Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 1.5.1–1.6.6

Verses 1, 2. — “Hear this,” he says, “O priests, and attend, O house of Israel, and listen, O house of the king, for the judgment is for you.” “All of you indeed go to sacrileges, and in sinning you have shown none of the distinction that you had in your ranks. Now, then, you who are exalted by priestly or royal dignity, and the whole crowd of Israel, since destruction now hangs over you, it is fitting that you understand that you perish not by the strength [of your enemies] but by the equity of the judge. For you have committed two things that would seem contrary: you became a snare and a net, but stretched out on the top of a mountain as if in the place of a high watchtower; while the sacrifices that ought to be offered to the Ruler of the heavens and carried upward, as it were, by the rising smoke, you, reversing the order, plunged into the depths. This is what I accuse in the priests and kings: although they had obtained such a place in the nation that they should be revered no less for honor and religion than for power and dignity, and ought to have urged their subjects to what was right by word as well as by example, they on the contrary furnished both encouragement and a pattern for crimes. Retaining from their former eminence only this, that what they had done appeared from afar, they stretched snares and nets in which the unhappy crowd might be caught; and with the same perversity, he says, you turned sacrifices into the depths, that is, toward the underworld, as it were. For what else was it, when you slaughtered them either to demons or to the shades of the dead? Since, then, out of love of sinning you confused the order of acting, so that a kind of ambition appeared in you together with ignorance of discernment, hear what follows: I will be the instructor of you all, so that, with vengeance teaching you, you may learn what you did not know when you despised instruction.” [Verse 3.] “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me; for now Ephraim has committed sexual immorality, Israel is defiled. They will not direct their thoughts to return to the Lord their God, for the spirit of sexual immorality is in their midst, and they have not known the Lord.” “With what obstinacy Israel has sinned,” he says, “no one knows better than I, who see the inmost parts of sins. Nor is there any part of the heart that can escape my gaze. Examining him wholly and carefully, then, I have recognized that he has now committed sexual immorality thoroughly and been thoroughly polluted.” Lest you think this was said to excuse past sins, he at once made plain by the words that follow what he meant by this assertion. For he says [Verse 4]: “They will not direct their thoughts to return to the Lord their God, for the spirit of sexual immorality is in their midst, and they have not known God.” So compunction neglected after sin was committed, and, taken into the heart, not only the practice of crime but also forgetfulness of amendment, are set above the earlier errors, so that this iniquity alone is judged either the first or the greatest. “They will not direct their thoughts,” he says, “to return to the Lord their God, for the spirit of sexual immorality is in their midst.” He showed that the reason they gave no thought to amendment was that the unclean spirit, the demon himself, or the love of sacrileges, dwelt in their midst. If they sinned only now and then, the unclean spirit would be thought to come near them. But now, since they spend the whole time of their life in crimes, the author of sacrileges is rightly said to be not near them but in their midst. With him sitting in their hearts, they give no thought to amendment, and therefore they are handed over to destruction.

Verse 5. — “The arrogance of Israel,” he says, “shall answer to his face, and Israel and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity; Judah also shall fall with them.” Like farm laborers to whom a rich harvest often answers, these too, he says, will at once receive the wages of their pursuits. “Their industry,” he says, “will answer fittingly, so that those who claimed so much for themselves from their crimes will blush under calamities.”

Verses 6, 7. — “With their flocks and with their herds they will go to seek the Lord, and they will not find him: he has withdrawn from them. They have dealt faithlessly against the Lord, for they have begotten foreign children; now the harvest shall devour them with their portions.” Having said above that it befits the justice of a judge that those who had given themselves to crimes should also bear fitting wages, he joined Judah to Israel, knowing that Judah, though somewhat later, would come into similar guilt. After commending the justice of his assessment, he returns to the distinction of times and pursues the deeds of Israel, which he knew would soon perish. First, having said that Judah too would be mingled with Israel in calamity, he added what concerned Judah rather, which held the temple consecrated to God. For although it was polluted by idols, it also offered sacrifices to God; and though it took little care to correct its conduct, it thought it would gain help from constant sacrifice. “With their flocks,” he says, “and with their herds they will go to seek the Lord, and they will not find him: he has withdrawn from them.” He put “they will go” for “they went”; for the invective of the passage is uncovered by the inflection of the past tense. So walking on the path of superstition rather than of religion (for so the offering of sacrifices is judged, if care for virtues is lacking), they could not find that God to whom no one is led except by the path of full devotion. “He has withdrawn from them”: not that God could be taken away, but that his help nowhere met them, as if he seemed taken away from them altogether. Then, turning his voice to Ephraim, that is, the Samaritans, he attacks another kind of faithlessness, which nevertheless shows how old their ungodliness was: that they so despised the statutes of the law as to mix with profane nations even by marriages, eager and hastening to put off the name of their race and to be called anything rather than the people of God. “They have dealt faithlessly against the Lord, for they have begotten foreign children. They conceived such hatred of my name,” he says, “that they believed they could be rescued from threats or freed from troubles if their offspring passed into the number of other nations. Therefore now the harvest shall devour them with their portions.” By the name of harvest he shows the calamity near and hanging over them, in which he promises that both shoots and fruits are to be cut down by one sword.

Verses 8, 9. — “Blow the horn in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah; wail in Beth-aven, behind Benjamin. Ephraim shall be in desolation,” and so on. Because he had announced that they would be consumed in a short time, and knew that the weight of the sentence was advancing into effect without any delay, he commanded, as if the events were already fulfilled, that it be proclaimed through the most populous cities with blaring trumpets and resounding laments that devastation would seize all Ephraim. All the places he named, that is, “behind Benjamin,” which was a tribe bordering the region of Judah, and Gibeah, Ramah, and Beth-aven, we gather were near the borders of Judah. Since the calamity of these, which came first, ought to have made Judah anxious by the very example of fear, it not only did nothing toward amendment but even gave increase to sinning. He therefore rebukes it strongly, and says that it showed itself worse through the very thing by which it ought to have become better, if only out of humanity.

Verse 10. — “For the princes of Judah have become like those who take the boundary; upon them I will pour out my wrath like water.” That is, at the time of the Assyrian captivity, which drove the ten tribes from their borders, the princes of Judah, who ought to have been moved to tears by their brothers’ calamity and to have thought earnestly about the beauty of good conduct, so as not to slip into similar hardships themselves, not only felt no fear or compunction but even showed a fratricidal spirit, rejoicing that stretches of land had been added to them now that their brother was expelled. “On the day of desolation,” then, that is, at the time when the tribes of Israel were removed from their borders, he showed the faith (understand: of Judah), whose hidden wish the occasion uncovered. And it held the disasters of its brothers so lightly as to speak of them as having even been to its advantage: which is certainly so great a guilt that it forced the indignation of the avenger to increase. For there follows: “Upon him I will pour out my wrath like water”: that is, after saying “I will pour out,” he openly added, “like water.” “Judah,” he says, “has shown itself worse by the crime of this exultation. And therefore it will be drowned by a flood of punishments, because, when among other benefits our mercy granted it this too, that Ephraim’s destruction should serve for its fear and amendment, it misused this to increase its insolence, and believed that its brother had been provided to it not as an example but as estates to be added to its own.”

Verses 11–15. — “Ephraim suffers false accusation, broken in judgment, because he began to go after filth. And I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like rottenness to the house of Judah. And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his bond. And Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the avenging king; and he will not be able to heal you, nor will he be able to loose the bond from you. For I am like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion’s whelp to the house of Judah. I, I will go and take and carry off, and there is none to rescue. Going, I will return to my place, until you fail and seek my face.” God shows how gravely he was offended that Judah felt no compunction at its brother’s condemnation, but, remaining behind, insulted the exile, glad that its own borders were extended by whatever slaughter. God took this sin so gravely that he promised not merely to apply his wrath but to pour it out completely like water. And since by the increase of punishments he had made Judah appear the guiltier, as one to be laid waste by an overflowing punishment, he went on to develop the figure he had taken up. He says that Judah’s guilt is so much heavier that, compared with it, Israel seems to have suffered false accusation. The sense is this: “If the reckoning of deserts required the evil of captivity, why did Judah, defiled by the customs of the nations and infected with hatred of its brother, put off the force of vengeance? But if after so many crimes it still did not deserve to be expelled, was not the one who was taken captive crushed by false accusation rather than by the justice of the one who teaches?” “Ephraim suffers false accusation, broken in judgment.” He took care to explain what it is to suffer false accusation: to be crushed not by the equity of the judge but by his power. The words “he began to go after filth” look to the same sense. For above he had reproached Israel with the multitude and the age of its sins; but when he attacked the crime of Judah, which sought gain from its brother’s captivity and felt joy at it, and judged this to outweigh the other crimes, he added the rest in the same vein, saying that Ephraim had both been circumvented in judgment and had only [begun] the beginnings of error. As if he said: “You, Judah, have shown such cruelty of mind that in the crimes for which Israel was condemned you seem more horrible and of longer standing. So the measure of my judgment will be sharpened according to the difference of deserts: Ephraim I will eat away now and then like a moth, but you I will consume like clinging rottenness.” It is well known how much less destruction there is in what a moth gnaws than in what rot pervades. “And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his bond”: that is, “You will both see and suffer the punishment appointed for your pursuits, and it will not help you to seek aid from various kings, but you will confess by events that they gave you only examples of corruption, not help toward safety. And Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the avenging king, and he will not be able to heal you, nor will he be able to loose the bond from you. For I am like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion’s whelp to the house of Judah.” He promised to meet both peoples in the guise of a lion, but kept in the sex the difference of severity that he had not made in the kind, so that he said he would appear to the one as a lioness, to the other as a lion. He completed the likeness he had taken up by saying: “I, I will seize and go and carry off, and there is none to rescue. Going, I will return to my place, until you fail and seek my face. There is none of the shepherds,” he says, “who will dare to snatch the prey I have seized; but scorning the uproar of the country folk I will put forth my strength until the hunger of my indignation is satisfied.” “I will return to my place” he put for the den to which a lion is accustomed to withdraw unafraid. “This will be,” he says, “until you, wearied by hardships and pains, seek my face”: which plainly goes beyond the rule of the image taken from the lion and is brought in from the truth of the matter. For as far as the comparison goes, who, when wearied, would wish to see that face which he could not resist even when strong? So, having expressed the indignation he had taken up through the hunger of the lion, he then added, concerning the majesty of his own person, that he would not come to deliver them unless the people, worn down by the very blows, desired to see his face and began to ask a remedy from him alone by whom they had felt the punishment inflicted.

Verses 1–3. — “In their trouble they will rise early to me: Come, and let us return to the Lord, for he has taken, and he will heal us; he will strike, and he will cure us. He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight, and we shall know and follow on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared like the dawn, and he will come to us like the early and the late rain of the earth.” He had said that like a lion going out to hunt he would rage against the profane people, exercising the office of vengeance, which, once roused and begun to wear down the ungodly, would not cease from inflicting punishments until they had betaken themselves to seeking the Lord thereafter with all the earnestness of prayer. But since there is a great difference in the very profession of supplication, and some offer one kind struck by terror alone, others another kind, corrected by reason as well as by fear, he took care to express what weight each has, so that although both seem to have one face, we might understand that they rest on different roots: the one only on disturbance, the other also on the virtue that comes from correction. Since he had said that he would not come forth to help unless that nation, yielding to chastisement, turned to seek his face, he necessarily goes on to explain what supplication he waited for, and first he runs through the words of that supplication with mockery, showing that it must be rejected for its lightness: the kind that flatters with words alone while it is empty of the weight of deeds, whose manner and kind a holy song also accuses: “When he slew them,” it says, “they sought him, and they turned and came to him before dawn; but their heart was not right.” “In their trouble they will rise early to me: Come, and let us return to the Lord, for he has taken, and he will heal us; he will strike, and he will cure us. He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight; we shall know and follow on to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared like the dawn, and he will come to us like the early and the late rain of the earth.” “When you begin to seek me,” he says, “I will not be appeased by this prayer that you carry on your lips, not even if you praise my power and my mercy together, saying that I am so ready to forgive that I anticipate prayers with benefits, and will not let the blow I have inflicted remain for the space of two days, but will come on the third day to give life.” “And we shall live in his sight,” enjoying the happiness of the life he has given. “Let us know and search out him who drives away the nights of our anguish and pain like the morning light, and comes down with the gift of plenty like timely and late rain.” “These things,” I say, “which you are accustomed to sing by rote without amending your conduct, I will despise. But consider what I shall answer.” Verse 4. — “What shall I do to you, Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Judah?” “Your mercy (which, in your promised songs, you said would be present to you from me, to use your own images) has vanished like a morning cloud, and has dried up like the dew of twilight when the sun comes: that is, my habit of sparing you is so consumed by the heat of our indignation that you lack any relief from your evils. Nor does this happen because my sentence has changed, but because yours has not. For I, guarding the rights of justice and of mercy alike, had not wished to punish those whom I had frightened. But you, unmoved even by the announcement of blows, forced the terrors to pass into effect.”

Verse 5. — “Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth; and your judgments shall go forth like light”: that is, “I applied the axes of prophetic threats, and described the evils to be inflicted with such heaps of detail that all the guilty might easily be dismayed by the mere hearing. But since the most elaborate display of terror could not restrain your folly, what it did not help to announce must necessarily be brought on. Therefore your judgments shall go forth like light, so that no one may any longer be ignorant of what you deserve, nor may your ugliness lie hidden under any appearance of religion, such as you had in offering sacrifices. Rather, when the outcome of events is settled, let it shine out that I sought good dispositions more than rich sacrifices, and that he was acceptable to me who was diligent in helping his neighbor through mercy rather than in staining the altar through sacrifice, and who preferred the knowledge of God, his commandment, to all sacrifices. You, then, who despised learning these things and gave no thought to conduct, none to virtues, but thought you could appease me, whom you provoked with your daily acts, with gifts of praises and sacrifices, understand at least by the dangers of events how weighty I am. The mercy you praised, undeserving, has passed like a morning cloud; but the judgments by which you are convicted and condemned will shine like the full day.”

Verse 7. — “But they, like Adam, transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly against me.” He proceeds in the established order of his speech: after threatening punishments, he adds their ground, that is, the faults by which the offense was roused. So here too, after promising that vengeance would be plain, he added the guilt by which they were bound. To set out its weight, he recalled an ancient example. Here the prophet’s manner of speaking should be noted, since it brings the light of explanation to many such passages. He says, “Like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly against me.” Not, certainly, that they seem to have committed transgression in paradise; but since he had said that they transgressed the commandment as Adam did, he added that they sinned “there,” that is, in sinning in the same likeness. This, however, requires a sharp understanding. For Adam, though he was a violator of a commandment, is not read to have prayed to any idols, nor to have committed any of the crimes of which Israel is accused. Why, then, is a people living in the worst crimes compared with that first man? Surely for no other reason than that, although they are not shown to be equally sacrilegious, they are shown to be equally ungrateful. For Adam had been brought into paradise to enjoy riches gained without labor; with no ground for anguish, with no complaint arising, he preferred to fulfill the command of the seducer rather than of the Creator; a flattering promise from falsehood weighed more with him than the Creator’s prescription, crowded with so many gifts and so many wonders, which had granted the use of everything with the exception of one fruit. At once the violator of the commandment began to experience exile, and exchanged the highest happiness for what was almost the last captivity, so that thereafter the fields chastised his sin by denying their fertility. In the same way the people of Ephraim, which enjoyed the riches of the land as if the pleasantness of paradise, finding no ground for offense, that is, nothing to complain of in God’s indulgence and generosity, as though it suffered only from hatred of virtues, preferred errors to the truth and, despising the religion that was saving, fell away to the worship of idols. They are said, then, to have fallen into the same fault as the one whose condition they seem to have imitated, and they are struck by the great reproach of ungrateful nations, since they preferred one who was the author of no gift and skilled only at overthrowing to their Maker, who bestowed all good things generously.

Verses 8, 9. — “Gilead is a city of those who work idols, tripped up by blood; and like the jaws of robbers is the partnership of the priests, killing on the road those who go from Shechem, for they have done wickedness in the house of Israel.” Since, as we have often said, he is accusing not some one person but the people, he now runs through what was done in a general speech, now lists in what things particular cities committed more than the rest. Although the whole region bristled with the worship of idols, there were certainly particular places that had gathered more sacrilege, the more renown they had either from the convenience of trade or from the multitude of their inhabitants. Of these he brings in Gilead and Shechem, cities notable for their profanities. “Gilead,” he says, “the chief city of those who make idols, exults no less in the pursuits of cruelty than of profanity. For like the jaws of robbers, its citizens gape for the blood of the innocent. Serving the persuasions of their priests, that is, of the soothsayers, if anyone wished to go up to the temple of God, they attacked him on the road, turning him away from the temple of God and dragging him into the fellowship of their own error; and if they achieved little by persuasion, they carried out the business by murder.” This is why he says, “The partnership of the priests, killing on the road those who go from Shechem, for they have done wickedness”: first in falling themselves into sacrilege, then in not being content with their own fall but leading others into a similar ruin, whether by persuading or by compelling. This is rightly declared wickedness, that they had such zeal for ungodliness that they strove to pour it even into the unwilling and resisting.

Verse 10. — “In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing; there are the immoralities of Ephraim: Israel is defiled.” To show that the whole region had been profaned, he mentions various places too; and just as above he said that the Gileadites leapt on travelers like robbers to lead them away from the right path, so now he declares that he has seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel, either in Samaria or in the whole region: that is, that the whole people of Ephraim without exception is stained with sacrileges. Since he had often said already that punishment hung over these crimes, he is now content merely to list their deserts, and passes over to Judah, warning it to know that the severity of the judge cannot be bribed, and that it too, unless it hastens to be corrected, will receive the wages of similar calamities.

Verse 11. — “But you also, Judah, set a harvest for yourself, when I turn back the captivity of my people.” “Do not think, O tribe of Judah, that you will be free of condemnation because you remain within your borders while the people of Israel has been led into captivity. He went before you in iniquities; it followed that he should go before you in miseries. But you, who accompany him in outrages, will follow him also in calamities, and are to be judged the worse in this, that it profits you nothing that he was condemned first. Set a harvest for yourself, then, when I turn back the captivity of my people. See,” he says, “that you do not doubt that, when the time of due vengeance has come, the captivity which my people, that is, your brothers, have now suffered at the sentence of justice will be turned on you, so that you too are reaped in the same way. For just as those who sow in the tears of repentance bring back sheaves of joy, so those who pursue polluted joys will gather a harvest of sorrows and laments.”