The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 372

HOMILETICS. Ver11. I-6.-Rpoof, retrospect, and ezhortatwn. Ephraim is reproved for the p11nrnit of empty and vain courses, and courscs detrimental to their best and real interests. Judah ii included in the threatening which follows. 'l'hey are exhorted to follow the example of the patriarch which is proposed for their imitation, with implied promise of similar success. The unehangeableness of God. who not only accepted Jacob, but bleReed and.prospered him, is held out to the descendants of Jacob as a guarantee of like blessings in case of their turning to God and bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. I. TJJE :!\ATURAL AVERSE:!<."EBB OF THE BE.ABT TO Go». This feature of the natural l1cart is patent in the case of Ephraim. The people of the northern kingdom spared neither 1,ains nor expense to obtain human help rather than seek help from God. 1. We 11otice the expensive nature of their proceeding. They made a covenant with the Assyrians, and that was an expensive compact; for Menahem King of Israel had to pay J'ul the Assyrian monarch a thousand talents of silver for the deRired help, and Hoshea became tributary to Shalmaneser, and ga.ve him costly presents; while the national ex.chequer was drained in another direction, valuable exports of oil being sent into Egypt. 2. 'lbe energetic pursnit of their purpose. They are represented as "following aft-er," and "daily incrcafSing." '!'hey imposed more toil on themselves to get away from Gr,d than they would have required to turn to God. They had" no less pains by going out of God's way than if they had kept in it; but God's way, as it is undoubtt:dly the surest, eo in many respects it is even the easiest, course.'' a. The empty conaequences of this course. '!'heir hopes were doomed to bitterest disappoint- ment, an<l their human helps proved hurtful in the extreme, The presents which they had lavished on the Egyptia.D.11 had no other effect than to compromise them with the Assyria.us; while the issue was the imprisonment of this prince and the captivity of the 1ieople. So is it still; men's carnal confidences deceive them, like wind which may fill but cannot feed them; and not only deceive, but draw down on them greater calamities than those they hoped t.o escape from. Thus they prove not only profitless as the wind but pernicious as the east wind. The outcome of all is not only lying vanities but desolation. II. THE AP08T.A.8Y OF Gon's OWN PEOPLE, HOWEVER PAnTJAL Al!iD TEMPORARY, IB JUSTLY PUKlBHA.llLE. God does not connive at sin in his saints that serve him, any more than in sinners that have never sought him; neither do men's ordinary good deecis atone for their occasional misdeeds. Sin in tbe people of God iB sure to bring chBlltisement in some form. At first sight it might seem strange, or even contradictory, that the Lord should have a controverey with Judah, of whom it had been asserted I' few verses before that "Judah yet ruleth wHh God, and is faithful with tbe saints." But a ready and right solution of the apparent difficulty is found in those striking statements of the Apocalypse, in which God, after bestowing deserved commendation on certain Churches for this or that course of conduct, Immediately adds," Nevertheless I have somewhat againHt thee." Their goodness, of whatever kind it waa, did not cauee tbdr ill del!(.1"ts to be overlookud. " S(JmC there are," says an old writer, •• who, If OB. XII. 1-14,] THE BOOK OF HOSEA. 878