Hosea 7:8 - Meaning and Application

Having seen how corrupt the court was, we now ask how things were in the countryside. We find that they were no better. No wonder, since the disease that had taken hold of the head spread through the whole body, so that there was no health in it. The guilt of Ephraim was exposed, as well as the sin of Samaria, the guilt of the people as well as the princes, and this verse gives several examples.

First, they were not set apart for God, as they should have been. Ephraim had mixed himself among the peoples. He joined with them, copied them, and in a sense lost his own identity among them. God had said that his people should live apart, but they mixed with the heathen and learned their ways (Psalm 106:35). They even went among the nations to ask one of them for help against another, as some understand it. If they had stayed close to God, they would not have needed help from any of them.

Second, they were not fully devoted to God. Ephraim was like a cake not turned. One side is burned, the other side is raw, and it is useless on both sides. In Ahab’s day, and again now, they wavered between God and Baal. At times they seemed eager for God, but at other times they were just as eager for Baal. It is sad how many who profess religion are made up of contradictions. They are like a cake not turned, always going to extremes and never steady.

Second, they were strangely unaware of God’s judgments, even while those judgments were already at work and threatening ruin. Their condition was this: God was dealing with them like a moth and like rot, wearing them down quietly and slowly. Foreign nations were eating away their strength. Strangers had devoured their strength and consumed their wealth, reduced their numbers, and taken the fruit of the land. Some did this by open war, as in (2 Kings 13:7), when the king of Syria crushed them. Others did it through false treaties and friendly promises, from which they wrung great riches, making Israel pay dearly for what gave them no real benefit, as in (2 Kings 16:9).

This came from Ephraim’s mixing with the nations. They had let the nations mix with them, and those same nations devoured what they rested on and trusted in. Those who do not make God their strength (Psalm 52:7) end up trusting things that strangers will soon take away. Their own failures also brought them down. Gray hairs were here and there on him, a sign of a state growing old, weakening, and near to disappearing. Trouble and worry were at work too. Care turns hair gray. The almond tree had not yet fully bloomed, but it was already changing color, warning that the bad days were coming, the days when a person says, “I have no pleasure in them” (Ecclesiastes 12:1, Ecclesiastes 12:5).

Yet he did not know it. He did not notice that God’s hand was against him. The warning was raised, but he would not see it (Isaiah 26:11). He did not know how near ruin was, and he did nothing to stop it. Spiritual dullness under lighter judgments is often a sign that worse ones are coming.

Third, they kept going stubbornly in their sin and were not changed by the rebukes they received. The pride of Israel still testified against them, just as before (Hosea 5:5). Under these humbling dealings, their hearts were still proud and their desires were still alive. It was through the pride of their face that they would not seek the Lord (Psalm 10:4). They did not return to the Lord their God by repentance and changed living, and they did not seek him by faith and prayer, even after all this. They were suffering for wandering from him. It could never go well with them until they came back to him. They had already tried others for help and found nothing there, yet they still did not think of turning to God.

Fourth, they were foolish in their plans and chose the wrong way when they were in trouble. Ephraim was like a foolish dove without sense. It is good to be harmless as a dove, without malice and without hurting others. But it is shameful to be silly as a dove, without understanding how to protect yourself and live safely. This dove does not grieve when her young are taken away, but returns to build again in the same place. So Israel had people carried off by enemies and did not take it seriously, yet kept dealing with those who treated them cruelly.

A foolish dove is also easily trapped by bait and does not see the danger, though other birds often can (Proverbs 1:17). She rushes into the snare and does not know it is for her life (Proverbs 7:23). So Israel was drawn into alliances with nearby nations that became their ruin. And when a dove is frightened, she does not stay in the dovecote, where she is safe under her owner’s care. She flutters from place to place and makes herself even more exposed. In the same way, when Israel was in trouble, they did not turn to God. They did not fly like doves to their windows, where they could have found safety. Instead, they left God’s protection and called on Egypt for help. They hurried to Assyria, looking for relief there, though they might have found what they needed closer at hand by repentance and prayer, in their God.

It is foolish and senseless for people who have a God in heaven to trust creatures for the refuge and help that can be found only in him. Such people are without understanding, without heart. And what becomes of this foolish dove? When they go to Egypt and Assyria, God says, “I will spread my net over them.” Those who will not stay under God’s mercy must expect to be pursued by his justice.

They will be trapped. God will spread his net over them and bring them into trouble, so they may see their foolishness and think about returning. It is common for those who leave God to find traps where they expected shelters. They will also be brought low. They may rise up, proud of their foreign alliances and trusting in them, but God will bring them down, however high they fly, like birds shot while in the air. God can and will bring down those who lift themselves up like the eagle (Obadiah 1:3, Obadiah 1:4). And they will suffer for their folly.

The disappointments we meet in created things, when we trust them, are a needed correction. God uses them to teach us to be wiser next time. In this too, Scripture is being fulfilled. What their assembly has heard is coming true: many times they had been told, in the reading, preaching, and singing of God’s word, that “human help is useless” and that there is no help to be found in mere man. They had heard from the law and the prophets what judgments God would bring on them for their sin, and now, as they heard, so they would see and feel.

We should take careful notice of the word of God that we hear in the congregation. We will soon be judged by it. It will also justify God when he condemns sinners, and it will make their guilt greater, because they had clear public warning. Their congregation had heard these warnings many times, but they would not listen. “Son, remember you were told what would happen, and now you see those words were not empty.” See (Zechariah 1:6).

They turned from God and rebelled against him, even though he used many ways to keep them loyal, in (Hosea 7:13-15). Notice, first, how kindly and patiently God had dealt with them, as a gracious ruler dealing with a people dear to him and precious for their good. He had redeemed them, bringing them at first out of Egypt, and later delivering them from many troubles. He had bound and strengthened their arms, in (Hosea 7:15). When their power was weakened, like a broken arm or a joint out of place, God set it right again, like a surgeon binding a broken bone so it could heal.

God had given Israel victories over the Syrians (2 Kings 13:16, 2 Kings 13:17), restored their border (2 Kings 14:25, 2 Kings 14:26), and strengthened them for battle. “Though I have disciplined them,” the margin says, at times correcting them for their faults and teaching them, and at other times strengthening and helping them, it was all to no purpose. They were proof against mercy and proof against judgment.

Second, their conduct toward God was shameless. This is described to convict and humble all who keep living in sin, so they may see how sinful it is and how God himself views it. He had invited them to come near and taken them into covenant, a binding agreement, with himself. Yet they fled from him, as if he were a dangerous enemy instead of their faithful friend. They wandered from him like a foolish dove away from her nest. Those who abandon God find no rest or settled place in created things. They keep wandering. They fled from God when they stopped worshiping him, ran from his service, and withdrew from their duty to him.

He had given them his laws, which were holy, just, and good, and meant to keep them in the right way. But they broke his law. They sinned boldly and stubbornly, willfully and without shame. They broke through the fence of God’s law and went against the loving purpose behind it. He had made his truth known to them and given every proof that he meant well toward them. Yet they spoke lies against him. They set up false gods against him, denied his providence and power, and so lied about the Lord (Jeremiah 5:12). They rejected the messages he sent through his prophets and said they would have peace even while continuing in sin, directly against what he had said. In their false religious claims, outward devotion, and promises to change, they lied to the Lord, and God counted that as lying against him.

He was their rightful Lord and King, and he had always ruled in Jacob with justice and for their good. Yet they rebelled against him, in (Hosea 7:14). They did not merely turn away from him. They rose up against him, as if they could depose him and set up another ruler. He meant good for them, but they planned harm against him, in (Hosea 7:15). Sin is a harmful thing. It is harm against God because it is treason against his crown and honor. Of course sinners cannot truly injure their Creator, as one early writer notes on these words, but they do all they can. And it is worse when this is done not by accident, but by design and planning.

The Jews have a saying, quoted here by Dr. Pocock, that the thoughts of sin are worse than the sin itself. In God’s sight, planning evil is doing evil. By our law, planning the king’s death is treason. So those who plan evil, even if it ends up being useless, like (Psalm 2:1), will still be held accountable for the plan.

Third, they would be punished for this. “Woe to them,” God says, “for they have fled from me.” Those who run from God have trouble chasing after them, and they are surely in a miserable state. God’s anger is revealed from heaven against them, and God’s word says, “Woe to them.” And what follows at once, “Destruction to them,” shows that God’s threats are real. The judgments of his hand will confirm the judgments of his mouth. Those whom he curses and calls miserable are indeed cursed and miserable.

Their outward devotion and reform were only show. In them they were only mocking God. They pretended to be devoted, but their devotion was not real, in (Hosea 7:14). When God’s hand went out against them, they made some kind of appeal to him. When he killed them, then they sought him. In trouble they visited him. But it was all hypocrisy.

When they were in personal trouble and called on God in secret, they were not sincere. “They have not cried to me with their heart, when they howled on their beds.” When they were disciplined with pain in bed, and their bones suffered severe pain, perhaps because of wounds from war, they cried, groaned, and complained in religious-sounding words. They may even have used many good words that fit their situation. They cried, “God help us,” and, “Lord, look at us.” But they did not cry with their heart, and so God does not count it as crying to him.

Moses is said to cry to God when he spoke no words, because his heart was praying with faith and earnestness (Exodus 14:15). These people made a lot of noise and said much, yet they did not cry to God, because their hearts were not right with him, not given to his will, devoted to his honor, or engaged in his service. To pray is to lift the soul to God. That is the heart of prayer. If that is missing, words, even very well chosen ones, are only empty sound. But if the heart is truly lifted to God, then it is an acceptable prayer, even if only groans can be heard.

Those who do not pray in the Spirit are not praying to God in any true sense. God is so far from approving or accepting such prayer that he calls it “howling.” Some think this means their prayers were loud and noisy, like the cries they offered to Baal when they thought he had to be roused up. Others think it points to the wild and brutal feelings they poured out in prayer. They snarled at trouble and howled under discipline, but they did not notice God’s hand.

Their hypocritical prayers were so offensive to God that he was angry at them. The songs of the temple would become howlings (Amos 8:3). God would be so far from pitying them that he would justly laugh at their disaster, because they had so often mocked his authority.

When they were under public trouble and gathered to ask for God’s help, they were still acting from false motives. They assembled because that was the custom in times of national grief (Zephaniah 2:1). But they came only to pray for grain and wine, the things they lacked and feared losing because of the drought, which was the judgment then pressing on them. They did not ask for God’s favor or grace, or for repentance, forgiveness, and the turning away of his anger. They only wanted him not to take away their grain and wine.

Carnal hearts, that is, hearts ruled by worldly desires, usually ask God only for temporary comforts. They fear only temporary troubles, because they have no sense of anything higher.

They also pretended to reform, but their change was not sincere (Hosea 7:16). Israel “returns,” meaning they act as if they are coming back to God. They make it look as if they will repent and change their ways, but they do not follow through. They do not truly come home to God or return to his rule. God says, “If you return, Israel, return to me” (Jeremiah 4:1). In other words, do not only turn in God’s direction, come back to him fully.

This false show of repentance makes them like a deceitful bow. A bow like that looks fit for use and seems ready when it is bent and drawn, but when pressure is put on it, either the bow or the string breaks. Then the arrow does not reach the target and falls at the archer’s feet. That was what their attempts at repentance and reform were like.

The princes of Israel were also guilty of the rage of their tongues. They quarreled with God, with his providence, and with everyone around them whenever they were crossed. Princes may think they can say whatever they want, as if it were their right to rage, insult, curse, and abuse others. But they must know there is a God above them who will hold them to account for their words and make their own tongues turn against them.

Because of their sin, both the people and their princes would be punished. The princes would fall by the sword, some by their enemies and some by their own people. This would also become their shame, and they would be mocked in the land of Egypt when they ran there for help (Hosea 7:11). Their sin and punishment would make them a laughingstock everywhere. Those who deal treacherously with God and act with wild anger toward other people will rightly be treated as a joke by their neighbors, because they have made themselves ridiculous.