Commentary on Hosea John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
similitude.
And the beast of the field shall rend them He speaks now without a similitude; for God means that all the wild beasts would be his ministers to execute his judgement.
will then send all the beasts of the field to rend and tear them, so that nothing among them shall remain safe.'' We now see the purport of this passage, and to what use it ought to be applied. If we are by nature so slothful, yea, and careless, and when God does not stir us up, we indulge our own delusions, we ought to notice those figurative representations which tend to shake off from us our tardiness and show to us how dreadful the judgement of God is. For the same purpose are those metaphors respecting the eternal fire and the worm that never dies. For Gods seeing the feelings of men to be so torpid has in Scripture applied those things which may correct their sluggishness. Whenever then God puts on a character not his own, let us know that it is through our fault; for we suffer him not to deal with us according to his own nature, inasmuch as we are intractable. Let us go on ---
Hosea 13:9-11
9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.
9. Perdidit te Israel; quia in me auxilium tuum. 95
10 I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?
10 Ero: Rex tuus ubi, ut servet te in cunctis urbibus tuis, et judices tui, de quibus dixisti, Da mihi regem et principes?
11 I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.
11 Dabo tibi (hoc est), Dedi tibi regem in ira mea, et sustuli in furore meo.
In the first place, God upbraids the Israelites for having in their perverseness rejected whatever was offered for their safety: but he proceeds farther and says, that they were past hope, and that there was a hidden cause which prevented God from helping them, and bringing them aid when they laboured under extreme necessity.
He has destroyed thee, Israel, he says. Some consider the word, calf, to be understood, ``The calf has destroyed thee:'' but this is strained. Others think that there is a change of person: and I am inclined to adopt this opinion, as this mode of speaking we know, is very common: Destroyed thee has Israel; thou art the cause of thine own destruction, or, ``Israel has destroyed himself.'' Though then there is here a verb of the third person, and there is afterwards added an afÏxed pronoun at the second
95Bishop Horsley's rendering of this verse which was that of Rivet, is the following — "It is thy destruction, O Israel, that upon me (alone it lies) to help thee." He adds in a note — "Thy great privilege, to have God alone for thy defense, becomes the occasion of thy destruction. In my wrath I withdrew my special aid; and since forsaken by me, thou hast no other helper, thy ruin must ensue. In this instance our version, as to the first clause, seems preferable to that offered by Calvin. The verb is not in the third person, but the second. Its final radica; letter is {,{תtau, and the same letter is characteristic of the second person, and it is not here doubled; another instance of which we find in Ezekiel 28:17, {` }חכמתך{. }שהתThou hast corrupted,' or `destroyed, thy wisdom.' There is reason to doubt the correctness of our version, as well as that of Calvin, as to the second clause. Literally it is, ``Though in me for thy help,'' which seems to mean this, ``Though it was in my power to help thee.'' But if the first word of the verse be taken as a substantive, as it is by many critics, then the first clause may be considered as having reference to the preceding verses. The meaning then would be, that such would be Israel's destruction, though at the same time there was for him help in God, if he had sought it: --- Such thy destruction, Israel! Though in me there was help for thee. Then follows the next verse, --- I will be the same: thy king, where is he? etc. For changing {}אהיinto ,{}איהthe authority is very small, only one MS., and another doubtful: and there is no need, and indeed the sense is thereby injured. In the Geneva Bible it is rendered, `I am.' The future tense in Hebrew includes often the present as well as what is future. To give it its full meaning, it must be thus rendered, `I am and will be,' that is, thy help; for he had before said, that there had been help for them in him. --- Ed.