Hosea 11:10 Komentář

In this chapter we have, I. The great goodness of God towards his people Israel, and the great things he had done for them (Hos 11:1, Hos 11:3, Hos 11:4). II. Their ungrateful conduct towards him, notwithstanding his favours towards them (Hos 11:2-4, Hos 11:7, Hos 11:12). III. Threatenings of wrath against them for their ingratitude and treachery (Hos 11:5, Hos 11:6). IV. Mercy remembered in the midst of wrath (Hos 11:8, Hos 11:9). V. Promises of what God would yet do for them (Hos 11:10, Hos 11:11). VI. An honourable character given of Judah (Hos 11:12).

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 11 This chapter gives an account of the free and ancient love of God to Israel, and of the benefits and blessings of goodness he bestowed upon them; and of their ingratitude in not owning them, nor hearkening to his prophets, but sacrificing and burning incense to idols, Hos 11:1; wherefore they are threatened with disappointment of relief from Egypt, with captivity into Assyria, and with the ravages of the sword in all places, being a people bent to backsliding, and incorrigible, Hos 11:5; and yet, notwithstanding all this, the bowels of the Lord yearn after them, and promises of mercy are made to them; that they shall not utterly be destroyed, but a remnant shall be spared; which in the latter day shall be called and follow after the Lord, the King Messiah, and be returned from their captivity, and be resettled in their own land, and replaced in their own houses, Hos 11:8; the chapter is concluded with an honourable character of Judah, Hos 11:12.

They shall walk after the Lord,.... That is, after the Messiah, who is Jehovah our righteousness; that Jehovah the Jews pierced, and now shall mourn at the sight of, being converted to him; for these are the chosen of God among that people, who in the latter day shall partake of the grace and favour before expressed, in consequence of which they shall be set a seeking the Lord their God, and David their King; and, finding him, shall follow after him, as sheep go after their shepherd, being led by him into green pastures; as subjects follow their prince, obeying his commands and orders; as soldiers march after their leader and commander, so these after Christ, the great Captain of their salvation, part of whose armies they will make: they will walk under the influence of his grace, having life, strength, guidance, and direction, from him, which walking implies; they will walk not after the flesh, as they now do, but after the Spirit of Christ, taking him for their guide, by whom they will be led into all truth, as it is in Jesus; they will walk in his ways, in all the paths of faith and holiness, truth and righteousness; in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, according to his word. The Targum is, "they shall go after the worship of the Lord;'' he shall roar like a lion: the Lord Christ they walk after; who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Israelites shall now follow after; receiving, embracing, and confessing him the true Messiah. So the Targum, "and his Word shall be as a lion that roars;'' Christ, the essential Word of God: and so Jarchi, according to Lyra, interprets it of the Messiah to come; who is compared to a lion for his strength and courage, and for the fierceness of his wrath against his enemies; and his voice, in his word, is like the roaring of a lion, exceeding loud, and reaching far, even the uttermost parts of the earth; as it did in the first times of the Gospel, and will in the last; and which the Jews particularly, in each of the parts of the world, will hear, and Gentiles also, and be affected with it; for it will be also very strong, powerful, and efficacious; which is another reason of its being compared to a lion roaring; see Joe 3:16; when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west; the children of Israel, the children of God, his adopted ones, whom he has predestinated to the adoption of children; these, through the first impressions of Christ's voice or word upon them, shall startle, and be set a trembling, and be astonished, as Saul was, when called and converted; as it is reported of the lion, that, when it roars, other beasts are so terrified that they are quite stunned and amazed, and are not able to stir; but though the first sound of the voice of Christ may have some effect upon the Jews, yet this will not cause them to tremble at him so as to flee from him, but to cause them to flee to him: for the phrase is expressive of motion towards him, and to their own land, as appears from Hos 11:11; when filled with a sense of his majesty and grace, they shall approach him with a holy awe of him, with fear and trembling: or "come with honour" (h); agreeably to Sa1 16:4; having high, honourable, and grand sentiments and apprehensions of him; so that this trembling, at least, issues in a godly and filial fear and reverence of him, suitable to their character as children. The phrase, "from the west", or "from the sea" (i), meaning the Mediterranean sea, which lay west of Judea, and is often used for the west, may signify the western or European part of the world, where the Jews for the most part are, and from whence they will be gathered. The Targum is, "for he shall roar, and the captives shall be gathered from the west.'' (h) "et cum honore accedent", Schmidt. (i) "a mari", Montanus, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Schmidt.

"After the Lord they shall walk: He shall roar like a lion: for He shall roar, and the children of the sea shall fear, and shall fly away like a bird out of Egypt, and like a dove out of the land of the Assyrians: and I will place them in their houses, saith the Lord." LXX: "After the Lord I will walk; he will roar like a lion, because he will roar, and the sons of water will be afraid and fly like birds from Egypt, and like a dove from the land of the Assyrians, and I will place them in their houses, says the Lord." With the Lord promising success, the people will turn to Him: and they shall walk after the Lord, for the Lord shall roar like a lion. Of which also the prophet Amos recalls: 'The Lord will roar from Zion, and from Jerusalem He shall give His voice' (Amos 1:2). And He will roar when He says: 'I will make you like Sodom.' And when He roars, then the sons of the sea, or of the waters, will tremble, as the LXX translated. For the word Maim, which is written with three letters Mem, Yod, Mem: if it is read Maim, it means 'waters'; if Mejam, it is understood as 'from the sea.' The Hebrews refer these things to the coming of Christ, whom they hope will come. "We have now become convinced that from Egypt and Assyria, that is, from the East and the West, and from the North and the South, those who recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have come, and come daily (Matthew 8). However, we can call the sons of the sea or the waters those who have been caught in the Lord's dragnet and taken from the sea of this world (Matthew 13:47). And when they have been taken from death to life, they will be placed in their own houses, which the Gospel calls granaries, in which selected and separated wheat is stored." (Matthew 13) It is said that it is the nature of lions that when they roar and roar, all animals tremble, and they cannot move with fixed steps: such is the terror and so great the fear. And so, when the Lord roars like a lion, and thunders, and gives his voice, all the birds and all flying things will tremble: and they will go to their nests, that is, to their homes where the Lord will dwell with them. Let us also say this differently: When a true lion roars, the false lion, who is our adversary according to the Apostle Peter, will immediately be silent, and he will not be able to open his perverse mouth to any doctrine: and those who were previously captured by him, loosened by the roar of the lion and terrible threats, will follow their Lord God. Then the sons of the sea or waters will fear, who were born in bitterness and salty waters of heretics; and having taken wings, they will fly like birds from Egypt and like doves from Assyrian land, and will say: "Who will give me wings like doves, and I will fly and rest"(Ps. LIV, 7)? So those who had labored among the heretics may rest in the Church and dwell in their homes from which they were seduced by error. Egypt, that is, we know as "trouble" and "distress"; likewise, concerning Assyrians, we recognize as "leaders" or, as we think better, "accusers." Therefore, heretics will be freed from them when they start living in their own homes and say to their wicked parents, "Your house will be left empty to you" (Matt. 23).

This chapter gives a very pathetic representation of God's tender and affectionate regard for Israel, by metaphors chiefly borrowed from the conduct of mothers toward their tender offspring. From this, occasion is taken to reflect on their ungrateful return to the Divine goodness, and to denounce against them the judgments of the Almighty, Hos 11:1-7. But suddenly and unexpectedly the prospect changes. Beams of mercy break frown the clouds just now fraught with vengeance. God, to speak in the language of men, feels the relentings of a tender parent; his bowels yearn; his mercy triumphs; his rebellious child shall yet be pardoned. As the lion of the tribe of Judah, he will employ his power to save his people, he will call his children from the land of their captivity; and, as doves, they will fly to him, a faithful and a holy people, Hos 11:8-12.

They shall walk after the Lord - They shall discern the operations of his providence, when, He shall roar like a lion - When he shall utter his majestic voice, Cyrus shall make his decree. The people shall tremble - be in a state of commotion; every one hurrying to avail himself of the opportunity to return to his own land.

(Hos 11:5 shows this prophecy was uttered after the league made with Egypt (Kg2 17:4)) Israel . . . called my son out of Egypt--BENGEL translates, "From the time that he (Israel) was in Egypt, I called him My son," which the parallelism proves. So Hos 12:9 and Hos 13:4 use "from . . . Egypt," for "from the time that thou didst sojourn in Egypt." Exo 4:22 also shows that Israel was called by God, "My son," from the time of his Egyptian sojourn (Isa 43:1). God is always said to have led or brought forth, not to have "called," Israel from Egypt. Mat 2:15, therefore, in quoting this prophecy (typically and primarily referring to Israel, antitypically and fully to Messiah), applies it to Jesus' sojourn in Egypt, not His return from it. Even from His infancy, partly spent in Egypt, God called Him His son. God included Messiah, and Israel for Messiah's sake, in one common love, and therefore in one common prophecy. Messiah's people and Himself are one, as the Head and the body. Isa 49:3 calls Him "Israel." The same general reason, danger of extinction, caused the infant Jesus, and Israel in its national infancy (compare Gen. 42:1-43:34; Gen 45:18; Gen 46:3-4; Eze 16:4-6; Jer 31:20) to sojourn in Egypt. So He, and His spiritual Israel, are already called "God's sons" while yet in the Egypt of the world.

he shall roar like a lion--by awful judgments on their foes (Isa 31:4; Jer 25:26-30; Joe 3:16), calling His dispersed "children" from the various lands of their dispersion. shall tremble--shall flock in eager agitation of haste. from the west-- (Zac 8:7). Literally, "the sea." Probably the Mediterranean, including its "isles of the sea," and maritime coast. Thus as Hos 11:11 specifies regions of Africa and Asia, so here Europe. Isa 11:11-16, is parallel, referring to the very same regions. On "children," see Hos 1:10.

The prophet goes back a third time (cf. Hos 10:1; Hos 9:10) to the early times of Israel, and shows how the people had repaid the Lord, for all the proofs of His love, with nothing but ingratitude and unfaithfulness; so that it would have merited utter destruction from off the earth, if God should not restrain His wrath for the sake of His unchangeable faithfulness, in order that, after severely chastening, He might gather together once more those that were rescued from among the heathen. Hos 11:1. "When Israel was young, then I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. Hos 11:2. Men called to them; so they went away from their countenance: they offer sacrifice to the Baals, and burn incense to the idols." Hos 11:1 rests upon Exo 4:22-23, where the Lord directs Moses to say to Pharaoh, "Israel is my first-born son; let my son go, that he may serve me." Israel was the son of Jehovah, by virtue of its election to be Jehovah's peculiar people (see at Exo 4:22). In this election lay the ground for the love which God showed to Israel, by bringing it out of Egypt, to give it the land of Canaan, promised to the fathers for its inheritance. The adoption of Israel as the son of Jehovah, which began with its deliverance out of the bondage of Egypt, and was completed in the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, forms the first stage in the carrying out of the divine work of salvation, which was completed in the incarnation of the Son of God for the redemption of mankind from death and ruin. The development and guidance of Israel as the people of God all pointed to Christ; not, however, in any such sense as that the nation of Israel was to bring forth the son of God from within itself, but in this sense, that the relation which the Lord of heaven and earth established and sustained with that nation, was a preparation for the union of God with humanity, and paved the way for the incarnation of His Son, by the fact that Israel was trained to be a vessel of divine grace. All essential factors in the history of Israel point to this as their end, and thereby become types and material prophecies of the life of Him in whom the reconciliation of man to God was to be realized, and the union of God with the human race to be developed into a personal unity. It is in this sense that the second half of our verse is quoted in Mat 2:15 as a prophecy of Christ, not because the words of the prophet refer directly and immediately to Christ, but because the sojourn in Egypt, and return out of that land, had the same significance in relation to the development of the life of Jesus Christ, as it had to the nation of Israel. Just as Israel grew into a nation in Egypt, where it was out of the reach of Canaanitish ways, so was the child Jesus hidden in Egypt from the hostility of Herod. But Hos 11:2 is attached thus as an antithesis: this love of its God was repaid by Israel with base apostasy. קראוּ, they, viz., the prophets (cf. Hos 11:7; Kg2 17:13; Jer 7:25; Jer 25:4; Zac 1:4), called to them, called the Israelites to the Lord and to obedience to Him; but they (the Israelites) went away from their countenance, would not hearken to the prophets, or come to the Lord (Jer 2:31). The thought is strengthened by כּן, with the כּאשׁר of the protasis omitted (Ewald, 360, a): as the prophets called, so the Israelites drew back from them, and served idols. בּעלים as in Hos 2:15, and פּסלים as in Kg2 17:41 and Deu 7:5, Deu 7:25 (see at Exo 20:4).

"They will go after Jehovah; like a lion will He roar; for He will roar: and sons will tremble from the sea. Hos 11:11. Tremble like birds out of Egypt, and like doves out of the land of Asshur: and I cause them to dwell in their houses, is the saying of Jehovah." When the Lord turns His pity towards the people once more, they will follow Him, and hasten, with trembling at His voice, from the lands of their banishment, and be reinstated by Him in their inheritance. The way for this promise was opened indeed by Hos 11:9, but here it is introduced quite abruptly, and without any logical particle of connection, like the same promise in Hos 3:5. הלך אחרי יי, to walk after the Lord, denotes not only "obedience to the gathering voice of the Lord, as manifested by their drawing near" (Simson), but that walking in true obedience to the Lord which follows from conversion (Deu 13:5; Kg1 14:8), so that the Chaldee has very properly rendered it, "They will follow the worship of Jehovah." This faithfulness they will exhibit first of all in practical obedience to the call of the Lord. This call is described as the roaring of a lion, the point of comparison lying simply in the fact that a lion announces its coming by roaring, so that the roaring merely indicates a loud, far-reaching call, like the blowing of the trumpet in Isa 27:13. The reason for what is affirmed is then given: "for He (Jehovah) will really utter His call," in consequence of which the Israelites, as His children, will come trembling (chârēd synonymous with pâchad, Hos 3:5). מיּם, from the sea, i.e., from the distant islands and lands of the west (Isa 11:11), as well as from Egypt and Assyria, the lands of the south and east. These three regions are simply a special form of the idea, "out of all quarters of the globe;" compare the more complete enumeration of the several remote countries in Isa 11:11. The comparison to birds and doves expresses the swiftness with which they draw near, as doves fly to their dovecots (Isa 60:8). Then will the Lord cause them to dwell in their houses, i.e., settle them once more in their inheritance, in His own land (cf. Jer 32:37, where לבטח is added). On the construing of הושׁיב with על, cf. Kg1 20:43, and the German auf der Stube sein. The expression נאם יי affixes the seal of confirmation to this promise. The fulfilment takes place in the last says, when Israel as a nation shall enter the kingdom of God. Compare the remarks on this point at Hos 2:1-3.