Hosea 10:6-8

Hosea 10:6-8. It The golden calf; shall be carried into Assyria It was the custom of the eastern people, and also of the Romans, to carry away the gods of the conquered countries. For a present to King Jareb See note on Hosea 5:13. The king of Assyria is meant, whose dependant and tributary the king of Israel now was. Ephraim shall receive shame They shall be ashamed to find that the idol in which they trusted could not defend them or itself from being disgraced and taken away. Bishop Horsley’s version here is, Ephraim shall be overtaken in sound sleep, namely, in a dream of security, when nothing will be less in his thoughts than danger; and Israel shall be disgraced by his own politics; that is, the politics of the treaties of alliance, mentioned Hosea 10:4. An impolitic alliance with the king of Egypt was the immediate occasion of Shalmaneser’s rupture with Hoshea, which ended in the captivity of the ten tribes. As for Samaria, her king is cut off Or, more literally, according to the Hebrew, Samaria is cut off, (or destroyed,) with her king; or, by a small alteration of the pointing, Her king is as the foam upon the water Namely, as a bubble, which no sooner swells than it bursts: as if he had said, Many of her kings have rapidly passed away by assassination: and Hoshea shall soon be cut off by the king of Assyria. The high places also The temples and altars dedicated to idolatrous worship, and usually placed on hills and mountains; of Aven Or, Beth-aven; the sin of Israel That is, the temples and altars, in and by which Israel has so greatly sinned, shall be destroyed, shall be entirely demolished; so that the thorn and the thistle shall come upon their altars That is, their altar shall become such heaps of ruins, and the places around them be made so desolate, that thorns and thistles shall overrun and cover them. And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us These words express the confusion and despair to which the Israelites should be reduced by the destruction of their country. Our Lord has made use of the same words, to denote the extremity of the Jews in the last siege of Jerusalem; and St. John, in the Revelation, to set forth the terror of the wicked in the day of judgment. They express also the great consternation of the wicked when any of God’s singular judgments overtake them, whose guilt prompts them to endeavour to hide themselves, and they even run into the darkest caves and holes of rocks to secure themselves.