Hosea 8:1-7

ISRAEL'S INGRATITUDETHE LORD'S LAMENT

TEXT: Hosea 8:1-7

1

Set the trumpet to thy mouth. As an eagle he cometh against the house of Jehovah, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.

2

They shall cry unto me, My God, we Israel know thee.

3

Israel hath cast off that which is good: the enemy shall pursue him.

4

They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold they have made them idols, that they may be cut off.

5

He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?

6

For from Israel is even this; the workman made it, and it is no God; yea, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces.

7

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind; he hath no standing grain; the blade shall yield no meal; if so be it yield, strangers shall swallow it up.

QUERIES

a.

Who is coming as an eagle against the house of Jehovah?

b.

How did they set up kings but not by Jehovah?

c.

What does sow the wind. reap the whirlwind mean?

PARAPHRASE

The trumpet to thy mouth! Like an eagle upon the house of Jehovah! Judgment approaches because they have thrown off covenant relationship with Me and they have violated My laws. When these times of distress come, the people will hypocritically call upon Me to help them, professing that they know Me. But Israel does not know Me because He has abhorred and ignored the good way of God; and as a result a ruthless enemy shall overrun his land. They rebelled against My government and placed usurpers on the throne against My will. They have taken of the wealth I blessed them with and made idols in spite of My warning that I would judge them for such apostasy. Your calf-idol is loathsome and disgusting to Me, Samaria, and My anger burns toward you because of it. How long will it be until you divest yourself of this loathsome idolatryhow long can you go on living in such impurity? What makes it so abominable is Israel, the nation whom the living God chose to reveal the truth about idols, has engaged in the lies of idolatry. Israel, of all people, ought to know that idols made by the hands of men are no gods! They will know soon enough that their golden calf is no go for I will break it to pieces like I did the one at Sinai. They have sown the winds of folly and vanity, but they shall reap the whirlwinds of wrath and destruction. Israel's crops will fail; none of its grain crops will mature enough to produce any grainthere shall be great famine. Even if some were fortunate enough to produce a few heads of grain, the enemy that is about to come upon Israel would take it away from them and eat it themselves.

SUMMARY

In this chapter the prophet Hosea gives God's reasons for the imminent destruction of the northern kingdom; moral, religious and political rebellion against Jehovah God when she knew better.

COMMENT

Hosea 8:1. TRUMPET. AS AN EAGLE. AGAINST THE HOUSE OF JEHOVAH. G Campbell Morgan says, This chapter is dramatic in its method. It opens with two clarion cries; and our translators have just a little robbed the passage of its arresting character by the introduction of certain words, in order to euphony, and the making of smooth reading and sense. There is no such word as Set in the Hebrew text herethat word has been supplied by the translators. Neither are the words, he cometh, a part of the Hebrew text. Actually, the imperativeness of the call is more impressive with the supplied words omitted (as in our Paraphrase).

This eagle was undoubtedly a pictorialization of the successive kings of Assyria who swooped down upon Israel just a few short years after Hosea pronounced God's judgment upon her. One cannot help but remember the warning of Moses in Deuteronomy 28:49 in the same words as these. Moses warned them if they should forget God and break the covenant and violate the revealed law of God, a nation from afar, swift as the eagle, would come upon them and destroy them. Transgressing God's covenant is much more personal than mere violation of some written statutes. To break covenant is to personally distrust and despise the One with whom you have the covenant. It is a matter of the heart and soul. This, of course, would manifest itself in scorn and disobedience to written laws of God.

Hosea 8:2 THEY SHALL CRY. MY GOD, WE ISRAEL KNOW THEE. When the ruthless, blood-thirsty, Assyrian hordes swoop down upon Israel, they shall instinctively call upon the God whom they have depised all these years for help. They will plead, We know thee! For centuries now they have refused to have Jehovah in their knowledge. they have been exchanging the truth of God for lies. But they should have sought the Lord when He could be found and have called upon Him when He was near (cf. Isaiah 55:6). Now it is too late, for although Israel spread forth its hands and make many prayers, God will hide His eyes and will not listen (cf. Isaiah 1:15). They should have thought that a man cannot be a friend of the world and a friend of God at the same time (cf. James 4:1-10). We remember the words of the Lord Jesus, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21). It is with the heart that man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:9-10), but he must believe with the heart as well as make confession with the mouththis Israel did not do. In connection with this verse we remember the candid statement of the apostle John, And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says I know him but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:3-4). Israel cried, My God, we Israel know thee, but Israel was a liar! What an affront to God even today for those self-willed, sensual-living people who flagrantly disregard the commandments of God, cry, in times of distress, My God, we know thee. They are liars and the truth is not in them. God is known only through keeping His commandments! There simply is no other way to know God! It should be very obvious to any intelligent person that God's commandments are found only in the Bible and for this age in the New Testament.

Hosea 8:3-4 ISRAEL HATH CAST OFF THAT WHICH IS GOOD. THEY HAVE SET UP KINGS, BUT NOT BY ME. THEY HAVE MADE THEM IDOLS. Israel refused to have God in their knowledge. she exchanged the truth of God for a lie (cf. Romans 1:18 ff). Israel's deliberate rejection of the good way is exactly like that of Judah described by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 6:16-19)! Israel refused to stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. They said, we will not walk in it. Israel has cast off the good way of God for the way of idolatry that is abominable. Very soon now the worthlessness of what she has chosen will be demonstrated. Refusing the way of God in religion they also rejected His counsel in politics. This is what is happening in America, the beautiful! Men in high places have cast off the good. they have set up kings, but not by Jehovah. Men have tried to rule without the counsel of God and since they have ignored all His counsel, He will laugh at their calamity and mock when panic strikes (cf. Proverbs 1:24 ff). During 253 years, for which the kingdom of Israel lasted, 18 kings reigned over it, out of ten different families and every one of them came to a violent end. Not once was the will of God sought in the rule of any of these kings. Even Jehu conducted his reign contrary to the will of God. The nation of Israel, so abundantly blessed by Jehovah, took of this abundance and fashioned by their own hands, gods after the likeness of pagan idols. The god of this world, Satan, blinded their eyes with deceit and pride, and Israel loved it to be so. We quote here from the ISBE, Vol. III, pg. 1448:

The special enticements to idolatry as offered by these various cults were found in their deification of natural forces and their appeal to primitive human desires, esp. the sexual; also through associations produced by intermarriage and through the appeal to patriotism, when the help of some cruel deity was sought in time of war. Baal and Astarte worship, which was esp. attractive, was closely associated with fornication and drunkenness (Amos 2:7-8; 1 Kings 14:23 ff), and also greatly to magic and soothsaying (e.g. Isaiah 2:6; Isaiah 3:2; Isaiah 8:19).

Sacrifices to the idols were offered by fire (Hosea 4:13); libations were poured out (Isaiah 57:6; Jeremiah 7:18); the first-fruits of the earth and tithes were presented (Hosea 2:8); tables of food were set before them (Isaiah 65:11); the worshippers kissed the idols or threw them kisses (1 Kings 19:18; Hosea 13:2; Job 31:27); stretched out their hands in adoration (Isaiah 44:20); knelt or prostrated themselves before them and sometimes danced about the altar, gashing themselves with knives (1 Kings 18:26-28).

The consequences of Israel's idolatry are so certain it seems as if Israel had intended it to be so. She is in a head-long plunge into destruction and does not seem to want it otherwise!

Hosea 8:5. HOW LONG WILL IT BE ERE THEY ATTAIN TO INNOCENCY? The origin of calf-worship among the Semites probably goes back beyond Abraham. The origin of animal worship is hidden in obscurity, but reverence for the bull and the cow is widespread among the most ancient historic cults, The ancient Babylonian culture (from which Abraham's ancestors came) revered the bull as the symbol of their greatest gods, Anu and Sin and Marduk. Hadad-rimmon, an Amorite deity, is pictured standing on the back of a bull. In Phoenicia, northern Syria, Moab, and other places the goddess Ishtar has the cow for her symbol, and when this nude or half-nude goddess appears in Palestine she often stands on a bull or cow. With the Hebrews calf-worship began, of course, with Aaron (cf. Exodus 32). It was perpetuated by Jeroboam I in the northern kingdom for political and economic reasons (1 Kings 12:26-33; 2 Chronicles 10:14-15).

In the light of their deep involvements in unholy alliances and unspiritual procedure, a logical question is raised: How long will it be ere they attain to innocency? How long are they incapable of purity of walk before the Lord, instead of abominations of idolatry. That is to say, being bent upon backsliding, having invested so heavily of their gold and silver in idols, having defied the infinite God in their politics, having rejected the commands of the Lord, having hardened their hearts against the prophet's message, how long would it require for them to extricate themselves? How long before they would detach themselves from unrighteousness? Israel had become like the thing they loved? (Hosea 9:10). We shall deal with this principle later but here it is evident that Israel has so long loved and imitated its detestable gods it has thoroughly and irrevocably contaminated itself.

Hosea 8:6. THE WORKMAN MADE IT, AND IT IS NO GOD;. What makes idolatry so abominable in Israel is that she, of all nations, should have known that an idol is no god. Israel had the special revelations of God in word and deed to demonstrate the nothingness of idols. What folly! What vanity! Isaiah satirically speaks of the same phenomena (Isaiah 41:21-24; Isaiah 44:6-22). The great apostle to the Gentiles had to deal with this as he preached to the heathen (cf. Acts 19:26; 1 Corinthians 8:4 ff, etc.). Men still deify images, philosophies and things in this twentieth century. What difference if it be a figurine or a philosophyit is still idolatry. Any image, thing or idea that is worshipped becomes an idol. Even covetousness is idolatry!

Hosea 8:7. THEY SOW THE WIND,. THEY SHALL REAP THE WHIRLDWIND. The Nation of Israel sowed their wild oats. They were sowing (putting their trust in) vain things, empty, useless things. This was their crop. Now they were about to reap the harvest of continued sowing of vanitiesthe harvest would be a whirlwind of destruction and disillusionment. Temporal things cannot satisfy (Ecclesiastes 1:17; Ecclesiastes 2:12-17; Ecclesiastes 2:4-11; Ecclesiastes 6:2-9). Worldly things never bring rewarding harvest days of joy, peace, fulfillment, satisfaction, holiness. But more serious than that, God has so built His universe that when men sin and pervert even those things of the world, innocent enough in themselves, they will reap a whirlwind of destruction, unhappiness, disillusionment, strife and the judgment and eternal wrath of God. When God's physical laws are violated, trouble comes! When God's spiritual laws are violated, trouble comes! Israel was doing both!

God was going to bring some sort of calamity upon Israel to keep her from producing a wheat crop. If by chance a few grains of wheat should reach fruition, the enemy God was about to turn loose upon Israel would consume all that. All those material abundances in which Israel gloried and which she attributed to her false gods were about to be taken away. Perhaps then she would repent.

QUIZ

1.

Where are the Hebrew people warned that if they should transgress God's law an enemy, swift as the eagle, would come upon them?

2.

Why is transgressing God's covenant so serious?

3.

How do we know Israel did not know God?

4.

Describe calf-worship.

5.

What is meant by the phrase how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?

6.

Why should Israel know that an idol is no god?

ISRAEL'S INGRATITUDETHE LORD'S LAMENT