10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured or numbered; and it shall come to pass, [that] in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, it shall be said unto them, Sons of the living ùGod.
and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith [the] Lord Almighty.
But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So thou art no longer bondman, but son; but if son, heir also through God.
And they shall bring all your brethren out of all the nations as an oblation unto Jehovah, upon horses, and in chariots, and in covered waggons, and upon mules, and upon dromedaries, to my holy mountain, to Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, as the children of Israel bring an oblation in a clean vessel into the house of Jehovah.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if any one can number the dust of the earth, thy seed also will be numbered.
As he says also in Hosea, I will call not-my-people My people; and the-not-beloved Beloved. And it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, *Ye* [are] not my people, there shall they be called Sons of [the] living God. But Esaias cries concerning Israel, Should the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved: for [he] is bringing the matter to an end, and [cutting [it] short in righteousness; because] a cutting short of the matter will [the] Lord accomplish upon the earth.
for as many as are led by [the] Spirit of God, *these* are sons of God. For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. And if children, heirs also: heirs of God, and Christ's joint heirs; if indeed we suffer with [him], that we may also be glorified with [him].
but as many as received him, to them gave he [the] right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name;
and he said, Call his name Lo-ammi; for ye are not my people, and I will not be for you.
Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons come from afar, and thy daughters are carried upon the side. Then thou shalt see, and shalt be brightened, and thy heart shall throb, and be enlarged; for the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto thee, the wealth of the nations shall come unto thee. A multitude of camels shall cover thee, young camels of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall publish the praises of Jehovah. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall serve thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will beautify the house of my magnificence. Who are these that come flying as a cloud, and as doves to their dove-cotes? For the isles shall await me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of Jehovah thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. And the sons of the alien shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee. For in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee. And thy gates shall stand open continually: (they shall not be shut day nor night,) that the wealth of the nations may be brought unto thee, and that their kings may be led [to thee]. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; and those nations shall be utterly wasted. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the cypress, pine, and box-tree together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious. And the children of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee The city of Jehovah, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Instead of thy being forsaken and hated, so that no one went through [thee], I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy from generation to generation. And thou shalt suck the milk of the nations, and shalt suck the breast of kings; and thou shalt know that I, Jehovah, [am] thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. For bronze I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood bronze, and for stones iron; and I will make thine officers peace, and thy rulers righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but Jehovah shall be thine everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for Jehovah shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall possess the land for ever -- the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. The little one shall become a thousand, and the smallest a mighty nation: I, Jehovah, will hasten it in its time.
See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called [the] children of God. For this reason the world knows us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we children of God, and what we shall be has not yet been manifested; we know that if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
But *ye* [are] a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession, that ye might set forth the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness to his wonderful light; who once [were] not a people, but now God's people; who were not enjoying mercy, but now have found mercy.
And I will sow her unto me in the land; and I will have mercy upon Lo-ruhamah; and I will say to Lo-ammi, Thou art my people; and they shall say, My God.
I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth,
I will richly bless thee, and greatly multiply thy seed, as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the sea-shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
and thy seed would have been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof: their name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.
Exult, thou barren, that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and shout for joy, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith Jehovah. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall possess nations, and they shall make desolate cities to be inhabited.
Thy sons shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that laid thee waste shall go forth from thee. Lift up thine eyes round about and behold: they all gather themselves together, they come to thee. As I live, saith Jehovah, thou shalt indeed clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and bind them on as a bride doth. For [in] thy waste and thy desolate places, and thy destroyed land, thou shalt even now be too straitened by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children of thy bereavement shall yet say in thine ears, The place is too narrow for me: make room for me, that I may dwell. And thou shalt say in thy heart, Who hath borne me these, seeing I had lost my children and was desolate, an exile, and driven about? and who hath brought up these? behold, I was left alone; these, where were they? Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and set up my banner to the peoples; and they shall bring thy sons in [their] bosom, and thy daughters shall be carried upon the shoulder.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Hosea 1
Commentary on Hosea 1 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 1
Ho 1:1-11. Inscription.
Spiritual whoredom of Israel set forth by symbolical acts; Gomer taken to wife at God's command: Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-Ammi, the children. Yet a promise of Judah and Israel's restoration.
1. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea—See Introduction.
Jeroboam—the second; who died in the fifteenth year of Uzziah's forty-one years' reign. From his time forth all Israel's kings worshipped false gods: Zachariah (2Ki 15:9), Menahem (2Ki 15:18), Pekahiah (2Ki 15:24), Pekah (2Ki 15:28), Hoshea (2Ki 17:2). As Israel was most flourishing externally under Jeroboam II, who recovered the possessions seized on by Syria, Hosea's prophecy of its downfall at that time was the more striking as it could not have been foreseen by mere human sagacity. Jonah the prophet had promised success to Jeroboam II from God, not for the king's merit, but from God's mercy to Israel; so the coast of Israel was restored by Jeroboam II from the entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain (2Ki 14:23-27).
2. beginning—not of the prophet's predictions generally, but of those spoken by Hosea.
take … wife of whoredoms—not externally acted, but internally and in vision, as a pictorial illustration of Israel's unfaithfulness [Hengstenberg]. Compare Eze 16:8, 15, &c. Besides the loathsomeness of such a marriage, if an external act, it would require years for the birth of three children, which would weaken the symbol (compare Eze 4:4). Henderson objects that there is no hint of the transaction being fictitious: Gomer fell into lewdness after her union with Hosea, not before; for thus only she was a fit symbol of Israel, who lapsed into spiritual whoredom after the marriage contract with God on Sinai, and made even before at the call of the patriarchs of Israel. Gomer is called "a wife of whoredoms," anticipatively.
children of whoredoms—The kingdom collectively is viewed as a mother; the individual subjects of it are spoken of as her children. "Take" being applied to both implies that they refer to the same thing viewed under different aspects. The "children" were not the prophet's own, but born of adultery, and presented to him as his [Kitto, Biblical Cyclopædia]. Rather, "children of whoredoms" means that the children, like their mother, fell into spiritual fornication. Compare "bare him a son" (see Ho 2:4, 5). Being children of a spiritual whore, they naturally fell into her whorish ways.
3. Gomer … daughter of Diblaim—symbolical names; literally, "completion, daughter of grape cakes"; the dual expressing the double layers in which these dainties were baked. So, one completely given up to sensuality. Maurer explains "Gomer" as literally, "a burning coal." Compare Pr 6:27, 29, as to an adulteress; Job 31:9, 12.
4. Jezreel—that is, "God will scatter" (compare Zec 10:9). It was the royal city of Ahab and his successors, in the tribe of Issachar. Here Jehu exercised his greatest cruelties (2Ki 9:16, 25, 33; 10:11, 14, 17). There is in the name an allusion to "Israel" by a play of letters and sounds.
5. bow—the prowess (Jer 49:35; compare Ge 49:24).
valley of Jezreel—afterwards called Esdraelon, extending ten miles in breadth, and in length from Jordan to the Mediterranean near Mount Carmel, the great battlefield of Palestine (Jud 6:33; 1Sa 29:1).
6. Lo-ruhamah—that is, "not an object of mercy or gracious favor."
take … away—Israel, as a kingdom, was never restored from Assyria, as Judah was from Babylon after seventy years. Maurer translates according to the primary meaning, "No more will I have mercy on the house of Israel, so as to pardon them."
7. Judah is only incidentally mentioned to form a contrast to Israel.
by the Lord their God—more emphatic than "by Myself"; by that Jehovah (Me) whom they worship as their God, whereas ye despise Him.
not … by bow—on which ye Israelites rely (Ho 1:5, "the bow of Israel"); Jeroboam II was famous as a warrior (2Ki 14:25). Yet it was not by their warlike power Jehovah would save Judah (1Sa 17:47; Ps 20:7). The deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib (2Ki 19:35), and the restoration from Babylon, are herein predicted.
8. weaned—said to complete the symbolical picture, not having any special signification as to Israel [Henderson]. Israel was bereft of all the privileges which were as needful to them as milk is to infants (compare Ps 131:2; 1Pe 2:2) [Vatablus]. Israel was not suddenly, but gradually cast off; God bore with them with long-suffering, until they were incurable [Calvin]. But as it is not God, but Gomer who weans Lo-ruhamah, the weaning may imply the lust of Gomer, who was hardly weaned when she is again pregnant [Manger].
9. Lo-Ammi—once "My people," but henceforth not so (Eze 16:8). The intervals between the marriage and the successive births of the three children, imply that three successive generations are intended. Jezreel, the first child, represents the dynasty of Jeroboam I and his successors, ending with Jehu's shedding the blood of Jeroboam's line in Jezreel; it was there that Jezebel was slain, in vengeance for Naboth's blood shed in the same Jezreel (1Ki 16:1; 2Ki 9:21, 30). The scenes of Jezreel were to be enacted over again on Jehu's degenerate race. At Jezreel Assyria routed Israel [Jerome]. The child's name associates past sins, intermediate punishments, and final overthrow. Lo-ruhamah ("not pitied"), the second child, is a daughter, representing the effeminate period which followed the overthrow of the first dynasty, when Israel was at once abject and impious. Lo-Ammi ("not my people"), the third child, a son, represents the vigorous dynasty (2Ki 14:25) of Jeroboam II; but, as prosperity did not bring with it revived piety, they were still not God's people.
10. Literally fulfilled in part at the return from Babylon, in which many Israelites joined with Judah. Spiritually, the believing seed of Jacob or Israel, Gentiles as well as Jews, numerous "as the sand" (Ge 32:12); the Gentiles, once not God's people, becoming His "sons" (Joh 1:12; Ro 9:25, 26; 1Pe 2:10; 1Jo 3:1). To be fulfilled in its literal fulness hereafter in Israel's restoration (Ro 11:26).
the living God—opposed to their dead idols.
11. Judah … Israel … together—(Isa 11:12, 13; Jer 3:18; Eze 34:23; 37:16-24).
one head—Zerubbabel typically; Christ antitypically, under whom alone Israel and Judah are joined, the "Head" of the Church (Eph 1:22; 5:23), and of the hereafter united kingdom of Judah and Israel (Jer 34:5, 6; Eze 34:23). Though "appointed" by the Father (Ps 2:6), Christ is in another sense "appointed" as their Head by His people, when they accept and embrace Him as such.
out of the land—of the Gentiles among whom they sojourn.
the day of Jezreel—"The day of one" is the time of God's special visitation of him, either in wrath or in mercy. Here "Jezreel" is in a different sense from that in Ho 1:4, "God will sow," not "God will scatter"; they shall be the seed of God, planted by God again in their own land (Jer 24:6; 31:28; 32:41; Am 9:15).