Hoshea

“ There is no ground whatever for Maurer’s assumption, that he had been asked to come to the help of a rival of Hoshea; and the opinion that he came because Hoshea had refused the tribute which had been paid to Assyria from the time of Menahem downwards, is at variance with the fact that in 2Ki 15:29 Tiglath-pileser is simply said to have taken a portion of the territory of Israel; but there is no allusion to any payment of tribute or feudal obligation on the part of Pekah. Salmanasar was the first to make king Hoshea subject and tributary. ”

“ But although Hoshea was better than his predecessors, the judgment of destruction burst upon the sinful kingdom and people in his reign, because he had not truly turned to the Lord; a fact which has been frequently repeated in the history of the world, namely, that the last rulers of a decaying kingdom have not been so bad as their forefathers. “God is accustomed to defer the punishment of the elders in the greatness of His long-suffering, to see whether their descendants will come to repentance ”

“ After Pekah's death at the hands of Hoshea, the ringleader of the conspirators, nine years elapsed, during which no king could maintain himself in power. Hoshea appears at first to have refused the crown of thorns, and there was no one else who could lay claim to sovereignty. From the time of Pul's interference with the Lebanon affairs and the destruction of the Aramæan kingdom by Tiglath-Pileser, war between Egypt and Assyria had become inevitable. ”

“ The ninth year of Hoshea corresponds to the sixth year of Hezekiah and the year 722 or 721 b.c., in which the kingdom of the ten tribes was destroyed. 6b. The Israelites carried into exile. - After the taking of Samaria, Salmanasar led Israel into captivity to Assyria, and assigned to those who were led away dwelling-places in Chalach and on the Chabor, or the river Gozan, and in cities of Media. According to these clear words of the text, the places to which the ten tribes were banished are not to be sought for in Mesopotamia, but in provinces of Assyria and Media. ”

“ Hezekiah exhorts them; and they hold the feast seven additional days, fourteen in all, and the people greatly rejoice, [426] . The priests and the Levites bless the people, and God accepts their prayers and thanksgivings, [427] .
Verse 1
Hezekiah sent to all Israel - It is not easy to find out how this was permitted by the king of Israel; but it is generally allowed that Hoshea, who then reigned over Israel, was one of their best kings. ”

“ The cities of the Phenicians, and of the Philistines, and the kingdom of Israel hope for the assistance of the king of Meroe and Egypt, of Sabakon, whom the Hebrews call Seveh, and the inscriptions of the Assyrians, Sabhi. Shalmanesar overruns Syria, before the assistance from Egypt has arrived there (726 B.C.) . [185] Hoshea is either taken by surprise and overcome, or in his terror attempts to appease the king of Asshur by submission. He is carried away to prison, and Shalmanesar turns towards the coast. The cities of the Phenicians submit; only the island city of Tyre resists (II. 265) . ”

“ Hos. v. 13, vii. 11, viii. 9, ix. 3-6, xi. 5, xii. 1, xiv. 3. It must be borne in mind that the cuneiform inscriptions prove that Assyria had burst into sight like a lurid comet on the horizon far earlier than we had supposed. Jehu had paid tribute to Shalmaneser as far back as b.c. 842, more than a century before Menahem's tribute in 738. The destruction which Hosea prophesied took place within thirty-one years of his prophecies—probably in b.c. 722, when Sargon finished the siege of Samaria begun by Shalmaneser. The king Hoshea was perhaps taken captive before the siege. ”

“ Why should ye be stricken any more, and revolt any more? They are replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and agree with the children of strangers. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel knows him not." [177]
Israel suffered still more than Judah by the carrying away of the population of the northern and eastern districts, the land of Nephtali, and the land of Gilead. Hoshea reigned over the remainder from the year 734 (p. 48) . According to the Books of Kings he set on foot a conspiracy, slew Pekah, and became king in his place ”

“ Hosea belonged to the same generation as Amos, and meets the same social sins and oppressions of the poor by the rich. He emphasizes the religious side of the difficulties. Sin is treachery against God, and peculiarly mean treachery; for God loves his people. Hosea's emphasis on the love of God is almost the beginning of the greatest idea about God that man ever conceived. It grew out of a very sad part of his own life. His wife had left him, and yet he could not forget her. He still loved her, and could not cease loving her. This experience showed him what God must be like. God loved Israel. ”

“ Hosea being of a most tender and impressionable temperament was on that account chosen to secure for the covenant-bond in his own life, and through his influence in the life of others, that sweet privacy and inwardness which forms the most precious possession of every pious soul. Here lies the cause of that vivid, life-like personification to which the prophet subjects the people of Israel, putting words upon their lips expressing a mode of feeling such as, strictly speaking, only an individual can experience. It is his own heart that the prophet has put into the body of Israel. ”

“ In the prophecies of Hosea, God threatens his treacherous and idolatrous people with many painful embarrassments and perplexities, which would as effectually retard or obstruct their progress in the paths of wickedness, as a hedge of thorny plants stretching across the traveller’s way, the prosecution of his journey: “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths,” Hosea ii, 6. In the days of Micah, the magistrates of Judah had become exceedingly corrupt: “The best of them is a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge;” ”

“ The point of the allegory in i. 2 is plainly infidelity after marriage as a parallel to Israel’s departure from the covenant God, and a profligate wife (אשת זנונים‎) is not the same thing with an open prostitute (זונה‎) . The marriage was marred by Gomer’s infidelity; and the struggle of Hosea’s affection for his wife with this great unhappiness—a struggle inconceivable unless his first love had been pure and full of trust in the purity of its object—furnished him with a new insight into Yahweh’s dealings with Israel. ”

“ Every place where Hosea denounced the sacrifices, the people who heard him, but could not or would not understand, called him a fool and said that he was mad. "Yes," replied Hosea:
"The prophet is a fool,
The man that hath the spirit is mad
Because of the abundance of thine iniquity.
They shall cry unto me,
'My God, we Israel know Thee.'
(But) Israel hath cast off that which is good;
Israel hath forgotten his Maker.
And now they go on sinning,
They make for themselves molten gods,
From their silver, idols according to their own model,
Smith's work, all of it! ”

“ When you have found Hosea, greet him from me and tell him that Bai, the second prophet of Amon sought to discharge a part of the debt of gratitude he owed for his release from the hands of the Libyans by extending his protection to you, his nephew. Perhaps, my brave boy, you do not know that you have escaped as if by a miracle a double peril; the savage populace would no more have spared your life than would the stifling dust of the falling houses. ”

“ In Hosea: “Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: because judgment is from the Lord against the inhabitants of the earth, because there is neither mercy nor truth, nor acknowledgment of God upon the earth; but cursing, and lying, and slaughter, and theft, and adultery is scattered abroad upon the earth: they mingle blood to blood. Therefore the land shall mourn, with all its inhabitants, with the beasts of the field, with the creeping things of the earth, with the birds of heaven; and the fishes of the sea shall fail: so that no man may judge, no man may refute.” ”

“ For Hosea himself his home could never be the same as it was at the first. And I said to her, For many days shalt thou abide, as far as I am concerned, alone. Thou shalt not play the harlot. Thou shalt not be for a husband: and I on my side also shall be so towards thee. Discipline was needed there; and abroad the nation's troubles called the prophet to an anguish and a toil which left no room for the sweet love or hope of his youth. He steps at once to his hard warfare for his people ”

“ They that dwell under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. 8. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard Him, and observed Him: I am like a green fir-tree. From me is thy fruit found. 9. Who is wise, and He shall understand these things? prudent, and He shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.'—HOSEA xiv. 1-9.
Hosea is eminently the prophet of divine love and of human repentance. ”

“ He reflects, with the same severity, upon the irregularities which reigned in Judah. He stands up against those who went to worship false gods at Gilgal. He speaks of Sennacherib's invading the territories of Judah. He foretells that the people of Judah should still continue some time in their country after the captivity of the ten tribes; but that after this they themselves should likewise be carried captives beyond the Euphrates, from whence the Lord would bring them back after a certain number of years. The style of Hosea is obscure, and his expressions often dubious and perplexed. ”

“ If Hosea’s mission is successful his people will return—the guilty with the innocent—and the latter will suffer. Among the former we can include the whole of Hosea’s tribe, who call themselves the sons of Ephraim, from old Nun down to the youth in your dwelling.”
“We may spare them; but Mesu, too, is a Hebrew, and what we do to him....”
“Will not occur in the public street, and it is child’s play to sow enmity between two men who desire to rule in the same sphere. I will make sure that Hosea shall shut his eyes to the other’s death ”

“ The people that doth not understand shall be overthrown!"
Hosea naturally, met opposition everywhere on the part of the priesthood and the hirelings of the king. Undaunted, he rebuked Menahem and the usurping rulers in Samaria, as well as the priests and the unrighteous people. ”

“ Ephraim had followed the captain of the archers, who pointed out the youth's uncle, saying: "Shining armor would become you also, and when drums are beating, pipes squeaking shrilly, and banners waving, a man marches as lightly as if he had wings. To-day the martial music is hushed by the terrible woe brought upon us by that Hebrew villain. True, Hosea is one of his race yet, though I cannot forget that fact, I must admit that he is a genuine soldier, a model for the rising generation. ”

“ She knew that the people would be forced to press forward; but her dread of Pharaoh's military power had never permitted her to be at peace—to her it was as it were embodied in Hosea's heroic figure. If the Lord Himself did not fight in the ranks of the wretched bondmen and shepherds who were quarrelling and disputing around her, how were they to withstand the well-trained and equipped hosts of the Egyptians, with their horses and chariots? ”

“ Hosea, to whom the custom was perfectly familiar, did the same and, like the rest, lowered his tones. Whenever the voices of Bai or of the chief of the scribes waxed somewhat louder, Pharaoh raised his head and repeated the words of Rui: “Where a bridge spans the stream, beware of swimming through the whirlpool;” for this saying precisely expressed his own desires and those of the queen. No strife! Let us live at peace with the Hebrews, and escape from the anger of their awful leader and his God, without losing the thousands of industrious workers in the departed tribes. ”

“ Remember this, and tell Hosea also from me, Bai, that I am sure when he beholds the woe wrought by the magic arts of one of your race on the house of Pharaoh, to which he vowed fealty, and with it on this city and the whole country, he will tear himself with abhorrence from his kindred. They have fled like cowards, after dealing the sorest blows, robbing of their dearest possessions those among whom they dwelt in peace, whose protection they enjoyed, and who for long years have given them work and ample food. ”

“ In the first place, Hosea has not only continually preached repentance, and been, from his whole affectionate temper of mind, unable to believe repentance impossible; but he has actually predicted the restoration of his people upon certain well-defined and ethical conditions. In chap. ii. he has drawn for us in detail the whole prospect of God's successful treatment of his erring spouse. Israel should be weaned from their sensuousness and its accompanying trust in idols by a severe discipline, which the prophet describes in terms of their ancient wanderings in the wilderness. ”

“ It is our intention to give an exposition of the Messianic passages in the prophets, according to their chronological order. In placing Hosea at the head, we follow the example of those who collected the Canon, and who, regarding not so much the succession of years as that of the governments, may have assigned the first place to Hosea, because he is the most important among the prophets at the time of Jeroboam in Israel, and of Uzziah in Judah, or because he really appeared first, and the prophecy in chap. i.-iii. is the beginning of written prophecies. ”