Holy Bible

When Israel was a child. Hosea 11:1 The national unit Joseph Parker, D. D. The meaning is not, necessarily, when Israel was an infant, a child in mere years, but when Israel was a child in spirit, docile, simple of mind, sincere of purpose, true in worship. When Israel lifted his eyes heavenward, and sought for Me, then I stooped over him as a man might stoop over his child to lift him into his arms, and press him closely to his heart. There is a unit of the individual; let us take care lest we rest there, and so miss the ever-enlarging revelation of the Divine purpose in human history. There is not only a unit of the individual, there is a unit of the nation. Israel is here spoken of as if he were one man, a little child; though a million strong in population, yet there was in the million a unit. This is one aspect of Divine providence. We must not regard nations as if they ceased to have status and responsibility, name and destiny before God. A nation is one, a world is one, the universe is one. What does God know of our little divisions and distributions into pluralities and relationships? The nation may have a character. The Church is one, and has a reputation and influence. So we come upon the Divine handling of great occasions. The Lord is not fretted by details. All the details of His providence come out of and return to one great principle of redeeming Fatherhood. The locks are innumerable; the key is one, and it is in the Father's hand. Let Him hold it. ( Joseph Parker, D. D. ) God's love to us the pattern of our love to others G. C. Tomlinson. The leading topic of this chapter appears to be the calling of the people of Israel out of the prison-house of Egypt. It gives a gracious account of our heavenly Father's love, and a fearful picture of man's ingratitude. Under figures and emblems there is a lively representation of God's dealings with His redeemed ones — with the Israel that now is, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The call of Israel from Egypt, as typical of Christ and of His people, is our subject. It is typical of us, as we are called from sin to the holiness of the heavenly Canaan. I. GOD'S LOVE TO CHRIST, AS A CHILD, MANIFESTED TO US BY HIS CALLING HIM FROM EGYPT. In the fulness of time the beloved of the Father became flesh, and dwelt among us. But no sooner did He appear than His life was threatened. The child was borne for safety into Egypt. In due time Christ was called out of Egypt, brought again to the Holy Land, there to exercise His ministry and perform the will of God. II. GOD'S LOVE TO US, WHILST WE WERE YET AT A DISTANCE FROM HIM. We who are redeemed are loved with the self-same love with which God loved His only begotten Son. II. THE EFFECT WHICH THE POSSESSION OF THIS LOVE WILL NATURALLY PRODUCE IN OUR HEARTS. It will produce love to others. What should be the effect of God's love in our minds? A disinterested love to our fellow-creatures. Thus shall we have a scriptural evidence that we are of the spiritual Israel, whom God hath loved and called out of Egypt. ( G. C. Tomlinson. ) A typical portrait of a people Homilist. I. A HIGHLY FAVOURED PEOPLE. 1. God loved them. 2. God emancipated them. 3. God educated them. 4. God healed them. 5. God guided them. 6. God relieved them. 7. God fed them. II. A SIGNALLY UNGRATEFUL PEOPLE. 1. They disobeyed, God's teaching. 2. They gave themselves to idolatry. 3. They ignored God s kindness. 4. They persistently backslided. III. A RIGHTEOUSLY PUNISHED PEOPLE. The judgment would be — 1. Extensive; and 2. It should continue; and 3. It should be destructive.Is not this history of this people typical? Do not they represent especi ally the peoples of modern Christendom, highly favoured of God, signally ungrateful to God, and exposed to punishment from God? ( Homilist. ) Backsliding George Hutcheson. 1. This is the great sin of the visible Church, to which she hath a strong inclination naturally, even in her best frame. 2. Men's hanging sometimes in suspense, and having some inclinations to return, will neither double out their point against the power of corruption within them, nor will it extenuate their backsliding. 3. The great backsliding of God's people is their backsliding from God and communion with Him; which draweth on all other apostasies and defections. 4. It is of the Lord's great mercy that He ceaseth not to follow backsliders with messages from His Word. ( George Hutcheson. ) A fivefold view of God's love A. Clayton Thiselton. 1. It is adopting love. God loved Israel in Egypt, Israel in captivity, Israel among the brick-kilns, and called him "His son." It is by no merit or righteousness of our own that we are made sons of God. We become children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. God's love is adopting love. God delights in adopting children, and giving them the spirit of adoption, and taking them to the home of the ransomed family. 2. It is a tender love. The Lord describes the manner of a mother teaching her babe to walk. "I taught Ephraim to go." The Omnipotent became as a nurse to Israel. When difficulties arose He bore him in His arms as a man doth bear his little child. And the heavenly Father is ever the same. 3. His inviting love. "Called My son out of Egypt." We know how cruel Pharaoh was, and how hard were his taskmasters. But there was One who loved them, who said, "I have heard their cry, and have come down to help them." His fiery cloudy pillar was the symbol of his inviting love. 4. It is weeping love. God mourns over their iniquities. God's love as weeping love was displayed by "The Man of Sorrows," whose grief was for the hardness of men's hearts, and whose hot tears over Jerusalem were because she knew not the things which belonged to her peace. 5. His incarnate love. "The cords of a man." Incarnate love is the magnet by which souls are drawn to God. "The Word was made flesh" begins the story of redemption. Christ became man, to stand in man's place and deal with God in man's behalf, and to be able to enter into our feelings and fears as a merciful and compassionate High Priest. ( A. Clayton Thiselton. ) Mingled severity and mercy Jeremiah Burroughs. The scope of this chapter is to clear God from severity, and to upbraid Israel for ungrateful and stubborn carriage, against mercies and means, and yet to promise mercy to the remnant, to His elect ones. At the close of the preceding chapter there were dreadful threatenings against Israel, that the mothers should be dashed in pieces upon their children, and the king utterly cut off. But does not this argue God to be a God of rigid severity? Where is the mercy, goodness, and clemency of God towards His people? God says, "For all this I am a God of mercy and goodness, for I have manifested abundance of mercy already, and am ready still to manifest more; but you have been a stubborn and a stout-hearted people against Me." From this general scope observe — 1. God stands much upon the clearing of Himself to be a God of love and mercy. Whatsoever becomes of the wicked, yet God will make it clear before all the world that He is a God of much mercy. God takes it very ill that we should have any hard thoughts of Him; let us not be ready to entertain such thoughts of God, as if He were a hard master. "When Israel was a child." That is, at his first beginning to be a people, in his young time, My heart was towards him. When he knew little of Me. When he could do little for Me. When there was much vanity and folly in him, as there are generally in children. When he was helpless and succourless, and knew not how to provide for himself. The love of God to Israel is expressed in these three particulars.(1) God "entered into a covenant" with him.(2) "Thou becamest Mine," that is, I had separated thee for Myself, and took thee for a peculiar one to Me, and intended special mercy and goodness to thee.(3) I confirmed all this by an oath, "I sware unto thee." Observe — 2. It is the privilege of the Church and of the saints to be beloved of God. God loves His people; this is their privilege, He loves them with a special love. 3. It is a great aggravation to sin, to sin against love. 4. It is very useful to call to mind God's old love. 5. All God's old mercies remain engagements to duty and aggravations to sin. 6. Let not our hearts sink in despairing thoughts, though we see that we are able to do but little for God, and though we are unworthy of His love. 7. God's love begins betimes to His people; let not His people's love be deferred too long. ( Jeremiah Burroughs. ) God's love for the Church George Hutcheson. 1. God's love to the Church is her first and great privilege, which prevents her in her lowest condition, when she is unworthy and base. When Israel was a child, witless and worthless, then I loved him. And this is the fountain of all God's bounty to him. 2. The Lord will make His love to His people conspicuous in their preservation in a low condition, and under much trouble, when He seeth it not fit to deliver them from it. 3. The Lord also will magnify His deliverance from trouble and bondage, not only spiritual, but outward also, in so far as is for their good. 3. As the Lord doth ofttimes manifest His love, and put special honour on His people, by putting them to sufferings and trouble, so He will specially make His delivering of them proclaim His love and estimation of them, and His peculiar interest in them. ( George Hutcheson. ) And called My son out of Egypt James Hastings, M. A. "And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, even My first-born; and I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me." On these words Hosea's reference rests. The people of Israel are to God as a son to a father; even as a first-born son. That is why He has come down to deliver them. We speak of the "purposes" of God, as though God had formed some complex schemes at an early period in the world's history, and now He must work these schemes out. But the God of the Bible is no scheme-maker. He is a Father — we are His sons. It is Israel's cry that has brought Jehovah down to deliver them. He is the Father of the fatherless. He hears the cry of the afflicted. But though God is moved by love, He does all things in order. He pities His people before their cry has ascended to Him; but He waits for that cry before He comes down to deliver them. For He will not deliver the unwilling or the proud. So He waits. And He came to the right person. He will do His work by means of a man, and He knows the man to do it. Moses brought Israel out of Egypt. Jehovah, that is the name of Israel's Father and Deliverer. "I am that I am" is practically the translation of Jehovah. It is a somewhat cold name to us, because we know the tenderer name of Father. Hosea's reference looks forward as well as backward; it looks before and after. Hosea saw that his words had a fuller meaning than could be filled by the people of Israel. He saw that they carried a promise which had not been performed even in his day. Like Abraham, he saw Christ's day afar off, and was glad. ( James Hastings, M. A. ) The flight into Egypt G. D. Boardman. How can Matthew speak of these words as a prophecy, and of the sojourn of the Divine babe in Egypt as a fulfilment of their prophecy? It has been said that Matthew uses Hosea's words, so to speak, rhetorically or classically, declaring that the story of the infant Jesus in Egypt was a fine instance of Hosea's saying. Or it may be answered that the literal Israel was the type of the spiritual Israel. At all events, the Divine Man was Himself the true, ideal Israel, and as such Jehovah did call Him when a child out of Egypt. Once more, it may be answered, in a more general way, that the present is ever the fruit of the past and the seed of the future. Events are born of events, as successive parts of plants are born of preceding parts; the parts are different, but they are radically only repetitions of the original seed. History repeats itself. The historic is ever the prophetic. Particularly is it true in a case of special Divine election, like that of the Jewish nation, that history will be prophecy. The fulfilments of the prophetic Scriptures, like waves of the sea, are ever-multiplying and enlarging concentric circles. And Jesus Christ is evermore the final and crowning fulfilment. The Divine Man is the universal pleroma — alike the radiant point and the circumference of all things. As God called out of Egypt His son, so out of Egypt does He call His Church. It was literally true of some of the most eminent of the fathers, — , , , . It is spiritually true of all God's people. ( G. D. Boardman. ) They sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. Hosea 11:2 Graven images Bishop Horsley. We read frequently of graven images and of molten images, and the words are become so familiar as names of idolatrous images that, although they axe not well chosen to express the Hebrew names, it seems not advisable to change them for others that might more exactly correspond with the original. The graven imago was not a thing wrought in metal by the tool of the workman we should now call an engraver; nor was the molten image an image made of metals or any ether substance, melted and shaped in a mould. In fact, the graven image and the molten image are the same thing under different names. The images of the ancient idolaters were first cut out of wood by the carpenter, as is very evident from the prophet Isaiah. This figure of wood was overlaid with plates either of gold or silver, or sometimes perhaps of an inferior metal, and in this finished state it was called a graven image ( i.e ., a carved image), in reference to the inner solid figure of wood, and a molten ( i.e. , an overlaid or covered) image, in reference to the outer metalline case or cover. Sometimes both epithets are applied to it at once ( Nahum 1:14 ; Habakkuk 2:18 ). The English word molten conveys a notion of melting or fusion. But this is not the case with the Hebrew word for which it is given. The Hebrew signifies to spread, or cover all over, either by pouring forth a substance in fusion, or in spreading a cloth over or before, or by hammering on metalline plates. ( Bishop Horsley. ) I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms. Hosea 11:3 Taken by the arm W. Grant. When God redeems and shelters His people by the blood of the Paschal Lamb, — i.e ., of Christ our Passover sacrificed for us — and gives them His law, telling them to serve Him, He does not leave them to their own strength, but gives them power to do what He bids them: He teaches them how to go, taking them, as a nurse would, by the arms. Our obedience is not the cause which procures or awakens God's love to us, but His love is the cause that procures and awakens our obedience. The text tells us what God is doing for the true disciples of Jesus, and how God undertakes to teach them how to go. "Taking them by the arms." As a nurse teaches a helpless child to walk, He invites us to rely upon His strength and watchful care. He knows our weakness. The thought may be illustrated by Deuteronomy 32:11 . In this life we cannot go without the support of Christ; but there are different ways in which He gives this to His people. At first He teaches them to fight against their own evil passions, to resist their own wayward wills, to quench their fiery temptations. But soon they pass onward. The new nature moves, stirs, waxes stronger, grows; the old decays. At first He leads, He guides them against their will, then without it, and it is a happy day when their will cheerfully goes along with His; then they are taught to go. ( W. Grant. ) But they knew not that I healed them. — Unrecognised blessings D. Davies. Two different types of ignorance in relation to two different methods of Divine dealings. Look — 1. At the words uttered by the Lord to Cyrus, the Persian king — "I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me" ( Isaiah 45:5 ). From these words we learn that while God uses His own people for a gracious purpose, they are not the only people that He uses for the furtherance of His designs. He places men in high positions, and by their instrumentality He often brings about the fulfilment of His own purpose, though they themselves have had no conscious part in the accomplishment of such a glorious end. 2. Our text points to a very different dealing, namely, God's .treatment of the Jewish people. The ignorance of Cyrus, as a heathen, was not the culpable thing that ignorance of God on the part of any king of Israel or Judah would have been. God had granted Israel a special revelation, and admitted them into an exceptional relationship with Himself as His people. Notwithstanding all God's goodness to Israel, Hosea says, in God's name, "They knew not that I healed them." Thus we have two types of ignorance. That of the man who has never been brought under godly influence; and the wilful ignorance of those who sin against the light, and in spite of gracious influences. The latter is the only ignorance possible to us. The surprising thing about Israel was that they could be so ignorant of God's goodness after all that He had done for them. Knowledge of God they had, but it had formed no part of their being, had not permeated their character and life, and had not given a bent to their conduct. Their attitude Godward was atheistic. They talked flippantly enough about their history, but there was no gratitude in the heart that would mould and fashion life into submissive obedience to the law of God. Thus their ignorance was all the worse for being so wilful and persistent. "Ye are weary of Me," exclaimed God to them. I know of no charge more pathetic than that. This ignorance is the result of the blinding power of a sinful passion; an ignorance which will not let a man know the truth because he is too closely wedded to his evil. ( D. Davies. ) I drew them with cords of a man. Hosea 11:4 God's saving method with the soul W. A. Perrins. I. GOD IN THE ACTION OF GREAT SOLICITUDE. "I drew them." There are two ways by which this thought is confirmed — 1. By Scripture. 2. By experience.God is represented in the Song of Solomon as drawing us with the odour of a great ointment. II. GOD DRAWING MAN THROUGH THE PRINCIPLE OF HUMAN AGENCY — "Cords of a man." 1. God did this in the use of the prophets. 2. God did this in the Person of Christ. 3. God is now doing this in the Christian ministry. III. GOD DRAWING MAN THROUGH THE PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS: "With hands of love." 1. There is the voice of the inner life, — telling of wrong, and pointing to right and duty. 2. There is the agency of the Holy Spirit, — pointing to holy decisions. Dr. Doddridge once said to his daughter, "My dear, how is it that everybody seems to love you?" She answered, "I do not know, papa, — unless it is that I love everybody." Jesus loves us. Shall we not love Him? ( W. A. Perrins. ) God's redemptive agency Homilist. I. THE UNCOERCIVENESS OF HIS REDEMPTIVE AGENCY. He draws, not drives. This Divine mode of action implies two things — 1. That God respects the moral freedom of human nature. He has endowed us with moral agency. We have a consciousness of freedom which defies and spurns all the logic that would prove us slaves. The Holy Father treats us according to the natures He has given us. God neither condemns nor saves men contrary to their own will. 2. That God's moral power in the Gospel is extraordinarily great.(1) It is a power to draw souls. Brute force can only drive bodies. Mere might has no magnetism for the soul. There is a moral power, the power of anger, falsehood, disgusting immorality, that can drive souls away — repel them with disgust. But holy moral power alone can draw the entire soul.(2) It is a power to draw depraved souls. It is something therefore extraordinary — greater than the moral power of nature. It is the power of infinite love, embodied in the life of Christ. II. THE HUMANITY OF GOD'S REDEMPTIVE AGENCY. It is by a man's intellect, heart, life, example, influence that he draws. God saves man by man. 1. The reasonable draws man. God appeals to our reason through man. 2. The merciful draws man. God appeals to our gratitude through man. 3. The excellent draws man. 4. The desirable draws man. ( Homilist. ) The place of love in the Gospel C. J. Vaughan, D. D. It is God who speaks of the humanity of His treatment of us. When a man would influence, he must begin by loving. Few can resist that spell. I need not tell any one how mighty, how almighty, in a man's being is the force of love. There are not two definitions of love, though it has many modifications. The symptoms common to all loving are delight in presence, impatience of absence, eagerness for reciprocity, intolerance of coldness, joy in exchange of thought, sympathy in each change of circumstance; delight in the opportunity of benefiting, and corroding grief in the prohibition of intercourse. We have claimed for hope — we have claimed even for fear — a place in the Gospel. Can it be needful to do the same for love? Yet there may be some comparative, if not positive, disparagement of this grace. I have heard men speak slightingly of Gospel love. They judge it better, on the whole, for the character of Christ's Gospel, that in its central' innermost shrine the Deity of deities should be rather obedience than love. Thus, in improving Christ's Gospel, they spoilt, marred, ruined it. I. THE GOSPEL IS A REVELATION OF LOVE. Herein lies its power, the secret of its strength. It reveals the love of God. That God loves virtue, and will compensate and make up for the sufferings of the good, is a tenet which needs not a revelation. But that God loves all men, even the sinner, is that quite right? Must there not be something here not altogether sound in doctrine, because not altogether conducive to morality and good? The Gospel risks this perversion. It refers us to Christ. Did Christ's example, did Christ's life, encourage or favour sin? There is, in the immeasurable love of God, room for all His creatures. There is a yearning of soul over the scattered, dispersed, erring, and straying race. He loves, therefore He pleads. The whole secret of the drawing lies in the spontaneity of the love. Tell a man, — "Seek God, and He will be found of you," — and you waste words. Tell him — "God loves you as you are. God has come after you, with far-reaching endeavour." He will find there is strength in that which will not, cannot, be resisted. II. THERE IS AN INVITATION OF LOVE. There is something always pathetic, to the unsophisticated ear, in the petition of love. The outcries of barren, thirsting affection waste themselves oftentimes upon the desert. And yet there was a love for them, would they but have had it, a love better than of son or daughter, better than of wife or husband, a love indestructible, satisfying, eternal. It is permitted to you to love God. Ought not that to be joy enough and privilege enough for any man? God makes it religion to do the thing which will make us happy; and therefore He turns the invitation into the injunction of love, and bids the fallen self-ruined creature just love and be happy — just love and be saved. III. THERE IS A COMMUNICATION, OR TRANSMISSION, OF LOVE. He who has been loved, and therefore loves, is bidden by that love of God to love his brother also; and then, in that transmission, that handing on of the love, the whole of the Gospel — its precept as its comfort — is in deed and in truth perfected. Little, indeed, do they know of the power of the Gospel who think either that obedience will replace the love of God, or duty be a substitute for the love of man. Christ teaches us that both towards God and towards man love goes first and duty follows after. Not, indeed, that we are idly to wait for the feeling, and excuse the not doing on the plea of not loving. There is such a thing as worshipping because I desire to love. So there is such a thing as doing good to my brother, if so be I may love him; a setting myself to every office of patient and self-denying charity, if by any means it may at last become not a labour but a love to me. But how can we love the unlovely? Surely whosoever sees with the eye of Christ, can discern, if he will look for it, on the most tarnished, debased, defaced coin of humanity, that Divine image and superscription in which God created, and for the sake of which Christ thought it no waste to redeem. This is love's place in Christ's Gospel. Love revealed, love reciprocated, then love handed on. ( C. J. Vaughan, D. D. ) Good Friday Archbishop Temple. This is not a day for difficult doctrines, but for the simplest and humblest feelings. The great work of this day is quite beyond, the reach of our understanding. The appeal is not made to our understanding, nor even directly to our conscience. With the cords of a man we are drawn. The human affections which all men share, the feelings which even the poorest, the meanest, the most ignorant partake in, the pity, the tenderness, the love that can only be called forth by love, these are now the cords by which our Father draws us, the cords of a man. To the heart that loves like a child, to the sinner deeply laden with his burden of unhappiness, to the broken spirit that secretly longs to escape from fetters which it is powerless to break, to the soul that is ready to despair, this Gospel speaks, and tells of hope, and love, and eagerness to forgive, and embracing arms, and falling on the neck, and tears of joy, and the welcome of the prodigal son. We cannot study here. We can but surrender our hearts to the love which is too much for them to contain. We are sometimes cold and dead. There are times when our feelings towards God seem to lose their warmth. We can obey and do, but we feel like servants, not like children, and we are unhappy because we cannot rouse any warmer feelings in ourselves. And when this is so, where can we go but to the Cross of Christ? Perhaps under a decent exterior we hide some sinful habit which has long been eating into our souls. It is possible that we may be discharging every duty as far as human eyes behold us. Yet time after time the temptation has proved too strong, or we have been found too weak. Our besetting sin has clung to us, and we cannot get rid of it. Then let us once more turn to God, and gaze upon the Cross of Christ. Or perhaps we have never striven to serve God at all. We have lived as best suited the society in which we were, as most conduced to our own pleasures. Whenever the thought of God or conscience comes across us, we find that but a dull subject to think on, and we turn to pleasanter and more exciting themes. What then shall warm our hearts but this plain story of sadness? If we have human feelings still left us, and sympathy can yet touch our souls, it will be impossible to read of the Cross of Christ without emotion. ( Archbishop Temple. ) God's gracious dealings Jeremiah Burroughs. I. I DEALT WITH THEM RATIONALLY, AS MEN, NOT AS BEASTS. 1. My statutes were according to right reason. 2. They were supported by many arguments. 3. And by persuasions, motives, and exhortations. II. I DEALT WITH THEM GENTLY, NOT WITH RIGOUR AND VIOLENCE. 1. Suiting Myself to their dispositions. 2. Dealing with them when they were in their best temper. 3. Giving them time to consider. III. I DEALT WITH THEM HONOURABLY, IN A MANNER SUITABLE TO THAT RESPECT WHICH IS DUE TO MAN. 1. My instructions ever exceeded My corrections. 2. Whatever spark of ingenuousness remained in them, I took care to preserve it. 3. I aimed at their good, as well as My own glory, in all things. ( Jeremiah Burroughs. ) Silken cord s: — No man ever does come to God unless he is drawn. Man is so utterly "dead in trespasses and sins" that the same Divine power which provided a Saviour must make him willing to accept a Saviour. But many make a mistake about Divine drawings. They seem to fancy that when the time comes, they will, by some irresistible power, without any exercise of thought or reasoning, be compelled to be saved. But no man can make another man lay hold of Christ. Nay, God Himself does not do it by compulsion. He hath respect unto man as a reasoning creature. Love is the power that acts upon men. God draweth no man contrary to the constitution of man, but His methods of drawing are in strict accordance with mental operations. 1. Some are drawn to Christ by seeing the happiness of true believers. 2. Another cord of love is the sense of the security of God's people, and a desire to be as secure as they. 3. Some will tell you they were first drawn to Christ by the holiness of godly relatives. 4. Not a few are brought to Christ by gratitude for mercies received. 5. Some have been caught by becoming convinced that the religion of Christ is the most reason. able religion in the world. 6. A far larger number, however, are attracted to Jesus by a sense of His exceeding great love. 7. The privileges which a Christian enjoys ought to draw some of you to Christ. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) God's goodness to His people William Jay. Let us see what this goodness did for Israel, and what it does still for God's people. Three leading articles. I. ATTRACTION. "I drew them." God attracted the Jews to Himself as their Lord and portion by conviction and affection. The attraction is to Him as well as by Him. In pushing and driving you urge a thing from you; but in drawing it you bring it towards you. God's aim is to bring us to Himself. This aim regards the state that we are previously in — a state of distance and alienation from Him. As in this state we see his sin, so we equally see his misery, for with God is the fountain of life, and we can never be happy save as we are near Him. Look at the manner in which this attraction is accomplished. "With the cords of a man." That Is — 1. "Rationally. Hence religion is called a reasonable service." 2. Affectionately. Love is the supreme attraction. There are four heads of goodness which are peculiarly attractive and powerful. (1) Unreserved kindness is very attractive. So is (2) Disinterested kindness. And (3) Magnanimous kindness. And (4) Costly and expensive kindness. II. PROVISION. "I laid meat unto them." Meat means food generally. To show the plenitude and riches of the Gospel provision it is represented in the Scriptures by a feast. The provision is found in the Scriptures. It is "laid unto you in the preaching of the Gospel." III. EMANCIPATION. He takes off the yoke from our jaws. What yoke? 1. The yoke of Judaism. 2. Of popery. 3. Of persecution. 4. Of bigotry. 5. Of ignorance. ( William Jay. ) Drawn heavenwards J. A. Gordon, D. D. A weeping willow stood by the side of a pond, and in the direction of that pond it hung out its pensive-looking branches. An attempt was made to give a different direction to these branches. The attempt was useless; where the water lay, thither the boughs would turn. However an expedient presented itself. A large pond was dug on the other side of the tree, and as soon as the greater quantity of water was found there, the tree of its own accord bent its branches in that direction. What a clear illustration of the laws which govern the human heart. It turns to the water — the poisoned waters of sin, perhaps — but the only streams with which it is acquainted. Remonstrate with it, and your remonstrances are vain. It knows no better joys than those of earth, and to them it obstinately clings. But open to its apprehension fuller streams, heavenly water; show to it some better thing, some more satisfying joys; and then it is content to abandon what it once worshipped, and turns its yearning affections heavenward. ( J. A. Gordon, D. D. ) My people are bent to backsliding from Me. Hosea 11:7 Religious declension E. Strong. How singular is the moral condition of a believer bent on backsliding. It is not a mere vacillation between God and mammon, holiness and sin, but a steady leaning, an earnest leaning toward the latter. I. WHO ARE THEY WHO ARE BENT ON BACKSLIDING? 1. The first mark is a neglect of secret and family prayer. The neglect of one kind of prayer usually follows neglect of the other kind. 2. Habitual neglect of the Bible. Whoever walks closely with God takes delight in His Word. It is a bad sign when the Scriptures are read only from a conviction of duty. 3. Backwardness or reluctance in efforts to do good. Does a civil, political, or pecuniary enterprise awaken an energy and zeal which you never evince for the Saviour's cause? If so, what does it indicate? 4. The undervaluing of religious ordinances. Lightly to esteem the house of God, its praises, pr

Benson Commentary Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. Hosea 11:1 . When Israel was a child, &c. — “The Israel of this chapter is the whole people, composed of the two branches, Judah and the ten tribes. But the house of Israel is the kingdom of the ten tribes, as distinct from the other branch.” — Horsley. By the time of Israel’s childhood is meant the patriarchal age, and the time of their continuance under the Egyptian bondage. Then I loved him — Manifested a tender and paternal affection to him, increasing him in numbers, wealth, and honour. And called my son out of Egypt — Namely, by Moses, whom God commanded to acquaint the Israelites that they must remove out of Egypt. Israel is called God’s son, and his firstborn, Exodus 4:22-23 ; and therein was an eminent figure of the Messiah, in whom all God’s promises were fulfilled. This prophecy, therefore, is applied by St. Matthew 2:15 , to our Lord’s return out of Egypt, after his being taken thither by his parents in his infancy, and kept there some time for fear of Herod. And the strict, literal sense of the words, more properly belongs to him than to Israel. And this is observable in many other prophecies, which can but improperly be applied to those of whom they were at first spoken; and, taking them in their strict, literal sense, are only fulfilled in Christ: see particularly Psalm 22:16 ; Psalm 22:18 . “Although the son,” says Bishop Horsley, “here immediately meant, is the natural Israel, called out of Egypt by Moses and Aaron; there can be no doubt that an allusion was intended by the Holy Spirit to the call of the infant Christ out of the same country. In reference to this event, the passage might be thus paraphrased: ‘God in such sort set his affection upon the Israelites, in the infancy of their nation, that, so early as from their first settlement in Egypt, the arrangement was declared of the descent of the Messiah from Judah, and of the calling of that son from Egypt.’” Hosea 11:2 As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. Hosea 11:2 . As they called them, so, &c. — Or, The more they called them, or, they were called, so much the more they went from him; that is, the more earnestly the prophets called upon them to cleave steadfastly to the true God, (see Hosea 11:7 ,) the more they were bent to depart from him to the worship of idols. They sacrificed to Baalim — See note on Hosea 2:13 . And burned incense to graven images — “We read frequently, in our English Bibles, of graven images, and of molten images. And the words are become so familiar, as names of idolatrous images, that, although they are not well chosen to express the Hebrew names, it seems not advisable to change them for others, that might more exactly correspond with the original. The graven image was not a thing wrought in metal by the tool of the workman we should now call an engraver; nor was the molten image an image made of metal, or any other substance melted, and shaped in a mould. In fact, the graven image and the molten image are the same thing under different names. The images of the ancient idolaters were first cut out of wood by the carpenter, as is very evident from the Prophet Isaiah. The figure of wood was overlaid with plates, either of gold or silver, or sometimes, perhaps, of an inferior metal. And in this finished state it was called a graven image, (that is, a carved image,) in reference to the inner solid figure of wood, and a molten (that is, an overlaid, or covered) image in reference to the outer metalline case, or covering. And sometimes both epithets are applied to it at once:” see Nahum 1:14 ; Habakkuk 2:18 , and Bishop Horsley. Hosea 11:3 I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. Hosea 11:3-4 . I taught Ephraim also to go — Hebrew, ?????? ?????? , I directed the feet of Ephraim. In this time of Ephraim’s childhood, I supported and directed his steps, as a mother or nurse those of a child whom she is teaching to walk. Taking them by their arms — To guide them, that they might not stray from the right way; and to hold them up, that they might not stumble and fall: see notes on Deuteronomy 1:31 ; Deuteronomy 32:11-12 ; Isaiah 63. Thus did God deal with Israel in the wilderness; and thus he directs and supports the steps of his spiritual Israel, amidst all their difficulties and dangers. But they knew not that I healed them — They did not acknowledge this my care over, and kindness to, them. I drew them with cords of a man — I made use of those means of drawing them to myself, which were most proper to work upon them as creatures possessed of understanding and affection. The explanation in the Chaldee is just and beautiful: “As beloved children are drawn, I drew them by the strength of love.” And I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws — Or rather, on their cheek. As a careful husbandman, in due season, takes the yoke from his labouring oxen, and takes off the muzzle with which they were kept from eating when at work; so compassionately did I give relief to, and provide sustenance for Israel. I laid meat unto them — Brought them provision in their wants. God seems here to allude to the manna and quails which he provided for his people in the wilderness. Hosea 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. Hosea 11:5 He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return. Hosea 11:5-6 . He shall not return into the land of Egypt — They were desirous of making their escape thither, and many families perhaps effected it: see note on Hosea 9:6 . But it is here threatened, that the nation in a body should not be permitted so to escape. But the Assyrian shall be his king — They shall be wholly in the power of the king of Assyria, and be carried away captive into his dominions; because they refused to return — Namely, to the true worship of God, and obedience to his laws, notwithstanding the many calls, reproofs, admonitions, and exhortations given them by the prophets. Their obstinacy in idolatry is the cause of all the calamities coming upon them. And the sword shall abide on his cities — His cities shall be destroyed by the conqueror’s sword; and shall consume his branches — The lesser towns and villages. Thus the word ???? is expounded, in a marginal note of the Bishops’ Bible. It often means the arms, or principal branches, of a great tree, and is twice translated staves, Exodus 27:6 . In this place some interpreters render it bars; and Abarbanel expounds it of the strong and valiant men of the nation, observing, that the chief branches of the people in a kingdom are the valiant men. Rabbi Tanchum explains it of their children; the branches, as he observes, springing from their fathers. The word, however, also signifies lies, and is so rendered Isaiah 16:6 , and Jeremiah 48:30 . Bishop Horsley translates it diviners, deriving it from ??? , he was solitary, because they affected a solitary, ascetic life; a sense which he thinks, of all others, most apposite to the context. He acknowledges, however, that to render it branches, limbs, or bars, is admissible, and may very well suit the place. Hosea 11:6 And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them , because of their own counsels. Hosea 11:7 And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt him . Hosea 11:7 . My people are bent to backsliding from me — Many versions render this clause, Nevertheless, my people are in suspense (or hesitate) about returning to me; though they called them to the Most High — Though my prophets, and other pious persons, invited and exhorted them to return to my worship and service; none at all would exalt him — Scarce any would hearken and obey. The word him not being in the Hebrew, some versions read, None would raise himself up, or advance; that is, come forward to obey and serve me. Hosea 11:8 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. Hosea 11:8-9 . How shall I give thee up, Ephraim — To utter destruction? God’s mercy is here pathetically described as contending with his justice, to show that he does not willingly destroy, or even afflict, or grieve, the children of men, Lamentations 3:33 . How shall I make thee as Admah? &c. — How shall I give thee up to a perpetual desolation? Admah and Zeboim were two cities which were wholly destroyed, together with Sodom and Gomorrah. My heart is turned within me — Or, upon me; so Horsley. My repentings are kindled together — Not that God is ever fluctuating or unresolved; but these are expressions after the manner of men, to show what severity Israel had deserved, and yet how divine grace would be glorified in sparing them. Thus God’s compassion toward sinners is elsewhere expressed by the sounding, or yearning, of his bowels, Isaiah 63:15 ; Jeremiah 31:20 ; a metaphor taken from the natural affection which parents have for their children. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger — I will not punish to the utmost strictness of justice; I will not return to destroy Ephraim — I will not carry it so far as to make a second destruction of Ephraim; so as to cut off those who escaped the first infliction of my punishments, and thereby wholly destroy them. Conquerors, that plunder a conquered city, carry away the wealth of it, and, after some time, often return to burn it. God will not thus utterly destroy Israel. For I am God, and not man — Therefore my compassions fail not; the Holy One in the midst of thee — A holy God, and in covenant, though not with all, yet with many among you, and present with you to preserve a remnant to be my faithful servants. And I will not enter into the city — As an enraged enemy to destroy your cities, as I did Sodom. Hosea 11:9 I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city. Hosea 11:10 They shall walk after the LORD: he shall roar like a lion: when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west. Hosea 11:10-11 . They shall walk after the Lord — The remnant shall hearken to God’s call, and shall comply with his commands, when he shall convert them by the powerful preaching of his gospel, and the efficacious influence of his grace. He shall roar like a lion — That is, he will show terrible signs of his anger, and then they will fear and obey him. God’s voice is elsewhere compared to the roaring of a lion, because of the terror which accompanies it: see the margin. The Chaldee says, The word of the Lord shall roar as a lion, and the words may be interpreted of the powerful voice of the gospel, sent forth, and sounding all over the world, and calling sinners to repentance. “The most learned commentators agree,” says Bishop Horsley, “that this roaring of the lion is the sound of the gospel; and that the subject of this and the following verse is, its promulgation and progress, the conversion of the Gentiles, and the final restoration of the Jews. ‘Clara et maxima voce predicabit evangelium,’ With a loud and most powerful voice shall he preach the gospel, says Piscator. And to the same effect Rivetus and Bochart. As a lion, by its roaring, calls animals of its own kind to a participation of the prey; so Christ, by the powerful voice of the gospel, shall call all nations to the fellowship of eternal life. — Livelye. The preaching of the gospel, reaching the remotest corners of the earth, is frequently represented under the image of the loudest sounds. And this loudness of the sound alone might justify the figure of the roaring lion. But a greater propriety of the figure will appear, if we recollect, that the first demonstrations of mercy to the faithful will be, the judgments executed on the anti-christian persecutors; to whom the sound of the gospel will be a sound of terror.” When he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west — The word ????? , rendered, shall tremble, describes the motion which a bird makes with its wings when it flies. Dr. Waterland renders it, shall come fluttering, and Bishop Horsley, shall hurry. The primary sense of the passage may be, that at this efficacious call of God, the remnant of Israel, who shall be accounted his children, and heirs of the promises made to their fathers, shall come in haste from the several places of their dispersions, and particularly from the western parts of the world, (see Zechariah 8:7 ,) called the sea in the original, and expressed in Isaiah by the islands of the sea: see Isaiah 11:11 ; Isaiah 24:14 . They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt — That is, fly with haste, as above. As a dove out of the land of Assyria — Great numbers of the Jews were exiles in Egypt and Assyria; and therefore, when the restoration of the Jews is spoken of, Egypt and Assyria are mentioned as countries from whence a great number of them should return. And I will place them in their houses — I will bring them back to their own country and habitations, like as the stork returns to her nest, and the dove to the dove-cot. This prophecy may be considered as receiving its completion in part when some of the Israelites, being recovered to the worship of the true God, returned to Judea with the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, brought back to their own land from their captivity in Babylon. But the full accomplishment of it will not take place till the latter days, when the fulness of the Gentiles being brought in by the preaching of the gospel, all Israel shall be saved. Thus Bishop Horsley. These verses “contain a wonderful prophecy of the promulgation and progress of the gospel, and the restoration of the race of Israel. The first clause of the tenth verse states generally that they shall be brought to repentance. In what follows, the circumstances and progress of the business are described. First, Jehovah shall roar; the roaring is unquestionably the sound of the gospel. Jehovah himself shall roar; the sound shall begin to be uttered by the voice of the incarnate God himself. The first effect shall be, that children shall come fluttering from the west; a new race of children, converts of the Gentiles.” For, “it is remarkable, that the expression is neither their children, nor my children, but simply children. The first would limit the discourse to the natural Israel exclusively; the second would be nearly of the same effect, as it would express such as were already children at the time of the roaring. But the word children, put nakedly, without either of these epithets, expresses those who were neither of the natural Israel, nor children at the time of the roaring, but were roused by that sound, and then became children, that is, adopted children, by natural extraction Gentiles.” These shall come “chiefly from the western quarters of the world, or what the Scriptures call the west; for no part, I think, of Asia Minor, Syria, or Palestine, is reckoned a part of the east, in the language of the Old Testament. Afterward the natural Israel shall hurry from all the regions of their dispersion, and be settled in their own dwellings. It is to be observed that the roaring is mentioned twice. It will be most consistent with the style of the prophets to take this as two roarings; and to refer the hurrying of the children from the west to the first, the hurrying from Egypt and Assyria to the second. The times of the two roarings are, the first and second advent. The first brought children from the west; the renewed preaching of the gospel, at the second, will bring home the Jews. And perhaps this second sounding of the gospel may be, more remarkably even than the first, a roaring of Jehovah in person.” With this verse the chapter is closed in the Hebrew text and the Syriac version, and the following verse is given to the next chapter. But the division of the LXX., Vulgate, and Chaldee, which our public translation follows, seems preferable. Hosea 11:11 They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria: and I will place them in their houses, saith the LORD. Hosea 11:12 Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints. Hosea 11:12 . Ephraim compasseth me about with lies — Ephraim and Israel are hypocrites; they promise much and perform nothing; they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. But Judah yet ruleth with God — Judah kept close to that kingly government which God had settled in David’s family, and faithfully observed those ordinances which God had given to his people, here termed saints, as they are also Deuteronomy 33:3 ; and else where a holy nation, and peculiar people. This seems to relate to the times of Hezekiah, who restored the pure worship of God in Judah; at which time the ten tribes were flagrantly wicked, and wholly addicted to an idolatrous worship. Instead of saints, Bishop Horsley reads, holy ones, and interprets the expression of the persons of the Trinity. His translation of the verse is, “Ephraim hath compassed me about with treachery, and the house of Israel with deceit. But Judah shall yet obtain dominion with God, and shall be established with the holy ones.” He considers the expression, shall obtain dominion, &c., as “a promissory allusion to a final restoration of the Jewish monarchy;” and the remaining clause, shall be established, &c., as signifying “either the constancy of Judah’s fidelity to the Holy Ones, or the firmness of the support which he shall receive from them.” And he thinks that “by the use of this plural word, Holy Ones, the prophecy clearly points to the conversion of the Jewish people to the Christian faith.” Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. THE FATHERHOOD AND HUMANITY OF GOD Hosea 11:1-12 FROM the thick jungle of Hosea’s travail, the eleventh chapter breaks like a high and open mound. The prophet enjoys the first of his two clear visions-that of the past. Judgment continues to descend. Israel’s sun is near his setting, but before he sinks- "A lingering light he fondly throws On the dear hills, whence first he rose." Across these confused and vicious years, through which he has painfully made his way, Hosea sees the tenderness and the romance of the early history of his people. And although he must strike the old despairing note-that, by the insincerity of the present generation, all the ancient guidance of their God must end in this!-yet for some moments the blessed memory shines by itself, and God’s mercy appears to triumph over Israel’s ingratitude. Surely their sun will not set; Love must prevail. To which assurance a later voice from the Exile has added, in Hosea 10:10-11 , a confirmation suitable to its own circumstances. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, And from Egypt I called him to be My son." The early history of Israel was a romance. Think of it historically. Before the Most High there spread an array of kingdoms and peoples. At their head were three strong princes-sons indeed of God, if all the heritage of the past, the power of the present, and the promise of the future be tokens. Egypt, wrapt in the rich and jeweled web of centuries, basked by Nile and Pyramid, all the wonder of the world’s art in his dreamy eyes. Opposite him Assyria, with barer but more massive limbs, stood erect upon his highlands, grasping in his sword the promise of the world’s power. Between the two, and rising both of them, yet with his eyes westward on an empire of which neither dreamed, the Phoenician on his sea-coast built his storehouses and sped his navies, the promise of the world’s wealth. It must ever remain the supreme romance of history, that the true son of God, bearer of His love and righteousness to all mankind, should be found, not only outside this powerful trinity, but in the puny and despised captive of one of them-in a people that was not a state, that had not a country, that was without a history, and, if appearances be true, was as yet devoid of even the rudiments of civilization-a child people and a slave. That was the Romance, and Hosea gives us the Grace which made it. "When Israel was a child then I loved him." The verb is a distinct impulse: "I began, I learned, to love him." God’s eyes, that passed unheeding the adult princes of the world, fell upon this little slave boy, and He loved him and gave him a career: "from Egypt I called" him "to be My son." Now, historically, it was the persuasion of this which made Israel. All their distinctiveness and character, their progress from a level with other nomadic tribes to the rank of the greatest religious teachers of humanity, started from the memory of these two facts-that God loved them, and that God called them. This was an unfailing conscience-the obligation that they were not their own, the irresistible motive to repentance even in their utmost backsliding, the unquenchable hope of a destiny in their direst days of defeat and scattering. Some, of course, may cavil at the narrow, national scale on which such a belief was held, but let them: remember that it was held in trust for all mankind. To snarl that Israel felt this sonship to God only for themselves, is to forget that it is they who have persuaded humanity that this is the only kind of sonship worth claiming. Almost every other nation of antiquity imagined a filial relation to the deity, but it was either through some fabulous physical descent, and then often confined only to kings and heroes, or by some mystical mingling of the Divine with the human, which was just as gross and sensuous. Israel alone defined the connection as a historical and a moral one. "The sons of God are begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Sonship to God is something not physical, but moral and historical, into which men are carried by a supreme awakening to the Divine love and authority. Israel, it is true, felt this only in a general way for the nation as a whole; but their conception of it embraced just those moral contents which form the glory of Christ’s doctrine of the Divine sonship of the individual. The belief that God is our Father does not come to us with our carnal birth-except in possibility: the persuasion of it is not conferred by our baptism except in so far as that is Christ’s own seal to the fact that God Almighty loves us and has marked us for His own. To us sonship is a becoming, not a being-the awakening of our adult minds "into the surprise of a Father’s undeserved mercy, into the constraint of His authority and the assurance of the destiny He has laid up for us. It is conferred by love, and confirmed by duty. Neither has power brought it, nor wisdom, nor wealth, but it has come solely with the wonder of the knowledge that God loves us, and has always loved us, as well as in the sense, immediately following, of a true vocation to serve Him." Sonship which is less than this is no sonship at all. But so much as this is possible to every man through Jesus Christ. His constant message is that the Father loves every one of us, and that if we know that love, we are God’s sons indeed. To them who feel it, adoption into the number and privileges of the sons of God comes with the amazement and the romance which glorified God’s choice of the child-slave Israel. "Behold," they cry, "what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." { 1 John 3:1-24 } "But we cannot be loved by God and left where we are. Beyond the grace there lie the long discipline and destiny. We are called from servitude to freedom, from the world of God-each of us to run a course, and do a work, which can be done by no one else. That Israel did not perceive this was God’s sore sorrow with them. "The more I called to them the farther they went from Me. They to the Ba’alim kept sacrificing, and to images offering incense." But God persevered with grace, and the story is at first continued in the figure of Fatherhood with which it commenced; then it changes to the metaphor of a humane man’s goodness to his beasts. "Yet I taught Ephraim to walk, holding them on Mine arms; but they knew not that I healed them"-presumably when they fell and hurt themselves. "With the cords of a man I would draw them, with bands of love; and I was to them as those who lift up the yoke on their jaws, and gently would I give them to eat." It is the picture of a team of bullocks, in charge of a kind driver. Israel are no longer the wanton young cattle of the previous chapter, which need the yoke firmly fastened on their neck, { Hosea 10:11 } but a team of toiling oxen mounting some steep road. There is no use now for the rough ropes, by which frisky animals are kept to their work; but the driver, coming to his beasts’ heads, by the gentle touch of his hand at their mouths and by words of sympathy draws them after him. "I drew them with cords of a man, and with bands of love." Yet there is the yoke, and it would seem that certain forms of this, when beasts were working upwards, as we should say "against the collar," pressed and rubbed upon them, so that the humane driver, when he came to their heads, eased the yoke with his hands. "I was as they that take the yoke off their jaws"; and then, when they got to the top of the hill, he would rest and feed them. That is the picture, and however uncertain we may feel as to some of its details it is obviously a passage-Ewald says "the earliest of all passages-in which "humane means precisely the same as love." It ought to be taken along with that other passage in the great Prophecy of the Exile, where God is described as He that led them through "the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble: as a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave him rest." { Isaiah 63:13-14 } Thus then the figure of the fatherliness of God changes into that of His gentleness or humanity. Do not let us think that there is here either any descent of the poetry or want of connection between the two figures. The change is true, not only to Israel’s, but to our own experience. Men are all either the eager children of happy, irresponsible days, or the bounden, plodding draught-cattle of life’s serious burdens and charges. Hosea’s double figure reflects human life in its whole range. Which of us has not known this fatherliness of the Most High, exercised upon us, as upon Israel, throughout our years of carelessness and disregard? It was God Himself who taught and trained us then; - "When through the slippery paths of youth With heedless steps I ran, Thine arm unseen conveyed me safe, And led me up to man." Those speedy recoveries from the blunders of early willfulness, those redemptions from the sins of youth-happy were we if we knew that it was "He who healed us." But there comes a time when men pass from leading-strings to harness when we feel faith less and duty more-when our work touches us more closely than our God. Death must be a strange transformer of the spirit, yet surely not more strange than life, which out of the eager buoyant child makes in time the slow automaton of duty. It is such a stage which the fourth of these verses suits, when we look up, not so much for the fatherliness as for the gentleness and humanity of our God. A man has a mystic power of a very wonderful kind upon the animals over whom he is placed. On any of these wintry roads of ours we may see it, when a kind carter gets down at a hill, and, throwing the reins on his beast’s back, will come to its head and touch it with his bare hands, and speak to it as if it were his fellow; till the deep eyes fill with light, and out of these things, so much weaker than itself, a touch, a glance, a word, there will come to it new strength to pull the stranded wagon onward. The man is as a god to the beast, coming down to help it, and it almost makes the beast human that he does so. Not otherwise does Hosea feel the help which God gives His own on the weary hills of life. We need not discipline, for our work is discipline enough, and the cares we carry of themselves keep us straight and steady. But we need sympathy and gentleness-this very humanity which the prophet attributes to our God. God comes and takes us by the head; through the mystic power which is above us, but which makes us like itself, we are lifted to our task. Let no one judge this incredible. The incredible would be that our God should prove any less to us than the merciful man to his beast. But we are saved from argument by experience. When we remember how, as life has become steep and our strength exhausted, there has visited us a thought which has sharpened to a word, a word which has warmed to a touch, and we have drawn ourselves together and leapt up new men, can we feel that God was any less in these things, than in the voice of conscience or the message of forgiveness, or the restraints of His discipline? Nay, though the reins be no longer felt, God is at our head, that we should not stumble nor stand still. Upon this gracious passage there follows one of those swift revulsions of feeling, which we have learned almost to expect in Hosea. His insight again overtakes his love. The people will not respond to the goodness of their God; it is impossible to work upon minds so fickle and insincere. Discipline is what they need. "He shall return to the land of Egypt, or Asshur shall be his king" (it is still an alternative), "for they have refused to return" to ‘Tis but one more instance of the age-long apostasy of the people. "My people have a bias to turn from Me; and though they" (the prophets) "call them upwards, none of them can lift them." Yet God is God, and though prophecy fail He will attempt His love once more. There follows the greatest passage in Hosea-deepest if not highest of his book-the breaking forth of that exhaustless mercy of the Most High which no sin of man can bar back nor wear out. "How am I to give thee up, O Ephraim? How am I to let thee go, O Israel? How am I to give thee up? Am I to make an Admah of thee a Seboim? My heart is turned upon Me, My compassions begin to boil: I will not perform the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not turn to destroy Ephraim; For God am I and not man, The Holy One in the midst of thee, yet I come not to consume!" Such a love has been the secret of Hosea’s persistence through so many years with so faithless a people, and now, when he has failed, it takes voice to itself and in its irresistible fullness makes this last appeal. Once more before the end let Israel hear God in the utterness of His Love! The verses are a climax, and obviously to be succeeded by a pause. On the brink of his doom, will Israel turn to such a God, at such a call? The next verse, though dependent for its promise on this same exhaustless Love, is from an entirely different circumstance, and cannot have been put by Hosea here. Hosea 11:8 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. 11; Hosea 2:1-23 ; Hosea 3:1-5 THE SIN AGAINST LOVE Hosea 1:1-11 ; Hosea 2:1-23 ; Hosea 3:1-5 ; Hosea 4:11 ff.; Hosea 9:10 ff.; Hosea 11:8 f. The Love of God is a terrible thing-that is the last lesson of the Book of Hosea. "My God will cast them away." { Hosea 10:1-15 } "My God"-let us remember the right which Hosea had to use these words. Of all the prophets he was the first to break into the full aspect of the Divine Mercy to learn and to proclaim that God is Love. But he was worthy to do so, by the patient love of his own heart towards another who for years had outraged all his trust and tenderness. He had loved, believed and been betrayed; pardoned and waited and yearned, and sorrowed and pardoned again. It is in this long-suffering that his breast beats upon the breast of God with the cry "My God." As He had loved Gomer, so had God loved Israel, past hope, against hate, through ages of ingratitude and apostasy. Quivering with his own pain, Hosea has exhausted all human care and affection for figures to express the Divine tenderness, and he declares God’s love to be deeper than all the passion of men, and broader than all their patience: "How can I give thee up, Ephraim? How can I let thee go, Israel? I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger. For I am God, and not man." And yet, like poor human affection, this Love of God, too, confesses its failure-"My God shall cast them away." It is God’s sentence of relinquishment upon those who sin against His Love, but the poor human lips which deliver it quiver with an agony of their own, and here, as more explicitly in twenty other passages of the book, declare it to be equally, the doom of those who outrage the love of their fellow men and women. We have heard it said: "The lives of men are never the same after they have loved; if they are not better, they must be worse." "Be afraid of the love that loves you: it is either your heaven or your hell." "All the discipline of men springs from their love-if they take it not so, then all their sorrow must spring from the same source." "There is a depth of sorrow, which can only be known to a soul that has loved the most perfect thing and beholds itself fallen." These things are true of the Love, both of our brother and of our God. And the eternal interest of the life of Hosea is that he learned how, for strength and weakness, for better or for worse, our human and our Divine loves are inseparably joined. I. Most men learn that love is inseparable from pain where Hosea learned it-at home. There it is that we are all reminded that when love is strongest she feels her weakness most. For the anguish which love must bear, as it were from the foundation of the world, is the contradiction at her heart between the largeness of her wishes and the littleness of her power to realize them. A mother feels it, bending over the bed of her child, when its body is racked with pain or its breath spent with coughing. So great is the feeling of her love that it ought to do something, that she will actually feel herself cruel because nothing can be done. Let the sick-bed become the beach of death, and she must feel the helplessness and the anguish still more as the dear life is now plucked from her and now tossed back by the mocking waves, and then drawn slowly out to sea upon the ebb from which there is no returning. But the pain which disease and death thus cause to love is nothing to the agony that sin inflicts when he takes the game into his unclean hands. We know what pain love brings, if our love be a fair face and a fresh body in which Death brands his sores while we stand by, as if with arms bound. But what if our love be a childlike heart, and a frank expression and honest eyes, and a clean and clever mind. Our powerlessness is just as great and infinitely more tormented when sin comes by and casts his shadow over these. Ah, that is Love’s greatest torment when her children, who have run from her to the bosom of sin, look back and their eyes are changed! That is the greatest torment of Love-to pour herself without avail into one of those careless natures which seem capacious and receptive, yet never fill with love, for there is a crack and a leak at the bottom of them. The fields where Love suffers her sorest defeats are not the sick-bed and not death’s margin, not the cold lips and sealed eyes kissed without response; but the changed eyes of children, and the breaking of the "full-orbed face," and the darkening look of growing sons and daughters, and the home the first time the unclean laugh breaks across it. To watch, though unable to soothe, a dear body racked with pain, is peace beside the awful vigil of watching a soul shrink and blacken with vice, and your love unable to redeem it. Such a clinical study Hosea endured for years. The prophet of God, we are told, brought a dead child to life by taking him in his arms and kissing him. But Hosea with all his love could not make Gomer a true, whole wife again. Love had no power on this woman-no power even at the merciful call to make all things new. Hosea, who had once placed all hope in tenderness, had to admit that Love’s moral power is not absolute. Love may retire defeated from the highest issues of life. Sin may conquer Love. Yet it is in this his triumph that Sin must feel the ultimate revenge. When a man has conquered this weak thing, and beaten her down beneath his feet, God speaks the sentence of abandonment. There is enough of the whipped dog in all of us to make us dread penalty when we come into conflict with the strong things of life. But it takes us all our days to learn that there is far more condemnation to them who offend the weak things of life, and particularly the weakest of all, its love. It was on sins against the weak that Christ passed His sternest judgments: "Woe unto him that offends one of these little ones; it were better for him that he had never been born." God’s little ones are not only little children, but all things which, like little children, have only love for their strength. They are pure and loving men and women-men with no weapon but their love, women with no shield but their trust. They are the innocent affections of our own hearts-the memories of our childhood, the ideals of our youth, the prayers of our parents, the faith in us of our friends. These are the little ones of whom Christ spake, that he who sins against them had better never have been born. Often may the dear solicitudes of home, a father’s counsels, a mother’s prayers, seem foolish things against the challenges of a world calling us to play the man and do as it does; often may the vows and enthusiasms of boyhood seem impertinent against the temptations which are so necessary to manhood: yet let us be true to the weak, for if we betray them, we betray our own souls. We may sin against law and maim or mutilate ourselves, but to sin against love is to be cast out of life altogether. He who violates the purity of the love with which God has filled his heart, he who abuses the love God has sent to meet him in his opening manhood, he who slights any of the affections, whether they be of man or woman, of young or of old, which God lays upon us as the most powerful redemptive forces of our life, next to that of His dear Son-he sinneth against his own soul, and it is of such that Hosea spake: "My God will cast them away." We talk of breaking law: we can only break ourselves against it. But if we sin against Love, we do destroy her: we take from her the power to redeem and sanctify us. Though in their youth men think Love a quick and careless thing-a servant always at their side, a winged messenger easy of dispatch-let them know that every time they send her on an evil errand she returns with heavier feet and broken wings. When they make her a pander they kill her outright. When she is no more they waken to that which Gomer came to know, that love abused is love lost, and love lost means Hell. II This, however, is only the margin from which Hosea beholds an abandonment still deeper. All that has been said of human love and the penalty of outraging it is equally true of the Divine love and the sin against that. The love of God has the same weakness which we have seen in the love of man. It, too, may fail to redeem; it, too, has stood defeated on some of the highest moral battle-fields of life. God Himself has suffered anguish and rejection from sinful men. "Herein," says a theologian, "is the mystery of this love that God can never by His Almighty Power compel that which is the very highest gift in the life of His creatures-love to Himself, but that He receives it as the free gift of His creatures, and that He is only able to allow men to give it to Him in a free act of their own will." So Hosea also has told us how God does not compel, but allure or "woo," the sinful back to Himself. And it is the deepest anguish of the prophet’s heart, that this free grace of God may fail through man’s apathy or insincerity. The anguish appears in those frequent antitheses in which his torn heart reflects herself in the style of his discourse. "I have redeemed them-yet they have spoken lies against Me. { Hosea 7:13 } I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness-they went to Ba’al-Peor. { Hosea 9:10 } When Israel was a child, then I loved him but they sacrificed to Ba’alim. { Hosea 11:1-2 } I taught Ephraim to walk, but they knew not that I healed them. { Hosea 9:4 } How can I give thee up, Ephraim? how can I let thee go, O Israel? Ephraim compasseth Me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit." { Hosea 11:8 ; Hosea 12:1 } We fear to apply all that we know of the weakness of human love to the love of God. Yet though He be God and not man, it was as man He commended His love to us. He came nearest us, not in the thunders of Sinai, but in Him Who presented Himself to the world with the caresses of a little child; who met men with no angelic majesty or heavenly aureole, but whom when we saw we found nothing that we should desire Him, His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form than the sons of men; Who came to His own and His own received Him not; Who, having loved His own that were in the world, loved them up to the end, and yet at the end was by them deserted and betrayed, -it is of Him that Hosea prophetically says: "I drew them with cords of a man and with bands of love." We are not bound to God by any unbreakable chain. The strands which draw us upwards to God, to holiness and everlasting life, have the weakness of those which bind us to the earthly souls we love. It is possible for us to break them. We love Christ, not because He has compelled us by any magic, irresistible influence to do so; but, as John in his great simplicity says, "We love Him because He first loved us." Now this is surely the terror of God’s love-that it can be resisted; that even as it is manifest in Jesus Christ we men have the power, not only to remain as so many do, outside its scope, feeling it to be far-off and vague, but having tasted it to fall away from it, having realized it to refuse it, having allowed it to begin its moral purposes in our lives to baffle and nullify these; to make the glory of Heaven absolutely ineffectual in our own characters; and to give our Savior the anguish of rejection. Give Him the anguish, yet pass upon ourselves the doom! For, as I read the New Testament, the one unpardonable sin is the sin against our Blessed Redeemer’s Love as it is brought home to the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Every other sin is forgiven to men but to crucify afresh Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. The most terrible of His judgments is "the wail of a heart wounded because its love has been despised": "Jerusalem, Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not. Behold your house is left unto you desolate!" Men say they cannot believe in hell, because they cannot conceive how God may sentence men to misery for the breaking of laws they were born without power to keep. And one would agree with the inference if God had done any such thing. But for them which are under the law and the sentence of death, Christ died once for all that He might redeem them. Yet this does not make a hell less believable. When we see how Almighty was that Love of God in Christ Jesus, lifting our whole race and sending them forward with a freedom and a power of growth nothing else in history has won for them; when we prove again how weak it is, so that it is possible for millions of characters that have felt it to refuse its eternal influence for the sake of some base and transient passion; nay, when I myself know this power and this weakness of Christ’s love, so that one day being loyal I am raised beyond the reach of fear and of doubt, beyond the desire of sin and the habit of evil, and the next day finds me capable of putting it aside in preference for some slight enjoyment or ambition-then I know the peril and the terror of this love, that it may be to a man either Heaven or Hell. Believe then in hell, because you believe in the Love of God-not in a hell to which God condemns men of His will and pleasure, but a hell into which men cast themselves from the very face of His love in Jesus Christ. The place has been painted as a place of fires. But when we contemplate that men come to it with the holiest flames in their nature quenched, we shall justly feel that it is rather a dreary waste of ash and cinder, strewn with snow-some ribbed and frosty Arctic zone, silent in death, for there is no life there, and there is no life there because there is no Love, and no Love because men, in rejecting or abusing her, have slain their own power ever again to feel her presence. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.