Hosea 13:9 O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in me is your help. I should tremble to rehearse the text in your ears, if there were not comfort in it as well as terror. You may discern in it a double glass; in the one we may see our hurt, in the other our help. Israel is destroyed. Who hath destroyed Israel? Why is Israel destroyed? I. THE ACCIDENT TO THE SUBJECT. "Destruction." Destruction is opposed to construction, as corruption to generation. In the text destruction is the pulling down of the state, and downfall of the kingdom of Israel. All politic bodies are in some sort subject to the condition of natural bodies. As these, so they, have their beginning or birth, growth, perfection, state, decay, and dissolution. If the state of kingdoms and monarchies is so fickle, what folly, or rather madness, is it for any private man to dream of perpetuities and certainties! To compose the seeming difference between God's promises to Israel and His threats against Israel, we must distinguish divers kinds of promises made to Israel, and divers Israels to whom the promises may appertain. II. THE SUBJECT OF THIS ACCIDENT. Israel may signify, properly, either the whole posterity of Jacob, or the Ten Tribes which were sent from Rehoboam; figuratively the spiritual kingdom of Christ over the elect. There is a threefold Israel. 1. According to the flesh only. 2. According to the spirit only. 3. According to the flesh and spirit.Some of the promises are absolute, some conditional, some temporal, some spiritual. III. THE CAUSE OF THIS ACCIDENT IN THIS SUBJECT. Praise God, O Israel, for thy former prosperity, but now thank thyself for thy imminent desolation. Are not all mixed bodies corrupted on the disagreement of elements, and the elements themselves by the strife of contrary qualities within them Are not all metals defaced with their own rust? God is the cause of our woe, and we are the cause of our woe. God punisheth us, and we punish ourselves. 1. Let us then confess our sins to be the fuel of God's wrath, and the fountain of all our miseries. 2. Let us compose ourselves to endure that with patience which we have brought upon ourselves. 3. Let us forsake our beloved sins; let repentance be our practice, and a speedy reformation our instruction, so God s judgments shall not be our destruction. (D. Featley, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.WEB: You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your help. |
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