_Come, let us return_, &c. Bishop Horsley considers the prophet as speaking here in his own person, to the end of the 3d verse, and taking occasion, from the intimation of pardon to the penitent, given in the conclusion of the preceding chapter, to address his countrymen in words of mild, pathetic p... [ Continue Reading ]
_After two days he will revive us_ A deliverance from miseries or calamities, from which men had despaired of a recovery, is often represented as restoring them to life after death: see Psalms 30:3; Psalms 71:20; Psalms 86:13; particularly the restoration of the Jewish nation is often described, as... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then shall we know, if we follow on_, &c. Hebrew, ונדעה נדדפה לדעת, _And we shall know, we shall follow on to know the Lord._ Then, when we have returned unto the Lord, Hosea 6:1, in sincerity and truth; when he hath torn and healed us, hath smitten and bound us up, hath convinced us of and humbled... [ Continue Reading ]
_O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?_ Or rather, _what shall I do for thee?_ Here the Lord takes up the discourse again in his own person, and gives an answer to the prayer, or promises, of Judah and Israel: as if he had said, How can I give either of you, O Israel and Judah, any tokens of my favo... [ Continue Reading ]
_Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets_ Severely reproved and threatened them; or _cut them off_, as the word, חצבתי, may be properly rendered: that is, I have denounced against them great destruction. The prophets, and God by the prophets, are said to do those things which they foretel, or de... [ Continue Reading ]
_For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice_ That is, rather than sacrifice, this being spoken comparatively. I am better pleased with true goodness than with the most exact observance of the external duties of religion: see Micah 6:6. The Jews use to express comparison by negatives, or rejecting the th... [ Continue Reading ]
_But they like men have transgressed the covenant_ That is, as all corrupt men are prone to do; and as other men, who are not under such strong obligations to keep covenant with me, use to do. In the Hebrew it is, _like Adam:_ and it would have been better, it seems, to have rendered it so; the sens... [ Continue Reading ]
Hosea 6:8. _Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity_, &c. Archbishop Newcome translates these two verses very literally thus: _Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity: she is marked with footsteps of blood. And as bands wait for a man, a company of priests murder in the way to Shechem._ “If... [ Continue Reading ]
_I have seen a horrible thing_ Such an apostacy from God as cannot be mentioned without horror. _There is the whoredom of Ephraim _ Or rather, _there_, namely, in the house of Israel, BY _the whoredom of Ephraim_, that is, by the idolatry of Jeroboam, who was of that tribe, and first began the worsh... [ Continue Reading ]