Commentary on Hosea John Calvin
HOSEA
Prophets. And the reason why they were thus addressed was, that these senseless men were wont proudly to set up as their shield the distinction of their race. ``What! we are a holy people.'' Since by this pretence they rejected all the warnings of the Prophets, God casts back this reproach, ``Ye are not the children of Abraham; but ye are Canaan:'' as though he said, ``Nothing in that nation has as yet changed, the Israelites are always like themselves.'' The Lord had once cleansed the land of godless men: but when the descendants of Abraham became like the Canaanites, they were called the seed of Canaan; as though the same nation, which was there formerly, had still remained; for there was no difference in their manners, for they were equal or the same in depravity.
But the reason follows why he calls them the race of Canaan even because they carried in their hand a deceitful balance, and devoted themselves with all avidity to plunder. The deceitful balance may be extended to their dissimulations, fallacies, and falsehoods, by which God, as he had before complained, was surrounded; but as it immediately follows, He loves robberies, I prefer to understand here those two modes of doing injury which include almost every kind of wickedness; for men either craftily defraud when they injure others, or they do harm to their neighbours by open force. Since, then, they who wrong their neighbours do either openly injure them, or circumvent the simple by their frauds and crafty dealings, Hosea lays down here, in the first place, the deceitful balance, and then he adds their greediness in spoiling or plundering. It is then the same as if he had said that they were fraudulent, and that they were also robbers who proceeded with open violence. He means that they were, without law or any restraint, addicted to acts of wrong and injustice, and were so intent on doing mischief, as to do it either by craft or by open force. There is then no wonder that they were called an uncircumcised race. Why? Because they had nothing to do with God, inasmuch as they had thus departed from his law; yea, they abhorred kindness and mercy. It also follows that they were void of all piety, since they were thus unmindful of all equity towards their neighbours. This is the meaning.
Prayer
Grant, Almighty God, that as thou appearest not now to us in shadows and types, as formerly to the holy fathers, but clearly and plainly in thy only-begotten Son, ---
O grant, that we may be wholly given to the contemplation of thine image, which thus shines before us; and that we may in such a manner be transformed into it, as to make increasing advances, until at length, having put off all the filth of our flesh, we be fully conformed to that pure and perfect holiness which dwells in Christ, as in him dwells the fulness of all blessings and thus obtain at last a participation of that glory which our Lord has procured for us by his resurrection. Amen.
Lecture Thirty-third
Hosea 12:8
8. And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.
8. Et dixit Ephraim, Attamen ditatus sum; inveni opes mihi: in omnibus laboribus meis non invenient mihi iniquitatem, quia scelus (vel, piaculum.)