211 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up,.... The Jews, in their present state, are as dead men, both in a civil and spiritual sense, and their conversion and restoration will be as life from the dead; they are like persons buried, and, when they are restored, they will be raised out of their graves, both of sin and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then shall we know, [if] we follow on to know the Lord,.... The word "if" is not in the original text, and the passage is not conditional, but absolute; for as persons, when converted, know Christ, and not before, when he is revealed to them, and in them, as the only Saviour and Redeemer, so they continue and increase in the knowledge of him; they...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?.... Or, "for thee" (x)? The Lord having observed the effect and consequence of his going and returning to his place, of his leaving his people for a long time under afflictions and in distress; namely, their thorough conversion to him in the latter day, and the blessings...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Therefore have I hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth,.... Sharply reproved them for their sins by the prophets, who were as lapidaries that cut stone, or us hewers of timber that cut off the knotty parts; so these by preaching the terrors of the law, which is a killing letter, and by delivering out the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice,.... That is, the one rather than the other, as the next clause explains it. Sacrifices were of early use, even before the law of Moses; they were of divine appointment, and were approved and accepted of by the Lord; they were types of Christ, and led to him, and were continued unto his death; but in...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But they, like men, have transgressed the covenant,.... The false prophets, as Aben Ezra, whom he threatened to cut off and slay, Hosea 6:5; or rather Ephraim and Judah, whose goodness was so fickle and unstable; and who, instead of doing acts of mercy, and seeking after the true knowledge of God and his worship, which are preferable to all...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Gilead [is] a city of them that work iniquity,.... The chief city in the land of Gilead, which lay beyond Jordan, inhabited by Gad and Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh; and so belonged to the ten tribes, whose sins are here particularly observed. It had its name from the country, or the country from that, or both from the mountain of the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And as troops of robbers wait for a man,.... As a gang of highwaymen or footpads lie in wait in a ditch, or under a hedge, or in a cave of a rock or mountain, for a man they know will come by that way, who is full of money, in order to rob him; or, as Saadiah interprets it, as fishermen stand upon the banks of a river, and cast in their hooks to...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel,.... Idolatry, the calves set up at Dan and Bethel, which God saw with abhorrence and detestation; or the prophet saw it, and it made his hair stand on end as it were, as the word (g) signifies, that such wickedness should be committed by a professing people: there [is] the whoredom of Ephraim;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee,.... That is, God hath set and appointed a time of wrath and vengeance for thee, which is sometimes signified by a harvest, Revelation 14:15; because thou hast been guilty of idolatry also, as well as Ephraim or the ten tribes: or rather it may be rendered, "but, O Judah" (h), he, that is, God, hath...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Hosea 7 This chapter either begins a new sermon, discourse, or prophecy, or it is a continuation of the former; at least it seems to be of the same argument with the latter part of it, only it is directed to Israel alone; and consists of complaints against them because of their manifold sins, and of denunciations of punishment for...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
When I would have healed Israel,.... Or rather, "when I healed Israel" (k); for this is not to be understood of a velleity, wish, or desire of healing and saving them, as Jarchi; nor of a bare attempt to do it by the admonitions of the prophets, and by corrections in Providence; but of actual healing them; and by which is meant, not healing them...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they consider not in their hearts [that] I remember all their wickedness,.... That is, the people of the ten tribes, and the inhabitants of Samaria, whose iniquity and wickedness are said to be discovered, and to be very notorious: and yet "they said not to their hearts" (m), as in the original text; they did not think within themselves; they...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They make the king glad with their wickedness,.... Not any particular king; not Jeroboam the first, as Kimchi; nor Jehu, as Grotius; if any particular king, rather Jeroboam the second; but their kings in general, as the Septuagint render it, in succession, one after another; who were highly delighted and pleased with the priests in offering...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They [are] all adulterers,.... King, princes, priests, and people, both in a spiritual and corporeal sense; they were all idolaters, given to idols try, eager of it, and constant in it, as the following metaphors show; and they were addicted to corporeal adultery; this was a prevailing vice among all ranks and degrees of men. So the Targum, "they...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
In the day of our king,.... Either his birthday, or his coronation day, when he was inaugurated into his kingly office, as the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi; or the day on which Jeroboam set up the calves, which might be kept as an anniversary: or, "it is the day of our king" (o); and may be the words of the priests and false prophets, exciting the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait,.... The prince, people, and scorners before mentioned, being heated with wine, and their lust enraged, they were ready for any wickedness; for the commission of adultery, lying in wait for their neighbours' wives to debauch them; or for rebellion and treason against their...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They are all hot as an oven,.... Eager upon their idolatry, or burning in their unclean desires after other men's wives; or rather raging and furious, hot with anger and wrath against their rulers and governors, breathing out slaughter and death unto them: and have devoured their judges; that stood in the way of their lusts, reproved them for...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people,.... Either locally, by dwelling among them, as some of them at least might do among the Syrians; or carnally, by intermarrying with them, contrary to the command of God; or civilly, by entering into alliances and confederacies with them, as Pekah the son of Remaliah king of Israel did with Rezin...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Strangers have devoured his strength,.... Or his substance, as the Targum; his wealth and riches, fortresses and strong holds: these strangers were either the Syrians, who, in the times of Jehoahaz, destroyed Ephraim or the Israelites, and so weakened them, as to make them like the dust by threshing, 2 Kings 12:7; or the Assyrians, first under Pul...