โฮเชยา 6:8 วิจารณ์

The closing words of the foregoing chapter gave us some hopes that God and his Israel, notwithstanding their sins and his wrath, might yet be happily brought together again, that they would seek him and he would be found of them; now this chapter carries that matter further, and some join the beginning of this chapter with the end of that, "They will seek me early," saying, "Come and let us return." But God doth again complain of the wickedness of this people; for, though some did repent and reform, the greater part continued obstinate. Observe, I. Their resolution to return to God, and the comforts wherewith they encourage themselves in their return (Hos 6:1-3). II. The instability of many of them in their professions and promises of repentance, and the severe course which God therefore took with them (Hos 6:4, Hos 6:5). III. The covenant God made with them, and his expectations from them (Hos 6:6); their violation of that covenant and frustrating those expectations (Hos 6:7-11).

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 6 This chapter gives an account of some who were truly penitent, and stirred up one another to return to the Lord, encouraged by his power, grace, and goodness, Hos 6:1; and of others, who had only a form of religion, were very unstable in it; regarded more the ceremonial law, and the external sacrifices of it, than the moral law; either that part of it which respects the love of the neighbour, or that which concerns the knowledge of God; and dealt treacherously with the Lord, transgressing the covenant, Hos 6:4; particularly the city of Gilead is represented as full of the workers of iniquity, and is charged with bloodshed, Hos 6:8; yea, even the priests were guilty of murder and lewdness, Hos 6:9; and Israel, or the ten tribes in general, are accused of whoredom, both corporeal and spiritual, with which they were defiled, Hos 6:10; nor was Judah clear of these crimes, and therefore a reckoning day is set for them, Hos 6:11.

Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity,.... The chief city in the land of Gilead, which lay beyond Jordan, inhabited by Gad and Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh; and so belonged to the ten tribes, whose sins are here particularly observed. It had its name from the country, or the country from that, or both from the mountain of the same name. It is thought to be Ramothgilead, a city of refuge, and put for all the cities of refuge in those parts, which were inhabited by priests and Levites; and who ought to have had knowledge of the laws, and instructed the people in them, and observed them themselves, and set a good example to others; but, instead of this, the whole course of their lives, was vicious; they made a trade of sinning, did nothing else but work iniquity; and this was general among them, the city or cities of them consisted of none else; and all manner of iniquity was committed by them, particularly idolatry; for so the words may be rendered, "a city of them that serve an idol" (a); not only at Dan and Bethel, but in the cities of the priests, idols were set up and worshipped; this shows the state to be very corrupt: and is polluted with blood; with the blood of murderers harboured there, who ought not to have been admitted; or with the blood of such who were delivered up to the avenger of blood, that ought to have been sheltered, and both for the sake of money; or with the blood of children, sacrificed to Mo: the word used has the signification of supplanting, lying in wait, and so is understood of a private, secret, shedding of blood, in a deceitful and insidious way: hence some render it, "cunning for blood" (b); to which the Targum seems to agree, calling it a city "of them that secretly or deceitfully shed innocent blood.'' It has also the signification of the heel of a man's foot, and is by some rendered, "trodden by blood" (c); that is, by bloody men: or "footed" or "heeled by blood" (d); that is, such an abundance of it was shed, that a man could not set his foot or his heel any where but in blood. (a) "civitas operantium idolum", V. L. (b) "callida et astuta sanguine", so some in Vatablus; "callida sanguine", Castslio. (c) "Calcata a sanguine", Piscator. (d) "Vestigiata a sanguine", Capellus, Tarnovius; "vestigis sanguinolentis", Juuius & Tremellius.

Galaad a city of idolaters, supplanted by blood, and like the throats of robbers (or "the city of a robber") for both readings are possible. The Septuagint: "There Galad despised me, a city that is devoted to vanity, and disturbs the water, and your strength, O violent men." We read in Ramoth Galaad that Jehu was anointed in king (IV Kings IX), who mixed blood with blood, and overthrew the house of Achab, and before sunrise ordered heaps of his sons' heads to be placed; in this city across the Jordan in the possession of the tribe of Gad, an idol was consecrated, which was inhabited by priests, for it was a city of fugitives. Therefore, the more celebrated and authoritative it was, because it had been delegated to a part of the priests, the more it was the beginning of idolatry and all evil for Israel living across Jordan, so that those who had sinned first were the first to be captured by the Assyrians. And since the province itself is full of thefts, compares them to thieves, just as priests have laid ambushes for the simplicity of the people, so have those [the thieves] done to travelers. Furthermore, according to the tropology, "Gilead" means "migration of testimony"; and he despises God, while he twists the testimonies of the Scriptures into perverse doctrines, and all his works are in vain, and he disturbs the waters of the Church, and from the purest fountains makes muddy and dirty streams that stain the baptized rather than cleanse them. And all the strength of this city, like that of pirate men, while imitating the devil, who, in the sea of this age, in which ships cross over, lies in wait for those who strive to reach port. Finally Symmachus has more clearly interpreted, saying: "And your throat like that of a lying pirate." We read about such pirates in Job: "There is no delay for the pirates" (Job XXV, 3, sec. LXX). Although they seem to boast of themselves in the present age, to stir up the waters, to act vainly, and to carry on piracy, yet there is no delay to the punishments that will quickly overtake them.

The prophet earnestly exhorts to repentance, Hos 6:1-3. God is then introduced as very tenderly and pathetically remonstrating against the backslidings of Ephraim and Judah, Hos 6:4-11.

Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity - In this place Jacob and Laban made their covenant, and set up a heap of stones, which was called Galeed, the heap of testimony; and most probably idolatry was set up here. Perhaps the very heap became the object of superstitious adoration.

THE ISRAELITES' EXHORTATION TO ONE ANOTHER TO SEEK THE LORD. (Hos 6:1-11) At Hos 6:4 a new discourse, complaining of them, begins; for Hos 6:1-3 evidently belong to Hos 5:15, and form the happy termination of Israel's punishment: primarily, the return from Babylon; ultimately, the return from their present long dispersion. Hos 6:8 perhaps refers to the murder of Pekahiah; the discourse cannot be later than Pekah's reign, for it was under it that Gilead was carried into captivity (Kg2 15:29). let us return--in order that God who has "returned to His place" may return to us (Hos 5:15). torn, and . . . heal-- (Deu 32:39; Jer 30:17). They ascribe their punishment not to fortune, or man, but to God, and acknowledge that none (not the Assyrian, as they once vainly thought, Hos 5:13) but God can heal their wound. They are at the same time persuaded of the mercy of God, which persuasion is the starting-point of true repentance, and without which men would not seek, but hate and flee from God. Though our wound be severe, it is not past hope of recovery; there is room for grace, and a hope of pardon. He hath smitten us, but not so badly that He cannot heal us (Psa 130:4).

Gilead . . . city--probably Ramoth-gilead, metropolis of the hilly region beyond Jordan, south of the Jabbok, known as "Gilead" (Kg1 4:13; compare Gen 31:21-25). work iniquity-- (Hos 12:11). polluted with blood--"marked with blood-traces" [MAURER]. Referring to Gilead's complicity in the regicidal conspiracy of Pekah against Pekahiah (Kg2 15:25). See on Hos 6:1. Many homicides were there, for there were beyond Jordan more cities of refuge, in proportion to the extent of territory, than on this side of Jordan (Num 35:14; Deu 4:41-43; Jos 20:8). Ramoth-gilead was one.

The prophet cites a few examples in proof of this faithlessness in the two following verses. Hos 6:8. "Gilead is a city of evil-doers, trodden with blood. Hos 6:9. And like the lurking of the men of the gangs is the covenant of the priests; along the way they murder even to Sichem: yea, they have committed infamy." Gilead is not a city, for no such city is mentioned in the Old Testament, and its existence cannot be proved from Jdg 12:7 and Jdg 10:17, any more than from Gen 31:48-49, (Note: The statement of the Onomast. (s.v. Γαλαάδ), that there is also a city called Galaad, situated in the mountain which Galaad the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, took for the Amorite, and that of Jerome, "from which mountain the city built in it derived its name, viz., that which was taken," etc., furnish no proof of the existence of a city called Gilead in the time of the Israelites; since Eusebius and Jerome have merely inferred the existence of such a city from statements in the Old Testament, more especially from the passage quoted by them just before, viz., Jer 22:6, Galaad tu mihi initium Libani, taken in connection with Num 32:39 -43, as the words "which Gilead took" clearly prove. And with regard to the ruined cities Jelaad and Jelaud, which are situated, according to Burckhardt (pp. 599, 600), upon the mountain called Jebel Jelaad or Jelaud, it is not known that they date from antiquity at all. Burckhardt gives no description of them, and does not even appear to have visited the ruins.) but it is the name of a district, as it is everywhere else; and here in all probability it stands, as it very frequently does, for the whole of the land of Israel to the east of the Jordan. Hosea calls Gilead a city of evil-doers, as being a rendezvous for wicked men, to express the thought that the whole land was as full of evil-doers as a city is of men. עקבּה: a denom. of עקב, a footstep, signifying marked with traces, full of traces of blood, which are certainly not to be understood as referring to idolatrous sacrifices, as Schmieder imagines, but which point to murder and bloodshed. It is quite as arbitrary, however, on the part of Hitzig to connect it with the murder of Zechariah, or a massacre associated with it, as it is on the part of Jerome and others to refer it to the deeds of blood by which Jehu secured the throne. The bloody deeds of Jehu took place in Jezreel and Samaria (2 Kings 9-10), and it was only by a false interpretation of the epithet applied to Shallum, viz., Ben-yâbhēsh, as signifying citizens of Jabesh, that Hitzig was able to trace a connection between it and Gilead.