Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 6

Come and let us return to the Lord – These words depend closely on the preceding text. They are words God Himself puts into their mouths, with which, or with similar words, they should exhort one another to return to God. Before, when God struck them, they had gone to Assyria; now they should turn to Him, acknowledging not only that He who tore has the power and the will to heal them, but that He tore in order to heal them; He struck them in order to bind them up.

This closeness of connection is expressed in the last words; literally, He will smite, and He will bind us up. “He smites the corruption of the misdeed; He heals the pain of the wound. Physicians do this: they cut, they strike, they heal; they arm themselves in order to strike; they carry steel and come to cure.”

They are not content to return individually or to be saved alone. Each encourages another to repentance, as they did before to evil. The dry bones, scattered on the face of the earth, reunite. There is a general movement among those who sat in darkness and the shadow of death, to return together to Him, who is the source of life.

After two days will He revive us (or quicken us, give us life,) in the third day He will raise us up - The Resurrection of Christ, and our resurrection in Him and in His Resurrection, could not be more plainly foretold. The prophet expressly mentions “two days,” after which life should be given, and a “third day, on” which the resurrection should take place.

What else can this be than the two days in which the Body of Christ lay in the tomb, and the third day, on which He rose again, as the Resurrection and the life (John 11:25), the first fruits of them that slept (1 Corinthians 15:20), the source and earnest and pledge of our resurrection and of life eternal? The Apostle, in speaking of our resurrection in Christ, uses these very same words of the prophet: God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us - hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4–6).

The Apostle, like the prophet, speaks of that which took place in Christ our Head, as having already taken place in us, His members. A father says, “If we unhesitatingly believe in our heart what we profess with our mouth, we were crucified in Christ, ‘we’ died, ‘we’ were buried, ‘we’ also were raised again on that very third day.”

Therefore the Apostle says, If ye rose again with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1).

“As Christ died for us, so He also rose for us. Our old man was nailed to the wood, in the flesh of our Head, and the new man was formed in that same Head, rising glorious from the tomb.”

What Christ, our Head, did, He did not for Himself, but for His redeemed, so that the benefits of His Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension might redound to all. Life did it for them; they partook of what He did.

In no other way could our participation in Christ be foretold. It was not the prophet’s objective here, nor was it so direct a comfort to Israel, to speak of Christ’s Resurrection in itself. He took a nearer way to their hearts.

He told them, “All we who turn to the Lord, putting our whole trust in Him, and committing ourselves wholly to Him, to be healed of our wounds and to have our griefs bound up, shall receive life from Him, shall be raised up by Him.”

They could not understand “then,” how He would do this. The “after two days” and “in the third day” remained a mystery, to be explained by the event.

But the promise itself was no less distinct, nor less full of hope, nor did it less fulfill all cravings for life eternal and the sight of God, because they did not understand, “how shall these things be.”

Faith is unconcerned about the how. Faith believes what God says, because He says it, and leaves Him to fulfill it, how He wills and knows. The words of the promise which faith had to believe were plain.

The life of which the prophet spoke could only be life from death, whether of the body or the soul or both. For God is said to “give life” only in contrast with such death. Thus the Jews too have always looked and still look for this to be fulfilled in the Christ, though they do not know that it has been fulfilled in Him. They too explain it: “He will quicken us in the days of consolation which shall come; in the day of the quickening of the dead; he will raise us up, and we shall live before Him.”

In shadow, the prophecy was never fulfilled for Israel at all. The ten tribes were never restored; they never, as a whole, received any favor from God after He gave them up to captivity. And for the two tribes (of whom, apart from the ten, no mention is made here), what a mere shadow was the restoration from Babylon, that it should be spoken of as the gift of life or of resurrection, by which we should live before Him! The strictest explanation is the truest. The “two days” and “the third day” have nothing in history to correspond with them, except that in which they were fulfilled, when Christ, “rising on the third day from the grave, raised with Him the whole human race.”

And we shall live in His sight - Literally, “before His Face.” In the face, we see the will, mind, and love, the pleasure or displeasure of a human being whom we love. In the holy or loving face of man, fresh depths of devotion or love can be read. The face is turned away in sorrowful displeasure; it is turned full upon the face it loves.

Hence, it is a very expressive image of the relation of the soul to God, and the Psalmists so often pray: Lord lift up the light of Thy countenance upon us; make Thy Face to shine upon Thy servant; God bless us, and cause His Face to shine upon us; cast me not away from Thy presence or Face; look Thou upon me and be merciful unto me; look upon the Face of Thine anointed; how long wilt Thou hide Thy Face from me? Hide not Thy Face from Thy servant (Psalms 4:6; Psalms 31:16, from Numbers 6:25; Psalms 67:1; Psalms 80:7; Psalms 119:135; Psalms 51:11; Psalms 119:132; Psalms 84:9; Psalms 13:1; Psalms 69:17, etc.).

Or they profess, Thy Face, Lord, will I seek (Psalms 27:8; Psalms 105:4); or they declare that the bliss of eternity is in the Face of God (Psalms 11:7; Psalms 16:11; Psalms 17:15).

God had just said that He would withdraw His presence until they should seek His Face; now He says they should live before His Face. To Abraham He had said, Walk before Me (Genesis 17:1) (literally, “before My Face”), and be thou perfect. Bliss from the Creator and duty from the creature answer to one another.

We live in His sight in the way of duty when we refer ourselves and our whole being—our courses of action, our thoughts, our love—to Him, remembering that we are ever in His presence and ever seeking to please Him.

We live in His sight in the bliss of His presence when we enjoy the sense of His favor, know that His eye rests on us in love, that He cares for us, guides us, and guards us, and have some sweetness in contemplating Him.

We shall live much more fully in His sight when, in Him, we shall be partakers of His Eternal Life and Bliss, and shall behold Him face to face, and see Him as He is, and the sight of Him shall be our bliss, and in His light we shall see light (Psalms 36:9).

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord – Rather, “Then shall we know, shall follow on to know the Lord,” that is, we shall not only know Him, but we shall grow continually in that knowledge. In Israel at that time, God says, “there was no knowledge of Him;” His “people was destroyed for lack of it” (Hosea 4:1, Hosea 4:6). In Christ He promises that they should have that inward knowledge of Him, ever growing, because the grace through which it is given ever grows, and “the depth of the riches of His wisdom and knowledge is unsearchable, passing knowledge.” We “follow on,” confessing that it is He who makes us to follow Him and draws us to Him. We know, in order to follow; we follow, in order to know. Light prepares the way for love. Love opens the mind for new love.

The gifts of God are interwoven. They multiply and reproduce each other, until we come to the perfect state of eternity. For here “we know in part” only; then “shall we know, even as we are known.” We “shall follow on.” Where shall we “follow on?” To the fountains of the water of life, as another prophet says; “For He that hath mercy upon them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them” (Isaiah 49:10). And in Revelation we read that “the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters” (Revelation 7:17).

The bliss of eternity is fixed; the nearness of each to the throne of God, the “mansion” in which he will dwell, admits of no change; but, through eternity, it may be, that we shall “follow on to know” more of God, as more will be revealed to us of that which is infinite, the Infinity of His Wisdom and His Love.

His going forth – that is, the going forth of God, “is prepared,” firm, fixed, certain, established (so the word means) “as the morning.” Before, God had said He would withdraw Himself from them; now, on the contrary, He says that He would “go forth.” He had said, “in their affliction they shall seek Me early or in the morning;” now, “He shall go forth as the morning.” : “They shall seek for Him, as those who long for the morning; and He will come to them as the morning,” full of joy and comfort, of light and warmth and glorious radiance which will diffuse over the whole compass of the world, so that “nothing shall be hid from its light” and “heat.” He who should so go forth is the same as He who was to “revive them” and “raise them up,” that is, Christ.

Of Him it is said most strictly, that “He went forth,” when from the Bosom of the Father He came among us; as of Him holy Zacharias says (in similar language), “The Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Christ goes forth continually from the Father, by an eternal, continual, generation. He “came forth” from the Father in His Incarnation; He “came forth” to us from the Virgin’s womb; He “came forth” from the grave in His Resurrection. His “coming forth, as the morning,” images the secrecy of His Birth, the light and glow of love which He diffuses throughout the whole new creation of His redeemed. : “As the dawn is seen by all and cannot be hid, and appeareth, that it may be seen, yea, that it may illuminate, so His going forth, whereby He proceeded from His own invisible to our visible became known to all,” tempered to our eyes, dissipating our darkness, awakening our nature as from a grave, unveiling to man the works of God, making His ways plain before his face, that he should no longer “walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth – So of Christ it is foretold, “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth” (Psalms 72:6). Palestine was especially dependent upon rain, on account of the cultivation of the sides of the hills in terraces, which were parched and dry when the rains were withheld. The “former,” or autumnal “rain,” fell in October, at the seed-time; the “latter” or spring “rain,” in March and April, and filled the ears before harvest. Both together stand as the beginning and the end. If either were withheld, the harvest failed.

Wonderful likeness of Him who is the Beginning and the End of our spiritual life; from whom we receive it, by whom it is preserved to the end; through whom the soul, enriched by Him, has abundance of all spiritual blessings, graces, and consolations, and yields all kinds of fruit, each after its kind, to the praise of Him who has given it life and fruitfulness.

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? – It is common with the prophets, first to set forth the fullness of the riches of God’s mercies in Christ, and then to turn to their own generation, and upbraid them for the sins which withheld the mercies of God from them, and were hurrying them to their destruction. In like way Isaiah (Isaiah 2:0), having prophesied that the Gospel should go forth from Zion, turns to upbraid the avarice, idolatry, and pride, through which the judgment of God should come upon them.

The promises of God were to those who should turn with true repentance, and seek Him early and earnestly. Whatever good there was, either in Ephraim or Judah, was but a mere empty show, which held out hope, only to disappoint it. God, who willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, appeals to His whole people, What shall I do unto thee? He had shown them abundance of mercies; He had reproved them by His prophets; He had chastened them; and all in vain. As He says in Isaiah, What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? (Isaiah 5:0).

Here He asks them Himself, what He could do to convert and to save them, which He had not done. He would take them on their own terms, and whatever they would prescribe to His Almightiness and Wisdom, as means for their conversion, that He would use, so that they would but turn to Him. “What means shall I use to save you, who will not be saved?” It has been a bold saying, to describe the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, “Christ so loves souls, that He would rather be crucified again, than allow anyone (as far as in Him lies) to be damned.”

For your goodness is as a morning cloud – “Mercy” or “loving-kindness,” (which the English margin suggests as the first meaning of the word) stands for all virtue and goodness toward God or man. For love to God or man is one indivisible virtue, issuing from one principle of grace. Thus it is said, love is the fulfilling of the law. He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law (Romans 13:10, Romans 13:8). And, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God (1 John 4:7). Of this their goodness, He says the character was, that it never lasted. The “morning cloud” is full of brilliancy with the rays of the rising sun, yet quickly disappears through the heat of that sun, which gave it its rich hues.

The “morning dew” glitters in that same sun, yet vanishes almost as soon as it appears. Generated by the cold of the night, it appears with the dawn; yet appears, only to disappear. So it was with the whole Jewish people; so it ever is with the most hopeless class of sinners; ever beginning anew, ever relapsing; ever making a show of leaves, good feelings, good aspirations, but yielding no fruit. “There was nothing of sound, sincere, real, lasting goodness in them;” no reality, but all show; quickly assumed, quickly disused.

Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets - Since they despised God’s gentler warnings and measures, He used more severe ones. “He hewed” them, He says, as men hew stones out of the quarry, and with hard blows and sharp instruments overcome the hardness of the stone that they have to work. Their piety and goodness were light and unsubstantial as a summer cloud; their stony hearts were harder than the material stone. The stone takes the shape that man would give it; God hews man in vain; he will not receive the image of God, for which and in which he was created.

God, elsewhere also, likens the force and vehemence of His word to a hammer which breaketh the rocks in pieces (Jeremiah 23:29); a sword which pierceth even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12): He “continually hammered, beat upon, disquieted them, and so vexed them (as they thought) even to death, not allowing them to rest in their sins, not suffering them to enjoy themselves in them, but forcing them (as it were) to part with things which they loved as their lives, and would just as soon part with their souls as with them.”

And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth - The “judgments” here are the acts of justice executed upon a man; the “judgment upon him,” as we say.

God had done all that could be done to set aside the severity of His own judgments. All had failed. Then His judgments, when they came, would be manifestly just; their justice clear as the light which goeth forth out of the darkness of night, or out of the thick clouds.

God’s past loving-kindness, His pains (so to speak), His solicitations, the drawings of His grace, the tender mercies of His austere chastisements, will, in the Day of Judgment, stand out clear as the light and leave the sinner confounded, without excuse.

In this life, also, God’s final judgments are as a light which goeth forth, enlightening not the sinner who perishes, but others, previously in the darkness of ignorance, on whom they burst with a sudden blaze of light, and who reverence them, owning that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether (Psalms 19:9).

And so, since they would not be reformed, what should have been for their well-being was for their destruction. I slew them by the words of My mouth. God spoke yet more terribly to them. He slew them in word, so that He might not slay them in deed. He threatened them with death; since they did not repent, it came. The stone, that will not take the form that should have been imparted to it, is destroyed by the strokes that should have molded it.

By a similar image, Jeremiah compared the Jews to ore that is consumed in the fire that should refine it, since there was no good in it. They are brass and iron; they are all corrupted; the bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them (Jeremiah 6:28–30).