From chaos. "I beheld the earth, and lo! a desolate waste! The heavens also, and there was no light." (Jer. iv., v. 23.) "He shall stretch over her the line of desolation, and let fall the plummet of emptiness. (Isa. xxxiv., v. 11).

From the deluge. "The flood-gates on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble." (Isa. xxiv., v. 18).

"And her streams

From the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. shall be turned into pitch, and her dust into sulphur, and her land shall become burning pitch.” (Isa. xxxiv., v. 9).

The exodus and deliverance from shadow forth other great deliverances. 16-19; li., vv. 9-10).

From the descent on Sinai.

Egypt, is frequently used to (Isa. xi., vv. 15-16; xliii., vv.

"The Lord is coming from His place; He will descend, and tread upon the heights of the earth, the mountains shall be molten under Him." (Micah 1., vv. 3-4).

The Minor Prophets have generally been considered more obscure and difficult of interpretation than any of the other prophetical books of the Holy Scriptures. Beside the avoidance of a minute and particular style of description, and the exhibition of the more general aspects of events only, which are justly regarded as essentially characteristic of prophecy, and the exuberance of imagery, which was so admirably calculated to give effect to the oracles delivered by the inspired Seers, but which to us does not possess the vividness and perspicuity which it did to those to whom it was originally exhibited, there are peculiarities attaching more or less to each of the writers, arising either from his matter, or from the manner of its treatment, which present difficulties of no ordinary magnitude to common readers, and many that are calculated to exercise the ingenuity, and, in no small degree, to perplex the mind of the more experienced interpreter. We are frequently left to guess historical circumstances from what we otherwise know of the features of the times, and sometimes we have no other means of ascertaining their character than what are furnished by the descriptive terms employed in the predictions themselves. Though in such cases general ideas may be collected respecting the persons or things which are presented to view in the text, yet we want the historical commentary which would elucidate and give point to its various particulars. The accounts contained in the books of Kings and Chronicles are frequently too brief to furnish us with a key to many of the prophecies which were fulfilled during the period which they embrace.

Against none of these Prophets has the charge of obscurity been brought with greater appearance of justice than against Hoshea, whose prophecies are obviously, for the most part, mere compendia, or condensed notes of what he publicly delivered, though preserving to a considerable extent, the logical and verbal forms which characterised his discourses. Besides a profusion of metaphors, many of which are derived from sources little accordant with the dictates of occidental taste, we find in his book a conciseness of expression, an abruptness of transition, a paucity of connecting particles, and changes in person, number, and gender, to which nothing equal occurs in any of the other Prophets.

The period of time within which the authors of the books flourished, includes the entire prophetic cycle of more than four hundred years. It

is unquestionably the most eventful in the history of the Hebrews. It embraces the introduction of image-worship, and that of the Phoenicean idolatry, with all its attendant evils, among the Israelites; the regicidal murders and civil wars which shook their kingdom to its centre; the corruptions of the Jewish state in consequence of its adoption of the idolatrous practices of the northern tribes; the Assyrian and Egyptian alliances; the irruption of the Syrian, Assyrian, and Chaldean armies into Palestine; the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities; the Persian conquests; the release of the Jews, and their restoration to their own land; and the state of affairs at Jerusalem during the governorship of Nehemiah.

Upon all these various events and circumstances, the predictions, warnings, threatenings, promises and moral lessons, have, in a multiplicity of aspects, a more or less pointed and important bearing.

HOSHEA.

Respecting the origin of this Prophet nothing is known beyond what is stated in the title, verse 1. If, as is now generally agreed Jeroboam II. died about the year B.C. 784, and Hezekiah began to reign about B.C. 728, it would appear from the same verse that the period of his ministry must have embraced, at the very least fifty-six years. He was cotemporary with Isaiah, Micah, and Amos, and, like the lastmentioned Prophet, directed his prophecies chiefly against the kingdom of the ten tribes.

From the general tenor of his book, and from the history of the times contained in the Books of Kings, he manifestly lived in a very corrupt age.

Though he occasionally mentions Judah, yet the entire scene is laid in the land of Israel, where, there can be little doubt, he lived and taught.

With the exception of the first and third chapters, which are in prose, the book is rhythmical, and abounds in highly figurative and metaphorical language. The sentences are in general brief and unconnected; the unexpected change of persons is of frequent occurrence; number and gender are often neglected; and the similes and metaphors are frequently so intermixed, that no small degree of attention is required in order to discover their exact bearing and force. He is more scanty in his use of the particles than the other Prophets, which adds not a little to the difficulty of interpreting his prophecies. Of all the Prophets he is, in point of language, the most obscure and hard to be understood.

HOSHEA.

CHAPTER I.

1. The word of the Lord which came unto Hoshea, the son 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 FIRST SPEECH OF THE LORD TO HOSHEA.

The Lord said to Hoshea: "Go, take unto thee a wife "addicted to harlotries, and beget children ad"dicted to harlotries; for the land is given up to

1.-Hoshea.-See Introduction.-The Son of Beeri.-According to the Talmud (Megillah, fol. 15) Hoshea's father was also a prophet, and it was he who by inspiration wrote the two verses in Isaiah chap. viii., vv. 19, 20, which-not being sufficient to form a separate volume-were added to Isaiah. Jeroboam the son of Joash.Commonly called Jeroboam the Second, to distinguish him from the son of Nebat. This monarch carried on very successful wars with his Northern neighbours, and recovered out of their hands the territories of which they had taken possession, but he was a very wicked character, and greatly promoted idolatry in Israel.—See II Kings xiv., vv. 23-28. It may be that Hoshea-after the death of Jeroboam II.-left Israel to dwell in Judah, and that from thence he also sent forth his exhortations to Israel. Perhaps therefore we are told here, that he prophesied in the days of Jeroboam II. to inform us that during the reign of that monarch he dwelt in the land of Israel.

2.-To Hoshea.-So the Syriac, and is in accordance with the Talmud (Pesachim, fol. 87). See also Aben Ezra.-Addicted to harlotries.—The transaction here described is clogged with almost insuperable difficulties; and, as may be expected, has given rise to very different modes of interpretation. By the Talmud (Pesachim, fol. 87), and among English expositors who are of the same opinion, I may mention Bishop Horsley and Dr. Henderson, the things specified are considered to have actually taken place in the outward history of the prophet. Abarbanel, Kimchi, Maimonides, Ruffinus, Marckius, Pococke, and others regard the whole in the light of internal prophetic

vision. The Targum, Calvin, Luther, Osiander, Rivetus, Rosenmuller, Hitzig, Fuerstenthal, and others, treat it as a parabolical representation, in which the prophet appropriates to himself imaginary circum stances, aptly fitted to impress the minds of those whom he addressed with a sense of their wickedness, and the punishment to which it exposed them.

Upon these various opinions I beg to offer the following remarks:

It seems to be granted on all hands that Chapter I. (no matter whether its contents be a narration of an outward real transaction, or an inward real vision, or a message of God to the nation under the form of a parable) forms a sort of introduction or key to the subsequent oracle (Chapter II.), in the same manner as Chapter III. prepares the hearer or reader for Chapter IV. In either of the three views, it is absolutely necessary that Hoshea, when delivering his oracle, should have given his hearers such an explanation about it as Chapter I. contains. In other words, Chapter Î. forms part of the oracle, and was addressed to the people, and in this view we are confirmed by the last verse of the first Chapter, which appears already in the form of an address.

Bearing this in mind I proceed now to examine the different opinions.

According to the Talmud the transaction was real and outward in the history of Hoshea. It may have been so. We must remember, that it is the style of the Scriptures, and of all languages, sometimes to give to persons, and likewise to inanimate things, the qualities they formerly had, though they have them no more. Thus Moses's rod is called a rod, when it was changed into a serpent. Why should we then not easily conceive that the wife of Hoshea had only been addicted to harlotry before he married her? There being nothing in this action of marrying such a woman that was contrary to the law of God, which only prohibited the priests to marry such women, and supposed when it allowed others to marry them, that they were to behave themselves modestly and virtuously for the future. There is nothing in this unworthy of the prophet, and it exactly answers God's dealing towards that people whom he espoused and adopted, notwithstanding their former wickedness; and the example of Hoshea's wife, who had given over her base and scandalous ways of living, and to whom the prophet did the honour of marrying her, was very proper to make the Israelites understand, that they were indispensably obliged to alter their wicked way of living, if they would have God to be favourable to them, lest, after having given them so many instances of his love, he should be provoked to divorce and abandon them.

As regards my own opinion of the view to be adopted, I do not see any essential difference between the one which takes the whole as an inward vision, and the other which considers it as a mere parable. In both cases the matter was imparted by God, and was to be re-imparted by the prophet to the nation. The text admits of either explanation. The scope of the oracle, which was, to make a vivid impression upon the hearers, so as to render them the more fit for the full appreciation of the subsequent oracle, would have been accomplished equally well

3.

harlotry, departing from the Lord." So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim; and

in either case. The prophet is to represent God in his then position to the Jewish nation. For that purpose he must have a wife as a type of the nation; that wife must be addicted to harlotry, to represent the moral state of the nation; and there must be children, to represent the nation individually. All this the prophet must have at once. Accordingly it is said: “Go, take a woman addicted to harlotry, and children addicted to harlotry, for," etc. Nor can it be without good reason that Hoshea mentions the name of the woman. It has certainly a meaning. This may be either the symbolical signification of the names, as most of the Jewish interpreters, Jerome, and many of the modern commentators, as Rosenmuller, Hengstenberg, and others suppose, or, what appears to me more probable (though I cannot bring historical testimony in support of my supposition) this Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, might have been a woman generally known at the time for her profligacy, acting, perhaps, a prominent part in the orgies of the idolatrous Jews. The natural consequence of the faithless conduct of the nation towards God is, as the parallel type of the wife of Hoshea shows, Jezreel, Lo-Ruchamah, Lo-Ammi, (God will scatter; Not pitied; Not my people ;) but in case of repentance: Ammi and Ruchamah (My people; Pitied.) These names are mere personifications of abstract ideas, relating here to the manner in which God will act towards the nation.

I shall now adduce a parallel, where we also find a prophet making himself the subject of a parable.

We read in Jeremiah xxv., v. 15. "For thus saith the Lord God "of Israel to me: Take this cup of wrath-wine at my hands, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee, to drink it. v. 16.

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That

they may drink, and stagger, and rage, because of the sword which "I will send among them. v. 17. And I took the cup out of the hand "of the Lord, and caused all the nation to drink, unto whom the Lord "had sent me. Then (v. 18 and following) follows a list of these nations, which is thus summed up (v. 26): "And all the kings of the "north, far and near, one after the other, and all the kingdoms of the "world, which are upon the face of the earth; and the king of "Sheshach shall drink after them." We have here a narration of what seems to be an outward transaction, as in Hoshea. (That in Hoshea the third person is used of the prophet himself, and here the first person, is not the slightest consequence, if it be granted that Hoshea is the author of the first chapter.) Here, as in Hoshea, not the slightest hint is given, that the circumstances are fictitious. Jeremiah exhibits himself here as fully as the representative of God inflicting punishment, as Hoshea represents God in his relation towards the Israelites. But who would venture to say that Jeremiah indeed went to all the kings and all the nations of the earth, and making them all drink of a cup of wine? In Hoshea therefore, as well as here, I think it really was a figurative or parabolic representation or illustra tion.-Children addicted to harlotries.-By the power of example.