Chapter XII: Front Matter (12)

In the marriage here spoken of, there was this peculiarity, that the husband first redeemed the wife from a condition the [Pg 234] most wretched and miserable, before he united himself to her; and hence became her benefactor, before he became her husband. Compare iii. 2, where the Lord redeems the wife from slavery; and Ezek. xvi. 4, where the people appear as a child exposed, naked, and covered with filth, upon whom the Lord has mercy,--whom He provides with precious clothing and splendid ornaments, and destines for His spouse. During the marriage, the husband continues his liberality towards his wife. But now, the gifts, all of which had been bestowed upon her only with a view to the marriage which was to take place or was already entered upon, are to cease, because the marriage-tie has been broken by her guilt. She now returns to the condition of the deepest misery in which she had been sunk before her union to the Lord.--There is, in this, an allusion to that which, in the case of actual marriage, the husband was bound to give to his wife, viz., clothing and food; compare Is. iv. 1. If God withdraws His gifts, the consequences are infinitely awful, because, altogether unlike the natural husband, He has everything in His possession; if He does not give anything to drink. He then slays by thirst. If we keep in view this aggravation of the punishment, which has its ground only in the person of the husband, it is evident that we have here before us only a reference to the withdrawal of the marriage-gifts which is the consequence of the divorce, and not, as several interpreters--_e.g._, _Manger_--suppose, to a punishment of adultery, alleged by them to have been common at that time, "that the wife was stripped of her clothes, exposed to public mockery, and killed by hunger and thirst." The eternal and universal truth which, in the verse before us, is expressed with a special reference to Israel, is, that all the gifts of God are bestowed upon individuals, as well as upon whole nations, either in order to lead them to the communion of life with Him, or because this communion already exists; just as our Saviour says that to him who has successfully sought for the kingdom of heaven, all other things shall be added, without any labour on his part. If we overlook the truth that the gifts of God have this object--if they be not received and enjoyed as the gifts of God--if the spiritual marriage be refused, or if, having been already entered into, it be broken,--sooner or later the gifts will be withdrawn.--The word "naked" properly includes a whole clause: "I shall strip [Pg 235] her so that she shall become naked." The verb הצּיג, "to place," "to set," has the secondary signification of public exhibition; compare Job xvii. 6. The literal translation ought to be, "I shall expose her as _the day_ of her birth;" and we must assume that there is here the occurrence of one of those numerous cases, in which the comparison is merely alluded to, without being carried out; compare, _e.g._, "Like the day of Midian," Is. ix. 3; "Their heart rejoiceth like wine," Zech. x. 7. The _tertium comparationis_ between the day of her birth and her future condition is only the entire nakedness; compare Job i. 21. Any allusion to the filth, etc., is less obvious; the prophet would have been required to give an intimation of this in some manner. The two parts of the first hemistich of the verse correspond with each other; just as do the three parts of the second hemistich. In the first, the withdrawal of clothing, and nakedness; in the second, the withdrawal of food, and hunger and thirst. It is questionable whether the mention of the birth-day here belongs merely to the imagery, is a mere designation of entire nakedness, because man is never more naked than when he comes into the world; or whether it is to be understood as belonging to the thing itself, and refers to the condition of the people in Egypt to which they are now to be reduced. In favour of the latter explanation, there is not only the comparison of the parallel passage in Ezekiel, but, still more, the purely matter-of-fact character of the entire description. Israel is, in this section, not _compared_ to a wife, so that _figure_ and _thing_ would be co-ordinate, but appears as the wife herself. Ver. 17 also is in favour of this interpretation.--The words, "I make her like the wilderness," which, by _Hitzig_ and others, are erroneously referred to the country instead of the people, are pertinently explained by _Manger_: "The prophet depicts a horrible and desperate condition, where everything necessary for sustaining life is awanting,--where she has to endure a thirst peculiar to an altogether uncultivated and sunburnt wilderness." The comparison appears so much the more suitable, when we remark that wilderness and desert are here personified, and appear as hungry and thirsty. This, however, was too poetical for several prosaic interpreters. Hence they would in both instances supply a ב after the כ, "as in the wilderness" = "I place her in the condition in which she was formerly, in the [Pg 236] wilderness." But it is self-evident that such a supplying of the ב is inadmissible. If we were to receive this interpretation, we must rather assume that here also there is merely a comparison intimated: "as the wilderness,"--for, "as she was in the wilderness." But even then, the interpretation cannot, for another reason, be admitted. The impending condition of the people did not, in the least, correspond to what it was in the wilderness. The natural condition of the wilderness was not then seen in all its reality; the people of the Lord received bread from heaven, and water from the rock. It has its antitype rather in such a condition as that which is to follow upon the punishment, ver. 16. The Article indicates that, by "the wilderness," we are here to understand, specially, the Desert of Arabia,--the desert κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν. But that this comes into consideration only as one especially desolate, and not as the former abode of the Israelites, appears from the following--"in dry land," without the Article, and not, as otherwise we would expect, "in _the_ dry land." _Finally_,--We have a parallel to this in the threatening in Deut. xxviii. 48: "And thou servest thine enemy whom the Lord thy God will send upon thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in great want."

Ver. 6. "_And I will not have mercy upon her children, for they are children of whoredoms._"

It appears from ver. 7, that the children are to be repudiated on account of their origin (compare the remarks on i. 2), and not on account of their morals. _Michaelis_ says, "They have the same disposition, and follow the same course as their adulterous mother; for a viper bringeth forth a viper, and a bad raven lays a bad egg." The cause of their rejection is, that they are children of whoredoms. That they are such, is proved by the circumstance that their mother is whoring. Compare also v. 7: "They have become faithless to the Lord, for they have born strange children." In point of fact, however, a sinful origin and a sinful nature are identical.

Ver. 7. "_For their mother has been whoring, she who bore them has been put to shame; for she has said, I will go after my lovers, the givers of my bread and my water, of my wool and my flax, of my oil and my drink._"

הובישה is explained in a two-fold way. The common explanation is: "She has practised what is disgraceful, she has acted [Pg 237] shamefully." Others, on the contrary, explain: "She has been put to shame, she has been disgraced." In this latter way it is explained by _Manger_, who remarks, "that this word is stronger than זנה; that it implies not only an accusation of vile whoredom, but also that she has been convicted of this crime, and as it were apprehended _in flagranti_; so that, even if she were yet impudent enough, she could no longer deny it, but must sink down in confusion and perplexity." This latter exposition is, without doubt, the preferable one; for, 1. הוביש never occurs in the first-mentioned signification. _Winer_ contents himself with quoting the passage before us. _Gesenius_ refers, moreover, to Prov. x. 5. But the בן מביש of that passage is evidently a son bringing disgrace upon his parents,--in xxix. 15 אמּו is added,--or making them ashamed, disappointing their hopes. On the other hand, the signification, "to be put to shame," "to be convicted of a disgraceful deed," is quite an established one. Compare, _e.g._, Jer. ii. 26: "As the disgrace of a thief when he is found, thus the whole house of Israel is _put to shame_;" Jer. vi. 15: "They are put to shame, for they have committed abomination; they shamed not themselves, they felt no shame;" compare also Jer. viii. 9. In all these passages, הוביש signifies the shame forced upon those who have no sense of shame.--2. The signification, "to act disgracefully," does not admit of a regular grammatical derivation. _Gesenius_ refers to analogies such as הרע ,היטיב; but these would be admissible only if the _Kal_ בוש signified, "to be infamous," while it means only "to be ashamed." Being derived from בוש, the verb can mean only "to put to shame," in which signification it occurs, _e.g._, in 2. Sam. xix. 6. But, on the other hand, the signification, "to be put to shame," can be well defended. As the _Hiphil_ cannot have an intransitive signification, it must, with this signification, be considered as derived from בשת, "_pudorem, ignominiam contraxit_,"--a view which is favoured by Jer. ii. 26.--The "lovers" are the idols; compare the remarks on Zech. xiii. 6. The כי confirms the statement, that she who bare them has been whoring, and has been put to shame by a further exposure of the crime and its origin. The same delusion which appears here as the cause of the spiritual adultery, is stated as such also in Jer. xlix. 17, 18. Jeremiah there warns the people not to contract sin by idolatry, because that was the cause of all their present misery, and would bring upon them [Pg 238] greater misery still. But they answer him, that they would continue to offer incense and drink-offerings to the Queen of heaven, as they and their fathers had formerly done in their native land; for, "since we left off to do so, we have wanted all things, and were consumed by hunger and sword." The antithesis in Jer. ii. 13 of the fountain of living waters, and the broken cisterns that hold no water, has reference likewise to this delusion. But that which is the _cause_ of the gross whoredom, is the _consequence_ of the refined one. The inward apostasy must already have taken place, when one speaks as the wife does in the verse before us. As long as man continues faithfully with God in communion of life, he perceives, by the eye of faith, the hand in the clouds from which he receives everything, which guides him, and upon which everything--even that which is apparently the most independent and powerful--depends. As soon as, through unbelief, he has lost this communion with God, and heaven is shut against him, he allows his eye to wander over every visible object, looks out for everything in the world which appears to manifest independence and superior power, makes this an object to which he shows his love, soliciting its favour, and making it his god. In thus looking around, the Israelites would, necessarily and chiefly, have their eyes attracted by the idols. For they saw the neighbouring nations wealthy and powerful; and these nations themselves derived their power and wealth from the idols. To these also the Israelites now ascribed the gifts which they had hitherto received; and this so much the rather, because it was easier to satisfy the demands of these idols, than those of the true God, who requires just that which it is most difficult to give--the heart, and nothing else. And, being determined not to give it to Him, they felt deeply that they could expect no good from Him. Whatever good He had still left to them, they could consider as only a gift of unmerited mercy, and destined to lead them to repentance,--a consideration which makes a natural man recoil and draw back, inasmuch as, in his relation to God, he always thinks only of merit. That which we thus perceive in them is even now repeated daily. We need only put in the place of idols, the abstract God of the Rationalists and Deists, man's own power, or the power of other men, and many other things besides, and it will at once be seen that the words, "I will go after my lovers that give me my [Pg 239] bread," etc., are, up to the present moment, the watch-word of the world.--"Bread and water" signify the necessaries of life; "oil and (strong) drink," those things which serve rather for luxuries.--"My bread," etc., is an expression of affection, indicating that she regards these as most necessary, and to be sought after, in preference to everything else.

Ver. 8. "_Therefore, behold, I hedge up thy way with thorns, and I wall her wall, and her paths she shall not find._"

The apostate woman is first addressed: "_thy_ way;" but the discourse then passes to the third person,--"her wall, her paths." We must not conceive of this, as if the wife were to be shut up in a two-fold way:--first, by a hedge of thorns, and then, by a wall; but the same thing is expressed here by a double figure, as is also done in Is. v. 5. First, the shutting up is alone spoken of; it is afterwards brought into connection with the effects to be thereby produced; and because she is enclosed by a wall, she cannot find her path. "I wall her wall" is tantamount to, "I make a wall for her." The words of the husband in the verse under consideration form an evident contrast to those of the wife in the preceding verse. _Schmid_ says: "The punishment is by the law of retaliation. She had said, 'I will go to my lovers;' but God threatens, on the contrary, that He will obstruct the way so that she cannot go." The הנני points to the unexpectedness of the result. The wife imagined that she would be able to carry out her purpose with great safety and ease; it does not even occur to her to think of her husband, who had hitherto allowed her, from weakness, as she imagines, to go on her way undisturbed; but she sees herself _at once_ firmly enclosed by a wall.--There can be no doubt, that, by the hedging and walling about, severe sufferings are intended, by which the people are encompassed, straitened, and hindered in every free movement. For sufferings regularly appear as the specific against Israel's apostasy from their God. Compare, _e.g._, Deut. iv. 30: "In the tribulation to thee, and when all these things come upon thee, thou returnest in the end of the days to the Lord thy God, and hearest His voice;" Hosea v. 15: "I will go and return to My place till they become guilty; in the affliction to them, they will seek Me." The figure of enclosing has elsewhere also, undeniably, the meaning of inflicting sufferings. Thus in Job iii. 23: "To the man whose way is hid, [Pg 240] and whom God has hedged in round about;" xix. 8: "He hath fenced up my way and I cannot pass, and upon my paths He sets darkness;" Lam. iii. 7: "He hath hedged me about, and I cannot get out; He hath made my chain heavy;" compare also ibid. ver. 9; Ps. lxxxviii. 9.--The object of the walling about is to cut her off from the lovers; the infliction of heavy sufferings is to put an end to idolatrous tendencies.--The words, "thy way," clearly refer to, "I will go after my lovers," in ver. 7; and by "her paths which she cannot find," her whole previous conduct in general is indeed to be understood, but chiefly, from the connection with ver. 7, her former intercourse with idols. But here the question arises:--How far is the remedy suited for the attainment of this end? We can by no means think of an external obstacle. Outwardly, there was, during the exile, and in the midst of idolatrous nations, a stronger temptation to idolatry than they had in their native land. Hence, we can think of an internal obstacle only; and then again we can think only of the absolute incapacity of the idols to grant to the people consolation and relief in their sufferings. If this incapacity has been first ascertained by experience, we begin to lose our confidence in them, and seek help where alone it can be found. As early as in Deut. xxxii. we are told how misery proves the nothingness of false gods, and shows that the Lord alone is God; compare especially ver. 36 sqq. Jeremiah says in ii. 28, "And where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? Let them arise and help thee in the time of trouble." That which the gods cannot turn away, they cannot have sent; and if the suffering be sent by the Lord, it is natural that help should be sought from Him also. Compare vi. 1: "Come and let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn and He healeth us, He smiteth and He bindeth us up."

Ver. 9. "_And she runs after her lovers and shall not overtake, and she seeks them and shall not find; then she saith: I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now._"

רדף has, in _Piel_, not a transitive, but an intensive meaning. _Calvin_ remarks: "By the verb, insane fervour is indicated, as indeed we see that idolaters are like madmen; it shows that such is the perverseness of their hearts, that they will not at once return to a sound mind." The distress at first only increases [Pg 241] the zeal in idolatry; compare Jer. xliv. 17. Every effort is made to move the idols to help. But if help be, notwithstanding, refused--and how could it be otherwise, since they from whom it is sought are _Elilim_, _i.e._, nothings?--they by and by begin to bethink themselves, and to recover their senses. They discover the nothingness of their idols, and return to the true God. This apostasy and return are in a touching manner described by our prophet in xiv. 2-4 also. The words, "I will go and return to my first husband," form a beautiful contrast to, "I will go after my lovers," in ver. 7. This statement of the result shows that God's mercy is then greatest and most effective, just when it seems to have disappeared altogether, and when His punitive justice seems alone to be in active exercise. For the latter is by no means to be excluded, inasmuch as there is no suffering which does not, at the same time, proceed from it, and no punishment which is inflicted solely on account of the reformation.

Ver. 10. "_And she, she does not know that I gave her the corn, and the must, and the oil, and silver I multiplied unto her, and gold which upon Baal they spent._"

The prophet, starting anew, here returns to a description of her guilt and punishment; and it is only from ver. 16 that he expands what, in ver. 9, he had intimated concerning her conversion, and her obtaining mercy. The words, "She saith," in that verse, belong thus to a period more remote than the words, "She does not know," in the verse before us. The things which are here enumerated were, in the case of Israel, in a peculiar sense, the gift of God. He bestowed them upon the Congregation as her Covenant-God, as her husband. They are thus announced as early as in the Pentateuch; compare, _e.g._, Deut. vii. 13: "And He loveth thee, and blesseth thee, and multiplieth thee, and blesseth the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, thy must, and thy oil;" xi. 14: "And I give the rain of your land in due season, and thou gatherest in thy corn, thy must, and thy oil." It is certainly not accidental that Hosea enumerates the three objects, just in the same order in which they occur in these two passages. By the celebration of the feasts, and by the offering of the first-fruits, the Israelites were to give expression to the acknowledgment, [Pg 242] that they derived these gifts of God from His special providence--from the covenant relation. The relative clause עשו לבעל is subjoined, as is frequently the case, without a sign of its relation, and without a _pron. suff._, which is manifest from the preceding substantive. Several interpreters, from the Chaldee Paraphrast down to _Ewald_, give the explanation, "which they have made for a Baal," _i.e._, from which they have made images of Baal, and appeal to viii. 4: "Their silver and their gold they have made into idols for themselves." But we must object to this opinion on the following grounds. 1. עשה, with ל following, is a religious _terminus technicus_, with the sense of, "to make to any one," "to appropriate," "to dedicate," as appears from its frequent repetition in Exod. x. 25 sqq., and also from the fact that ליהוה is frequently omitted. The phrase is used with a reference to idolatry in 2 Kings xvii. 32; 2 Chron. xxiv. 7.--2. It cannot be proved that הבעל, in the singular and with the Article, could be used for "statues of Baal."--3. By this explanation we lose the striking contrast between that which the Israelites _were doing_, and that which they _were to do_. That which the Lord gave to them, they consecrated to Baal, instead of to Him, to whom alone these embodied thanks were due. And, not satisfied in withdrawing from the true God the honour and thanks which were due to Him, they transferred them to His enemy and worthless rival,--a proceeding which bears witness to the deep corruption of human nature, and which, up to the present day, is continually repeated, and must be so, because the corruption remains the same. It is substantially the same thing that the Israelites dedicated their gold to Baal, and that our great poets consecrate to the world and its prince the rich intellectual gifts which they have received from God. The words, "and she knew not," in both cases show that they are equally guilty and equally culpable. He who bestows the gifts has not concealed Himself; but they on whom they are bestowed have shut their eyes, that they may not see Him to whom they are unwilling to render thanks. They would fain wish that their liberal benefactor were utterly annihilated, in order that they may not be disturbed in the enjoyment of His gifts by a disagreeable thought of Him,--in order that they may freely use and dispose of them, without being obliged to fear their loss,--and in order that they may be able to devote them, without any [Pg 243] obstruction, to a god who is like themselves, who is only their own self viewed objectively (_ihr objectivirtes Ich_). Parallel to the passage before us, and, it may be, formed after it, is Ezek. xvi. 17, 18: "And thou didst take thy ornament of My gold and of My silver which I gave thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them. And thou tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them, and My fat and Mine increase thou gavest before them." _Hitzig_ understands, by the Baal here, the golden calf, appealing to the fact that the real worship of Baal had been abolished by Jehu. But no proof at all can be adduced for the assertion that the name of Baal had been transferred to the golden calf. It is self-evident, and is confirmed by 2 Kings xiii. 6, xvii. 16 (in the latter of which passages the worship of Baal appears as a continuous sin in the kingdom of the ten tribes), that the destruction of the heathenish worship by Jehu was not absolute. But so much is certain, that by the mention of Baal, the sin is here designated only with reference to its highest point, and that, in substance, the service of the calves is here included. In 1 Kings xiv. 9, it is shown that the sin of worshipping Jehovah under the image of calves is on a par with real idolatry; and in 2 Chron. xi. 15, the calves are put on a footing with the goat-deities of Egypt.

Ver. 11. "_Therefore I return, and take My corn in its time, and My must in its season, and take away My wool and My flax to cover her nakedness._"

לכן stands here with great emphasis. It points to the eternal law of God's government of the world, according to which He is sanctified _upon_ them, _in_ whom He has not been sanctified; and this so much the more, the closer was His relation to them, and the greater were His gifts. From him who is not thereby moved, they will be taken away; and nothing but his natural poverty and nakedness is left to him who was formerly so richly endowed. And well is it with him if they be taken from him at a time when he is able still to recognise the giver in Him who taketh away, and may yet deeply repent of his unthankfulness, and return to Him, as is said of Israel in iii. 5. If such be done, it is seen that the ungrateful one has not yet become an object of divine justice alone, but that divine mercy is still in store for him. The longer God allows His [Pg 244] gifts to remain with the ungrateful, the darker are their prospects for the future. That which He gave in mercy, He, in such a case, allows to remain only in anger. The words אשוב ולקחתי are commonly explained by expositors, "I shall take again," inasmuch as two verbs are frequently found together which, in their connection, are independent of each other--the one indicating only an accessory idea of the action. But this mode of expression occurs in general far more rarely than is commonly assumed; and here the explanation, "I will return and take," is to be preferred without any hesitation. Scripture says, that God appears even when He manifests Himself only in the effects of His omnipotence, justice, and love,--a mode of expression which is explained by that large measure of faith which perceives, behind the visible effect, the invisible Author of it; compare, _e.g._, Gen. xviii. 10, where the Lord says to Abraham, that He would return to him at the same period in the following year; whereas He did not return in a visible form, as then, but only in the fulfilment of His promise. Thus God had formerly appeared to Israel as the Giver; and now that they did not acknowledge Him as such. He returns as the God that takes away. "She did not know that I gave, therefore I shall return and take." That the words were to be thus understood, the prophet, as it appears, intended to indicate by the change of the tenses. It is quite natural that a verb, used as an adverb, should be as closely as possible connected with that verb which conveys the principal idea; and it would scarcely be possible to find a single instance--at all events there are not many instances--where, in such a case, a difference of the tense takes place. Altogether analogous is Jer. xii. 15: "And it shall come to pass after I have destroyed them, אשוב ורחמתים, I will return and have compassion on them;" where the sense would be very much weakened if we were to translate, "I shall _again_ have compassion." There appears to be the same design in the change of the tenses in iii. 5 also. What is there said of Israel forms a remarkable parallel to what is here said of God. God had formerly come, giving--Israel, taking; God now returns, taking--Israel giving,--a relation which opens up an insight into the whole economy of the sufferings.--"_My_ corn," etc., forms a contrast to ver. 7, where Israel had spoken of all these things as _theirs_. Whatever God gives, always remains [Pg 245] His own, because He gives only as a loan, and on certain conditions. If any one should consider himself as the absolute master of it, He makes him feel his error by taking it away.--"In its time" and "in its season" are added, because it was _then_, ordinarily, that God had appeared as _giving_, and because _then_ they therefore confidently expected His gifts. But now He appears at once as _taking_, because they were already so sure of the expected gifts that they held them, as it were, already in their hands; just as if, at Christmas--which corresponds to the harvest, the ordinary season of God's granting gifts--parents should withdraw from their children the accustomed presents, and put a rod in their place. It is better thus to understand the expression, "in its time, etc.," than to follow _Jerome_, who remarks, that "it is a severe punishment, if at the time of harvest the hoped-for fruits are taken away, and wrested from our hands;" for if, even at the time of the harvest, there be a want of all things, how will it be during the remaining time of the year.--The words, "to cover, etc.," are very concise, but without any grammatical ellipsis, instead of, "which hitherto served to cover her nakedness." As to the sense, the LXX. are correct in translating, τοῦ μὴ καλύπτειν τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην αὐτῆς. For that which had _hitherto_ been, is mentioned by the prophet only for the purpose of drawing attention to what _in future_ will _not_ be.--It is the Lord who must cover the nakedness; and this leads us back to the natural poverty of man, who has not, in the whole world, a single patch or shred--not even so much as to cover his shame, which is here specially to be understood by nakedness. The same thought which is so well calculated to humble pride--what have we that we have not received, and that the Giver might not at any moment take back?--occurs also in Ezek. xvi. 8: "I spread out My wings over thee, and covered thy nakedness."

Ver. 12. "_And now I will uncover her shame before the eyes of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of My hands._"

The ἅπαξ λεγόμενον נבלות is best explained by "decay," "_corpus multa stupra passum_." Being a femin. of a Segholate-form, its signification can be derived only from the _Kal_; but נבל always signifies "to be faded, weak, feeble;" in _Piel_ it means, "to make weak," "to declare as weak," "to disgrace," "to despise." As the signification of _Kal_ does not [Pg 246] imply the Idea of ignominy, we cannot explain the noun, as several interpreters do, by "_turpitudo_, _ignominia_." The ἀκαθαρσία of the LXX. is probably a free translation of the word according to our view.--לעיני is constantly used for "_coram, inspectante aliquo_," properly, "belonging to the eyes of some one," and cannot therefore be explained here by "to the eyes," as if she were uncovered to, or for, the lovers alone; these, on the contrary, are mentioned only as fellow-witnesses. But in what respect do they come into consideration here? Several interpreters are of opinion that their powerlessness, and the folly of trusting in them, are intended to be here pointed out. Thus _Calvin_ says: "The prophet alludes to the impudent women who are wont, even by terror, to prevent their husbands from using their rights. He says, therefore, this shall not prevent me from chastising thee as thou deservest." Thus also _Stuck_, who subjoins to the phrase "her lovers:" "who, if they had the strength, might be a help to her." But it is altogether erroneous thus to understand the verse. The words, "Before the eyes of the lovers," rather mean, that the Lord would make her an object of disgust and horror even to those who formerly sought after her. The idea is this: Whosoever forsakes God on account of the world, shall, by God, be put to shame, even in the eyes of the world itself, and all the more, the more nearly he formerly stood to Him. This idea is here expressed in a manner suited to the figurative representation which pervades the whole section. _Jerome_ says: "All this is brought forward under the figure of the adulterous woman, who, after she has been taken in the very act, is exposed and disgraced before the eyes of all." The uncovering, as guilt, is followed by the uncovering, as punishment; and every one (and her lovers first) turns away with horror from the disgusting spectacle. They now at once see her who, hitherto, had made a show with the apparel and goods of her lawful husband, in her true shape as a withered monster. That this explanation is alone the correct one, appears from the parallel passages: compare, _e.g._, Nah. iii. 5: "Behold, I come upon thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and uncover thy skirts upon thy face, and make the heathen to see thy nakedness, and kingdoms thy shame. And it cometh to pass, all that see thee shall flee from thee:" Lam. i. 8: "Jerusalem hath committed sin, therefore she has [Pg 247] become a reproach; all that honoured her, despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she sigheth and turneth away;" Jer. xiii. 26: "And I also (as thou hast formerly uncovered) uncover thy skirts over thy face, and thy shame shall be seen;" Ezek. xvi. 37, 41; Is. xlvii. 3.--But now, it might seem that, according to this explanation, not the idols, but only the nations serving them, can be understood by the lovers. But this is only in appearance. In order to make the scene more lively, the prophet ascribes to the אלילים, to them who are nothing, life and feeling. If they had these, they would act just as it is here described, and as their worshippers really acted afterwards.--The second member of the verse, "And none shall deliver," etc., is in so far parallel to the first, as both describe the dreadfulness of the divine judgment. Parallel is v. 14: "For I will be as one who roars to Ephraim, and as a lion to the house of Judah: I will tear and go away, I will take away, and there is no deliverer."

Ver. 13. "_And I make to cease all her mirth, her feast, and her new-moon, and her sabbath, and all her festival time._"

The feasts served a double purpose. They were days of sacred dedication, and days of joy; compare Num. x. 10. Israel had violated them in the former character--just as at present the sacred days have, throughout the greater part of Christendom, the name only by way of _catachresis_--and, as a merited punishment, they were taken away by God in the latter character. They had deprived the festival days of their sacredness; by God, they are deprived of their joy fulness. The prophet, in order to intimate that he announces the cessation of the festival days as days of gladness, premises "all her mirth," to which all that follows stands in the relation of _species_ to _genus_. משוש does not here denote "joyful time:" it might, indeed, according to its formation, have this signification: but it is never found with it. It here means "joy" itself. (Compare the parallel passages, Jer. vii. 34; Lam. i. 4: "The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the feasts;" Amos viii. 10: "And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation;" Lam. v. 15; Is. xxiv. 8, 11.) The three following nouns were very correctly distinguished by _Jerome_. חג, "feast," is the designation of the three annual principal festivals. In addition to these, there was in every month the [Pg 248] feast of the new-moon; and in every week, the Sabbath. This connection is a standing one, which, even in the New Testament (compare Col. ii. 16), still reverts. The words, "all her festival time," comprehend the single _species_ in the designation of the _genus_. That מועד properly signifies "appointed time," then, more specially, "festival time," "feast," appears from Lev. xxiii. 4: "These are the מועדי of the Lord, the sacred assemblies which you shall call במועדם, in their appointed time." That the _feasts_ are not a single species co-ordinate with the new-moons and Sabbaths, but the genus, appears from the fact that in Lev. xxiii. the Sabbath opens the series of the מועדים. In a wider sense, the new-moons also belonged to the מועדים, although they are not enumerated among them in Lev. xxiii. on account of their subordinate character. In Num. x. 10, Is. i. 14, Ezra iii. 5, the new-moons are mentioned along with the מועדים only as the species by the side of the genus. But we are at liberty to think only of the feasts appointed by God; for, otherwise, there would be no room for the application of the _lex talionis_:--God takes from the Israelites only what they had taken from Him. The days of the Baalim are afterwards specially mentioned in ver. 15. The days of God are taken from them; for the days of the Baalim they are punished. This much, however, appears from the passage before us--and it is placed beyond any doubt by several other passages in Hosea as well as in Amos--that, outwardly, the worship, as regulated by the prescriptions of the Pentateuch, had all along continued. (For the arguments in proof of this assertion, the author's _Dissertations on the Genuineness of the Pentateuch_, vol. i., are to be compared.)

Ver. 14. "_And I make desolate her vine and fig-tree, whereof she said, They are the wages of whoredom to me, that my lovers have given me; and I make them a forest, and the beasts of the field eat them._"

The vine and fig-tree, as the two noblest productions of Palestine--_Ispahan_, in the "_Excerpta ex vita Saladini_," p. 10, calls them "_ambos Francorum oculos_"--are here also connected with each other, as is commonly done in threatenings and promises, as the representatives of the rich gifts of God, wherewith He has blessed this country.--אשר is often placed before an entire sentence, to mark it out as being relative in general. [Pg 249] It is the looser, instead of the closer connection, = "of which."--אתנה "wages of prostitution," instead of which, in ix. 1 and other passages, the form אתנן occurs, requires a renewed investigation. It is commonly derived from תנה, to which the signification "_largiter donavit, dona distribuit_," is ascribed. But opposed to this, there is the fact that the root תנה is, neither in Hebrew, nor in any of the dialects, found with this signification. It has in Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac, the signification "to laud," "to praise," "to recount." But besides this תנה, there occurs another תנה, not with the general signification "to give," but in the special one, "to give a reward of whoredom;" in which signification it cannot be a primitive word, but derived from נתן אתנה = אתנה, in the passage under consideration, and in Ezek. xvi. 34. The supposition of a primitive verb תנה, with the signification "to give," is also opposed by the circumstance that the noun which is said to be derived from it never occurs with the general signification "gift," but always with the special one, "reward of prostitution." אתנה is rather derived from the first pers. Fut. Kal of the verb נתן, a "I will-give-thee," similar to our "forget-me-not." The whore asks, in Gen. xxxviii. 16, מה־תתן לי ("what wilt thou give me?"), and the whoremonger answers, אתן־לך ("I will give thee"), ver. 18. From this there originated, in the language of the brothel, a base word for such base traffic. The sacred writers are not ashamed or afraid to use it. They speak, throughout, of common things in a common manner; for the vulgar word is the most suitable for the vulgar thing. The morality of a people, or of an age, may be measured by their speaking of vulgar things in a vulgar manner, or the reverse. Wherever, in the language, the "_fille de joie_" or "_Freudenmädchen_" has taken the place of the "whore," a similar change will, in reality, have taken place. Whatsoever the people of Israel imagined that they received from their idols, they certainly will not have designated as a "reward of prostitution," but as a "reward of true love." But the prophet at once destroys all their pleasant imaginings by putting into their mouths the corresponding expression,--an expression which must certainly have sounded very rudely and vulgarly in their tender ears; for the tongue and the ear become more tender, in the same degree in which the heart becomes more vulgar. She who imagined herself so tender and affectionate sees herself [Pg 250] at once addressed as a common prostitute. The sweet proofs of the heartfelt mutual love which her "lovers" gave her are called "wages of whoredom." This is indeed a good corrective for our language, for our whole view of things, for our own hearts, which are so easily befooled. All love of the world, all striving after its favour, every surrender to the spirit of the age, is whoredom. A reward of whoredom, which must not be brought into the temple of the Lord (for it is an _abomination_ unto the Lord thy God, Deut. xxiii. 19), is everything which it offers and gives us in return. Like a reward of whoredom, it will melt away; "of wages of whoredom she has collected, and to wages of whoredom it shall return."--This derivation from the Future has a great many analogies in its favour; among others, the whole class of nouns with ת prefixed, in which it is quite evident (although this has been so often overlooked) that they have arisen from the Fut. If the ת in these forms originated from the _Hiphil_, how could it be explained that they are more frequently connected with _Kal_? Even the very common occurrence of the formation from the Future in the case of proper names, induces us to expect, _a priori_, that it will be more frequent in appellative names than is commonly supposed. The occurrence of the phrase נתן אתנה, in the passages quoted, is also in favour of this derivation. By it, the interchange of the two forms אתנה and אתנן is easily accounted for. In the latter of these forms, the _Nun_ which prevails in נתן, but which had been dropped at the beginning, again reappears. A variation in the form is, moreover, quite natural in a word which originated from common life, which is entirely destitute of accurate analogies, and is therefore, as it were, without a model; for the other nouns of this class are formed from the 3d pers. of the _Fut._--As regards, now, the substance:--Egotism, and selfishness arising out of it, are the ground of all desire for the love of that which is not God, especially in the case of those who have already known the true God; for where this is not the case, there may be, even in idolatry, a better element, which seeks for a false gratification only because it does not know the true one. From this, however, it appears, that the idolatry of the Israelites (and this is only a species of the idolatry of all those who have had opportunity to know the true God, and of whom it is true that "the last is worse than the first") was [Pg 251] much lower than that of the Gentiles, whose poets and philosophers, in part, zealously opposed the dispositions which are here expressed; compare the passages in _Manger_. Egotism is here, as it always is, folly; for it trusts in him who himself possesses only borrowed and stolen goods, which the lawful owner may, at every moment, take away from him. And in order that such folly may appear as such, and very glaringly too. He appears here indeed, and takes what He had in reality given out of His mercy, but what, according to their imagination, they had received from the idols as a reward.--The suffix in שמתים refers to the vine and fig-tree. The gardens of vines and fig-trees carefully tended, hedged and enclosed round about, are to be deprived of hedges, enclosures, and culture (καθυλομανεῖ γὰρ μὴ κλαδευομένη ἡ ἄμπελος, _Clem. Alex. Paed._ i. 1, p. 115 Sylb.), to be changed into a forest, and given over to the ravages of wild beasts; for the words "and eat them" are by no means to be referred to the fruits only. The same image of an entirely devastated country is found in Is. vii. 23 ff.; Mic. iii. 12.

Ver. 15. "_And I visit upon her the days of the Baalim, to whom she burnt incense, and put on her ring and her ornament, and went after her lovers, and forgat Me, saith the Lord._"

The days of the Baalim are the days consecrated to their worship, whether they were specially set apart for that purpose, or whether they were originally devoted to the worship of the Lord, whom they sought to confound with Baal. _Manger_, and with him, most interpreters, are wrong in understanding by the days of Baal, "all the time--certainly a very long one--in which that forbidden worship flourished in this nation." Such would be too indefinite an expression. When days of the Baalim are spoken of, every one must think of days specially consecrated to them,--their festivals. To this must be added, moreover, the reference to the days of the Lord in ver. 13. In ver. 10, however, only one Baal, הבעל, is spoken of; here there are several. This may be reconciled by the supposition that one and the same Baal was worshipped according to his various modes of manifestation which were expressed by the epithets. But the plural may also be explained--and this seems to be preferable--from 1 Kings xviii. 18, where Baalim is tantamount to Baal and his associates (compare _Dissertations on the Gen. of the Pent._ vol. i. p. 165); or from Lev. xvii. 7, where שעירים denotes the Goat-idol, [Pg 252] and others of his kind. The calves, the worship of which was, at the time of Hosea, the prevailing one throughout the kingdom of the ten tribes, are, in that case, comprehended in the Baalim.--In the words, "And she put on her ring and ornament," the figurative mode of expression has been overlooked by most interpreters. Misled by the תקטיר, which refers directly to the spiritual adulteress, they imagined that the wearing of nose-rings, and other ornaments, in honour of the idols, was here spoken of. A more correct view was held by the Chaldee who thus paraphrases: "The Congregation of Israel was like a wife who deserted her husband, and adorned herself, and ran after her lovers. Thus the Congregation of Israel was pleased to worship idols, and to neglect My worship." A great many false interpretations have had their origin in the circumstance, that they could not comprehend this liberty of the sacred writers, who at one time speak plainly of the spiritual antitype, and at another time transfer to it the peculiarities of the outward type. Had this been kept in view, it would not, _e.g._, have been asserted, that David had, in Ps. xxiii. 5, relinquished the image of the good shepherd, because he does not speak of a trough which the actual good shepherd places before his sheep, but of a table, placed before them by the spiritual good Shepherd. In the passage under consideration, the תקטיר denotes an action performed by her who is an adulteress in a spiritual point of view. In the words, "She puts on," etc., her conduct is described under the figure of that of her outward type. The actual correspondence is to be found in her efforts of making herself agreeable,--in the employing of every means in order to gain her spiritual lovers. The putting on of precious ornaments comes into view, only in so far as it is one of these efforts, and, indeed, a very subordinate one. The burning of incense, the offering of sacrifices, etc., are, in this respect, of far greater importance. The correctness of our interpretation is confirmed by those parallel passages also, in which the same figurative mode of expression occurs. Thus, _e.g._, Is. lvii. 9: "Thou lookest upon the king (the common translation, "thou goest to the king," cannot be defended on philological grounds) in oil (_i.e._, smelling of ointment), and multipliest thy perfume,"--evidently a figurative designation, taken from a coquetish woman, to express the employing of all means in, order to gain favour;--Is. iv. 30: [Pg 253] "And thou desolate one, what wilt thou do? For thou puttest on thy purple, for thou adornest thyself with golden ornaments, for thou rentest thine eyes with painting. In vain thou makest thyself fair; the lovers despise thee, they seek thy life." In Ezek. xxii. 40-42, Jerusalem washes and paints herself, expecting her lovers, and decks herself with ornaments; then she sits down upon a stately couch; a table is prepared before her, upon which she places the incense of the Lord, and His oil. In this last feature in Ezekiel, the type disappears behind the thing typified, although not so completely as is the case in the passage under consideration, in the words, "She burns incense."--From what has been remarked, it appears that, in substance, Hos. iv. 13, "They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains and bum incense upon the hills," is entirely parallel. The two clauses, "She went after her lovers," and "she forgat Me," both serve to represent the crime in a more heinous light. Sin must certainly have already poisoned the whole heart, if occasion for its exercise be spontaneously sought after. In reference to the latter, _Calvin_ remarks: "Just as when a wife has for a long time lived with her husband, and has been kindly and liberally treated by him, and then prostitutes herself to lovers, and does not entertain or retain any more love for him; such a depravity is nothing less than brutish."

Ver. 16. "_Therefore, behold, I allure her, and lead her into the wilderness and speak to her heart._"