The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 250

IV. WnoNo' MEANS OF HELP PROVE RUINOUS. The help which Israel hired amon.'.!; the hea.then, so far from availing the10, put the:n in a worse position than before. 1. God would f~uetrate their purpose, gat~ering their _hired allies against them, or themselves as exiles among aliens and enemies. If "a little" be not referred to time nor understood ironically, it may mean that heavy as was the tribute imposecl by the Assyrian monarch, and grievous to be borne so that it caused revolt, it was the source of little grief compared with what followed, when first a portion and then the whole nf the nation were carried into Captivity. 2. Partly similar and partly dissimilar i• th 8 following exposition of Kimchi: "They at first murmured and complained on account of the burthen of the king and the princes, as is written in the Book of Kings that the kings of the nations imposed tribute on them; and this the prophet calls a trifle in comparison with the Captivity." The taxes and burdens with which they were oppressed were, indeed, mere trifles, and easily borne in respect of the Captivity and the calamities that succeeded. 3. "A people," says an old expositor, "who have suffered under lesser trouble, and yet have made no right use of it to prevent more, or have used sinful means to be rid of it, may expect no other issue but that the Lord will send a greater trouble to make them forget the fo:tmer; for this had been their carriage under their tribute aud burdens, and they are therefore told they shal,l sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes." Further, the means that men use will be of little avail so long as they refuse to acknowledge God, while the most prurient plans of their own devising, if unsanctioned and unblessed by him, end in disappointment and disaster; what 'they hire for their preservation becomes their undoing, and i~sues in destruction. Israel had applied to Assyria, and as the result of that application" began to be minished through the burden of the king of princes" (according to one rendering of the clause). First came the exactions of Pul, then the captivity of Gilead by Ti~ath-pileser, ancl in the end the deportation of all Israel by Shalmaneser. V. A SHOW OF RELIGION WITHOUT THE SUBSTANCE SERVES o::.LY TO INCREASE SIN. God had, from the time of Moses, appointed one altar at Jerusalem; and when, in the days of Joshua, the trans-Jordanic tribes were thought by tbeir brethren to have built an altar in violation of the Divine appointment, it called forth a most vigorous remon- u strance: What trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the Lord, in that ye have builded you an altar, that ye might rebel this day against the Lord?" It was only on receiving an explanation that it was not a sacrificial but monumental altar that the western brethren were recon- ciled. 1. N:ow, however, they had so far degenerated that beside the once central altar at Jerusalem they had one at Dan, another at Bethel, and others on every high hill and any other place that pleased them. This multiplication of altars had the appearance of religion, but only the appearance; these many altars were in all likelihood made for the ostensible purpose of offering expiatory sacrifices for sin, but were actually an augmen- tation of the people's sin, each altar becoming an additional element in the national transgression. 2. Th'ey had turned aside from God for human help; next they turned aside from the divinely appointed mode of worship to human methods, substituting for the pure service of the Most High the miserable semblance of self-devised religiousness. They had made· many altars, which, however intended, resulted in the commission of sin; and now these many altars, instead of expiating their sins or making amends for their transgressing God's express command, are counted to them for sin and bring them in guilty before God, not to speak of the fact that the multiplication of altars to the true God would occasion the further sin of dedicating altars to other and strange gods. lf men corrupt religion, however plausible their pretext, they do it at unspeakable peril to their own soul and the souls of others. VI. THERE IS NO REASONABLE EXCUSE FOR sm. This was specially the case with Israel, and still more particularly with ourselves. If Isctel had been left in heathen darkness, if they had been ignorant of the Divine statute; and jud:;ments, ii they had not enjoyed the high privilege of beinO' made the custodians of God's living oracles, there might have beeu some excuse for them, though indeed natural reason is sufficient. to leave even the heathen without any reasoMble excuse for idolatry. 1. But how· different it was with Israeli God had made known to them, ancl that in pcrmanen, written record, the many lessons of his Law; but much as God had done for the ,Peop!u of Jewry, still more has he done for the peoples of Ohristendom, for while the Le.w  250 THE, BOOK OF ,ijOS¾n1