Hosea 5:5

"And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face; therefore Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in their iniquity; Judah also shall stumble with them."

"The pride of Israel ..." Homer Hailey cited two permissible interpretations of the meaning of this "pride." In one sense, God Himself is the "pride of Israel" (Amos 8:7); and if this is the meaning, it says that "God Himself shall testify against Israel." The other view understands "the pride" as the arrogance of the nation itself which rises up before God as a witness against them.[12] We prefer the latter view; for the inordinate pride of Ephraim was continually visible throughout the Old Testament. They jealously opposed Gideon, were insolent to Jephthah, made an Ephraimite concubine's son king over Israel, presumptuously called their bastard nation "Israel," the true name of the nation they had rebelled against, upheld for seven years the house of Saul against David, even though they knew it was against God's will, joined Absalom in the rebellion against David, and in the final rebellion they supported Jeroboam of Ephraim against Rehoboam of the house of David. They were also conspicuous in their setting up of the bull-gods at Dan and Bethel in opposition to the worship of the true God in Jerusalem.

"Therefore Israel and Ephraim shall stumble ..." Such haughty pride and arrogance may be tolerated by the God of heaven for a season; but at last, eternal justice demands that it shall be punished.

"Judah also shall stumble with them ..." As Harper noted, "These words are suspected as a gloss by some without sufficient reason."[13] The whole house of Israel, including Judah, is never very far from the minds of any of God's prophets; and it was most appropriate that the ultimate apostasy of Judah should have been mentioned here as a warning that a similar fate awaited them. As a matter of history, the Southern Israel continued only about a century before the same apostasy and carrying away into captivity befell them also, with this difference, that a remnant of Judah returned.

The type of pride and arrogance exhibited particularly by Ephraim has by no means perished from the earth. Butler cited some examples of it in these words:

"The Russian communist Zinonieff boasted: "We shall grapple with the Lord God; and, in due time, we shall vanquish him from the highest heaven; and where he seeks refuge, we shall subdue him forever." What arrogance, what insolence! American theologians, however, have gone him one better! They have declared that God is dead and held `requiem chorales' in honor of his death!"[14]

If any person wishes to know what the end result of such pride and arrogance will be, let him consult the pages of Hosea's prophecy, or any one of a hundred other declarations of the Word of God. For the northern Israel, it meant a crushing judgment that removed them for all times from the stage of world history. May the arrogance and conceit of men be tempered and subdued by such knowledge.