Commentary on Hosea John Calvin (continued)
JOHN CALVIN
cause they were, when fed in rich pastures, like mettlesome horses; and this is what commonly happens. And even Moses foretold this in his song, `My chosen, having become fat, kicked against me,' (Deuteronomy 32:15.)
What the Prophet said was now fulfilled; fulness had produced ferocity in the people of Israel. According to their pastures, he says, they were filled; they were satiated, and their heart was elevated Ezekiel declares the same of Sodom; when their stomach was well filled they became proud, (Ezekiel 16:49.) But the Prophet speaks there of their cruelty towards men; for he says, that the Sodomites, while abounding in all blessings, were full of cruelty, so that they contemptuously despised the poor. But the prophet condemns here a worse thing in the people of Israel, for their heart was inflated with pride against God.
And there is, in the last place, a mention made of their forgetfulness of God. It is impossible, when men are blinded by a wilful self-confidence, but that they will cast aside every fear of God and every concern for religion. And this passage teaches us, that we ought to use our abundance temperately and frugally, and that we ought, in the first place, beware lest the bounty of God should introduce a forgetfulness of him. For it is an extreme perversion, that when the more largely God pours his gifts upon us, our hearts should be more narrow, and that his benefits should be like veils to cover our eyes. We ought then to labour, that the benefits of God may, on the contrary, renew the recollection of him in our minds: and then, as I have said, let moderation and frugality be added. Let us now proceed ---
Hosea 13:7-8
7. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them:
7. Et ero illis tanquam leo, tanquam pardus in via Assur (vel, aspiciam, vel, insidiabor, ut alii vertunt.)
8. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.
8. Occurram illis tanquam ursus orbatus (suis parvulis scilicet;) et disrumpam clausuram cordis eorum; vorabo eos quasi leo; 94 bestia agri scindet (vel, lacerabit) ipsos.
The Prophet denounces again on the Israelites the vengeance of God; and as they were become torpid through their own flatteries, as we have already often observed, he here describes the terrible judgement of God, that he might strike fear into the obstinate, so that they might at length perceive that they had to do with God, and begin to dread his power. And this, as we have said, was very necessary, when the Prophets intended to awaken hypocrites; for selfconfidence so inebriates them, that 94Some render this "the lioness," but it is more consonant with this passage to render it "lion," meaning, as its name, {,{לביאlabia, is taken to signify, a cruel old lion. The word in the former verse is ,{}שחל shechel, which means a fierce lion. So that the Lord compares himself to the most devouring and the fiercest species of the lion tribe. The Hebrews have other names for lions, designative of their peculiar nature of their age. ,{}כפירcaphir, is a young lion; ,{}אריהarie, a grown up and a rapacious lion, ,{}שחףshichets, a lion of middle age and fierce; and ,{}לישlice, an old lion. With respect to the two mentioned here, there is a gradation, according to the sense of the passage. The first, in verse 7, is a lion in middle age, bold and ferocious; but the second, in verse 8, is one still older, but retaining his vigor, and still more ferocious and devouring. --- Ed.
HOSEA
they hesitate not to despise all the threatenings of God: and this is the reason why he adopts these three similitudes. He first compares God to a lion, then to a leopard, and then to a bear. I will be, he says, like a lion, like a leopard, and then like a bear
God, we know, is in his own nature merciful and kind; when he says that he will be like a lion, he puts on as it were another character; but this is done on account of men's wickedness, as it is said in Psalm 18, `With the gentle, thou wilt be gentle; with the perverse, thou wilt be perverse.'
For, though God speaks sharply and severely through his Prophet, he yet expresses what we ought to remember, and that is, that he thus speaks, because we do not allow him to treat us according to his own nature, that is, gently and kindly; and that when he sees us to be obstinate and unnameable, he then contends with us (so to speak) with the like contumacy; not that perversity properly belongs to God, but he borrows this similitude from men, and for this reason, that men may not continue to flatter themselves when he is displeased with them. I shall therefore be like a lion, like a leopard in the way
As to the word Assur, interpreters take it in various ways. Some render it, Assyria, though it is here written with Kamets: but the Hebrews consider it as an appellative, not the name of a place or country. Some again render it thus, ``I will look on them,'' and derive it from {,}שורshur, and take {}אaleph, as designative of the future tense.
Others derive it from {,}אשרasher, and will have it to be in the conjugation Pual: and here they differ again among themselves. Some render it, ``I will lay in wait for them:'' and others think it to be Shoar, ``I will be a layer in wait like a leopard.'' But this variety, with regard to the meaning of the passage, is of but little moment; for we see the drift of the Prophet's object. He intends here to take away from hypocrites their vain confidence, and to terrify them with the apprehension of God's vengeance which was impending. He therefore says that though God had hitherto spared them, nay, had in a manner kindly cherished them, yet since they continued to provoke his wrath, their condition would soon be very different; for he would come against them like a lion; that is, he would leap on them with the greatest fury; he would also be like a leopard: and a leopard, we know, is a very cruel beast: and, lastly, he compares him to a bereaved she-bear, or, a bereaved bear.
But he afterwards adds, I will rend, or will tear, the inclosure of their heart. They who understand the enclosure of the heart to be their obstinate hardness, seem to refine too much on the words of the Prophet. We know, indeed, that the Prophets sometimes use this mode of speaking; for they call that a hard heart, or a heart covered with fatness, which is not pliant, and does not willingly receive sound doctrine. But the Prophet rather alludes to the savageness of the bear, when he says, I will rend or tear in pieces the membrane of the heart, and will devour you as a lion.
For it is the most cruel kind of death, when the lion with his claws and teeth aims at the heart itself and tears the bowels of man. The Prophet therefore intended to set forth this most cruel kind of death. ``I will therefore,'' he says, ``tear asunder the pericardium, or the enclosure of the heart.'' I do not at the same time say, that the Prophet does not allude to the hardness of the people, while he retains his own