Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 11:8

"How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? [how] shall I cast thee off, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? [how] shall I set thee as Zeboiim? my heart is turned within me, my compassions are kindled together." — Hosea 11:8 (ASV)

How shall I give you up, Ephraim? — “God is infinitely just and infinitely merciful. The two attributes are so united in Him, indeed, so one in Him who is always one, and in whose counsels there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning, that the one never thwarts the working of the other. Yet, to show that our ills are from our own ill deserts, not from any pleasure of His in inflicting ill, and that what mercy He shows is from His own goodness, not from anything in us, God is represented in this impassioned expression as in doubt, and (so to speak) divided between justice and mercy, the one pleading against the other. Finally, God so determines that both should have their share in the outcome, and that Israel should be both justly punished and mercifully spared and relieved.”

God pronounces on the evil deserts of Israel, even while He mitigates His sentence. The depth of the sinner’s guilt reflects more vividly the depth of God’s mercy. In saying, how shall I make you as Admah? how shall I set you as Zeboim? He says, in fact, that they were, for their sins, worthy to be utterly destroyed, with no trace, no memorial, save that eternal desolation like the five cities of the plain, of which were Sodom and Gomorrah, which God has set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 1:7). Such was their desert.

But God says, with inexpressible tenderness, Mine heart is turned within me—literally, “upon Me or against Me,” so as to be a burden to Him; as we say of the heart, that it is “heavy.” God deigns to speak as if His love was heavy, or a weight upon Him, while He thought of the punishment their sins deserved.

My heart is turned — “As soon as I had spoken evil against you, mercy prevailed, tenderness touched Me; the tenderness of the Father overcame the austerity of the Judge.”

My repentings are kindled together — or My strong compassions are kindled; that is, kindled with the heat and glow of love. As the disciples say, Did not our hearts burn within us? (Luke 24:32), and as it is said of Joseph, his bowels did yearn toward his brother (Genesis 43:30) (literally, were hot); and of the true mother before Solomon, her bowels yearned upon her son (1 Kings 3:26) (English margin, were hot).

“Admah” and “Zeboim” were cities in the same plain with Sodom and Gomorrah, and each had its petty king (Genesis 14:2). In the history of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, they are not named but are included in the general title those cities and all the plain (Genesis 19:25). Then Hosea’s hearers would all the more think of that place in Moses where he does mention them, and where he threatens them with a similar end: when the stranger shall see, that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath (Deuteronomy 29:22–23). Such was the end at which all their sins aimed; such the end which God had held out to them; but His “strong compassions were kindled.”