Ver. 1. "The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, king of Israel. Ver. 2. At the beginning when the Lord spake to Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: Go take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms; for the land is whoring away from the Lord."
דִּבֶּר is never a noun—not even in Jer. v. 13—but always the 3d pers. Pret. Piel. The status constr. תחלת is explained by the fact, that the whole of the following sentence is treated as one substantive idea: the beginning "of the Lord hath spoken," etc., for "the beginning of speaking." יום דבר יהוה, the day of "the Lord spoke," instead of, "the day on which the Lord spoke." Similar constructions occur also in Is. xxix. 1, and Jer. xlviii. 6.—The Fut. with Vav Conv., ויאמר, "and then He spoke," carries forward the discourse, as if there had preceded: the Lord began to speak to Hosea. There is here a constructio ad sensum. It is intentionally, and in order the more distinctly to point out the idea of the beginning, that the prophet has made use of the noun תחלת, not of the verb. The construction of דבר with ב, with the signification "to speak to some one," may be explained thus:—that the words are, as it were, put into the mind of the hearer in order that they may remain there. Several interpreters erroneously translate, "spoke through:" others, following Jerome (the last is Simson), "spoke in;" as if thereby the act of speaking were to be designated as an inward one. The difference between outward and inward speaking disappears in the vision; and, for this reason, we cannot imagine that there is any intention of here noticing it particularly. Everything which takes place in the vision is substantially, indeed, internal, but in point of form it is external. Moreover, דבר with ב several times occurs in other passages also, where the signification, "to speak to some one," is alone admissible. Thus 1 Sam. xxv. 39, where Simson's explanation, "David sent and ordered to speak about Abigail," is set aside by ver. 40. The analogy of the construction of the verbs of hearing and seeing with ב is likewise in favour of our explanation.[1]—A wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms. The wife belongs to whoredoms in so far as she is devoted to them; the children, in so far as they proceed from them. For we cannot suppose that the children themselves are described as given to whoredom. Such a thought would here be altogether out of place. For whoredom is here only the general designation of adultery, as, by way of applying it to the case in question, it is immediately subjoined, "away from Jehovah." The subject of consideration is only the relation of the wife and children to the prophet, as the type of the Lord; and with this view, it is only the origin of the children from an adulterous wife which can be of importance. That this alone is regarded, appears from ii. 6 (4), compared with ver. 7 (5). That the children, as children of whoredoms, deserve no compassion, is founded upon the fact that their mother plays the harlot. אשת זנונים is stronger than זונה; it expresses the idea that the woman is given, soul and body, to whoredoms. The same emphasis is expressed also by the analogous designations: man of blood, of deceit, etc.—Calvin says, "She is called a wife of whoredoms, because she was long accustomed to them, gave herself over to the lusts of all indiscriminately, did not prostitute herself once, or twice, or to a few, but to the debauchery of every one." It is not without reason that "take" is connected with the children also. The prophet shall, as it were, receive and take, along with the wife, those who, without his agency, have been born of her. It is self-evident, and has been, moreover, formerly proved, that we cannot speak of children who were previously born of the prophet's wife; but that, on the contrary, the children are they whose birth is narrated in ver. 4 seqq. And that we cannot consider these children as children of the prophet, as is done by several interpreters (Drus.: "Accipe uxorem et suscipe ex eâ liberos"), is obvious from their being designated "children of whoredoms;" from the word "take" itself, which is expressive of the passive conduct of the prophet; from the fact that, in the subsequent verses, the conceiving and bearing of the wife are alone constantly spoken of, but never, as in Is. viii. 3, the begetting by the prophet; and, finally, from the relation of the type to the thing typified. By the latter, it is absolutely required that children and mother stand in the same relation of alienation from the legitimate husband and father. The words in ver. 3, "She bare him a son," are not indeed in opposition to it, for these words are only intended to mark the deceit of the wife who offers to her husband the children begotten in adultery, as if they were his, and, at the same time, to bring out the patience and forbearance of the husband who receives them, and brings them up as if they were his, although he knows that they are not. In like manner, the Lord treated, for centuries, the rebellious Israelites as if they were His children, and granted to them the inheritance which was destined only for the children, along with so many other blessings, until at length He declared them to be bastards, by carrying them away into captivity. The last words state the ground of the symbolical action. The causal כי is explained from the fact that the import of a symbolical action is also its ground. The Inf. absol. preceding the tempus finitum gives special emphasis to the verbal idea. The prophet thereby indicates that, in using the expression "to whore," he does so deliberately, and because it corresponds exactly to the thing, and wishes us to understand it in its full strength and compass. In calling the thing by its right name, he silences, beforehand, every attempt at palliating and extenuating it. Of such palliations and extenuations the Jews had abundance. They had not the slightest notion that they had become unfaithful to their God, but considered their intercourse with idols as trifling and allowable attentions which they paid to them.—Manger understands by whoredoms, their placing, at the same time, their confidence in man; but from what follows, where idolatry alone is constantly spoken of, it is obvious that this is inadmissible. If this special thing be reduced to its idea, it is true that trusting in men is, then, not less comprehended under it than idolatry, inasmuch as this idea is the turning away from God to that which is not God. And, from this dependence of what is special upon the idea, it follows that the description has its eternal truth, and does not become antiquated, even where the folly of gross idolatry has been long since perceived.—הארין, the definite land, the land of the prophet, the land of Israel.—Concerning the last words, Ps. lxxiii. 27 may be compared, where זנה מן occurs with a similar signification. This phrase contains an allusion to the common expression, "to walk with, or after, God;" compare 2 Kings xxiii. 3. According to Calvin, the spiritual chastity of the people of God consists in their following the Lord.
Ver. 3. "And he went and took Gamer the daughter of Dibhlaim, and she conceived and bare him a son."
Many interpreters suppose that, by the three children, three different generations are designated, and the gradual degeneracy of the people, which sinks deeper and deeper. But this opinion must certainly be rejected. There is no gradation perceptible. On the contrary, the announcement of the total destruction of the kingdom of Israel is connected immediately with the name of the first child, ver. 4. Nor is it legitimate to say, as Rückert does, that the three children are a designation of the "conditions" in which the Israelites would be placed in consequence of their apostasy from the Lord. For, how could mercy be shown to conditions? The right view rather is, that the wife and children are both the people of Israel, viewed only in different relations. In the first designation, they are viewed as a unity; in the latter, as a plurality proceeding from, and depending upon, this unity. The circumstance that the prophet mentions the birth of children at all, and the birth of three only, is accounted for by their names. The children exist only that they may receive a name. The three names must, therefore, not be considered separately, but must be viewed together. In that case they present a corresponding picture of the fate impending upon Israel. The circumstance that the mother and sons are distinguished in Hosea, rests upon the Song of Solomon. (Compare the more copious remarks in my commentary on the Song of Sol. iii. 4: "By the mother, the people is designated according to its historical continuity,—by the daughter or sons, according to its existence at any moment.")
Ver. 4. "And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little (while), and I visit the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel."
The name "Jezreel" is, by most expositors, explained in this passage as meaning: "God disperses." This they maintain to be its real signification, according to the etymology, and that all the rest is only an allusion. But this exposition is erroneous, as Manger has correctly perceived. For, 1. No instance occurs where the verb זרע has this signification. When applied to men, it is always used only in a good sense: compare ii. 25, Ezek. xxxvi. 9, and the subsequent remarks on Zech. x. 9. The idea of scattering is not at all the fundamental one; so that the signification, to disperse, is much further from the fundamental signification than might, at first sight, appear. 2. The subsequent words must be considered as an explanation of the name Jezreel, as is obvious from the corresponding explanations of the names Lo-Ruhamah in ver. 6, and Lo-Ammi in ver. 9, which are intimately connected with these names. But in this explanation, not even a single word is said on the subject of the dispersion of the people of Israel. The circumstance that, in this explanation, Jezreel occurs as a proper name, without any regard being paid to its appellative signification[2]—an allusion to which occurs only in the announcement of the salvation—shows that here too it must be viewed in the same way. The correct view is this. Jezreel was the place where the last great judgment of God upon the kingdom of Israel had been executed. The apostasy from the Lord, and the innocent blood of His servants, shed by Jezebel and the whole house of Ahab, had been there avenged upon them by Jehu, the founder of the dynasty which was reigning at the time of the prophet. At the command of God, Jehu is anointed as king by one of the sons of the prophets sent by Elisha, 2 Kings ix. In vers. 6-9 the Lord says to him through the latter: "I anoint thee king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master; and I avenge the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of Jezebel, and the whole house of Ahab shall perish. And I give the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah." The execution corresponded with the command. When Jehu approached Jezreel, Joram the son of Ahab went out against him, and met him in the portion of Naboth the Jezreelite, ver. 21. Appealing to the declaration of the Lord, "Surely I have seen the blood of Naboth, and the blood of his sons, and I will requite thee in this portion of ground" (ver. 26), Jehu orders the corpse of the slain king to be cast thither. At Jezreel, Jezebel too found a disgraceful death. Thither, as to the central point of vengeance, were sent the heads of the seventy royal princes, who had been slain, x. 1-10, and there Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab, ver. 11.—The royal house, and, along with it, all Israel, are now anew to become a Jezreel; i.e., the same divine punitive justice which, at that time, was manifested at Jezreel, is to be exhibited anew. The reason why this should be, is stated in the explanation. The house of Jehu, and all Israel, shall become a Jezreel, in as far as punishment is concerned, because they have become a Jezreel with respect to guilt, and because, as in former times at Jezreel, so now again, blood that has been shed cries to the Lord for vengeance. Where a new carcase is, there the eagles must anew be gathered together.—It must have, already appeared from this, how we understand the words, "I visit the blood of Jezreel," used in the explanation of the name of Jezreel, in the verse under consideration. According to the prophet's custom of designating, by the name of an old thing, any new thing which is substantially similar to it, the new guilt is marked by the name of the old; and it is marked as blood, because the former guilt was pre-eminently blood-guiltiness;[3] and as the blood of Jezreel, because the former blood-guiltiness had been especially contracted there, and it was there where the punishment was executed. The deep impression, which just this mode of representation must have produced, must not be overlooked. The sins formerly committed at Jezreel were acknowledged as such by the whole people, and especially by the royal house, whose whole rights were based upon this acknowledgment. The recollection of the fearful punishment was still in the minds of all; but they did not by any means imagine that they were implicated in the same guilt, and had to expect the same punishment. That which they considered as already absolutely past, the prophet, by a single word, brings again into the present, and the immediate future. By a single word of dreadful sound he terrified and aroused them out of their self-deception (which will not recognise its own sin in the picture of the sins of others), and out of their carnal security. Entirely analogous are 2 Kings ix. 31, where Jezebel says to Jehu, "Hast thou peace, Zimri, murderer of his master?" which Schmid well explains by—"It is time for thee to desist, that thou mayest not experience the same punishment as Zimri;" Zech. v. 11, where the prophet mentions Shinar as the place of Israel's future banishment; and x. 11, where he calls their future oppressors by the names of Asshur and Egypt, and describes a new passing through the Red Sea. In Revelation, the degenerate church is called by the names of Sodom and Egypt (xi. 18); the true Church, by Jerusalem; Rome, by Babylon.—The explanation which we have given will be its own defence against the current, and evidently erroneous, expositions. Many interpreters understand, by the blood of Jezreel, the slaughter of the family of Ahab which was accomplished there by Jehu. It is, indeed, quite correct to say that a deed objectively good does not thereby become one which is subjectively so. That which has been willed and commanded by God may itself become an object of divine punishment, if it be not performed from love and obedience to God, but from culpable selfishness. But that Jehu was actuated by motives so bad, is sufficiently obvious from the circumstance, that he himself did the very thing which he had punished in the house of Ahab. Calvin rightly remarks: "That slaughter is, as far as God is concerned, a just vengeance; but, as far as Jehu is concerned, it is open murder." But yet, this deed cannot be regarded as the principal crime of Jehu and his family. We must not overlook other crimes far more heinous, and consider the guilty blood shed by them as the sole ground of their punishment. That this was indeed considered as guilt, but only as a lower degree of it, is clearly seen from 1 Kings xvi. 7, where destruction is announced to Baasha, who had destroyed the house of Jeroboam I., "on account of all the evil which he did in the sight of the Lord, in provoking Him to anger with the works of his hands, so that he may be like the house of Jeroboam, and because he killed him." The main crime is, that Baasha had become like the house of Jeroboam. What he perpetrated against this house is the minor crime, and becomes a crime only through the former.—It is worthy of notice that "the blood of Jezreel" exactly corresponds, according to our explanation, with the expression, "so that he may be like the house of Jeroboam." It may be further noticed, that, in the deed of Jehu, every better feeling cannot be excluded. If the command of God had been used by him merely as a pretext, we could not account for the praise and the promises given to him on account of this very deed, 2 Kings x. 30. It is true that the limitation of the promise shows that pure motives alone did not prevail with him.[4]—"The bloody deed to which the house of Jehu owed its elevation" nowhere else appears as the cause of the catastrophe which befell this house. That which he had done against the house of Ahab, whose sins were crying to heaven for vengeance far more than those of Baasha, is, in 2 Kings x. 30, 31, represented as his merit. His guilt consisted in his not departing from the ways of Jeroboam, and in his making Israel to sin. It is this guilt alone which, in the Book of Kings, is charged against all the members of his family,—against Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, in 2 Kings xiii. 2; against Jehoash, in 2 Kings xiii. 11; against Jeroboam, in 2 Kings xiv. 24; against Zechariah, under whom the catastrophe took place, in 2 Kings xv. 9: "And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his fathers had done, and departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel to sin." According to the context, we must, in the first place, think of the religious guilt; the blood of Jezreel, in the verse under consideration, must correspond with the whoredoms in ver. 2.—Moreover, the extension of the punishment to all Israel could not, according to this explanation, be understood; for the deed was only that of Jehu and his assistants. How, then, could not only the house of Jehu be punished, but also the kingdom of the house of Israel be destroyed, and its bow broken in the valley of Jezreel?
According to another interpretation still more prevalent, "the blood of Jezreel" denotes "all the evil deeds committed by the Israelitish kings in Jezreel." But this interpretation is sufficiently invalidated by the single circumstance, that the residence of the family of Jehu, which, after all, alone comes into consideration in this place, was, from the very beginning, not Jezreel, but Samaria; compare 2 Kings x. 36, xiii. 10, xiv. 23.
Two particulars are contained in the announcement of punishment. First,—The whole house of Jehu, and then all Israel, are to become a Jezreel as regards punishment, as they are even now in point of guilt; and, in this announcement, the significant paronomasia must not be overlooked between Israel—the designation of the dignity of the people, and Jezreel—that which is base in deeds and condition. Calvin makes prominent the last-mentioned feature only: "You are," he explains, "a degenerate people, you differ in nothing from your king Ahab." We cannot, however, follow him in this explanation; the words, "I cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel," cannot, as several interpreters suppose, mean merely, "I will put an end to the dominion of the family of Jehu over Israel." That these words rather announce the cessation of every native regal government, and hence of the entire national independence, is so evident, that it stands in need of no proof. Both of these features are, in their fulfilment, separated indeed by a long period of time (see the Introduction); but they are nevertheless closely connected. With the ruin of the house of Jehu, the strength of the kingdom of Israel was broken; from that time it was only a living corpse. The fall of the house of Jehu was the beginning of the end,—the commencement of the process of putrefaction. The omission, in the inscription, of all mention of any of the kings after Jeroboam, coincides with the circumstance that the fall of the house of Jehu is connected with the fall of the kingdom. With regard, however, to the former event, Hosea had an earlier prophecy before him. It had been prophesied to Jehu (2 Kings x. 30) that his children should sit on the throne until the fourth generation. Now, since Jeroboam was the great-grandson of Jehu, the glory of this family must come to an end with his son. But at no period did the house of Jehu, and the kingdom of Israel, seem to be so far from destruction as under the reign of Jeroboam; and, hence, it was time that the forgotten prophecy should be revived, and, at the same time, expanded.
Ver. 5. "And it shall come to pass at that day, that I break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
Of this, Calvin gives the following paraphrase: "Ye are puffed up with pride; ye oppose your fierceness to God, because ye excel in weapons and strength; because ye are warlike men, ye believe that God can do nothing against you. But surely your bows shall not prevent His hands from destroying you."—In the valley of Jezreel, Israel shall become, as to punishment, what they already are, as to guilt, viz., a "Jezreel." The verse is a further expansion of the last words of the preceding one, to which the words, "at that day," refer. He whose bow is broken is defenceless and powerless; compare Gen. xlix. 24; 1 Sam. ii. 4; Jer. xlix. 35. It is evident that we can here think only of the defeat of Israel by the Assyrians, the consequence of which was the total overthrow of the kingdom of Israel. But it is not to be overlooked, that the Assyrians, who in the second section of Hosea are frequently mentioned in express terms, as the instruments of God's punishment, are not spoken of at all as such in the first section, which belongs to the reign of Jeroboam. Amos likewise abstains from mentioning any name of the enemies. The Assyrians had not at that time appeared on the historical horizon. But the prophecy was to evince itself as such, by the fact of the announcement of the judgment at a time when its instruments were not as yet prepared; just as Elijah, in 1 Kings xviii. 41, hears the rushing of the rain before there was even a cloud in the sky.—We are not told in the historical books at what place Israel was defeated by the Assyrians. Jerome, in his remarks on our passage, says that it took place in the valley of Jezreel. It is very probable, however, that this is only an inference clothed in the garb of history. But even apart from the passage under review, the matter is very probable. The valley of Jezreel or Esdrelon "is the largest, and at the same time the most fertile, plain of Palestine. The brook of Kishon, which is, next to Jordan, the most important river of Palestine, waters and fructifies it, and, with its tributaries, flows through it in all directions." (Ritter, S. 689.) In all the wars which were carried on within the territories of the ten tribes, especially when the enemies came from the North, it was the natural battle-field. "It was, in the first centuries, the station of a legion (μέγα πεδίον λεγεῶνος); it is the place where the troops of Nebuchadnezzar, Vespasian, Justinian, the Sultan Saladdin, and many other conquering armies were encamped, down to the unsuccessful expedition of Buonaparte, whose success in Syria here terminated. Clarke found erected here the tents of the troops of the Pacha of Damascus. In later times, it was the scene of the skirmishes between the parties of hostile hordes of Arabs and Turkish pachas. In the political relations of Asia Minor, it is to this locality that there must be ascribed the total devastation and depopulation of Galilee, which once was so flourishing, full of towns, and thickly populated." (Ritter, Erdk. 1 Ausg. ii. S. 387.) We may add, that, in the same plain also, the battle was fought in which Saul and Jonathan perished (for the plain of Esdrelon is bounded on the south-east by the mountains of Gilboa), and so likewise was the battle between Ahab and the Syrians. To it also belonged the plain near the town of Megiddo, where Josiah, in the battle against Pharaoh-Necho, was mortally wounded. Compare Rosenmüller, Alt. ii. 1, p. 149.