John Gill Commentary Hosea 8

[Set] the trumpet to your mouth; or, "the trumpet to the roof of your mouth"^F20; a concise expression denoting haste, and the vehemence of the passions speaking; they are either the words of the Lord to the prophet, as the Targum, "O prophet, cry with your throat as with a trumpet, saying;" Aben Ezra takes them to be the words of the Lord to the prophet, and the sense agrees with (Isaiah 58:1). The prophet is here considered as a watchman, and is called upon to blow his trumpet; either to call the people together, "as an eagle to the house of the Lord"^F21, as the next clause may be connected with this; that is, to come as swiftly to the house of the Lord, and hear what he had to say to them, and to supplicate the Lord for mercy in a time of distress:

or to give the people notice of the approach of the enemy, and tell them that [he shall come] as an eagle against the house of the Lord; "flying as an eagle over"^F23 or "against the house of the Lord": or they are the words of the Lord, or of the prophet, to the enemy, to blow his trumpet, and sound the alarm of war, and call his army together, and bid them fly like an eagle, with that swiftness and fierceness as that creature does to its prey, against the house of the Lord; meaning not the temple at Jerusalem, but the nation of Israel, formerly called the house and family of God, and still pretended to be so.

There may be some allusion to Bethel, which signifies the house of God, where they practised their idolatry. This is to be understood, not of Nebuchadnezzar, sometimes compared to an eagle, (Ezekiel 17:3); for not the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem is here meant; nor of the Romans, as Lyra seems to understand it, the eagle being the ensign of the Romans; but of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, compared to this creature for his swiftness in coming, his strength, fierceness, and cruelty; this creature being swift in flight, and a bird of prey.

So the Targum interprets it of a king and his army, "behold, as an eagle flieth, so shall a king with his army come up and encamp against the house of the sanctuary of the Lord." Some reference seems to be had to (Deuteronomy 28:49);

because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law; the law that was given to Israel by Moses at the appointment of God, to which they assented, and promised to observe: and so it had the form of a covenant to them: the bounds of this law and covenant they transgressed, and dealt perfidiously with, and prevaricated in, and wilfully broke all its commands, by their idolatry, murder, adultery, theft, and other sins.

FOOTNOTES:

• F20: (rpwv Kkx la) "adhibita palato tuo buccina", Junius & Tremellius; "adhibe palato buccinam", De Dieu; "ad palatum tuum buccinam", Schmidt.
• F21: (hwhy tyb le rvnk) "similis aquilae in domum Jehovae", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
• F23: "Super domum Domini", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, Schmidt; "contra domum Jehovae", Liveleus.

Israel shall cry unto me, my God, we know thee .
In their distress they shall cry to the Lord to help them, and have mercy on them, as they used to do when in trouble, (Isaiah 26:16) ; when the eagle has come upon them, and just ready to devour them; when Samaria is besieged with the Assyrian army, their king was taken prisoner, and they just ready to fall into the hands of the enemy, then they shall cry to God, though in a hypocritical manner; own him to be the true God, and claim their interest in him, and pretend knowledge of and acquaintance with him; though they have not served or worshipped him but idols for hundreds of years; like others who profess to know God, but in works deny him, (Titus 1:16) . Israel is the last word in the verse, and occasions different versions: "they shall cry unto me"; these transgressors of the covenant and the law, these hypocrites, shall pray to God in trouble, saying, "my God, we Israel", or Israelites, "know thee"; or, "we know thee who are Israel" ^F24;

and to this sense is the Targum,``in every time that distress comes upon them, they pray before me, and say, now we know that we have no God besides thee; redeem us, for we are your people Israel;'' why may they not be rendered thus, "they shall cry unto me; my God, we know thee, Israel" shall say? Castalio renders them to this sense, "my God", say they; but "we know thee, Israel"; we, the three Persons in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit, we know your hypocrisy and wickedness, that it is only outwardly and hypocritically, and not sincerely, that you cry unto and call upon God.

FOOTNOTES:

• F24: (larvy Kwnedy yhla wqezy yl) "ad me clamant, Deus mi, novimus te nos Israel", De Dieu; "clamabunt ad me, O Deus meus, nos Israelitae cognoscimus te", Tigurine version, so Tarnovius; "mihi vocant, Deus mi, cognovimus, [vel] agnoscimus te Israel", vel "nos lsrael, seu Israelitae", Schmidt.

Israel has cast off [the thing that is] good
Or "rejected [him that is] good" ^F25; that is, God, as Kimchi observes; for there is none good but him, (Matthew 19:17); he is the "summum bonum", "the chiefest good" to men, and is essentially, originally, and infinitely good in himself, and the fountain of all goodness to his creatures; and yet Israel has rejected him with detestation and contempt, as the word ^F26 signifies, though they pretended to know him, which shows their hypocrisy; and therefore it is no wonder that their prayers were rejected by him: or they rejected the good word of God, the law, or doctrine contained in it, and the good worship, service, and fear of God, and indeed everything that was good, just, and right. Cocceius renders it, "the good One", or he that is God, the good God, "has cast off Israel". This reading of the words Drusius also mentions, and seems to like best, and as agreeing with what follows; so Rivet; but the position of the words in the Hebrew text, and the accents, do not favour it;

the enemy shall pursue him;
who is before compared to an eagle, which flies swiftly, and pursues its prey with eagerness and fierceness: Shalmaneser is meant, who should invade the land, come up to Samaria, besiege and take it; nothing should stop him, nor should Israel escape from him, since they had cast off the Lord, and everything that was good.

The Targum is,

``the house of Israel have erred from my worship, for the sake of which I brought good things upon them; henceforward the enemy shall pursue them.''

FOOTNOTES:

• F25: (bwj larvy xnz) "deseruit Israel bonum, i. e. Deum", Vatablus, Munster, Tarnovius, Zanchius.
• F26: "Abominatus est", Calvin, Zanchius.

They have set up kings, but not by me
Not by his authority, order, and command; not by asking advice of him, or his leave, but of themselves, and of their own accord: this refers to the case of Jeroboam their first king, after their separation from the house of David, and from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; for though his becoming king of Israel was according to the secret will of God, and by his overruling providence; yet it was done without his express orders, and without asking counsel of him, or his consent, and of their own heads; and many of his successors were conspirators, and set up themselves with the consent of the people, to the dethroning of others, and upon the slaughter of them, as Shallum, Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea: the people of Israel had no right to choose a king for themselves; the right was alone in the Lord; it was he that chose, appointed, and constituted their kings, (Deuteronomy 17:15) ; thus Saul, David, and Solomon, were chose and appointed by him, (1 Samuel 10:24) (2 Samuel 5:2) (1 Chronicles 28:5) ; it was not the person of Jeroboam chosen God disliked; but their taking it upon them to choose and set him up without his leave.

they have made princes, and knew it not ;
that is, they set up subordinate governors, judges, civil magistrates, elders of the people, over them, without his approbation, and such as were very disagreeable to him; otherwise he knew what was done by them, as being the omniscient God, but he did not approve of what they did. Some observe, that (v) , in the word used, is put for (o) , and should be rendered, "they have removed", so Jarchi and Japhet; that is, they have set up kings, and they have removed them; they have took it upon them to make and pose kings at pleasure, without seeking the Lord about it, when this is his prerogative, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, (Daniel 2:21) ; which sense makes a strong and beautiful antithesis.

of their silver and their gold have they made their idols ;
some of their idols were made of silver, others of gold; particularly the calves at Dan and Bethel, which are called the golden calves, because made of gold; as was the calf in the wilderness, (1 Kings 12:28) ; see (Isaiah 46:6) (Hosea 2:8) ;

that they may be cut off :
which denotes not the end, intentions, and design of making these idols of silver and gold, but the event thereof; namely, either the destruction of the idols themselves, which, for the sake of the silver and gold they were made of; were cut in pieces by a foreign enemy; or the gold and silver were cut off from the people, their riches and wealth were wasted by such means; or rather the people were cut off, everyone of them, because of their worship of them, or this would be the case.

Your calf, O Samaria, has cast [you] off
Or, is the cause of your being cast off by the Lord, and of being cast out of your own land, and carried captive into another; the past tense is used for the future, as is common in prophetic writings, to denote the certainty of the thing: or "your calf has left you" ^F1 ; in the lurch; it cannot help you; it is gone off, and forsaken you; it has "removed" itself from you, according to the sense of the word in (Lamentations 3:17) ; as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe; or is removed far from you, being carried captive itself into Assyria; for, when the king of Assyria took Samaria, he seized on the golden calf for the sake of the gold, and took it away; see (Hosea 10:5Hosea 10:6) (Isaiah 10:11) ;

or "he has removed your calf" ^F2 ; that is, the enemy, taking it away when he took the city; or God has rejected it with the utmost contempt and abhorrence: the calf is here, and in the following verse, called the calf of Samaria, because this was the metropolis of the ten tribes, in which the calf was worshipped, and because it was worshipped by the Samaritans; and it may be, when Samaria became the chief city, the calf at Bethel might be removed thither, or another set up in that city:

mine anger is kindled against them :
the calves at Dan and Bethel, the singular before being put for the plural; or against the calf of Samaria, and Samaria itself; or the inhabitants of it, because of the worship of the calf, which was highly provoking to God, it being a robbing him of his glory, and giving it to graven images:

how long [will it be] before they attain to innocency ?^F3
or "purity" ^F3 ; of worship, life, and conversation: the words may be rendered thus, "how long?" ^F4 for there is a large stop there; and this may be a question of the prophet's, asking how long the wrath of God would burn against the people, what would be the duration of it, and when it would end? to which an answer is returned, as the words may be translated, "they cannot bear purity" ^F5 ; of doctrine, of worship of heart, and life; when they can, mine anger will cease burning: or, as the Targum,

``as long as they cannot purify themselves,'' or be purified; so long as they continue in their sins, in their superstition and idolatry, and other impieties, and are not purged from them.

FOOTNOTES:

• F1: (Klge xnz) "dereliquit vitulus te", Lutherus; "descruit te vitulus tuus", Schmidt.
• F2: "Elongavit sc. hostis, vitalum tuum", Schindler.
• F3: (Nwyqn) "munditiem", Calvin, Rivet, Schmidt.
• F4: (ytm de) "quousque?" Zanchius, Pareus, Cocceius.
• F5: (Nwyqn wlkwy al) "non possunt innocentiam praestare", Cocceius; "quamdiu non poterunt animum adjungere ad innocentam", Zanchius; "usquedum non poterunt ferre innocentiam", Pareus.