dual nature of man, we become involved in hopeless difficulties, and end in an idolatry which, however refined and disguised, remains idolatry still.

Note that Hosea concentrates his attack upon the unworthy priests and prophets; false to their highest duty and charge, they ruin the people by spiritual starvation. The knowledge which it was their duty to impart of God's true nature and demands, of true religion in other words, they ignore or forget.

Perhaps Hosea's own exalted insight made him unaware how far he had advanced beyond the 'knowledge of God' which had yet been reached by the general body of priests and so-called 'prophets.' But in these matters all is conjecture.

'The sin of my people' consists in those very offerings which are brought in the vain delusion that they are pleasing to God. The priests approve of this delusion, for their revenues are thereby increased!

The entire ritual is idolatrous. From diviners' wands and idols advice and oracles are sought in the very manner of the heathen. And this is thought to be the true worship of Jehovah! The altars from which they seek protection shall prove their ruin.

Neither go ye up to Beth-aven.' 'Beth-el,' house of God, is sarcastically described as Beth-aven, house of vanity' or 'violence.' Some scholars hold that this parenthetical reference to Judah is not the work of Hosea. In any case it is a warning to Judaeans not to join in the idolatrous worship of the north, or in their own equally contaminated worship at Beer-sheba. Compare Amos (in the foregoing chapter, § 6).

§ 5. Israel the oppressor.—The present section is again concerned with menace and rebuke. The main attack falls upon the priests and the rulers. Judah apparently does also not escape from the condemnation of the prophet.

Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for to you is the judgement. Ye have become a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor, and a deep pit at Shittim: but I will be the chastisement of them all. I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou committest apostasy, and Israel is defiled. Their deeds will not suffer them to return unto their God: for the spirit of apostasy is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.

And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face: therefore shall Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; Judah

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also shall stumble with them. (?) They go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord: their children are faithless.

Blow ye the trumpet in Gibeah, and the clarion in Ramah : aloud at Beth-aven, raise the alarm in Benjamin. Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be.

The princes of Judah (?) are become like them that remove the landmarks: therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water. Oppression and breaking of justice are in Ephraim, because he wilfully walked after vanity (). And I am unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah (?) as rottenness. And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah (?) his wound, and Ephraim went to Assyria, and (Israel) sent to the great king: but he cannot heal you nor cure you of your wound. For I am as a lion unto Ephraim, and as a young lion to the house of Judah (?): I, even I, tear and go away: I carry off, and none can rescue.

"The princes of Judah.' It seems probable that Judah' has been substituted for Israel.' An early editor in the south desired to make Hosea's words relate more directly to his own kingdom. For the message of Hosea is to Israel.

The 'great king' is the king of Assyria. But the allusion is very obscure, because the invasion of Israel by Tiglath-pileser III under Menahem can hardly be the 'sending' which is here referred to.

§ 6. Ephemeral repentance.-A striking and beautiful passage follows, but it does not seem in real and natural connexion with either what has preceded or what succeeds it. Professor Cheyne regards it as an interpolation. Other scholars, holding it to be the genuine work of Hosea, suppose that Israel is represented as showing an outward and transitory repentance. They are moved by the prophet's rebuke and threat, but Hosea knows that this desire to know the Lord is but fleeting, and proceeds from no true 'change of heart,' no deliberate and sustained resolve. Their 'love' will be as ephemeral as the cloud of the early summer morning; it will vanish like the dew.

[I will go away and return to my place, till they feel their guilt, and seek my face. In their affliction they will earnestly

seek me, saying: Come, and let us return to the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his presence. Yea, let us know, let us be zealous to know the Lord; as soon as we seek him earnestly, we shall find him. And he shall come to us like the winter rain, like the spring rain which watereth the land.

O Ephraim, what can I do unto thee? O Judah, (?) what can I do unto thee? For your love is as the morning cloud, and as the dew which early passeth away.]

§ 7. Love, not sacrifice.-Though the present section begins with a 'therefore,' this 'therefore' is not really connected with what precedes. It can only artificially be made to depend on it. For the false repentance just alluded to is yet to come. But the 'hewings' by the prophets lie in the past. Hosea is thinking (as Wellhausen supposes) of such great seers as Elijah and Elisha, whose 'word' was the harbinger of deeds-deeds of dread and of chastisement. The section is obscure and the text uncertain, but it contains the greatest sentence in all Hosea's book, the epitome of the entire prophetic teaching: 'I desire love, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.'

Does 'love' (in Hebrew, Chesed) mean here love to God or love to man? It would be hard to say; perhaps a clear difference between the two was not present to the prophet's mind, and he himself could hardly have answered the question. Professor Cheyne translates For I delight in piety, and not in sacrifice.' Wellhausen: Denn Liebe will ich und nicht Opfer. Guthe: Denn an Liebe habe ich Wohlgefallen, nicht an Schlachtopfern.

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Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; and have slain them by the words of my mouth: my judgement went forth as the light. For I desire love, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.

But at... they broke the covenant: there they dealt treacherously against me. Gilead is a city of evildoers, foot-printed with blood. And as bandits lying in wait, so doth the company of priests (?): they murder on the road to Shechem; yea, they commit outrages (?). I have seen a horrible thing at Beth-el; there Ephraim hath wrought apostasy, there Israel hath become defiled. And Judah...

The guilt of Ephraim is manifest, and the wickedness

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of Samaria, for they practise falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and bandits roam abroad without. And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness (?). Now their own doings beset them about; they are before my face.

§ 8. Israel the ungrateful.-To the sin of idolatry is added the sin of ingratitude. Israel owes all to God, and God is repaid by apostasy and forgetfulness. The first seven obscure and corrupt verses of this section are here omitted. Israel 'mixes himself' among the peoples by 'courting the favour now of Egypt and now of Assyria. He is as a cake not turned, because he remains obstinately lying, as it were, on the wrong side, in spite of its calamitous results (Wellhausen). He persists in his iniquity.

Ephraim, he mixeth himself among the peoples (?); Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, yet he knoweth it not. So the pride of Israel shall testify to his face: yet do they not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this. Ephraim is become like a silly dove without understanding: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. Even as they go, I spread my net upon them; I bring them down as the birds of the heaven; I will chastise them... Woe unto them! that they have fled from me: destruction unto them! that they have rebelled against me. I would fain redeem them, but they speak lies against me. And they cry not unto me with their heart, but they howl for their... and they cut themselves for corn and wine, rebellious against me. But it was I who strengthened their arms, yet do they think evil concerning me. They...: they are like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword..

To thy mouth with the trumpet! (?) As an eagle shall he come against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and rebelled against my law. To me forsooth they cry, My God, we know thee! Israel hath spurned the good: let the enemy pursue him!

The text is again very uncertain. The number of dots and queries might be even sensibly increased.

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They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.' Allusions to rival Egyptian and Assyrian parties, which seem to have existed in Israel as well as in Judah.

'They cut themselves.' They pray for corn and wine, and make incisions in their flesh that their prayers may be all the more effectual! Compare Part I, p. 316.

'Covenant' and 'law.' 'Covenant' should be taken here as parallel to 'law': it probably signifies ordinance.' 'Law' is not of course the collected code of the 'Pentateuch,' for this did not yet exist in the age of Hosea. It should rather be translated teaching' or 'direction.' It is the will of God as revealed by the true prophets and teachers of Israel to which Hosea refersa 'law' which to him is exclusive of ritual. The next section shows that written laws did already exist in Hosea's day, but those at any rate which Hosea recognizes as containing the will of God were only of a moral and spiritual nature.

They shall return to Egypt.' A double exile is threatened by Hosea, both to Assyria and to Egypt.

§ 9. Israel among the nations.-In this section Hosea pours forth the full vials of his wrath and scorn against the popular religion. The 'calf of Samaria' is a contemptuous nickname for one of the golden bulls which to the people still symbolized the God of Israel. Probably there were other such bulls besides those set up by Jeroboam at Beth-el and Dan. But Hosea may here allude to one of these, for Samaria may here mean not the city, but the kingdom.

The kings set up, but not by me,' refer to the constant and violent changes of rulers and dynasty after the death of Jeroboam II. Hosea, like Isaiah, objects to all alliances with either Egypt or Assyria. They will not serve their purpose: exile is at hand, whether to Egypt, or to Assyria, or to both. There is no salvation except through moral and religious amendment: and this path great and small alike refuse to tread. The last sentence seems an interpolated imitation of Amos.

They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off. I loathe thy calf, O Samaria; mine anger is kindled against it. . . . A workman made it; it is not God: the calf of Samaria shall be broken into splinters. For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, strangers shall swallow it up. Israel is swallowed up: already are they become among the nations as a worthless vessel. For they are gone up to Assyria, like a wild ass that roameth alone: