Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 11

When Israel was a child, then I loved him - God loved Israel, as He Himself formed it, before it corrupted itself. He loved it for the sake of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as He says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated (Malachi 1:2). Then, when it was weak, helpless, oppressed by the Egyptians, afflicted, destitute, God loved him, cared for him, delivered him from oppression, and called him out of Egypt.

“When did He love Israel? When, by His guidance, Israel regained freedom, his enemies were destroyed, he was fed with “food from heaven,” he heard the voice of God, and received the Law from Him. He was unformed in Egypt; then he was shaped by the rules of the Law, so as to be matured there. He was a child in that vast wilderness.”

For he was nourished, not by solid food, but by milk, that is, by the rudiments of piety and righteousness, so that he might gradually attain the strength of a man. So the Law was a schoolmaster, to keep Israel as a child, by the discipline of a child, until the time came when all who did not despise the heavenly gifts would receive the Spirit of adoption.

The prophet then, in order to show the exceeding guilt of Israel, says, “When Israel was a child,” (in the wilderness, for then he was born when he bound himself to conform to the divine law, and was not yet matured) “I loved him,” that is, I gave him the law, priesthood, judgments, precepts, instructions; I loaded him with the most ample benefits; I preferred him to all nations, expending on him, as on My chief heritage and special possession, much watchful care and effort.”

I called My son out of Egypt - As He said to Pharaoh, Israel is My son, even My firstborn; let My son go, that he may serve Me (Exodus 4:22–23). God chose him out of all nations, to be His special people. Yet God also chose him, not for himself, but because He willed that Christ, His only Son, should “after the flesh” be born of him; and for, and in, the Son, God called His people, “My son.”

“The people of Israel were called a son, regarding the elect, yet only for the sake of Him, the only-begotten Son—begotten, not adopted—who, “after the flesh,” was to be born of that people, so that, through His Passion, He might bring many sons to glory, not disdaining to have them as brethren and co-heirs. For, had He not come, who was to come, the Well-Beloved Son of God, Israel too could never, any more than the other nations, have been called the son of so great a Father, as the Apostle, himself of that people, says, For we were, by nature, children of wrath, even as others (Ephesians 2:3).”

“Since, however, these words relate to literal Israel—the people whom God brought out by Moses—how were they fulfilled in the infant Jesus when He was brought back out of Egypt, as Matthew 2:15 teaches us they were?”

Because Israel himself was a type of Christ, and for the sake of Him who was to be born of the seed of Israel, God called Israel “My son”; for His sake only did He deliver him. The two deliverances, of the whole Jewish people and of Christ the Head, occupied the same position in God’s dispensations. He rescued Israel, whom He called His son, in its childish and infantine condition, at the very beginning of its existence as a people. His true Son by Nature, Christ our Lord, He brought up in His Infancy, when He began to manifest His mercies to us in Him. Both had, by His appointment, taken refuge in Egypt; both were, by His miraculous call to Moses in the bush and to Joseph in the dream, recalled from it.

Matthew apparently quotes these words, not to prove anything, but to point out the relation of God’s former dealings to the latter, the beginning and the end, what relates to the body, and what relates to the Head.

He tells us that the former deliverance had its completion in Christ, and that in His deliverance was the full, solid completion of Israel's deliverance; and that then indeed it might, in its completest fullness, be said, “Out of Egypt have I called My Son.”

When Israel was brought out of Egypt, the figure took place; when Christ was called, the reality was fulfilled. The act itself, on God’s part, was prophetic. When He delivered Israel and called him His firstborn, He willed, in the course of time, to bring up from Egypt His Only-Begotten Son. The words are prophetic because the event they speak of was prophetic.

“They speak of Israel as one collective body and, as it were, one person, called by God “My son,” namely, by adoption, still in the years of innocence, and beloved by God, called by God out of Egypt by Moses, as Jesus, His true Son, was by the Angel.”

The following verses are not prophetic, because in them the prophet no longer speaks of Israel as one, but as composed of the many sinful individuals in it.

Israel was a prophetic people regarding this dispensation of God toward him, not regarding his rebellions and sins.

As they called them, so they went from them - The prophet changes his tone, no longer speaking of that one first call of God to Israel as a whole, by which He brought out Israel as one man, His one son; which one call he obeyed. Here he speaks of God’s manifold calls to the people, throughout their whole history, which they as often disobeyed, and not only disobeyed, but went in the opposite direction. “They called them.” Whether God employed Moses, or the judges, or priests, or kings, or prophets, to call them, it made no difference. Whenever or by whomever they were called, they turned away in the opposite direction, to serve their idols.

They proportioned and fitted, as it were, their disobedience to God’s long-suffering: “Then chiefly they threw off obedience, despised their admonitions, and worked themselves up the more frantically to a zeal for the sin which they had begun.” “They,” God’s messengers, “called; so,” in like manner, “they went away from them. They sacrificed to Baalim,” that is, their many Baals, in which they cherished idolatry, cruelty, and fleshly sin: So “when Christ came and called them in many ways, as in the great day of the feast, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink, the more diligently He called them, the more diligently they went away from Him, and returned to their idols, to the love and possession of riches and houses and pleasures, for the sake of which they despised the truth.”

I taught Ephraim also to go – Literally, “and I set Ephraim on his feet;” that is, while they were rebelling, I was helping and supporting them, as a nurse does her child, teaching it to go with little steps, step by step, “accustoming it to go by little and little without weariness;” and not only so, but “taking them by their arms;” or it may be equally translated, “He took them in His arms,” that is, God not only gently “taught” them “to walk,” but when they were weary, “He took them up in His arms,” as a nurse does a child when tired with its little attempts to walk. Such was the love and tender care of God, guiding and upholding Israel in His ways which He taught him, guarding him from weariness, or, if weary, taking him in the arms of His mercy and refreshing him.

So Moses says, “In the wilderness you have seen, how that the Lord your God bore you, as a man does bear his son, in all the way that you went, until you came unto this place” (Deuteronomy 1:31); and he expostulates with God, “Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that You should say unto me, Carry them in your bosom, as a nursing father bears his sucking child, unto the land which You swore unto their fathers?” (Numbers 11:12). “Briefly yet magnificently does this place hint at the wondrous patience of God, of which Paul also speaks, “for forty years suffered He their manners in the wilderness” (Acts 13:18).

For as a nursing father bears patiently with a child who has not yet come to years of discretion, and, although at times he is moved to strike it in return, yet mostly he soothes its childish follies with blandishments, and, ungrateful though it is, carries it in his arms, so the Lord God, whose words these are, patiently bore with the unformed people, ignorant of the spiritual mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. And although He killed the bodies of many of them in the wilderness, yet the rest He soothed with many and great miracles, “leading them about, and instructing them, (as Moses says) keeping them as the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10).

But they knew not that I healed them – They did not lay it to heart, and therefore what they knew with their understanding was worse than ignorance. “I who was a Father, became a nurse, and Myself carried My little one in My arms, that he should not be hurt in the wilderness, or scared by heat or darkness. By day I was a cloud; by night, a column of fire, that I might by My light illuminate and heal those whom I had protected. And when they had sinned and had made the calf, I gave them place for repentance, and they knew not that I healed them, so as, for forty years, to close the wound of idolatry, restore them to their former health.”

“The Son of God carried us in His arms to the Father, when He went forth carrying His Cross, and on the wood of the Cross stretched out His arms for our redemption. Those too does Christ carry daily in His arms, whom He continually entreats, comforts, preserves, so gently, that with much alacrity and without any grievous hindrance they perform every work of God, and with heart enlarged run, rather than walk, the way of God’s commandments. Yet these need great caution, that they be clothed with great circumspection and humility, and not despise others. Else Christ would say of them, “They knew not that I healed them.”

I drew them with the cords of a man - : “Wanton heifers such as Israel was, are drawn with ropes; but although Ephraim struggled against Me, I would not draw him as a beast, but I drew him as a man (not a servant, but a son) with cords of love.” “Love is the magnet of love.” : “The first and chief commandment of the law is not of fear, but of love, because He wills those whom He commands to be sons rather than servants.” : “Our Lord says, ‘No man comes unto Me, except the Father who has sent Me, draw him.’ He did not say, ‘lead him,’ but ‘draw him.’ This violence is done to the heart, not to the body. Why marvel? Believe and you come; love and you are drawn. Do not think it a rough and uneasy violence: it is sweet, alluring; the sweetness draws you.

Is not a hungry sheep drawn, when the grass is shown it? It is not, I suppose, driven on in body, but is bound tight by longing. So you too come to Christ. Do not conceive of long journeys. When you believe, then you come. For to Him who is everywhere, people come by loving, not by traveling.” So the Bride says, “Draw me and I will run after You” (Song of Solomon 1:4). “How sweet,” says Augustine, when converted, “did it at once become to me, to be without the sweetnesses of those toys; and what I feared to be parted from, was now a joy to part with. For You cast them away from me, You true and highest Sweetness. You cast them out, and You Yourself entered in their place, sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more hidden than all depths; higher than all honor, but not to the high in their own conceits.”

“Christ also ‘drew’ us ‘with the cords of a man,’ when for us He became Man, our flesh, our Brother, so that by teaching, suffering, dying for us, He might in a wondrous way bind and draw us to Himself and to God; that He might redeem the earthly Adam, might transform and make him heavenly;” : “giving us ineffable tokens of His love. For He gives Himself to us for our Food; He gives us sacraments; by Baptism and repentance He conforms us anew to original righteousness. Hence, He says, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, shall draw all men to Me” (John 12:32); and Paul, “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). This most loving drawing our dullness and weakness needs, we who always, without grace, grovel amidst vile and earthly things.”

“All the methods and parts of God’s government are twined together, as so many twisted cords of love from Him, so ordered, that they ought to draw man with all his heart to love Him again.” : “Man, the image of the Mind of God, is impelled to zeal for the service of God, not by fear, but by love. No band is mightier, nor constrains more firmly all the feelings of the mind. For it does not hold the body enchained, while the mind revolts and longs to break away, but it so binds to itself the mind and will, that it should will, long for, encompass nothing else, except how, even amid threats of death, to obey the commands of God. Bands they are, but bands so gentle and so exceedingly sweet, that we must account them perfect freedom and the highest dignity.”

And I was to them as they who take off - (literally, “who lift up”) the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat to them. Thus explained, the words carry on the description of God’s goodness, that He did not allow the yoke of slavery to weigh heavily upon them, as He says, “I am the Lord your God, Which brought you out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen, and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright” (Leviticus 26:13); and God appeals to them, “Wherein have I wearied thee? testify against Me” (Micah 6:3).

But the words seem more naturally to mean, “I was to them,” in their sight, I was regarded by them, “as they who lift up the yoke on their jaws,” that is, who raise the yoke (it not being already upon them) to place it “over their jaws.” “For plainly the yoke never rests on the jaws, but only passes over them, either when put on the neck, or taken off.” This, God seemed to them to be doing, always placing some new yoke or constraint upon them. “And I,” God adds, all the while “was placing meat before them;” that is, while God was taking all manner of care of them, and providing for them “all things richly to enjoy,” He was regarded by them as one who, instead of “laying food before them, was lifting the yoke over their jaws.” God did them all good, and they thought it all hardship.

He shall not return to Egypt — Some had probably returned already to Egypt; the rest were looking to Egypt for help, and rebelling against the Assyrian (whose servant their king Hoshea had become), and making alliance with So king of Egypt. The prophet tells them, as a whole, that they shall not return to Egypt, to which they looked, but shall have the Assyrian for their king, whom they did not want. “They refused to return” to God, who lovingly called them; therefore, what they desired, they should not have; and what they feared, that they should have. They would not have God for their king; therefore, “the Assyrian” should “be their king,” and a worse captivity than that of Egypt should befall them. For, from “that” captivity they were delivered; from this one, now hanging over them, never should they be restored.