The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 140

of whoredom-n adulterons generation. me1ming of the eomewhat obscure wordti in lar8C'l's infidelity to the holy covenant had the concluding clnuse can give little trouble, as its result a graoeles9, godless race- when read in the light of the context. The children strange and supposititioue in the sounding of the al1um of wnr indicates with epiritm,1 sense. Now ■hall a month devour tolerable plainness what was coming behind them with their portion■ . If (1) "month" be Benjamin; nor is there need to supply the the right rendering, it is a note of time like words, "the enemy rises behind thee," with " the day of the Lord;" and the sense is that some, or" the sword rages behind thee," with a short time shall see the end of them-not others. The signals announoe the foe 1U1 only of their persons, but their properties, arrived at the frontier of Judah. The enemy that is, their hereditary portions in Pales- is close behind thee, Benjamin, in olose tine. But (2) if" new moon" be tho correct pursuit after thee, upon thy very heels. translation, the new moon, or sacrificial EphrlWII shall be desolate in the day of feasts cdebrated at tbe.t season, will only rebuke. The day of rebuke is the season ruin, not relieve, them. Their sinful sacri- when God rebukes sin by punishment; the fices and vain oblations, on which they now punishment in this case is no slight rebuke placed their reliance, will procure, not their or temporary chastisement. On the con- salvation, but perdition. trary, it is extreme in severity and final in Vers. S, 9.-Blow ye the oomet in Gibea.h, duration. Famine, or pestilence, or war and the trumpet in Ra.mah. Intimation had might lay a country desofote for a time, and been given in the preceding verse that the yet relief might soon ensue and recuperative period of iheir fast-approaching destruction power be vigorously developed. Not so was at hand ; that, as Kimchi expresses it, here. Ephraim is made more than desolate the new moon would soon come at which partially and for a short period ; it becomes their enemies would destroy them. Now he a desolation-" au entire desolation," as the pictures them as already on the march, and words literally mean. In this desolation just advancing t.o execute the work of de- the other tribes would be involved. Nor struction; while the terror and ele.rm conse- was the menace lightly to be regarded or quent thereon are here presented with great treated as meaningless ; it was firm-well ,·i,•idness, but at the se.me time with much grounded ae the word of the Eternal, and brevity. A similar scene is depicted at full irreversible as his decree. length by lse.ia.h in x. 28-32, where the Ver. 10.-The prinoes of J'udah were like line of the A.ssyrians' march seems to be them that remove the bound. The indi- indicated, if, indeed, it be not a poetic vidual who had the temerity to remove his representation of it, which the prophet neighbour's landmark was not only guilty of gives. Thus from Aiath (el-Tell) to the a great sin, but obnoxious to a grievous pass of Michmash, now Multmas, where he curse. Thus Deut. xix. 14, " Thou shalt not lays up his baggage; forwe,rd to Geba., remove thy neighbour's landmark, which where they qua.rter for the night; then on they of old time have set in thine inheri- to Nob, where he halts in sigbt of the holy tance;" and again xxvii. 17, "Oursed be city, and scarce an hour's march distant. he that removeth his neighbour's landmark. The alarm was to be sounded with the And all the people shall say, Amen." The shophar, or fe.r-sonnding cornet, made of removal of the landmark characterizes tht1 curved horn, and the chatsots'rcih, or straight condnct of men entirely regardless of trumpet, made of brass or silver, used in war the rights of others-utterly reckless. The or at festivals. This signal of hostile in- Jewish nobles, the king's ministers and high vasion was to be sounded in Gibeah, now officers of state, are compared to those who Tu/,eiL-eL-Ful, some four miles north of remove the landmark, disregarding alike Jerusalem, and in Ramah, now er-Ram, two what was due to their fellow-men and to miles further distant. Both these towns, their God. The Jewish commentators differ situated on eminences, as the names denote, in their exposition between fact and figure belong to the northern boundary of Ben- -some of them taking the removal of the jamin. The overthrow of the northern boundary as a matter of fact, the caph being kingdom is thus presented as an already for confirmation; thus D. Kimchi; while e.ccumplished fact; while the invading host L Kimchi explains it of the rejection of the Las already reached the frontier of the appeal for justice against removers of land- southern kingdom. Cry &loud at Beth-aven, marks; others understanding it figuratively, after thee, O Benja.mm. This cry is the and the whole as expressing general lawless- sound ol the war-signals al.ready mentioned, ness, thus Rashi : "Like a man who re- and tbe repetition intensifies the nature of moves his neighbour's landmark, juBt so they the alarm and the urgency of the case. hasten to hold fast the ways of Israel their Beth-aven wac either Bethel, now Beitin, on neighbours . . . 8.(',eording to the literal the border of Benjamin, or a town nearer sense, They grasped u.t the fields; but this, Mich.maah, belonging to Benjamin. The in my opinion, is harsh, for then the otr. v. 1-16.] THE BOOK OF HOSEA. 139