Like an oven heated by a baker—
He ceases stirring the fire after kneading the dough,
Until it is leavened.
Princes have made him sick,1 inflamed with awine;
He stretched out his hand with scoffers.
While they lie in wait;
1Their baker sleeps all night;
In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.
And have devoured their judges;
All their kings have fallen.
aNone among them calls upon Me.
But he does not know it;
Yes, gray hairs are here and there on him,
Yet he does not know it.
| << Hosea 7:4 | Hosea 7:6 >> |
Hosea 7:5
In the day of our king, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine - (Or, "with heat from wine." ) Their holydays, like those of so many Englishmen now, were days of excess. "The day of their king" was probably some civil festival; his birthday, or his coronation-day. The prophet owns the king, in that he calls him "our king;" he does not blame them for keeping the day, but for the way in which they kept it. Their festival they turned into an irreligious and anti-religious carousal; making themselves like "the brutes which perish," and tempting their king first to forget his royal dignity, and then to blaspheme the majesty of God.
He stretched out his hand with scorners - as it is said, "Wine is a mocker" (or "scoffer" ). Drunkenness, by taking off all power of self restraint, brings out the evil which is in the man. The "scorner" or "scoffer" is one who "neither fears God nor regards man" Luke 18:4, but makes a jest of all things, true and good, human or divine. Such were these corrupt princes of the king of Israel; with these "he stretched out the hand," in token of his good fellowship with them, and that he was one with them. He withdrew his hand or his society from good and sober people, and "stretched" it "out," not to punish these, but to join with them, as people in drink reach out their hands to any whom they meet, in token of their sottish would-be friendliness. With these the king drank, jested, played the buffoon, praised his idols, scoffed at God. The flattery of the bad is a man' s worst foe.
| << Hosea 7:4 | Hosea 7:6 >> |
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