Hosea 5:15














Jehovah here threatens to withdraw his presence from his people, until, conscious of their weakness and loneliness, they return to him. In the affliction of the seventy years' captivity many did seek him. After that night of darkness the dawn of a new day brought a few gleams of hope, and some bestirred themselves "early" to find mercy with God (see Daniel 9:3-6).

I. THE CAUSE OF THIS AFFLICTION IS to be found in unrepented sin. 1. The unwillingness of God to send trouble to his creatures is constantly insisted on in Scripture. "He is very pitiful, and of tender mercy;" "Judgment is his strange work," its object being to show the need we have of the mercy he proffers. Evidences of the loving-kindness of God to his creatures reveal themselves more distinctly as we study their condition and circumstances. Illustrations from insects, birds, and beasts, in their relations to food and habitation. Example in provision for every child of man. The babe is cast in its helplessness upon us. We are to shield it, to foster its life, to foresee and provide for its wants. This is as much for our good as for the child's good. We learn thereby to conquer ourselves, to exercise frugality and diligence, and the rough nature is softened by the touch of tiny tender fingers. In the ways of Christ "a little child shall lead them." Then, as life develops, pleasure is found in the sights and sounds of nature, in the exercise of each faculty, etc. "Lord, when I count thy mercies o'er," etc.

2. There are seeming contradictions, however, to the loving-kindness of God's rule. The helpless racked with pain, the innocent born to a heritage of shame, the noblest and most useful snatched away by death, etc. Hence heathen philosophy believed in two antagonistic deities. Trace the belief in ancient philosophy and in modern idolatry. Holy Scripture declares there is but one God, concerning whom we read, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things" (Isaiah 45:7). The boldness of that conception stamps it as Divine. We know not the effect on other worlds and beings of the conflict waged here between good and evil. We cannot judge God from what is seen in this tiny fragment of his universe. A sea-anemone in its pool feels the rush of the tide over it and all around it, and its subsequent and certain withdrawal. If it could think, it would argue that the ebb and flow of the tide was God's law for all life. It knows nothing of fair fertile fields and busy cities, where the moaning of the sea is never heard. Our knowledge of God's method and character from what is around us is as slight.

3. The revelation of God in Christ shows that the sorrow is rightly mingled with the sin - just as storms are good for a vitiated atmosphere. We cannot breathe without creating poison. If the air were motionless it would be fatal to us and others. By Divine ordinance the air, because it is vitiated and heated, must move; and then comes the draught which chills the invalid and kills him, and the storm which sweeps over the sea and causes wreck. Yet the law which causes these disasters is for the world's salvation. So evils which would corrupt the earth, as in olden time, are not left unheeded. Sorrow comes till men "acknowledge their offence and seek God's face."

II. THE NATURE OF THIS AFFLICTION. "I will return to my place." God is everywhere; but relatively to us he is sometimes near, sometimes far away. He is to us according to the conditions and desires of our hearts. He is said to withdraw when the sense of his care and favor is gone. This would be no great trouble to some. They have yet to learn that to be apart from God is to be away from light and love and hope forever. It is to be in "the outer darkness." None of us know to the full the sweetness of the Divine presence, and therefore do not completely know the bitterness of its withdrawal. Who of us has prayed till the heavens were opened, and we saw visions of God? Who of us has gazed on Christ till he was transfigured before us, and we cried, "It is good for us to be here?" Who of us knows the deepest meaning of the promise, "If any man open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me"? It is in proportion as we have realized these blessings that we can realize this curse. Imagine yourself stricken down by fatal illness, growing sensibly weaker, no hope of recovery and no God near; going down into the darkness of death, feeling in vain for a hand that does not meet yours - a God-forsaken man! Or read the utterances of men who knew more of God than we. See the agony of the psalmist as he prays, "Be not silent unto me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit" (Psalm 28:1; also Job 13:24; Psalm 44:23, 24, etc.). If the message comes to the nation, to the Church, or to you, "I will go and return to my place," no organization we can frame, no force we can muster, will avail us. It will be time for us (as it was for Israel when Jehovah refused to go up amongst them, and promised only indirect guidance) to put off our ornaments, to bewail our sin, to acknowledge our offence, and seek him early. "Oh, satisfy us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."

III. THE RESULTS OF THIS AFFLICTION. "In their affliction they will seek me early."

1. Acknowledgment of sin is the first sign of the change. The reference is not to the unconsidered declaration that we are "miserable sinners," but to the intelligent and prayerful confession which follows on that self-examination which affliction does so much to stimulate. When severe weather keeps us within doors, we discover the faults of our house. When the vessel is under the stress of storm, her weak places reveal themselves. So with character, when thoughts are driven in upon ourselves. In society a man asks himself, "What have I?" in solitude he asks himself, "What am I?" A true answer to that question leads to confession. Acknowledgment of sin is not synonymous with the cry of pain or despair. See how David distinguishes between these in his own experience in Psalm 32. He speaks of himself as "roaring" with his pain, yet that brought no relief; but he adds, "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord: and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." The same distinction is drawn by Hosea himself (Hosea 7:14), "And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds." If a man were on the rack the executioner would not stay his hand because of his shrieks, but the first whispered words of a confession would give instant relief.

2. The seeking after God is a further sign of this change. We may condemn ourselves, we may resolve to be holier, we may confess our faults to our fellow-man, without having the true repentance described here. Judas was conscious of sin, and it drove him to despair; but Peter, when contrite, went to the Lord's feet, and was able still to say," Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." "In their affliction they shall seek me early." To bring this about we are sometimes so encircled by troubles that we cannot look over them or see beyond them, but can merely look up to the hills whence true help comes. Apply this to the Christian who has been forgetting God, and to the sinner who has never known him.

APPEAL. Wait not till the sorrows of life make you feel your need of God. We may be thankful that we may go even at the last, but how ignoble to leave it till then! Point out the shame of leaving the gladness of youth unconsecrated to him who gave it; of waiting till the cares of life so press upon the spirit that, weary and heartsick, we return to the Father; of delaying till the evening of life is deepening, and enfeebled by age we say, "Now let us turn to God." Show how destitute of magnanimity, how fraught with peril, such a course must be. Whether in affliction or in joy, "seek him early." - A.R.

I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early.
This whole chapter, with the following one, contains a pathetic remonstrance, of God's. just quarrel with. His people; aggravated by much long-suffering and lenity, and many warnings, verbal and real, on His part, and much stubbornness, impenitence, and multiplied provocation on theirs; He using all means to reclaim and save them, and they using all means to despise Him, and ruin themselves. In the text we have the Lord concluding upon a severe course, as being necessary, and likely to be more effectual for their conversion.

I. THE PROCURING CAUSE OF GOD'S AFFLICTING HIS PEOPLE.

1. The procuring cause is made up of these two — sin and impenitence.(1) We may see how unwilling God is to afflict His people. Judgments are termed "His strange work." but mercy is His darling attribute. He will not leave them, unless they drive Him away.(2) We see where the true blame of the many sufferings and miseries of the Church is to be found. The abounding of sin, and the want of repentance, these make her troubles to abound. This is our folly, that usually we abuse all God's goodness, and will not part with our sins, till we smart, for them, and be beaten from them. We pull punishment out of God's hand.

II. GOD'S WAYS OF AFFLICTING HIS PEOPLE. Upon the withdrawing of His gracious presence, as necessarily follows affliction, as mist upon the setting of the sun. This was heavier than all His corrections. No evil does the child of God fear so much, or feel so heavy, as God's absenting and withdrawing Himself in displeasure

III. THE END OF GOD'S THUS AFFLICTING HIS PEOPLE.

1. God's intention in the means. To bring them to a sorrow for their offences, and an ingenuous confession of it. If He withdraw Himself it is not to leave them for ever and look at them no more. On the contrary, it is that they may learn whether it is better to enjoy Him or their sins.

2. The efficacy of the means for reaching it. There is moral fitness in great affliction to work a diligent seeking of God, before neglected, and acknowledgment of sin, before unfelt. Affliction sets men in upon themselves, calls in their thoughts, which, in a fair season, more readily dissipate and scatter themselves abroad. When a man is driven by force from the comforts of the world, then, if he have any thoughts concerning God, these begin to work with him. When a man is straitened on all hands by a crowd of troubles, and finds no way out, then he finds his only way is upward.

(Archbishop Leighton.)

— Sin is here characterised as an offence.

1. It is committed against God.

2. It is contrary to the nature and judgment of God.

3. It awakens the indignation of God.

I. BECAUSE OF SIN, GOD WITHDRAWS HIMSELF FROM HIS PEOPLE.

1. He goes and returns to His place, when He leaves His people in the hands of their enemies, and does not interfere.

2. When He removes from them the ordinances of His grace — the symbols of His presence.

3. When He allows these to continue, but is not in them.

4. When He leaves them to insensibility under His dealings.

5. When the soul, feeling His absence, seeks for Him in vain.

II. GOD'S WITHDRAWAL FROM HIS OFFENDING PEOPLE IS NOT ABSOLUTE AND FOR EVER.

1. Though God withdraws from His people, He does not cease to love them.

2. He never withdraws His spirit and grace for their preservation in the faith.

3. He never withdraws from them finally, and so as never to return.

4. Sometimes, when He withdraws in the way of ceasing to afford sensible comfort, He is present in the way of restraining, and defending, and sanctifying — in the way of chastisement. There are degrees in the withdrawings of God.

III. THAT GOD RETURNS TO HIS PEOPLE WHEN THEY ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR OFFENCE AND SEEK HIS FACE.

1. They must acknowledge their offence. This implies that they have discovered it. That they see its enormity. That they are contrite and penitent. That they forsake it. That they go to Christ's blood.

2. They must seek God's face. They feel that their comfort is in God only. They mourn and lament His absence. They seek Him in the appointed ordinances of His house. They seek Him by prayer. They are dissatisfied with the choicest of means and ordinances, if God be not in them. They seek Him in Christ.

(James Stewart.)

"We only see those birds, sir, when the storms are about," said an old man to me on the seashore last week. That is typical of some people who only come to God in times of storm, and dearth, and epidemic, and never make their dwelling in God.

(J. H. Jowett, M. A.).

People
Benjamin, Hosea, Israelites, Jareb
Places
Assyria, Beth-aven, Gibeah, Mizpah, Ramah, Tabor
Topics
Acknowledge, Affliction, Desolate, Distress, Early, Earnestly, Face, Guilt, Misery, Offence, Offense, Return, Saying, Search, Seek, Sought, Speedily, Till, Trespass, Trouble, Turn, Waste
Outline
1. The judgments of God are denounced against the priests, people, and princes,
9. both of Israel and Judah, for their manifold sins.
15. An intimation is given of mercy on their repentance.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Hosea 5:15

     1255   face of God
     5150   face
     8149   revival, nature of
     8239   earnestness

Hosea 5:13-15

     7233   Israel, northern kingdom

Library
'Physicians of no Value'
'When Ephralm saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to Assyria, and sent to king Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither shall he cure you of your wound.'--HOSEA v. 13 (R.V.). The long tragedy which ended in the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyrian invasion was already beginning to develop in Hosea's time. The mistaken politics of the kings of Israel led them to seek an ally where they should have dreaded an enemy. As Hosea puts it in figurative fashion, Ephraim's
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

An Obscured vision
(Preached at the opening of the Winona Lake Bible Conference.) TEXT: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."--Proverbs 29:18. It is not altogether an easy matter to secure a text for such an occasion as this; not because the texts are so few in number but rather because they are so many, for one has only to turn over the pages of the Bible in the most casual way to find them facing him at every reading. Feeling the need of advice for such a time as this, I asked a number of my friends who
J. Wilbur Chapman—And Judas Iscariot

The Call and Feast of Levi
"And He went forth again by the seaside; and all the multitude resorted unto Him, and He taught them. And as He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the place of toll, and He saith unto him, Follow Me. And he arose and followed Him. And it came to pass, that He was sitting at meat in his house, and many publicans and sinners sat down with Jesus and His disciples: for there were many, and they followed Him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that He was eating with the
G. A. Chadwick—The Gospel of St. Mark

That None Should Enter on a Place of Government who Practise not in Life what they have Learnt by Study.
There are some also who investigate spiritual precepts with cunning care, but what they penetrate with their understanding they trample on in their lives: all at once they teach the things which not by practice but by study they have learnt; and what in words they preach by their manners they impugn. Whence it comes to pass that when the shepherd walks through steep places, the flock follows to the precipice. Hence it is that the Lord through the prophet complains of the contemptible knowledge
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Ramah. Ramathaim Zophim. Gibeah.
There was a certain Ramah, in the tribe of Benjamin, Joshua 18:25, and that within sight of Jerusalem, as it seems, Judges 19:13; where it is named with Gibeah:--and elsewhere, Hosea 5:8; which towns were not much distant. See 1 Samuel 22:6; "Saul sat in Gibeah, under a grove in Ramah." Here the Gemarists trifle: "Whence is it (say they) that Ramah is placed near Gibea? To hint to you, that the speech of Samuel of Ramah was the cause, why Saul remained two years and a half in Gibeah." They blindly
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Ripe for Gathering
'Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit. 2. And He said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon My people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more. 3. And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence. 4. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Meditations for the Sick.
Whilst thy sickness remains, use often, for thy comfort, these few meditations, taken from the ends wherefore God sendeth afflictions to his children. Those are ten. 1. That by afflictions God may not only correct our sins past, but also work in us a deeper loathing of our natural corruptions, and so prevent us from falling into many other sins, which otherwise we would commit; like a good father, who suffers his tender babe to scorch his finger in a candle, that he may the rather learn to beware
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Of Civil Government.
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. This chapter consists of two principal heads,--I. General discourse on the necessity, dignity, and use of Civil Government, in opposition to the frantic proceedings of the Anabaptists, sec. 1-3. II. A special exposition of the three leading parts of which Civil Government consists, sec. 4-32. The first part treats of the function of Magistrates, whose authority and calling is proved, sec. 4-7. Next, the three Forms of civil government are added, sec. 8. Thirdly, Consideration
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

That the Employing Of, and Associating with the Malignant Party, According as is Contained in the Public Resolutions, is Sinful and Unlawful.
That The Employing Of, And Associating With The Malignant Party, According As Is Contained In The Public Resolutions, Is Sinful And Unlawful. If there be in the land a malignant party of power and policy, and the exceptions contained in the Act of Levy do comprehend but few of that party, then there need be no more difficulty to prove, that the present public resolutions and proceedings do import an association and conjunction with a malignant party, than to gather a conclusion from clear premises.
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Arguments Usually Alleged in Support of Free Will Refuted.
1. Absurd fictions of opponents first refuted, and then certain passages of Scripture explained. Answer by a negative. Confirmation of the answer. 2. Another absurdity of Aristotle and Pelagius. Answer by a distinction. Answer fortified by passages from Augustine, and supported by the authority of an Apostle. 3. Third absurdity borrowed from the words of Chrysostom. Answer by a negative. 4. Fourth absurdity urged of old by the Pelagians. Answer from the works of Augustine. Illustrated by the testimony
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Hosea
The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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