Hosea 13:9 - Meaning and Application

The first of these verses gives the summary of all that follows (Hosea 13:9). It lays all the blame for Israel’s ruin on Israel itself: “O Israel, your destruction comes from yourself.” In other words, their own sin and foolishness, already named, brought them down. As their wickedness had often corrected them, so now it had finally destroyed them.

Willful sinners destroy themselves. Hardened refusal to turn back is a terrible kind of self-murder. Those destroyed by the Destroyer have only themselves to blame, because they have destroyed themselves.

All the glory of Israel’s rescue is given to God: “But in me is your help.” This can mean, first, that God would have helped and healed them, but they would not be healed. They were fixed on their own ruin. That makes sinners’ guilt greater, because they not only chose what led to ruin, they also pushed away God’s offers and his efforts to save them. “I wanted to gather them, and they were not willing.”

It can also mean that their case is bad, but not hopeless. They have destroyed themselves, yet they may still come to God, and he will help them. This is like a plank thrown out after a shipwreck. It shows not only God’s power, because he can help when things are at their worst, but also his grace, because he helps people who have ruined themselves and deserve to be left alone. He even helps those who have long refused his help.

Dr. Pocock gives another reading and meaning: “O Israel, this has destroyed you, that in me is your help.” On that view, Israel’s confidence in God’s favor had made them bold in wickedness, and that presumption became their ruin.

In the rest of these verses, we can see how Israel destroyed themselves. They rebelled against God, broke their loyalty to him, joined with his enemies, and fought against him. That was what ruined them, because no one has ever hardened themselves against God and prospered. Those who rebel against their God destroy themselves, because they make him their enemy, and they are no match for him.

They also store up wrath for the day of wrath, and so they destroy themselves. Each day they do things that will be remembered against them later (Hosea 13:12). “Ephraim’s guilt is stored up; his sin is kept on record.” God noticed it, kept it in memory, and will bring it forward when he settles accounts. Their earlier sins helped bring on their present destruction, because those sins were laid up with God (Deuteronomy 32:34-35; Job 14:17). The record is safe and will not be lost, but it is hidden for the time being. The sinner may not see it, yet it is bound up in God’s perfect knowledge and in the sinner’s own conscience. Sin is not forgotten until it is forgiven, and God keeps an exact account until the right time.

They also destroy themselves by not hurrying to repent when God rebukes them. They will not do what is needed for their own salvation (Hosea 13:13). Sin brings them into trouble and distress. “The pains of a woman in labor will come on him.” They will feel the sharp pain of sin and be made aware of it. Their suffering will be severe, like labor pains, yet it can still be hopeful, because such pains are meant to lead to deliverance. God corrects them for their good. He disciplines them so that they will not be destroyed.

But they do not respond as they should. They do not move toward repentance and change, which would turn their sorrow into true joy. “He is an unwise son,” because he stays too long in the place where children break forth. Once he has come to the point of birth, he should struggle to come out, or he may be smothered or born dead. If a child in labor could understand its own danger, we would call it foolish to stay there. The captive exile hurries to be freed, lest he die in the pit (Isaiah 51:14). Those who delay repentance, which alone could help them, are rightly seen as destroying themselves. People are in danger of failing in conversion if they put it off and will not work to bring it to completion.

So they are destroyed because they do what will surely ruin them and neglect what would have been their only relief. The desolation they face is described in a sad way (Hosea 13:15-16). Ephraim is called fruitful among his children, which fits the meaning of his name. He was fruitful both in the rich produce of his land and in the large number of his people. It was a wealthy and populous tribe, as had been foretold. But sin turns that fruitfulness into barrenness. Joseph was like a fruitful branch, but sin caused it to wither.

The instrument of judgment is an east wind, which stands for a foreign enemy. It is called the wind of the Lord, not only because it will be very strong, but because God sends it. It comes from the Lord and does exactly what he appoints. See what war will do to that thriving tribe.

Was it a rich tribe? The foreign enemy will make it poor. This wind of the Lord comes up from the wilderness, like a freezing, blasting wind. It dries up the springs and fountains that feed the tree, and so it drains away the sources of wealth. The invader will waste the land and impoverish the farmer. He will cut off trade and commerce and impoverish the merchant. And the great men should not think they will escape, even if their wealth is stored in their rich goods, for he will plunder the treasure of all pleasant vessels.

This shows the folly of laying up treasure on earth, especially in desirable things that people set their hearts on and trust for comfort. Such treasure can be spoiled, and people can be spoiled with it. Moths, rust, thieves, or soldiers can take it away. But those are wise and truly happy who store up treasure in heaven, in the things of that world, which cannot be spoiled and cannot be taken from them.

Was it a populous tribe? The enemy will depopulate it and make its people few. Samaria will become desolate, with no inhabitants.

Those who are the strength and joy of that generation will be cut off. The soldiers will carry their weapons in vain, because they will fall by the sword. Then no one will be left to stand against the conqueror’s anger, or to care for public life or for their own families.

Those who are the hope of the next generation will also be cut off, the children who should have taken the place of those killed in battle. The whole nation must be uprooted, so the infants will be dashed to pieces in cruel and barbaric ways. Even worse, if such a thing can be, pregnant women will be torn open. So the glory of Samaria will disappear from birth and from the womb (Hosea 9:11; Hosea 10:14). See examples of this cruelty in (2 Kings 8:12; 2 Kings 15:16; Amos 1:13).

Now let us see how God was the help of this people who were destroying themselves, and how he was their only help (Hosea 13:10). He says, “I will be your King, to rule and save you.” Though they had refused to be his people and rebelled against him, he would still be their King and would not leave them. A good king works to keep his people from being ruined by outside enemies and from ruining themselves and each other. In that way, God would still be Israel’s King, as he had been in earlier days. Our condition would be truly sad if God were not kinder to us than we are to ourselves.

God will be their King when they have no other king. He will protect and save them when those are gone who should have protected them. The sense of Hosea 13:10 may be, “I am he who will help you.” Where is the king who can save you in all your cities, lead you in and out before you, and fight your battles when foreign powers invade, or when citizens turn against one another? Where are your judges, who should have kept public justice and public peace in order? For righteousness and peace belong together. Where are those kings and princes you once longed for, when you said, “Give me a king and princes”?

This points to two foolish desires. First, the whole nation wanted a king, because they were tired of God’s direct rule over them through judges and prophets. They thought that rule seemed too humble for them. They rejected Samuel, and in him the Lord, when they said, “Give us a king like the nations,” even though the Lord was their King. Second, the ten tribes wanted a different king from David’s house, because they thought David’s rule was too strict and too heavy. They hoped to improve their condition by setting up Jeroboam. In both cases, people showed poor judgment about their own good, and also disrespect toward God by trying to improve what he had appointed.

When people are uneasy with their lot, they often want something new and think change will help them. Usually they are disappointed, and the change does not bring the gain they expected. They also show impiety toward God when they think they can improve his arrangements. God gave Israel judges and prophets to guide them, but they grew weary of them and cried, “Give us a king and princes.” He gave them the house of David and confirmed it by a royal covenant, but they soon grew tired of that too and cried, “We have no part in David.” Those destroy themselves who are not pleased with what God gives them and think they can do better on their own.

In both requests, God let them have their way. He gave them Saul first, and later Jeroboam. But what good did it do them? Saul was given in anger, and he was soon taken away in wrath on Mount Gilboa. The kingship of the ten tribes was also given in anger, not only against Solomon for his sin, but against the ten tribes for their discontent and dislike of David’s house. God was now about to take that rule away in wrath through the power of the king of Assyria. Then where is your king? He is gone, and you will stay many days without a king and without a prince (Hosea 3:4), with no one to save you or rule you.

God often gives in anger what we wrongly and too eagerly want, and he gives it with a curse, while also handing us over to our own desires. He gave Israel quail that way. What we want too much usually disappoints us and cannot save us as we hoped. What God gives in anger he also takes away in wrath, and what he gives because we did not ask rightly, he removes because we did not use it rightly. It is the happiness of God’s people that, whether he gives or takes away, he does all in love, and everything gives them reason to praise him. To the pure, all things are pure. It is the misery of the wicked that, whether God gives or takes away, it is all in wrath, and nothing is truly pure or comforting to them.

God will also do for them what no earthly king could do, even if they had one (Hosea 13:14). “I will ransom them from the power of the grave.” Though Israel according to the flesh was left to destruction, God kept mercy for his spiritual Israel, in whom all his promises would be fulfilled, including this one. The apostle applies it to them in (1 Corinthians 15:55), especially to the blessed resurrection of believers at the last day, though it also includes their spiritual rising from the death of sin to a holy, heavenly, spiritual, and divine life.

It is promised, first, that the captives will be delivered, ransomed from the power of the grave. Their rescue will come through a ransom. We know who paid that ransom, and what it was, for the Son of Man gave his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28). He is the one who redeemed them. Those who repent and believe are forgiven for Christ’s sake, freed from the guilt of sin, and saved from death and hell, which are sin’s wages. They are the ransomed of the Lord, and on the great day they will be brought out of the grave in triumph. It will then be as impossible for death to hold them as it was to hold their Master.

Second, the destroyer will himself be destroyed: “O death, I will be your plagues.” Jesus Christ became the plague and destruction of death and the grave when, by dying, he destroyed the one who had power over death, and when he triumphed over the grave in his own resurrection. But their full destruction will come when believers rise on the great day, when death is swallowed up forever in victory, and the last enemy will be destroyed.

The Hebrew words here can also be read as, “Where now are your plagues?” Paul seems to have taken them this way when he cried out, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” Death had long troubled the world with its sting, but Christ has destroyed its power. He has changed what death is like for his people, so they can triumph over it.

Christ has made this promise, and he will keep it for all who belong to him. “Repentance shall be hidden from his eyes” means he will never take back this judgment against death and the grave. He is not a man who changes his mind. So we may thank God, who gives us the victory.