Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 14

O Israel, return—now, completely—to the Lord your God. The heavy and scarcely interrupted tide of denunciation is now past. Billow upon billow have rolled over Ephraim, and the last wave discharged itself in the overwhelming, indiscriminating destruction of the seat of its strength. As a nation, it was to cease to be. Its separate existence was a curse, not a blessing; the offspring of rivalry, matured by apostasy; the parent, in its turn, of jealousy, hatred, and mutual vexation.

But while the kingdom was past and gone, the children still remained heirs of the promises made to their fathers. As Hosea declared before, Israel, after having long remained solitary, would in the end seek the Lord and David their king (Hosea 3:5). So now, after these manifold denunciations of their temporal destruction, God not only invites them to repentance but also foretells that they will be wholly converted.

Every word is full of mercy. God calls them by the name of acceptance, which He had given to their forefather, Jacob: “O Israel.” He deigns to implore them to return—“return now!”—and that not merely “toward” but “completely to” Himself, the unchangeable God, whose mercies and promises were as immutable as His Being. God invites them to return to Himself, the Unchangeable, and He does so as the One who is still their God. They had cast off their God; God had not cast off His people whom He foreknew (Romans 11:2).

As one commentator explains: “He entreats them not only to turn back and look toward the Lord with a partial and imperfect repentance, but not to stop until they had come completely home to Him by a total and sincere repentance and amendment.” He bids them “return completely to” Himself, the Unchangeable God, and their God. “Great is repentance,” is a Jewish saying, “which makes people reach all the way to the Throne of glory.”

For you have fallen by your iniquity—“This is the first ray of divine light on the sinner. God begins by revealing to him the abyss into which he has fallen and the way by which he fell. It was their own iniquity on which they had stumbled and so had fallen, powerless to rise, except through His call, whose voice is with power (Psalms 29:4), and Who gives what He commands.”

He would say: “Do not ascribe your calamity to your own weakness, to civil dissension, to the disuse of military discipline, to a lack of wisdom in your rulers, to the ambition and cruelty of the enemy, or to a reverse of fortune. These things would not have gone against you if you had not gone to war with the law of your God. You inflict the deadly wound on yourself; you destroyed yourself. Not as fools boast, by fate, or the fortune of war, but ‘by your iniquity you have fallen.’ Your remedy then is in your own hand. ‘Return to your God.’ ”

Another commentator observes: “In these words, ‘by your iniquity,’ he briefly conveys that each is to ascribe to himself the iniquity of all sin, of whatever he has been guilty, not defending himself, as Adam did, in whom we all, Jews and Gentiles, have sinned and fallen, as the Apostle says, For we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others (Ephesians 2:3). By adding actual sin to that original sin, Israel and every other nation falls. He would say then, ‘O Israel, you must first be converted, for you need conversion; ‘for you have fallen’; and confess this very thing, that ‘you have fallen by your iniquity’; for such confession is the beginning of conversion.’”

But with what should they return?

Take with you words - He commands them not to bring costly offerings, so that they might regain His favor; not whole burnt offerings of bullocks, goats, or rams, with which, and with which alone, they had before gone to seek Him (see the note above at Hosea 5:6); not the silver and gold which they had lavished on their idols; but what seems the cheapest of all, which anyone may have, without cost to their substance: “words”—worthless as mere words, precious when from the heart; words of confession and prayer, blending humility, repentance, confession, entreaty, and praise of God. God seems to assign to them a form with which they should approach Him. But with these words, they were also to turn inwardly “and turn to the Lord,” with your whole heart, and not your lips alone. “After you shall be converted, confess before Him.”

Take away all iniquity - (Literally and pleadingly, “You will take away all iniquity.”) They had “fallen by their iniquities”; before they can rise again, the stumbling blocks must be taken out of their way. They then, unable themselves to do it, must turn to God, with whom alone is power and mercy to do it, and say to Him, Take away all iniquity, acknowledging that they had manifold iniquities, and praying Him to forgive all, “take away all. All iniquities!” “Not only then the past, but what we fear for the future. Cleanse us from the past, keep us from the future. Give us righteousness, and preserve it to the end.”

And receive us graciously - (Literally, “and receive good.”) When God has forgiven and taken away iniquity, He has removed all hindrance to the influx of His grace. There is no vacuum in His spiritual, any more than in His natural, creation. When God’s good Spirit is chased away, the evil spirits enter the house, which is empty, swept, and garnished (Matthew 12:44), for them. When God has forgiven and taken away man’s evil, He pours into him grace and all good.

When then Israel and, in him, the penitent soul, is taught to say, “receive good,” it can mean only, the good which You Yourself have given; as David says, of Your own we have given You (1 Chronicles 29:14). As God is said to “crown in us His own gifts” (His own gifts, but “in us”); so these pray to God to receive from them His own good, which they had from Him. For even the good, which God gives to be in us, He accepts in condescension and forgiving mercy, Who crowns you in mercy and lovingkindness (Psalms 103:4).

They pray God to accept their service, forgiving their imperfection, and mercifully considering their frailty. For since our righteousnesses are filthy rags, we ought always humbly to entreat God not to despise our dutifulness for the imperfections, wanderings, and negligences mingled with it. For exceedingly imperfect it is, especially if we consider the majesty of the Divine Nature, which should be served, if it were possible, with infinite reverence.

They plead to God, then, to accept what, although from Him they have it, yet through their imperfection, would be, but for His goodness, unworthy of His acceptance. Still, since the glory of God is the end of all creation, by asking Him to accept it, they plead to Him that this is the end for which He made and remade them, and placed the good in them, that it might redound to His glory.

As, on the other hand, the Psalmist says, What profit is there in my blood, if I go down into the pit? (Psalms 30:9), as though his own perishing were a loss to God, his Creator, since thus there would be one creature less to praise Him: “‘Take from us all iniquity,’ leave in us no weakness, none of our former decay, lest the evil root should send forth a new growth of evil; ‘and receive good;’ for unless You take away our evil, we can have no good to offer You, according to that, depart from evil, and do good (Psalms 37:27).”

So will we render the calves of our lips - Literally, “and we would willingly repay, calves, our lips;” i.e., when God has “forgiven us all our iniquity,” and “received” at our hands what, through His gift, we have to offer, the “good” which through His good Spirit we can do, then we would “offer” a perpetual thank offering, “our lips.” This should be the substitute for the thank offerings of the law. As the Psalmist says, I will praise the Name of God with a song, and magnify Him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord, better than a bullock that has horns and hoofs (Psalms 69:30–31). They are to bind themselves to perpetual thanksgiving. As the morning and evening sacrifice were continual, so was their new offering to be continual. But more.

The material sacrifice, “the bullock,” was offered, consumed, and passed away. Their “lips” were offered, and remained; a perpetual thank offering, even a “living sacrifice,” living on like the mercies for which they thanked, giving forth their “endless song” for never-ending mercies.

This too points to the Gospel, in which, here on earth, our unending thanksgiving is beginning, and in which it was also the purpose of God to restore those of Ephraim who would return to Him:

“Here we see law extinguished, the Gospel established. For we see other rites, other gifts. So then the priesthood is also changed. For three sorts of sacrifices were ordained of old by the law, with great state. Some signified the expiation of sin; some expressed the ardor of piety; some, thanksgiving. To those ancient signs and images, the truth of the Gospel corresponds directly.

“Prayer to God, ‘to take away all iniquity,’ contains a confession of sin, and expresses our faith that we place our whole hope of recovering our lost purity and of obtaining salvation in the mercy of Christ. ‘Receive good.’ What other good can we offer than the detestation of our past sin, with burning desire of holiness? This is the burnt offering. Lastly, ‘we will repay the calves of our lips,’ is the promise of that solemn vow, most acceptable to God, by which we bind ourselves to keep in continual remembrance all the benefits of God and to render ceaseless praise to the Lord who has bestowed on us such priceless gifts. For ‘the calves of’ the ‘lips’ are prayers well-pleasing to God.

“Of which David says, ‘Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then shall they offer bullocks upon Your altar’ (Psalms 51:19).”

Asshur shall not save us - After prayer for pardon and for acceptance of themselves, and thanksgiving for acceptance, comes the promise not to fall back into their former sins. Trust in man, in their own strength, and in their idols had been their besetting sins. Now, one by one, they disavow them.

First, they disclaim trust in man, and making flesh their arm (Jeremiah 17:5). Their disclaimer of the help of the Assyrian, to whom they had so often turned against the will of God, contains, at once, that best sign of true repentance: the renewal of the confession of past sins, and the promise to rely no longer on any princes of this world, of whom the Assyrian was then chief.

The horse, in the same way, is the symbol of any warlike strength of their own. As the Psalmist says, Some put their trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God (Psalms 20:7); and, a horse is a vain thing for safety, neither shall he deliver any by his great strength (Psalms 33:17); and Solomon, The horse is prepared for the day of battle but salvation is of the Lord (Proverbs 21:31). War was almost the only purpose for which the horse was used among the Jews.

Otherwise, it was a matter of great and royal pomp. It was part of a standing army. Their kings were especially forbidden to multiply horses to themselves (Deuteronomy 17:16). Solomon, indeed, in his prosperity, broke this, as well as other commands of God. The pious king Hezekiah, although at one time possessing large treasure, kept that command so strictly that it provided an occasion for mockery to Rabshakeh, the blaspheming envoy of Assyria, that he had neither horses nor horsemen (2 Kings 18:23). The horses being procured from Egypt (1 Kings 10:28), the commerce gave fresh occasion for idolatry.

Neither will we say anymore to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods - This is the third disavowal. Since it was folly and sin to trust in the creatures which God had made, apart from God, how much more was it to trust in things which they themselves had made, instead of God, and which were offensive to God!

For in Thee the fatherless findeth mercy - (or, O You, in whom). He is indeed fatherless who does not have God for his Father. They confess then, that they were and deserved to be thus fatherless and helpless, a prey to every oppressor; but they appeal to God by the title which He had taken, the Father of the fatherless (Psalms 68:5), that He would have mercy on them, who had no help but in Him.

They say, as it were: “We promise this, hoping in the help of Your mercy, since it belongs to You and is for Your Glory to have mercy on the people who believe in You, and to stretch forth Your Hand, that they may be able to leave their habitual evils and amend their former ways.”

I will heal their backsliding - God, in answer, promises to “heal” that wound of their souls, from where every other evil came, their fickleness and unsteadfastness. Until now, this had been the characteristic of Israel. Within a while they forgot His works, and would not abide His counsels (Psalms 106:13). They forgot what He had done. Their heart was not whole with Him; neither continued they steadfast in His covenant. They turned back and tempted God. They kept not His testimonies, but turned back and fell away like their forefathers, starting aside like a broken bow (Psalms 78:12, 37, 42, 57-58). Steadfastness to the end is the special gift of the Gospel. Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 28:20; Matthew 16:18). And to individuals, Jesus, having loved His own, loved them unto the end (John 13:1).

In healing that disease of unsteadfastness, God healed all besides. This He did to all, wheresoever or howsoever dispersed, who received the Gospel; this He does still; and this He will do completely in the end, when all Israel shall be saved.

I will love them freely - that is, as the word means, impelled to it by Himself alone, and so (as used of God) moved by His own Essential Bountifulness, the exceeding greatness of His Goodness, largely, bountifully.

God loves us freely in loving us against our deserts, because He is love; He loves us freely in that He freely became Man and, having become Man, freely shed His Blood for the remission of our sins, freely forgave our sins.

He loves us freely in giving us grace, according to the good pleasure of His will (Ephesians 1:5), to become pleasing to Him, and causing all good in us. He loves us freely in rewarding infinitely the good which we have from Him: “More manifestly here speaks the Person of the Savior Himself, promising His own Coming to the salvation of penitents, with sweetly sounding promise, with sweetness full of grace.”

For My anger is turned away from him - As He says, In My wrath I smote you; but in My favor have I had mercy on you (Isaiah 60:10). He does not withhold only, or suspend His anger, but He takes it away wholly. So the Psalmist says, You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sin; You have taken away all Your wrath; You have turned from the fierceness of Your anger (Psalms 85:2–3).

I will be as the dew unto Israel - Before, He had said, his spring shall become dry and his fountain shall be dried up (Hosea 13:15). Now again He enlarges the blessing; their supply shall be unfailing, for it shall be from God; indeed, God Himself shall be that blessing: I will be the dew; descending on the mown grass (Psalms 72:6), to quicken and refresh it; descending, Himself, into the dried, parched, and withered hearts of men, as He says, We will come unto him and make Our abode in him (John 14:23). The grace of God, like the dew, is not given once for all, but is, day by day, waited for, and, day by day, renewed. Yet it does not pass away, like the fitful goodness (John 6:4) of God’s former people, but turns into the growth and spiritual substance of those on whom it descends.

He shall grow as the lily - No single image can exhibit the manifold grace of God in those who are His own, or the fruits of that grace. So the prophet adds one image to another, each supplying a distinct likeness of a distinct grace or excellence. The lily is the emblem of the beauty and purity of the soul in grace; the cedar of Lebanon, of its strength and deep-rootedness, its immovability and uprightness; the evergreen olive tree, which "remains in its beauty both winter and summer," of the unvarying presence of Divine Grace, continually supplying an ever-sustained freshness, and issuing in fruit; and the fragrance of the aromatic plants with which the lower parts of Mount Lebanon are decked, of its loveliness and sweetness. As a native explains this, "he takes a second comparison from Mount Lebanon for the abundance of aromatic things and odoriferous flowers."

Such are the myrtles and lavender and the odoriferous reed, from which, "as you enter the valley" (between Lebanon and Anti-lebanon) "immediately the scent meets you." All these natural things are established and well-known symbols of things spiritual. The lily, so called in Hebrew from its dazzling whiteness, is, in the Canticles (Song of Solomon 2:1–2), the emblem of souls in which Christ takes delight. The lily multiplies exceedingly. Yet it has a weak root and soon fades. The prophet, then, unites with these, plants of unfading green and deep root.

The seed which had no root, our Lord says, withered away (Matthew 13:6), as conversely, Paul speaks of these, who are rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:17), and of being rooted and built up in Christ (Colossians 2:7). The widespreading branches are an emblem of the gradual growth and enlargement of the Church, as our Lord says, It becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof (Matthew 13:32).

The symmetry of the tree and its outstretched arms express, at once, grace and protection. Of the olive, the Psalmist says, I am like a green olive tree in the house Of God (Psalms 52:8); and Jeremiah says, The Lord called thy name a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit (Jeremiah 11:16); and of fragrance, the spouse says in the Canticles, because of the savor of Thy good ointments, Thy name is as ointment poured forth (Song of Solomon 1:3); and the Apostle says, thanks be to God, which maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place (2 Corinthians 2:14). Deeds of charity also are an odor of good smell (Philippians 4:18); the prayers of the saints also are sweet odors (Revelation 5:8).

All these are the fruits of the Spirit of God who says, I will be as the dew unto Israel. Such a reunion of qualities, being beyond nature, suggests all the more that the future Israel, the Church, in which they are all combined, shall flourish with graces beyond nature, in their manifoldness, completeness, and unfadingness.