Hosea 8:5 Your calf, O Samaria, has cast you off; my anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocence? The story of Jeroboam the son of Nebat affords a perpetual warning. Other things besides consumption, and lunacy, and various maladies our flesh is heir to are hereditary. Jeroboam's sin descended to his children; and was transmitted like an entail from sire to son. More than that, it struck like a malaria of a virulent disease to the very walls of his palace; it infected all his successors, and from the throne spread its deadly influence to the poorest and most distant cottages of the land. I. THE SIN OF JEROBOAM. He was hardly seated on the throne, when a political difficulty arose, — and that a very serious one. The Mosaic law required every male to go up three times each year to Jerusalem. An astute and sagacious politician, Jeroboam foresaw how this custom might be attended with dangerous results. But he was not the man to meet the difficulty aright. He did what, no doubt, the world had thought a clever thing. Setting up one calf in Bethel and another in Dan, in imitation of the cherubim in the temple, he sent forth this edict, "Let him that sacrificeth, kiss the calves," — go and worship these. Jeroboam succeeded, but his success brought down ruin on his house and government. It was followed by results which should teach our statesmen that no policy in the end shall thrive which traverses the Word of God. That can never be politically right, which is morally and religiously wrong. What the "calf" did to the monarch, it did to the people — here called Samaria. Following the steps of their king, they apostatised from God, and turned their backs on His temple. Then judgment succeeded judgment, and one trouble breaking on the back of another, the land had no rest. The commonwealth sank under the weight of its idolatry. The voice of God in providence might have been heard saying, "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off." II. WARNING FROM THE SIN AND SORROW OF SAMARIA. The sentiment of the text is illustrated — 1. By the case of those who put riches in the place of God. The thirst for gold, like the drunkard's, is insatiable. The more it is indulged, the more the flame is fed, it burns the fiercer. 2. The sentiment of the text is illustrated by the case of those who live for fame — for the favour, not of God, but of men. ( T. Guthrie, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency? |
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