Hosea 10:14-15

In a few words the prophet describes the crash of Israel's ruin (comp. Hosea 13:16).

Therefore The prophet simply connects the judgment by an -and"; but the next verse clearly shows that sequence is here identical with consequence.

a tumult i.e., the tumult, or, more exactly, the -roar", of an advancing army (as in Isaiah 17:12).

among thy people Rather, against thy peoples. The tribes of Israel are called peoples, as in Deuteronomy 33:3.

as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel, &c. It would seem that the prophet refers to some event of recent times which took place in the immediate neighbourhood of Ephraim. Beth-arbel will then be, not the Assyrian Arbela, but either the place so called on the west of the lake of Tiberias, or more probably that near Pella, on the east of the Jordan. Who Shalman was, is altogether uncertain. Schrader thinks that he was either Shalmaneser III., who made an expedition to the -cedar country" (Lebanon) in 775 b.c., and to Damascus in 773 2, on which occasions he may have penetrated into the Transjordanic country, and destroyed the last-mentioned Arbela, or else a Moabitish king Salamanu, mentioned by Tiglath-Pileser as his tributary, who, like other Moabitish kings, very possibly made incursions into the land of Israel. It is against the former view that the abbreviation Shalman nowhere else occurs, and that -king" or -king of Assyria" is not added. But the latter view, though plausible (the Hebrew word is strictly, not Shalman, but Shalěman), is not the only possible one. The Septuagint renders -pri nce Salaman," which, if we may take it as a variant, will point rather to a general (-prince of the host") than to a king. The name occurs again on a Palmyrene inscription, so that there may have been several other Shalmans. The barbarities attending the capture of Beth-arbel seem to have made a deep impression on the Israelites; Mr Huxtable aptly reminds us of the horrors of the sack of Magdeburg. Comp. 2 Kings 8:12; Psalms 137:8-9. [The Septuagint, the Syro-Hexaplar, the Old Latin, and the Vulgate, followed by Bishop Horsley and the Jewish scholar Abraham Geiger, suppose a reference to Zalmunna (Σαλμανά, Salmana) who was slain by Gideon or Jerubbaal according to Judges 8. This hint will enable the reader to understand the singular renderings of these ancient versions.]