Hosea 9
The chapter begins with a warning-to Israel against rejoicing exultantly like the Gentiles, and goes on to tell the doom of the nation. The false gods of the heathen had been installed as their own when they turned away from the living and true God, and they had received their grain and fruit as their pay for serving the idols (verse 1).
But the God they had dishonored and disowned had decreed that the corn floor and the winepress should not continue to provide for them, and the new wine should fail them, for Israel was no longer to dwell in His land. They were to return to the condition in which their forefathers had lived in Egypt, and in Assyria they would eat what was unclean (see Leviticus 11).
There they would pour out no offerings of wine, nor would their sacrifices be pleasing to Him. No more could they go into the house of Jehovah; what would they do in the day of assembly and in the day of the feast of the Lord? If, to escape the Assyrian captivity some should flee to Egypt, they would find it a place of burial. Nettles were to possess their pleasant things of silver; thorns would be in their tents.
The days of visitation, of recompense, long foretold, were come, and Israel would know that, at least. They had considered God’s prophets and spiritual or inspired men as fools and mad; now, because of the greatness of their iniquity, and the great enmity, they would find their false prophets to be what they had unjustly said of the true.
“The days of Gibeah” (verse 9) refers to the bad state of things in the times of the judges (Judges 19). In verse 10, God speaks of Israel when He took them out of Egypt; as they neared the land He had promised them, they were enticed, through the wicked prophet Balaam, to commit wickedness with the daughters of Moab and to join in the worship of their false gods (Numbers 25 and 31). These occasions of Gibeah and Baal-Peor exposed the badness of the natural heart, and the memory of them should have kept the children of Israel from a repetition of such sin, but it had not.
Ephraim’s glory was about to fly away as a bird. Unsparing judgment would fall (verses 12-10). Ephraim was planted, like Tyre, in a beautiful place, but his children are to be brought forth to the slayer. Gilgal (verse 15) had been a place of goodly remembrance in Israel; it was there that the reproach of Egypt was rolled off the people by the rite of circumcision upon their entering the promised land, and thither they had returned after expeditions in its conquest (Joshua 5: 9, 10, 14). But its former character before God had now been wholly lost (Hosea 4:15; 12:1115Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-aven, nor swear, The Lord liveth. (Hosea 4:15)
11Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields. (Hosea 12:11); Amos 4:4; 5:54Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years: (Amos 4:4)
5But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought. (Amos 5:5)).
“Wanderers among the nations” (verse 17) is a term exactly suited to the condition of Israel today, no doubt as true of the ten lost tribes as of the Jews.
ML 11/15/1936