know how cruel Pharaoh was, and how hard were his taskmasters. But there was One who loved them, who said, “I have heard their cry, and have come down to help them.” His fiery cloudy pillar was the symbol of his inviting love.

4. It is weeping love. God mourns over their iniquities. God’s love as weeping love was displayed by “The Man of Sorrows,” whose grief was for the hardness of men’s hearts, and whose hot tears over Jerusalem were because she knew not the things which belonged to her peace.

5. His incarnate love. “The cords of a man.” Incarnate love is the magnet by which souls are drawn to God. “The Word was made flesh” begins the story of redemption. Christ became man, to stand in man’s place and deal with God in man’s behalf, and to be able to enter into our feelings and fears as a merciful and compassionate High Priest. (A. Clayton Thiselton.)

Mingled severity and mercy

The scope of this chapter is to clear God from severity, and to upbraid Israel for ungrateful and stubborn carriage, against mercies and means, and yet to promise mercy to the remnant, to His elect ones. At the close of the preceding chapter there were dreadful threatenings against Israel, that the mothers should be dashed in pieces upon their children, and the king utterly cut off. But does not this argue God to be a God of rigid severity? Where is the mercy, goodness, and clemency of God towards His people? God says, “For all this I am a God of mercy and goodness, for I have manifested abundance of mercy already, and am ready still to manifest more; but you have been a stubborn and a stout-hearted people against Me.” From this general scope observe--

1. God stands much upon the clearing of Himself to be a God of love and mercy. Whatsoever becomes of the wicked, yet God will make it clear before all the world that He is a God of much mercy. God takes it very ill that we should have any hard thoughts of Him; let us not be ready to entertain such thoughts of God, as if He were a hard master. “When Israel was a child.” That is, at his first beginning to be a people, in his young time, My heart was towards him. When he knew little of Me. When he could do little for Me. When there was much vanity and folly in him, as there are generally in children. When he was helpless and succourless, and knew not how to provide for himself. The love of God to Israel is expressed in these three particulars.

(1) God “entered into a covenant” with him.

(2) “Thou becamest Mine,” that is, I had separated thee for Myself, and took thee for a peculiar one to Me, and intended special mercy and goodness to thee.

(3) I confirmed all this by an oath, “I sware unto thee.” Observe--

2. It is the privilege of the Church and of the saints to be beloved of God. God loves His people; this is their privilege, He loves them with a special love.

3. It is a great aggravation to sin, to sin against love.

4. It is very useful to call to mind God’s old love.

5. All God’s old mercies remain engagements to duty and aggravations to sin.

6. Let not our hearts sink in despairing thoughts, though we see that we are able to do but little for God, and though we are unworthy of His love.

7. God’s love begins betimes to His people; let not His people’s love be deferred too long. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)

God’s love for the Church

1. God’s love to the Church is her first and great privilege, which prevents her in her lowest condition, when she is unworthy and base. When Israel was a child, witless and worthless, then I loved him. And this is the fountain of all God’s bounty to him.

2. The Lord will make His love to His people conspicuous in their preservation in a low condition, and under much trouble, when He seeth it not fit to deliver them from it.

3. The Lord also will magnify His deliverance from trouble and bondage, not only spiritual, but outward also, in so far as is for their good.

3. As the Lord doth ofttimes manifest His love, and put special honour on His people, by putting them to sufferings and trouble, so He will specially make His delivering of them proclaim His love and estimation of them, and His peculiar interest in them. (George Hutcheson.)

And called My son out of Egypt.

“And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, even My first-born; and I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me.” On these words Hosea’s reference rests. The people of Israel are to God as a son to a father; even as a first-born son. That is why He has come down to deliver them. We speak of the “purposes” of God, as though God had formed some complex schemes at an early period in the world’s history, and now He must work these schemes out. But the God of the Bible is no scheme-maker. He is a Father--we are His sons. It is Israel’s cry that has brought Jehovah down to deliver them. He is the Father of the fatherless. He hears the cry of the afflicted. But though God is moved by love, He does all things in order. He pities His people before their cry has ascended to Him; but He waits for that cry before He comes down to deliver them. For He will not deliver the unwilling or the proud. So He waits. And He came to the right person. He will do His work by means of a man, and He knows the man to do it. Moses brought Israel out of Egypt. Jehovah, that is the name of Israel’s Father and Deliverer. “I am that I am” is practically the translation of Jehovah. It is a somewhat cold name to us, because we know the tenderer name of Father. Hosea’s reference looks forward as well as backward; it looks before and after. Hosea saw that his words had a fuller meaning than could be filled by the people of Israel. He saw that they carried a promise which had not been performed even in his day. Like Abraham, he saw Christ’s day afar off, and was glad. (James Hastings, M. A.)

The flight into Egypt

How can Matthew speak of these words as a prophecy, and of the sojourn of the Divine babe in Egypt as a fulfilment of their prophecy? It has been said that Matthew uses Hosea’s words, so to speak, rhetorically or classically, declaring that the story of the infant Jesus in Egypt was a fine instance of Hosea’s saying. Or it may be answered that the literal Israel was the type of the spiritual Israel. At all events, the Divine Man was Himself the true, ideal Israel, and as such Jehovah did call Him when a child out of Egypt. Once more, it may be answered, in a more general way, that the present is ever the fruit of the past and the seed of the future. Events are born of events, as successive parts of plants are born of preceding parts; the parts are different, but they are radically only repetitions of the original seed. History repeats itself. The historic is ever the prophetic. Particularly is it true in a case of special Divine election, like that of the Jewish nation, that history will be prophecy. The fulfilments of the prophetic Scriptures, like waves of the sea, are ever-multiplying and enlarging concentric circles. And Jesus Christ is evermore the final and crowning fulfilment. The Divine Man is the universal pleroma--alike the radiant point and the circumference of all things. As God called out of Egypt His son, so out of Egypt does He call His Church. It was literally true of some of the most eminent of the fathers,--Tertullian, Origen, Athanasius, Cyprian. It is spiritually true of all God’s people. (G. D. Boardman.)