Hosea 11:1 Kommentar

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).

Here we find, I. God very gracious to Israel. They were a people for whom he had done more than for any people under heaven, and to whom he had given more, which they are here, I will not say upbraided with (for God gives, and upbraids not), but put in mind of, as an aggravation of their sin and an encouragement to repentance. 1. He had a kindness for them when they were young (Hos 11:1): When Israel was a child then I loved him; when they first began to multiply into a nation in Egypt God then set his love upon them, and chose them because he loved them, because he would love them, Deu 7:7, Deu 7:8. When they were weak and helpless as children, foolish and froward as children, when they were outcasts, and children exposed, then God loved them; he pitied them, and testified his goodwill to them; he bore them as the nurse does the sucking child, nourished them, and suffered their manners. Note, Those that have grown up, nay, those that have grown old, ought often to reflect upon the goodness of God to them in their childhood. 2. He delivered them out of the house of bondage: I called my son out of Egypt, because a son, because a beloved son. When God demanded Israel's discharge from Pharaoh he called them his son, his first-born. Note, Those whom God loves he calls out of the bondage of sin and Satan into the glorious liberty of his children. These words are said to have been fulfilled in Christ, when, upon the death of Herod, he and his parents were called out of Egypt (Mat 2:15), so that the words have a double aspect, speaking historically of the calling of Israel out of Egypt and prophetically of the bringing of Christ thence; and the former was a type of the latter, and a pledge and earnest of the many and great favours God had in reserve for that people, especially the sending of his Son into the world, and the bringing him again into the land of Israel when they had unkindly driven him out, and he might justly never have returned. The calling of Christ out of Egypt was a figure of the calling of all that are his, through him, out of spiritual slavery. 3. He gave them a good education, took care of them, took pains with them, not only as a father or tutor, but, such is the condescension of divine grace, as a mother or nurse (Hos 11:3): I taught Ephraim also to go, as a child in leading-strings is taught. When they were in the wilderness God led them by the pillar of cloud and fire, showed them the way in which they should go, and bore them up, taking them by the arms. He taught them to go in the way of his commandments, by the institutions of the ceremonial law, which were as tutors and governors to that people under age. He took them by the arms, to guide them, that they might not stray, and to hold them up, that they might not stumble and fall. God's spiritual Israel are thus supported. Thou has holden me by my right hand, Psa 73:23. 4. When any thing was amiss with them, or they were ever so little out of order, he was their physician: "I healed them; I not only took a tender care of them (a friend may do that), but wrought an effectual cure: it is a God only that can do that. I am the Lord that healeth thee (Exo 15:26), that redresseth all thy grievances." 5. He brought them into his service by mild and gentle methods (Hos 11:4): I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. Note, It is God's work to draw poor souls to himself; and none can come to him except he draw them, Joh 6:44. He draws, (1.) With the cords of a man, with such cords as men draw with that have a principle of humanity, or such cords as men are drawn with; he dealt with them as men, in an equitable rational way, in an easy gentle way, with the cords of Adam. He dealt with them as with Adam in innocency, bringing them at once into a paradise, and into covenant with himself. (2.) With bands of love, or cartropes of love. This word signifies stronger cords than the former. He did not drive them by force into his service, whether they would or no, nor rule them with rigour, nor detain them by violence, but his attractives were all loving and endearing, all sweet and gentle, that he might overcome them with kindness. Moses, whom he made their guide, was the meekest man in the world. Kindnesses among men we commonly call obligations, or bonds, bonds of love. Thus God draws with the savour of his good ointments (Sol 1:4), draws with lovingkindness, Jer 31:3. Thus God deals with us, and we must deal in like manner with those that are under our instruction and government, deal rationally and mildly with them. 6. He eased them of the burdens they had been long groaning under: I was to them as those that take off the yoke on their jaws, alluding to the care of the good husbandman, who is merciful to his beast, and will not tire him with hard and constant labour. Probably, in those times, the yoke on the neck of the oxen was fastened with some bridle, or headstall, over the jaws, which muzzled the mouth of the ox. Israel in Egypt were thus restrained from the enjoyments of their comforts and constrained to hard labour; but God eased them, removed their shoulder from the burden, Psa 81:6. Note, Liberty is a great mercy, especially out of bondage. 7. He supplied them with food convenient. In Egypt they fared hard, but, when God brought them out, he laid meat unto them, as the husbandman, when he has unyoked his cattle, fodders them. God rained manna about their camp, bread from heaven, angels' food; other creatures seek their meat, but God laid meat to his own people, as we do to our children, was himself their caterer and carver, anticipated them with the blessings of goodness. II. Here is Israel very ungrateful to God. 1. They were deaf and disobedient to his voice. He spoke to them by his messengers, Moses and his other prophets, called them from their sins, called them to himself, to their work and duty; but as they called them so they went from them; they rebelled in those particular instances wherein they were admonished; the more pressing and importunate the prophets were with them, to persuade them to that which was good, the more refractory they were, and the more resolute in their evil ways, disobeying for disobedience-sake. This foolishness is bound in the hearts of children, who, as soon as they are taught to go, will go from those that call them. 2. They were fond of idols, and worshipped them: They sacrificed to Baalim, first one Baal and then another, and burnt incense to graven images, though they were called to by the prophets of the Lord again and again not to do this abominable thing which he hated. Idolatry was the sin which from the beginning, and all along, had most easily beset them. 3. They were regardless of God, and of his favours to them: They knew not that I healed them. They looked only at Moses and Aaron, the instruments of their relief, and, when any thing was amiss, quarrelled with them, but looked not through them to God who employed them. Or, When God corrected them, and kept them under a severe discipline, they understood not that it was for their good, and that God thereby healed them, and it was necessary for the perfecting of their cure, else they would have been better reconciled to the methods God took. Note, Ignorance is at the bottom of ingratitude, Hos 2:8. 4. They were strongly inclined to apostasy. This is the blackest article in the charge (Hos 11:7): My people are bent to backsliding from me. Every word here is aggravating. (1.) They backslide. There is no hold of them, no stedfastness in them; they seem to come forward, towards God, but they quickly slide back again, and are as a deceitful bow. (2.) They backslide from me, from God, the chief good, the fountain of life and living waters, from their God who never turned from them, nor war as a wilderness to them. (3.) They are bent to backslide; they are ready to sin; there is in their natures a propensity to that which is evil; at the best they hang in suspense between God and the world, so that a little thing serves to draw them the wrong way; they are forward to close with every temptation. It also intimates that they are resolute in sin; their hearts are fully set in them to do evil the bias is strong that way; and they persist in their backslidings, whatever is said or done to stop them; and yet, (4.) "They are, in profession, my people. They are called by my name, and profess relation to me; they are mine, whom I have done much for and expect much from, whom I have nourished and brought up, as children, and yet they backslide from me." Note, In our repentance we ought to lament not only our backslidings, but our bent to backslide, not only our actual transgressions, but our original corruption, the sin that dwells in us, the carnal mind. 5. They were strangely averse to repentance and reformation. Here are two expressions of their obstinacy: - (1.) They refused to return, Hos 11:5. So much were they bent to backslide that, though they could not but find, upon trial, the folly of their backslidings, and that when they forsook God they changed for the worse, yet they went on frowardly. I have loved strangers, and after them I will go. They were commanded to return, were courted and entreated to return, were promised that if they would they should be kindly received, but they refused. (2.) Though they called them to the Most High. God's prophets and ministers called them to return to the God from whom they had revolted, to the most high God, from whom they had sunk into this wretched degeneracy; they called them from the worship of the idols, which were so much below them, and the worship of which was therefore their disparagement, to the true God, who was so much above them, and the worship of whom was therefore their preferment; they called them from this earth to high and heavenly things; but they called in vain. None at all would exalt him. Though he is the most high God they would not acknowledge him to be so, would do nothing to honour him nor give him the glory due to his name. Or, They would not exalt themselves, would not rise out of that state of apostasy and misery into which they had precipitated themselves; but there they contentedly lay still, would not lift up their heads nor lift up their souls. Note, God's faithful ministers have taken a great deal of pains, to no purpose, with backsliding children, have called them to the Most High; but none would stir, none at all would exalt him. III. Here is God very angry, and justly so, with Israel; see what are the tokens of God's displeasure with which they are here threatened. 1. God, who brought them out of Egypt, to take them for a people to himself, since they would not be faithful to him, shall bring them into a worse condition than he at first found them in (Hos 11:5): "He shall not return into the land of Egypt, though that was a house of bondage grievous enough; but he shall go into a harder service, for the Assyrian shall be his king, who will use him worse than ever Pharaoh did." They shall not return into Egypt, which lies near, where they may hear often from their own country, and whence they may hope shortly to return to it again; but they shall be carried into Assyria, which lies much more remote, and where they shall be cut off from all correspondence with their own land and from all hopes of returning to it, and justly, because they refused to return. Note, Those that will not return to the duties they have left cannot expect to return to the comforts they have lost. 2. God, who gave them Canaan, that good land, and a very safe and comfortable settlement in it, shall bring his judgments upon them there, which shall make their habitation unsafe and uncomfortable (Hos 11:6): The sword shall come upon them, the sword of war, the sword of a foreign enemy, prevailing against them and triumphing over them. (1.) This judgment shall spread far. The sword shall fasten upon their cities, those nests of people and store-houses of wealth; it shall likewise reach to their branches, the country villages (so some), the citizens themselves (so others), or the bars (so the word signifies) and gates of their city, or all the branches of their revenue and wealth, or their children, the branches of their families. (2.) It shall last long: It shall abide on their cities. David thought three months flying before his enemies was the only judgment of the three that was to be excepted against; but this sword shall abide much longer than three months on the cities of Israel. They continued their rebellions against God, and therefore God continued his judgments on them. (3.) It shall make a full end: It shall consume their branches, and devour them, and lay all waste, and this because of their own counsels, that is, because they would have their own projects, which God therefore, in a way of righteous judgment, gave them up to. Note, The confusion of sinners is owing to their contrivance. God's counsels would have saved them, but their own counsels ruined them.

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.

When Israel was a child, then I loved him,.... Or, "for Israel was a child" (u); a rebellious and disobedient one, therefore his king was cut off in a morning, and he has been, and will be, without a king many days; yet still "I loved him": or, "though Israel was a child" (w); a weak, helpless, foolish, and imprudent one, "yet I loved him": or, "when a child"; in the infancy of his civil and church state, when in Egypt, and in the wilderness; the Lord loved him, not only as his creature, as he does all the works of his hands, but with a more special love than he loved others; choosing them to be a special people above all others; giving them his law, his statutes, and his judgments, his word and his worship, which he did not give to other nations. So he loves spiritual and mystical Israel, all the elect of God, whether Jews or Gentiles, when children, as soon as born, and though born in sin, carnal and corrupt; yea, before they are born, and when having done neither good nor evil; and so may be expressive both of the earliness and antiquity of his love to them, and of the freeness of it, without any merits or motives of theirs; and called my son out of Egypt, not literal Israel, as before, whom God called his son, and his firstborn, and demanded his dismission from Pharaoh, and called him, and brought him out of Egypt with a mighty hand and outstretched arm; and which was a type of his calling spiritual Israel, his adopted sons, out of worse than Egyptian bondage and darkness: but his own natural and only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; for these words are expressly said to be fulfilled in him, Mat 2:15; not by way of allusion; or by accommodation of phrases; or as the type is fulfilled in the antitype; or as a proverbial expression, adapted to any deliverance; but literally: the first and only sense of the words respects Christ, who in his infancy was had to Egypt for shelter from Herod's rage and fury, and, when he was dead, and those that sought the life of Jesus, he was by an angel of the Lord, warning Joseph of it, called out of Egypt, and brought into Judea, Mat 2:19; and this as a proof of the love of God to Israel; which as it was expressed to him in his infancy, it continued and appeared in various instances, more or less unto the coming of Christ; who, though obliged for a while to go into Egypt, must not continue there, but must be called from thence, to be brought up in the land of Judea; to do his miracles, preach his doctrines, and do good to the bodies and souls of men there, being sent particularly to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and, above all, in order to work out the salvation and redemption of his special people among them, and of the whole Israel of God everywhere else; which is the greatest instance of love to them, and to the world of the Gentiles, that ever was known, Joh 3:16 Jo1 2:2. (u) "quia", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius. (w) "Quamvis sit puer", Tarnovius, Rivet.

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. [Hosea 11:1]

Because Israel, symbolically called “son” since Egypt, had lost its sonship through having worshiped Baal and offered incense to idols, John gave them a name which suited them: race of vipers. Because these had lost that title of sonship, which had been poured over them through grace in the days of Moses, they received from John a name congruent with their deeds. After the Lord went down into the land of the Egyptians and had returned from there, the Evangelist said, “Now the true word spoken by the prophet is accomplished.” He said, “I will call my son out of Egypt.” He also said, “He will be called a Nazarene,” because in Hebrew nezer means a “scepter,” and the prophet calls him a “Nazarene” because he is the Son of the scepter.

I will address myself as is right to those who have come from Egypt. They have come here eagerly, having overcome ill will by zeal. They come from that Egypt which is enriched by the river who is Christ, raining out of the earth and like the sea in its season—if I too may follow in my small measure those who have so eloquently spoken of these matters. They too are enriched by Christ my Lord. He too was once fugitive in Egypt; the first, when he fled from Herod’s massacre of the children, and now by the love of the fathers for their children, by Christ the new food of those who hunger after good, who offers the greatest alms of corn of which history speaks and men believe. He is the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world, that life which is indestructible and indissoluble. It is of him that I now seem to hear the Father saying, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

Herod sought him after his birth. He was going to kill all the children in that place. And the prophet revealed this too, foretelling it long beforehand when he said, “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, mourning and much weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.” The Scriptures also predicted that he would come to Egypt when they said, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

"Just as the morning passes, the king of Israel passes away: for Israel is a boy, and I have loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt: they called them: so they went from their presence: they sacrificed to Baalim, and offered sacrifices to idols." LXX: "They have cast off the morning, the king of Israel has been cast off, because Israel is a little one, and I have loved him, and have called his sons out of Egypt. As I called them, so they went away from my face: they immolated to Baalim, and burnt incense to idols." He explains the same idea in different ways. As he previously said: "He made his king pass over Samaria like foam on the surface of the water", because foam and bubbles that float on the surface of water rapidly dissolve; now he puts the same thing in another comparison. Just as the dawn and the beginning of the day, which is called morning, quickly passes between the night and the vicinity of the sun; so that the night is finished and daybreak comes: so the king of Israel, that is, of the ten tribes, will pass quickly. And He explains the benefits that God had conferred upon himself. He says: "While I was still a young boy and a captive in Egypt, I loved him so much that I sent my servant Moses to call my Son out of Egypt, of whom I spoke in another place, 'My firstborn Son, Israel' (Exodus IV). And because Israel is singularly spoken of, but understood in a plural sense, like both the people and Ephraim and Judah: since there are many in number who are included in this number, an old history recalls that He had called them through Moses and Aaron, who had called them to leave Egypt: but those who were called by them left them, turning their backs on them and indicating by bodily gesture the stubbornness of their minds. Nor was it enough for them to despise those who called upon them unless they sacrificed to Baal and their idols, or offered incense to their images. We read that Baal was first worshipped under Achab, king of Israel, who took as his wife the daughter of the king of Sidon, and transferred the idol of Babylon and the Phoenicians to Samaria. Thus, he combines sins separated by time into one discourse: how they were first called from Egypt and named sons, then withdrew from God in the wilderness, worshipping Beelphegor more than God, and afterwards served Baalim and Astaroth, and other idols in the holy land. And we understand heretics passing by like the dawn, and their king as the devil or heresiarch, whom in infancy (when they believed in the Church, and were little ones, and were considered in Christ's name) God loved, and called them out of the tribulation and darkness of Egypt. He called through the apostles and teachers of the Church. But when they were called by my leaders, they turned away from them, and worshiped Beelphegor, that is, they served their vices and lust, and afterwards sacrificed to Baalim and idols, which they had fashioned for themselves. For each heretic has his own gods, and they worship whatever they have made as if it were an idol or a statue. As for what we have said, "Out of Egypt I have called my Son" (Matth. II), the Septuagint translated it to "Out of Egypt I have called his sons," which is not in the Hebrew; there is no doubt that Matthew took this testimony according to the Hebrew truth. Therefore, those who disparage our translation should provide Scripture from which the Evangelist took this testimony, and it should be interpreted in the Lord and Savior, when he was brought back from Egypt to the land of Israel. And when they cannot find (it), they cease to ask respectfully, arch their eyebrow, curl their nostrils, and snap their fingers. Julian Augustus vomited (slanders) against us Christians in this place, in the seventh volume, and says: that which is written of Israel, Matthew the evangelist translated to Christ, in order to mock the simplicity of those who believed from the nations. We will respond to this briefly: Firstly, that Matthew published the Gospel in Hebrew letters, which the Hebrews alone could read. Therefore, he did not do it to mock the Gentiles. But if he wanted to mock the Hebrews, he was either foolish or ignorant: foolish, if he concocted an obvious falsehood; ignorant, if he did not understand what he was saying. The work itself excuses any foolishness, since it is prudently and carefully arranged; we cannot call him ignorant, since we know from other testimony of the Scriptures that he had knowledge of the Law. It remains for us to say that those things that precede in others typologically are related to Christ according to truth and fulfillment: which we know the Apostle did in the two mountains, Sinai and Zion, and in Sarah and Hagar. For neither is Sinai now, nor is it Zion: neither was it Sara, nor was it Agar; because the Apostle Paul said these things with respect to the two Testaments (Gal. IV). Therefore, what is written: "A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a perfect nation: I the Lord will suddenly do this thing in its time," is indeed said of the people of Israel, who are called forth from Egypt, who are loved, who at that time, after the error of idolatrous worship, are called like infants and little ones: but it is also perfectly referred to Christ. For Isaac also was a figure of Christ in that he carried the wood for his own sacrifice (Gen 22); and Jacob, because he had a wife whom he did not love (Leah) and one whom he did (Rachel) (Gen 29). In Leah, the elder sister, we may understand the blindness of the Synagogue; in Rachel’s beauty, the glory of the Church. Yet those who in some degree are figures of the Lord’s Saviourship, are not in every detail to be believed to have done the same things in a figure. For a type indicates a part: but if the whole precedes in the type, it is no longer a type, but should be called the truth of history. We said this briefly in the Commentaries; now let us return to the rest.

It is as a result of folly and a childish attitude that they suffer this punishment. I recalled them from Egypt and freed them from that harsh servitude, but they proved ungrateful to me and opted for the worship of the idols (referring to them as “Baals”). Though I was the one who taught them to walk, who cured them of their awkward gait, showed them paternal affection and applied all kinds of healing to them, they refused to acknowledge me, even though I protected them from manifold destruction at the hands of the invaders as if clutching them to me in love like a kind of bond. It is in love that even now I care for them and invest them in these chastisements, acting in the manner of someone striking a forward child on the cheek.

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.

When Israel was a child - In the infancy of his political existence. I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt - Where he was greatly oppressed; and in this I gave the proof of my love. I preserved my people in their affliction there, and brought them safely out of it.

(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.

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).