In the Bible the wicked person is often compared to chaff carried away by the wind. Some commentators saw in the corresponding Hebrew word an indication not of wind, but of...
In the Bible the wicked person is often compared to chaff carried away by the wind. Some commentators saw in the corresponding Hebrew word an indication not of wind, but of the Spirit of God, since wind and spirit in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament are indeed denoted by one word. But this does not change the essence of the matter: whether by a wind sent from God or by His own breath, the wicked person is carried away all the same. Wickedness, rejection by God, is associated both by the prophets and by the hymnographers with lightness, with the weightlessness of the rejected person, with his emptiness. Sometimes this emptiness is revealed on the day of the Last Judgment, sometimes on the day of calamity, which the prophets often view as a day of preliminary judgment, not yet final but already significant: every such judgment becomes God’s indication of human sinfulness and wickedness.
What stands behind the emptiness of the wicked person? One can, of course, see in it only a literary image, similar to the way we speak in Russian of an empty person who amounts to nothing. But the matter, it seems, is not only literary images. In biblical books death is often spoken of as the emptying of the dying person, who loses his vital strength and increasingly turns into a shadow, into an empty shell of his former self. Death, as the prophetic books and the book of Psalms speak of it, often begins not when a person dies physically, for a person may leave this world, on the contrary, “full of life,” as the Torah says, for example, about the death of the patriarchs, but when he loses God, when he turns away from Him. This is not surprising: the fullness of life is with God, and the one who ignores God or resists Him naturally and gradually loses participation in life, first spiritual and then physical.
The first thing that departs when God’s life is lost is stability: first spiritual, then psychological, and in the end sometimes physical as well. Then a person no longer begins to rejoice during sacrifice, but to be ashamed of his condition, for to reveal weakness at a solemn and responsible moment is not the most joyful event in life. Thus the loss of the spiritual core empties a person, making him easy prey for any wind that blows upon him.
3 Another type of the spiritual whoredom of Israel, Hos 3:1-3.
The punishment of it, Hos 3:4.
Their reformation, Hos 3:5.
3:1 Of her friend - Her husband. An adulteress - Either already tainted, or that certainly will be tainted with that vice.According to the love - Let this be the emblem of my love to the children of Israel. And love - Love the feasts of their idols, where they drink wine to excess.
3:2 Fifteen pieces of silver - It was half the value of a slave, Exo 21:32.An homer of barley - About fourteen bushels. Of barley - The meanest kind of provision; and suited to a low condition, all this is, to set forth Israel's indigence and ingratitude, and God's bounty to Israel.
3:3 Abide for me - Thou shalt wait unmarried, until I espouse thee.
3:4 For - Now the parable is unfolded, it shall be with Israel as with such a woman, they and she were guilty of adultery, both punished long, both made slaves, kept hardly, and valued meanly, yet in mercy at last pardoned, and re - accepted tho' after a long time of probation.Without a king - None of their own royal line shall sit on the throne.A prince - Strangers shall be princes and governors over them. Without a sacrifice - Offered according to the law. An image - They could carry none of their images with them, and the Assyrians would not let them make new ones. Ephod - No priest as well as no ephod. And without teraphim - Idolatrous images kept in their private houses, like the Roman household gods; in one word, such should be the state of their captives; they should have nothing of their own either in religious or civil affairs, but be wholly under the power of their conquering enemies.
3:5 Return - Repent. And David - The Messiah who is the son of David. And his goodness - God and his goodness; that is, the good and gracious God. God in Christ and with Christ shall be worshipped.The latter days - In the days of the Messiah, in gospel - times.
4 The prophet shews their numerous sins, and the judgments consequent upon them, Hos 4:1-19.
4:2 Break out - As waters that swell above all banks.Toucheth blood - Slaughters are multiplied; so that the end of one is the beginning of another.
4:3 Shall languish - Shall pine away. With the beasts of the field - God punishes man in cutting off what was made for man's benefit; and 'tis probable the tamer cattle were starved for want of grass or fodder, all being consumed by the wasting armies. The tamer either were killed by enemies, or offended with stench, forsook the country, or were devoured by birds of prey. Taken away - Whether by drying up the waters, or by corrupting them with blood and carcasses.
4:4 Let no man strive - They are so hardened, it is to no purpose to warn them any more. As they that strive - There is no modesty, or fear of God or man left among them, they will contend with their teachers, reprovers, and counsellors.
4:5 Therefore - The prophet turns his speech to the people, thou O Israel; he speaks to them as to one person. Fall - Stumble, and fall, and be broken. This day - Very suddenly; your fall shall be no longer delayed. The prophet - Prophesied lies.In the night - In the darkest calamities. Thy mother - Both the state, or kingdom; and the synagogues, or churches: the publick is as a mother to private persons, so all shall be destroyed.
4:6 Destroyed - Many were already cut off by Pul king of Assyria, and many destroyed by the bloody tyranny of Menahem.Of knowledge - Of God, his law, his providence, his holy nature, his hatred of sin and power to punish it. Because thou - The prophet now turns from the people to the priests, to whom he speaks as to one person. Rejected knowledge - Art and wilt be ignorant.Seeing thou - O Israel, and you O priests, you have broken all the precepts of it. Thy children - The people of Israel, the whole kingdom of the ten tribes.
4:7 As they - Kings, priests, and people. Were increased - In number, in riches, and honour. So they sinned - Sin grew with their wealth and honour. Their glory - They turned all that in which they might glory above others, into sin. I will turn it into their dishonour.
4:8 They - The priests who minister to the idols. The sin - Probably by sin is meant sin - offering, in which the priest had his share.And they - Covetous, luxurious, idolatrous priests.
4:10 Not have enough - They shall not be nourished, nor satisfied with what they eat. Shall not increase - They shall not hereby increase the number of their children, either the women shall not bear, or the children shall not live.
4:11 Take away the heart - Deprive men of their understanding and judgment.
4:12 Stocks - Wooden statues. The spirit of whoredom - A heart ensnared with whoredoms, spiritual and corporal.Caused them to err - Hath blinded, and deceived them.
4:13 Good - Convenient for the sacrificers.Shall commit whoredom - Shall dishonour themselves, and their families, with fornicators.
4:14 Nor your spouses - I will give them up to their own hearts.For themselves - The husband and fathers are examples to their wives and daughters. Therefore the people - The sottish ignorant people, that know not God. Shall fall - Be utterly ruined.
4:15 Offend - Commit like sins. Gilgal - Gilgal was chosen by Jeroboam, or by succeeding idolaters for the solemn worship of their idols. Beth - aven - Beth-el, where Jacob lodged, who called it Beth-el, the house of God; but when Jeroboam made it the place for his calf - worship, it became Beth - aven, the house of vanity or iniquity. Nor swear - This is a part put for the whole worship of God, which the prophet warns them not to blend with their idolatries.
4:16 Israel - The ten tribes. As a back - sliding heifer - Which when grown lusty, and wanton, will neither endure the yoke nor be confined in her allowed pastures. In a large place - In a large place or wilderness, where is no rest, safety or provision; such shall be the condition of the ten tribes.
4:17 Ephraim - The children of Ephraim were numerous and potent, and here put for the whole ten tribes. Let him alone - He is obstinate, as such, throw him up.
4:18 Their drink - Their wine is corrupt and hurtful.Continually - Without ceasing from Jeroboam's time to this day.Give ye - Beside there is shameful oppression and bribery among them.
4:19 The wind - The whirlwind of wrath from God hath seized this old adulteress, and carried some of her children away already.They shall be ashamed - What they made their confidence, shall be their shame.