Commentary on Hosea John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
we slumber in our enjoyments while God is indulgent to us. This, in the first place, we ought to bear in mind. Then we must also notice the warning of the prophet, that God can suddenly, and, as it were, in a moment, upset the prosperity of men, that there is nothing in this world which cannot be immediately changed whenever
God withdraws from us his favour. This comparison then ought often to occur to us; when the air is tranquil, when the season is quiet, a wind will in a moment rise up, which will dry the earth, which will also make dry the fountains; and yet the vigour of fountains seems to be perpetual; what then may not happen to us? Cannot the Lord at any moment make us dry, since we have in ourselves no source of strength? He might indeed have said in this place what we find in the 40th chapter of Isaiah 98 that man is like the flower that soon fadeth; but he intended to express something more profound; for this people, being deeply fixed in their own strength, thought that they were supplied by exhaustless fountains, and that their vigour could not be dried up: hence he says, ``Though thou hast fountains and springs, yet God will dry thee up; for he will find a wind that has power, as experience proves, to dry up springs and fountains.''
But it follows, It will rob the treasure of every desirable vessel This may seem to be improperly applied to wind; but yet the meaning of the Prophet is sufÏciently clear, even this, that nothing shall remain untouched in the tribe of Ephraim, when the Lord shall raise up his wind. ``However hidden,'' he seems to say, ``your treasures may be, yet this wind shall penetrate into the inmost recesses, so that nothing shall be safe from its violence.'' In short, the Prophet means, that the force of God's vengeance would be so violent, that Ephraim could not be secure in any of his fortresses; for the wind of God would penetrate unto the very inmost springs of the earth. This is the meaning. It follows ---
Hosea 13:16
16. Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.
16. Desolabitur Samaria, quia exacerbavit Deum suum: in gladio cadent; parvuli eorum allidentur, gravidae eorum scindentur.
This is the conclusion of the discourse: this verse has then been improperly separated from the former chapter 99 ; for the Prophet enters not here on a new subject, but only confirms what he had said of the ultimate destruction of Samaria and of the whole kingdom. Samaria then shall be desolated; as though he said ``I have already often denounced on you what you believe not, that destruction is nigh at hand; of this be now persuaded; but if you believe not, God will yet execute what he has determined, and what he now pronounces by my mouth.'' At the same time he adds the cause, For they have provoked their God That they might not complain that they were severely dealt with, he says, that they only suffered the punishment which they deserved. He also specifies the kind of destruction that was to be, They shall fall by the sword, their children shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant
98Isaiah 40:6-8. — fj. 99The fourteenth chapter begins in the original with this verse; but it has been thought better to retain the division of our own version.