Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 13:16

"Samaria shall bear her guilt; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword; their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." — Hosea 13:16 (ASV)

Samaria shall become desolate - Or shall bear her iniquity. Her iniquity would now find her out and rest upon her. Of this, “desolation” was, in God’s judgments, the consequence. Samaria, “the nursery of idolatry and rebellion against God,” the chief in pride would be chief in punishment. For she has rebelled against her God. It aggravated her sin that He against whom she rebelled was “her” own “God.” He who had chosen her to be His, and made Himself her God; who had shown Himself “her” God in the abundance of His loving-kindness, from the deliverance out of Egypt to that day.

This her desolation, it is again said, would be complete. Hope remains if the people of a generation are cut off; yet not only would these fall by the sword, but those already born were to be dashed in pieces, and those as yet unborn were to be sought out for destruction, even in their mother’s womb.

Such atrocities were common then. Elisha foretold to Hazael that he would perpetrate both cruelties (2 Kings 8:12). Shalmaneser clashed the young children in pieces (2 Kings 10:14), as did the conqueror of No-Ammon (Nahum 3:10), and the Babylonians (Psalms 137:9) afterward. The children of Ammon ripped up the women with child in Gilead (Amos 1:13), as did the usurper Menahem in Tiphsah and its surrounding areas (2 Kings 15:16).

Isaiah prophesies that Babylon would undergo, in its turn, the same fate regarding its children (Isaiah 13:16), and the Psalmist pronounces God’s blessing on its destroyer who would so requite it (Psalms 137:9).

Such was to be the end of the pride, the ambition, the able policy, the wars, the oppressions, the luxury, the self-enjoyment, and, in all, the rebellion of Samaria against “her” God. She stood in greater opposition to God the nearer she might have been to Him, and so “bore her iniquity.” As a city of God’s people, it was never restored. The site, repopulated with pagan colonists by Assyrian policy (2 Kings 17:24), remained an abode of mixed religion. Corruption clung by inheritance to its location. This too was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, who, it is said, “effaced the marks that it had ever been a city.”

It was rebuilt by the Romans after Pompey had taken Jerusalem. Herod re-enclosed a circuit of two and a half miles of the ancient site, fortified it strongly as a check on the Jews, and repopulated it, partly with some who had served in his wars and partly with the people from the surrounding area. He gave them lands, revived their idolatry by replacing their modest temple with one remarkable for size and beauty in an area of a furlong and a half, and called the place Sebaste in honor of his pagan patron, Augustus.

A coin of Nero, struck there, bears the figure (it is thought) of its old idol, Ashtaroth. Jerome says that John the Baptist was buried there. The pagans, who were encouraged in such desecrations by Julian the Apostate, opened the tomb, burned the bones, and scattered the dust.

The city became a Christian See, and its Bishops were present at the first four General Councils. It is now only a poor village, connected with the strongly-fortified town of Herod by its pagan name Sebastieh, a long avenue of broken pillars, and the tomb of the great Forerunner. Of the ancient capital of Ephraim, not even a ruin speaks.

The prophet closes this portion of his prophecy, as other prophets so often do, with the contrasting fates of the righteous and the wicked. He had spoken of the victory over death, the irrevocable purpose of God for good to His own; then he speaks of utter final destruction. Then, when the mercy of God is shown to the uttermost and the victory over sin and death is accomplished, then all the pomp of its riches, joys, luxuries, elegance, glory, and dignity will perish. Not a wreck will be left behind of all that once dazzled the eyes of people, for which they forsook their God and sold themselves to evil and the evil one.