Hosea 9:5

What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) See Note on Hosea 2:11.

Benson Commentary

Hosea 9:5-6. What will ye do in the solemn day — What will you do in your captivity, when any of your solemn or festival days come? When you shall find yourselves far from your own country, without temple, without prophets, without priests, without sacrifices, without solemn assemblies; what will be your sentiments? You will doubtless be willing to abstain from labour on those days, as you were wont to do; but your masters will not permit that, but force you to your wonted employments. Though the Israelites of the ten tribes were schismatics, and did not go up to the temple at Jerusalem, they omitted not to celebrate, in their own manner, the feasts of the Lord in their own country; and as these solemnities were always accompanied with festivity and rejoicing, it must have been a great mortification to them to be no longer able to celebrate them in the land of their captivity: see Calmet. For lo, they are gone because of destruction — Some are already withdrawn, because of the desolation that cometh. A great many of the ten tribes fled into Egypt, when they saw their country laid waste by the Assyrians. The prophet here threatens these, that they should have no better a fate than their brethren who were carried away into Assyria; but should die in Egypt, and never see their native country any more. Egypt shall gather them up — Or, gather them, as the word is translated Ezekiel 29:5. It signifies the same in both places, as if it had been said they should be buried there. The pleasant places, &c., nettles shall possess them — Their fine houses, which they have purchased at vast prices, shall be ruined, and lie in rubbish till they be overrun with nettles. This signified a vast desolation. These two verses are thus translated by Bishop Horsley: “What will ye do for the season of solemn assembly, and for the festival of Jehovah? Behold, all are gone! Total devastation! Egypt shall gather them. Memphis shall bury them. Their valuables of silver! The nettle shall dispossess them, and the thistle, in their dwellings.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:1-6 Israel gave rewards to their idols, in the offerings presented to them. It is common for those who are stubborn in religion, to be prodigal upon their lusts. Those are reckoned as idolaters, who love a reward in the corn-floor better than a reward in the favour of God and in eternal life. They are full of the joy of harvest, and have no disposition to mourn for sin. When we make the world, and the things of it, our idol and our portion, it is just with God to show us our folly, and correct us. None may expect to dwell in the Lord's land, who will not be subject to the Lord's laws, or be influenced by his love. When we enjoy the means of grace, we ought to consider what we shall do, if they should be taken from us. While the pleasures of communion with God are out of the reach of change, the pleasant places purchased with silver, or in which men deposit silver, are liable to be laid in ruins. No famine is so dreadful as that of the soul.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

What will ye do in the solemn day? - Man is content to remain far from God, so that God do not show him, that He has withdrawn Himself from him. Man would fain have the power of drawing near to God in time of calamity, or when he himself likes. He would fain have God at his command, as it were, not be at the command of God. God cuts off this hope altogether. he singles out the great festivals, which commemorated His great doings for His people, as though they had no more share in those mercies. The more solemn the day, the more total man's exclusion, the more manifest God's withdrawal. To one shut out from His service, the days of deepest religious joy became the days of deepest sorrow. Mirth is turned into heaviness. To be deprived of the ordinary daily sacrifice was a source of continual sorrow; how much more, "in the days of" their "gladness" Numbers 10:10, in which they were bidden to rejoice before the Lord, and "in which they seemed to have a nearer and more familiar access to God." True, that having separated themselves from the temple, they had no right to celebrate these feasts, which were to be held in the place "which God had chosen to place His name there." Man, however, clings to the shadow of God's service, when he has parted with the substance. And so God foretold them before, that He would "make all their mirth to cease" Hosea 2:11.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. (Ho 2:11).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Think with yourselves what you are likely to do then: on those days you were wont to cease from your labours, to offer sacrifices to God, (as you thought and said,) to feast with one another, all was full of seeming religion and real feasting and jollity on those days in your own country; but will your hard masters, that love their own profit, that hate your persons, and despise your religion, will they lose your labour, indulge your ease, encourage your religion, and suffer you to exercise it? Is this imaginable?

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the Lord? Since their sacrifices now were so disagreeable and displeasing to the Lord, and so unavailable to themselves, what would they do when in captivity, "in the solemn day", the seventh day of the week, appointed by the Lord for rest and religious worship; and in the first day of the month, which also was to be solemnly observed, by offering sacrifice, &c. and on feast days of the Lord's instituting, as the feasts of the passover, pentecost; and tabernacles? seeing those that carried and held them captive would not allow them time for such solemnities; nor would they be furnished with proper sacrifices; nor could they be accommodated with a proper place to offer them at; nor be able, in a strange land, and under hardships and miseries, to express that joy that is suitable to such occasions: thus should they learn, by sad experience, the want of those means and opportunities of serving the Lord, which in their own land they rejected and despised. Jarchi and Kimchi interpret this of the destruction of Israel, and of punishment inflicted on them at the time appointed by the Lord; and which would be a solemn time, a feast with the Lord, to which he should invite their enemies, and they should spill their blood as the blood of sacrifices; and when he would display the glory of his justice, truth, and faithfulness, before all the world. And it is asked, what will you do then? whither will you flee for help? or what sacrifice can you offer up to the Lord to atone for sin, or appease his wrath? will you be able to rejoice then? no, your joy will be turned into mourning; see Isaiah 10:3.

Geneva Study Bible

What will ye do {f} in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?

(f) When the Lord will take away all the occasions of serving him, which will be the most grievous part of your captivity, when you will see yourselves cut off from God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. What will ye do, &c.] The festivals, which were kept up in N. Israel, even after the schism, were seasons of popular merry-making (see Hosea 2:11). But now as each ‘feast of Jehovah’ comes round in the calendar, ye will neither have the mechanical performance of ritual forms, nor the accompanying holiday-mirth, to fill up the vacant hours.

Hosea 9:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Their misery will be felt still more keenly on the feast-days. Hosea 9:5. "What will ye do on the day of the festival, and on the day of the feast of Jehovah? Hosea 9:6. For behold they have gone away because of the desolation: Egypt will gather them together, Memphis bury them: their valuables in silver, thistles will receive them; thorns in their tents." As the temple and ritual will both be wanting in their exile, they will be unable to observe any of the feasts of the Lord. No such difference can be shown to exist between yōm mō‛ēd and yōm chag Yehōvâh, as would permit of our referring mō‛ēd to feasts of a different kind from chag. In Leviticus 23, all the feasts recurring at a fixed period, on which holy meetings were held, including the Sabbath, are called מועדי יהוהּ; and even though the three feasts at which Israel was to appear before the Lord, viz., the passover, pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles, are described as chaggı̄m in Exodus 34:18., every other joyous festival is also called a chag (Exodus 32:5; Judges 21:19). It is therefore just as arbitrary on the part of Grotius and Rosenmller to understand by mō‛ēd the three yearly pilgrim-festivals, and by chag Yehōvâh all the rest of the feasts, including the new moon, as it is on the part of Simson to restrict the last expression to the great harvest-feast, i.e., the feast of tabernacles (Leviticus 23:39, Leviticus 23:41). The two words are synonymous, but they are so arranged that by chag the idea of joy is brought into greater prominence, and the feast-day is thereby designated as a day of holy joy before Jehovah; whereas mō‛ēd simply expresses the idea of a feast established by the Lord, and sanctified to Him (see at Leviticus 23:2). By the addition of the chag Yehōvâh, therefore, greater emphasis is given to the thought, viz., that along with the feasts themselves all festal joy will also vanish. The perfect הלכוּ (Exodus 34:6) may be explained from the fact, that the prophet saw in spirit the people already banished from the land of the Lord. הלך, to go away out of the land. Egypt is mentioned as the place of banishment, in the same sense as in Hosea 9:3. There will they all find their graves. קבּץ in combination with קבּר is the gathering together of the dead for a common burial, like אסף in Ezekiel 29:5; Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 25:33. מף, or נף, as in Isaiah 19:13; Jeremiah 2:16; Jeremiah 44:1; Ezekiel 30:13, Ezekiel 30:16, probably contracted from מנף, answers rather to the Coptic Membe, Memphe, than to the old Egyptian Men-nefr, i.e., mansio bona, the profane name of the city of Memphis, the ancient capital of Lower Egypt, the ruins of which are to be seen on the western bank of the Nile, to the south of Old Cairo. The sacred name of this city was Ha-ka-ptah, i.e., house of the worship of Phtah (see Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften, i. pp. 234-5). In their own land thorns and thistles would take the place of silver valuables. The suffix attached to יירשׁם refers, ad sensum, to the collective מחמד לכספּם, the valuables in silver. These are not "silver idols," as Hitzig imagines, but houses ornamented and filled with the precious metal, as בּאהליהם in the parallel clause clearly shows. The growth of thorns and thistles presupposes the utter desolation of the abodes of men (Isaiah 34:13).