Hosea 7:1-10

The Moral Corruption of Israel

v. 1. When I would have healed Israel, when the Lord attempted to remove their corruption, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, it became known openly, and the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, so that intercourse became impossible because no man could trust the other; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without, so that no traveler was sure of his life.

v. 2. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness, that it is known and recorded in the book of God's remembrances; now their own doings have beset them about, like mountains hedging them in on every hand; they are before My face, making it impossible to ignore them.

v. 3. They, the criminals of every type, make the king glad with their wickedness and the princes with their lies, a fact which shows that the highest ranks of the people were infested with the corruption.

v. 4. They are all adulterers, the spiritual and moral condition of the entire people being the very lowest, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising, that is, from heating the oven further, after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. The adulterous and idolatrous lust of the people was inflamed to such an extent that it was like a baker's oven which was already at such an extreme heat that he could omit adding more fuel while the fermentation of his bread was finished.

v. 5. In the day of our king, his birthday or the day of his inauguration, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine, or, "the princes became ill with the heat of the wine"; he stretched out his hand with scorners, accepting their company with a ready spirit, making them his boon companions, so that everything which men hold sacred was dragged in the dust.

v. 6. For they have made ready their heart like an oven whiles they lie in wait, that is, as men bring fuel for an oven, so they have brought their hearts into their cunning; their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. The baker is the ringleader, who inspires passion, who starts the conspiracy; the night provides a time of rest, so that the passion of idolatry, which burns throughout, may break forth with new strength and fierceness after the interval. When the evil thoughts of their hearts have fully matured, when they find time and opportunity for the execution of their plans, then they carry them out with eagerness.

v. 7. They are all hot as an oven, aflame with the various passions to which they have yielded themselves, and have devoured their judges, their magistrates; all their kings are fallen, the references probably being to the time when the last kings of Israel, Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah, followed one another in quick succession. There is none among them that calleth unto Me; for even the great calamities in which they found themselves did not cause them to repent.

v. 8. Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people, by entering into friendships with heathen nations, adopting their ways and serving their idols. Ephraim is a cake not turned, like a pancake burned on the lower side, while the upper side is not yet done. The entire cake is then not fit for eating.

v. 9. Strangers have devoured his strength, partly on account of the wars waged against Israel, partly as a consequence of the heathen ways which had been adopted in the northern kingdom, and he knoweth it not, he was not even aware of his unfortunate condition; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, signs of the approaching national dissolution; yet he knoweth not, being blind to all evidences of the inevitable end.

v. 10. And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face, Cf Hosea 5:5, and they do not return to the Lord, their God, nor seek Him for all this. The situation was like that of which also other prophets complain when they state that the people have become hardened to the chastising hand of the Lord. Cf Isaiah 9:13; Jeremiah 5:3.