Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 12:14

"Ephraim hath provoked to anger most bitterly: therefore shall his blood be left upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him." — Hosea 12:14 (ASV)

Ephraim provoked the Lord most bitterly—literally, “with bitternesses,” that is, with most heinous sins, such as are most grievously displeasing to God, and were a most bitter requital of all His goodness. Wherefore He shall leave (or, “cast”) his blood (literally, “bloods”) upon him.

The plural “bloods” expresses the manifoldness of the bloodshed; it is not used in Holy Scripture of mere guilt. Ephraim had shed blood profusely, so that it ran like water in the land (see the notes above at Hosea 4:2; Hosea 5:2).

He had sinned with a high hand against God by destroying man made in the image of God. Amid that bloodshed had been the blood not only of the innocent, but also of those whom God sent to rebuke them for their idolatry, their plunder, and their bloodshed. Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord (1 Kings 18:4), as far as it was in her power, with a complete excision.

Ephraim thought his sins were past. They were out of his sight, and he believed they were out of God’s sight as well. But they were laid up with God. And God, the prophet says, would cast them down upon him, so that they would crush him.

And his reproach shall his Lord return to him—For the blood which he had shed, his own blood would be shed; for the reproaches which he had in various ways cast against God or brought upon Him, he would inherit reproach.

Those who rebel against God bring reproach on Him by their sins, reproach Him by their excuses for their sins, reproach Him in those whom He sends to recall them from their sins, and reproach Him for chastening them for their sins. All who sin against the knowledge of God bring reproach upon Him by acting sinfully against that knowledge.

So Nathan says to David, Thou hast given much occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme (2 Samuel 12:14). The reproachful words of the enemies of God are but the echo of the shameful deeds of His unfaithful servants.

The reproach is therefore, in a special manner, “their reproach” who caused it. All Israel’s idolatries had this aggravation.

Their worship of the calves or of Baal or of any other gods of the nations was a triumph of the false gods over God. Then, all sin must find some plea for itself by impugning the wisdom or goodness of God who forbade it. Jeroboam, and Ephraim by adhering to Jeroboam’s sin, reproached God, as though the going up to Jerusalem was a hard service: It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

It was an open injury and reproach to God to attribute to dead, lifeless things those great and wonderful things He had done for them. All the reproach which they, in these ways, brought or cast upon God, he says, “his Lord shall return” or “restore” to them. Theirs it was; He would give it back to them, as He says, Them that honor Me, I will honor; and they that despise Me, shall be lightly esteemed (1 Samuel 2:30).

Truly, shame and reproach have been for centuries the portion of God’s unfaithful people. To those who are lost, He gives back their reproach, in that they rise to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence (Daniel 12:2). It is an aggravation of this misery that He who shall “give back to him” his reproach had been “his God.”

Since “his God” was against him, who could be for him? “For where should we go for refuge, except to Him? If we find wrath with Him, with whom should we find mercy?” Ephraim did not, and the sinner will not, allow God to be “his God” in worship, service, and love; but whether he willed it or not, God would remain his Lord.

He was, and might still have been, their Lord for good. They would not have Him so, and so they would find Him still their Lord, as an Avenger, returning their own evil to them.