When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria. Hosea 7:1 The great deceiver and spoiler of the nation D. Sunderland. We identify the deceiver as strong drink. I. THE DANGEROUS AND INSINUATING CHARACTER OF INTOXICATING DRINKS. "The thief cometh in." Compare the movements of thieves with the manner in which these drinks operate upon different classes of our fellow-men. 1. The thief will often seize the property of others under false pretences. So the strong drinks pretend to give strength to the weak, and to preserve the strong from becoming weak. Those drinks pretend to act favourably upon the sympathies of our nature, and to promote good fellowship among neighbours and friends. But when and where did strong drink perform such wonderful things? 2. The thief commits his depredations under the guise of friendship. II. you are known to have money, many will offer friendship, and when they have gained your confidence, they will strip you of everything you possess. And it is thus with the friendly glass. 3. The thief pounces upon his prey at unawares. And the thief, strong drink, acts very much in the same way. To be forewarned is in many cases to be forearmed, but too many refuse to take warning, and hence the thief pounces upon them at unawares, and they become an easy prey. 4. The thief pays no respect either to age or sex. The thief is known to seize upon male or female, old or young, any party, or under any circumstance, if he can but meet with a victim. And the thief, strong drink, acts precisely in the same way. In every walk of life, in every condition of society, and under every variety of circumstance this thief commits his depredations. 5. The thief, in the accomplishment of his object, often takes away the life of his victim. Here is another most painful characteristic of strong drink. By this thief multitudes of men die and go to their long home. II. THE EVILS INFLICTED UPON OUR COUNTRY BY THE TRAFFIC IN STRONG DRINKS. "The troop of robbers spoileth without." 1. The vast-extent of this source of evil. Thousands are engaged in the manufacture of strong drink. 2. The traffic fails to give an equivalent for what it costs. 3. The traffic in strong drink spoils the morals of our country. 4. The traffic is spoiling the efforts of the Church. III. THE MEANS BY WHICH THESE EVILS MAY BE REMOVED. 1. The real cause of these evils must be kept distinctly in view. Individual example is the matter requiring supreme attention. 2. The manufacture and sale of intoxicating drinks, except for scientific and medicinal purposes, must be condemned. 3. The practical rather than the doubtful should be steadily pursued. There is always a danger of our having our minds diverted from the real to the visionary. It is a delusion to trust to acts of parliament. Personal and individual abstinence is the one thing to urge. ( D. Sunderland. ) And they consider not in their hearts that I do remember all their wickedness. Hosea 7:2 The evil of inconsideration T. Kidd. What the prophet affirms of God's ancient people is gravely distressing. I. THE FACT ASSERTED. God remembers the wickedness of men. Wickedness denotes what is hateful and destructive. Men may excuse it, deny it, forget it; but God remembers it. 1. This fact is clear from the declarations of His Word. 2. From the perfections of His nature. "The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed." 3. From the equity of His government and a future judgment. You that forget God, and forget your sins, know that God remembers. II. THE EVIL STATED. That men forget this fact. The evil lamented is inconsideration. The want of consideration appears — 1. In men's continued commission of sin. 2. In their doing this without regret. 3. In their readiness to extenuate sin. 4. In their disregard of future consequences.Wherein then consists the evil of this want of consideration? (1) They who are thus chargeable neglect the plainest admonitions of Scripture. (2) They oppose the frequent dictates of conscience. (3) They allow themselves in the-practice of secret sins. (4) They may even proceed to the commission of open vice. (5) Thus proceeding they eventually ruin the soul.As to the duty of consideration, the authority of God commands it. The grace of God recommends it. The reason of man approves it. The aversion of man to this duty implies its importance. ( T. Kidd. ) Man's sins in God's mind Samuel Martin. God alone knows us perfectly. I. A FACT IN THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE OR GOVERNMENT. "I remember all their wickedness." "Remember," as applied to God in Scripture, does not represent a faculty of the Divine mind, but a state of God's nature, or the conduct of God in some particular instance. The text means, "Your sins are ever before Me." 1. God remembers all kinds and degrees of sin. 2. All the sins of all men. 3. He remembers accurately and completely. 4. Continually and for ever. And — 5. With a practical result, that He may act upon His recollection.Then how wonderful is God's patience and forbearance! How entire must God's pardon be when He forgives a sinner! How complete will be the transactions of the judgment day! How full will future and final punishment be! II. THIS FACT IS FORGOTTEN BY THOSE WHO OUGHT TO REMEMBER IT. They do not think or reflect, at least, so as to feel. III. GOD'S COMPLAINT OF THIS FORGETFULNESS. God complains of forgetfulness, because it sears the conscience, leads to false views of a man's position, is personally offensive to God, and is frequently the occasion of final ruin. God does not hate you as a being, but lie does hate your character. And this offensiveness to God is continually increasing. You can consider this matter, and at once. Enter then the path of serious thought and pursue it. ( Samuel Martin. ) God's remembrance of sin Homilist. I. GOD REMEMBERS men's sins. "I remember all their wickedness." 1. This is a wonderful fact. When we think of the infinite greatness of Him to whom the universe is as nothing. Sin is no trifle in the eye of Him whose glory is His holiness. 2. This is not only a wonderful, bat a solemn fact. God not only observes and knows my sins, but He remembers them. II. MEN DISREGARD God's remembrance of their sins. Why, then? 1. Because other thoughts engross their minds — thoughts of worldly wealth and power. 2. Because this thought, if it occurs to them for a moment, is too painful to be entertained. III. That men's disregard of God's remembrance of their sins LEADS THEM TO REVEL IN INIQUITY. "How their own doings have beset them about; they are before My face." Here we have — 1. Their sins in general. They are abundant and daring. Their sins encompass them on all sides, and they perpetrate them without shame under the very face of God. 2. Some of their sins are specified here. They made them glad "with their lies," with the lying praises with which they crowned the favourites of the prince, and the lying calumnies and censures with which they blackened those whom they knew the princes disliked. ( Homilist. ) God's record of our sins The great stone-book of nature reveals many strange records of the past. In the red sandstone there are found in some places marks which are clearly the impressions of showers of rain, and these so perfect that it can even be determined in what direction the shower inclined, and from what quarter it proceeded; and this ages ago! So sin leaves its track behind it, and God keeps a faithful record of all our sins. Now their own doings have beset them about Man beset by his own doings Paul S. Biggs Shipley. Down from the dark ages comes the story — if memory is true to its charge — of an expert blacksmith, who was such a master of his trade, and withal so proud of his skill, that he often boasted no man could break a chain made by him. In time the blacksmith himself was imprisoned and manacled. With the hope that he might make his escape, he examined the chain to see if it was possible to break it, when, to his horror, he discovered that the chain was one made by his own hands, which no living man could break, himself included. The chain forged by his own hands made the blacksmith a helpless, hopeless prisoner in that vile dungeon. Is it not the same with us? Each of us is forging a chain we cannot break. Every bad habit becomes a link in the chain, which will bind, in hopeless slavery, the soul that makes it. Acts form habits. Let your acts be beautiful and Christlike, and your habits will be likewise, ( Paul S. Biggs Shipley. ) The sin of the people The prophet now arraigns all the citizens of Samaria, and in their persons the whole people, because they rendered obedience to the king by flattery, and to the princes in wicked things, respecting which their own consciences convicted them. He shows that the defection which then reigned through all Israel ought not to be ascribed to the king or to few men, but that it was a common evil, which involved all in one and the same guilt, without exception. If they wish to east the blame on their governors, it will be done in vain. As soon as Jeroboam formed the calves, as soon as he built temples, religion instantly collapsed, and whatever was before pure, degenerated. How was the change so sudden? Even because the people had inwardly concocted their wickedness, which, when an occasion was offered, showed itself; for hypocrisy did lie hid in all, and was then discovered. It often happens that some vice creeps in, which proceeds from one man, or from a few; but when all readily embrace what a few introduce, it is quite evident that they have no living root of piety, or of the fear of God. They then who are so prone to adopt vices were before hypocrites; and we daily find this to be the case. When men become corrupt in their whole life, and degenerate from the pure worship of God, they are justly deemed adulterers. The prophet compares them to an oven, because they were not corrupted by some outward impulse, but by their own inclination and propensity of mind. They had been set on fire by an inward sinful instinct, and were like a hot oven. The blame rested wholly on themselves. ( John Calvin . ) In the day of our king the princes Court intemperance George Hutcheson. On the king's birthday, or some other solemnity yearly observed, the princes induced the king to drink until he became sick, and forgot and prostituted his place and authority by joining with scorners, or men eminently dissolute. Doctrine. I. Days which men will have observed as days of festivity and solemnity do ordinarily prove days of great miscarriage and provocation against God. 2. Drunkenness and sensuality are heinous and crying sins, especially in rulers. It is a sad challenge that they should be given to "bottles of wine." 3. Nobles and princes and great courtiers are ordinarily great plagues and snares to kings, who, having their ear and countenance, do make use of it for no other end but to draw them to sin against God. 4. It is the height of sensuality, when men not only become brutish themselves, but dare invite and tempt others to the same excess of riot, and by all means draw them to drunkenness. 5. Men by their intemperance do not only draw on the guilt of misspending time, and abusing the good creatures of God, but of self-murder and abusing their own bodies also. 6. Days of feasting and intemperance do also ordinarily prove days of great insolence and boldness in other sins. 7. It is also the great sin of drunkenness, that by their sensuality they deprive them. selves of the use of reason, and render themselves contemptible, and like beasts, that they can neither know their place nor duty. The king debased himself to keep company with lewd persons and look like them. ( George Hutcheson. ) Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Hosea 7:8 Moral declension H. Bromley. Much real pain is caused, to a rightly constituted mind, by the failure of fondly cherished anticipations. To trace the causes of moral declensions is a most important exercise. As these are discovered, we are put on our guard. I. THE CONDUCT OF EPHRAIM. 1. The persons with whom he associated. Described as "the people," that is, the idolatrous remnants of the nations originally possessing the land. The separation of Israel from other nations was a type of the separation into which God has ever called His believing people from persons of sinful and worldly principles and character. Scripture injunctions, in relation to this, are far from being regarded by professed Christians as they should. 2. The character of Ephraim's association with these parties. "Mixed himself among them." Friendly and intimate association. It is such intercourse the Christian ought to avoid. We are not required to abstain from all intercourse, but from such intimacy as would bring us into evil influence. In unrestrained intercourse with the world, a Christian is often led to go farther than consistency sanctions. A Christian too much mixes himself with the world —(1) When his chosen associates and most intimate friends are selected from the world.(2) When he allows himself to participate in the dishonourable principles or pursuits of worldly men.(3) When he is found frequently mingling in the pleasures of the world. 3. The voluntary and spontaneous nature of this association. Ephraim was not forced into, but he "mixed himself" among them. To a certain extent, the Christian not only may but must mingle with the world. That is a very different thing from courting the society of men of the world. II. THE CHARACTER OF EPHRAIM, AS THE RESULT OF HIS CONDUCT, "A cake not turned." The figure intimates — 1. The undecided character of his religion. 2. The worthlessness of such religion. (1) As the ground of personal safety. (2) As a source of personal enjoyment, and as the means of support and consolation under trial. (3) As a means of security against danger and temptation. (4) In exerting a beneficial influence on the minds of worldly men. III. THE PERSONAL INSTRUCTION WHICH THE CONSIDERATION OF SUCH A CHARACTER MAY SUPPLY. 1. How important that worldly minded men and undecided persons should correctly understand their real position. 2. How needful that they who have any regard to their spiritual interests should exercise great circumspection as to the characters and habits of those with whom they familiarly associate. 3. How desirable that Christians, by a more decided and elevated tone of spirituality in feeling and conduct, should make the line of separation between the Church and the world more apparent. This is required in view of your own spiritual well-being, and in order to the graciousness of your influence on others. ( H. Bromley. ) The sin of Ephraim T. Herren, D. D. I. EPHRAIM'S UNHAPPY MIXTURE. He hath joined himself with the nations in their idolatrous and profane conversation. There was a threefold mixture. A local mixture, of place and company. A civil mixture, of affinity and alliance. A moral mixture, in regard of manners, religion, and conversation. For God's people to comply with those who are wicked and ungodly in their practices, and to conform themselves to their customs and manners, is a thing very grievous and insufferable. The conformity of God's people to the world is contrary to their election, and God's special designation of their persons to eternal life. It is also opposed to their redemption. We are redeemed for another purpose than this. We are called out of the world, and God has thereby distinguished us from other men who are in the world. Our sanctification too is an argument against conformity to the world. It engages us to self-mortification and to spiritual quickening. II. EPHRAIM'S INDIFFERENT TEMPER. "A cake not turned." Take the figure as an amplification of their sin. They were only baked on one side, that is, they were of an imperfect and indifferent temper in religion. This may be an expression of hypocrisy and false-heartedness in religion; of neutrality and indifferency in religion; of deficiency and imperfection in religion. Cakes not turned are mere notion and speculation in religion, which proceed not to practice and operation: purposes and resolution without practice; the practice of some things, but omission of others; extravagance and the following of two extremes. Take the figure as an amplification of their punishment. As a hungry man catches the cake from the hearth before it is baked, so the enemies of Ephraim were hurrying to devour her. There was no respite for repentance and turning to God. No opportunity for escape. ( T. Herren, D. D. ) Half-baked J. Reid Howat. A strange text, but there are so many strange people in the world that odd words are sometimes needed to reach them. All can understand about a cake. One that was only half-baked you would say was a deceit. There are people like such a cake. They look beautiful and good when in church, but when you come to try them, they are anything but pleasant. They are cakes not turned. Jesus was once speaking of this kind of thing, and took cups and saucers for His text. He said, "Do not wash the outside only, and make believe about the inside. Do the same with your characters. If you pretend to be good, then be good, inside and out, in your heart and thoughts as well as in your appearance." That is what this cake is meant to teach. Be thorough; do not try to appear what you are not. The best way to seem good is by being good. What is the good of seeming good if your thoughts are bad? God can see when you are only aa a cake not turned. No one ever yet lost by obeying God. Be thorough, honest, and God-fearing in and out; do not have a religion like a weathercock that shifts with the wind, or one that can be broken with an if or a but. God sees you altogether. A great sculptor in Greece, long ago, made a statue that was to be set on a high column, yet he was as particular about the hair on the top of the statue's head as about all the rest. "Why take so much pains about that?" some one said. "Nobody will ever see it." "No," replied the sculptor, "but God will see it." Then be true in heart if you would be true in life. ( J. Reid Howat. ) One-sidedness in religion James Douglas, M. A. The figures of Scripture are less ornate than homely and expressive. Even a child knows what will happen if the cake be not turned. It will be ruined on both sides, and be wholly unfit for use. Such a cake denotes a type of character at once distempered and untempered, a character that lacks unity, that is spoiled by defect and damaged by excess, an inconsistent whole. I. THE GROUNDS OF THIS IMPEACHMENT. 1. Ephraim has "mixed himself among the people"; he has missed the practical design, of religion, which is entire separation unto God. Many persons seek to combine in themselves contradictory qualities. They would be spiritual on one side and carnal on the other. They have a side that is religiously baked, and a side that is carnally crude. They are religiously blistered and carnally sodden. 2. Ephraim was indisposed to look to God, to call upon Him, to count on Him as the unit of power against the enemy. Religion was kept for ceremonies and state occasions; it was not an everyday working religion. They had a notional knowledge of God, but they did not seek after an experimental knowledge of Him. Jehovah was in their notions, He was not in their trust. Had He been in their trust they would have turned round to Him in their trouble. The cake would have been browned on both sides. And how many now have a name to live and are dead! To a certain extent they have the right notion, but it does not determine their practice, nor lead them to seek the confirmation of experience. Hence the cake is done only on one side. Better never to have known the truth at all, than for the truth never to influence the practice and issue in experience. 3. Ephraim was proud (ver. 10). Pride is always a one-sided and therefore spiritually false thing. Pride is based on fleshly comparison. No one could be proud who saw himself in the Divine light. If self-complacence creeps into our hearts, it is quite time the cake was turned. 4. Ephraim used temporal things inordinately and licentiously. They were carried into intemperate excesses. There is a possibility of ruining the cake through self-indulgence. II. THE TEACHINGS THAT UNDERLIE EPHRAIM'S IMPEACHMENT. These teachings strongly emphasise — 1. The need of a proper balance of character. Zeal is only one side of the cake. Zeal without knowledge, or contrary to knowledge, is a cake unturned. The like applies to fidelity and love, knowing and doing, energy and repose. Faith itself is a cake of two sides; because faith has its waiting as well as its working sides. 2. The need of a proper balance of truth. 3. The general drift of the whole subject suggests to our mind the need of a correspondence between what Christ has done for us, and what He-is doing in us by His Spirit. To be well baked we need the Cross of Christ translated into experience. Paul knew Christ's Cross as a means of experimental crucifixion. To him it meant a death experienced within, in which the world became dead to him and he to it. ( James Douglas, M. A. ) The crude cake R. S. M'Arthur, D. D. In the East it is the custom to heat the hearth, then sweep carefully the portion heated, put the cake upon it, and cover it with ashes and embers. In a little time the cake is turned. It is then covered again, and this process is continued several times, until the cake is found to be sufficiently baked. Ephraim has many representatives at this hour. 1. The man who lives for pleasure alone is a cake not turned. One side of his nature is unduly baked, the other is entirely neglected. Pleasure has its uses, but pleasure as a business is a very poor business indeed. There are many such persons, both in the lower and in the higher grades of society. The man who lives for pleasure is dead while he liveth. He is a wretched parasite; he is a reproach to his species. One side of his nature is burnt to a crust by the fires of unholy desire; the other side of his nature is raw dough. Both are worthless. 2. The man who lives for business alone is a cake not turned Business is good. Even though it be honourable, and the methods of its pursuit unobjectionable, the man who lives for this life alone loses this life as well as the life that is to come. The man to whom this world is a god is a wretched idolater. This life is never truly lived except it is used for the good of others and for the glory of God. If a man lives for business alone, one side of his nature is scorched by the friction of the world's cares, and the other is raw dough. 3. A man who lives for culture alone is a cake not turned. No man can claim the honours of culture, portions of whose nature lie fallow. A true culture sweeps across every faculty. Man has earthward, manward, and Godward relations. If lacking in any of these directions, it is a partial, defective, and unauthoritative culture. Tried by this true standard many claimants for the honour of culture will be found wanting. That is not true culture which fails to cultivate the nobler, the Diviner elements of the soul. 4. A man who is half-hearted in religion is a cake not turned. Ephraim, though proud and haughty as a tribe, had been lacking in moral back bone, in loyalty, in consecration, in the service of God. There are such professors of religion to-day. A half and half man is a failure always and everywhere. To-day Jesus Christ calls for men with one heart, and that heart on fire with His love. We want no unturned cakes. We want men with convictions. It is said Of some men that they are very pious Godward, and very crooked manward. That is a severe criticism when it is true. That is not Christ's model man. He is symmetrical: he is baked through and through. Christ alone can make such men. ( R. S. M'Arthur, D. D. ) Modern Ephraism J. S. Swan. Hosea was a shew herd and hewer of wood. There is nothing conventional in his style. His similes are quaint and abrupt. They show that their author was possessed of a quiet vein of broad humour. "Ephraim is a cake not turned" may be said of most men in their relation — I. TO THE SOCIAL CIRCLE. Too often we have — 1. Courtesy minus friendship. 2. Appearance of wealth minus money. 3. Claims to "family" and learning.The amount of goods in the shop window is generally in inverse ratio to the amount in stock. This comparison may be applied — II. TO MEN IN THEIR RELATION TO COMMERCE. Too often we have — 1. Better goods than "any other house." 2. Tradesmen "retiring from business." The words "from this place" being purposely omitted. 3. Sales at a-tremendous sacrifice.There is ever a-connection between demand and supply. Half-baked customers create Ephraimitish tradesmen. This comparison may be applied — III. TO MEN IN THEIR RELATION TO RELIGION. Too often we have — 1. Profession without practice. 2. Letter without spirit.Profession is valueless without practice. So also is letter without spirit. So far as we have either without the other, we are as "cakes not turned." Christ ruling in our hearts adjusts all human relations. ( J. S. Swan. ) The spoiled cake B. D, Johns. Hosea's composition epigrammatic and figurative. He compares Ephraim to "a silly dove," easily enticed into the net. When frightened, will not stay in the cot where she is safe. To "a wild ass alone" — foolish, headstrong, wilful "An empty vine" — "fruitless and useless." "A child" tenderly brought up, who turns pout rebellious. "A merchant," deceitful m his balances. A cake not turned, which, for want of turning is burnt on one side, and dough on the other side, but good for nothing on either side. Israel was not completely consecrated to God. I. GOD DEMANDS THE CONSECRATION OF MAN'S ENTIRE BEING. The cake should have been baked on both sides. Body, soul, time, possessions, should all be devoted to God. He claims it. The claim is based on — 1. What God is in Himself. 2. What He is relatively to us. 3. Our highest interests. The example of the best beings. II. SOME CONSECRATE TO GOD ONLY A PORTION OF THEIR BEING. Baked on one side only. This indicates — 1. Self-will. 2. Lack of supreme love to God. 3. Aversion to submission. 4. Love of present pleasure. 5. Ignorance of the ease of religious service. 6. Indecision of character. III. THE CONSECRATION OF ONLY A PORTION OF OUR BEING TO GOD WILL END IN DESTRUCTION. It is destructive of — 1. Complete devotion. 2. Force of character. 3. True usefulness. 4. Thorough enjoyment. 5. Final perseverance. 6. Future glory. ( B. D, Johns. ) The unturned cake James Cochrane, M. A. The text forms part of the energetic remonstrance addressed by the Spirit of God to Israel at a period of national degeneracy. They embody a reproof; but the homely figure must be deemed most appropriate in the circumstances of the case. What is the exact point of resemblance betwixt Ephraim and the unturned cake? At what stage in the process of baking, or in what circumstances are we to contemplate the cake? Is it when but for a while exposed to the heat of the oven, and therefore when the cake is partly cold and partly hot — exhibiting a vivid representation of that religious lukewarmness and indifferency which is so distasteful to God? Or is the allusion to the cake removed from the oven while yet only partially baked, the lower portions, or the outside, having been converted into bread, while the remainder, or the interior, is still dough, thereby pointing to persons who seek to make a composition betwixt their inclinations and sense of duty, by sometimes yielding to the one, and sometimes striving to fulfil the other? Or is the allusion to the position of the cake, and its state as thence to be inferred — cold upwardly and warm beneath — betokening coldness or disregard to things above, and warmth of affection exclusively to things below? Or is the allusion to a cake left behind in the oven till it is scorched, blackened, and altogether destroyed; representing the condition of those who, being given up and let alone of God, gradually become worse and worse? I. A REBUKE TO LUKEWARMNESS AND INDIFFERENCY WITH REGARD TO THE THINGS OF GOD AND ETERNITY. In the Christian community there are numbers who are neither bread nor dough. They have enough of Christian profession to exclude them from the designation of heathen, not enough of heartfelt godliness to entitle them to the name of disciples indeed. They have the name, but want the reality. The Christians of the unturned cake are very skilful in evading all impressions of sacredness. It is not enough to profess Christianity, we must also feel and live it. II. A REBUKE TO THOSE WHO VAINLY IMAGINE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO SECURE THE SOUL'S SALVATION AND YET GRATIFY TO THE UTTERMOST THE SINFUL PROPENSITIES OF THE FLESH. There are some who occasionally feel, and that profoundly, the claims of Gospel truth and righteousness. But Wait a little. Swiftly passes the morning cloud. The world and the flesh soon resume their ascendency. There are some whose entire life is a uniform and sustained effort to keep up an alliance betwixt the spirit and the flesh; betwixt God and the world; betwixt duty and carnal inclination. They will not follow the Lord fully. God will not tolerate a rival. We must either serve Him altogether or not at all. III. A REBUKE TO THE COLDNESS AND UNSPIRITUALITY OF PROFESSED BELIEVERS. A cake cold upwards and warm underneath. Its baking may be so conducted that while the under side is intensely heated, the upper part is as cold as when first placed over a fire. So many professors. To the heavens they are cold, to the earth only are they warm. IV. AN INTIMATION OF THE CONDITION AND DESTINY OF THOSE WHO ARE GIVEN UP AND FORSAKEN OF GOD. Cakes left in the oven to be burnt and destroyed there. ( James Cochrane, M. A. ) Religious indecision William Jay. I. WHO ARE EPHRAIMITES? Three classes. Real Christians, who are entirely for God. The profligate, who make no pretension to religion. Some stand between both, and seem to partake of each. These are the characters we search for. II. EXPOSE THEIR CONDUCT AND THEIR CONDITION. 1. This indecision is unreasonable. 2. It is dishonourable. 3. It is wretched. 4. It is peculiarly dangerous. III. ENDEAVOUR TO BRING MEN TO DECISION. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve." ( William Jay. ) Half-hearted religion A. Hampden Lee. I. Half-hearted men NEVER ATTAIN TO LOFTINESS OF CHARACTER. II. Half-hearted men NEVER ACCOMPLISH ANY GREAT WORK. III. Half-hearted men FAIL TO SECURE LIFE'S GREATEST BLESSING. ( A. Hampden Lee. ) Inconsisteney and incompleteness Homiletic Review. The description is applicable — I. TO MEN WHOSE CONSCIENCES ARE THUS CONSTITUTED. Scrupulous in some things, they are frequently overscrupulous, and sometimes unscrupulous. The evil is aggravated when little things are its subjects, and when the weightier matters of .the law are omitted, or when others' sins and not our own are considered. II. TO THOSE WHOSE ZEAL IS PECULIAR. Like thorns under a pot, it smokes and crackles to-day and to-morrow is extinct. The religion of those who blaze forth with transcendent glow, for a time, and then disappear, is "a cake not turned." III. TO THOSE WHO CARRY THEIR RELIGION ONLY TO CERTAIN PLACES. To the sanctuary, the prayer-meeting, and the communion-table, but not into the family, the store, the bank, the senate. Or they may be outwardly consistent amidst home environments, but abroad, or at fashionable watering-places, they follow the multitude to do evil. ( Homiletic Review. ) The unturned cake E. B. Pusey, D. D. Ephraim had been "mingled," steeped, kneaded up into a cake, as it were, with the heathen, their ways, their idolatries, their vices. God would amend them, and they withholding themselves from His discipline, and not yielding themselves wholly to it, were spoiled. The fire of God's judgment, with which the people should have been amended, made but an outward impression upon them, and reached not within, nor to any thorough change, so that they were but the more hopelessly spoiled through the means which God used for their amendment. ( E. B. Pusey, D. D. ) Unturned cakes J. A. Garden, D. D. "Ephraim is a cake not turned"; that is, overdone on one side, and undone on the other. Excellent and apt symbol of much which we now see all about us! I. ORTHODOXY WITHOUT LIFE. It is the most serious temptation to which Christians are exposed to substitute creed for conduct. If one is sensibly weak in his spirituality, he will try to make up for it by redoubled emphasis laid upon his orthod

Benson Commentary Hosea 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. Hosea 7:1 . When I would have healed Israel — When I would have reclaimed them from their sins, and in consequence thereof have averted their judgments. The Hebrew, ????? , is, as I was healing: dum in eo essem ut sanarem. At the very time when I was about to heal them; or, as the Seventy render it, ?? ?? ??????? ?? ??? ?????? , When I was in the very act of healing Israel. Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered — Literally, was uncovered, or made bare, that is, showed itself openly, or was avowed and undisguised. The people gave me fresh provocations, especially the inhabitants of Samaria, the principal seat of the kingdom. For they commit falsehood — Or, carry on delusion; literally, practise deceit, or a lie. “The thing meant here seems to be the carrying on of a premeditated plot, or scheme, for the subversion of the true religion, and the establishment of idolatry. And the lie, falsehood, or delusion which they wrought, was every thing that was seductive in the external rites of the false religions:” see Horsley, who, in a note on this passage, observes, “The particular time alluded to is, I think, the reign of the second Jeroboam, when the kingdom of Israel seemed to be recovering from the loss of strength and territory it had sustained in the preceding reigns, by the encroachments of the Syrians; for Jeroboam restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, 2 Kings 14:25 . The successes vouchsafed to this warlike prince against his enemies were signs of God’s gracious inclination to pardon the people, and restore the kingdom to its former prosperity. For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel that it was bitter, &c. See 2 Kings 14:26-27 . But these merciful purposes of God were put aside by the wickedness of the king and the people. For this same Jeroboam did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, &c.” And the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers, &c. — They are guilty both of the secret methods of fraud, and the open violence of rapine and oppression. Hosea 7:2 And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face. Hosea 7:2 . And they consider not in their hearts — They do not seriously reflect; that I remember all their wickedness — To call them to an account, and to punish them for it. Now their own doings — Their studied wickedness, their contrived iniquities: their own, not those of their fathers, as the incorrigible are ready to complain; have beset them about — Namely, as an enemy invests a town on every side. The meaning is, the guilt and punishment of their sins shall surround them on all sides, and seize upon them that they shall not escape. Some think that by this expression of besetting them about, the prophet alludes to the future siege of Samaria, wherein these sinners against their own souls were so straitly beset by the enemy, that they could not flee, nor escape the being either taken or destroyed. Hosea 7:3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies. Hosea 7:3 . They make the king glad with their wickedness — They study to please their kings and great men, by complying with the idolatry they have set up. The Seventy (with whom agree the Syriac and Arabic) read ???????? , kings, in the plural number, meaning the succession of the kings of Israel from Jeroboam. And the princes with their lies — Which they speak to please and flatter them. But the word lie sometimes signifies an idol, and the practice of idolatry, as being set up in direct opposition to the true God and his truth. Bishop Horsley renders the verse, By their evil doings they pleasure the king, and by their perfidies the rulers, namely, their perfidies toward God, in deserting his service for idolatry. Hosea 7:4 They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. Hosea 7:4 . They are all adulterers — The expression may be here metaphorical, implying that they were apostates from God, to whose service they were engaged by the most solemn bond and covenant: compare Jeremiah 9:2 ; James 4:4 . If the words be understood literally, the prophet compares the heat of their lust to the flame of an oven heated; or, as Bishop Horsley renders it, “Over-heated by the baker.” Who ceaseth from raising after he has kneaded the dough, until it be leavened — Vulgate, Donec fermentaretur totum, until the fermentation of it be complete. When an oven is sufficiently heated, the baker does not increase the fire, but thinks what he has made sufficient to keep the oven hot till the dough be fit to be put into it. “An oven in which the heat is so intense as to be too strong for the baker’s purpose, insomuch that it must be suffered to abate before the bread can be set in, is certainly a most apt and striking image of the heart of the sensualist inflamed with appetite by repeated and excessive indulgence, so that it rages by the mere lust of the corrupted imagination, even in the absence of the external objects of desire that might naturally excite it; and works itself up to an excess which is even contrary to the purpose for which the animal appetites are implanted.” — Horsley. Hosea 7:5 In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners. Hosea 7:5-7 . In the day of our king — Probably the anniversary of his birth, or coronation; the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine — Or, when the princes began to be hot with wine, (so Newcome,) he stretched out his hand with scorners — Deriders of God and man. Some recent and notorious act of contempt to God, or to his prophets, or to public justice, is here alluded to. “Those,” says Bishop Horsley, “who in their cups made a jest of the true religion, and derided the denunciations of God’s prophets, the king distinguished with the most familiar marks of his royal favour; in this way carrying on the plot of delusion.” They — Those luxurious and drunken princes; have made ready their heart like an oven — Hot with concupiscence, ambition, revenge, and covetousness. While they lie in wait — Against the life or estate of some of their subjects. Their baker sleepeth, &c. — As a baker, having kindled a fire in his oven, goes to bed and sleeps all night, and in the morning finds his oven well heated, and ready for his purpose; so these, when they have laid some wicked plot, though they may seem to sleep for a while, yet the fire is glowing within, and flames out as soon as ever there is opportunity for it. They are all hot as an oven — The whole people are inflamed with bad passions, and have followed the ill example of their princes and great men. Or, the flame of civil discord is spread among the people in general; and, as fire devours, so has this destroyed their judges and rulers by conspiracies and assassinations. All their kings are fallen — An anarchy continued for eleven years after the death of Jeroboam II., and the six following kings, the last who reigned in Israel, fell by conspirators, namely, Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea. There is none among them that calleth unto me — And yet these plain signs of my indignation have not brought either kings or people to a due humiliation and sorrow for their sins. Hosea 7:6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. Hosea 7:7 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me. Hosea 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Hosea 7:8-10 . Ephraim, he hath mixed among the people — By his alliances with the heathen, and by imitation of their manners, he is himself become one of them. He has thrown off all the distinctions, and forfeited the privileges of the chosen race. “The Hebrew word here rendered people, ???? , is in the plural, and, when applied to bodies politic,” says Bishop Horsley, “always signifies the various nations of the earth, the unenlightened nations, in opposition to God’s peculiar people, the Israelites.” He therefore renders the word peoples here, “though,” as he observes, “not without some violation of the propriety of the English language, which disowns the word in the plural form.” Ephraim is a cake, or, like a cake, not turned — Burned on one side, and dough on the other, and so good for nothing on either; always in one extreme or the other. An apt image of a character that is all inconsistency. Such were the ten tribes of the prophet’s day; worshippers of Jehovah in profession, but adopting all the idolatries of the neighbouring nations, in addition to their own semi- idolatry of the calves. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not — His national strength is impaired and decaying, and he acts as if he were insensible of it. The Syrians, in the time of Jehoahaz, reduced them very low, 2 Kings 13:7 . Afterward they became tributaries to Pul, king of Assyria; and at length were carried captives by Shalmaneser, (chap. 17.,) and yet the afflictions that befell them did not make them sensible of the ill state of their affairs, and that the hand of God was against them. Yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him — The symptoms of decay. He declines in strength and power, like a man worn out with age. Rome, in the midst of great calamities, is thus described by Claudian: — — — Humeris vix sustinet ægris Squalentem clypeum; laxata casside, prodit Canitiem. — — And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face — Or, witnesseth against him. Their insolent and obstinate behaviour, and continuance in sin, notwithstanding the warnings and admonitions they have had, sufficiently show how deserving they are of punishment; and they do not return, &c., nor seek him for all this — Notwithstanding such severe denunciations against them, and that they are forewarned of approaching calamities, yet they do not return to God in true repentance, nor make their supplication to him to avert his wrath. Hosea 7:9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. Hosea 7:10 And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this. Hosea 7:11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. Hosea 7:11-12 . Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart — Which has neither courage to defend itself, nor cunning to prevent its falling into the snares that are laid for it. They call to Egypt, &c. — Sometimes they seek the alliance of one nation, and sometimes of another, all equally unserviceable to them; but are under no concern to seek the favour and protection of God, which alone can be of real and lasting benefit to them. When they shall go — When they shall do every thing their inclinations lead them to do, make the alliances they desire, and seek for safety in all the ways their imaginations can invent; I will spread my net upon them — I will entangle and disappoint them in their designs, execute my decrees upon them, and bring them to destruction, like as birds are taken in the snares of the fowler, although they have wings to fly out of danger. I will chastise them as their congregation hath heard — I will bring those calamities upon them which I have denounced in my laws against the whole people of Israel, whenever they should forsake me; and also have repeatedly denounced them by my prophets. Hosea 7:12 When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. Hosea 7:13 Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me. Hosea 7:13-14 . Wo unto them, &c. — These are words both of menace and lamentation. The prophet at once foretels and bewails their miseries. For they have fled from me — As if it had not been enough that they at first left my government, temple, and worship, they have gone still further from me by their sinful and idolatrous courses. Destruction unto them — The ruin of their country and commonwealth will be the consequence of their apostacy. Because they have transgressed against me — Rebelliously cast off my authority and laws. Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies, &c. — Though I delivered them from the Egyptians, and afforded them many other signal deliverances, yet they have not given me true glory, but have likened me to golden calves, and other images. Idolatry is frequently called in Scripture a lie, because it gives false representations of things; attributing power, &c., to things which, in their own nature, have no such power, or representing the Deity by forms which he is in no way like; therefore it was, properly speaking, changing the truth and glory of God into a lie, or, speaking lies against him. They also belied his corrections, as if not deserved; they belied the good which God had done them, as if it were too little, or not done by him, but by their idols. And they have not cried unto me, when they howled, &c. — When they bemoaned their calamities, as sick men bewail themselves upon their beds of sickness; yet they did not call upon me heartily and sincerely. They assemble, &c., for corn and wine, and they rebel, &c. — When they assemble themselves to deprecate a famine, they still retain the same disobedient temper toward me. Hosea 7:14 And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. Hosea 7:15 Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. Hosea 7:15-16 . Though I have bound, &c. — Though, after bringing them low, I have given them new strength and vigour; yet do they imagine mischief against me — Yet they are continually devising some new idolatrous inventions, whereby they may dishonour me. The word ????? , rendered I have bound them, more properly signifies, I have chastised them, and is so rendered by Archbishop Newcome, Bishop Horsley, and others. The general sense of the verse is, Whether I inflict punishment on them, or show them favour, they are still the same, and reject me for their idols. They return, but not to the Most High — Their conversion is only outward, not inward and sincere. When they left the worship of Baal, they turned to the worship of the calves; and now they rest in an external reformation, or some ceremonial observances, and do not come up to true repentance, spiritual worship, or holy obedience. This seems to be the meaning of the clause, according to our translation of it. But the Hebrew text, ?????? ?? ?? , is very obscure, and variously rendered by interpreters. Grotius and the Vulgate read, Reversi sunt ut essent absque jugo, They have returned that they might be without yoke, that is, without the restraint of God’s law. Which is thus expounded by Grotius, “Denuo voluerunt esse absque jugo,” They would be again without yoke. The LXX. render it, ???????????? ??? ????? , They have been turned away to nothing. Thus also the Syriac, or, as Bishop Horsley interprets it, They fall [have fallen] back into nothingness of condition. On which he remarks as follows: “The situation of the Israelites, as the chosen people of God, was a high degree; a rank of distinction and pre-eminence among the nations of the earth. By their voluntary defection to idolatry, they debased themselves from this exaltation, and returned to the ordinary level of the heathen, so far above which the mercy of God had raised them. As if a man, ennobled by the favour of his sovereign, should renounce his honours, and, of his own choice, mix himself with the lowest dregs of the people. Thus, voluntarily descending from their nobility of condition, the Israelites returned to not high; for so the Hebrew literally sounds.” The bishop observes elsewhere, that the Hebrew words will certainly bear the interpretation given by Grotius and the Vulgate; “and of all that have been proposed,” says he, “it seems the best sense, next after that which I have given in my translation, which is R. Tanchum’s, and in my judgment the best of all. Thus we say in common speech, of a man who by misconduct has lost all esteem and credit in the world, ‘He has brought himself to nothing.’” They are like a deceitful bow — Which seems bent for and aiming at the mark, yet is too weak to carry the shaft to it; or, is false, and instead of directing the arrow straight to the mark, shoots it on one side or the other. Their princes shall fall, &c., for the rage of their tongue — For the dishonour which they have done me by blasphemous speeches; or, shall fall by conspiracies, stirred up and fomented by murmurings and seditious expressions. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt — Their frequent rebellions and conspiracies against their kings, shall make them the derision of Egypt. Houbigant renders it, For the wantonness of their tongues, they shall be a derision in the land of Egypt. It is probable that many of the ten tribes fled to Egypt when invaded by the Assyrians; and that their blasphemies, and other enormities committed there, brought them under deserved reproach. Hosea 7:16 They return, but not to the most High: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Hosea 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without. 3. REPENTANCE FALLS Hosea 5:15 - Hosea 7:2 Seeing that their leaders are so helpless, and feeling their wounds, the people may themselves turn to God for healing, but that will be with a repentance so shallow as also to be futile. They have no conviction of sin, nor appreciation of how deeply their evils have eaten. This too facile repentance is expressed in a prayer which the Christian Church has paraphrased into one of its most beautiful hymns of conversion. Yet the introduction to this prayer, and its own easy assurance of how soon God will heal the wounds He has made, as well as the impatience with which God receives it, oblige us to take the prayer in another sense than the hymn which has been derived from it. It offers but one more symptom of the optimism of this light-hearted people, whom no discipline and no judgment can impress with the reality of their incurable decay. They said of themselves, "The bricks are fallen, let us build with stones," and now they say just as easily and airily of their God, "He hath torn" only "that He may heal: "we are fallen, but" He will raise us up again in a day or two." At first it is still God who speaks. "I am going My way, I am returning to My own place, until they feel their guilt and seek My face. When trouble comes upon them, they will soon enough seek Me, saying":- "Come and let us return to Jehovah; For He hath rent, that He may heal us, And hath wounded, that He may bind us up. He will bring us to life in a couple of days; On the third day He will raise us up again, That we may live in His presence." "Let us know, let us follow up to know, Jehovah: As soon as we seek Him, we shall find Him And He shall come to us like the winter-rain, Like the spring-rain, pouring on the land!" But how is this fair prayer received by God? With incredulity, with impatience. What can I make of thee, Ephraim? what can I make of thee, Judah? since your love is like the morning cloud and like the dew so early gone. Their shallow hearts need deepening. Have they not been deepened enough? "Wherefore I have hewn" them "by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of My mouth, and My judgment goeth forth like the lightning. For real love have I desired, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings." That the discourse comes back to the ritual is very intelligible. For what could make repentance stem so easy as the belief that forgiveness can be won by simply offering sacrifices? Then the prophet leaps upon what each new year of that anarchy revealed afresh-the profound sinfulness of the people. "But they in human fashion have transgressed the covenant! There"-he will now point out the very spots-"have they betrayed Me! Gilead is a city of evil-doers: stamped with the bloody footprints; assassins in troops; a gang of priests murder on the way to Shechem. Yea, crime have they done. In the house of Israel I have seen horrors: there Ephraim hath played the harlot: Israel is defiled-Judah as well." Truly the sinfulness of Israel is endless. Every effort to redeem them only discovers more of it. "When I would turn, when I would heal Israel, then the guilt of Ephraim displays itself and the evils of Samaria," these namely: "that they work fraud and the thief cometh in"-evidently a technical term for housebreaking -" while abroad a crew" of highwaymen foray. And they never think in their hearts that all their evil is recorded by Me. Now have their deeds encompassed them: they are constantly before Evidently real repentance on the part of such a people is impossible. As Hosea said before, "Their deeds will not let them return." { Hosea 5:4 } 9 A PEOPLE IN DECAY: 1 MORALLY Hosea 4:1-19 - Hosea 7:7 PURSUING the plan laid down in the last chapter, we now take the section of Hosea’s discourse which lies between chapter 4 and Hosea 7:7 . Chapter 4 is the only really separable bit of it; but there are also slight breaks at Hosea 5:15 and Hosea 7:2 . So we may attempt a division into four periods: 1. Chapter 4, which states God’s general charge against the people; 2 Hosea 5:1-14 , which discusses the priests and princes; 3 Hosea 5:15 - Hosea 7:2 , which abjures the people’s attempts at repentance; and 4 Hosea 7:3-7 , which is a lurid spectacle of the drunken and profligate court. All these give symptoms of the moral decay of the people, -the family destroyed by impurity, and society by theft and murder; the corruption of the spiritual guides of the people; the debauchery of the nobles; the sympathy of the throne with evil, -with the despairing judgment that such a people are incapable even of repentance. The keynotes are these: "No truth, nor real love, nor knowledge of God in the land. Priest and Prophet stumble. Ephraim and Judah stumble. I am as the moth to Ephraim. What can I make of thee, Ephraim? When I would heal them, their guilt is only the more exposed." Morally, Israel is rotten. The prophet, of course, cannot help adding signs of their political incoherence. But these he deals with more especially in the part of his discourse which follows chapter 7:7. THE THICK NIGHT OF ISRAEL Hosea 4:1-19 ; Hosea 5:1-15 ; Hosea 6:1-11 ; Hosea 7:1-16 ; Hosea 8:1-14 ; Hosea 9:1-17 ; Hosea 10:1-15 ; Hosea 11:1-12 ; Hosea 12:1-14 ; Hosea 13:1-16 ; Hosea 14:1-9 It was indeed a "thick night" into which this Arthur of Israel stepped from his shattered home. The mists drive across Hosea’s long agony with his people, and what we see, we see blurred and broken. There are stumbling and clashing; crowds in drift; confused rallies; gangs of assassins breaking across the highways; doors opening upon lurid interiors full of drunken riot. Voices, which other voices mock, cry for a dawn that never comes. God Himself is Laughter, Lightning, a Lion, a Gnawing Worm. Only one clear note breaks over the confusion-the trumpet summoning to war. Take courage, O great heart! Not thus shall it always be! There wait thee, before the end, of open Visions at least two-one of Memory and one of Hope, one of Childhood and one of Spring. Past this night, past the swamp and jungle of these fetid years, thou shalt see thy land in her beauty, and God shall look on the face of His Bride. Chapters 4-14 are almost indivisible. The two Visions just mentioned, chapters 11 and Hosea 14:3-9 , may be detached by virtue of contributing the only strains of gospel which rise victorious above the Lord’s controversy with His people and the troubled story of their sins. All the rest is the noise of a nation falling to pieces, the crumbling of a splendid past. And as decay has no climax and ruin no rhythm, so we may understand why it is impossible to divide with any certainty Hosea’s record of Israel’s fall. Some arrangement we must attempt, but it is more or less artificial, and to be undertaken for the sake of our own minds, that cannot grasp so great a collapse all at once. Chapter 4 has a certain unity, and is followed by a new exordium, but as it forms only the theme of which the subsequent chapters are variations, we may take it with them as far as Hosea 7:7 ; after which there is a slight transition from the moral signs of Israel’s dissolution to the political-although Hoses still combines the religious offences of idolatry with the anarchy of the land. These form the chief interest to the end of chapter 10. Then breaks the bright Vision of the Past, chapter 11, the temporary victory of the Gospel of the Prophet over his Curse. In chapters 12-14:2 we are plunged into the latter once more, and reach in Hosea 14:3 if. the second bright vision, the Vision of the Future. To each of these phases of Israel’s Thick Night-we can hardly call them Sections-we may devote a chapter of simple exposition, adding three chapters more of detailed examination of the main doctrines we shall have encountered on our way-the Knowledge of God, Repentance, and the Sin against Love. Hosea 7:3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies. 4. WICKEDNESS IN HIGH PLACES Hosea 7:3-7 There follows now a very difficult passage. The text is corrupt, and we have no means of determining what precise events are intended. The drift of meaning, however, is evident. The disorder and licentiousness of the people are favored in high places; the throne itself is guilty. "With their evil they make a king glad, and princes with their falsehoods: all of them are adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker" "On the day of our king"-some coronation or king’s birthday-"the princes were sick with fever from wine. He stretched forth his hand with loose fellows," presumably made them his associates. "Like an oven have they made their hearts with their intriguing. All night their anger sleepeth in the morning it blazes like a flame of fire. All of them glow like an oven, and devour their rulers: all their kings have fallen, without one of them calling on Me." An obscure passage upon obscure events; yet so lurid with the passion of that fevered people in the flagrant years 743-735 that we can make out the kind of crimes described. A king surrounded by loose and unscrupulous nobles: adultery, drunkenness, conspiracies, assassination: every man striking for himself; none appealing to God. From the court, then, downwards, by princes, priests, and prophets, to the common fathers of Israel and their households, immorality prevails. There is no redeeming feature, and no hope of better things. For repentance itself the capacity is gone. In making so thorough an indictment of the moral condition of Israel, it would have been impossible for Hosea not to speak also of the political stupidity and restlessness which resulted from it. But he has largely reserved these for that part of his discourse which now follows, and which we will take in the next chapter. Hosea 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. A PEOPLE IN DECAY: 2. POLITICALLY Hosea 7:8-10 MORAL decay means political decay. Sins like these are the gangrene of nations. It is part of Hosea’s greatness to have traced this, a proof of that versatility which distinguishes him above other prophets. The most spiritual of them all, he is at the same time the most political. We owe him an analysis of repentance to which the New Testament has little to add; but he has also left us a criticism of society and of polities in Israel, unrivalled except by Isaiah. We owe him an intellectual conception of God, which for the first time in Israel exploded idolatry; yet he also is the first to define Israel’s position in the politics of Western Asia. With the single courage of conscience Amos had said to the people: You are bad, therefore you must perish. But Hosea’s is the insight to follow the processes by which sin brings forth death-to trace, for instance, the effects of impurity upon a nation’s powers of reproduction, as well as upon its intellectual vigor. So intimate are these two faculties of Hosea that in chapters devoted chiefly to the sins of Israel we have already seen him expose the political disasters that follow. But from the point we have now reached- Hosea 7:8 -the proportion of his prophesying is reversed: he gives us less of the sin and more of the social decay and political folly of his age. 1. THE CONFUSION OF THE NATION Hosea 7:8-16 ; Hosea 8:1-3 Hosea begins by summing up the public aspect of Israel in two epigrams, short but of marvelous adequacy:-{ Hosea 7:8 } "Ephraim-among the nations he mixeth himself: Ephraim has become a cake not turned." It is a great crisis for any nation to pass from the seclusion of its youth and become a factor in the main history of the world. But for Israel the crisis was trebly great. Their difference from all other tribes about them had struck the Canaanites on their first entry to the land; { Numbers 23:9 b; Joshua 2:8 } their own earliest writers had emphasized their seclusion as their strength; { Deuteronomy 33:27 } and their first prophets consistently deprecated every overture made by them either to Egypt or to Assyria. We feel the force of the prophets’ policy when we remember what happened to the Philistines. These were a people as strong and as distinctive as Israel, with whom at one time they disputed possession of the whole land. But their position as traders in the main line of traffic between Asia and Africa rendered the Philistines peculiarly open to foreign influence. They were now Egyptian vassals, now Assyrian victims; and after the invasion of Alexander the Great their cities became centers of Hellenism, while the Jews upon their secluded hills still stubbornly held unmixed their race and their religion. This contrast, so remarkably developed in later centuries, has justified the prophets of the eighth in their anxiety that Israel should not annul the advantages of her geographical seclusion by trade or treaties with the Gentiles. But it was easier for Judaea to take heed to the warning than for Ephraim. The latter lies as open and fertile as her sister province is barren and aloof. She has many gates into the world, and they open upon many markets. Nobler opportunities there could not be for a nation in the maturity of its genius and loyal to its vocation:- "Rejoice, O Zebulun, in thine outgoings: They shall call the nations to the mountain; They shall suck of the abundance of the seas And of the treasure that is stored in the sands." { Deuteronomy 33:18-19 } But in the time of his outgoings Ephraim was not sure of himself nor true to his God, the one secret and strength of the national distinctiveness. So he met the world weak and unformed, and, instead of impressing it, was by it dissipated and confused. The tides of a lavish commerce scattered abroad the faculties of the people, and swept back upon their life alien fashions and tempers, to subdue which there was neither native strength nor definiteness of national purpose. All this is what Hosea means by the first of his epigrams: "Ephraim-among the nations he lets himself be poured out," or "mixed up." The form of the verb does not elsewhere occur; but it is reflexive, and the meaning of the root is certain. "Balal" is to "pour out," or "mingle," as of oil in the sacrificial flour. Yet it is sometimes used of a mixing which is not sacred, but profane and hopeless. It is applied to the first great confusion of mankind, to which a popular etymology has traced the name Babel, as if for Balbel. Derivatives of the stem bear the additional ideas of staining and impurity. The alternative renderings which have been proposed, "lets himself be soaked" and "scatters himself" abroad like wheat among tares, are not so probable, yet hardly change the meaning. Ephraim wastes and confuses himself among the Gentiles. The nation’s character is so disguised that Hosea afterwards nicknames him Canaan { Hosea 12:8 } their religion so filled with foreign influences that he calls the people the harlot of the Ba’alim. If the first of Hosea’s epigrams satirizes Israel’s foreign relations, the second, with equal brevity and wit, hits off the temper and constitution of society at home. For the metaphor of which this epigram is composed Hosea has gone to the baker. Among all classes in the East, especially under conditions requiring haste, there is in demand a round flat scone, which is baked by being laid on hot stones or attached to the wall of a heated oven. The whole art of baking consists in turning the scone over at the proper moment. If this be mismanaged it does not need a baker to tell us that one side may be burnt to a cinder, while the other remains raw. "Ephraim," says Hosea, "is an unturned cake." By this he may mean one of several things, or all of them together, for they are infectious of each other. There was, for instance, the social conditions of the people. What can better be described as an unturned scone than a community one half of whose number are too rich, and the other too poor? Or Hosea may refer to that unequal distribution of religion through life with which in other parts of his prophecy he reproaches Israel. They keep their religion, as Amos more fully tells us, for their temples, and neglect to carry its spirit into their daily business. Or he may refer to Israel’s politics, which were equally in want of thoroughness. They rushed hotly at an enterprise, but having expended so much fire in the beginning of it, they let the end drop cold and dead. Or he may wish to satirize, like Amos, Israel’s imperfect culture-the pretentious and overdone arts, stuck excrescence-wise upon the unrefined bulk of the nation, just as in many German principalities last century society took on a few French fashions in rough and exaggerated forms, while at heart still brutal and coarse. Hosea may mean any one of these things, for the figure suits all, and all spring from the same defect. Want of thoroughness and equable effort was Israel’s besetting sin, and it told on all sides of his life. How better describe a half-fed people, a half-cultured society, a half-lived religion, a half-hearted policy, than by a half-baked scone? We who are so proud of our political bakers, we who scorn the rapid revolutions of our neighbors and complacently dwell upon our equable ovens, those slow and cautious centuries of political development which lie behind us-have we anything better than our neighbors, anything better than Israel, to show in our civilization? Hosea’s epigram fits us to the letter. After all those ages of baking, society is still with us "an unturned scone": one end of the nation with the strength burnt out of it by too much enjoyment of life, the other with not enough of warmth to be quickened into anything like adequate vitality. No man can deny that this is so; we are able to live only by shutting our hearts to the fact. Or is religion equally distributed through the lives of the religious portion of our nation? Of late years religion has spread, and spread wonderfully, but of how many Christians is it still true that they are but half-baked-living a life one side of which is reeking with the smoke of sacrifice, while the other is never warmed by one religious thought. We may have too much religion if we confine it to one day or one department of life: our worship overdone, with the sap and the freshness burnt out of it, cindery, dusty, unattractive, fit only for crumbling; our conduct cold, damp, and heavy, like dough the fire has never reached. Upon the theme of these two epigrams the other verses of this chapter are variations. Has Ephraim mixed himself among the peoples? "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not," senselessly congratulating himself upon the increase of his trade and wealth, while he does not feel that these have sucked from him all his distinctive virtue. "Yea, grey hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knoweth it not." He makes his energy the measure of his life, as Isaiah also marked, { Hosea 9:9 f.} but sees not that it all means waste and decay. "The pride of Israel testifieth to his face, yet"-even when the pride of the nation is touched to the quick by such humiliating overtures as they make to both Assyria and Egypt-"they do not return to Jehovah their God, nor seek Him for all this." With virtue and single-hearted faith have disappeared intellect and the capacity for affairs. "Ephraim is become like a silly dove-a dove without heart," to the Hebrews the organ of the wits of a man-"they cry to Egypt, they go off to Assyria." Poor pigeon of a people, fluttering from one refuge to another! But "as they go I will throw over them My net, like a bird of the air I will bring them down. I will punish them as their congregation have heard"-this text as it stands: can only mean "in the manner I have publicly proclaimed in Israel." "Woe to them that they have strayed from Me! Damnation to them that they have rebelled against Me! While I would have redeemed them they spoke lies about Me. And they have never cried unto Me with their heart, but they keep howling from their beds for corn and new wine." No real repentance theirs, but some fear of drought and miscarriage of the harvests, a sensual and servile sorrow in which they wallow. They seek God with no heart, no true appreciation of what He is, but use the senseless means by which the heathen invoke their gods: "they cut themselves, and "so "apostatize from Me! And yet it was I who disciplined them, I strengthened their arm, but with regard to Me they kept thinking" only "evil!" So fickle and sensitive to fear, "they turn" indeed "but not upwards"; no Godward conversion theirs. In their repentance "they are like a bow which swerves" off upon some impulse of their ill-balanced natures. "Their princes must fall by the sword because of the bitterness"-we should have expected "falseness"-"of their tongue: this is their scorn in the land of Egypt!" To the allusion we have no key. With so false a people nothing can be done. Their doom is inevitable. So "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war." "To thy mouth with the trumpet! The Eagle is down upon the house of Jehovah!" Where the carcass is, there are the eagles gathered together. "For"-to sum up the whole crisis-"they have transgressed My covenant, and against My law have they rebelled. To Me they cry, My God, we know Thee, we Israeli" What does it matter? "Israel hath spurned the good: the Foe must pursue him." It is the same climax of inevitable war to which Amos led up his periods; and a new subject is now introduced. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.