24 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Hosea 10 This chapter is of the same argument with the former, and others before that; setting forth the sins of the ten tribes, and threatening them with the judgments of God for them; and exhorting them to repentance, and works of righteousness. They are charged with unfruitfulness and ingratitude; increasing in idolatry, as they...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Israel [is] an empty vine,.... The people of Israel are often compared to a vine, and such an one from whence fruit might be expected, being planted in a good soil, and well taken care of; see Psalms 80:8; but proved an "empty vine", empty of fruit; not of temporal good things, for a multitude of such fruit it is afterwards said to have; but of...
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary - Matthew Henry
In this chapter, I. The people of Israel are charged with gross corruptions in the worship of God and are threatened with the destruction of their images and altars, ver. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8. II. They are charged with corruptions in the administration of the civil government and are threatened with the ruin of that, ver. 3, 4, 7. III. They are charged...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: Not to his God. It matters not how much fruit we bear — if it is for self, we are really fruitless. A thing which is good in itself may lose all its goodness because stained with a selfish motive. We are to live unto God; and we must always be watchful about this; otherwise we may be...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Their heart is divided,.... Some say from Hoshea their king, who would have reformed them from their idolatry, and returned them to the true worship of God; but of that there is no proof; better from one another, their affections being alienated from each other, by their discords and animosities, their conspiracies against their kings, and the...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: A half-heart is no heart at all; and when men seem to go after God, and at the same time to go after their idols, they are not going after God. Their religion is vain. The good side is but a pretense; the evil side is the real thing. Hos_10:2. He shall break down their altars, he shall spoil...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For now they shall say, we have no king,.... This they would say, either when they had one; but by their conduct and behaviour said they had none; because they had no regard unto him, no affection for him, and reverence of him; but everyone did what was right in his own eyes: or during the interregnum, between the murder of Pekah, which was in the...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the LORD; what then should a king do to us? Their king was slain, but if he had lived, what would be the good of him without God? What is the good of any temporal blessing if God be not in it? It is the husk with the kernel gone; and if we are able to enjoy the husk, it looks as if we...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant,.... Those are other crimes they were guilty of, for which the wrath of God could not be awarded from them by a king, if they had one, or by any other. They had used vain and idle words in their common talk and conversation; and lying and deceitful ones to one another in trade and...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
They have spoken words, That which they spoke was not truth. We cannot speak without words, but it is an evil thing when our speech is nothing but words. Words, words, words! — no heart, no truth. “They have spoken words.” Hos_10:4. Swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field. God keep...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven,.... Or, "the cow calves" (w), as in the original; so called by way of derision, and to denote their weakness and inability to help their worshippers; and so Bethel, where one of these calves was, is here, as elsewhere, called Bethaven; that is, the house of iniquity, or of an...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven: Why, those calves are their trust. They rely upon those images of false gods — those images which they set up in the place of the true God. Pretending thereby to worship him, they trusted in these; and now they shall become their fear. He who will have a confidence apart from...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
For the people thereof shall mourn over it. and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it. It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: The spiteful king.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
It shall also be carried unto Assyria [for] a present to King Jareb,.... Or, "he himself" (z); not the people of Samaria, or of Bethaven, or of the calf, but the calf itself; which, being all of gold, was sent a present to the king of Assyria, here called Jareb; either Assyria, or the king of it; [See comments on Hosea 5:13]; this was done either...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel. These golden calves excited the desires of the king of Assyria, and he book them away. These gods were baits, to their enemies, instead of basis for their confidence. They were carried away captive of the people with them — their god captive — their god melted down to...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[As for] Samaria,.... The metropolis of the ten tribes of Israel, and here put for the whole kingdom: her king is cut off; which some understand of Pekah, who was killed by Hoshea; others of several of their kings cut off one after another, very suddenly and quickly, as the metaphor after used shows; or rather Hoshea the last king is meant, who...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The high places also of Aven,.... Bethel, which is not only as before called Bethaven, the house of iniquity; but Aven, iniquity itself; the high places of it were the temple and altars built there for idolatrous service, which were usually set on hills and mountains: the sin of Israel shall be destroyed; that is, which high places are the sin of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah,.... This has no respect, as the Targum, and others, to Gibeah of Saul, of which place he was, and the choosing him to be king; but to the affair of the Levite and his concubine at Gibeah in the days of the judges, and what followed upon it, Judges 19:1; suggesting, that the sins of Israel were...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[It is] in my desire that I should chastise them,.... Or, "bind them" (a), and carry them captive; and by so doing correct them for their sins they have so long continued in: this the Lord had in his heart to do, and was determined upon it, and would do it with pleasure, for the glorifying of his justice, since they had so long and so much abused...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Ephraim [is as] an heifer [that is] taught, [and] loveth to tread out [the corn],.... Like a heifer taught to bear the yoke, and to plough; but learned it not, as the Targum; does not like it; chooses to tread out the corn where it can feed upon it, its mouth not being then muzzled, according to the law; oxen or heifers were used both in...