John Calvin Commentary Hosea 5:6

"They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Jehovah; but they shall not find him: he hath withdrawn himself from them." — Hosea 5:6 (ASV)

The Prophet here scorns the hypocrisy of the people, because they thought they had a ready way to deal with God: to pacify Him with their sacrifices. He therefore shows that neither the Israelites nor the Jews would gain anything by accumulating burnt offerings, for they could not return to God's favor in this way. He thereby intimates that God requires true repentance, and that He will not be reconciled to people unless they seek Him from the heart and consecrate themselves to His service—not merely because they offer animals. The faithful, no doubt, expiated their sins at that time by sacrifices, but only typically. For they knew the purpose for which God had made the law concerning sacrifices: that the sinner, reminded by the sight of the victim, might confess himself worthy of eternal death, and thus flee to God’s mercy and look to Christ and His sacrifice. For in Him, and nowhere else, is true and effectual expiation to be found.

For this purpose, then, God had instituted sacrifices. So the faithful, while offering sacrifices, did not suppose that any satisfaction was achieved by the external work, nor did they imagine it to be the price of redemption; instead, they engaged in these rites with faith and repentance.

The Prophet now, by implication, contrasts oxen, rams, and lambs with spiritual sacrifices, for a contrast is to be understood in the words, They shall come with their sheep, etc. What do they bring to God’s presence? He says they bring only their rams; they bring oxen. But God commands something far different: He commands people to consecrate themselves to Him in a spiritual manner. As for external rites, He commands them to refer these to Christ and to the true expiation, which was then still hidden in hope.

Since, then, the Israelites brought only their oxen and lambs to God, they vainly expected Him to be propitious to them. For He is not pacified by such trifles, because everyone who separates the outward sacrifice from its design brings nothing but what is profane. Indeed, true and lawful consecration is by the Word. And by the Word we are guided to faith in Christ and to repentance. When these are neglected and disregarded, and people securely trust in their sacrifices, they do nothing but mock God. We therefore see that the Prophet here rightly exposes this folly of the Israelites: that they sought God with their flocks and their herds.

And he says, They shall come, or shall go, to seek God. By this statement, he intimates that hypocrites diligently labor to reconcile God to themselves. We even see with what zeal they weary themselves. A remarkable instance of this exists today in the Papists, for they spare no diligence when they seek to pacify God.

But the Prophet says that this labor is vain and foolish. “Let them go,” he says, meaning, “Let them weary themselves; but they will do so without profit, for they will not find God.” But when he says that they would come to seek Jehovah, he is not to be understood as saying that they would really do so. For hypocrites turn aside from God by indirect routes and detours, rather than seeking access to Him.

Yet they still propose it as their ultimate intention, so to speak, to seek God. They do not, in fact, actually come to Him; no, they dread His presence and shun it as much as they can. And yet, when one asks them what they intend by sacrificing and performing other rites, the answer is ready on their lips: “We worship God,” that is, “We desire to worship Him.” Since hypocrites are accustomed to boast of this, the Prophet speaks by way of concession, saying, They shall come to seek God, but shall not find Him.

The Papists of this day pursue a similar course: when they go around their altars, when they hurry off to perform vowed pilgrimages, when they whisper their prayers, when they hear and buy masses. For what is the purpose of all these things, if not to escape God’s judgment by interposing these veils?

They know they are exposed to His judgment; their conscience forces them to pacify God. But what do they do in the meantime? They think, “I will find a way so that God will not pursue me; let this then be the price of redemption, let this be a compensation.” In short, we see that the Papists mock God with their ceremonies, having nothing else in view but to seek hiding places. And for this reason, the Lord complains through His Prophet that His temple was like a den of robbers (Jeremiah 7:11), for people sin securely when they publicly offer such expiations.

No, the Papists, when they mutter their prayers, claim that the ultimate intention is pleasing to God, even if their thoughts wander. For they maintain that if, when they begin to pray, it merely occurs to them that God is being prayed to—even if they do not pay attention to their prayers, even if they pollute themselves with many depraved desires—their ultimate intention still pleases God, provided they utter the prayers with their mouth. Why? Because their design, they say, is to seek God.

This is, indeed, extremely foolish and childish. But, as I have already said, the Prophet does not press this point. Instead, he concedes to the Israelites what they pretended: “You seek God; but you do not run in the right way, and these indirect routes will not lead you to God.” How so? “For you recede farther from Him.”

So Isaiah says, “She will greatly weary herself in her ways.” But in the meantime, she did not follow the right way; on the contrary, she turned aside after various errors, and thus moved away from the Lord, and did not come to Him.

By saying that God had removed or separated Himself from them, he intimates that He is propitious only to the faithful. These are the ones who do not think so crudely of Him as to seek to feed Him with the flesh of oxen or other sacrifices, or to pacify Him with disagreeable odors. Instead, they are those who seek Him spiritually and from the heart, who bring true repentance.