Hosea 5:11-12

Hosea 5:11-12. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment He is delivered over to oppressors by God’s just judgment. Such were Pul and Tiglath-pileser, kings of Assyria. Archbishop Newcome distinguishes between these phrases thus: He is oppressed with a heavy weight of calamity; he is crushed, or broken in his judicial contest with God; because he willingly walked after the commandment Because he willingly submitted to, or complied with Jeroboam’s command, requiring his subjects to worship the calves which he had placed at Dan and Beth-el, and to conform to all his idolatrous institutions, in opposition to the law of God. Of this kind were the statutes of Omri, mentioned Micah 6:16. The reading of the LXX. here is different, namely, Κατεπατησε το κριμα , οτι ηρξατο πορευεσθαι οπισω των ματαιων , He trode judgment under foot, because he began to walk after vain things; that is, after idols. They seem either to have read שׁוא , shave, (vanity,) for צו , tzave, (commandment,) or else to have supposed the latter word to be put for the former, there being frequent instances in the Hebrew text of letters being changed, one for another, which have nearly the same sound: see the Arabic, Syriac, Chaldaic, Houbigant and others, in Poole’s Synopsis, who read שׁוא , vanity. Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth My judgment shall consume both Israel and Judah as a moth fretteth a garment, or as rottenness consumes the flesh, from small and unperceived beginnings, working slow, but certain and complete destruction.