J. N. Darby.
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(Notes and Comments Vol. 4.)
How profoundly touching are the movements, and appeals, of divine affections, God's affections, which are found in this Book! I know nothing exactly like it in Scripture, if it be not the Lord weeping over Jerusalem.
- 11. 'And shall go up out of the land'; query, if this be not going up to their solemn feasts all together, under one head, from all the territory of Canaan, not out of it; as we say 'from the country.'
Hosea 10
- 10. "It is in my desire, and I will chastise them, and peoples shall be gathered together against them when chastised for their two iniquities." So the Septuagint and Vulgate. Chaldee, "when bound to their two furrows as oxen." Gesenius, in onah (duty of marriage), peccata.
Hosea 11 and 12
I return again, for a moment, to Hosea. How God remembers, adverts to, all the points of contact, of every kind, between Himself and Israel - recalls the moments of grace on His part, faith even on Jacob's! This is true affection. Now Israel floated on, utterly insensible and forgetful, or using these memorials, as Beth-el, Gilead, etc., to connect idolatry with what memory clung to. But how wonderful this is! And how we forget the proofs of most loving grace we have had from God, and go on in idleness of mind! We ought to be, as a present thing, with Him. Then memory is, so to speak, not needed. But God has dealt, and His heart calls to mind when we grow cold and forget, because He loves. This is most noticeable in this and the preceding chapter.
Hosea 14
- 9. We have to remark that all the dealings of God with Israel were not a question of absolute final pardon or clearing, but governmental. As a figure, their redemption, as a nation, was at the Red Sea, and they were brought to God, then took up first Law, and then were put under the revelation there made to Moses, when God's goodness passed before him, and were so governed. Only, as a chosen people, in all their affliction He was afflicted, and His gifts and calling are without repentance. No doubt, to deliver them really, as they were sinful ever, and a 'sinful nation,' Christ must die for that nation, and this they will find out at the end, according to Isaiah 53. But the ways of God, meanwhile, were governmental - pardons and chastisements on the way - I add, till grace is fully known and redemption. The mind may put these together, because sin has deserved judgment and final rejection, and God is not known. Only, in the Psalms there is a provision to sustain faith till redemption be fully known to them.