Hosea 13:14-16

The humiliations wrought by the sins of Israel.

The prophet representation implies that they were dead—nationally, politically, and spiritually dead. They were like dead men; and not only so, they were like men dead and gone and buried out of sight—so dreary and desperate was their condition.

I. THE DESPERATE STATE OF SINNERS . They are spiritually dead—dead through trespasses and sins. Even the people of God may by reason of their sins bring upon themselves such calamities, and may sink so low, as to be like men without life and lying in the grave. It was so with Israel at the period in question. They had come under the dominion of death, and had become subject to the power of the under world. Their condition is similarly described by Ezekiel in his thirty-seventh chapter: "These bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts."

II. THE DELIVERANCE PROMISED . The deplorable state of a sinful people dead and buried under calamities is no proof helplessness when God undertakes their deliverance and presents no impossibility to the power of his omnipotence.

1. Israel in captivity were politically dead, the place of banishment was their grave. This is the condition of persons in exile, for in a civil sense they are spoken of as dead. Deliverance from captivity is here promised to that people primarily and partially from the country of Assyria, but fully and finally from the lands of their long dispersion and political death.

2. But Israel in all their remarkable history were a representative people; and so their restoration from a state so hopeless and helpless that to the eye of sense it seemed death, may typify the renewal of life in souls spiritually dead by the regenerating power of God, and further the resurrection of bodies long dead and moldered in the grave. The Septuagint expresses the sense of the original with perfect plainness by substituting "victory" for "plagues," and "sting" for "destruction." Paul, in his quotation of the passage, employs the Septuagint; and whether he employs the words allusively, or by way of accommodation, the better to express his sense of the mighty power of God, or as an exact citation, he celebrates the greatest of all deliverances, which shall be consummated in that day when the destroyer of the nations shall be himself destroyed, and when the universal conqueror shall himself be conquered, his sting being wrested from him and his power to hurt annihilated.

3. The deliverance thus effected by him who has the right to redeem, as having become our Kinsman, and who, having paid the ransom, possesses the privilege to redeem, both by price and by power, is extolled not only as a victory, but a triumph; while language of exultation is addressed to the ghastly tyrant now fallen and for ever prostrate.

4. When we revert to the immediate application of the words, we find the substance of the promise to Israel to be that, notwithstanding Ephraim's unwisdom in rebelling against and delaying to return to God, and notwithstanding his long impenitence and false security, God's faithfulness shall stand fast, and the truth pledged to his people shall not be disannulled What comfort for all humble penitents! However hopeless and helpless our condition, and however desperate our state, we have no reason to despair. However gracious the promises of God, and however mighty the power required for their accomplishment, we may rest assured that not one jot or tittle shall fail through fickleness or fall to the ground through lack of power, for he has solemnly said, "Repentance is hid from mine eyes." He will not repent of mercy to his friends, nor relent in his wrath to their enemies.

III. THE DIGNITY AND DOWNFALL OF EPHRAIM . Promise and threatening frequently present themselves side by side in the Word of revelation, and sometimes alternate. The fulfillment of the one is a guarantee for the fulfillment of the other; the accomplishment of the one warrants us to expect the accomplishment of the other.

1. Ephraim's fruitfulness had been the subject of promise, and the very name involved a prophecy. That promise had been realized in Ephraim's great superiority over the other tribes in numbers, in power, and in wealth. The fruitfulness of the earth and the fruitfulness of the womb had been his; he had been blessed with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. Like his father Joseph, he had been a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall.

2. But as the promise had been so exactly fulfilled, so must the threatening. And notwithstanding the prosperity of this highly favored people, the day of adversity was at hand. The destructive elements that were commissioned to bring about the downfall of Ephraim are figuratively described; but the figures employed set forth very graphically the violence of the enemy who was approaching, the Power by whom he was sent, the quarter from which he came, the ruin he would accomplish, and the robbery he would effect. The figures are so obvious and applicable that they only need to be indicated. The east wind is the fierce Assyrian conqueror. He comes not by chance, but is commissioned of the Lord; he comes from an eastern land, but more particularly with the vehemence and violence of a wind from the wilderness, such as that great wind from the wilderness that demolished the dwelling where Job's children were feasting; he would dry up and destroy all that lay in his way. The spring would become dry, and thus the streams soon cease to flow; the fountain would be dried up, and so the waters must fail. But to ruin he would add robbery, plundering the treasures of precious metals, costly garments, precious fruits—everything that the covetous, or avaricious, or voluptuous, or lascivious could desire.

IV. THE DESOLATION OF THE CAPITAL . Not only would the country be ravaged and laid waste, but the capital would be desolated. The citizens would be ruthlessly slain; the present population would be swept away, and the hope of posterity cut off.

1. Consider the cause of all these calamities. Why did all this desolation come upon Ephraim and their beautiful city of Samaria? The answer is plain as it is positive, and is given by the prophet in the closing verse: "Because she hath rebelled against her God." The connection may be traced as follows: "Though Ephraim be high and mightily exalted above his brethren, yet, since he has not exalted my Name who exalted him, nor made my benefits and my mercies motives to duty and obedience, but has fought against me with my own favors, and abused my blessings to my dishonor, therefore I will bring the Assyrian upon him, who, like an east wind, shall blast him, utterly dash all his hopes, spoil his treasures, and carry him into captivity."

2. The fate of Samaria, as recorded here and in Micah 1:6 , has been fully realized. Near the middle of Palestine, and deriving its name from Shomer. the owner of the site on which the city was built, and not from Omri, the king who built it, B.C. 925, it continued to be the capital of the ten tribes for two centuries till their carrying away by Shalmaneser, B.C. 720, during all which period it was the scat of idolatry. The site of this celebrated capital was one of rare attractiveness; it combined strength, beauty, and fertility. It is "delightful,' says Thomson, "by universal consent. It is a very large, isolated hill, rising by successive terraces at least six hundred feet above the valleys that surround it. In shape it is oval, and the smaller and lower end unites it to the neighboring mountain on the east." Rebuilt by Herod, it received from him its later name of Sebastia, now Sebusteyeh , in honor of Augustus. "During the twenty-five centuries which have passed since the Captivity, its fortunes have been very various; often destroyed, again rebuilt, growing smaller by degrees, though not beautifully less, until it finally subsided into the insignificant village which now clings to the name and the site." Its site and sin are similarly described by Stanley: "On that beautiful eminence, looking far over the plain of Sharon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and over its own fertile vale to the east, the kings of Israel reigned in a luxury which, for the very reason of its being like that of more Eastern sovereigns, was sure not to be permanent in a race destined for higher purposes."

3. The ruinous nature of sin . Of the ancient capital of Ephraim, long "the nursery of idolatry and rebellion against God," not even a wreck remains, nor a ruin to remind one of its ancient glory. See what ruin sin has wrought! "All the evil in the world may be seen in sin. Sin dries up all our springs, stops our fountains, spoils our treasures, and robs us of all our pleasant things—our pleasant land, our pleasant food, our pleasant raiment, our pleasant houses, pleasant children … and therefore, when anything goes amiss with us, we should search for the sin that has done us mischief; find out the Achan that has caused the trouble; find out the Jonah that has raised the storm; do justice on the one, and drown the other, and we shall have peace."

HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN