HOSE A. CHAP. I. THE 10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. 6 I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but 11 Then shall the children I will utterly take them away. of Judah and the children of 7 Bu I will have mercy Israel be gathered together, and upon the house of Judah, and appoint themselves one head, will save them by the LORD and they shall come up out of their God, and will not save the land.* them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. 9 Then said God, Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. CHAP. II. 2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband. Observe how exactly this passage agrees with the prophecy of Ezekiel xvi., and with those words of St. Paul which illustrate that chapter; "Blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved." Immediately after the clear promise, in verse 10, (quoted by St. Paul, Rom. ix. 26,) of the Gentiles being received into the family of God, " Then shall the children of Judah," &c.—evidently the same prediction as that of Ezekiel xxxvii. 22-24. 11 I will also cause all her teousness, and in judgment, aud mirth to cease, her feast days, in lovingkindness, and in merher new moons, and her sab- cies. baths, and all her solemn feasts. 13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD. 14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. 20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD. 23 And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.+ CHAP. III. 15 And I will give her her 4 For the children of Israel vineyards from thence, and the shall abide many days without valley of Achor for a door of a king, and without a prince, hope and she shall sing there, and without a sacrifice, and as in the days of her youth, without an image, and without and as in the day when she an ephod, and without teracame up out of the land of phim: Egypt. 16 And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi,* and shalt call me no more Baali. 17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. 19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righ 5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days. CHAP. IV. In all nineteen verses. HEAR the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for That is my husband. Marginal reading. +"Ye (Christians) are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; which in time past, were not a people. but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy. but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Pet. ii. 9—10.) See Jer. xxx. 9. the LORD hath a controversy young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him. with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. 15 I will go and return 6 ¶ My people are destroy- to my place, till they acknowed for lack of knowledge: be- ledge their offence, and seek cause thou hast rejected know- my face: in their affliction they ledge, I will also reject thee, will seek me early. that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. 7 As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame. * Whatever else this verse may relate to, we can hardly doubt that this is one of the passages alluded to by St. Paul, when he said, that Christ" rose again the third day according to the scriptures;" and by our Saviour himself when he said, "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again the third day.” How accurately do the words express the blessed truth so much dwelt upon by St. Paul, both for comfort and exhortation -"God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together." (Eph. ii. 4-6.) Compare the words of the prophet, "after two days he will revive us; in the third (the day of Christ's resurrection) he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight;" we shall be justified from condemnation, and quickened from the death of sin-made, in short, "alive unto God;" for this, St. Paul tells us, God" wrought in Christ," (for all who should believe the blessed tidings,)" when he raised him from the dead." It should be remembered, that it is not on its own evidence alone, that we could thus apply such a passage as this, but we have abundance of satisfactory proof, that "the Spirit of Christ,” in these prophets," testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow ;" and this being established, we have strong reason to believe, that so obvious an application, in accordance with that great principal design of prophecy, is also according to truth. There is, however, another * application, which would seem to be the primary one, but with which the preceding has a strong typical connexion. We have seen a passage in Ezekiel, (chap. xxxvii. 11—13,) in which the present state of the Jews is compared to that of a host of " dried bones" now lying buried, but at some future day to be clothed upon with flesh and raised to life. Now this their present state may, in a general view, be considered as the second age (or distinct period) of their existence as a nation from the time of these prophets: the first was the period previous to the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; and the restoration promised by all the prophets, (the resurrection of the " dry bones,") will be the third. Accordingly, Hosea says, "after two days (two distinct ages or That many of the prophecies have more than one true application, is well known to all who have studied them; but there is one example of this, of a nature so similar to the present case, that it may be proper to mention it particularly. In the 31st chapter of Jeremiah, verses 15—17, we find a prophecy, which in its primary signification, evidently points to the punishment and final restoration of the people of Israel. Yet in Matt. ii. 17 and 18, we find this passage applied to the slaughter of the infants by Herod. Both the applications are plain, both certainly true, yet perfectly distinct. + What may be called the life of the nation, (in reference to Ezekiel's type) was kept up during the whole of the Babylonish captivity, not only by the clear prophecies of Jeremiah, (xxv. 11, 12, and xxix. 10,) limiting that captivity to the comparatively short period of seventy years, but much more by their still having so great and highly favoured a prophet as Daniel, and by the glorious spirit of martyrdom, crowned with immediate deliverance, (Daniel iii. and vi.) which renders the period of the captivity, in a most important point of view, one of the brightest in their whole history. periods) will he revive us: in the third he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.' There seems, then, to be a plain typical relation between the time chosen for the continuance of Christ's body in the state of death, and the periods which were to precede the revival of the Jewish glory; the first of the three days, was that on which he suffered, toward the close of which, he was laid in the grave; he continued in the grave during the whole of the second, and rose again the third; and when Christ suffered, the first of the above-mentioned periods was fast drawing to its close; forty years after the death of Christ, Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, and " the whole land" made " desolate;" there was the end of their first day: from that time to this," the dry bones" have been in " their graves." With respect to every thing that constitutes the happiness and glory of a nation, but more especially with respect to all that constitutes the proper glory of that nation, God "hath smitten their life down to the ground; he hath laid them in the darkness, as the men that have been long dead." Yet, they still are a nation; their" substance," their capability of reviving, is still in them, and there is at this day a greater indication, in the sight of other nations, of future glory awaiting them, than ever they enjoyed during their first day; for during their first day, (with the exception of the last forty years of it,) they never had (as they now have) multitudes in the principal Gentile nations, honouring the name of Israel as that of the chosen people of the only true God, and earnestly hoping to see them restored to their glory-to see "the natural branches graffed in again to their own olive tree;" there is evidently, therefore, not only the possibility, but a strong probability of a third day—a resurrection day awaiting them, when " he that It may be proper to mention, that this interpretation of the " two days," is that of the learned Bishop Horsley, as may be seen by a reference to the passage in the Family Bible of D'Oyly and Mant, but it is also proper to add, that this view of it was taken by the present writer before he had ever seen or heard any comment upon it whatever. It is obvious that the same view of a passage, occurring independently to different readers, whatever their erudition may be, affords a presumption of its truth. |