Commentary on Hosea, Joel and Amos 3.5.1–3.5.12

Verses 1–2. — “Hear this word, which I raise over you as a lament: The house of Israel has fallen and will not rise again. The virgin Israel is thrown down on her land, and there is none to raise her up.” So the order of meanings is woven together that our God, in his usual way, carefully sets out the causes of the captivity inflicted, which he seems to have carried out as if unwillingly. But let us return to the order of the reading. After he said, “Thus will I do to you, Israel; and after I have done this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel,” he says: “For see, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man his word, who makes the morning mist and treads on the heights of the earth: the Lord of hosts is his name.” To stir up reverence for the judge in the hearts of the guilty, he inserts the works of the Creator, so that the prudent hearer may understand the feeling of the censor toward him, or may not doubt the effect of the vengeance, seeing that the one who threatens him is he by whose power the universe subsists. That is: “O Israel, look at who it is who settles the account of your deserts: he through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made; he who formed and distinguished the elements by his command; he who gave the stars to shine, the valleys to sink, the plains to lie flat, the mountains to swell; he who commanded the breathable air, by which the empty space between heaven and earth is filled, now to thicken into cloud, now to move into winds; whose providence is declared in new works by the various offices of the elements; who, though so great in eminence of power, yet deigns to make known his word, that is, his law, to man; and amid the wonders of his government, by which he makes the mists exhale from the earth when the morning sun has breathed on them, until by the lingering of the same heat they are either pressed down or wholly dried; indeed, when it is fitting, they are drawn up, condensed into clouds, and, made higher than all the mountains, pour the waters of the rains they have conceived on what lies beneath, and so mark the traces of his very government impressed on them; he himself, I say, the Maker of the elements, whose name is Lord of hosts, that is, whose power is such that the troops of angels serve his nod and confess him their king and Creator: he, I say, contends with you with such kindness that he announces the torments to be brought on you, if by any means, the feeling of repentance stirred in your minds, even a late amendment might withdraw the guilty from vengeance. Since you spoil this remedy by obstinate depravity, receive the voice of our lament, whose warnings you have always rejected: the voice, I say, with which we follow your last rites. She has fallen, fallen, she will not rise again. The virgin Israel is thrown down on her land; there is none to raise her up.” That is, that nation descended from the famous stock of Israel, which formerly deserved, or was accustomed, to be called a virgin (since no profanity had violated the chastity with which it had been taken into the partnership of its own ruler, or no captivity had seized its happiness, strong in continuous integrity), is now exposed to be trampled by the conqueror and suffers disgrace and torments together. Nor does it claim any comfort for removing the calamity; but it lies on its own land like a woman subjected to pollution, and, pressed down by miseries, has come to the grave, and there is none who can bring help and raise up the fallen one whom the censure of the Almighty has crushed. From the verse in which he says, “He who forms the mountains and creates the wind,” up to the present passage, can be taken as said in the person of the prophet, speaking of God’s power. When he says that Israel has fallen on its land so as never to rise again, although both the preceding and the following sentences promise the comfort of miseries to be ended at some time, and in the very time of punishment threaten a diminishing rather than a slaughter of the people, we ought to take it either that with the feeling of a mourner he judged the disasters inflicted more heavily, and so called utterly destroyed those whom he saw crushed for the greater part; or else that he marked that in the persons of those whom captivity consumed the nation went to ruin, and that the nation of Israel could not be raised by anyone.

Verse 3. — “For thus says the Lord God: The city from which a thousand went out, a hundred shall be left in it; and from which a hundred went out, ten shall be left in it, in the house of Israel.” The history of Kings declares that the miseries of captivity did not rush in suddenly, but that the people was chastised over long times while amendment was tried; and therefore our God addresses it through the prophets with various voices, now announcing destruction and calling it fixed, now promising prosperity if it amends. So do not suspect any discrepancy in the sayings, as if they were crowded into one time; but, distributing the sentences delivered over long periods and their fitting circumstances, you will find that their consistency holds for all; and that, as evils grew little by little, the kingdom of the profane people was diminished, until it came to the destruction of the last captivity. In those cities and regions, then, which were laid waste while the metropolis, that is, Samaria, was still standing, as it were, let us understand that a decimation of the nation was made, so that, as the noble parts perished, the lowest remained. Since this decimation had been inflicted so that it might give some to just destruction and amend others by the example of those who perished, there at once sounded the exhortation of the judge himself.

Verses 4–6. — “For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek me and you shall live. And do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal, and do not cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing. Seek the Lord and live, lest the house of Joseph be burned with fire, and it devour, and there be none to quench Bethel.” “Since cruel dangers at last taught you, O Israel, what you ought to have learned from the law and from piety, that you should cling with the office of continual devotion to your one Maker, who when favorable made you happy and when angry most wretched, now at least take up the zeal of a penitent, and, if you wish to live, think of correcting your acts. Seek me, then, whom you abandoned in serving profanity: seek me, I say, ready to be found, and, as soon as you begin to seek, you will find me coming to meet you; for everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, to him who knocks it will be opened. Do not add to your sacrileges the neglect of our inquiry, lest you be revealed as more horrible for neglecting the remedies offered than for violating the commandments that had been proclaimed. Seek me and you shall live. Do not seek Bethel and Gilgal and Beersheba.” These cities, as the history of Kings shows, were enslaved both to the calves Jeroboam had made and to other idols (1 Kgs 12). The Lord, counseling them, warns that they should stop frequenting the places that profanity had made abominable, lest they perish together with them, since these were destined to destruction. “Seek, then, the Lord, who does not wish the death of the dying; and, seeking, return to him, and you shall live, lest you begin to be burned when fire is sent on the roofs of the profane.” But let us see the rest too.

Verses 7, 8. — “You who turn judgment into wormwood and leave justice on the earth. He who makes Arcturus and Orion, and turns darkness into morning, and changes day into night; who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth: the Lord is his name.” In the same order as above, to explain the power of the judge, he reminded them that the same one is Creator, and, showing the purpose of one who, as far as in him lies, wishes all to be provided for (since his goodness alone gave them the cause of their existence), he says that his judgment, which would be sweet to the innocent, they had made most bitter for themselves, like wormwood. So what he says, “You who turn judgment into wormwood,” we ought to take either as a complaint that they turned into bitterness the divine judgment, which they forced by their deserts to become deadly to them; or else that he says the very examination of human reason was corrupted into bitterness, by their preferring the worship of idols to the holy rites they had received through Moses. Then follows, “And you leave justice on the earth”: which we could refer to the fault of their very choice, which left the norm of judging as if it were something to be trampled, if he did not show by the following verses what he called justice. For he says, “He who makes Arcturus and Orion, who turns darkness into morning.” He called justice, then, our God himself, who is rightly named both power and wisdom (1 Cor 1:24); and, complaining that he had been left, that is, despised, by the profane, he lists his works by which the world is governed, so as to heap up the crimes of those who did not fear to provoke a God of such majesty. As for his bringing in those names of the stars that seem to have been given by the Gentiles (although other translators said only “stars”), we could consistently take it that the prophet used the names at hand to distinguish the stars, not to confirm fables, just as the apostle did not disdain to take up sayings of the poets. It should also be noted that, wishing to embrace a description of the heavenly arrangement, he expressed by the names of stars the four regions, which are also called climates: placing the north by Arcturus and the south, which lies opposite, by Orion, and marking sunrise and sunset by the alternation of day and night. Here, beautifully admiring the power of the Maker, he says that he turns darkness itself into morning: for the globe of the sun, when it has completed its circuits, so pours sudden splendor on the lands that it seems not to have driven away the darkness it found but to have changed it into light. “Who calls the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth: the Lord is his name.” Most elegantly and knowingly, when he was speaking of the offices of the elements pertaining to the Creator’s institution and government, he said that he makes all things, by whose power the same orders were formed and are protected; yet he shows by the ministry of which star especially he provides for the producing of crops: the sun, which by its departure prepares night for us and by its return day. Since the speech had touched on a description of natural things, he added also that either moisture exhaled from the earth or streams taken from the gulfs of the sea are drawn upward by the same heat, and, again hanging from the clouds, which can no longer go to the heights of heaven by their very weight, lay aside their bitter saltiness by transfusion, and so at last are returned to the thirsty lands; and thus, by the mixing of contraries, moisture and heat, an admirable richness comes about for nourishing crops: a work of such greatness that none could accomplish it but he who alone is shown to be Lord of all by right of creation. But let us see the rest.

Verse 9. — “He who smiles devastation upon the strong, and brings ravaging upon the mighty.” He then disclosed for what business the preceding description of power had been prepared: namely, to stir fear in the hearts of the hearers, so that they might understand how great a heap of calamities hung over those against whom a judge of such power was hostile. “He,” he says, “who is the Creator of all things goes on to settle every account of deserts; and although no one can resist his strength, he smiles at the torments of the guilty who thought themselves powerful, whom he will crush with such ease that he shows his indignation by a smile rather than a shout.” Why not, since all things serve his nod, and, according to the difference of deserts, follow at his command [in] obedience, adverse things as well as prosperous? So he smiles devastation upon those who thought themselves powerful and used to say, “We will magnify our tongue; our lips are our own; who is our God?” “Against such men,” he says, “who claim for themselves most profanely from their prosperous strength, I, the eternal avenger, smile at the torments of affliction, and declare my indignation by the use of such a grin, which is at odds with the time.” So he calls the Israelites strong and mighty, either in reproach of their pride or in memory of their former happiness: those whom he has already announced to be for the greater part consumed and to be carried off in the coming captivity.

Verses 10, 11. — “They hated the one who rebukes in the gate, and abhorred the one who speaks uprightly. Therefore, because you plundered the poor and took choice spoil from him, you shall build houses of hewn stone and not live in them; you shall plant most delightful vineyards and not drink their wine.” The arrangement of prophetic speech is kept: after the punishments have been announced, the cause of the severity is at once added, so that the Lord of such great goodness may not seem to have done anything from indignation rather than in requital; and at the same time to show with what great kindness he cares for the poor, when he joins their insults and robberies to the violation of religion. By this I prove it to follow that in profane minds there is no care for civil justice, no feeling of humanity, but, as if driven by a wind of fury, they rush on their fellows and tear all the poor with professed savagery. Hence those who had fallen away to the worship of idols with sacrilegious mind abstained from no crimes at all, but were as harmful to their fellows and citizens as they were ungrateful to the Lord himself, from whom they turned away. When he says that they pursued with hatred those who rebuked in the gates, he shows the custom of the Jewish institution, which was so ordered that the judges of affairs sat in the gates of each city, so that whoever needed their examination would not toil over any inquiry, but would find at the very entrance those before whom he might try his case. We should not suppose, however, that among the Israelites, living especially under the power of profane kings, this custom which had been established through blessed Moses in the priestly commonwealth remained; but he shows that with the rites they also violated civil rights, and took on hatred of virtues together with their preachers, so that if anyone wished to exhort them to correction and holiness, he at once perished by conspiring hatreds. He showed why they opposed the warnings of the censors: “You plundered,” he says, “the poor, and took choice spoil from him. So, that you might go on through the losses and insults of the poor without any hindrance of fear or shame, you hated sober counselors.” It should be noted, however, that he says they took choice spoil from the needy, since one of two things would surely be thought more consistent: either those he admits were poor had no great things to lose, or, if a plunderer took precious things from them, we should rightly call them rich. It is to be understood, then, either that he called poor those whom they had made needy from rich by their robberies, or else that, looking to the feeling of the owners rather than the value of the losses, he said that things, even if small, yet precious to the poor by their very smallness, had been taken by savage greed. In testimony of this let us recall at least one example. The vineyard of the holy man Naboth, small in area but most dear to its owner and precious by its very pleasantness, the most stupid king Ahab coveted; and when he sent word to the owner about selling it, Naboth answered that he could not despise his father’s inheritance, nor did he wish, if it were allowed, to be deprived of it. Then the king, spurred by the urging of his most profane wife, added the crime of cruelty to his greed, killed Naboth, and seized the vineyard he had coveted (1 Kgs 21). So they took with bloody daring choice spoils, than which their owners valued nothing more precious; let us hear what he announces to them for these deeds. “Because you plundered the poor, you shall build houses of hewn stone and not live in them; you shall plant most delightful vineyards and not drink their wine. [Verse 12.] For I know your many crimes and your mighty sins.” “The boldness of your plunderings aimed at this: that instruments of luxury might be supplied, and that you might adorn your dwellings at great expense, as if they would serve for both defense and pleasure. But two things will happen to you together: you will build, but you will not be able to live in them; and you will be tormented both by the labor of the work and by its loss, and feel your grief heaped up in this, that you are cut off not from makeshift but from elegant dwellings; nor will you be able to complain of the calamity or hope for divine help amid your groans, since the crowd of your faults resists your prayer. Why not, since I see that you have committed more atrocious things against citizens and neighbors alike?” All these things, as history shows, those ten Samaritan tribes suffered often from neighboring enemies, but above all from the Assyrians; and Judah shared the same destruction when Babylon laid it waste. “When, then, you are deprived of your very spacious and very ornate houses and your fertile vineyards, planted moreover by your own labor, with captivity added, put it down to the very great sins you have committed.”

Verse 13. — “Enemies of the just, taking bribes and pressing down the poor in the gate. Therefore the prudent will keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time.” He heightens the state of the corrupt city through various images. As he said above that they despised, indeed struck, those who urged them to justice, so consequently he calls them enemies of the just. This can be understood in two ways. Either “of the just” as a genitive singular, so that they are declared enemies of justice: that is, “I charge you not with neglecting justice but with hating it; and from this feeling comes the deadly perversity of your pursuits, since, joining impudence to iniquity, you do not even wish to hide what you do, but in the gate of the city, that is, in the places of judgment, before the people, you value causes not by their merits but by their price, and help the iniquity of the moneyed from the means of the poor.” Or else “just enemies” may be believed to be said in the nominative plural, so that, after listing many and great crimes, he added, as if moved, that they were “just enemies,” that is, that they showed themselves, as it were, lawful adversaries of religion and of God. This is a manner of speaking familiar to [the ancients], who used to call armies and provinces “just,” that is, great. But let us see the rest.

Verse 13. — “Therefore,” he says, “the prudent will keep silent at that time, for the time is evil.” He changed the tense in the inflection: since he is listing either the past or the present deeds of the people, he would more consistently say, “the prudent kept silent at that time,” instead of which he says “will keep silent.” “Since, then, they had undertaken,” as he had declared, “a just, that is, a regular, war against honesty and religion, rightly,” he says, “the mouths of those who called them back to justice fell silent, and every prudent man kept silent with groaning and grief, considering that no room was left for saving teaching, and that he ought therefore to look to himself by keeping silent, since he no longer achieved anything by arguing.” The prudent compelled into silence by public horror are those of whom he had said above, “They hated the one who rebukes in the gate, and abhorred the one who speaks uprightly.” “When, then, the boldness of the profane peoples has so conspired as to pursue the truth and piety of teaching as if war had been declared, every prudent teacher will weep indeed, but will keep silent,” seeing that like deaf asps they have stopped their ears, so that nothing of saving songs can penetrate to them. This seems to raise some question, which must be cleared up by a brief explanation. For the prudence of a teacher is praised who withdraws into the safety of silence if adversity blows from the side of the hearers. Yet the teacher of the Gentiles commands to rebuke and beseech in season (2 Tim 4), and almost all holy Scripture commends that perseverance. A distinction must therefore be applied that can claim harmony for the commands. As long as the people, though sinning much through negligence, still stands under the profession of learning, the lawful teacher ought by no means to fear the secret offense of some, but to provide for all who have gathered to hear with assiduity in teaching, since he has heard that the money entrusted to him is to be lent out, and that a master will come who demands both the principal and the interest. But if the change for the worse has been so great that the ungodliness of the people withdraws its neck from discipleship itself, and, having itching ears, it assents only to silly fables, then plainly silence is now necessary for leaders, who say with the prophet: “I was dumb and humbled, and kept silent from good things, and my grief was renewed.”

Verses 14, 15. — “Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil and love good, and establish judgment in the gate; perhaps the Lord God of hosts will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.” These verses seem to be inserted in the person of the prophet in pity, warning the Israelites, even when already set under destruction, to agree in the wishes and pursuits of correction, if perhaps the God of hosts, whose mercy is as great as his power, might be softened by such amendments and refrain at least from destroying the remnant of the crushed nation. He then adds what connects with what went before.

Verses 16, 17. “Therefore thus says the Lord God of hosts, the ruler: In all the streets there will be lamentation, and in all places outside it will be said, Woe, woe; and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those skilled in lamenting to wailing. And in all the vineyards there will be lamentation, for I will pass through your midst, says the Lord.” Setting aside the verses that we said were brought in in the person of the prophet in pity, the order of the invective runs on, so that after what he said, “Enemies of the just, taking bribes and pressing down the poor in the gate; therefore the prudent will keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time,” there seems to follow in connection, “Therefore thus says the Lord God,” and the rest that follows: namely, that laments will be heard in all the streets. “And in all places outside,” he says, “it will be said, Woe, woe.” Since he had said there would be lamentation in the streets, he added that the places outside would also be mixed with similar weeping, so that he would not seem to threaten the cities alone. So “Woe, woe” will be said in the whole region, and vineyards as well as fields and mountains will resound with pitiable laments. “For I will pass through your midst, says the Lord. For a long time,” he says, “you found me as if hiding and not seeing at all what you did, and you experienced nothing; for you gave no thought to amendment through so long a truce. Now I will enter your region, defiled by sacrileges, as an avenger whom you can no longer mock.” He says that he will pass through, to bring in the memory of that time when we read that Egypt or Sodom perished, as he consumed the firstborn of Egypt or the roofs of Sodom. “In this way, then, I will pass through, to carry out the vengeance that deserts require.” Hence in blessed Hosea too, when he spoke of the softening of the sentence, he says, “For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not enter the city.” What there, in pity, he had promised not to do, he now promises in anger to do: that is, to pass through the midst of the people with an avenging mind. When the heap of these calamities rushes in, the farmers will gather not for cultivation but for laments, calling with them those who know how to lament. This was said according to the custom of that region, which also prevailed among other nations: for there were funeral songs, which the crowd echoed while others led in rhythm. So, as if to express the lawful funeral of the people, he announces that those skilled in lamenting are to be called together.

Verses 18–20. — “Woe to those who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want it? This day of the Lord is darkness and not light. As if a man flees from the face of a lion and [a bear] meets him; and he goes into a house and leans his hand on the wall, and a serpent bites him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom and no brightness in it?” The teacher of the Gentiles, showing the counsel and purpose of divine goodness, says: “The goodness of God leads you to repentance; but according to your hardness and impenitent heart you store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath,” so that you receive vengeance heaped up by the very delay. With this purpose of counsel, then, the prophetic threat sounded through the ages of many kings, and the display of terror went before in the description of calamities, to stir in the hearts of hearers the feeling of fear and correction. But those who were accustomed to misuse remedies drew the delay of punishments and deaths into an argument of falsehood, saying that the prophets, by recalling the day of the Lord, roused empty terrors. So among the other things they said wantonly and wickedly, they also said this with mockery: that they desired the day of the Lord and wished that it would at last be revealed: not that they asked for it with true desire, but so that, if it did not come, the falsehood of the threatening prophets would be exposed. So the censure, conscious of its own truth, announces to the sacrilegious that manifold affliction will follow that profession of desiring the day, and that that time will answer them not with good proofs but with hard wages; and such storms of calamities will arise that a harsher danger will always meet them wherever the wretches think they should flee. “That day,” he says, “will be so squalid with the darkness of anguish that it will leave no light of counsel, but the most wretched will run from ruin to ruin, driven by fear: as if one fleeing a lion that pursues him should meet raging bears, and, suffering the increase of sudden fear, should burst into some house to hide, and when he has put his hand to the wall to rest a little after such great dismay, should meet the bite of a serpent lurking in a hole, and so perish as the poison slips into his insides. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light, and gloom and no brightness in it? I announce that night to be not only dark but gloomy, in which the light of security will be taken away and no stars of consolation will shine.”

Verses 21–24. — “I hate and reject your festivals, and I do not take in the smell of your assemblies. Even if you offer me burnt offerings and your gifts, I will not accept them, and I will not regard the vows of your fat beasts. Take away from me the tumult of your songs; and I will not hear the music of your lyre. And judgment will be revealed like water, and justice like a mighty torrent.” Although for the greater part of his speech he insisted on rebuking Israel, that is, the ten tribes, yet he also touches on the offenses of Judah. For at the beginning of the work, when he had brought in mention of various nations, he came to Judah and said: “For three crimes of Judah, and for four, I will not turn him back, because he rejected the law of the Lord and did not keep his commandments; for their idols deceived them, after which their fathers walked; and I will send fire on Judah, and it shall devour the houses of Jerusalem.” Although, then, he had pressed more vehemently on Israel, yet after his speech came to express the day of the Lord, that is, the time of vengeance, and strove to explain its severity by various images (that terrible display of vengeance certainly hung no less over the peoples of Judah than of Samaria), he also showed that the comforts of the ceremonies, which Judah still seemed to celebrate after Israel had been profaned, were weakened and rejected; and, on the occasion of commending his censure, before which such appeasements are worth nothing amid the losses of conduct, he showed that he would be an equal judge to both tribes. So, while delaying the sentence, he announces to Judah too, with Israel, that he loathes their assemblies and offerings, despises the vows in which they used to sacrifice fat victims, and is so offended by the songs in which they sing the praises of God that he declares he feels a tumult rather than an assembly. For all these services of religion are pleasing and acceptable to God only when they are offered with good conduct. But if those who serve sacrileges and iniquities take them up, they achieve nothing toward obtaining salvation, so that their prayer becomes sin. When all these comforts have been convicted and driven away, the judgment of God will be revealed like water; and lest this be obscure, he added, “and justice like a mighty torrent.” The flood of the calamity sent will surely carry them off and extinguish them like a deluge. For by various images he wishes to express the power and knowledge of the avenger, which, as it can be softened by tears before it rushes in, so, when it has fallen, cannot be evaded.