Commentary on Hosea John Calvin (continued)
HOSEA
6. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.
6. Juxta 93 pascua sua et satiati sunt, saturati sunt, et elevatum est cor ipsorum; propterea obliti sunt mei.
The Prophet shows here that the people were in every way intractable. He has indeed handled this argument in other places; but the repetition is not superfluous.
After he had said that the people were ungrateful in not continuing in the service of their Redeemer, by whom they had been so kindly and bountifully treated in the desert, where they must have perished through famine and want, had not the Lord in an unwonted manner brought them help in their great necessity, he now adds, ``The Lord would have also allured you by other means, had you not been of a wholly wild and barbarous disposition: but it is hence manifest, that you are utterly disobedient; for after you have been brought out of the desert, you came to rich pastures.'' For the land of Israel is here compared to rich and fertile pastures; as though he said, ``God has placed you in an inheritance where you might eat to the full, as when a shepherd leads his sheep to a spot especially fertile.'' What did take place? To their pastures they came, and were filled; they were filled, and elevated became their heart, and they forgat me
Since, then, the Israelites had extinguished the memory of their redemption, after the Lord had fed them when hungry in the desert, and since in their fulness they rejected God, and shook off his yoke, and, like ferocious horses, kicked against him, it became evident that their nature was so unnameable, that they could by no means be reduced to obedience or submission. We shall defer the rest till tomorrow.
Prayer
Grant, Almighty God, that as thou dost so kindly call on us daily by thy voice, meekly and calmly to offer ourselves to be ruled by thee, and since thou hast exalted us to a high degree of honour by freeing us from the dread of the devil, and from that tyranny which kept us in miserable fear, and hast also favoured us with the Spirit of adoption and of hope, --- O grant, that we, being mindful of these benefits, may ever submit ourselves to thee, and desire only to raise our voice for this end, that the whole world may submit itself to thee, and that those who seem now to rage against thee may at length be brought, as well as we, to render thee obedience, so that thy
Son Christ may be the Lord of all, to the end that thou alone mayest be exalted, and that we may be made subject to thee, and be at length raised up above, and become partakers of that glory which has been obtained for us by Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lecture Thirty-fifth
We observed in our yesterday's lecture, that the Israelites were condemned, be- 93A great number of MSS have {,{בbeth, instead of ,{}כcaph, before the word, ``pastures.'' But to connect the first two words in this verse with the last verse, as Bishop Horsley does, is certainly not right; for the two different times here evidently referred to are thereby confounded. Though Calvin in this, as in some other instances, does not settle the grammatical construction, he yet sets forth the real meaning of the passage. God says, that he knew the people of Israel, both in the desert and in ``their pastures;'' that is, in the fertile land of Canaan; and then he states the effect which their pastures had upon them. What favors the substitution of {}בfor {}כis, that the former is used before ``desert,'' and ``the land of droughts,'' in the preceding verse. The verb ``to know'' is to be understood at the beginning of this verse. The two verses, 5 and 6, may be thus rendered: ---
5. I knew thee in the desert, In the land of droughts; 6. In their pastures also when they were filled; They were filled, and raised up was their heart; Hence they forgat me. The change of persons from ``thee'' to ``them'' is common throughout this book. ---
Ed.