John Calvin Commentary Hosea 13:9-11

"It is thy destruction, O Israel, that [thou art] against me, against thy help. Where now is thy king, that he may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes? I have given thee a king in mine anger, and have taken him away in my wrath." — Hosea 13:9-11 (ASV)

In the first place, God reproaches the Israelites for having in their perverseness rejected whatever was offered for their safety. But He proceeds further and says that they were past hope, and that there was a hidden cause which prevented God from helping them and bringing them aid when they were in extreme need.

He has destroyed you, Israel, He says. Some consider the word "calf" to be understood: “The calf has destroyed you.” But this is strained. Others think that there is a change of person, and I am inclined to adopt this opinion, as this mode of speaking, we know, is very common: Destroyed you has Israel; you are the cause of your own destruction, or, “Israel has destroyed himself.” Though there is here a verb of the third person, and an affixed pronoun of the second person is afterwards added, we may yet thus render the passage: “Israel has destroyed himself.”

At the same time, when I weigh every particular more fully, I think this passage would be better and more fitly explained by being taken indefinitely: “Something has destroyed you, Israel.” It is as though He said, “Inquire now who has destroyed you.” God then does not name Israel here as the author, nor does He point out anyone as the author of their ruin. Yet He shows that Israel was lost, and that the cause of their destruction was to be sought in someone else, and not in Him. This is the meaning.

Then it is, Something has destroyed you, Israel; for in Me was your help. God shows and proves that Israel, who had been previously preserved, is now destroyed through their own fault. For God had once adopted the people for this end: that He might continue to show His favor toward them. If then the wickedness and ingratitude of the people had not hindered, God would have doubtless always been like Himself, and His goodness toward that people would have flowed in a continuous and uniform stream.

This is what He means in the second clause, when He says, In Me was your help. By this He seems to say, “How does it happen, and what is the reason, that I do not now help you according to My usual manner? You have indeed found Me previously to be your deliverer. Though you have often struggled with great and grievous dangers, I was yet never lacking to you; you have always found prompt assistance from Me.”

How does it happen now that I have cast you away, that you cry in vain, and that no one brings you any help? How does it happen that you are thus forsaken and receive no relief whatever from My hand, as you have been accustomed to? And doubtless I should never be lacking to you, if you would allow Me; but you close the door against Me, and by your wickedness spurn My favor, so that it cannot come to you.

It then follows that you are now destroyed through your own fault: Something then has destroyed you. He speaks here indefinitely, but this suspended way of expression is more emphatic when He shows that Israel was astonished without reason, and had also expostulated with God without reason. “There is then no ground for contending with God, as if He had frustrated your expectation, and despised your desires and crying. God indeed is consistent with Himself, for He is not changeable.” It is as though He said, “Their perdition is from another cause, and they ought to know that there is some hindrance why God should not extend His hand to help them, as He has previously usually done.”

We now perceive the mind of the Prophet: he first records what God had previously been to the people, and then he takes for granted that God does not change, but that He possesses a uniform and unwearied goodness. But since He had previously helped His people, he concludes that Israel was destroyed through some other cause, because God brought them no aid. For unless Israel had intercepted God’s goodness, it would have certainly flowed as usual. It then appears that its course was impeded by the wickedness of the people, for they put, as it were, an obstacle in its way.

And this passage teaches us that men in vain clamor against God in their miseries, for He would always be ready to help them, were they not to spurn the favor offered to them. Whenever then God does not help us in our necessity, and allows us to languish and, as it were, to pine away in our afflictions, it is doubtless so because we are not disposed to receive His favor, but, on the contrary, we obstruct its way, as it is said by Isaiah:

“Shortened is not the Lord’s hand, that it cannot save, nor is My ear heavy, that it does not hear. Your sins,” He says, “have set up a mound between you and Me” (Isaiah 59:1–2).

To the same purpose are the words of the Prophet here when he says that we ought to inquire what the cause of our destruction is when the Lord does not immediately deliver us. For as He has once given us a taste of His goodness, so He will continue to do the same to the end; for He is not wearied in His kindness, nor can His bounty be exhausted. The fault then belongs to us. We therefore see how remarkable this passage is, and what useful instruction it contains.

He afterwards more fully confirms the same by saying, I will be; and then He says, Your king, where is he? By saying, ‘I will be,’ God reiterates what He had before declared, that He would always be the same; for, as James says:

‘No overshadowing happens to Him’ (James 1:17).

Hence ‘I will be’; that is, “Though the Israelites rail against Me, that I do not pursue My usual course of kindness, it is yet most false; for I remain ever the same, and am always ready to show kindness to men; for I do not, as I have elsewhere declared, forsake the works of My hands (Psalms 138:8). Seeing then that I thus continue My favor towards men, it must be that the way to My favor is closed up by their wickedness.

Let them therefore examine themselves, when they cry and I answer not. When in their evils they in a manner pine away and find no relief, let them acknowledge it to be their own fault; for I would have made Myself the same as I have ever been, and they would have found Me a deliverer, had not a change taken place in them.” We now comprehend the meaning of the Prophet in the ninth verse, and as to the expression, אהי, aei, I will be, in the verse which follows.

He then says, Where is your king? God again reproaches the Israelites for having reposed their confidence in their king and other earthly helps, by which they thought themselves to have been well fortified. Where is your king? He says. He derides the Israelites, for they saw that their king was now stripped of every power to help, and that all their princes were destitute both of prudence and of all other means.

Since then there was no protection from men, the Prophet now shows that Israel had but a vain trust when they thought themselves safe under the shadow of their king, when they considered themselves secure as long as they were governed by prudent men. All these things, he says, are vain.

But we must always bear in mind what He had said before: I will be. For had not this shield been set up, hypocrites would have always said in return, “Where now is God? What is His purpose? Why does He delay?” Hence God mentioned before that He was ready to help them, but that they by their wickedness had closed up the way.

But He further derides them for having in vain placed their hope and their help in their king and princes. Where is your king, He says, that he may save you in all your cities? It is not without reason that the Prophet mentions cities, because the Israelites despised all threats while their cities were on every side unassailable and strong to keep out enemies. Hence when God threatened them by His Prophets, they regarded what was said to them as fables and thus defended themselves: “How can enemies assail us? Though there were a hundred wars near at hand, do we not have cities which can resist the onsets of enemies? We shall therefore dwell in safety and enjoy our pleasures, though God should shake heaven and earth.”

Since then they were so intoxicated with this false confidence, the Prophet now says, “I know that you excel in having great and many cities; but as you deem them your protection, God will show that this hope is vain and deceptive. Where then is your king, that he may save you in your cities? And though your king is well furnished with an army and with defenses, it will yet avail you nothing when God shall once rise up against you.”

But He adds, And your judges of whom you have said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? Here the Prophet ascends higher, for he shows that the people of Israel had not only sinned in this respect, that they had placed their hope in their king and in other helps, but that they had also chosen for themselves a king whom God had not approved. For David, we know, was anointed for this end, that he might unite together the whole body of the people; and God intended that His Church and chosen people should remain under one head, that they might be safe. It was therefore an impious separation when the ten tribes wished for themselves a new king.

How so? Because a defection from the kingdom of David was, as it were, a denial of God. For if it was said to Samuel,

‘You they have not rejected, but Me, that I should not reign over them’ (1 Samuel 8:7),

it was certainly more fully verified concerning David. We now then see what the Prophet meant. After having inveighed against the false confidence of the people for thinking that they were safe through the power of their king, he now adds, “I will advance to another source: for you did not then begin to sin when you transferred the glory of God to the king, but when you wished to have a kingdom of your own, being not content with that kingdom which He had instituted in the person of David.”

The Prophet does now then accuse the people of defection, when a new king, that is, Jeroboam, was elected by them. For though it was done according to the certain purpose of God, as we have elsewhere observed, yet this availed nothing to alleviate the fault of the people, for they, as far as they could, renounced God. As the foot, if cut off from the body, is not only a mutilated and useless member but immediately putrefies, so also was Israel, being like a half part of a torn and mutilated body; and they must have become putrefied, had they not been miraculously preserved. But at the same time, God here justly condemns that defection: that Israel, by desiring a new king, had broken asunder the sacred unity of the Church and introduced an impious separation.

These are the princes of whom you have said, ‘Give me a king and princes.’ I gave to you in My wrath, and took away in My fury. That is, “It was a cursed beginning, and it shall be a cursed end; for the election of Jeroboam was not lawful. But through an impious willfulness, the people then rebelled against Me when they revolted from the family of David.” Nothing successful could then proceed from so inauspicious a beginning.

For it is only then an auspicious token when we obey God, when His Spirit presides over our counsels, when we ask at His mouth, and when we begin with prayer to Him. But when we despise the word of God, and give loose reins to our own inclination, and fix on whatever pleases us, it cannot be but that an unhappy and disastrous issue will follow.

God therefore says that He gave them a king in His wrath. It is as though He said, “You think that you have done nobly when Jeroboam was raised to the throne, that he might become eminent: for the kingdom of Judah was then far inferior to that of Israel, which not only excelled in power but also in the number of its subjects. You think that you were then happy because Jeroboam ruled over you: but he was given you in the anger and wrath of God,” says the Prophet. “But God commanded Jeroboam to be anointed.” True, it was so. “But this,” says God, “I did in My wrath; and now I will take away in My fury. That is, I will deprive you of that kingdom which I see is the cause of your blindness. For if that kingdom remains entire, I shall be nothing; the authority of My word will be of no weight among you. It is then necessary that this kingdom should be wholly subverted, for you began to be unhappy as soon as you sought a new king.”

We now understand what the Prophet means. At the same time, we learn from this passage that God so executes His judgements that whatever evil there is, it ought to be ascribed to men. For the raising of Jeroboam to the kingdom, we certainly allow to have been rash and unjust, for thereby was violated that celestial decree made known to David:

“My Son you are, I have this day begotten you. Ask of Me, and I will give you the Gentiles,” etc. (Psalms 2:7–8).

But who appointed Jeroboam to be king? The Lord Himself. How could it be that God raised Jeroboam to the throne, and that He yet by His decree set David not only over the children of Abraham but also over the Gentiles, with reference to Christ who was to come?

God seems here to be inconsistent with Himself. By no means; for when He set David over His chosen people, it was a lawful appointment. But when He raised Jeroboam to the throne, it was a singular judgement; so that in God there is no inconsistency. The people at the same time, who by their suffrages adopted Jeroboam and made him their king, acted impiously and perversely.

“Yet God seems to have directed the whole by His providence.” True; for before the people knew anything of the new king, God had already determined to elect him and resolved also to punish in this way the defection and ingratitude of Solomon. All these things are true: that God by His secret counsel had directed the whole business, and yet that He had no participation in the sin of the people.

Thus let us learn wisely to admire the secret judgements of God, and not imitate those profane cavilers who make a great noise because they cannot understand how God thus makes use of wicked men, and how He directs for the best end what is done by men wickedly and foolishly. As they do not perceive this, they conclude that if the Lord governs all things, He must be the author of sin. But the Scripture, as we see, when it speaks of the wrath and fury of God, does at the same time set forth to us His rectitude in all His judgements, and distinguishes between God and men, even as the difference is great. For God does not turn the perverse designs of men to answer their own ends—He is a just judge. And yet His purpose is not always apparent to us; it is, however, our duty reverently and with chastened minds to admire and adore those mysteries which surpass our comprehension.