8 As for Canaan, the scales of deceit are in his hands; he takes pleasure in twisted ways.
For you say, I have wealth, and have got together goods and land, and have need of nothing; and you are not conscious of your sad and unhappy condition, that you are poor and blind and without clothing.
Have no faith in the rewards of evil-doing, or in profits wrongly made: if your wealth is increased, do not put your hopes on it.
You have made the Lord tired with your words. And still you say, How have we made him tired? By your saying, Everyone who does evil is good in the eyes of the Lord, and he has delight in them; or, Where is God the judge?
Give orders to those who have money and goods in this life, not to be lifted up in their minds, or to put their hope in the uncertain chances of wealth, but in God who gives us in full measure all things for our use;
And he said, You take care to seem right in the eyes of men, but God sees your hearts: and those things which are important in the opinion of men, are evil in the eyes of God.
No man may be a servant to two masters: for he will have hate for the one and love for the other; or he will keep to the one and have no respect for the other. You may not be servants of God and of wealth.
But he, desiring to put himself in the right, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
Your words have been strong against me, says the Lord. And still you say, What have we said against you?
A curse on the cruel and false one! the man full of pride, who never has enough; who makes his desires wide as the underworld! he is like death; he is never full, but he makes all nations come to him, getting all peoples together to himself. Will not all these take up a word of shame against him and a bitter saying against him, and say, A curse on him who goes on taking what is not his and is weighted down with the property of debtors!
For this reason he makes an offering to his net, burning perfume to his fishing-net; because by them he gets much food and his meat is fat.
How are you able to say, I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals? see your way in the valley, be clear about what you have done: you are a quick-footed camel twisting her way in and out;
For he has said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my knowledge, for I am wise: and I have taken away the limits of the peoples' lands, and the stores of their wealth have become mine; and I have made towns low in the dust, sending destruction on those living in them; And I have put my hands on the wealth of the peoples, as on the place where a bird has put her eggs; and as a man may take the eggs from which a bird has gone, so I have taken all the earth for myself: and not a wing was moved, and not a mouth gave out a sound.
There is a generation who seem to themselves to be free from sin, but are not washed from their unclean ways.
See, this is the man who did not make God his strength, but had faith in his goods and his property, and made himself strong in his wealth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Hosea 12
Commentary on Hosea 12 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 12
In this chapter we have,
Hsa 12:1-6
In these verses,
Hsa 12:7-14
Here are intermixed, in these verses,