The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 143

HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-5.-God here arraigns the ~ins. of prir,ces,. priests, and pwpk. Their degeneracy had been very greo.t o.nd their sms very grievous. Though there is no fol'mal catalogue given of those sins, yet they are incidentally exhibited in the reproofs and rebukes which follow. I. ALL CLASSES ARE ADDRESSED BY THE DIVlllE WORD. It is directed to the hicrh and to the low alike; to the rich and to the poor; it speaks to every grade in society and every rank in life; there is none so high as to be above its teaching, and none so lowly as to be beneath its notice. To sovereigns as to the meanest subjects of their realm; to magistrates and men in authority, as well as to those under their jurisdiction the warnings and admonitions of Scripture reach. To all, of every class and condition' of every caste and clime, the Divine Word is offered as a light to their Jeet and a lamp to their path. II. ALL CLASSES ABE AMENABLE TO THE DIVINE JUDGMENTB. The judgments of God are denounced against all workers of iniquity-from the poorest and meanest of the people to the priests who should be their instructors and examples, and to the princes and principal men, who should not only rule and guide, but protect and preserve them to the utmost of their power. And yet there is a distinction; for those who, through their exalted position or extensive influence, seduce others to sin, expose themselves to sorer condemnation. But, while those who entrap others into sin are doubly guilty, the per- sons entrapped are not on that account guiltless. Subjects sometimes suffer through the mistakes of their sovereigns; but when subjects and sovereigns are both involved in guilt, they must expect to have their respective share in punishment. When God has a controversy with a people, and his judgments are approaching, it is a time for serious consideration and solemn reflection. Hence we have a triple call to attention in this first verse : " Hear ye this, hearken ye, give ye ear.'.' It was an earnest time and an emphatic call; for God "will at last force audience and attention from the most stubborn." Ill. ALL CLASSES BAD PEBVEBTED THEm WAY, The revolters seem to have belongeil to all ranks and to have comprehended all classes. If the "slaughter" which they made refers to the slaying of sacrifices, it is spoken of with contempt, because those sacrifices, whether from defects in their own nature, or imperfection in the manner in which they were offered, or the wrongness of the motive with which they were presented, were unacceptable to God. Accordingly he speaks of them disparagingly ; for "though the prophet spake of sacrifices, he no doubt called sacrificing in contempt killing; as though we should call the temple the shambles, and the killing of victims slaughtering." If, on the other hand, the slaughter referred to be understood literally of actual murder, the criminality is still greater, and they bear the brand of red-handed assassins. In either case, the idiom employed is a very energetic mode of expression "The slaughter they have made deep," or," they have gone deep in slaughtering," conveys the idea of the great length to which they had gone, either in sacrifices to idols and contrary to legal appointment, or in.murderously shedding blood, or even in the more modified sense of causing destruction. They had gone to an extreme in the direction indicated, whichever sense is assigned to slaughtering. It is not so much that they hid their doings deep, as that they went deeply into their works, or sunk deeply in their sin. Further, the aggravation of their sin consisted in its being without excuse. They could not plead ignorance, for they had had line upon line, and precept upon precept. They could not say that they had been left to themselves without lot or hindrance, for had they not enjoyed the instructions and admonitions of those prophets of God whose sphere of labour lay in the northern kingdom? Warnings they had had from Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, and others ; corrections moderate in measure and salutary in design they had, no doubt, been favoured with. Yet all had been to no purpose; they sunk deeper and deeper in the slough of sin, so that their sin had become exceeding sinful. I IV. ALL DISGUISES OF SINNERS ABE TRANSPARENT TO THE EYE OF O.MNISCIENOE. Many o.re the pretences men mo.ke to cover their sins, and artful the pretexts by which they seek to hide them. But however men may strive to conceal their sins from their fellow-men, however they may gloss them over so as to deceive their own souls, and  U2 THE BOOK OF HOSE~. [OH, V, 1---18,