The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 312

Vere. 9.....:.12.-A chequered, pictwre. These verses exhibit the continuance in Bin and its consequenlles, chastisement and its lessons, change of circumstances and its bitter experiences, the call to repentance and 'the blessed promises to the penitent. I. CoN'rl'NUANCE IN BIN. lsrael-·had corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah ( eh. ix. 9), and, as we are told in eh. x. 9, had sinned from the days of Gibea.h. 1. Grievous as their sin had been at first, it,was·grea.tly aggravated by being long continued. A~e after age sin had run: its ·course·; one generation after another had helped to fill np the cup of iniquity until it• had become brimful. A heathen complains of successive generations thus corrupting themselves, each outstripping that which preceded in iniquity: "What is there wasting time does not impair? The·age of our parents, worse than our gra!Jdsires, has borne us yet more wicked, who in ottr turn are destined to beget a progeny mdre sinful -still."' Z. 'l'his continuance• in sin shall be attended by dreadful conse·quences some day. This is a legitimate inference, whatever view we take of this difficult ninth verse. Whether the meaning be thiit the Israelites stood their gronnd,:and did not perish though twice defeated by the men of Benjamin, and that with a loss of forty thousand slain; and that, though spared, their destruction as dreadful as deserved11 shall overtake them now, and that without any possibility of escape, and when it does come it shall be found all the more dreadful from having been delayed in its c<'.>urse; or whether the· sense is that Israel, as if forsaken of God and alienated from his favour (possibly implied· by the change from the second to the third person), have stood, that is, persisted in their sin as there and then so ever since; shall not the battle overtake·such incorrigible offenders ; persevering so long in sin like the men of Gibeah, can tney expect to escape the war that of old did all but exterminate the transgressors ? Or whether the sense be that the Benjamites, then an integral part of Israel\ stood by the Gibeahites, defending, and so virtually abetting them in their iniquity, that the battle in Gibeah might ncit overtake those vile delinquents, and that Israel, resembling the Benjamites •in spirit, have sinned ·ever since, aiding, abetting, and taking part in similar cir greater atrocities and abominations. They are then left to· infer that a day. of reckoning still more terrible was to be expected by them. 11. CHASTISEMENT 'AND ITS LESSONS." In the case of Israel, they were not left merely to infer the approach of chastisement, they were positively assured of it. 1. Men are forewarned that they may be forearmed. . God had exercised much long-suffering and forbearance, but his goodness failed to- l'ea.d them to repentance. They had abused bis pa.trance, and now his purpose is to chastise; but even in ohastising them he is exercising nieroy in order to prevent final and inevitable ruin. He had rejoiced over them to do them good; he now takes pleasure in correctino- them-it is his desire. The nature of the chMtisement With which Israel is to b& visited closely resembles that which had been inflicted on the Benjamltes. 2. The reference to that ·transaction may have sug- gested to the prophet his description of the coming chastisement. 'l'he tribes of Israel banded themselves against 'Benjamin in. the battle of Giboa.h; so the peoples, the Assyrinns and their allies, would be gathereclagainst Israel. Kimchi has well e~pressed.  812 THE BOOK OF HOSEA. [olt. x. 1-10.