Commentary on Hosea John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
as they say, only the appearance of goodness.
We now then perceive the meaning of the Prophet, that God here complains that he had to do with hypocrites. Faith, we know, is regarded by him; there is nothing that pleases God more than sincerity of heart. We know further, that doctrine is spread in vain, except it be received in a serious manner. Then, as hypocrites transform themselves in various ways, and make a display of some guises of goodness, while they have nothing solid in them, God complains that he loses all his labour: and he says at length that he will no longer spend labour in vain on hypocritical men, who have nothing but falsehood and dissimulation; and this is what he means, when he intimates that he should do nothing more to the Israelites and the Jews.
Prayer Grant, Almighty God, that as we do not, by due gratitude, respond to thy favors, and after having tasted of thy mercy, have willingly sought ruin to ourselves, — O grant, that we, being renewed by thy Spirit, may not only remain constant in the fear of thy name, but also advance more and more and be established; that being thus armed with thy invincible power, we may strenuously fight against all the wiles and assaults of Satan, and thus pursue our warfare to the end, — and that being thus sustained by thy mercy, we may ever aspire to that life which is hid for us in heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lecture Seventeenth
Hosea 6:5
5. Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.
5. Propterea secui (vel, excidi) in Prophetis meis, occidi eos in verbis oris mei, et judicia tua 32 lux quae egreditur.
God shows here, by his Prophet, that he was constrained by urgent necessity to deal sharply and roughly with the people. Nothing, we know, is more pleasing to God than to treat us kindly; for there is not found a father in the world who cherishes his children as tenderly: but we, being perverse, suffer him not to follow the inclination of his nature. He is therefore constrained to put on, as it were, a new character, and to chide us severely, according to the way in which he here says, he had treated the Israelites; I have cut them, he says, by my prophets, and killed them by the words of my mouth
Some render the words otherwise, as though God had killed the Prophets, meaning thereby the impostors, who corrupted the pure worship of God by their errors. But this view seems not to me in any way suitable; and we know that it was a common mode of speaking among the Hebrews, to express the same thing in two ways. So the Prophet speaks here, I have cut or hewed them by my Prophets, I have killed them by the cords of my mouth. In the 32There is no authority, as Horsley says, for "my," instead of "thy judgments," in our version; for there as no readings in the Hebrew MSS, which favors the change. The Bishop refers to Calvin, and expressly approves of his exposition of this passage. His own version is the following: — "And the precepts given thee were as the onward-going light."