Hosea 9:7

Hosea 9:7. The days of visitation are come The days of punishment, or retribution, are at hand. This resembles the well-known line of Virgil:

Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus Dardaniæ. ÆN. lib. 2. 50:324.

The fatal day, th’ appointed hour is come, The time of Troy’s irrevocable doom.

Israel shall know it The Hebrew is only, Israel shall know, namely, that I have spoken the truth; that is, in denouncing misery and calamity against them, as the Chaldee supplies the ellipsis. God’s judgments upon the ten tribes shall be so evident, that the most incredulous shall not be able to deny it. Others interpret this clause in connection with the following words, thus: Israel shall know that the prophet was foolish, that the man of the spirit was mad, namely, who encouraged the Israelites to continue in their sins, by promising them peace and prosperity notwithstanding their corrupt manners. Bishop Horsley’s translation of the passage is peculiarly spirited and sublime: The days of visitation are come! The days of retribution are come! Israel shall know it. Stupid is the prophet! The man of the spirit is gone mad! “Stupid,” he remarks, “if he himself discerneth not the signs of the times. Gone mad, if, aware of the impending judgment, he flatters the people with delusive hopes; and by that conduct makes himself an instrument in bringing on that public ruin, in which he himself must be involved.” For the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred Namely, which thou deservest. Or probably the sense is, as Bishop Horsley’s version gives it, In proportion to the greatness of thine iniquity, great also is the vengeance.