The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 410

1my, Pee.ea and safety; then sudden deRtruction cometh upon them as travail upon a wurnnn with child; and they shall not escape." ' V. llEBEMDJ,ANCE OB' BlNNJmll' BUDDEN AND BITTER BOBROW TO TRAVAIL-PAINS. When God unlocks hie treasury of wrath, e.nd brings forth to light the sins now 11hut up and sealed and safely kept, men's security and God's forbearance shall in that day issue in sudden and sore sorrows. These eorrows are like the sorrow11 of a parturient womo.n, sharp as they are sudden. Many passages of Scripture might be quoted to prove travail-pains to be emblematical of acute anguish and extreme distress. They are at the same time unescapable. VI. REPENTANCE I8 CJ,0811,LY CONNECTED WITH RENEWAL 01' LIJ'E. As the travail- pains of the mother are usually associated with birth, and so a new life and therefore joy; so the godly sorrows of repentance are inseparably conjoined with conversion to God, newness of life, and consequent Rpiritual joy. The unwisdom of Ephraim is evidenced by his staying eo long in the birth ; in other words, by his delaying repentance. Ephraim persists in his sins, obstinately persists in them, and makes no ett'ort to get out of them by repentance ; he endeavours not, by aid of proffered grace, to extricate himself by repentance from hie sin and misery and danger. How many there are, like Ephraim, who are content to lie long under convictions, but never think of agonizing to attain to thorough conversion! How many unwise sons there are I How many there are with strong convictions of sin, their conscience aroused, their understandings more or Iese enlightened, and affections much moved, and yet they stay there I They are brought to the birth, but they stop short-stay where they are, and refuse to come forth. They are not far from the kingdom of heaven, but unhappily they delay to enter into it, and that delay may prove fatal. They come to the place of breaking forth of children, but they stay long, alas I too long, in that perilous position. They are almost persuaded to become Christiane, but not altogether; and so they are only almost, but not altogether saved. How sad the case of those who come within a mile of home, yet never reach it! or who come within view of port, yet sink to rise no more before they reach the harbour! How lamentable the fate of those Israelites who had reached Kadesh-barnea, within eleven days' journey or Ieee of the land of promise, but who never set foot in that goodly land, their carcases having fallen in the wilderness I Vere. H-16.-The humiliations wrO'll,!}ht by the sins of Israel. The prophet'~ representation implies that they were dead-nationally, politically, and spiritually dead. 'l'hey were like dead men; and not only so, they were like men dead and gone and buried out of eight-so dreary and desperate was their condition. I. THE DESPEBATE STATE OP BINNEBB. They are spiritually dead-1ead through trespasses and sins. Even the people of God may by reason of their sine bring upon themselves such calamities, and may sink so low, as to be like men without life and lying in the grave. It was so with Israel at the period in question. They had come under the dominion of death, and had becorce subject to the power of the under world. Their condition is similarly described by Ezekiel in hie thirty-seventh chapter : " These bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts." II. THE DELIVERANCE PROMISED. The deplorable state of a sinful people dead and buried under calamities is no proof of he! pleesness when God undertakes their deliverance and presents no impossibility to the power of his omnipotence. 1. Israel in captivity were politically dead, the place of banishment was their grave. This is the condition of per~one in exile, for in a civil sense they are spoken of as dead. Deliverance from captivity is here promised to that people primarily and partially from the country of Assyria, but.fully and finally from the lands of their long dispersion and political death. 2. But Israel in all their remarkable history were a representative people; and so their restoration from a state so hopeless and helpless that to the eye of senae it seemed death, may typify the renewal of life in souls spiritually dead by the regene- rating power of God, and further the resurrection of bodies long dead and mouldered in the grave. The Septuagint expresses the sense of the original with perfect plai[mesa by substituting" victory" for" plagues." and" sting" for" destruction." Paul, in hill quotation of the passage, employs the Septuagint; and whether he employs the words allusively, or by way of accommodation, the hotter to express iiis sense of the mighty  412 THE BOOK OF HOSJU, [dlt, XilI, 1-18,