Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 10

Israel is an empty vine - Or, in the same sense, “a luxuriant vine;” literally, “one which pours out,” pours itself out into leaves, abundant in shoots (as most old versions explain it), luxuriant in leaves, emptying itself in them, and empty of fruit; like the fig-tree, which our Lord cursed.

For the more a fruit tree puts out its strength in leaves and branches, the less and the worst fruit it bears: “The juices which it ought to transform into wine, it disperses in the ambitious idle show of leaves and branches.”

The sap in the vine is an emblem of His Holy Spirit, through whom alone we can bear fruit. “His grace which was in me,” says Paul, “was not in vain.” It is in vain to us when we waste the stirrings of God’s Spirit in feelings, aspirations, longings, transports, “which bloom their hour and fade”. Like the leaves, these feelings aid in maturing fruit; when there are leaves only, the tree is barren and near to cursing, whose end is to be burned (Hebrews 6:8).

It brings forth fruit for itself - Literally, “sets fruit to, or on itself.” Luxuriant in leaves, its fruit becomes worthless, and is from itself to itself. It is uncultivated (for Israel refused cultivation), pouring itself out as it willed, in what it willed. It had a rich show of leaves, a show also of fruit, but not for the Lord of the vineyard, since they came to no size or ripeness. Yet to the superficial glance, it was rich, prosperous, healthy, abundant in all things, as was the outward state of Israel under Jehoash and Jeroboam II.

According to the multitude of its fruit - Or more strictly, “as its fruit was multiplied, it multiplied altars; as its land was made good, they adorned their images.” The more outward prosperity God bestowed upon them, the more they abused His gifts, referring them to their idols. The more God lavished His mercies on them, the more profuse they were in adoring their idols. The superabundance of God’s goodness became the occasion of the superabundance of their wickedness. They rivaled, competed with, and outdid the goodness of God, so that He could bestow no good upon them which they did not turn to evil.

People think this strange. Strange it is, as is all perversion of God’s goodness; yet so it is now. People’s sins are either the abuse of what God gives or rebellion because He withholds.

In the sins of prosperity—wealth, health, strength, powers of mind, wit—people sin in a way in which they could not sin, unless God continually supplied them with those gifts which they turn to sin. The more God gives, the more opportunity and ability they have to sin, and the more they sin. They are evil, not only in spite of God’s goodness, but because He is good.

Their heart is divided - Between God and their idols, because they would not wholly part with either, as Elijah upbraided them, “How long halt ye between the two opinions?” (1 Kings 18:21). When the pagans, whom the king of Assyria used to replace them, had been taught by one of the priests whom the king sent back to avert God’s judgments, they still propagated this division.

Like Jeroboam (2 Kings 17:32–33, 2 Kings 17:41), they became “fearers of the Lord,” His worshipers, “and made to themselves out of their whole number (i.e., indiscriminately) priests of the high places.” They were fearers of the Lord, and they were servers of their gods, according to the manner of the nations whom they carried away from there.

“These nations were fearers of the Lord, and they were servers of their idols, both their children and their children’s children. As did their fathers, so do they unto this day.”

This divided allegiance was their hereditary worship. These pagans, as taught by one of the priests of Israel, added the service of God to that of their idols, just as Israel had added the service of idols to that of God. But God rejects such half-service. Therefore, he adds that “now”—meaning in a brief time, almost at hand—“they shall be found faulty.” Literally, “they shall be guilty,” and they shall be convicted of guilt and shall bear it. They thought to “serve at once God and Mammon;” but, in truth, they served their idols only, whom they would not part with for God.

God Himself then would reject all their worship—both the bad and what they thought was good.

“He”—from whom their heart was divided, He Himself, by His mighty power which no one can dispute—“shall break down their altars.” Literally, He shall “behead” them.

As they, using His gifts, multiplied their altars and killed their sacrifices upon them against His will, so now the altars themselves would be demolished. And “the images,” which they had adorned with the gold He had given, would, on account of that very gold, tempt the spoiler, through whom God would spoil them.

He shall break down - He Himself. The word is emphatic:

“God does not will that, when the merited vengeance of God is inflicted through man, it should be ascribed to man. Yes, if anyone ascribes to himself what, by permission of God, he has power to do against the people of God, he draws down on himself the displeasure of God, and, at times, on that very ground, his ability to harm is lessened” (see Deuteronomy 32:26, Deuteronomy 32:7; Isaiah 10:5 and following).

The prophet therefore says very earnestly, “He Himself shall break,” meaning that we should understand it was not the lofty hand of the enemy, but the Lord Himself who did all these things.

For now they shall say, we have no king - These are the words of despair, not of repentance; of people terrified by the consciousness of guilt, but not coming out of its darkness; describing their condition, not confessing the iniquity which brought it on them.

In sin, all Israel had asked for a king, when the Lord was their king; in sin, Ephraim had made Jeroboam king; in sin, their subsequent kings were made, without the counsel and advice of God. And now, in the end, they reflect how fruitless it all was.

They had a king, and yet, as it were, they had no king, for with God being angry with them, their king had no strength to deliver them. And now, without love, the memory of their evil deeds crushes them beyond hope of remedy. They groan for their losses, their sufferings, their fears, but do not repent.

Such is the remorse of the damned. All that they had is lost; and what did it avail them now, since, when they had it, they did not fear God?

They have spoken words - The words which they spoke were eminently words; they were mere words, which had no substance; swearing falsely in making a covenant (literally, “swearing falsely, making a covenant”), and judgments spring up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.

Consequently: “There is no truth in words, no sanctity in oaths, no faithfulness in keeping covenants, no justice in giving judgments.” Such is the result of all their oaths and covenants, that judgment springs up, yes, flourishes. But what judgment? Judgment, bitter and poisonous as hemlock, flourishes, as hemlock would flourish on ground broken up and prepared for it.

They break up the ground, make the furrows. They will not have any chance self-sown seed; they prepare the soil for harvest, full, abundant, regular, cleared of all besides. And what harvest? Not any wholesome plant, but poison. They cultivate injustice and wickedness, as if these were to be the fruits to be rendered to God from His own land. So Amos says, You have turned judgment into gall or wormwood (Amos 6:12); (Amos 5:7). And Habakkuk says, Judgment went forth perverted (Habakkuk 1:4).

The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of—(that is, for) the calves of Beth-aven. He calls them in this place “cow-calves,” perhaps to denote their weakness and helplessness. So far from their idol being able to help “them, they” will be anxious and troubled for their idols, for fear that these should be taken captive from them. The “Bethel (House of God)” of the patriarch Jacob was now turned into “Bethaven, the house of vanity.” This, from its old sacred memories, was a more celebrated place of the calf-worship than Dan. Hosea then gives to the calf of Bethel its precedence, and ranks both idols under its one name, as “calves of the house of vanity.”

For the people thereof shall mourn over it—They had set up the idols instead of God; so God calls them no longer His people, but “the people of the calf” whom they had chosen for their god, just as Moab was called the people of Chemosh (Numbers 21:29), its idol. They had joyed in it, not in God; now they, “its people” and its priests, would “mourn over” it, when it was unable to help itself, much less them. Both their joy and their sorrow showed that they were without excuse, that they had gone willingly after the king’s commandment, serving it of their own free will out of love, not out of fear of the king, and serving God purely neither out of love nor fear.

For the glory thereof, because it is departed from it—The true glory of Israel was God; the Glory of God is in Himself. “The glory of the calves,” for whom Ephraim had exchanged their God, was something quite external to them: the gold of which they were made and the rich offerings made to them. Both together became an occasion of their being carried captive. They mourned, not because they had offended God by their sin, but for the loss of that dumb idol, whose worship had been their sin and which had brought these heavy woes upon them. Impenitent even under chastisement! The prophet does not mention any grief for “the despoiling of their country, the burning of their cities, the slaughter of their people, their shame.” One only thing he names as moving them.

Even then their one chief anxiety was not that God had departed from them, but that their calf—in which they had set their “glory,” on which they so frantically relied, on which they had lavished their substance, their national distinction and disgrace—was gone. Without the grace of God, people mourn not their sins, but their idols.