Hosea 11 - Introduction
_THE INGRATITUDE OF ISRAEL UNTO GOD FOR HIS BENEFITS: THEIR JUDGMENT. GOD'S MERCY TOWARDS THEM._ _Before Christ 740._... [ Continue Reading ]
_THE INGRATITUDE OF ISRAEL UNTO GOD FOR HIS BENEFITS: THEIR JUDGMENT. GOD'S MERCY TOWARDS THEM._ _Before Christ 740._... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEN ISRAEL WAS A CHILD, &C.— _Israel is my son: I have loved him as a son, and delivered him from Egypt._ "I have regarded him as my child; I have taken the same care of him as a father does of a son." The prophet seems to allude to the words of Moses, Exodus 4:22. St. Matthew has quoted this passa... [ Continue Reading ]
AS THEY CALLED THEM— _As I called them, so they went from me._ Houbigant. _GRAVEN IMAGES_— We read frequently, in our English bibles, of graven images, and of molten images: and the words are become so familiar, as names of idolatrous images, that although they are not well chosen to express the He... [ Continue Reading ]
HEALED THEM— _Preserved them._... [ Continue Reading ]
I DREW THEM WITH CORDS OF A MAN— "I employed, to gain their affection, all the motives which could influence a heart not insensible to love. They cannot complain that I treated them as animals, or as slaves; that I commanded them with rigour, or constrained them by force. I treated them as reasonabl... [ Continue Reading ]
MY PEOPLE, &C.— _My people delay returning to me: though they have been called upwards, yet none at all would raise himself up._... [ Continue Reading ]
HOW SHALL I GIVE THEE UP? &C.— The mercy of the Almighty is here pathetically represented as contending with his justice; to shew _that he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Admah_ and _Zeboim_ were two cities involved in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. We may read, _Ho... [ Continue Reading ]
AND I WILL NOT ENTER INTO THE CITY— _And I will not come as an enemy._ Houbigant renders it, _Nor am I come speedily to depart from thee:_ and he supposes that the contrast in this and the former clause is between an inhabitant and a passing traveller. Bishop Lowth renders it, after St. Jerome, _Tho... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY SHALL WALK, &C.— _It shall come to pass, that they shall follow the Lord, when he shall roar like a lion; for he shall roar, and the fishes of the sea shall tremble._ Houbigant. See Ezekiel 38:20. By _the fishes of the sea,_ are supposed to be meant the people of Egypt and Babylon. But the foll... [ Continue Reading ]