The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 112

!nm; Pekah slaying Pekahiah; and Hoshea slaying Pekah; so that "the land Wll.8 polluted with blood." IV. HUMAN BINF0LNEBB DRAPES NATURE IN WEED8 OF WOE. We have here at once an expansion and illustration of the sentiment of the psalm (cvii. 33 34) "He turneth ... 11 fruitfnl land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dw~ll th~rein." Man and beast, fish and fowl alike, are sufferers in consequence of human sin. The whole crention groaneth and suffereth together in consequence of the creature havinn- been subjected to vanity. "When," says Jerome, on this verse, "the inhabitant i; removed, the beasts also, and fowls of heaven, and fishes of the sea shall fail ; and even the dumb elements shall feel the wrath of God." Many actual illustrations of this state of things, we doubt not, had taken place in the history of Israel, as in the days of Ahab and many a time besides. When rain was long delayed and dronght ensued the land mourned and its inhabitants languished. ' V. PERVERSENESS IB A PREPARATIVE FOR DESTRUCTION. When people become so froward and perverse as to be beyond reproof, so that God says of them, as he does in effect ofisrael in this passage, "Let them proceed and reproof cease," they are on the very verge of a fearful precipice. Israel had gone so far towards that perilous position that no private person was permitted to warn, if so disposed, or reason with his neighbour; not even the priest, God's appointed minister, in those days dared venture to do so, or if he did it was labour lost. They stumble and fall, teacher and taught, prophet and people together. .As also both night and day alike; by day, when danger was least and the disgrace greatest; in the night season, when darkness made destruction inevitable. Worst of all, no helper to be hoped for; or, rather, the mother--she that might be expected to hold up or lift up her children-is herself doomed. That mother, whether Samaria, the mother city, or the commonwealth itself, the mother of them all, w:i.s devoted to the silence of destruction. Vere. 6-10.-Priestly neglect and its consequences. This section deals with the sin and punishment of the priests, as the preceding one had described the sin and punish- ment of the people. The priests here referred to were probably Leviticiu priests still scattered through the northern kingdom, since God speaks of them as his priests ; while those which Jeroboam appointed out of other tribes than that of Levi, and from all, even the lowest, ranks of society, were rather priests for the worship of the calves. I. MINISTERIAL UNFAITHFULNESS. The ignorance of the people is here attributed to priestly negligence. They disliked and despised the knowledge of God for them- selves, and consequently had no heart for dispensing it to others. The means available for knowing God they did not take advantage of, and accordingly their own ignorance unfitted them for instructing the people. Idleness combined with indifference in the case of these unfaithful ministers of religion, so that they were neither rightly instructed themselves nor capable of instructing others; while their carelessness increased their incapacity. It is incumbent on all public teachers to be diligent in their private studies ; and a fearful r&lponsibility is incurred by those who, appointed to instruct others in religious matters, refuse to take the pains necessary to qualify them for the efficient discharge of such important duty. It is a grievous sin for ministers of religion to serve God with what costs them nothin?:, and so to feed God's people with husks instead of the finest of the wheat. How different is the picture our Lord gives us of on<l who is faithful to such an importnnt trust I " Therefore," he says, "every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." II. 'l'Hl!l PUNISHMENT CORRESPONDS TO THEIR BIN. 'They had rejected Divine knowledge; God rejects their priestly services. They had forgotten the Law from disuse, no doubt having previously forsaken it; God threatens to forget them, and, what was more galling, their children after them, so that the priesthood would be lost to them for ever, Wiinsche and some others insist that it is the people and not the priesthood that is here addressed ; that the whole nation is addressed as a single person, and that consequently the children are the individual members of the nation. Both priests and people were guilty in this matter. Both had shut their eyes upon the light, and the light was at l~ngth withdrawn. Both had said," Depart from us: we desire not the know- ledge of thy ways ; " and God in turn had virtually said to them, " Depart from me : I 110 THE BOOK OF HOSEA. [CB, tv, 1-19,