Lo-ruhamah. The sex of the child is the emblem of weakness; and the name Lo-ruhamah therefore signifies unbeloved,' or 'unpitied. This daughter, Lo-ruhamah, typifies the people of the ten tribes in the enfeebled state of their declining monarchy, torn by intestine commotions and perpetual revolutions, harrassed by powerful invaders, impoverished by their tyrannical exactions, and condemned by the just sentence of God to utter excision as a distinct kingdom, without hope of restoration: for so the type is explained by the Holy Spirit himself.

"The child, conceived after Lo-ruliamah was weaned, must typify the people of the kingdom of Judah, in the subsequent periods of their history. Or rather this child typifies the whole nation of the children of Israel, reduced, in its external form, by the captivity of the ten tribes, to that single kingdom.

"In the different treatment of the house of Judah and the house of Israel, we see the prophecy hitherto remarkably verified. After the excision of the kingdom of the ten tribes, Judah, though occasionally visited with severe Judgments, continued however to be cherished with God's Love, till they rejected our Lord. Then Judah became Lo-ammi; but still continues to be visibly an object of God's Love, preserved as a distinct race for the gracious purposes of Mercy. The prophecy contained in the tenth verse, clearly promises their conversion and restora tion to their own land. They shall unite in one confession, and in one polity, under one king, Christ the Saviour.

-I will visit the blood of Jezräel upon the house of Jehu.” “Jezräel, the mystical name of the Prophet's son, must bẹ familiar to all who are conversant in the Holy Scriptures, as the name of a city in the tribe of Issachar, and of a valley or plain, in which the city stood: the city, famous for its vineyard, which cost the rightful owner, the unfortunate Naboth, his life; and, by the righteous judgment of God, gave occasion to the downfall of the Royal House of Ahab: the plain, one of the finest parts of the whole land of Canaan; if we may judge from the partiality of the Kings of Israel for the spot, who all fixed their residence in one or other of its numerous cities. Modern expositors, entirely forgetting the Prophet's son, have thought of nothing in this passage but the place; the city, or the plain. A mistake into which perhaps they have the more easily fallen, by reason of the explicit mention of the place at the end of the subsequent verse. But if the word Jezräel be taken here as the name of a place, the threat of avenging, or visiting, upon the house of Jehu the blood of Jezräel,' will signify, that the family of Jehu was to be punished for blood shed by Jehu, or by his descendants, in that place.

"Jehu himself shed the blood of Ahab's family, with an unsparing hand, in Jezrael. But this was an execution of the judgment, which God had denounced by his prophet Elijah against the house of Ahab, for the cruel murder of Naboth. And it may justly seem extraordinary, that this should be mentioned as a crime of so deep a dyc, as to bring down vengeance upon Jehu's house. He was specially commissioned by a Prophet to smite the house of Ahab his master-to avenge the blood of the Prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Jehovah, at the hand of Jezabel.' And it appears that he acted through the whole business with a conscientious regard to God's commands, and a zeal for his service: insomuch, that when the work was completed, he received the express approbation of God; and the continuance of the sceptre of Israel in his family, to the fourth generation, was promised as the reward of this good and acceptable service. And it cannot be conceived, that the very same deed, which was commanded, approved, and rewarded, in Jehu, who performed it, should be punished as a crime in Jehu's posterity, who had no share in the transaction.

"For these reasons, I am persuaded, that Jezräel is to be taken in this passage in its mystical meaning; and is to be understood of the persons typified by the Prophet's son-the holy seed-the true servants and worshippers of God. It is threatened, that their blood is to be visited upon the house of Jehu, by which it had been shed. The princes descended from Jehu were all idolaters. And Idolaters have always been persecutors of the true religion. In all ages, and in all countries, they have persecuted the Jezräel unto death, whenever they have had the power of doing it. The blood of Jezräel, therefore, which was to be visited on the house of Jehu, was the blood of God's servants, shed in persecution, and of infants shed upon the altars of their idols, by the idolatrous princes of the line of Jehu. And so the expression was understood by St. Jerome and by Luther.

"Though this prophecy relates to the devout part of the natural Israel, it is capable of a larger meaning, comprehending all of every race and nation, who, by the preaching of the Gospel, are made members of Christ and the children of God. All these are a seed of God, begotten of him, by the spirit, to a holy life, and to the inheritance of immortality. The words Ammi and Ruhamah, and their opposites, Lo-ammi and Lo-ruhamah, are capable of the same extension; the two former to comprehend the converted, the two latter the unconverted Gentiles. Accordingly, we find these prophecies of Hosea cited by St. Paul [Rom. ix. 24.] to prove, not the call of the Gentiles solely, but the indiscriminate call to salvation both of Gentiles and Jews." Horsley.

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2

3

CHAP. II.

SAY ye unto your brethren, § MY-PEOPLE; And unto your sisters, || HAVING-OBTAINED-MERCY. Plead ye with your mother, plead:

For she is not my wife,

Neither am I her husband:

And let her put away her fornications from * her,
And her many adulteries from † her breasts:

Lest I strip her naked,

And set her as in the day when she was born;
And make her as the desert,

And set her as a land of drought,

And kill her with thirst;

§ In Hebr. Ammi. || Ruhamah.

* from before. + from between.

1. Say ye-] To avert my judgments, threatened c. i. 6, 9. exhort each other to be worthy of appellations opposite to those prophetic ones before denounced against the sons and daughters of Israel, c. i. 6, 9. So act, that ye may truly say unto &c. "Although the Israelites in the days of Hosea were in general corrupt, and addicted to idolatry, yet there were among them, in the worst times, some who had not bowed the knee to Baal. These were always Ammi and Ruhamah; God's Own People, and a darling Daughter. God commissions these faithful few to admonish the inhabitants of the land in general, of the dreadful judgments that would be brought upon them by the gross idolatry of the Jewish Church and Nation." Horsley.

2. Plead-] Enter, as it were, into a forensic contest with your mother, the house of Israel; disavow her proceedings, and publicly protest against them.

-many adulteries] The original word may be considered as a frequentative one.

3. Lest I-] See Bishop Lowth's note on Isai. iii. 17. Lest I cause her to be exposed to such ignominy as brutal conquerors sometimes inflict: Ex. xvi, 39. xxiii. 26 and lest I reduce her to the most extreme want. More than fifty MSS. or editions read nw for nn. It is observable that the punishment of an adulteress among the Germans is thus described by Tacitus; Accisis crinibus nudatam coram propinquis expellit domo maritus. Tac. de mor. Germ. §. 18. 19.

-as the desert] ó. MS, Al. and Pachom. have ws egy

4

5

6

7

Neither have mercy on her sons,

Because they are the sons of fornications.
For their mother hath committed fornication;
She that conceived them hath caused shame :
For she hath said, I will go after my lovers,
Who give me my food and my water,

My wool and my flax, mine oil and my strong drink.
Therefore behold I will hedge up her way with
thorns,

And I will close up her enclosure;

That she shall not find her paths.

And she shall follow after her lovers, but shall not overtake them;

5. strong drink] So Doctor Wheeler. See Ps. cii. 9. Seven MSS. read "p. The word may come from pw appetere. See Houbigant. Or from its Hiphil form pun redundare: mine abundance. All my sustenance, Chald. Whatever I require or 6. Ar. Syr.

want.

6. her way] Read with 6. A. and Houbigant. " her ways, so Syr." Horsley.

-with thorns] See Prov. xv. 19. and the note on Mic. vii. 4. -her enclosure], the being understood as a pronoun. A stone fence." is properly maceria. A low wall of loose stones, laid one upon another, without any cement or mortar. Such enclosures are very common at this day in Gloucestershire, and other parts of this island, where quarries of the stone, fit for the purpose, abound." abound." Horsley

-shall not find] This refers to the Assyrian captivity.

-her paths]" are paths worn by the feet, often passing and repassing upon the same line. I think that here the word signifies gaps in a bramble hedge, or stone fence, made by clambering over repeatedly at the same place. The text alludes to a double enclosure, an inner fence of loose stones, a bramble hedge on the outside: both camaged and broken in many places. The hedge is to be made: the stone fence repaired; the gaps in both closed; and all made so firm and strong, that it will be impracticable to find any way out. This enclosure is an admirable image of national difficulty, and distress, from which no human policy, or force, can extricate." Horsley.

7. -follow after] in her mind. For some time she shall remain addicted to her Egyptian and Syrian idols, and to all her

P

8

9

And she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then shall she say:

I will go

again to my former husband,

For then was it better with me than now.

And she knew not

That I gave unto her

§ Corn, and choice wine, and oil:

And the silver which I multiplied unto her,
And the gold, they offered unto Baal.
Therefore will I turn, and take away

My corn in its time, and my choice wine in its

season:

And I will take away my wool and my flax,

That it may not cover her nakedness.

Hebr. and return,

The coin, and the choice wine, and the oil, former idolatrous and immoral practices: but without carrying her evil wishes into execution.

8. choice wine] So called because wit possesses, or inebriates. It was the first expressed juice of the grapes; or that which ran off of itself, from the weight of the clusters laid on each other. See Cast. lex.

-they offered] "Confer 2 Chron. xxiv. 7." Secker. ó. Ar. read y or nwy: She offered, or consecrated: but the number may be changed, as it often is.

-Baal] A name which, according to Servius, the Tyrians gave both to Saturn and to the Sun. Boch. Geogr. 663. It signifies lord; and may be a general term for false gods and lords. See v. 13.

Dr. Wheeler renders:

Secker.

And that I multiplied to her the silver

And the gold, which they wrought for Baal.
Therefore will I again take away &c.

Forte : sed aurum habent omnes interpretes.”

9. —not cover] I read with ó. Arab. and Houbigant no. "I think this 9th verse speaks of calamities already begun, and the 10th describes the progress and increase of them. It appears from all the prophets, and particularly from Amos and Joel, that the beginning of judgment upon the refractory, rebellious people was in unfruitful seasons, and noxious vermin, producing a failure of the crops, dearth, murrain of the cattle, famine, and pestilential diseases." Horsley.