worshipping the illols 6f our own pride, or passion, or sensuality, 'or sin of any sort, antl nover moro to go a-whoring from our God. 3. Another condition of the covennnt between the1 sovereign and his once rebel but now repentant subjects is implied in this passage, an d well stated in the following words : "If they will be for God to serve him, he ,yjll, be for them to save them. Let them renounce and abjure all rivals with 1 God for tbe tbrorio' jn tho heart, and devote themselves entirely to him, and him only, and he will ~e to thorn a 'Goel all-sufficient. If we be faithful and constant to God in a way of duty, and wfll 'never leave' nor forsake him, he will be so to us in a. way of mercy, and will neverleayf ~or forsake us."·, Vers. 4, 5.-The applicability of these verses. There is an important question in connectlon with these verses which presses for solution, and that is-Are the children ,,f Israel tht;i descendants of the ten tribes exclusively? Or has the expression, as us•1 \ by the prophet, that wider and larger signification in which we popularly employ it, namely,-as including· all the descendants of Ja.cob or Israel, in other words, all the Jewish or Hebrew race? These questions involve a prior consideration. The ten tribes were carried away into captivity and left in the lands of Assyria, B.c. 722 according to the com~on chronology; the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin were carried into captivity in 'Babylon about one hundred and thirty years subsequently. After a,la:pse o( ~l)ventr year~• captivity the latter were permitted to return to their own l~nd, and large numbers availed themselves of that permission. But what became of the ten tr~bes ,of Israel?. •They are still spoken of by some as the lost tribes ; some, a"a.in, identify them ,with_ the, Afghans; others with the American Indians. Such theorjes are easily enough 'formed, but can· scarcely be said to be founded on facts. It is admitted that the fifty; thousand who returned belonged mainly to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, while many of those two tribes remained behind in Babylon, and comparatively fe.w of ,the·members of ot,her tribes joined their brethren in the return to Palestine. W,here, then, are we to look for the main body of the ten tribes ? We will try to answer this interesting and important question as best we can, ar,d with a. view to_ its, bearing on ~he. subject before us. After the restoration of t.he temple and city oL Jerusalem, we firid that ther~ was an immense increase of the inhabitants of Pa.Jestine in the time and under the rule of the Maccabees. May we not regard it 1
as more 'than probable tha~ lingerers out 0£ all the tribes were attracted to their native land after the restoration of its capital, and the revival of the country's prosperity? But. large b~clies still remained behind in the lands of their dispersion ; there would be a. .natural tendency on the part of the remnants of the two tribes and the ten t.o gra~itate towards each other. 'rbus they may be supposed to have amalgamated. Honea, James addresses.his Epistle to" the twelve tribes which are of the dispersion," tha..t ;is, 1' scattered abroad," according to the Authorized Version; and Paul says, "Unto, which promise· our twelve.tribes instantly serving God day and night, hope to come." We. may cite, as confirmatory, the opinion of the late Dr. M'Caul. He says, "I f~el s'trorigly inclined to the opinion that the t01;1 tribes a.re now found mingled with the other. two. I do. not mean thl/,t the ten tribes returned. from Babylon, for in Ezra. and Nehemi~h wear~ told pa~ticularly who did return, but that the main body of the Jews, who remained m Babylon, who were dispersed in Egypt and other countries, and who. npver re~un;uid, naturally mingled with their brethren of the other tribes, and that this inferinixtul'ii increased after the destruction of the second temple." Their return to the house of David, intimated in ver. 5, presupposes some such reunion with their hrcthren as that of which we speak. We are, therefore, inclined to believe that the J udahites as well as the Israelites. are comprehended in this plural patronymic of " the 1 children of Israel." J, THE COI\RESPONDENCE OF THE CONDITION OF THE JEWS WITH THAT HERE SPECIFIED. The state of the Jewish people at the present day, as well as during centuries past, corresponds mo_st exactly with that here described by Hosea. And where, it may be asked, is it po~sible to find any other nation whose condition-political and religious- is the same or, even similar i' 'l'heir condition is precisely what is here described with. respect to Church and state, or public worship 11ncl civil government. No doubt in. thdr dispersion they are subject to the king or rule_rs of the countries where they dwell; they b1we kings over them, but not of their own natiou; they have laws by which !)2 THE BOOK OF HOSEA, (on, ut. 1-!i.
they a.re governed, but those laws are not their own, nor the laws which God he.d given them. They he.,,e no king nor rulers to defend them from Aggression without, nor king and high officers of state as the legislative and executive powers within. Kings of countries where they have sojourned have been mean enough and wicked enough to rob and plunder and oppress them cruelly. II. THE OONFUSION OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES. "Here," says an old commentator, "is much privation-six' withouts:' (1) 'without a king;' (2) 'without a prince;' (3) 'without a !'11.crifice;' (4) • without an image;' (6) 'without an ephod • • (6) • without teraphim; ' but the last verse makes up for all: 'They shall return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king.' 'fhese 'withouts' show the wonderfully confused estate that Israel was to be in for many days, ma.ny years, both in regard of_ their civil and of their Church estate.'' They had corrupted their wa.y, setting up idols in Dan the pla~ of judgment, and in Bethel the house of God; and that corruption now ends in oonfusion of both their civil and Church estate. They had combined the ordinances of God with their own devices, that is, the sacrifice and ephod with the image and the teraphirn; now they are deprived of both.