is a deep undertone of tenderness. The prophet 1JP08.kA, in the Lord's Name "with the labouring voice, interrupted by sobs, of a judge whose duty it is to pro~ounce the final heavy sentence after all posaible pleadings and con11iderations have been gone through" (Ewald). I. IsnAEL's BUIN, This ie referred to, both se regarda ite origin and its most recent manifestations. 1. The rwim began with the revolt from the house of David. Ephraim's proud determination to become politically independent of Judah was the root-sin from which sprang the corrnption of his religion and the immorality of bis whole life. In following Jeroboam, Samaria" rebelled against her God" (ver. 16), and entered upon a career which resulted in moral suicide. She rejected her only true" Help" when she said, " Give me a king and princes" (ver. 10). 'l'he kings of the ten tribes could not save the people; for Jehovah, the King of Israel, did not acknowledge their royalty. Neither Jeroboam I., nor any of the princee of the houee of Umri, or of the dynasty of Jehu-not to mention the military usurpers who afterwards snatched the crown from one another-had fulfilled the tme function of a king as being a shepherd of the people. Despite the seemingly splendid reign of Jeroboam II., the history of the northern kingdom was all along one of misfortune, degradation, and self-destmction. Israel "destroyed himself" with the weapons of pride and idolatry, sensuality and anarchy. 2. TIie ruin was perpetuated thrO?J,f}h his refusal to repent. This seems to be the idea. presented in ver. 13. Hosea had prophesied for upwards of half a century durin" the last long agony of his country; and during that period God had sent many cala~ities upon Israel, which were graciously fitted, like labour-pains, to induce the new birth. 'l'he latest of these travail-pangs are now imminent; but still Ephraim delayed thorough repentance, cleaved obstinately to his eins, and refused to be " bom again." The Lord desired that Ephraim's " sorrows" should suddenly cease, through the birth of a new Israel; but the people were" joined to idols," and thus-meantime at least-there could be no recovery from the ruin into which they had fallen. II. IsBAEL'e RETRIBUTION. The sin of the nation accumulated gradually. And the justice of God "retained" it, and pronounced punishment on it, and kept the punish- ment in store (ver. 12). Notwithstanding the distresses of the last two generations, which Hosea had witnessed, and from which he had himself suffered-including now, it may be, the seizure and imprisonment of Hoshea, the last unhappy king of l5rael (ver. 10; 2 Kings xvii. 4)-there was still a load of stem wrath waiting to discharge itself upon the guilty commonwealth. 1. Ephraim hall been punished thr~h his kings. (Vera. 10, 11.) The whole nineteen were apostates from Jehovah, and under them the cup of the nation's iniquity was slowly filled. The very" giving" of each monarch in the providence of God was a mark of his anger; indeed, many of them gained the throne as the result of military revolt and assassination of the preceding sovereign, whom God thus "took away in his wrath." 2. The kingdom itself is 1&010 to be destroyed. (V ers. 15, 16,)' The once "fruitful" Ephraim is about to suffer an irretrievable blight. The Assyrian power, like the hot blast of the simoom, shall blow upon his land, and for ever dry up the springs of its fertility. Samaria, its capital city, after a protracted death- struggle of three years, shall be subdued and devastated by Sargon, the successor of Shalmaneser. 'l'he treasures of the city shall be plundered, and its inhabitants cruelly murdered or dispersed among the heathen. Scarcely any trace will be left of the once proud and luxurious kingdom of Ephraim. 'l'he sentence of political extinction pro-- nounced against that state is irreversible. III. IsnAEL's BEBURBE0TION. The proper names " Hosea" and " Hoshea" mean "help" or "salvation." In King Hoshea, however, there was "no help" during the final extremity of the national peril; but the venerable Hosea. still lived, and announced that the Lord, whose word he had so long spoken to a disobedient nation, was still ready to become Israel's "Help" (ver. 9), notwithstanding all the wretched past. Although constrained passionately to denounce the sin of his people and to forewarn of the coming desolations, the prophet intimates that these dire punishments a.re also paternal chastise- ments, sent by Jehovah to arouse the people, and induce them to return to his service. The Divine heart is otill full of tender compassion for Israel. _The Lord cannot allow the nation utterly to perish. On the other side of the dreadful JUdgments. and the long dispersion, there will be a recov ory eo ~lorious as to b,e ,,called a ~es~rrec~1?u. " What shall the receiving uf thew be, but life from the <lead l (Rom. x1. lo). IhLB ultimate H6 'l'HE BOOK OF HOSEA. [on. nu, 1-16.
restoration is announced iu tho spl~ndid apostrophe of ver, 14--,a passage which the Arostle Paul, following the Septuagmt, quotes towards the close of hie sublime argu- ment for the certainty of the resurrection of the saints (1 Cor. xv. 66). In iLe original i<ense, however, this eong of triumph refers to the deliverance of the posterity of Ephraim fr0m their national doom. 'l'he ten tribes shall be carried captive, and shall bccomo p01itically dead and buried; but the time is coming when God will raise them up 1<piritually, and restore them to his favour. This brilliant promiJJo received no appre- ciahle fulfilment in the return of a few exiles of Ephraim and Manasseh along with tho fir~t colony of Jews who went up from Babylon at the close of the seventy years' cap- ti,·ity. 'l'be oracle clearly refers to Messianic times. It is in line with the general run of those Scripture prophecies which anticipate the national conversion of Israel and announce the Lord's unchangeable purpose to effect it (cf. ver. 14, last clause,'with Rom. xi. 29). And, as Israel was a typical nation, this proan of victory might well be used, as Paul uses it, to celebrate the triumph over death and Hades which the Messiah has already achieved in bis own person, and which he will by-and-by repeat in the general resurrection of his people. LESSONS. 1. God destroys no man; every sinner is self-murdered (ver. 9). 2. .Ade- qunte temporal punishment for our sins often consists in the simple granting of our desires (vers. 10, 11; Ps. cvi. 15). 3. When God leaves a man, hie prosperity withers (ver. 15). 4. 'fhe soul that forsakes God for an earthly portion shall be overwhelmed with regrets (vers. 13, 16). 5. Even while the Lord must denounce severe judgments, his love broods over the sinner, and remains invincible.-C. J.