that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of A. C. 758. Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it! 20 ¶ Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! wise in their own eyes, 21 Woe unto them that are prudent in their own sight! 22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, men of strength to mingle strong drink: Heb. that ing evil, It is say concern. good, &c. and r Prov. iii. 7. and 23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! 24 Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25 Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were § torn in the midst of the streets. 'For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. 26¶And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly: 27 None shall be weary nor stumble among them; none shall slumber nor sleep; neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken: 28 Whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses' hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind: 29 Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it. Rom. i. 22. & xii. 16. s Prov. xvii. 15. P Heb. the tongue of fire. Or, as dung. tch. ix. 12, 17, 21. & x. 4. 30 And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the Or, distress. heavens thereof. *Or, when it is light, it shall be dark in the destructions thereof. 22 SECTION V. Death of Uzziah. 2 CHRONICLES XXVI. VER. 22, 23. Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, first and last, did Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, write. 23 So Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to A. C. 758. the kings; for they said, He is a leper: and Jotham his son reigned in his stead. u 2 Chron. xxvi. 1, he is 2 KINGS XIV. VER. 21, 22. 21 ¶ And all the people of Judah took " Azariah, which was sixteen years old, called Uzziah, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. 809. 22 He built Elath, and restored it to Judah, after that the king slept with his fathers. (2 KINGS XV. VER. 2-5. 2 Sixteen years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned two and fifty years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem. 3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done; 4 Save that the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the high places. 2 KINGS XV. VER. 5-8. 5¶ And the LORD smote the king, death, and dwelt in a several house. house, judging the people of the land. so that he was a leper unto the day of his And Jotham the king's son was over the 6 And the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 7 So Azariah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David: and Jotham his son reigned in his stead. CHAPTER X. PART II. Events in the kingdom of Israel, contemporary with Uzziah king of Judah. Reign of Jeroboam the Second, concluded. 2 KINGS XIV. VER. 25, 26, 27. 25 He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was 39, 40, called of Gath-hepher. a Matt. xii. Jonas. a 26 For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter : : for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. 27 And the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash. SECTION II. Hosea's first appeal to the ten tribes. HOSEA 12. 1 The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son A. C. 801. 66 "The three first chapters of Hosea are inserted here, on the joint authorities of Dr. Wells, Blair, Dr. Gray, Lightfoot, Taylor, and the introductory verse. Hosea is supposed to have been the most ancient of the minor prophets. The general scope of this prophet's predictions is supposed by all commentators to be, 1. Partly to detect, reprove, and convince the Jewish nation generally, and the Israelites in particular, of their many and heinous sins, especially of their gross idolatry: the corrupt state of the kingdom is also incidentally noticed :—2. Partly to denounce the imminent and utter rejection, final captivity, and destruction of the Israelites by the Assyrians (if the former persisted in their wicked career), notwithstanding all their vain confidence in the assistance to be afforded them by Egypt; and, 3. Partly to invite them to repentance, with promises of mercy, and evangelical predictions of the future restoration of the Israelites and Jews, and of their ultimate conversion to Christianity. Bishop Horsley, in the introduction to his translation of this book, observes, that the prophecies ought by no means to be limited to their inferior and literal signification. Acting upon that system of interpretation laid down in his beautiful sermon on 2 Peter i. 20, 21., "no scripture is of private interpretation," or no prophecy of scripture is of self-interpretation," he shews that the prophecies of Hosea, like all others in the volume of scripture, are not predictions of separate and independent events, but are united in a regular and entire system, all terminating in one great object, the promulgation of the Gospel, and the complete establishment of the Messiah's kingdom. Of this system, every particular prophecy makes a part, and bears a more immediate or more remote relation to that which is the great object of the whole. Acting upon the principles thus clearly laid down, the Bishop observes, "a prejudice, which for a long time possessed the minds of Christians, against the literal sense of the prophecies relating to the future exaltation of the Jewish nation, gave occasion to a false scheme of interpretation; which, assuming it as a principle, that prophecy, under the old dispensation, looked forward to nothing beyond the abrogation of the Mosaic ritual and the dispersion of the Jews by the Romans, either wrested every thing to the history antecedent to that epoch, and, generally, as near as possible to the prophet's times (as if it were not the gift and business of a prophet to see far before him), or, by figurative interpretations, for the most part forced and unnatural, applied what could not be so wrested to the Christian Church: and rarely to the Christian Church on earth, but to the condition of the glorified saints in heaven. This method of exposition, while it prevailed generally, and it is not yet sufficiently exploded, wrapt the writings of all the prophets in tenfold obscurity, and those of Hosea more than the rest. Because, what with all the prophets was the principal, with him is the single subject. It might have been expected, that when once the principle was understood to be false, a better system of interpretation would have been immediately adopted. But this has only partially taken place. Expositions of many passages upon the erroneous A.C. 801. of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. 2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD. 3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. 4 And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; *Heb. visit. for yet a little while and I will * avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. 6 And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And That is, Not God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah: for I the house of Israel; § but I having obtained mercy. + Heb. I will not add any more to. Or, that I should altoge ther pardon them. || That is, Not my people. will no more have 7 But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the LORD their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen. 8 Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son. 9 Then said God, Call his name || Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. 10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numb Rom. ix. 25, bered; and it shall come to pass, that * in the place where *Or, instead it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. 26. of that. c Jer. iii. 18. Ezek. xxxiv. 23. C 11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel. scheme had obtained a general currency in the world, and were supported by the authority of great names. Amongst ourselves, it has long been the persuasion of our best biblical scholars and ablest divines, that the restoration of the Jews is a principal article of the prophecy, being indeed a principal branch of the great scheme of general redemption. Notwithstanding this, we have followed expositors who had a contrary prejudice, with too much deference to their authority; and, discarding their principle, have, in too many instances, sitten down content with the interpretations they have given us."-Bishop Horsley on Hosea. The whole of this translation, the introduction, and the notes, are well worthy the study of the biblical reader. HOSEA 11. 1 The idolatry of the people. 6 God's judgments against them. of reconciliation with them. 14 His promises 1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sis- A. C. 801. ters, + Ruhamah. : 2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries between her breasts; from * That is, My people. Having ob11. 1. + That is, tained mercy. d e Ezek. xvi. 25. 3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set herf Ezek. xvi. ↓ like a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot : she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. + Heb. drinks. wall. 6¶Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and § make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. Heb. wall a 7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. 8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, * which || Heb. new they prepared for Baal. evine. 9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will +recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness. + Or, take 10 And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand. 11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. away. + Heb. folly, or, villany. desolate 12 And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, where- Heb. make of she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. 13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD. 14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak ||* comfortably unto her. || Or, friendly. Heb. to her heart. |