The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 108

In oompe.rieon with, the fathers; for they Vere. 15-17.-ln this section the prophet, teach them to commit whoredom doing e.o- as if despairing of any improvement ur oording to their worlce. Perhe.pe the de.ugb- amendment on the part of Israel, still reso- tere are still little, therefore I ehe.11 not lutely bent on spiritue.l whoredom, addre.sses punish." Rnshi thinks that this three.tening an earnest warning to Jnde.h. From proxi- refers to tho disuse of the bitter waters of mity to those idole.tries and debaucheries je11lousy, so the.t suspected guilt could not so prevalent in t~is northern kingdom, ancl be detected. But there is nothing to inti- from the corruption at least of the court in me.to suoh a reference ; nor would it be in the southern ~ingdom during the reigns of keeping with the eoope of the passe.ge. Jore.m, AhazIBh, e.nd Ahaz, Judah was in Age.in, some, as in the mcngin of the danger; and hence the prophet tnmed Authorized Version, read the words, not aside, with words of earnest waminu, to the indicatively, but interrogatively-" She.11 I sister kingdom not to involve herself in the not punish," etc.? This would require same or similar guilt. Rashi's brief com- such a meaning to be read into the pas- ment here is, "Let not the abildren of sage o.s the following: "Assuredly I shall Judah learn their ways." punish them; and not the daughters and Ver. 15.-A.nd oome not ye unto Gilgal, daughters-in-law only, but the parents and neither go ye up to Beth-e.veu, nor swear, The husbands still more severely, because of Lord liveth. From a solemn warning in their greater criminality." Equally unsatis- general terms, he proceeds to a specific- pro• factory is the explanation of Theodoret, who, hibition. The prohibition forbids pilgrim- taking _,P-~· in a good senee, which it has ages to plo.ces of idol-worship, such as Gil gal with the accusative, understands it of God's and Beth-e.ven ; it also forbids a profession refusing any protection or preservation of of Jehove.h-worship to be made by person, their daughters and spouses from outrage inalined to idolatrons practices. Gilgal, now at the hands of a hostile soldiery, so that the village of Jiljilio., which had been a such sine as they themeel ves had been guilty school of the prophets in the days of Elijah in private, would be committed with the and Elisha, had, as we may rightly infer females of their family in public. For they from passages in Hosea and Amos, become themselves are separated with whores, and a seat of idolo.trons worship. The Hebrew they saoriiloe with harlots. The change of interpreters confound the Gilgal here re- person appear.a to imply that God turns ferred to with the still more renowned Gil- away with inexpressible disgust from such ~l between Jericho and the Jorclan, where vileness, and, tuming aside to a third party, J oshuo. circumcised the people a second time, expluine the grounds of his procedure. The and celebrated the Passover, and where, Q•desheth were females who devoted them- manna failing, the people ate of the old selves to licentiousness in the service of corn of the land. "And why," asks Kimcbi, Ashtaroth, the Sidonie.n Venue. Persons of " to Gilgal ? Becauee at Gilgnl the sanc- this description were attached to idol temples tuary was at the first when they entered the and idole.trone worship in heathen le.nds in land; therefore when they went to worship ancient times, as in India at the present idols they built high places there for the time. , The • Speaker's Commentary' calls idols. But with respect to the tribe of them "devotee-harlots," and cites an all usion Judah, what need has it to go to Gilgal and to the onstom from the Moo.bite Stone, e.s to leave the honse of the sanctuary which is follows : " I did not kill the women and in their own cities?" And Beth-el, now maidens, for I devoted them to Ashtar- Beitin, had become Beth-aven-the house of kemoeh." After stating the humiliating God a house of idols, after Jeroboam had set fact that fa.there and husbands in Israel, np the calf there. Judah was to eschew instead of uniting with their wives in the those places so perilons to purity of worship ; worship of Jehovah, separated themselves, also a practice hypocritical in its no.turn going a.side with these female idolaters for and highly dangerous in its tendency, the purpose of lewdness, and shared in their namely, confessing Jeho\"Bh with the lips, so.crificie.1 feasts, the prophet, or rather God and by a solemn act of attestation indica- by the prophet, impatient of the recital of tive of adherence to his worship, but belying such shameless licentionsness, and i ndig- that confession by complicity in idolatrous nant at such presumptuous sinning, closes practices, like the peoples who" worshippe,l abruptly with the declaration of the reck- Jehovah, but served their own go,ls." Kim- lessness, and denunoia.tion of the ruin of all chi observes as follows : "For ye engaµ;e in such offenders, in !ho words-the people that strange worship, and yet sweo.r by the N awe doth not understand shall fall ; margin, be of Jehovah; this is the way of iucenaing anu punished; rather, dashed to the gro,m,l, or despisiug him." plunge into ruin (nilbat). Both Aben Ezrn Ver. 16.-For Israel slideth baok as a baok- and Kimohi give from the Arabic, 11s au eliding heifer : now the Lord will feed them 11lternutive sense of nilbat, to fall into error. u a lamb in a large plaoe. This verse con- 106 'fliE DOOi{. · Oll' HOSti.