Hosea 10:9-11 O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood… We have here, I. A PAST OF SIN - A PRESENT OF RETRIBUTION. (Vers. 9, 10.) Israel's sin was: 1. Of old date. "Thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah" (cf. on Hosea 9:9). The sin of Gibeah was an early and outstanding instance of wickedness. It may have taken place not long after "the days of the elders which over-lived Joshua" (Joshus 24:31), and so have been the first public mark of the new departure in transgression. 2. Steadily persisted in. "There they stood." From that day on, a strain of deep corruption had run through the history of Israel 3. As yet unavenged. "The battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them." Fierce as was the slaughter on both sides in that day of Gibeah, it had not sufficed to eradicate this evil strain. A seed by corruption survived which steadily propagated itself, and had now increased till it included the whole nation. The punishment of this sin was yet to come. 4. To be avenged now. "It is in my desire that I should chastise [or, 'band'] them; and the people shall be gathered against them, in the binding them for their two transgressions." The double sin for which Israel was to be punished was their departure from God, with its attendant idolatry and resultant moral corruption; and their attitude of antagonism to the house of David, to which they ought to have been willing to return at the earliest possible moment. This long-accumulating national sin God was now determined to punish, and was gathering the peoples to execute his decree, as before the tribes had assembled to avenge the sin of Gibeah. There is an entail of sin which the descendants of the wicked can only cut off by repentance (Matthew 23:35, 36). II. A PAST OF EASE AND PLENTY - A PRESENT OF HARD SERVICE. (Ver. 11.) 1. Past comfort. The people of Israel had a fat portion, and had grown accustomed to the life of ease and luxury. Like the trained heifer, which treads out the corn as a matter of habit, and feeds at its ease as it does so, they loved their prosperity, and took it as a thing of course. It is easy to settle in prosperity. We take our good things as though they came to us by right. We form habits in accordance with them. We survey the situation with lazy complacency, and conclude that this happy fortune must be what we were born to. 2. A present yoke. "I (have) passed over her fair neck.' Already God had taught Israel the vanity of her complacency by subjecting her to the tribute of the kings of Assyria. This, however, had failed to lead to repentance; so worse was now in store. 3. Approaching hard service. "I will yoke Ephraim; Judah shall plough; Jacob shall break his clods." The image is taken from severe field labor, as contrasted with the easy work of the threshing heifer. Sin ends in bondage; in hard service; in the yoke and goad. The way of the transgressor is hard (Proverbs 13:15). There may be ease and luxury at first, but the end is that he "labors and is heavy laden" (Matthew 11:28). - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. |
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