John Calvin Commentary Hosea 6:4

"O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goeth early away." — Hosea 6:4 (ASV)

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.