4 For the children of Israel will for a long time be without king and without ruler, without offerings and without pillars, and without ephod or images.
And the man Micah had a house of gods; and he made an ephod and family gods and put one of his sons in the position of priest.
Now Laban had gone to see to the cutting of the wool of his sheep; so Rachel secretly took the images of the gods of her father's house.
And a strong order will be sent out against the great number for one week; and so for half of the week the offering and the meal offering will come to an end; and in its place will be an unclean thing causing fear; till the destruction which has been fixed is let loose on him who has made waste.
And he came face to face with Asa and said to him, Give ear to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: the Lord is with you while you are with him; if your heart's desire is for him, he will be near you, but if you give him up, he will give you up.
And Gideon made an ephod from them and put it up in his town Ophrah; and all Israel went after it there and were false to the Lord; and it became a cause of sin to Gideon and his house.
This is what they are to make: a priest's bag, an ephod, and a robe, and a coat of coloured needlework, a head-dress, and a linen band; they are to make holy robes for Aaron your brother and for his sons, so that they may do the work of priests for me.
Israel is a branching vine, full of fruit; as his fruit is increased, so the number of his altars is increased; as the land is fair, so they have made fair pillars. Their mind is taken away; now they will be made waste: he will have their altars broken down, he will give their pillars to destruction. Now, truly, they will say, We have no king, we have no fear of the Lord; and the king, what is he able to do for us?
And I will put an end to all her joy, her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her regular meetings.
I have given you a king, because I was angry, and have taken him away in my wrath.
I will put an end to your use of secret arts, and you will have no more readers of signs: And I will have your images and your pillars cut off from you; and you will no longer give worship to the work of your hands. I will have your Asherahs pulled up from among you: and I will send destruction on your images. And my punishment will be effected on the nations with such burning wrath as they have not had word of.
And it will come about on that day, says the Lord of armies, that I will have the names of the images cut off out of the land, and there will be no more memory of them: and I will send all the prophets and the unclean spirit away from the land.
And Jesus went out of the Temple, and on the way his disciples came to him, pointing out the buildings of the Temple. But he, answering, said to them, See you not all these things? truly I say to you that here there will not be one stone resting on another, which will not be pulled down.
Then they gave a loud cry, Away with him! away with him! to the cross! Pilate said to them, Am I to put your King to death on the cross? The chief priests said in answer, We have no king but Caesar.
And they got false witnesses who said, This man is for ever saying things against this holy place and against the law: For he has said in our hearing that this Jesus of Nazareth will put this place to destruction and make changes in the rules which were handed down to us by Moses.
And David, clothed in a linen ephod, was dancing before the Lord with all his strength.
He put the coat on him, making it tight with its band, and then the robe, and over it the ephod, with its band of needlework to keep it in place.
Then the five men who had gone to make a search through the land, went in and took the pictured image and the ephod and the family gods and the metal image; and the priest was by the doorway with the six hundred armed men. And when they went into Micah's house and took out the pictured image and the ephod and the family gods and the metal image, the priest said to them, What are you doing? And they said to him, Be quiet; say nothing, and come with us and be our father and priest; is it better for you to be priest to one man's house or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel? Then the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod and the family gods and the pictured image and went with the people. So they went on their way again, putting the little ones and the oxen and the goods in front of them. When they had gone some way from the house of Micah, the men from the houses near Micah's house came together and overtook the children of Dan, Crying out to them. And the Danites, turning round, said to Micah, What is your trouble, that you have taken up arms? And he said, You have taken my gods which I made, and my priest, and have gone away; what is there for me now? Why then do you say to me, What is your trouble?
But Samuel did the work of the Lord's house, while he was a child, dressed in a linen ephod.
And Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, brother of Ichabod, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest of the Lord in Shiloh, who had the ephod. And the people had no idea that Jonathan had gone.
And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you put to death in the valley of Elah, is here folded in a cloth at the back of the ephod: take that, if you will, for there is no other sword here. And David said, there is no other sword like that; give it to me.
Then the king said to Doeg, You are to put the priests to death. And Doeg the Edomite, turning on the priests and attacking them, put to death that day eighty-five men who took up the ephod.
Now when Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, went in flight to David, he came down to Keilah with the ephod in his hand.
The rod of authority will not be taken from Judah, and he will not be without a law-giver, till he comes who has the right to it, and the peoples will put themselves under his rule.
And all those who had control of spirits, and the wonder-workers, and the images, and the false gods, and all the disgusting things which were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah put away, so that he might give effect to the words of the agreement recorded in the book which Hilkiah the priest made discovery of in the house of the Lord.
In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at the edge of the land. And it will be a sign and a witness to the Lord of armies in the land of Egypt: when they are crying out to the Lord because of their cruel masters, then he will send them a saviour and a strong one to make them free.
And I will make them a cause of fear to all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and what he did in Jerusalem. For who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem? and who will have sorrow for you? or who will go out of his way to see how you are?
And that which comes into your minds will never take place; when you say, We will be like the nations, like the families of the countries, servants of wood and stone;
For the king of Babylon took his place at the parting of the ways, at the top of the two roads, to make use of secret arts: shaking the arrows this way and that, he put questions to the images of his gods, he took note of the inner parts of dead beasts.
It made itself great, even as great as the lord of the army; and by it the regular burned offering was taken away, and the place overturned and the holy place made waste. ... against the regular burned offering; and ... crushed down to the earth, and it did its pleasure and things went well for it. Then there came to my ears the voice of a holy one talking; and another holy one said to that certain one who was talking, How long will the vision be while the regular burned offering is taken away, and the unclean thing causing fear is put up, and the holy place crushed under foot?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Hosea 3
Commentary on Hosea 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
God is still by the prophet inculcating the same thing upon this careless people, and much in the same manner as before, by a type or sign, that of the dealings of a husband with an adulterous wife. In this chapter we have,
Hsa 3:1-5
Some think that this chapter refers to Judah, the two tribes, as the adulteress the prophet married (ch. 1:3) represented the ten tribes; for this was not to be divorced, as the ten tribes were, but to be left desolate for a long time, and then to return, as the two tribes did. But these are called the children of Israel, which was the ten tribes, and therefore it is more probable that of them this parable, as well as that before, is to be understood. Go, and repeat it, says God to the prophet; Go yet again. Note, For the conviction and reduction of sinners it is necessary that precept be upon precept, and line upon line. If they will not believe one sign, try another, Ex. 4:8, 9. Now,