Commentary on Hosea John Calvin (continued)
HOSEA
mentions their sin --- that they sacrificed oxen and multiplied altars. And yet it seemed to be a diligence worthy of praise, that they increased many altars, that they worshipped God everywhere, that they spared neither expense nor labour, that they were not content with few sacrifices, but added a great number; --- all this seemed to deserve no common praise: but the Lord, as it has been already said, valued not these corrupt practices; for he would have himself to be alone worshipped by his people, and would have their piety to be attested by this single evidence --- their obedience to his word. When we then turn aside from God's word, nay, when we with loose reins abandon ourselves to new inventions, though we may plausibly profess that our object is to worship God, yet all this is a vain and fallacious pretence, as the Prophet here declares.
Jerome is mistaken in thinking that Gilgal was a town in the tribe of Judah; and the supposition cannot suit this place: for Judah, we know, was then free from those gross pollutions; Judah was not as yet polluted with the defilements which the Prophet here condemns in the kingdom of Israel. It is then certain, that Gilgal was a town of Israel; and we know that a celebrated temple and altar were there: hence he especially points out this place.
But he afterwards adds, Their altars are as heaps on the furrows of the field There was then we know, only one legitimate altar; and God would not have sacrifices offered to him, except in one place. Hence the more active the Israelites were in multiplying altars, the more they provoked the vengeance of God: how much soever it was their purpose to worship God, yet God spurned that foolish affectedness.
We then see why the Prophet here compares the altars then erected in the kingdom of Israel to heaps of stones; as though he said ``As one gathers stones into a heap, when the land is stony, that he may drive his plough more easily, so every one forms an altar for himself, as though he were raising up a hillock in his own field: thus it comes, that they perversely corrupt the pure and lawful worship which I have appointed.'' We now then understand the meaning of the Prophet to be, that superstitious men gain nothing, when they boldly and openly boast that they worship
God; for whatever disguise they may invent for themselves and others, the Lord yet abominates every thing that is contrary to his word: and our mode Of worshipping
God is alone true and lawful, when we only follow what he prescribes, and allow to ourselves nothing but what is according to his command and appointment. This is the meaning. Let us proceed ---
Hosea 12:12-13
12. And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep
12. Et fugit Jacob in agrum Syriae, et servivit Israel in uxore (hoc est, pro uxore,) et pro uxore custodivit (id est, custos fuit gregis.)
13. And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.
13. Et per Prophetam eduxit (ascendere fecit) Jehova Israelem ex Aegypto, et per Prophetam servatus est.
The Prophet now employs another kind of reproof, --- that the Israelites did not