Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Israel was a spreading vine;
    he brought forth fruit for himself.
As his fruit increased,
    he built more altars;
as his land prospered,
    he adorned his sacred stones.
Their heart is deceitful,
    and now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will demolish their altars
    and destroy their sacred stones.
Then they will say, “We have no king
    because we did not revere the Lord.
But even if we had a king,
    what could he do for us?”
They make many promises,
    take false oaths
    and make agreements;
therefore lawsuits spring up
    like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.
The people who live in Samaria fear
    for the calf-idol of Beth Aven.
Its people will mourn over it,
    and so will its idolatrous priests,
those who had rejoiced over its splendor,
    because it is taken from them into exile.
It will be carried to Assyria
    as tribute for the great king.
Ephraim will be disgraced;
    Israel will be ashamed of its foreign alliances.
Samaria’s king will be destroyed,
    swept away like a twig on the surface of the waters.
The high places of wickedness will be destroyed—
    it is the sin of Israel.
Thorns and thistles will grow up
    and cover their altars.
Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
    and to the hills, “Fall on us!”
“Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, Israel,
    and there you have remained.
Will not war again overtake
    the evildoers in Gibeah?
When I please, I will punish them;
    nations will be gathered against them
    to put them in bonds for their double sin.
Ephraim is a trained heifer
    that loves to thresh;
so I will put a yoke
    on her fair neck.
I will drive Ephraim,
    Judah must plow,
    and Jacob must break up the ground.
Sow righteousness for yourselves,
    reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
    for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes
    and showers his righteousness on you.
But you have planted wickedness,
    you have reaped evil,
    you have eaten the fruit of deception.
Because you have depended on your own strength
    and on your many warriors,
the roar of battle will rise against your people,
    so that all your fortresses will be devastated—
as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle,
    when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.
So will it happen to you, Bethel,
    because your wickedness is great.
When that day dawns,
    the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.

• Hosea 10:1-15

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Hosea 10:1-2 ‘Dealing Poorly with Prosperity’: ” Remember, in the early part of the 8th century BC Israel’s economy was strong.  Commerce was good.  Hosea gave a summary of their history focusing on their current prosperity and its devastating aftermath.”

• Jay McCluskey, A Long Walk with the Minor Prophets

Hosea 10:1 ‘blessed, but never blessing’: “It is sad when the more one receives from God, the more one sins. But just in proportion as the land of Israel was fat and fertile, in that proportion they set up altars to false gods and provoked the true God who had given them these mercies. It is an ill thing when people grow rich and offer sacrifice to their own vanity-when people gather learning and only use it to debate against the simple teachings of God-when just as God blesses, people cease to bless him. “

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Hosea 10:2 ‘half heart’: “A half heart is no heart at all. And when people seem to go after God, and at the same time to go after their idols, they are not going after God. Their religion is vain. The good side is but a pretense; the evil side is the real thing. Let us be careful that we make nothing into an idol. The shortest way to lose the dearest object of our affections is to make an idol of it. There is no greater evil than for a heart to be happy in idolatry.”

• Charles H. Spurgeon, from sermon notes

Hosea 10:3, 7 ‘Hoshea’: “Hoshea’s refusal to pay tribute to Assyria had dire consequences. The Assyrian king Shalmaneser V (726–722 B.C.) laid siege to Samaria from 725 to 722 B.C. and, at some point, imprisoned Hoshea. Samaria lost her king (Hos. 10:3, 7; 13:10, 11). The policy pursued by King Hoshea to lean upon Egypt for help against Assyria would not succeed in preserving the nation from destruction (11:5, 6; 13:16).”

• Timothy B. Cargal, et al., The Chronological Study Bible

Hosea 10:4 ‘faith in alliances’: “Samaria’s kings had attempted to find security, not in faithfulness to God but in alliances and treaties with foreign powers. Thus, Samaria had sowed the seeds of her own judgment, which were now sprouting like poisonous weeds throughout the land.”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Karen H. Jobes, Minor Prophets contributor)

Hosea 10:5-6 ‘Destroying their Idols’: “The spoils of war in the ancient world often included statues and images of the gods of defeated peoples. The prophet Hosea dismisses the golden calves of Samaria (Israel) by prophesying that they are worthless and fated to become Assyrian spoils of war (Hos. 10:5, 6).
“The Neo-Assyrian kings regularly listed the images of gods, as well as gold and silver, as part of the spoils of war taken from conquered temples. In an inscription, Sargon II includes the images of Samaria’s gods among the tally of spoils taken from Samaria in 721 B.C. These were not the golden calves referred to by Hosea, but other idols used by the royal house of Israel.
“Captured idols were most valuable as sources of precious metal and gems. If the conquerors wished to show disdain for the conquered people, they would dismantle the idols and use the gold, silver, and gems as raw material for other projects. The wooden or stone parts of the idol would be burned or broken. Extreme contempt for the images meant that the entire object was totally destroyed. No wonder there would be mourning (Hos. 10:5) when the once-worshiped idol was ‘broken to pieces’ (Hos. 8:6).”

• Timothy B. Cargal, et al., The Chronological Study Bible

Hosea 8:5, 10:5-6 ‘Holy Cows’: “Exactly which god was represented by the calves is not known. The Hebrew word for ‘calves’ in 1 Kin. 12:28 suggests that the animal was a young bull, as was used for sacrifices (Mic. 6:6). A number of small bull images have been found by archaeologists, testifying to the common worship of such images. Calf worship was still prominent among the Israelites of the northern kingdom when Hosea prophesied (Hos. 8:5; 10:5, 6), during the reign of Jeroboam II (793–753 B.C.).”

• Timothy B. Cargal, et al., The Chronological Study Bible

Hosea 10:8 ‘severe judgment’: “The execution of God’s judgment would produce such a terror in Israel that the people would cry out for the mountains to cover them and the hills to fall on them. About 700 years later, Jesus used this imagery to describe how the Jews would react to their destruction by Rome (Lk 23:30); also, those in the great tribulation, at the end of time, will likewise utilize this cry (see Rev 6:16).”

• Dorothy Kelley Patterson, General Editor, NIV Woman’s Study Bible (Karen H. Jobes, Minor Prophets contributor)

Hosea 10:10-11 ‘Ephraim – Heifer’: “’Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn.’ Ephraim is like an heifer that loves to tread out the corn. They enjoyed the wonderful, bountiful harvest that they got, but they sure didn’t like the idea of going out and plowing the ground to break up the clods. God is saying that He will force Ephraim to go back to doing the thing he does not want to do.”

• J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Vol III, Proverbs to Malachi

Hosea 10:11-12 ‘A Trained Heifer’: “Threshing is separating the grain from a plant.  It was work done after harvesting the crops.  Hosea said the Israelites liked the abundant fruit, but neglected the plowing and planting which was necessary beforehand.  It is something like an employee who loves to go to work on payday, but negligent about showing up any other time.  Now, Israel must go about plowing.  In fact, their fate was not just plowing, but plowing unplowed ground: hard, fallow, uncultivated, and packed dirt.”

• Jay McCluskey, A Long Walk with the Minor Prophets

Hosea 10:12 ‘the field is smug’: “The fallow field is smug, contented, protected from the shock of the plow and the agitation of the harrow.  But it is paying a terrible price for its tranquility: Never does it see the miracle of growth; never does it feel the motions of mounting life nor see the wonders of bursting, seed nor the beauty of ripening grain. Fruit it can never know because it is afraid of the ‘plow and the harrow.’
“In direct opposite to this, the cultivated field has yielded itself to the adventure of living. The protecting fence has opened to admit the plow, and the plow has come as plows always come, practical, cruel, business-like and in a hurry. Peace has been shattered by the shouting farmer and the rattle of machinery. The field has felt the travail of change; it has been upset, turned over, bruised and broken, but its rewards come hard upon its labors. The seed shoots up into the daylight its miracle of life, curious, exploring the new world above it. All ‘over the field the hand of God is at work in the age-old and ever renewed service of creation. New things are born, to grow, mature, and consummate the grant! prophecy latent in the seed when it entered the ground. Nature’s wonders follow the plow.’”

• A. W. Tozer, Paths to Power

Hosea 10:13 ‘plowing wickedness’: “Israel hadn’t learned her lesson. She plowed wickedness, so she would reap iniquity. They have eaten the fruit of lies. They trusted in mighty men, in their leaders who lied to them. They believed these men rather than God. So they got exactly what was coming to them—the fruit of lies.
“In Daniel we read that God set over the nation the ‘… basest of men’ (Dan. 4:17). My friend, in our day, regardless of what political party you are talking about, a sinful, godless people cannot elect a righteous leader. If the people are liars, they will get a liar as a leader. If they are adulterers, they will get an adulterer. If they are thieves, that’s the kind of ruler they will have. My friend, you cannot beat God at this. As the Greek proverb puts it, ‘The dice of the gods are loaded.’ You can’t gamble with God without losing. If you think that you can be a liar, an adulterer, a thief, and get by with it, I have news for you. When you roll the dice of life, you think they are going to come up in such a way that you will be the winner. Well, God already knows how they will come up, because He has loaded them. When you sow sin, you will reap sin. That is inescapable. If you think that you can escape the results of sin, you are making God out a liar and the Bible a falsehood. It is true that some have thought that they have gotten by with sin, but no one ever has. If we could bring Ahab and Jezebel or Judas back to testify, they would tell you that they did not get by with sin. And if we could bring back to life some Americans who have died, they would testify to the same thing.”

• J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible, Vol III, Proverbs to Malachi

Hosea 10:14-15 ‘Remember the Brutal Shalman’: “The person whom the prophet Hosea identifies as ‘Shalman’ (Hos. 10:14) must have been well known to Hosea and his contemporaries. Evidently Shalman’s army destroyed a fortress named Beth Arbel, treating the victims mercilessly. The dark memories which Hosea recalls include mothers being ‘dashed in pieces’ upon their children (10:14).
“Unfortunately, both Shalman and Beth Arbel are mentioned in the Bible only by Hosea, and defy absolute identification. Beth Arbel has been identified with Arbela, a town in the Transjordan, near Pella. The site is mentioned by the early Christian historian Eusebius, who locates the town on a very strategic trade route. Josephus, the 1st-century A.D. Jewish historian, also lists an Arbela west of the Sea of Galilee, but this site is not considered important enough to be remembered for such massive destruction as described by Hosea. There is no literary evidence that either of these sites was destroyed during Hosea’s time.
“’Shalman’ has most often been interpreted as a short form of the name ‘Shalmaneser.’ Five kings of Assyria were known as Shalmaneser, two of whom could have been the king mentioned by Hosea. Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.) fought at the battle of Qarqar (853 B.C.), and in fact may have invaded Israel in 841 B.C. Shalmaneser V (726–722 B.C.) laid siege to Samaria and was the primary force that brought down the northern kingdom of Israel. Neither of these Shalmanesers, however, lists a Beth Arbel in his records.
“Another possibility is a certain Moabite king, Salmanu, a contemporary of Hosea. Salmanu is listed as a tribute bearer in the annals of Assyria’s King Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 B.C.). Whether the prophet speaks of Shalmaneser or Salmanu, he warns Israel that she will face the same brutality that Beth Arbel once suffered from the now unidentified Shalman (Hos. 10:15).”

• Timothy B. Cargal, et al., The Chronological Study Bible

My Thoughts

This chapter completes the section on the punishment of Israel.

Israel had been a productive nation.  Their agriculture was booming, but then they gave their profits to false gods.  They gave no thanks to the true God.

They wanted a king.  They swore one false oath after another.  If they had a king, we will…  They broke all the oaths.

Again, the detestable gold calf is mentioned.  The hint of its origin is that they took it with them out of captivity.  If not part of Egyptian mythology, maybe another false god in Egypt brought there by others.

Again, Gibeah was mentioned.  They wanted to rape the Levite, but instead they raped and killed the Levite’s concubine.  The depravity was beyond any bounds of sanity.  Have we gotten to this point in the world now?  In some places, possibly so.

But then, Ephraim is accused of losing their work ethic.  They would love to harvest crops, but plowing and planting were too much trouble.  What they plowed was a lot of trouble.

Hosea gives them the Word from God.  It is too late for Israel, but for themselves they can sow righteousness.

So it is with us.  If enough people repent individually, then maybe the country can turn around and get on the proper path.

Otherwise, God may raise a nation even more wicked that will have no problem destroying us.

We will each be judged before God individually. For those that love God, tests of faith will come.  And some of those tests might be punishment for our nation.  No one is immune to that.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

Hosea 10 1. What is the ‘spirit’ behind the idols that are popular in our society: Power? Material prosperity? Status? Pleasure?
“2. How has God blessed you and allowed your harvest to prosper? Are you using these blessings to honor him and further his work, or to satisfy and enhance your own ends?
“3. Where do you look for help when in need: Self? Others? God? Have you made any ‘unholy alliances’? How can you begin to break them in the next week?
“4. What is the ‘unplowed ground’ in your life that must be ‘turned over’? Is there some area in which you are not allowing God to be Master? Take a moment now and give this area to him. What result can you expect if you continue to commit this area to his Lordship (v.12)?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Hosea 10 has one set of questions.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

If you like these Thursday morning Bible studies, but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Thursday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.