Hosea 12:7 - Meaning and Application

Here, we find rebukes for sin mixed through these verses. When God comes out to confront a people so he can show his own righteousness, he also exposes their unrighteousness. Ephraim had been called to return to his God and keep justice (Hosea 12:6), and now, to show why that call was needed, he is charged with turning away from God through idolatry and breaking the laws of justice.

He is accused here of injustice against the duties of the second table of the law, the commands that govern our duties toward other people, in Hosea 12:7, Hosea 12:8. We should notice what sin is laid against him: he is a merchant. The margin takes this as a proper name, calling him Canaan, or a Canaanite, unworthy to be named with Jacob and Israel, and fit to be cast out under a curse from this good land, just as the Canaanites were (Amos 9:7). But Canaan can also mean a merchant, and that is likely here, since Ephraim is charged with fraud in trade.

God had given his people a land flowing with milk and honey, yet he did not forbid them to grow rich through trade. They took over the Canaanites’ work in business as well as in farming. They drew wealth from the seas and from the treasures hidden in the sand (Deuteronomy 33:19). If they had been honest merchants, that would have been no shame at all. It would have been an honor and a blessing. But he is a merchant in the Canaanite style, honest only when it suits him, and ready to cheat anyone he can.

Ephraim does this by deceit, and so he oppresses others. There is oppression through fraud as well as through force. It is not only rulers, landowners, and masters who can oppress subjects, tenants, and servants. Merchants and traders often do the same when they use people’s ignorance, or take advantage of their need, to force hard deals on them, or when they are harsh and exacting in collecting debts.

Ephraim cheated in two ways. First, he used great skill and craftiness. “The balances of deceit are in his hand.” He uses scales and gives goods by weight and measure, as if he were careful and fair. But these are balances of deceit, with false weights and false measures. Under the cover of doing right, he does the greatest wrong. God watches merchants and traders when they weigh goods and count money, and he sees whether they are honest or dishonest. He sees what balances are in their hands and how they use them. Trades made by human skill can become mysteries, but it is sad when human sin turns them into mysteries of wrongdoing.

Second, he did it with delight and pride. “He loves to oppress.” Oppressing others is bad enough, but loving it is much worse. His conscience did not stop and rebuke him, as it should have. If it had, then even if he still sinned, he could not have delighted in it. But his sinful desires were so strong, and had so much control over him, that he not only loved the gain from oppression, he loved oppression itself. He sinned for the sake of sinning, and enjoyed outsmarting people who did not suspect him.

Next, he tries to justify this sin, in Hosea 12:8. Wicked people often have something to say for themselves when their faults are pointed out, some weak excuse to escape the force of God’s word. Ephraim is accused of being a common cheat. Now see what he says in reply. He does not deny the charge. He does not say he is innocent. He also does not confess it with repentance and ask for pardon. Instead, he tries to defend himself.

Even if it were true that he used balances of deceit, he argues that he had gotten rich. No matter what the prophet says about his fraud, the sin of it, and the curse that follows it, he cannot see any harm or danger in it, because he thinks he has succeeded. “Yet I have become rich, I have found wealth.” In other words, “Whatever you call it, I have made a good profit.” Carnal hearts, hearts ruled by selfish desires, are often confirmed in their evil ways by worldly success.

But that is a serious mistake. Every part of Ephraim’s reply shows folly. First, it is foolish to call the riches of this world “substance,” as if they were solid and lasting, when they are things that do not last (Proverbs 23:5). Second, it is foolish to think we made them ourselves, as if our own skill and effort were the whole cause of them. Third, it is foolish to act as if what we have belongs only to us, when we are actually only stewards, people entrusted with what belongs to another. Fourth, it is foolish to boast about getting rich, as if riches were a mark of true honor or a sign of God’s special favor. We should not glory in riches (James 1:9, James 1:10).

Fifth, it is foolish to think that getting rich through sin makes us innocent, safe, or even at peace in that sin. The success of fools deceives them and destroys them (Isaiah 47:10; Proverbs 1:32). Ephraim also argues that he kept a good reputation. This is common among sinners. When ministers rightly rebuke them, they appeal to their neighbors. If others know no evil of them, or will not say it, they turn on their reprovers.

“In all my labors,” Ephraim says, “they will find no iniquity in me that is sin.” Carnal hearts are quick to build a good opinion of themselves on the fair name they have among their neighbors. Ephraim felt safe because, first, his neighbors knew he was diligent in business and watched all his work, and they praised him for it. People will praise you when you do well for yourself. Second, none of them knew he was dishonest in business. He was so careful and sly that no one could clearly say he was acting unfairly.

He either hid the fraud so well that no one found it, or he excused it so well that no one condemned it. He seemed to think that if people did not discover the evil, then it was not really evil before God. Or if people judged it lightly, then it must be only a small fault, not worth much concern. But that does not make it right. What will it profit us if people find no fault in us, while God sees much and will bring every secret work into judgment, even secret frauds?

It was a fashionable sin. Everyone did it, it seemed harmless, and it even looked useful or profitable. So they treated it as if it were no sin at all, and they assumed no one would think less of them for it. But God does not see as people see, and he does not judge as people judge.

The prophet then charges them with idolatry, breaking the first table of the law, the part that deals with duties to God. Idolatry, the making and worship of images, is especially empty and worthless. The prophet says they are vanity, because they do not help, but only deceive (Hos 12:11). He points to two places known for this sin, Gilead and Gilgal.

Gilead, east of the Jordan, had already been marked out for this before (Hos 6:8). It was a fruitful and pleasant country, almost famous for being so (Jer 22:6). It was also a border region, exposed to enemy attacks, so it needed God’s protection in a special way. What a sad thing, then, that it should repay the Lord with idolatry and cut itself off from that protection. Is there iniquity in Gilead? Yes, there was.

Gilgal was bad too. There they offered sacrifices of bulls (Hos 9:15), and the altars they had set up, either to foreign gods or in place of God’s own altar, were as many as heaps of manure in the furrows of a plowed field ready for seed (Hos 8:11). Some read the words as if the prophet were asking, “Is there sin in Gilead only?” The answer is no. The whole nation was infected, and even in the places that had once seen God’s care, they were committing this sin.

In Gilead, God had protected Jacob, their father, from Laban’s anger. Yet they chose that very place for wickedness. This only made their guilt heavier. God’s past kindness should have held them back, but they sinned there all the same.

The prophet then turns to threats of judgment for their sin. Some understand Hos 12:9 as a warning that God would make them live in tents again, as in the days set apart in the wilderness. That would mean bringing them back to a poor, unsettled, and desolate condition like the forty years Israel lived after leaving Egypt. Ephraim forgot that God had brought him out of Egypt and raised him up. Instead of being thankful, he grew proud of his wealth and used sinful ways to increase it. So God threatens to make him dwell in tents again.

It is just with God that when people turn their tents into houses by their sins, he can turn their houses back into tents by his judgments. In any case, the warning is sure: Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly (Hos 12:14). People often deceive themselves about their own condition, but they will not remain deceived forever. Ephraim thought there was no sin in him worth calling sin (Hos 12:8). God says otherwise. What he had done was deeply offensive to God, and it would turn bitter in the end for him as well.

He had sinned with great stubbornness, against knowledge and warning. Anyone could see that he meant to provoke God to the highest degree. That sin would also destroy him. Nothing can end well when it stirs up God’s wrath against a person. God would take away his forfeited life. He would not count him innocent, but would bring on him the death that sin earns. His blood would be on his own head (Sa2 1:16), because his own sin had testified against him, and he alone must bear it.

God would also take away his forfeited honor. His Lord would return his reproach on him. Ephraim had dishonored God by idolatry and other sins, and had given others reason to speak against him. Now God would bring that shame back on him, just as he had said, that those who despise him will be lightly esteemed. Shameful sins will have shameful punishments. If Ephraim scorned his God, he would be brought so low that his neighbors would look on him with contempt.

The prophet also reminds them of former mercy, to shame their ingratitude in turning from God. They should remember that God had raised them from low estate. When Ephraim became rich, he forgot what God required them to confess each year, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father” (Deu 26:5). Here God brings that memory back to them.

They should remember Jacob’s honors, that he was a mighty prince with God (Hos 12:3). But they should also remember his low condition when he fled to Syria from a hostile brother and served his greedy uncle for a wife. He kept sheep because he had no property to provide a wife for himself. Jacob was poor, weak, and a fugitive, so his descendants had no reason to be proud. He was a plain man, living in tents and keeping sheep, so dishonest scales did not suit them. He served for a wife who was not a Canaanite, unlike Esau’s wives, so it was a shame for them to become like the Canaanites and mix with the nations. God wonderfully preserved Jacob in his flight and in his service. From that root in dry ground, God raised up a great nation that bore his name. That showed God’s goodness to Jacob and to them, and it exposed their deep ingratitude toward the God who founded and blessed them.

They should also remember that God rescued them from misery and slavery, not just from poverty (Hos 12:13). That made their duty to serve him even stronger, and made their guilt greater when they served other gods. God brought Israel out of Egypt so they might serve him, and by redeeming them from bondage he claimed a special right to their service. He also kept them safe, like sheep under a shepherd’s care. He protected them from Pharaoh’s anger at the Red Sea, guarded them through all the dangers of the wilderness, and provided for them there.

He did this through a prophet, Moses. Moses is even called king in Jeshurun (Deu 33:5), but what he did for Israel was done as a prophet, by God’s direction and through the power of God’s word. He did not carry a royal scepter, but the rod of God, and with it he called down Egypt’s plagues and brought blessings to Israel. Moses, as a prophet, pointed forward to Christ (Act 3:22), and it is through Christ, as the great Prophet, that we are brought out of the Egypt of sin and Satan by the power of his truth.

Now this shows how unworthy and ungrateful this people were.

First, they rejected their God, the one who had brought them out of Egypt. That fact is named in the preface to the Ten Commandments as a special reason they should have no other gods before him. Second, they despised and persecuted his prophets. They should have loved and valued them, and they should have tried to answer God’s purpose in sending them, for the sake of that prophet through whom God had brought them out of Egypt and kept them safe in the wilderness.

The blessings we receive through God’s word make our sin and foolishness much worse if we treat that word lightly.

God had also taken care of their instruction as they grew up, as we see in Hosea 12:10. Just as he delivered them through a prophet, so he kept speaking to them through prophets. As people are fed from the earth because they are made from the earth, so that nation, formed by prophecy, was fed and taught by prophecy. From Moses onward, through all the prophets across the life of that church, divine revelation was their ongoing training.

They had prophets raised up among themselves (Amos 2:11). There was a long line of them, and they were hardly ever without some measure of the Spirit of prophecy, from Moses to Malachi. These prophets were seers, people who received visions and dreams in which God showed them his will directly, with full certainty that it was truly his will (Numbers 12:6). God multiplied these visions and messages. He spoke not only once, but many times. If one vision was ignored, he sent another.

God spoke to them by the prophets, and the prophets passed on what they had received from the Lord plainly and faithfully. The people at Mount Sinai had asked God to speak to them through men like themselves, and he did so. In speaking by the prophets, he also used comparisons and pictures to make his messages clearer, more moving, and easier to remember. The visions they saw were often like this, and their teaching was filled with fitting comparisons. In the same way, God spoke by his Son through parables.

God keeps account, whether we do or not, of the sermons we hear. Those who have long enjoyed the means of grace in purity, abundance, and power, and have often, faithfully, and closely heard God’s mind, will have much to answer for if they keep living in sin.

There are also hints of further mercy here, and this is remembered even in the middle of sin and judgment, as some understand Hosea 12:9. God says, “I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt. There I took you as my people, and I have shown myself your God ever since through a steady line of merciful care. I still have kindness for you, though you are so bad. I will make you dwell in tabernacles, not as you did in the wilderness, but as in the days of the solemn feast.”

This points to the feast of tabernacles, celebrated with great joy (Leviticus 23:40). By God’s grace, they would be made to see that even if they were rich and had gathered much wealth, they still lived in a tent-like condition and had no lasting city in their worldly possessions. They would also still have reason to rejoice in God and chances to do so in public worship. The feast of tabernacles was the first solemn feast the Jews kept after returning from Babylon (Ezra 3:4).

Like other promises, this would find its full meaning in the grace of the gospel. The gospel provides believers with tabernacles on their way to heaven, and it gives them the cause for holy joy in God that the feast of tabernacles pictured (Zechariah 14:18, 19).