John Calvin Commentary Hosea 6

In the last chapter, the Prophet said that the Israelites, after having been subdued by chastisements and judgments, would again turn back from following error to seek God. But since terror drives people away from approaching God, he now adds that the measure of afflictions would not be such as to discourage their minds and produce despair. Instead, it would inspire them with the assurance that God would be propitious to them. To illustrate this more effectively, he introduces them as saying, Come, let us go to the Lord: and this way of speaking is very emphatic.

But we must understand that the reason given here, why the Israelites could return safely and with sure confidence to God, is that they would acknowledge it as His role to heal after He has smitten, and to bring a remedy for the wounds He has inflicted. The Prophet means by these words that God does not punish people in such a way as to pour out His wrath upon them for their destruction. On the contrary, He intends to promote their salvation when He is severe in punishing their sins.

We must then remember, as we have observed before, that the beginning of repentance is a sense of God’s mercy. That is, when people are persuaded that God is ready to give pardon, they then begin to gather courage to repent; otherwise, perversity will continually increase in them. However much their sin may frighten them, they will still never return to the Lord. For this purpose, I have elsewhere quoted that remarkable passage from Psalm 130:4: With thee is mercy, that thou mayest be feared; for people cannot obey God with a true and sincere heart unless a taste of His goodness allures them, and they can be certain that they will not return to Him in vain, but that He will be ready, as we have said, to pardon them. This is the meaning of the words when he says, Come, and let us turn to the Lord; for he has torn and he will heal us; (Hosea 6:1) that is, God has not inflicted deadly wounds on us, but He has smitten so that He might heal.

At the same time, something more is expressed in the Prophet’s words: God never deals so rigidly with people, but He always leaves room for His grace. For by the word torn, the Prophet alludes to that heavy judgment of which he had spoken before in the person of God. The Lord then portrayed Himself as being like a cruel wild beast: I will be as a lion, I will devour, I will tear, and no one shall take away the prey which I have once seized. God then wished to show that His vengeance against the Israelites would be dreadful.

Now, though God might deal very sharply with them, they were not yet to despair of pardon. Therefore, however much we may find God to be like a lion or a bear for a time, yet, as His essential role is to heal after He has torn and to bind the wounds He has inflicted, there is no reason for us to shun His presence. We see that the design of the Prophet’s words was to show that no chastisement is so severe that it should break our spirits; instead, by entertaining hope, we ought to stir ourselves to repentance. This is the main point of the passage.

Furthermore, we should observe that the faithful here, first, encourage themselves, so that they may afterward lead others with them; for that is what the words mean. He does not say, “Go, return to Jehovah;” but, Come, let us return unto Jehovah. We then see that each one begins with himself, and then they mutually exhort one another. This is what we ought to do: when anyone sends his fellow believers to God without going himself, he neglects his own spiritual welfare, since he ought rather to show the way. Let everyone, then, learn to motivate himself, and then let him stretch out his hand to others, so that they may follow. We are also reminded that we ought to take care of our fellow believers, for it would be a shame for anyone to be content with his own salvation and thus neglect them. It is then necessary to combine these two things: to stir ourselves to repentance, and then to try to lead others with us.

This passage the Hebrew writers distort, for they think that they are still to be redeemed by the coming of the Messiah. They imagine that this will be the third day: for God once drew them out of Egypt, which was their first life; then, secondly, he restored them to life when he brought them back from the Babylonian captivity. And when God will, by the hand of the Messiah, gather them from their dispersion, this, they say, will be the third resurrection.

But these are frivolous notions.

However, this passage is usually referred to Christ, as declaring that God would, after two days, and on the third, raise up his Church. For Christ, we know, did not rise privately for himself, but for his members, since he is the firstfruits of those who will rise.

This interpretation does not seem unsuitable, then: that the Prophet here encourages the faithful to entertain hope of salvation, because God would raise up his only-begotten Son, whose resurrection would be the common life of the whole Church.

Yet this interpretation seems to me rather too refined. We must always remember this: we should not soar into abstract speculations. Subtle speculations please at first sight, but afterwards vanish. Let everyone, then, who desires to become proficient in the Scriptures always keep to this rule—to gather from the Prophets and apostles only what is solid.

Let us now see what the Prophet meant. He here adds, I do not doubt, a second source of consolation: that is, if God should not immediately revive his people, delay should not cause weariness, as it usually does. For we see that when God allows us to languish for a long time, our spirits fail; and those who at first seem cheerful and courageous enough, eventually become faint.

Since, then, patience is a rare virtue, Hosea here exhorts us to bear delay patiently when the Lord does not immediately revive us.

Thus, then, the Israelites said, After two days will God revive us; on the third day he will raise us up to life.

What did they understand by "two days"? Their long affliction; as if they said, “Though the Lord may not deliver us from our miseries on the first day, but defers our redemption longer, our hope should not yet fail; for God can raise up dead bodies from their graves just as easily as he can restore life in a moment.” When Daniel intended to show that the affliction of the people would be long, he says,

After a time, times, and half a time (Daniel 7:25).

That way of speaking is different, but its meaning is the same. He says, "after a time," that is, after a year, which would be tolerable; but it follows, "and times," that is, many years. God later shortens that period and brings redemption at a time when least expected.

Hosea mentions here two years because God would not afflict his people for one day, but, as we have seen before, subdue them by degrees. For the perverseness of the people had so prevailed that they could not be healed quickly.

Just as when diseases have been taking root for a long time, they cannot be immediately cured, but require slow and various remedies; and if a physician were to attempt immediately to remove a disease that had taken full possession of a man, he certainly would not cure him but take away his life.

So also, when the Israelites, through their long obstinacy, had become nearly incurable, it was necessary to lead them to repentance by slow punishments.

Therefore, they said, After two days God will revive us. And thus they confirmed themselves in the hope of salvation, though it did not immediately appear. Though they remained in darkness for a long time, and the exile they had to endure was long, they still did not cease to hope: “Well, let the two days pass, and the Lord will revive us.”

We see that a consolation is here opposed to the temptations that take from us the hope of salvation, when God suspends his favor longer than our flesh desires.

Martha said to Christ, He is now putrid, it is the fourth day. She thought it absurd to remove the stone from the sepulcher, because by then the body of Lazarus was putrefied.

But Christ in this instance intended to show his own incredible power by restoring a putrefied body to life. So the faithful say here, The Lord will raise us up after two days: “Though exile seems to be like the sepulcher, where putrefaction awaits us, yet the Lord will, by his ineffable power, overcome whatever may seem to obstruct our restoration.”

We now perceive, I think, the simple and genuine meaning of this passage.

But at the same time, I do not deny that God has exhibited a remarkable and memorable instance of what is said here in his only-begotten Son.

So whenever delay causes weariness in us, and when God seems to have abandoned all care for us, let us flee to Christ. For, as it has been said, His resurrection is a mirror of our life;

for we see in that how God usually deals with his own people: the Father did not restore life to Christ as soon as he was taken down from the cross; he was deposited in the sepulcher, and he lay there until the third day.

When God, then, intends for us to languish for a time, let us know that we are thus represented in Christ our head, and from this let us gather reasons for confidence.

We have, then, in Christ an illustrious proof of this prophecy.

But first, let us hold onto what we have said: that the faithful here obtain hope for themselves, though God does not immediately extend his hand to them but defers his grace of redemption for a time.

Then he adds, We shall live in his sight, or before him. Here again the faithful strengthen themselves, for God would favor them with his paternal countenance after he had long turned his back on them: We shall live before his face.

For as long as God does not care for us, a sure destruction awaits us; but as soon as he turns his eyes to us, he inspires life by his look alone.

Then the faithful promise themselves this good: that God’s face will shine again after long darkness. From this also they gather the hope of life, and at the same time withdraw themselves from all those obstacles that obscure the light of life.

For while we run and wander here and there, we cannot lay hold of the life that God promises to us, as the charms of this world are so many veils that prevent our eyes from seeing the paternal face of God.

We must then remember that this sentence is added so that the faithful, when it pleases God to turn his back on them, may not doubt that he will again look on them.

Let us now go on—

In this verse the faithful pursue what we have previously considered, making the hope of salvation sure to themselves. Nor is it surprising that the Prophet dwells more fully on this subject, for we know how prone we are to entertain doubt. There is nothing more difficult, especially when God shows us signs of His wrath, than for us to be restored, so that we may be truly persuaded that He is our physician, when He seems to visit us for our sins.

We must then, in this case, earnestly strive, for it cannot be done without labor. Hence the faithful now say, We shall know, and we shall pursue to know Jehovah. They show then by these words that they do not distrust, but are confident that light will arise after darkness; for this is the meaning of the words: We shall then know, they say; that is, “Though horrible darkness is now on every side, yet the Lord will manifest His goodness to us, even though it may not immediately appear.” They therefore add, And we shall pursue after the knowledge of Jehovah. We now perceive the purport of the words.

Now this passage teaches us that when God hides His face, we act foolishly if we cherish our unbelief. For we ought, on the contrary, as I have already said, to contend with this destructive disease, since Satan seeks nothing else but to sink us in despair. This device of his, then, ought to be understood by us, as Paul reminds us (2 Corinthians 2:11), and the Holy Spirit supplies us here with weapons by which we may repel this temptation of Satan: “What?

You see that God is angry with you; nor is it of any use to you to attempt to come to Him, for every access is shut up.” This is what Satan suggests to us when we are aware of our sins. What is to be done?

The Prophet here propounds a remedy: We shall know. “Though now we are sunk in thick darkness, though not even a spark of light ever shines on us, yet we shall know (as Isaiah says, I will hope in the Lord, who hides His face from Jacob) that this is the true exercise of our faith: when we lift up our eyes to the light which seems to be extinguished, and when in the darkness of death we yet continue to promise ourselves life, as we are taught here. We shall then know; further, We shall pursue after the knowledge of Jehovah. Though God withdraws His face and, as it were designedly, doubles the darkness, and all knowledge of His grace seems, as it were, extinct, we shall yet pursue after this knowledge; that is, no obstacle shall keep us from striving, and our efforts will at last make their way to that grace which seems to be wholly excluded from us.”

Some give this rendering, We shall know, and shall pursue on to know Jehovah, and explain the passage thus: that the Israelites had derived no such benefit from the Law of Moses, but that they still expected the fuller doctrine which Christ brought at His coming. They then think that this is a prophecy respecting that doctrine, which is now set forth to us by the Gospel in its full brightness, because God has manifested Himself in His Son as in a living image.

But this is too refined an exposition, and it is enough for us to keep close to the Prophet’s design. He indeed introduces the godly speaking thus for this reason: because there was a need for great and strong effort, so that they might rise to the hope of salvation, for it was not to be the exile of one day, but of seventy years. When, therefore, such a heavy trial awaited the godly, the Prophet here wished to prepare them for the laborious warfare: We shall then know, and follow on to know Jehovah.

Then he says, As the morning shall come to us His going forth,—a most appropriate similitude, for here the faithful call to mind the continued succession of days and nights. It is no wonder that God bids us to hope for His grace, the sight of which is still hidden from us. For unless we had learned by long experience, who could hope for sudden light when the darkness of night prevails? Should we not think that the earth is wholly deprived of light? But since the dawn suddenly shines, puts an end to the darkness of night, and dispels it, what wonder is it that the Lord should shine forth beyond our expectation? His going forth then shall be like the morning.

He here calls a new manifestation the going forth of God, that is, when God shows that He regards His people with favor, when He shows that He is mindful of the covenant which He made with Abraham. For as long as the people were exiled from their country, God seemed not, as we have said, to look on them anymore; indeed, the judgment of the flesh only suggested this: that God was far distant from His people.

He then calls it the going forth of God when God shall show Himself propitious to the captives and shall wholly restore them; then the going forth of God shall come and shall be like the morning.

We now see then that he confirms them by the order of nature, as Paul does when he chides the unbelief of those to whom a future resurrection seemed incredible because it surpasses the thoughts of the flesh. “O fool!” he says, “do you not see that what you sow first decays and then germinates? God now sets before you in a decaying seed an emblem of the future resurrection.”

So also in this place, since light daily rises for us, and the morning shines after the darkness of night, what then will the Lord not effect by Himself, who works so powerfully by material things? When He will put forth His full power, what, do we think, will He do? Will He not much more surpass all the thoughts of our flesh? We now see then why this similitude was added.

He afterwards describes to us the effect of this manifestation, He shall come, he says, as the rain to us, as the late rain, a rain to the earth. This comparison shows that as soon as God will deign to look on His people, His countenance will be like the rain which irrigates the earth. When the earth is dry after long heat and long drought, it seems incapable of producing fruit, but rain restores to it its moisture and vigor. Thus then the Prophet, in the person of the faithful, here strengthens the hope of a full restoration. He shall come to us as the rain, as the late rain.

The Hebrews call the late rain מלקום, melakush, by which the corn was ripened. And it seems that the Prophet meant the vernal rain by the word גשם, geshem. But the sense is clearly this: that though the Israelites had become so dry that they no longer had any vigor, there would yet be no less virtue in God’s grace than in the rain which fructifies the earth when it seems barren. But when at the end he adds, a rain to the earth, I do not doubt that he meant seasonable rain, which is pleasant and acceptable to the earth, or which the earth really needs; for a violent shower cannot be called properly a rain to the earth, because it is destructive and hurtful.

Some interpret this passage to mean that God would not just once irrigate his people, but would continue this favor; as though he said, “He is deceived who thinks that the redemption, which I instruct you to hope for from me, will be momentary, for I will, by a continued progress, lead my people to a full fruition of salvation.” But this interpretation is entirely out of place.

The Prophet then, no doubt, introduces God here as speaking thus: “What shall I do to you? Because you cannot receive my favor, so great is your depravity.” The context indeed seems to be broken off in this way; but we must remember this principle: that whenever the Prophets make known the grace of God, they at the same time add an exception, lest hypocrites falsely apply to themselves what is offered to the faithful alone.

The Prophets, we know, never threatened ruin to the people without also adding some promise, lest the faithful should despair, which would certainly have happened unless some mitigation had been made known to them. Hence, the Prophets commonly do this—they moderate their threats and severity by adding a hope of God’s favor.

But at the same time, as hypocrites always draw to themselves what belongs only to the faithful, and thus heedlessly deride God, the Prophets add another exception, by which they indicate that God’s promise of being gracious and merciful to his people is not to be considered universal, and as belonging to all indiscriminately.

I will repeat this more fully: The Prophets were dealing with the whole people; they were dealing with the few faithful, for there was a small number of godly people among the Israelites as well as among the Jews.

Therefore, when the Prophets reproved the people, they addressed the whole body. But at the same time, as there was some remnant seed, they mixed in, as I have said, consolations—and mixed them in so that the elect of God might always rely on his mercy, and thus patiently submit to his rod, and continue in his fear, knowing that there is in him a sure salvation.

Hence, the promises that we see inserted by the Prophets among threats and rebukes should not be commonly applied to all, or indiscriminately to the people, but only, as we have said, to the faithful, who were then few in number. This then is the reason why the Prophets challenged the self-complacency of the wicked despisers of God when they added, “You should not hope for any salvation from the promise I set forth to God’s children; for God does not throw to dogs the bread which he has destined for his children alone.” In the same vein, we find another Prophet speaking:

To what end is the day of the Lord to you? It is a day of darkness, and not of light, a day of death, and not of life (Amos 5:18).

For as often as they heard of the covenant that God made with Abraham—that it would not be void—they boasted in this way: “We are now indeed severely treated, but in a little while God will rescue us from our evils; for he is our Father, he has not in vain adopted us, he has not in vain redeemed and chosen our race, we are his peculiar possession and heritage.”

Thus the presumptuous flatter themselves; and in this, they indeed seem to resemble the faithful. For the faithful also, though in the deepest abyss of death, yet behold the light of life; for by faith, as we have said, they penetrate beyond this world.

But at the same time, they approach God in real penitence, while the ungodly remain in their perverseness and vainly flatter themselves, thinking that whatever God promises belongs to them.

Let us now return to our Prophet. He had said, In their tribulation they will seek me: He had afterwards, in the words used by the people, explained how the faithful would turn to God, and what true repentance would bring with it. It now follows, What shall I do to you, Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Judah? That is, “What shall I do to all of you?” The people were now divided into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Judah had its own name; the ten tribes had, as has been said, the common name of Israel.

Then, after the Prophet gave hope of pardon to the children of God, he turns to the whole body of the people, which was corrupt, and says, “What shall I do now to you, both Jews and Israelites?” Now God, by these words, indicates that he had tried all remedies and found them useless. “What more then,” he says, “shall I do to you?

You are wholly incurable, you are inexcusable, and altogether beyond hope; for I have omitted no means by which I could promote your salvation. But I have lost all my labor; as I have accomplished nothing by punishments and chastisements, as my favor also has not been valued by you, what now remains, except that I must wholly cast you away?”

We now see how varied is the manner of speaking adopted by the Prophets, for they were dealing not with one class of men, but with the children of God and also with the wicked, who continued obstinately in their vices. Hence, they necessarily changed their language.

Similar is the complaint we read in Isaiah 1, except that there, only punishments are mentioned: Why should I strike you more? For I have until now accomplished nothing: from the sole of the foot to the top of the head there is no soundness; and yet you remain as you are.

In Isaiah 5, he speaks of God’s favors: What more could have been done for my vineyard than what I have done?

In these two places, the Prophet shows that the people were so lost that they could not be brought to a sound mind; for God had in various ways tried to heal them, and their diseases remained incurable.

Let us now return to the words of Hosea: What shall I do to you, Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Judah? “I indeed offer pardon to all, but you still continue obstinately in your sins; indeed, my favor is scorned by you. I do not therefore now contend with you, but declare to you that the door of salvation is closed.” Why? “Because I have until now, in various ways, tried in vain to heal you.”

He afterwards says that their goodness was like the morning dew: Your goodness, he says, is as the dew of the morning. Some take חסד, chesad, for the kindness that God had exercised towards both the Israelites and the Jews.

Then the meaning is, “Your kindness,” that is, the mercy which I have until now shown to you, is as the morning dew, as the cloud which passes away early in the morning; that is, “You immediately dry up my favor.”

And this does not seem unsuitable, for we see that the unbelieving by their wickedness absorb the mercy of God, so that it produces no good, just as when rain flows over a rock or a stone, while the stone within, on account of its hardness, remains dry. Just as the moisture of rain does not penetrate stones, so also the grace of God is spent in vain and without benefit on the unbelieving.

But the Prophet speaks rather of their goodness—that they made a show of pretended excellence, which vanished like the morning dew. For as soon as the sun rises, it draws the dew upwards, so that it appears no more; the clouds also pass away. The Prophet says that the Jews and the Israelites were like the morning clouds and the dew because there was in them no solid or inward goodness, but it was only of an evanescent kind; they had, as they say, only the appearance of goodness.

We now perceive the Prophet’s meaning: that God here complains that he was dealing with hypocrites. Faith, we know, is valued by him; there is nothing that pleases God more than sincerity of heart.

We know further that doctrine is spread in vain unless it is received in a serious manner. Then, as hypocrites transform themselves in various ways and make a display of some guises of goodness while they have nothing solid in them, God complains that he loses all his labor.

And he says at length that he will no longer spend labor in vain on hypocritical men, who have nothing but falsehood and dissimulation; and this is what he means when he suggests that he should do nothing more to the Israelites and the Jews.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as we do not, by due gratitude, respond to Your favors, and after having tasted of Your mercy, have willingly sought ruin for ourselves—O grant that we, being renewed by Your Spirit, may not only remain constant in the fear of Your name, but also advance more and more and be established; that, being thus armed with Your invincible power, we may strenuously fight against all the wiles and assaults of Satan and thus pursue our warfare to the end; and that, being thus sustained by Your mercy, we may ever aspire to that life which is hidden for us in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God shows here, by His prophet, that He was compelled by urgent necessity to deal harshly and roughly with the people. We know that nothing is more pleasing to God than to treat us kindly, for no father in the world cherishes his children as tenderly. But we, being perverse, do not allow Him to follow the inclination of His nature. He is therefore compelled to put on, as it were, a new character, and to rebuke us severely, according to the way He here says He had treated the Israelites; He says, I have cut them by my prophets, and killed them by the words of my mouth.

Some interpret the words differently, as though God had killed the prophets, by this meaning the impostors who corrupted the pure worship of God by their errors. But this view does not seem suitable to me in any way; and we know that it was a common way of speaking among the Hebrews to express the same thing in two ways. So the Prophet speaks here, I have cut or hewed them by my Prophets, I have killed them by the cords of my mouth. In the second clause, I do not doubt, He repeats what we have already briefly explained: namely, that God had cut or hewed them by His Prophets.

But we must see for what purpose God declares here that He had commanded His Prophets to treat the people roughly. We indeed know that hypocrites, however much they mock God in various ways, are yet sensitive and cannot bear any rebuke. Their sins are gross, except when they disguise themselves; but at the same time, when God begins to reprove them, they expostulate and say, “What does this mean?

God everywhere declares that He is kind and merciful, but He fulminates now against us; this does not seem consistent with His nature.” Thus, then, hypocrites would have God to be their flatterer. He now answers that He had been constrained, not only for a just cause but also by necessity, to kill them and to make His word by the Prophets like a hammer or an ax.

This is the reason, He says, why My Prophets have not endeavored to allure the people mildly and gently. For God kindly and sweetly draws or invites to Himself those whom He sees to be teachable; but when He sees such great perverseness in men that He cannot bend them by His goodness, He then begins, as we have said, to put on a new character.

We now then understand God’s design: so that hypocrites might not complain that they had been treated in a way inconsistent with God’s nature, the Prophet here answers in God’s name,

“You have forced Me to this severity, for there was need of a hard wedge, as they say, for a hard knot: I have therefore hewed you by my prophets, I have hewed you by the words of my mouth;

That is, I have used my word as an ax, for you were like knotty and tough wood. It was therefore necessary that my word should be to you like an ax.

And I have killed you by the words of my mouth. That is, my word has not been sweet food to you, as it is accustomed to be to meek men, but it has been like a two-edged sword.

It was therefore necessary to slay you, as you would not bear Me to be a Father to you.”

It then follows, Thy judgments are light that goes forth. Some understand “judgments” here to mean prosperity, as if God were here reproaching the Israelites that it was not His fault He did not win them over: “I have not neglected to treat you kindly and to defend you under My protection; but you are ungrateful.” But this is a strained exposition.

The greater part of interpreters explain the passage thus: “That thy judgments might be a light going forth.” But I do not see why we should change anything in the Prophet’s words.

God then simply intimates here that He had made known to the Israelites the rule of a religious and holy life, so that they could not pretend ignorance; for the Hebrews often understand “judgments” in the sense of rectitude.

I refer this to the instruction given them: Thy judgments then (that is, the way of living religiously) were like light. This means, “I have so warned you that you have sinned knowingly and willfully. Hence, your disobedience to Me must be imputed to your perverseness.

For when you were pliant, I certainly did not conceal from you what was right. For as the sun daily shines on the earth, so my teaching has been to you as the light, to show you the way of salvation; but it has been with no profit.”

We now then understand what the Prophet meant by these words.