Hosea 11:10-11

They shall walk after the Lord The remnant shall hearken to God's call, and shall comply with his commands, when he shall convert them by the powerful preaching of his gospel, and the efficacious influence of his grace. He shall roar like a lion That is, he will show terrible signs of his anger, and then they will fear and obey him. God's voice is elsewhere compared to the roaring of a lion, because of the terror which accompanies it: see the margin. The Chaldee says, The word of the Lord shall roar as a lion, and the words may be interpreted of the powerful voice of the gospel, sent forth, and sounding all over the world, and calling sinners to repentance. “The most learned commentators agree,” says Bishop Horsley, “that this roaring of the lion is the sound of the gospel; and that the subject of this and the following verse is, its promulgation and progress, the conversion of the Gentiles, and the final restoration of the Jews. ‘Clara et maxima voce predicabit evangelium,' With a loud and most powerful voice shall he preach the gospel, says Piscator. And to the same effect Rivetus and Bochart. As a lion, by its roaring, calls animals of its own kind to a participation of the prey; so Christ, by the powerful voice of the gospel, shall call all nations to the fellowship of eternal life. Livelye. The preaching of the gospel, reaching the remotest corners of the earth, is frequently represented under the image of the loudest sounds. And this loudness of the sound alone might justify the figure of the roaring lion. But a greater propriety of the figure will appear, if we recollect, that the first demonstrations of mercy to the faithful will be, the judgments executed on the anti-christian persecutors; to whom the sound of the gospel will be a sound of terror.” When he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west The word יחרדו, rendered, shall tremble, describes the motion which a bird makes with its wings when it flies. Dr. Waterland renders it, shall come fluttering, and Bishop Horsley, shall hurry. The primary sense of the passage may be, that at this efficacious call of God, the remnant of Israel, who shall be accounted his children, and heirs of the promises made to their fathers, shall come in haste from the several places of their dispersions, and particularly from the western parts of the world, (see Zechariah 8:7,) called the sea in the original, and expressed in Isaiah by the islands of the sea: see Isaiah 11:11; Isaiah 24:14. They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt That is, fly with haste, as above. As a dove out of the land of Assyria Great numbers of the Jews were exiles in Egypt and Assyria; and therefore, when the restoration of the Jews is spoken of, Egypt and Assyria are mentioned as countries from whence a great number of them should return. And I will place them in their houses I will bring them back to their own country and habitations, like as the stork returns to her nest, and the dove to the dove-cot. This prophecy may be considered as receiving its completion in part when some of the Israelites, being recovered to the worship of the true God, returned to Judea with the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, brought back to their own land from their captivity in Babylon. But the full accomplishment of it will not take place till the latter days, when the fulness of the Gentiles being brought in by the preaching of the gospel, all Israel shall be saved. Thus Bishop Horsley. These verses “contain a wonderful prophecy of the promulgation and progress of the gospel, and the restoration of the race of Israel. The first clause of the tenth verse states generally that they shall be brought to repentance. In what follows, the circumstances and progress of the business are described. First, Jehovah shall roar; the roaring is unquestionably the sound of the gospel. Jehovah himself shall roar; the sound shall begin to be uttered by the voice of the incarnate God himself. The first effect shall be, that children shall come fluttering from the west; a new race of children, converts of the Gentiles.” For, “it is remarkable, that the expression is neither their children, nor my children, but simply children. The first would limit the discourse to the natural Israel exclusively; the second would be nearly of the same effect, as it would express such as were already children at the time of the roaring. But the word children, put nakedly, without either of these epithets, expresses those who were neither of the natural Israel, nor children at the time of the roaring, but were roused by that sound, and then became children, that is, adopted children, by natural extraction Gentiles.” These shall come “chiefly from the western quarters of the world, or what the Scriptures call the west; for no part, I think, of Asia Minor, Syria, or Palestine, is reckoned a part of the east, in the language of the Old Testament. Afterward the natural Israel shall hurry from all the regions of their dispersion, and be settled in their own dwellings. It is to be observed that the roaring is mentioned twice. It will be most consistent with the style of the prophets to take this as two roarings; and to refer the hurrying of the children from the west to the first, the hurrying from Egypt and Assyria to the second. The times of the two roarings are, the first and second advent. The first brought children from the west; the renewed preaching of the gospel, at the second, will bring home the Jews. And perhaps this second sounding of the gospel may be, more remarkably even than the first, a roaring of Jehovah in person.” With this verse the chapter is closed in the Hebrew text and the Syriac version, and the following verse is given to the next chapter. But the division of the LXX., Vulgate, and Chaldee, which our public translation follows, seems preferable.