Hosea 6:3

Hosea 6:3 . Then shall we know, if we follow on, &c. Hebrew, ונדעה נדדפה לדעת , And we shall know, we shall follow on to know the Lord. Then, when we have returned unto the Lord, Hosea 6:1, in sincerity and truth; when he hath torn and healed us, hath smitten and bound us up, hath convinced us of and humbled us for our sins, and converted us to himself, and created us anew; when he hath revived us, raised us up, and made us live; then shall we experimentally know the Lord, as merciful to our unrighteousness, Jeremiah 31:34; we shall taste and see that he is good; we shall not only be raised out of deep afflictions, wherein we lay as in a state of death, but we shall live in his sight, a life of union and communion with him, a life of faith, love, and obedience; we shall know Him whom to know is life eternal. And we shall prosecute that knowledge; we shall follow on to know him, not content with any measures of the knowledge of him already attained. We shall proceed therein, and make progress, as the morning light doth to the perfect day. For, his going forth to visit, deliver, and comfort his people, to manifest himself to them, to refresh and save them; or, his going forth before his people, in his gracious, faithful, holy, just, and wise providence, for their benefit and comfort, is prepared as the morning As sure, beautiful, grateful, reviving, and clear, with a continually increasing light, which proclaims his own approach and progress. And he shall come unto us as the rain unto the earth Which refreshes it, renders it fruitful, beautifies it, and gives it a new and smiling face. As the latter and former rain Or, as the words should rather be rendered, the harvest rain, and the rain of seed-time: see notes on Deuteronomy 11:14, and Proverbs 16:15. For, as Bishop Horsley justly observes, the Hebrew words here used have nothing of latter or former implied in their meaning. And these expressions convey a notion just the reverse of the truth to the English reader. For what our translation here terms the latter rain, מלקושׁ , is literally, as the bishop terms it, the crop rain, which fell just before the season of the harvest, to plump the grain before it was severed: that is, it fell in what we term the spring, and consider as the former part of the year; for the harvest in Judea began about the middle of our March, according to the old style. The other, יורה , which we term the former rain, and which is literally the springing rain, or the rain which makes to spring, fell upon the seed newly sown, and caused the green blade to shoot up out of the ground: that is, it fell about the end, or middle, of our October, which we consider as the latter end of the year. These rains, of seed-time and harvest, are the υετος πρωιμος και οψιμος , the early and latter rain, of St. James 5:7. But the apostle’s epithets have reference to the order of the husbandman’s expectations, not to the civil division of the year.