John Calvin Commentary Hosea 12:6-7

"Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep kindness and justice, and wait for thy God continually. [He is] a trafficker, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress." — Hosea 12:6-7 (ASV)

The Prophet is now urgently pressing the people. Having referred to the example of the patriarch, he shows how unlike him his descendants were, with whom God could accomplish nothing through sound teaching, though He was constantly solicitous for their salvation and stirred up His prophets to bring back the lost and scattered to the way of safety.

Since this was the case, the Prophet accuses them of ingratitude. He speaks first of repentance, and then he shows that he and other ministers of God had labored in vain, because such was the perversity of the people that teaching had no effect. His sermon is short, yet it contains much.

Turn, he says, to your God. He alludes here to the apostasy of the people by instructing them to turn to their God, and, at the same time, condemns whatever the Israelites were accustomed to set up as a defense when the Prophets reproved them. For they wished their own fictitious modes of worship to serve as a justification; they wished the gods they devised themselves to occupy the place of the true God.

The Prophet eliminates such excuses by commanding the people to turn to their God. “Why,” he says, “you do indeed worship gods and greatly weary yourselves in your superstitions; but confess that you are apostates, who have rejected the law delivered to you by the true God. Return, then, to your God.” And he calls God the God of Israel, not to honor them, but to reproach them, because they had willingly and deliberately cast off the worship of the true God, who had made Himself known to them.

The true way of repentance is then shown. The beginning of the verse, as I have already said, requires the people to repent. But since we know that people trifle with God when they are called to repentance, it is not in vain that a definitive, or at least a short, description of repentance is added, by which it is made clear what it means to repent, or to turn to God.

Then the Prophet says, Keep mercy, or kindness and judgement. He begins with the second table and then adds piety toward God. But he lays down only two things, in which he included the whole teaching of the second table. For what is God’s design, from the fifth to the last commandment, but to teach us to shape our lives according to the rule of love?

We are then taught in the second table of the law how we ought to act toward our brethren; or if one wishes for a shorter summary, the second table of the law shows the mutual duties of people.

But the Prophet begins here with the second part of the law, for the Prophets are not accustomed to strictly observe order, nor do they always observe a regular method. It is enough for them to mention the main things by which they explain their subject; and therefore, it is no wonder that the Prophet here, according to his usual manner, mentions love first, and then proceeds to the worship of God.

This order, as I have said, is indeed neither natural nor legitimate; but this is of no importance. Indeed, it was not without the best reason that the Prophets usually did this, for repentance is better tested by the observance of the second table than by that of divine worship.

For as hypocrites dissemble and hide themselves with elaborate coverings, the Lord applies a touchstone. He does this whenever He draws them to the light and exposes to public view their frauds, robberies, cruelty, perjuries, thefts, and similar vices.

Since hypocrites can thus be better convicted by the second table of the law, the Lord rightly appeals to this when He speaks of repentance, as though He said, “Let it now be made evident what your repentance is, whether it be feigned or sincere; for if you act justly and uprightly toward your neighbors, if you observe equity and rectitude, it is a sure evidence of your repentance.”

At the same time, the Prophet does not overlook the worship of God, for he adds, Hope always in your God. By the word hope, he first requires faith, then prayer (which arises from it), and thanksgiving (which necessarily follows). Thus the whole worship of God is briefly included, as a part representing the whole, in the word hope.

The Prophet’s meaning then is that Israel, forsaking their own superstitions, should rely on the one true God and place all their salvation on Him, that they should fly to Him, and ascribe to Him alone the praise due for all blessings. By so doing, they would restore the pure worship of God and cast away all their adulterous superstitions. He had already spoken of the second table of the law.

We therefore see that repentance is nothing else but a reformation of the whole life according to the law of God. For God has explained His will in His law; and to the degree we depart or deviate from it, we depart from the Lord.

But when we turn to God, the true proof is when we amend our lives according to His law, and begin by worshipping Him spiritually (the main part of which worship is faith, from which prayer proceeds), and when, in addition to this, we act kindly and justly toward our neighbors, and abstain from all injuries, frauds, robberies, and all kinds of wickedness. This is the true evidence of repentance.

But while the Prophet exhorted the Israelites to repentance, he adds that such was their perverseness that his efforts were fruitless. Canaan! he says. I read this by itself, for what some consider to be understood is weak, such as, “He was assimilated to, or was like Canaan, in whose hand,” etc.

But, on the contrary, the Prophet here condemns the Israelites with one word, as though he said that they were entirely aliens and unworthy to be called the children of Abraham. And thus what we say is often abrupt when we speak indignantly.

The Prophet then calls them “Canaan” out of indignation, which means this: “You are not the children of Abraham; you falsely boast of his name, which cannot be suitable for you, for you are Canaan.”

He afterward adds, In his hand is the balance of fraud, he loves to plunder, or to spoil. Literally it is, “he loves to spoil.” But the sense is clear that they loved to plunder; that is, they were carried away with all greediness to acts of robbery.

It must first be noticed that the Prophet here exposes to infamy the carnal descendants of Abraham by calling them Canaan, and this accusation is often to be found in the Prophets.

And the reason they were addressed this way was that these senseless men were accustomed to proudly use the distinction of their race as their shield. “What! We are a holy people.”

Since by this pretense they rejected all the warnings of the Prophets, God casts back this reproach: “You are not the children of Abraham; but you are Canaan,” as though He said, “Nothing in that nation has yet changed; the Israelites are always like themselves.”

The Lord had once cleansed the land of godless men. But when the descendants of Abraham became like the Canaanites, they were called the seed of Canaan, as though the same nation that was there formerly still remained, for there was no difference in their conduct; they were equal or the same in depravity.

But the reason he calls them the race of Canaan is that they carried in their hand a deceitful balance and devoted themselves with all avidity to plunder. The deceitful balance may be extended to their dissimulations, fallacies, and falsehoods, by which God, as He had before complained, was surrounded. But as it immediately follows, He loves robberies, I prefer to understand here those two modes of doing injury that include almost every kind of wickedness: for people either craftily defraud when they injure others, or they do harm to their neighbors by open force.

Since those who wrong their neighbors, then, either openly injure them or circumvent the simple by their frauds and crafty dealings, Hosea lays down here, first, the deceitful balance, and then he adds their greediness in spoiling or plundering.

It is then as if he had said that they were fraudulent and also robbers who proceeded with open violence. He means that they were, without law or any restraint, addicted to acts of wrong and injustice, and were so intent on doing mischief as to do it either by craft or by open force.

There is then no wonder that they were called an uncircumcised race. Why? Because they had nothing to do with God, since they had thus departed from His law; indeed, they abhorred kindness and mercy.

It also follows that they were void of all piety, since they were thus unmindful of all equity toward their neighbors. This is the meaning.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as You appear not now to us in shadows and types, as formerly to the holy fathers, but clearly and plainly in Your only-begotten Son, O grant that we may be wholly given to the contemplation of Your image, which thus shines before us; and that we may in such a manner be transformed into it as to make increasing advances, until at length, having put off all the filth of our flesh, we may be fully conformed to that pure and perfect holiness which dwells in Christ, as in Him dwells the fullness of all blessings, and thus obtain at last a participation of that glory which our Lord has procured for us by His resurrection. Amen.