Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 1.12.1–1.12.8

Verse 2. — “The judgment of God is with Judah, and visitation upon Jacob. According to his ways and according to his devices he will repay him.” By the name Jacob he meant the peoples of the ten tribes. “The difference of their pursuits,” he says, “required a difference of assault as well, so that the judgment of the Lord stood for the safety of Judah, while a severe visitation struck the Samaritans.”

Verses 3–6. — “In the womb he supplanted his brother, and in his strength he was made straight with the angel. And he prevailed over the angel and was strengthened, and he wept and besought him; at Bethel he found him, and there he spoke with us. And you shall turn to the Lord your God: keep mercy and judgment, and hope in your God always.” As he began above, he recalls their ancient nobility, so that whatever honors the chosen stock deserved, or whatever virtue it showed, may serve to rebuke the worthlessness of the descendants. As if he said: “See from what a father they were born, and to what mockeries they have come; how far they have degenerated from the virtues of their ancestors.” For Jacob was so eager for glory that before he came out from his mother’s womb into this light he entered into a prophetic contest with his brother, and, as nature itself would scarcely let us believe, seized the heel of his brother, from whom he was to take even the birthright, not by fraud but by merit. So he received the first omen of life with a testimony of dignity, showing that he was strong in a nobility pleasing to God, since it had befallen him to promise the fruit of virtue to come even before the age of feeling. Then, when he had come to young manhood and was distinguished by having received the blessing of the firstborn, and was sought by his brother’s savage plots, he took up a long exile on the advice of his holy mother; and trusting in no human resources but only in the help of God, to whom he had vowed tithes when God appeared to him at Bethel, he prospered and came to know the greatness of his virtues and his strength, which he had not known before by experience. For when, after a long space of time, he was returning enriched to his father’s dwelling, and had been terrified by his brother’s sudden approach, an angel met him in the form of a man and deigned to wrestle with the fearful man, in such a way that he did not crush him with majesty put forth, but contended as an equal with a rival, or as an inferior. When blessed Jacob, as happy in strength as he was clear-sighted in prudence, saw this, namely that his Lord submitted himself with great kindness in order to show what he had planned for the exaltation of his servant (that he would be exalted under the protection of the one over whom, as wrestler, he had come out superior; and he wept, being fit to understand that no mortal would so harm him, since not even a higher nature could do it): when the patriarch had perceived so deep a plan, he at once took up a spirit of humility, not of pride, and begged with tearful supplications to be blessed by the one over whom he seemed to have prevailed. Nor was he deceived by his wrestler’s pretense into thinking himself the stronger; but as he was great-hearted in bearing adversity, so he was careful in discerning hidden things, and understood that this was the one who deigned to clothe himself in images that could be grasped, whom he had seen at Bethel leaning on the top of the ladder reaching from earth to heaven. There, then, he was found worthy to learn by a brief address both how great the divinity of the one appearing was, and what the duty of a faithful servant is, without which he cannot please God at all: namely, to believe and confess the almighty power of the Maker and to trust him with his whole mind through the whole span of his life. “The Lord God of hosts, the Lord is his memorial.” That is, you must so remember God as always to confess him your defender and Lord. But this concerns doctrine; as regards conduct, keep the pursuit of justice and mercy. Hope in your God always, so that either you stand with him in continuous virtue, or, if your devotion has been interrupted, you run back to him having taken up amendment. These rules of virtue, which lead by a sure course to the summit of blessedness, he both practiced happily and left to his descendants to keep. And so from a small beginning he rose to such dignity that the land of promise was handed over to his descendants.

Verses 7, 8. — “Canaan: in his hand is a deceitful balance; he has loved false accusation. And Ephraim said, Yet I have become rich; I have found an idol for myself; all my labors will not find in me the iniquity that I have sinned.” While he was narrating the noble deeds of blessed Jacob, from whom he complains his descendants have degenerated, he suddenly brought in the mention of Canaan: not so that his speech might pass to another nation, but so that, in the manner of the prophets, out of excessive indignation, he might name the very descendants of Israel Canaan, whom they had become more like in conduct. We find this kind of invective in others too, but especially in blessed Isaiah and Ezekiel, and in Daniel, when he convicted the adulterous elders. In the tenor of this censure, then, mention of Canaan, that is, of a profane nation, is brought in in the present passage too, so that the sense is this: “But why do I unroll the various honors of the fathers’ nobility, from which this crowd that I lament is shown to have slipped so far that it is not undeservedly called the offspring of Canaan? In his hand, then, is a balance that loves false accusation, but is all too deceitful”: which serves to show that he sins not by error but rather by zeal and judgment. For where the disposition of a soul is such that it commits abominations not by impulse or negligence but with deliberation, as if with weights hung on both sides, it is said to have sinned on the scale. In this sense we also read in blessed David: “But the sons of men are liars on the balances, to deceive from vanity together.” Since the chief function of the human mind is to examine by the plumb line of reason and the weights of comparison what it should obey and what it should avoid, the profaned people, holding down the truth in a lie, did indeed apply a balance to its affairs, but a deceitful one, placing worse things before better and assenting to harmful rather than useful things. What he says, “He has loved false accusation,” can also be referred to what he accused earlier: that the ungrateful people had put on such impudence, like an obscene woman, as to lie that it obtained from its lovers everything for food or adornment that the one Creator of things had given. For this reason the angry Lord promised that he would take away the wool and [linen] that covered its shame, so that ugliness and nakedness following would convict the crimes of the ungrateful. Such false accusations are also noted in blessed Jeremiah. For when, after the disasters announced by many prophets, Jerusalem had perished, and the whole Jewish nation had been carried off to Babylon, and a few had been left to cultivate the fields, they showed such obstinacy of mind in sinning that they were not afraid to say that from the time they had ceased to worship the queen of heaven and the other idols of the neighboring nations, all adversities had followed them. By such opinions, then, they brought a kind of false accusation against the true and most merciful God, proclaiming most falsely that they had had happy days when they departed from him, and wretched ones when they returned to him. So the deceitful balance of the mind caused them to be called the descendants of Canaan rather than of Israel, since they sinned, as we have said, not by a momentary impulse but with considered ungodliness; and therefore, not having the weights of true judgment, they placed the confidence of their safety and prosperity in very brief things that slip away like shadows. “All my labors,” he says, “will not find in me the iniquity that I have sinned.” That is, though pressed by the crimes they had committed, they nonetheless thought they would be safe by the wealth they had worked for, saying that they had gathered so lavish an opulence that hardship could not reach them. They were mocked, then, by these frauds of their balance, thinking, when the most high God comes forth to judge works, that varied furniture or hoarded money would protect the guilty.

Verse 9. — “And I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will yet make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the festival.” “You will recognize, then, by the testimony of the outcome, the frauds of that balance, that is, of your deliberation, so that what you would not confess by reason you will confess by anguish: that I am your only God, who from the time of the liberation from Egypt deigned to take you to myself as a special people. My punishment you can by no means remove with any defenses or riches, so that not only must you come under the yoke of the servitude announced, but you must also remain under it for set times, at the end of which you will at last taste the joys of freedom.” In this sense, then, something of prosperity seems to be brought in amid the roars of threat, so as to serve to confirm the coming captivity, lest anyone doubt that the miseries would be inflicted, which he had learned would be ended by the prosperity that followed. We could also bring forward this, which certainly comes from the usage of the Scriptures: that the announcement of sad and joyful things is mixed, so that neither continuous joys loosen minds nor continuous sorrows weaken them. But the context seems to support the first sense of the passage. Then he goes on, as he had begun, with severe speech.

Verse 10. — “I have spoken through the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and by the hand of the prophets I have been likened.” “I never laid aside the care of healing, but through my prophets I persisted both by speaking and by acting, so that they might understand and confess my providence, since I took thought for them with such indulgence that I took on forms not worthy enough of my majesty, in which I might converse more nearly with them. I, the same, did not disdain in my works, before the eyes of the prophets, to be likened to these forms or persons which, though they befitted mercy (as I said a little before: to drive fear from the heart of Israel I took on the person of a weak wrestler; in the time of blessed Moses I chose to be transfigured into a fire by which the bush was not consumed; I fortified the doorposts of the Israelites as with the blood of a lamb; and many other things which we read were done in this way at various times),” so that our God might appear in those images which the dispensation he had undertaken required, not those which befitted his majesty. But let us see the rest.

Verse 11. — “If Gilgal is an idol, yet in vain were they sacrificing oxen in Gilgal.” After recalling what he had done in mercy, the complaint is brought back to where it began, with a sense like this: “See what I experience from an ungrateful people after so many of my benefits, after so many gifts and so many miracles: it pursues open errors to insult me, and, not deceived by any subtlety of arguments, it is subjugated to confessed madness!” “If Gilgal is an idol, yet in vain were they sacrificing oxen in Gilgal.” Of this place he said above too, “All their wickedness is in Gilgal.” By the causal conjunction, “if,” he brought in the sentence of one who convicts. That is: “Since no one doubts that only images of brute cattle were set up in those places, in which, even if they had set up the cattle themselves, these could not help their suppliants, whereas now even viler images of vile things are seen there, without any sense, giving no use to themselves or to others, yet in vain were they sacrificing oxen in Gilgal”; as if he said, “Would anyone have believed, before it happened, that this could be committed: that a people once famous for its virtues should follow open folly and profanity, containing nothing but the utmost guilt; and after those rites revered for their majesty, should go down to the base institutions of fanatics, and look up, in vain, that is, without any profit of even brief advantage, to idols exposed to the derision even of the moderately wise? Though it would be madness clearer than day if men thought cattle should be prayed to, there would still be crowds who thought happiness could be conferred on them by images of oxen?” “For their altars too are like heaps on the furrows of the field.” Consequently, the very baseness of their observances also convicts the profane rites: they build altars without any choice of place, and venerate disgraceful gods at makeshift altars. So with groaning and wonder, as it were, the voice we have discussed was uttered: “If Gilgal is an idol, yet in vain were they sacrificing oxen in Gilgal; for their altars too are like heaps on the furrows of the field.” But let us hear what he adds.

Verses 12, 13. — “Jacob fled into the region of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he served. But by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was saved.” Since he brought in the mention of the ancients not in the course of a historical narrative but recalled the deeds of the forefathers under the impulse and grief of rebuking degenerate descendants, his speech goes forward as if surging, so that reproach and praise succeed each other, and the proclamation of ancient nobility adds weight to the rebuke. So, as he had begun, he lists the labors and successes of blessed Jacob, who was also called Israel, by whose name the whole nation is marked; which is why he brought him in especially. As we had begun to say, that Jacob, from whose stock they descend, obeying the counsels of his holy mother and placing his hope and confidence of future prosperity only in his God, left his native region and entered the borders of Mesopotamia alone and stripped of everything, having no help but the recommendation of his noble character. Won over by this, his uncle Laban at once desired his partnership. And so that the noble youth’s labor would not be unpaid, he promised him marriage with the maiden he loved for seven years of servitude; and during that time, since his great faithfulness and industry had become plain, the condition of servitude and marriage was doubled. This is what he says, “He served for a wife,” that is, he exercised the office of shepherd to obtain the marriage, as the history tells. And what he says, “And for a wife he served,” means that, the marriage being set before him as a reward, he kept his father-in-law’s flock. “But by a prophet he was brought out, for the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was saved.” From small beginnings, and so small that he was fed by hired labor, he came to such greatness of people and riches that all Egypt could, in a way, no longer hold him; and as Pharaoh had at first envied his happiness, so afterward Pharaoh perished with his columns because of his liberation, and he recognized that he had gained that glory of crushed Egypt not by human strength but for the declaring of his fathers’ merits and for the establishing of holy rites. He was saved not by some warlike leader, but by a prophet, namely blessed Moses, who delivered him by those famous miracles that we read. What complaint, then, will be worthy enough, that a nation conspicuous for so illustrious a stock is now notable for folly and famous only for crimes?

Verse 14. — “Ephraim provoked me to anger in his bitternesses, and his blood shall come upon him, and his Lord shall repay him his reproach.” The recollection of the fathers made the crime of the sons more horrible, and this is shown by the exclamation of the censor that follows, who testifies that he has been driven to a bitterness and indignation that would go no further. And so, although he rises with the force of one pronouncing sentence, he nevertheless drives away from himself the reproach of the vengeance itself, and announces that Ephraim, who deserted saving teachings, perished by punishments he had worked out for himself, having degenerated and fallen wholly by his own doing.