John Calvin Commentary Hosea 4:17

"Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone." — Hosea 4:17 (ASV)

As if wearied, God here commands his Prophet to rest, as if he said, “Since I achieve nothing with this people, they must be given up; cease from your work.” God had appointed Hosea over the Israelites for this purpose: to lead them to repentance, if they could by any means be reformed. The duty of the Prophet, commanded by God, was to bring back miserable and straying men from their error and to restore them again to the obedience of pure faith.

He now saw that the Prophet’s labor was in vain, without any success. Therefore, he was, as I have said, wearied, and commands the Prophet to desist: Leave them, he says; that is, “There is no use for you to weary yourself any more; I dismiss you from your labor, and will not have you take any more trouble, for they are wholly incurable.”

For by saying that they had joined themselves to idols, he means that they could not be drawn from that perverseness in which they had grown hardened, as if he said, “This is an alliance that cannot be broken.” He alludes to the marriage which he had before mentioned. The Israelites, we know, had been joined to God, for he had adopted them to be a holy people to himself. They afterwards adopted impious forms of worship.

Yet, there was a hope of recovery until they became wholly attached to their idols and clung so firmly to them that they could not be drawn away. This alliance the Prophet points out when he says, They are joined to idols.

But he mentions the tribe of Ephraim because the kings (I mean, of Israel), we know, sprang from that tribe; and at the same time he reproaches that tribe for having abused God’s blessing. We know that Ephraim was blessed by holy Jacob in preference to his elder brother. Yet there was no reason why Jacob put aside the first-born and preferred the younger, except that God in this case manifested his own good pleasure.

The ingratitude of Ephraim was therefore less excusable, when he not only fell away from the pure worship of God but also polluted the whole land. For it was Jeroboam who introduced ungodly superstitions; he therefore was the source of all the evil. This is the reason why the Prophet now expressly mentions Ephraim, though it is a form of speaking commonly used by all the Prophets to designate Israel by taking a part for the whole, specifically by the name of Ephraim.

But this passage is worthy of note, so that we may pay attention to God’s reproofs and not remain sluggish when he rouses us. For we ought always to fear that he might suddenly reject us when he is wearied with our perverseness, or when he conceives such displeasure as not to condescend to speak to us any more.