1 A reproof of manifold sins. 11 God’s wrath against them for their hypocrisy.
Hos 7:1 whenever I would heal Israel, the sins of Ephraim are exposed and the crimes of Samaria revealed. They practice deceit, thieves break into houses, bandits rob in the streets;
Some suggest that the healing mentioned refers to the prophetic admonitions and rebukes with which God purposed to heal His people’s backslidings.
Others hold that the healing refers to the partial restoration of the nation’s prosperity in the reign of Jeroboam II (see 2 Kings 14:25–27; Hosea 2:8).
However, Israel’s moral and spiritual disease had been so obstinate and critical that it prevailed against the remedy God might have applied to it. The remedy seemed only to aggravate the disease and to reveal its malignancy.
Exposed. Evidently gangs of highwaymen who publicly infested the roads, plundering the passers-by. They are contrasted with the “thief,” who is depicted as doing his work secretly, within the house.
Hos 7:2 but they do not realize that I remember all their evil deeds. Their sins engulf them; they are always before me.
So absorbed had Israel become in their crimes and transgressions that they no longer heard the “still small voice” of conscience (1 Kings 19:12). They failed to realize that they must someday appear before the judgment seat of God (Eccl. 12:14; 2 Cor. 5:10).
They had forgotten that all their actions were under the continuous scrutiny of the Lord (see Ps. 33:13–15; 90:8; Jer. 16:17; Heb. 4:13).
Their evil deeds.
The figure is of their own iniquities besieging them as the enemies of their souls. Soon the citadels of conscience and righteous desire will utterly fall in defeat (see Prov. 5:22).
Hos 7:3 “They delight the king with their wickedness, the princes with their lies.
Delight the king. So general had the moral corruption and wickedness of Israel become, that evil permeated all the classes of the people, from the lowest to the highest. This situation was aggravated by the degrading attitude of the king and his princes, who were pleased by this wickedness, and who approved this conduct.
As with the king, so with the people (see Prov. 29:12; Rom. 1:32). Some prefer another interpretation of this verse based on the alternate translation: “In their wickedness they make the king merry.” That is, the wickedness of the people was their evil plan to murder the royal family.
With his in mind the king is made merry with wine so that he may become an easy and unsuspecting victim. The frequency of the assassination of Israel’s kings during the last years of the nation’s history lends some measure of support to this interpretation (see on v. 7).
Hos 7:4 They are all adulterers, burning like an oven whose fire the baker need not stir from the kneading of the dough till it rises.
All adulterers. The “all” includes the king, princes, and the people—the whole nation.
Like an oven. In this picture the oven may be understood to represent the heart (see v. 6); the fire, man’s unholy desires, appetites, passions; and the dough, the evil purposes or plans devised by the wicked plotters.
After starting the fire in the oven the baker allows it to continue burning, not stirring it until the kneaded dough is fully raised. So with Israel, a time was permitted for the leaven of wickedness to do its work.
Hos 7:5 On the day of the festival of our king the princes become inflamed with wine, and he joins hands with the mockers.
The fact that Hosea speaks of “our king” identifies him with the northern kingdom. This “day” may mean some day in which a celebration was held to honor the king. In any case it was a day of excess, when drunkenness brought out the evil in men by removing the power of self-restraint. There is in this verse an implied warning against the use of alcoholic beverages because of their harmful effect upon manhood and womanhood (see Prov. 23:29–32; 31:4, 5; Hab. 2:15).
Join hands with the mockers. Derived from the Hebrew verb liṣ, “to talk big,” or “to mock” (see on Prov. 20:1).
Instead of supporting the righteous elements of his kingdom, the king “stretched out his hand,” that is, joined himself, with those who were the scorners of the good and true.
Hos 7:6 Their hearts are like an oven; they approach him with intrigue. Their passion smolders all night; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
Their hearts like an oven. This shows why the people so openly carry on their wickedness. Their heart, as an oven, has been getting hotter and hotter through the accumulating fires of their evil inclinations and desires.
The waiting time is the period when there is no open, active demonstration of evil. But though the fire of iniquity seems at times to be banked in the human heart, and thus passive, it is still the fire of iniquity, ready to break forth with the intensified heat of premeditated sin.
Smolders all night.
5The baker, so to speak, sleeps while the dough is leavening, that is, while the diabolical design is being worked up. When all is in readiness, or “in the morning,” the baker stirs up the fire, the oven is sufficiently heated, the baking begins; that is, the purposed evil is accomplished. The baker may be thought of as representing the ringleader of the plot.
Hos 7:7 All of them are hot as an oven; they devour their rulers. All their kings fall, and none of them calls on me.
Hot as an oven. This evidently denotes the intense temper of their passion and the fierceness and fiery power of destruction. They had carried their iniquity so far that its extreme heat, meant to consume others, caused their own doom (see Dan. 3:19–22). Satanic schemes and plans sooner or later react upon their instigators.
The kings of Israel had influenced their people to evil. They had heated and inflamed them with the fires of sin, until all, kings and subjects, were caught in the flames of a common destruction.
All their kings.
During this final period in Israel’s history four out of five kings were put to death in 20 years; four in little more than a score, the victims being Zachariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, and Pekah. In the earlier days of the northern kingdom several other kings were slain by their successors or died violently or mysteriously.
Of the 20 kings of Israel only Jeroboam I, Baasha, Omri, Ahaziah, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, and Menahem died natural deaths.
Hos 7:8 “Ephraim mixes with the nations; Ephraim is a flat loaf not turned over.
One of the chief reasons Israel apostatized was that they associated with the heathen and intermarried with them (see Ex. 34:12–16; Ps. 106:33–41).
Loaf not turned over. Heb. ‘ugah, a circular, thin layer of bread, which was quickly baked upon ashes or heated stones (see 1 Kings 19:6). It in no way resembled the modern sweet cake; it was more like a pancake.
The ‘ugah needed to be quickly turned, else it would be burned on one side and be moist dough on the other; ruined by heat because not penetrated by heat. This is a graphic figure of spiritual inconsistency and inconstancy. The Israelites were worshipers of the Lord by profession, but engaged in the idolatries of the heathen. The Lord chose Abraham and his descendants to be a holy nation unto Himself, for His own possession; and so He ordained that they should be, as Balaam prophesied, a people that “shall dwell alone” (Num. 23:9; see Ex. 19:4–6; Deut 14:2; 26:16–19; Ps. 135:4).
Israel refused to follow this divine order, but mingled with the surrounding peoples, and so became a religious hybrid, as it were.
Idolatrous foreign nations did devour Ephraim’s strength. Syria reduced the armed forces of Jehoahaz to a humiliatingly small number (2 Kings 13:3–7). Menahem had to pay tribute to Assyria (2 Kings 15:17–20). In the reign of Pekah, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, took Israelitish territory and carried the people captive to Assyria (2 Kings 15:29; 1 Chron. 5:26).
All this took place before the kingdom ended with the fall of Samaria (2 Kings 17:5–18).
Hos 7:9 Foreigners sap his strength, but he does not realize it. His hair is sprinkled with gray, but he does not notice.
A symbolic representation of Israel’s declining national strength and the decay of her national importance.
Does not notice. This does not necessarily mean that Israel did not know she was in a decadent, failing condition. The facts within and without the nation were too evident. What they did not discern was that this decline was due to their apostasy. Israel was without the essential knowledge that should have been (see on ch. 4:6).
Hos 7:10 Israel’s arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this he does not return to the LORD his God or search for him.
These words give emphasis to the northern kingdom’s stubbornness in not seeking the Lord’s help. Instead, they made alliances and treaties with foreign nations.
Hos 7:11 “Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless— now calling to Egypt, now turning to Assyria.
That the dove was a simple, easily deceived fowl seems to have been a widespread opinion anciently. The stupidity of this bird is the subject of an Arab proverb, a proverb whose antiquity is unknown.
The utter simplicity of a dove’s flying right into the birdcatcher’s net, without suspecting or observing it (see Prov. 7:23), is effectively used as a graphic illustration of Ephraim’s folly. In asking Egypt and Assyria for help, Israel did not realize she was putting herself in a position to whet the territorial appetite of these imperial powers who sought to control Palestine.
Thus, Israel lost her national sovereignty and independence.
To Egypt … to Assyria. The very position of Palestine exposed it to invasion by these two ancient empires. The two Israelitic nations stood on the highway connecting these two mighty powers. The much-coveted prize for which these powerful empires fought was this highway that connected the rich watersheds of the Nile and the Euphrates.
The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were caught in this international counterplay and squeezed between the two rivals. In desperation, without spiritual trust in her God, Israel fatuously appealed first to the one and then to the other for a support that could only turn into a snare to her own national well-being.
Hos 7:12 When they go, I will throw my net over them; I will pull them down like the birds in the sky. When I hear them flocking together, I will catch them.
The prophet continues the use of the figure of birds and birdcatching. No matter how high or rapid their flight, the people cannot escape God. They will be humbled to the earth.
Hosea informs Ephraim that the judgments so often declared to the congregation of the children of Israel by the prophets would be severely executed upon the apostates.
Hos 7:13 Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me! I long to redeem them but they speak about me falsely.
Woe unto them! The people had departed from God, their only source of salvation (see Ps. 3:8; 46:1; 91:1–3; Jonah 2:8, 9).
Redeemed them. Evidently a reference to the exodus from Egypt. Spoken lies against me. Here the prophet does not accuse the people of telling lies against mere men (see v. 3), but, more gravely, of lying against, or concerning, the Lord. In such lies may be included a denial of God’s essential and sole deity, and of His power or willingness either to protect or punish.
Or the prophet may mean that these lies consist of a hypocritical drawing near to God with the lips while the heart is removed far from Him (see Isa. 29:13).
Hos 7:14 They do not cry out to me from their hearts but wail on their beds. They slash themselves, appealing to their gods for grain and new wine, but they turn away from me.
The falsity of the people appeared in their works as well as in their words; for if they appealed to God at all for His aid, they did so insincerely. Israel’s cry unto the Lord was not from the heart.
Cry. Heb. yalal, “to howl.” This word imitates the sound of distress, as does the English word “wail.” These howlings were because of the suffering of the people, and not because of real repentance and faith in the Lord (see on Ps. 18:41). True repentance is prompted, not by the dread of sin’s punishment, but from a desire to be free from its exceeding sinfulness (see on Job 42:6).
This verse, incidentally, reveals the force and freedom of the human will. The will has the power to resist the influence of God, and to turn what He designs for good into ill, because it is morally and spiritually sovereign and independent.
Hos 7:15 I trained them and strengthened their arms, but they plot evil against me.
Their arms. Or, “their forearms.” Arms are a symbol of strength (see Ps. 18:34; 144:1). So the Lord taught His people the source of strength and the secret of acquiring it. Despite this they rebelled against Him.
Plot evil. The Hebrew word order gives the following emphasis: “Against me do they imagine mischief, against Me, their God!” Against the Lord, who had done so much for them, and for whose glory they were created, they turned their back to follow idols, to render glory to these vanities (see Isa. 42:8).
Hos 7:16 They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words. For this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.
Faulty bow. Literally, “like a bow of slackness”; that is, a slack or loose bow. The rebellious attitude of Israel against God is figuratively represented here as a slack bow, which fails to send the arrow to the mark.
The gradual spiritual decline of Israel, which caused them to miss their high destiny, did indeed resemble a bow whose cord, losing its elasticity, was unable to shoot the arrow to the object at which it was aimed (see Ps. 78:55–57).
Insolent words.
The words of the leaders, who taught the people to trust in Egypt rather than in God, who directed the people to idolatry and wickedness, would as a sword pierce their own breasts when their kingdom was destroyed and their people taken captive to a foreign land.
Their derision. As with Egypt (see on Isa. 30:3, 5) so it is with the world; it derides and mocks those who vainly trust in it, and who serve it in preference to God.