BIG IDEA:
THE JUDGMENT OF DISPERSION AND BARRENNESS CHARACTERIZES A NATION ABANDONED BY GOD FOR SPIRITUAL HARLOTRY AND DEEP DEPRAVITY
INTRODUCTION:
H. D. Beeby: Hosea continues his attack on the cult. In the previous chapters the targets had been idols, altars, and sacrifices; in the present chapter he chooses the most culpable example of cultic apostasy: a harvest festival. Most likely this was the autumn festival of Tabernacles or Booths, also known as the “feast of the LORD” (v. 5; Judg. 21:19–21; Deut. 16:13–15; Lev. 23:39–43).
Biblehub: Hosea 9 is a stern chapter filled with the prophetic words of divine judgment. It showcases God’s profound disappointment with Israel for its repeated disobedience and idolatry. Here, the consequences of unfaithfulness are laid bare, painting a clear picture of the spiritual famine that has overtaken the land. The chapter also underscores the grave dangers of rejecting God’s prophets and their teachings.
John MacArthur: Hosea enumerates the features of the Lord’s banishment to Assyria:
- Loss of joy ( 1, 2)
- Exile ( 3-6)
- Loss of spiritual discernment ( 7-9)
- Declining birth rate ( 10-16)
- Abandonment by God ( 17)
H. Ronald Vandermey: After sowing the wind for two centuries, the nation of Israel is granted in chapters 9-10 a glimpse of the whirlwind that will sweep her into judgment. As will be observed throughout this section, God’s judgment in each case is a particular fulfillment of the sowing-reaping principle (cf. Gal. 6:8). Those sins that Israel sowed have become the seeds of her well-deserved judgment.
Lloyd Ogilvie: The deception of prosperity among the people to whom Hosea spoke would soon be exposed. The threat of losing food and wine in their threshing floors and winepresses is explained in verse 3. The people will not enjoy the produce of the land because they will no longer dwell there. Their salvation history will be reversed. Some of the people will be exiled in Egypt. They will be punished by being sent back to the bondage from which the people of God had escaped in the historic Exodus centuries before. Others will be carried off to exile in Assyria, where they will eat food offered to other gods. This is an ironic twist for the Israelites. They had worshiped false gods in their own land; now they would be forced to eat food that was taboo. They would have to stomach their own apostasy!
Further, because the people resisted worshiping Yahweh in their own land, they will not be able to worship Him in customary ways in the dispersion. Verse 4 plays on the irony. Thank offerings had been misdirected to false gods in their homeland; now the wine offering, the drink offering, which should express gratitude to Yahweh, would not be permitted in captivity. Sacrifices that should have been made for sin and the assurance of atonement before, now will not be pleasing to Yahweh. The words, “Nor shall their sacrifices be pleasing to Him” (9:4), may also be rendered, “They shall not offer their sacrifices to Him.” The reason will be that traditional altar sacrifices to Yahweh will not be allowed. All food in the foreign lands will be ritually unclean and unfit for offering to Yahweh. At home the Israelites had substituted physical for spiritual satisfaction. In captivity they would have only physical satisfaction.
I. (:1-9) THE JUDGMENT OF DISPERSION AND ABANDONMENT
Trent Butler: Good harvests and other immediate “blessings” do not guarantee God’s favor or call for God’s people to celebrate when they have not changed their false religion and sinful lifestyles.
Anthony Petterson: The Israelites’ worship will be radically altered because of their sin and God’s punishment. Festivals were occasions for rejoicing, but the people of Israel have no reason to rejoice. They suffer because of their unfaithfulness (identified in ch. 8 as idolatry and foreign alliances). Israel was to be distinct from the nations, but the people have acted like prostitutes, selling themselves to the nations,. The wages of sin are famine, miliitary conquest, and exile to the very countries they have flirted with (cf. Dt 28:38-41). Any sacrifice they offer in exile will be unacceptable to God and render the people unclean (Hos 9:4). They will not be able to carry out their festivals there at all (v. 5; cf. 2:11). Egypt is a place of death for Israel (Memphis was renowned for its burial practices). The treasure the Israelites sought will come to ruin. All this is God’s punishment on their many sins (9:6-7). It is not certain from the Hebrew whether the prophet in verses 7-8 is a true prophet that the people reject or a false prophet who deceives and will be judged by God. Either way, the people have rejected God’s word and are as corrupt as the people in the days of Gibeah, a reference to the horrific pack rape and murder of a Levite’s concubine that resulted in civil war within Israel (Jdg 19-21; cf. Hos 10:9). God’s justice will bring punishment for their sins.
David Allan Hubbard: The tone of the entire passage is threat of judgment by an exile (v. 3) which will make their religious festivities impossible (vv. 4–5). In the land that belongs to Yahweh (v. 3), their feasts have become pagan activities (cf. like the peoples, v. 1). Now they will be dispatched among these pagan peoples (vv. 3, 6), where singing Yahweh’s song will be only a tearful memory (Ps. 137). The threat of exile has been sounded before (7:16; 8:13). Here for the first time it is amplified by a disclosure of its monumental consequences for Israel’s treasured calendar of worship.
A. (:1-4) Warning against Rejoicing
Biblehub: God admonishes Israel not to rejoice like other nations, given their betrayal through idolatry. He prophesies that they will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria, indicating future exile and hardship. Their offerings will no longer be pleasing to God.
- (:1-2) Rebuke for Spiritual Harlotry
a. (:1) Warning Not to Rejoice
“Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations!
For you have played the harlot, forsaking your God.
You have loved harlots’ earnings on every threshing floor.”
Trent Butler: The invasion by Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria in 732 B.C. had reduced Israel’s power and resources to almost nothing. Still Israel ignored God and went on worshipping as usual, combining traditions from worship of God with those of Baal worship. Apparently one year, shortly after 732, Israel’s harvest was abundant. The people gathered for the harvest festival. It was a time of joy, celebrating God’s good gifts to his people.
In the middle of the celebration, Hosea appeared and commanded the people to stop the party. Israel’s harvest festival did not look like God’s instructions from Deuteronomy. Their celebration followed the pattern of Baal worship with sacred prostitution and magical expectations. Israel rejoiced like the nations, not like the Lord wanted. No longer did they celebrate at the place God chose, his holy sanctuary. Rather, they celebrated at every threshing floor.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: Joy is the natural response of agricultural people at seeing the abundance of their harvests (Lev 23:40; Dt 16:14), but Israel will have no cause to celebrate (v.1).
Allen Guenther: What seems to be prohibited is that their pattern of celebration is borrowed from the Canaanite culture. Possibly the form of these celebrations was unique and associated with the Baal and Asherah cults . The accusation proper spells out the nature of their sin (9:1b). . .
The Israelites are caught between two worldviews. Each accounts for the harvest, but in different ways. Yahwism draws attention to God as the source of all that the earth produces (cf. Gen. 1:11-13, 20-30). Accepting the Lord as the source of the harvest is to be an act of faith. No magic, fertility ritual, or sexual acts are needed to stimulate or energize the Deity to produce the crops.
Baal worship invited the worshiper to participate with the god Baal in generating new life and filling the granaries. It is hard to argue with vivid experiences. For those preoccupied with the benefits of worship, Baal more convincingly explained the source of the harvest than the Lord.
Duane Garrett: Israel had tried to be like other nations by seeking wealth and good harvests by the same means that the nations employed, the fertility cult. But Israel could not become one of the nations, and the lost harvest served as evidence that, whether or not they wanted it, they were the elect of Yahweh. When Israel embraced pagan religious ideals, it was behaving in a way inconsistent with its own identity. In the same manner the church cannot do itself or anyone else any good if it tries to be what it is not. When salt loses its flavor, it becomes entirely worthless (Matt 5:13).
Because their harvest has failed, they cannot rejoice, and their harvest has failed because of their “prostitution” against God. Here Hosea only briefly alludes to the metaphor of the prostitute, but that allusion is sufficient for the reader to call to mind the entire image of Israel the wayward wife that Hosea has already developed. The “wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor” probably carries a double meaning. It is literally the immoral acts that often accompanied the party atmosphere at harvest, but it is also figuratively the large harvest that the fertility cult was intended to insure. The supposed benefits of the cult were both sexual license and agricultural prosperity.
b. (:2) Withholding of Material Blessings (Grain and Wine)
“Threshing floor and wine press will not feed them,
And the new wine will fail them.”
Trent Butler: God controls the earth and all its produce. When they did not worship him for providing their needs, he would withhold his blessings.
Robin Routledge: The nation has been unfaithful (zānâ; cf. 1:2; 2:5; 3:3; 4:10–15; 5:3), and what they have received, rather than being a sign of divine blessing, is no more than the pay given to a prostitute (cf. 2:7, 12). Consequently, Israel’s celebrations will be short-lived. Yahweh’s judgment will remove material signs of prosperity (cf. 2:7), and the produce of threshing-floors and winepresses will not meet the people’s needs. The term translated fail can also mean ‘deceive’, probably referring to the self-deception that material blessings are a sign of divine favour.
- (:3) Relocation to Egypt and Assyria
“They will not remain in the LORD’s land,
But Ephraim will return to Egypt,
And in Assyria they will eat unclean food.”
J. Andrew Dearman: A clever pun unfolds from the first clause in v. 3. It is the play on the similar sounding verbs dwell (yāšab) and return (šûb). With the play on words comes also the reversal of saving history and, sadly, Israel’s identity. They were once rescued and brought to dwell in YHWH’s land. Now they will be overtaken and returned to Egypt.
The land of Israel is YHWH’s property, an integral part of his household. As such, it has sanctity and cannot continue to support the people’s defection from the covenant ethos and from their covenant Lord. In 4:3 the land is portrayed as ill and in mourning, as if it suffered from the effects of Israel’s moral and cultic pollution. Part of the punishment depicted for Israel in 9:3 is that they will be thrust from the land and forced to eat unclean food in Assyria, thereby defiling themselves. The term for unclean (ṭāmēʾ) in 9:3 is an adjective. In 9:4 it is employed as a verb. Hosea’s line of thought converges with a basic claim of the pentateuchal Holiness Code: the land belongs to YHWH. While living in it Israel is but an alien or a sojourner with him (Lev. 25:23), and there are instructions to avoid defiling activities in it. Much of what makes up the instructions for holiness in the Pentateuch is concerned not just with Israel relating rightly to God, but also with Israel attending to that task, in part, by efforts to sanctify time and space. Even Deuteronomy, which concentrates on “all Israel” rather than emphasizing priestly sanctification, states repeatedly that the land is YHWH’s gift to Israel. From that perspective it contains instruction so that the land is not defiled (Deut. 21:23). Hosea’s logic runs thusly: If the people profane the covenant and engage in harlotrous activities against YHWH, they will be expelled from his land, a constituent element of his household, and be forced to live in a defiling situation.
John Goldingay: Letting the harvest fail will not be the end of Yahweh’s response (v. 3). Ephraim’s failure to keep its side of Yahweh’s relationship with it will also mean losing its place in his country, as he said (Lev. 18:25 makes the point more pungently). Theologically, it will go back to Egypt, which had been a place of bondage rather than freedom, or rather a place of subservience to a foreign ruler rather than service to Yahweh. It is also a place to which Ephraim has recently put itself once more into subservience and a place where it will be treated as spoil (see v. 6), in some contrast to the way it had once stripped the Egyptians (Exod. 12:36).
- (:4) Ramifications of Being Banished to Pagan Society
“They will not pour out libations of wine to the LORD,
Their sacrifices will not please Him.
Their bread will be like mourners’ bread;
All who eat of it will be defiled,
For their bread will be for themselves alone;
It will not enter the house of the LORD.”
B. (:5-9) Warning of Days of Punishment
Biblehub: God warns of days of punishment and retribution, where their religious festivals will turn into mourning. It is reminiscent of the days of Gibeah, where the Israelites sinned and continued to sin, thus, initiating the cycle of divine punishment.
- (:5-6) Hard Times Lie Ahead
a. (:5) Banished from Celebratory Feasts
“What will you do on the day of the appointed festival
And on the day of the feast of the LORD?”
Trent Butler: Such judgment set up a dilemma for Israel. Three times a year they were to appear before God in annual festival days (Exod. 23:14–17). If God would not accept their worship, especially their offerings and sacrifices, what could they do on those days? The highlight of the year vanished in divine punishment. The day of greatest joy became Israel’s date with judgment.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: The rhetorical question of v.5 follows naturally. If they are unable geographically and incapable sacramentally of offering what is acceptable to God, then what are the people to do on the “day of your appointed feasts” and for the “festival days of the LORD”?
b. (:6) Buried Amidst Pagan Nations
“For behold, they will go because of destruction;
Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them.
Weeds will take over their treasures of silver;
Thorns will be in their tents.”
Trent Butler: Egypt collected both their money and their refugees, then sent them to the city of Memphis twelve miles south of Cairo, where Israel was buried—filed in the list of nations that used to be significant but would never again return to historical prominence.
J. Andrew Dearman: The last two clauses in v. 6 are in synonymous parallelism. Thistles and briars are a word pair used elsewhere to portray a sedentary existence gone awry as a result of divine judgment.
- (:7-9) Hostility towards God Deserves Swift and Severe Punishment
Duane Garrett: This is one text where Hosea has given us clear parallelism, which helps when trying to clarify its meaning. One should begin with the structure of the text and develop the interpretation of difficult lines from there. The structure, if one follows the accentuation of the MT, is as follows:
A1 Days of punishment have come,
A2 Days of retribution have come.
—Let Israel know—
B1 The prophet is a fool
B2 The man of the Spirit is mad,
C1 because your iniquity is abundant,
C2 and (because of) the abundance of your hatred. (v. 7)
B1´ Ephraim’s watchman is with my God,
B2´ And a prophet is a fowler’s snare upon all his [Ephraim’s] ways.
C1´ Hatred is in the house of his God! (v. 8)
C2´ They have deeply corrupted themselves
—as in the days of Gibeah.
A1´ He shall remember their iniquity,
A2´ He shall deal with their sin. (v. 9)
a. (:7) Arrival of Punishment
“The days of punishment have come,
The days of retribution have come;
Let Israel know this!
The prophet is a fool, The inspired man is demented,
Because of the grossness of your iniquity,
And because your hostility is so great.”
Allen Guenther: Nothing has changed. Israel has not learned from the past. They do not understand the dangers of consorting with Canaanites, nor do they recognize the Lord’s claims to their total loyalty. They have not acknowledged the gift of the good land as a grant of love. The days of recompense have come (Hos. 9:7a).
J. Andrew Dearman: A popular interpretation of 9:7b has been to see it as a quotation of the people, who react negatively to Hosea and describe him as a demented fool. This is possible, but it requires textual emendation or a changed speaker who is unidentified. A more straightforward reading sees in 9:7b–c the continuation of Hosea’s critical voice. Who, then, is the crazy prophet(s) condemned by him? That prophet would be one who is blind to the imminent danger announced by Hosea, someone who has announced blessing and security for Israel. Such prophets would have been Hosea’s opponents. If one interprets 9:7b as an indictment of Hosea’s prophetic opponent(s), then it fits in a larger context of inner-prophetic debate, of which there are several instances elsewhere in the OT.
David Allan Hubbard: That these words are the public reaction to Hosea not his indictment of the false prophets (cf. 4:5; Mic. 3:5–8; Jer. 23:9–32) seems clear from the context, where they stand in opposition to verse 8, and from the fact that virtually everything Hosea says about prophets supports their divinely sponsored task (6:5; 9:8; 12:13).
James Mays: This saying is the only direct clue in the entire book of Hosea to the prophet’s reception by his countrymen. The window which it opens on his life is however opaque. The speech is tantalizingly brief and at one point (v. 8a) exceedingly difficult to follow. There is no accompanying narrative (as in Amos 7.1 off.) to describe the circumstances of Hosea’s persecution. Yet the lines bear witness clearly enough to the scorn, hostility, and danger which surrounded him as he announced the end of the covenant, the rejection of Israel’s culture and cult, and the terrible punishment about to fall upon the nation. His own people to whom he was sent by their God slandered him with the charge of madness and plotted his downfall throughout the land.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: Hosea is being scorned for an unpopular message (cf. Am 7:10–13; Jer 29:26–27; Wolff, 152; Stuart, 145–46; Hubbard, 155). Perhaps his marriage to Gomer qualified him as odd in their eyes as well.
Alternate View:
Trent Butler: Hosea knew the people saw him as wild, uncontrolled, and insane in his accusations and pronouncements. He had a simple answer for such sneering remarks. The perception resulted from a people who were overloaded with injustice, guilt, and punishment.
b. (:8) Accusation of National Failure
“Ephraim was a watchman with my God, a prophet;
Yet the snare of a bird catcher is in all his ways,
And there is only hostility in the house of his God.”
J. Andrew Dearman: Both Jeremiah (6:17) and Ezekiel (3:17; 33:2–7) apply the role of watchman/sentinel to the prophetic task. If it is a divine calling, then it is carried out in conjunction with God. This, in essence, is the first clause. We might expand its terseness by rendering it: “A prophet is supposed to be a watchman over Ephraim with God.” If in 9:7 Hosea excoriates a prophetic opponent as demented, here in 9:8 he begins with a definition of who/what a prophet should be.
c. (:9) Accountability for Deep Depravity
“They have gone deep in depravity As in the days of Gibeah;
He will remember their iniquity, He will punish their sins.”
Trent Butler: The prophet turned to another famous moment in Israel’s history—the horrible rape scene perpetrated by the Benjaminites in the city of Gibeah (Judg. 19–20). God has a long memory when it comes to unconfessed, unforgiven sin. Hosea can pronounce the sentence with confidence. God will punish them for their sins.
J. Andrew Dearman: The thrust of the verse is that the people have corrupted themselves in a manner similar to a previous event in Gibeah and that God will see to their judgment in the historical process.
II. (:10-17) THE JUDGMENT OF BARRENNESS AND ABANDONMENT
H. D. Beeby: The historical reference in Hos. 9:9 is followed by a section which includes two other major historical recollections: Baal-peor (v. 10) and Gilgal (v. 15). Although the wilderness is also mentioned (v. 10), the recollections of Baal-peor and Gilgal are more significant; indeed, it is around these two that the whole section revolves. Thus the section divides into two parts: vv. 10–14, which develop out of the Baal-peor episode, and vv. 15–17, which have Gilgal as their focal point. These similarities are not the only ones which exist between the two parts; there are parallels both in form and in content. Each part has its source in a place where momentous events occurred in the past and which has acquired a certain symbolic and representational value. Mention is made of the sins associated with the place and the continuing comparable sins in the present. Threats and judgment follow which in both cases include lack of fertility, population depletion, and the death of children at God’s hand. Finally, each part concludes a divine speech with a prophetic utterance (vv. 14 and 17); that in v. 14 is clearly a prayer for disaster to fall, and that in v. 17 can be read as a prayer which is in effect a curse. Continuities with what has gone before are everywhere; two deserve special mention. We have met the emphasis on cultic and kingly sins before, especially in chs. 7 and 8. The two parts of this section divide along these lines: 9:10–14 concentrates on the cultic ways, while vv. 15–17 are more concerned with the sins of the leaders. The second continuity is with 8:7. In both parts of the present section it is not difficult to see both the unwelcome harvest theme and the disproportionate effect.
Trent Butler: A history of sin and a prophet’s approval support God’s decision to wipe out the people he once loved.
Anthony Petterson: This section contains the first of four images showing that Israel has fallen miserably from its earlier glorious state and will be punished for its sin. Israel was like delightful fruit, like grapes in the desert and early fruit on the fig tree (v. 10). In Hebrew “Ephraim” sounds like the word for “fruit.” Yet early in its history, the Israelites committed idolatry and sexual immorality at Baal Peor on the plains of Moab (Nu 25:1-9; 1Co 10:8). Israel’s glorious status as God’s blessed people will depart, and Israel will be under the cures of barrenness and death. God will turn from his people, and the result will be devastating. Tyre, an island city on the Mediterranean, was renowned for its great wealth and the security of its seawalls (cf. Zec 9:3). Ephraim too was wealthy and secure, but it would be conquered. The slayer (v. 13) refers to Assyria and Egypt (vv. 3, 6). In light of this, Hosea interjects a request for judgment: a reversal of the blessing of Joseph by Jacob (v. 14; cf. Ge 49:25). The wickedness of Israel is fully on display in the corrupt worship at Gilgal (cf. Hos 4:15; 12:11). God’s hatred is expressed by driving the people out of his presence. No longer loving them echoes Hosea 1:6-7 and 2:23. The delightful fruit is no more. The fruit of the womb will be slain (Hos 9:16; cf. Ps 127:3). Hosea 9:17 is another interjection by Hose that links Israel’s disobedience with exile.
Lloyd Ogilvie: The tone of this section changes dramatically to historical retrospect. Yahweh’s speech is more reflective, but no less anguished. The two divine speeches, verses 10–13 and verses 15–16, are followed by two prayers by Hosea for the deserved punishment of the people, verse 14 and verse 17. This alternation of divine speech and prophetic prayer is like the accounts of prophetic visions and responses in Isaiah 6:8–11 and Amos 7:1–6. Wolff proposes that this section of Hosea comes from a time shortly after the address of 9:1–9 when Hosea could no longer speak publicly because of the opposition, but spoke to an inner circle of those with like convictions. Stuart suggests a time in the “mid-720s, very close to or at the beginning of the fall of the North.”
Duane Garrett: This section also has an underlying chiastic structure, as follows:
A Israel found in the desert (v. 10a)
B Israel apostatizes from God (v. 10b)
C Ephraim barren; even if they bear children, God will slay them (vv. 11–12)
D Comparison to Tyre; children go to “slayer” (v. 13)
E Prophet’s prayer (v. 14)
D´ Sin at Gilgal; people expelled and leaders stubborn (v. 15)
C´ Ephraim barren; even if they rear children, God will slay them (v. 16)
B´ Israel disobeys God and is rejected (v. 17a)
A´ Israel a wanderer among the nations (v. 17b)
David Allan Hubbard: This brief section takes its title from the simile with which it begins. It needs to be divided into five short sub-sections:
- An accusation based on Israel’s failed potential early in their history – verse 10;
- An announcement of judgment in a chain-link argument that threatens literal extinction of Ephraim’s descendants – verses 11–12;
- An expansion of the announcement which culminates in a prayer curse on Ephraim’s reproductivity – verses 13–14;
- An announcement of judgment in exile with an accusation that centres in Gilgal where Saul was first crowned king (1 Sam. 11:14–15) – verse 15;
- An announcement that sums up what has been said about Ephraim’s double judgment of fruitlessness and exile – verses 16–17.
A. (:10-14) Baal-Peor Episode –
Past Rebellion the Model for Deserving the Curse of Barrenness
Biblehub: Downfall of Israel — Israel, once compared to a fruitful vine and luxurious fig tree, has now fallen into disgrace because of their Baal worship. God promises to drive them out of His house and take away their blessings, making their land barren and leaving no offspring.
- (:10) Perverting Divine Favor
“I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;
I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season. But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame, And they became as detestable as that which they loved.”
Lloyd Ogilvie: The key for the interpretation of this verse is to remember that the name Ephraim was closely connected to the word fruitful. And this is exactly what the chosen vine and fig tree of Ephraim eventually proved not to be. Not in the wilderness, not in Hosea’s time, and not in response to the Messiah. . .
Jesus called His disciples to fruitfulness. His judgment on the Israel of His day was that the tree of God produced leaves of religion but not the fruit of righteousness in individuals and the nation as a whole. Combining a discussion of this parable [Matt. 7:15-20] with Hosea 9:10 reveals the fruitfulness that delights God and the fruitlessness that disappoints him.
J. Andrew Dearman: Poetic parallelism puts grapes and early figs together as delightful surprises in the wilderness. Part of the surprise is simply the presence of the fruit in such an infertile region. To the extent that the wilderness is equated with the desert, fresh fruit is an impossibility apart from an oasis. The wilderness can be a rugged area with little or no cultivation, but not necessarily the desert. To find a grapevine or a fig tree in a sheltered crevice or hidden valley in a rugged, semi-arid region would be quite surprising, but not impossible. Delectable fruit, a real joy when passing through a wilderness, puts YHWH’s acquisition of Israel in personal and emotive terms. He took delight in them.
Trent Butler: God looks with fondness to the beginning of his history with Israel. He found them in the Egyptian wilderness and delivered them at the Red Sea. His loving action was so surprising it had to be compared to finding grapes in the midst of the desolate, arid wilderness (Ezek. 16:6–16). The discovery brought joy like tasting the very first sweet fig on a new fig tree (Isa. 28:4) after a long season without figs.
But divine joy was short-lived. Israel moved through the wilderness to Baal Peor. There they aligned themselves with the Canaanite gods in worship (Num. 25). Worship of such a shameful thing made Israel an abomination just as the idols were an abomination to God (Ezek. 5:11). Hosea ends the verse with the language of love from the first three chapters, for they became as vile as the thing they loved. As Gomer loved prostitution, so Israel loved false gods. This was not a one-time affair. It was a habit dating back to the wilderness. Israel did not break its habit of idolatry, so God had to break Israel.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: He likens the people to grapes and ripe figs. Finding these in the arid regions of that part of the world brings joy (cf. Isa 28:4), but that pristine goodness soon turned to rebellion at Baal Peor in Moab (Nu 25; Ps 106:28–30). There they indulged in idolatry and sexual promiscuity with foreign women.
John Goldingay: Yahweh himself now looks back, in a remarkable pair of new images (cf. Mic. 7:1). Imagine you’re in the wilderness and you’d love something fresh and sweet, and then you find a vine with grapes on it. Or imagine that summer is approaching and you’d love something fresh and sweet, and then you find the first fruit on a fig tree, the particularly tasty fruit that grows on last year’s shoots (cf. Isa. 28:4). That’s how I felt about Israel, about the ancestors of the present generation, Yahweh says. One shouldn’t press or allegorize the notions of finding or seeing, or the location in the wilderness. The analogy is like that of Israel as Yahweh’s bride; the point is the delight of the early relationship.
- (:11-12) Punishing Israel with Barrenness
“As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—
No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!
Though they bring up their children,
Yet I will bereave them until not a man is left.
Yes, woe to them indeed when I depart from them!”
J. Andrew Dearman: The Hebrew text of 9:11–12 is almost staccato in expression, conveying what may be pent-up emotions in terse declarations. Hosea has elsewhere compared Israel to a senseless dove that will be brought down by YHWH’s net (7:11–12). Here the comparison with birds in flight is different. Ephraim’s glory will depart abruptly, leaving behind devastating consequences. Indeed, it is YHWH himself, Ephraim’s true glory, who is leaving. The terminology in 9:11 is a reversal of the nation’s fertility. There will be no conceiving and bearing of children, but even if parents raise children, they will become childless.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: “Glory” may refer to Israel’s wealth or its posterity, but it is better to interpret the term as a descriptor for Yahweh (cf. 1Sa 4:21–22; Eze 8). He who should have been their security and the object of their affections will leave and turn the nation over to a dreadful fate. The One who could give Israel life now decrees sterility (v.11b). This reversal is matched by the inverse order of the verbs for childbearing. The severity of these words is strengthened in v.12a, that God will remove any children that might survive the disaster. What should have been occasions for joy will be motives for mourning. Such is the result of divine abandonment (v.12b).
Derek Kidner: But whether or not they cared about the loss of glory or of God, there was another and more tangible loss to face. From verse 11 to the end of the chapter the family tree of Ephraim (that is, of the northern tribes) is seen either dying back or being lopped of all new growth. They have worshipped fertility through the sex-rites of Baal, and they have sold their souls for peace: their judgment will be infertility and war. Here again it is a blend of natural and supernatural processes: natural, in that in any case the abuse of sex tends towards disease and to the barrenness of 11b and 14, and that broken treaties tend to leave a country friendless (12-13); but supernatural in that God will see this matter through to the bitter end.
- (:13) Presenting Remaining Children for Slaughter
“Ephraim, as I have seen, Is planted in a pleasant meadow like Tyre;
But Ephraim will bring out his children for slaughter.”
M. Daniel Carroll R.: To lead their children to the slaughter, therefore, means that their sin will result in their families’ meeting death at the hands of the invader.
- (:14) Pleading Degenerates into Cursing
“Give them, O LORD– what wilt Thou give?
Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.”
Trent Butler: The prophet appears to take up his role as intercessor for his people to God as he begins, Give them, O LORD, but then he stops to ask himself a question: what will you give them? . . . In such a situation, the prophet cannot intercede on behalf of the people. He can only urge God on. This is a sign of the nation’s desperate situation. It took such strong language to get the people’s attention.
H. D. Beeby: The prophet who gave us the phrase “like people, like priest” (4:9) might also have given us the expression “like past, like present.” Frequently, and especially in the latter part of the book, the principle is demonstrated. What Israel was, it still is. What Israel is, it has been from the earliest days. But this only applies to a continuity of sin.
Lloyd Ogilvie: Miscarrying wombs and dry breasts would be in direct contradiction to the false prayers for fertility offered in the Baal rites. Hosea in essence asks for punishment to fit the crime of harlotry, but not annihilation.
B. (:15-17) Gilgal as Focal Point for Failures of Israel
Biblehub: God’s Wrath and Israel’s Destruction — God’s wrath is upon Israel, and He will forget them. Their persistence in sinning and idol worship has led to their ultimate destruction and dispersal among nations. The chapter ends with a depiction of a strong rejection of Israel due to their defiance.
- (:15) Rebellion Turns God against the Nation
“All their evil is at Gilgal; Indeed, I came to hate them there!
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more;
All their princes are rebels.”
Trent Butler: How could such a situation develop between God and his people? Hosea pointed the finger at the nation’s rebellious or stubborn leaders. Israel’s leaders never learned. They followed Baal and its fertility cult to the very end of their nation’s existence.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: A literal reading of the Hebrew is “All their sin is at Gilgal.” Gilgal is targeted as an unacceptable cultic center in several passages (4:15; 12:11)—a stance echoed in Amos (Am 4:4; 5:5). It was a symbol of all that has been wrong with the faith of Israel, and there the nation’s misconstrued worldview finds religious authorization; so Yahweh will expel the people from the sanctuary (“my house”; cf. 8:1; 9:8).
Allen Guenther: Gilgal has a triple significance in Israel’s history.
- First, it was the base of operations form which Joshua launched the attack against the inhabitants of Palestine ( 9:6; 10:6; 14:6). In preparation Joshua had the people circumcised (Josh. 5). Circumcision signifies purification of the means of procreation (fertility); circumcision signals that obedience to God.
- Second, Gilgal also marked the end of dependence on anna and quails. There Israel began to eat the produce of the land. Gilgal, therefore, symbolizes the fulfillment of the promised blessings.
- Third, every Israelite would see more in the name Gilgal. There Saul was confirmed as king (1 Sam. 11:12-15). There Saul lost the kingdom when he disobeyed Samuel by offering a sacrifice when Samuel did not appear on the seventh day as promised (1 Sam. 13:1-15). So Gilgal also brings to mind the beginning of a disobedient and rebellious monarchy ( 9:15c).
God gathers together Israel’s failure to acknowledge God’s gifts and the failure of leadership in the one word, Gilgal.
There also, God’s hatred emerged against this people (9:15a). They had hardly gained a toehold in the land before he determined to expel them from it (9:15b).
- (:16) Retribution on Israel’s Progeny
“Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up, They will bear no fruit.
Even though they bear children,
I will slay the precious ones of their womb.”
M. Daniel Carroll R.: Israel is a sick plant, not the luxurious vine that God found and wanted to flourish (v.10).
Trent Butler: Hosea turns again to the agricultural world for metaphors to describe the situation of God’s people. They are beaten down like grain under hot sun without rain or under the feet of advancing enemy armies. Baal could prevent neither the famine nor the fearful enemy advance. The Lord chose not to prevent either. All the fertility efforts made in the name of Baal or in the name of God will fail because they are not the worship efforts God demands from his people. He focuses on loving the Lord, the one true God, and loving one another.
J. Andrew Dearman: Three linked terms for destruction are used in 9:16. They are strike or “smite” (nākâ), dry up or “wither away” (yābaš), and put to death or “kill”
(mût; Hiphil). The first and third occur in descriptions of warfare and its destruction (Jer. 43:11; 52:27). Withering is the result of being struck (Jonah 4:7; Zech. 10:11).
- (:17) Removal from God’s Presence
“My God will cast them away Because they have not listened to Him; And they will be wanderers among the nations.”
Trent Butler: No longer is the Lord Israel’s God. He is only Hosea’s God. All the rest of the nation is rejected. Just as the people wandered in the wilderness under Moses, so they will now wander among the nations they earlier sought for help. They will suffer shame and loss of power and prestige as enemies send them into exile.
M. Daniel Carroll R.: Exile from the land “among the nations” as the curse for rebellion is Israel’s future (v.3; cf. Lev 26:33, 38; Dt 28:64).
Derek Kidner: So the chapter ends with a reiteration of the nation’s immediate prospect, which was equally God’s sentence and their own choice; a fourfold doom of barrenness, carnage, estrangement and homelessness. The last of these, ‘they shall be wanderers among the nations’, was to become, tragically, part of their distinctive and proverbial reputation – yet it was not the last word that God would have for them. For this, see Romans 11 in its entirety, but especially verses 11-16 and 25 to the end.
Gary Smith: They are no longer his people but will be fugitives, wandering homeless and aimless among the nations. Hosea may well be remembering God’s earlier rejection of Saul at Gilgal (1 Sam. 15:23) and seeing how this rejection now extends to the whole nation. This truly is a depressing ending—without hope, without divine love, and without a prophet to intercede.