John Calvin Commentary Hosea 6:2

"After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him." — Hosea 6:2 (ASV)

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—