Hosea 10: 1 – 15
Mountain Mansions
1 Israel empties his vine; He brings forth fruit for himself. According to the multitude of his fruit He has increased the altars; According to the bounty of his land they have embellished his sacred pillars. 2 Their heart is divided; Now they are held guilty. He will break down their altars; He will ruin their sacred pillars. 3 For now they say, “We have no king, because we did not fear the LORD. And as for a king, what would he do for us?” 4 They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant. Thus, judgment springs up like hemlock in the furrows of the field. 5 The inhabitants of Samaria fear because of the calf of Beth Aven. For its people mourn for it, and its priests shriek for it—Because its glory has departed from it. 6 The idol also shall be carried to Assyria as a present for King Jareb. Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel. 7 As for Samaria, her king is cut off like a twig on the water. 8 Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. The thorn and thistle shall grow on their altars; They shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!” 9 “O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah; There they stood. The battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. 10 When it is My desire, I will chasten them. Peoples shall be gathered against them when I bind them for their two transgressions. 11 Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh grain; But I harnessed her fair neck, I will make Ephraim pull a plow. Judah shall plow; Jacob shall break his clods.” 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you. 13 You have plowed wickedness; You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, because you trusted in your own way, in the multitude of your mighty men. 14 Therefore tumult shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be plundered as Shalman plundered Beth Arbel in the day of battle—A mother dashed in pieces upon her children. 15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel shall be cut off utterly.
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However, for all you rich people who think this is the answer for mankind, let me give you a little warning if you are thinking of fleeing to your own little island or hiding in comfort in your cave mountain mansion for scripture says;
Revelation 6: 14 – 17, “14 Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. 15 And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, 16 and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! 17 For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
Hosea 10: 8, “They shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
Israel is here depicted as being like a luxuriant vine, but it is as one that turns out to be a vine of false promises because the ‘abundance of fruit’ that it produces will be in the form of altars to Baal and pillars of Baal. Furthermore, they will declare their freedom from any restraint, whether by king or God, trusting to false covenants with nature gods. This reveals a state of anarchy and lawlessness within Israel unparalleled in the past. All restraint has broken down as they fling themselves headlong into dependency on Baal and Asherah. However, Hosea points out that they will inevitably discover that they are not free from restraint because they will discover in the end that they must submit to a king, even the Great King, the King of Assyria, and at the same time they will be in terror of losing their ‘new’ gods. They will discover that their high places will be destroyed, and that by the very One Whom they have despised.
1 Israel empties his vine; He brings forth fruit for himself. According to the multitude of his fruit He has increased the altars; According to the bounty of his land they have embellished his sacred pillars.
With withering sarcasm Hosea now depicts what Israel has become. They are indeed a luxurious vine which puts forth its fruit (something that they were no doubt claiming for themselves), but their response to having an abundance of fruit has been to build an abundance of altars. Most of the credit is going to Baal (and their own perverted sexual behavior).
Sadly we have to note the play on ‘abundance of fruit’ and ‘multiplied altars’, ‘goodly land’ and ‘goodly pillars’, clearly stressing that the more they were blessed, the more they looked to Baal. So, the more YHWH prospered Israel, the more Baalism was taking over their minds. They had never had it so good, and they gave Baal most of the credit, seeing it as a just response to all their exuberant worship and all their perverted sexual antics. They felt that they made a good partnership. And in so far as YHWH was still worshipped, it was as a part of this nature pattern. At the same time, they were conveniently able to ignore the fact that they had already lost over half their land to Assyria, land which had become a province of Assyria, and also to overlook the fact of the threat of an Assyria looming ever larger, an ever threatening reality. Their eyes were simply on their own present with its fruitful harvests and freedom from all restraint, and they seemingly thought that it could go on forever.
2 Their heart is divided; Now they are held guilty. He will break down their altars; He will ruin their sacred pillars.
Hosea warned that it would not go on forever. Their hearts were divided between YHWH and Baal, with YHWH demoted to a mere nature god, and as a result they were about to be found guilty, guilty of dishonoring and ignoring YHWH’s covenant and His special claim on them. And as a consequence, He was about to smite their altars and destroy their pillars. For He had not overlooked Assyria. He was about to use Assyria as the rod of His anger (Isaiah 10.5).
3 For now they say, “We have no king, because we did not fear the LORD. And as for a king, what would he do for us?”
Their response will be to declare a reckless independence. They will declare, ‘We have no king’ with the implication that they are free to do as they like, and this because they no longer fear YHWH as their King, while their own king is too tied up in political affairs to bother them. All law and restraint have been abandoned, religious and political restraint have both been set aside. They have rejected the kingship of YHWH, Baal allows them to do what they like, and the king is too busy to take any notice.
4 They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant. Thus, judgment springs up like hemlock in the furrows of the field.
Hosea points out the folly of their words. They should recognize that they are but words, bold, brash, and foolish. For while they may still be swearing covenants, it is with gods who are unable to respond. They are false covenants. They are trusting in shadows. And that is why even now judgment is inevitably springing up around them, in the same way as poisonous weeds will inevitably spring up in the furrows of their fields, the aftermath of the abundant fruitfulness. The one is as inevitable as the other. And the Baal who does not prevent the hemlock, cannot prevent the judgment.
5 The inhabitants of Samaria fear because of the calf of Beth Aven. For its people mourn for it, and its priests shriek for it—Because its glory has departed from it.
The prophet now unveils the ironic situation. They have thrown off the restraint of YHWH and His covenant, the ‘fear of YHWH’ (verse 3), and what have they got in His place? Gods which they are in terror of losing! For soon those calves will be carried off, and the people will mourn over them, and the priests, who had indulged in such ecstasies over them, would also mourn over the lost glory which it once had, which has now deserted it. This is a god who can do nothing to save himself, powerless in the face of the enemy.
The ‘calves of Beth aven’ were the calves that had been set up by Jeroboam I as described in 1 Kings 12.28-33. Samaria were frightened of losing what it had and seeing its glory depart from it. (No one had ever suggested being frightened of losing YHWH, for He was above being lost, something which emphasizes their folly in trusting in a god who could do nothing to prevent himself being carried off).
6 The idol also shall be carried to Assyria as a present for King Jareb. Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel. 7 As for Samaria, her king is cut off like a twig on the water.
The disgrace of the idol’s situation is stressed. It will be carried to Assyria.
The idol will not be the only thing to be shamed. Ephraim too will receive shame as he is carried off ignominiously to Assyria, and in turn, as Israel, he will be ashamed of his own disobedience, or of the failure of his own counsel.
And what about Samaria? Her king will be cut off, falling as it were like a wood chip on turbulent water, ignominiously borne wherever the flow of the armies of Assyria decided to carry him.
8 Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. The thorn and thistle shall grow on their altars; They shall say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
And what has been left behind, the high places of Beth-Aven (or ‘of evil’) will be destroyed, because they represented ‘The Sin Of Israel’. Beth-aven more than anywhere else symbolized their unfaithfulness and apostasy. Thus, with their altars destroyed, there would be nothing left for the calves to come home to. They had failed the land, and the land had spewed them out. And their deserted altars will become overgrown with weeds, a place of thorns and thistles, symbolic of YHWH’s curse on the ground in Genesis 3.18 and an indication that the land has been cursed.
The final awfulness of the situation comes out in the final two lines. Such will be the desolation and misery that the people will call on the mountains to cover them with a rockslide and will call on the hills to fall on them. They will not be able to bear the thought of what the future holds.
The present Israel is likened to the Benjamites in the day of Gibeah (Judges 19-21) who committed gross sin and were almost destroyed. YHWH will therefore deal with them in accordance with His will and call them to account for their behavior through warfare. For although YHWH had trained them up to serve Him faithfully, they had instead chosen their own way and would therefore be brought into harness like an ox and sentenced to hard labor. Their one hope was to repent and submit to the covenant in righteousness and covenant love, and then to seek YHWH until He came to rain righteousness on them. But instead they were set in the way of wickedness and would therefore suffer final destruction at the hands of an enemy.
9 “O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah; There they stood. The battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.
What had happened at Gibeah (Judges 19-21) was written deep into the heart of Israel. There Israel, in the person of the tribe of Benjamin, had sinned deeply in a perverted sexual way. And YHWH now tells Israel that they have not changed one iota. They have continued to sin in the same way since the days of Gibeah. They are no better than the people whom YHWH destroyed there.
In Gibeah Benjamin had taken its stand, and was in fact routed, and subsequently almost destroyed. The children of iniquity were truly overtaken in Gibeah. But what YHWH is saying here is that that was not the end of the battle against perverted sexual sin, for there were still children of iniquity, and the battle against them continued. It was being fought against Israel in Hosea’s day, and Israel too would be decimated in the same way for the same reason. It was as inevitable as what had happened at Gibeah.
10 When it is My desire, I will chasten them. Peoples shall be gathered against them when I bind them for their two transgressions.
This chastisement, severe as it would be (as it had also been for Benjamin as a result of Gibeah), would occur in accordance with YHWH’s will and desire, for YHWH was still sovereign over all. At the time when He calls them to account for (ties them in to) their ‘two transgressions’, the peoples of the nations will be gathered together against them (in the same way as Israel had gathered together against Gibeah).
11 Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh grain; But I harnessed her fair neck, I will make Ephraim pull a plow. Judah shall plow; Jacob shall break his clods.”
Ephraim had no excuse for their behavior. Like a well-trained heifer they too had been trained by YHWH to be His chosen servants. And just as the heifer loves to tread the grain (thereby threshing it) because it can eat the grain while doing it (‘you shall not muzzle the ox that treads the grain’ - Deuteronomy 25.4), so Israel had enjoyed walking with YHWH and receiving the benefits that He provided.
But because they had rejected their training and were reveling in sin, YHWH had now put a harness on their ‘fair neck’, and would set a yoke on them so as to put them to the plough. Along with Judah they were sentenced to hard labor, ploughing the ground and breaking up the soil. But there is deliberately no mention of their benefiting by it. They will plough but not reap. The reaping will be for others.
The introduction of Judah parallels similar examples elsewhere. Hosea was constantly faced with men from Judah who had come to the idolatrous feasts at Bethel and Gilgal to partake in the adulterous worship and brought home to him the danger that Judah was in.
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
Ever ready to respond to repentance God now called on Israel and Judah to turn back to Him in response to the covenant. While they were to go on sowing, reaping and breaking up the ground they were to do it in righteousness and covenant love. But as verse 13 brings out, the words go deeper than that, for they have reference to their inner lives. Rather than reaping iniquity they were to sow righteousness in their behavior, both in their inner thoughts and in their behavior towards others. And what they constantly reaped in their lives was to be continually in covenant love. They were to ‘break up’ their inner hardness. And once they had established themselves in love and righteousness and humility, and their hearts had become softened, they would be able to seek YHWH with the expectancy that He would come and rain righteousness on them. They could sow and reap, but only God could send the rain, and here was an indication that even at this last moment, if they ‘truly repented’ He would have mercy on them. In this latter case the raining of righteousness indicates the active working of God producing righteousness in His people.
13 You have plowed wickedness; You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, because you trusted in your own way, in the multitude of your mighty men.
But YHWH then charges Israel with being far from repentance. They have ploughed in wickedness by their way of living, they have reaped in their lives nothing but iniquity, they have eaten the fruit of lies and deceit as they have followed the route of false worship while pretending to be faithful to the covenant. In fact, their understanding of the covenant was so low that they probably thought that they had been observing it in their own light, interpreting it in terms of offering sufficient sacrifices and attendance at feasts. And all the while they were forgetting what YHWH really was because their trust was in their military power and what they saw as their powerful army. To people who had never seen the Assyrian army, their own standing army must have seemed impressive indeed.
14 Therefore tumult shall arise among your people, and all your fortresses shall be plundered as Shalman plundered Beth Arbel in the day of battle—A mother dashed in pieces upon her children.
But let them not doubt that problems were just around the corner. For shortly there would be a tumult among the people (battle cries and war cries and the anguished cries of the wounded and defeated), and all their fortresses would be destroyed, just as they had been in north west Israel when ‘Shalman’ had destroyed Beth-arbel in the day of battle, and both mothers and children were dashed in pieces by the soldiery. Shalman may be a diminutive of Shalmaneser V of Assyria, although Shalmaneser’s name is usually given in full (but not in Hosea) .
15 Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel shall be cut off utterly.
The same treatment will be meted out to them by Bethel. In other words, because of their great wickedness carried out at Bethel, Bethel would bring destruction on them, and the king of Israel would be utterly cut off ‘at daybreak/dawn’. The cutting off the king would usually be the signal of utter defeat. If it refers to Hoshea it was indeed ‘at dawn’, prior to ‘the day’ of the siege of Samaria, for he went out to meet the king of Assyria before the siege commenced, presumably to parley and was arrested as a rebel.
