4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.
The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.
Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep: and Rachel stole the teraphim{teraphim were household idols that may have been associated with inheritance rights to the household property.} that were her father's.
He shall make a firm covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease; and on the wing of abominations [shall come] one who makes desolate; and even to the full end, and that determined, shall [wrath] be poured out on the desolate.
and he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, Hear you me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Yahweh is with you, while you are with him; and if you seek him, he will be found of you; but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.
Gideon made an ephod of it, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel played the prostitute after it there; and it became a snare to Gideon, and to his house.
These are the garments which they shall make: a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a coat of checker work, a turban, and a sash: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, and his sons, that he may minister to me in the priest's office.
Israel is a luxuriant vine that puts forth his fruit. According to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars. As their land has prospered, they have adorned their sacred stones. Their heart is divided. Now they will be found guilty. He will demolish their altars. He will destroy their sacred stones. Surely now they will say, "We have no king; for we don't fear Yahweh; And the king, what can he do for us?"
I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: Her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.
I have given you a king in my anger, And have taken him away in my wrath.
I will cut off the cities of your land, And will tear down all your strongholds. I will destroy witchcraft from your hand; And you shall have no soothsayers. I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars out of your midst; And you shall no more worship the work of your hands. I will uproot your Asherim out of your midst; And I will destroy your cities.
It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will no more be remembered; and also I will cause the prophets and the spirit of impurity to pass out of the land.
Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, "Don't you see all of these things? Most assuredly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down."
They cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!"
and set up false witnesses who said, "This man never stops speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us."
David danced before Yahweh with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.
He put the coat on him, tied the sash on him, clothed him with the robe, put the ephod on him, and he tied the skillfully woven band of the ephod on him, and fastened it to him with it.
The five men who went to spy out the land went up, and came in there, and took the engraved image, and the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image: and the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men girt with weapons of war. When these went into Micah's house, and fetched the engraved image, the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said to them, What do you? They said to him, Hold your peace, lay your hand on your mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest: is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel? The priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the engraved image, and went in the midst of the people. So they turned and departed, and put the little ones and the cattle and the goods before them. When they were a good way from the house of Micah, the men who were in the houses near to Micah's house were gathered together, and overtook the children of Dan. They cried to the children of Dan. They turned their faces, and said to Micah, What ails you, that you come with such a company? He said, you have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and are gone away, and what have I more? and how then say you to me, What ails you?
But Samuel ministered before Yahweh, being a child, girded with a linen ephod.
and Ahijah, the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest of Yahweh in Shiloh, wearing an ephod. The people didn't know that Jonathan was gone.
The priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if you will take that, take it; for there is no other except that here. David said, There is none like that; give it me.
The king said to Doeg, Turn you, and fall on the priests. Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell on the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who wore a linen ephod.
It happened, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand.
The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, Until he comes to whom it belongs. To him will the obedience of the peoples be.
Moreover those who had familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of Yahweh.
In that day shall there be an altar to Yahweh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border of it to Yahweh. It shall be for a sign and for a witness to Yahweh of Hosts in the land of Egypt; for they shall cry to Yahweh because of oppressors, and he will send them a savior, and a defender, and he will deliver them.
I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? or who will bemoan you? or who will turn aside to ask of your welfare?
and that which comes into your mind shall not be at all, in that you say, We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.
Yes, it magnified itself, even to the prince of the host; and it took away from him the continual [burnt offering], and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. The host was given over [to it] together with the continual [burnt offering] through disobedience; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it did [its pleasure] and prospered. Then I heard a holy one speaking; and another holy one said to that certain one who spoke, How long shall be the vision [concerning] the continual [burnt-offering], and the disobedience that makes desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Hosea 3
Commentary on Hosea 3 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 3
Ho 3:1-5. Israel's Condition in Their Present Dispersion, Subsequent to Their Return from Babylon, Symbolized.
The prophet is to take back his wife, though unfaithful, as foretold in Ho 1:2. He purchases her from her paramour, stipulating she should wait for a long period before she should be restored to her conjugal rights. So Israel is to live for a long period without her ancient rites of religion, and yet be free from idolatry; then at last she shall acknowledge Messiah, and know Jehovah's goodness restored to her.
1. Go yet—"Go again," referring to Ho 1:2 [Henderson].
a woman—purposely indefinite, for thy wife, to express the separation in which Hosea had lived from Gomer for her unfaithfulness.
beloved of her friend—used for "her husband," on account of the estrangement between them. She was still beloved of her husband, though an adulteress; just as God still loved Israel, though idolatrous (Jer 3:20). Hosea is told, not as in Ho 1:2, "take a wife," but "love" her, that is, renew thy conjugal kindness to her.
who look to other gods—that is, have done so heretofore, but henceforth (from the return from Babylon) shall do so no more (Ho 3:4).
flagons of wine—rather, pressed cakes of dried grapes, such as were offered to idols (Jer 7:18) [Maurer].
2. I bought her—The price paid is too small to be a probable dowry wherewith to buy a wife from her parents; but it is just half the price of a female slave, in money, the rest of the price being made up in grain (Ex 21:32). Hosea pays this for the redemption of his wife, who has become the slave of her paramour. The price being half grain was because the latter was the allowance of food for the slave, and of the coarsest kind, not wheat, but barley. Israel, as committing sin, was the slave of sin (Joh 8:34; Ro 6:16-20; 2Pe 2:19). The low price expresses Israel's worthlessness.
3. abide for me—separate from intercourse with any other man, and remaining for me who have redeemed thee (compare De 21:13).
so will I also be for thee—remain for thee, not taking any other consort. As Israel should long remain without serving other gods, yet separate from Jehovah; so Jehovah on His part, in this long period of estrangement, would form no marriage covenant with any other people (compare Ho 3:4). He would not immediately receive her to marriage privileges, but would test her repentance and discipline her by the long probation; still the marriage covenant would hold good, she was to be kept separated for but a time, not divorced (Isa 50:1); in God's good time she shall be restored.
4. The long period here foretold was to be one in which Israel should have no civil polity, king, or prince, no sacrifice to Jehovah, and yet no idol, or false god, no ephod, or teraphim. Exactly describing their state for the last nineteen centuries, separate from idols, yet without any legal sacrifice to Jehovah, whom they profess to worship, and without being acknowledged by Him as His Church. So Kimchi, a Jew, explains it. The ephod was worn by the high priest above the tunic and robe. It consisted of two finely wrought pieces which hung down, the one in front over the breast, the other on the back, to the middle of the thigh; joined on the shoulders by golden clasps set in onyx stones with the names of the twelve tribes, and fastened round the waist by a girdle (Ex 28:6-12). The common ephod worn by the lower priests, Levites, and any person performing sacred rites, was of linen (2Sa 6:14; 1Ch 15:27). In the breast were the Urim and Thummim by which God gave responses to the Hebrews. The latter was one of the five things which the second temple lacked, and which the first had. It, as representing the divinely constituted priesthood, is opposed to the idolatrous "teraphim," as "sacrifice" (to Jehovah) is to "an (idolatrous) image." "Abide" answers to "thou shalt abide for me" (Ho 3:3). Abide in solitary isolation, as a separated wife. The teraphim were tutelary household gods, in the shape of human busts, cut off at the waist (as the root of the Hebrew word implies) [Maurer], (Ge 31:19, 30-35). They were supposed to give responses to consulters (2Ki 23:24; Eze 21:21, Margin; Zec 10:2). Saul's daughter, Michal, putting one in a bed, as if it were David, proves the shape to have been that of a man.
5. Afterward—after the long period ("many days," Ho 3:4) has elapsed.
return—from their idols to "their God," from whom they had wandered.
David their king—Israel had forsaken the worship of Jehovah at the same time that they forsook their allegiance to David's line. Their repentance towards God is therefore to be accompanied by their return to the latter. So Judah and Israel shall be one, and under "one head," as is also foretold (Ho 1:11). That representative and antitype of David is Messiah. "David" means "the beloved." Compare as to Messiah, Mt 3:17; Eph 1:6. Messiah is called David (Isa 55:3, 4; Jer 30:9; Eze 34:23, 24; 37:24, 25).
fear the Lord and his goodness—that is, tremblingly flee to the Lord, to escape from the wrath to come; and to His goodness," as manifested in Messiah, which attracts them to Him (Jer 31:12). The "fear" is not that which "hath torment" (1Jo 4:18), but reverence inspired by His goodness realized in the soul (Ps 130:4).
the latter days—those of Messiah [Kimchi].