Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Ye have plowed wickedness - They not only did not that which God commanded, but they did the exact contrary. They cultivated wickedness. They broke up their fallow ground, yet to sow, not wheat, but tares. They did not leave it even to grow of itself, although even thus, on the natural soil of the human heart, it yields a plenteous harvest; but they bestowed their labor on it, plowed it, sowed, and as they sowed, so they reaped, an abundant increase of it. "They brought their ill doings to a harvest, and laid up as in provision the fruits thereof." Iniquity and the results of iniquity, were the gain of all their labor. Of all their toil, they shall have no fruits, except the iniquity itself. : "By the plowing, sowing, eating the fruits, he marks the obstinacy of incorrigible sinners, who begin ill, go on to worse, and in the worst come to an end. Then too, when the corrupted soul labors with the purpose of a deed of sin, and resolves in its inmost thoughts, how it may bring the ungodly will into effect in deed, it is like one plowing or sowing. But when, having completed the work of iniquity, it exults that it has done ill, it is like one reaping. When further it has broken out so far as, in pride of heart to defend its sins against the law of God prohibiting them, and goes on unconcerned in impenitence, he is like one who, after harvest, eats the fruits stored up."
Ye have eaten the fruit of lies - They had been full of "lies" Hosea 4:1-2; Hosea 7:3; they had "lied" against God by hypocrisy Hosea 5:7; Hosea 6:7; Hosea 7:16; Hosea 10:4 and idolatry; they had "spoken lies against Him" Hosea 7:13; by denying that He gave them what He bestowed upon them, and ascribing it to their idols Hosea 2:5, Hosea 2:12. All iniquity is a lie. Such then should be "the fruit" which they tasted, on which they fed. It should not profit, nor satisfy them. It should not merely be empty, as in the case of those who are said to "feed on ashes" Isaiah 44:20, but hurtful. As Isaiah saith, "they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider' s web; he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed, breaketh out into a viper" Isaiah 59:4-5. "Gain deceives, lust deceives, gluttony deceives; they yield no true delight; they satisfy not, they disgust; and they end in misery of body and soul." "Bodily delights," says a father , "when absent, kindle a vehement longing; when had and eaten, they satiate and disgust the eater. Spiritual delights are distasteful, when unknown; when possessed, they are longed for; and the more those who hunger after them feed upon them, the more they are hungered for. Bodily delights please, untasted; when tasted, they displease; spiritual, when untasted, are held cheap; when experienced, they please. In bodily delights, appetite generates satiety; satiety, disgust. In spiritual, appetite produceth satiety; satiety appetite. For spiritual delights increase longing in the soul, while they satisfy. For the more their sweetness is perceived, so much the more is "that" known which is loved more eagerly. Unpossessed, they cannot be loved, because their sweetness is unknown."
Because thou didst trust in thy way - " Thy way," i. e., not God' s. They forsook God' s way, followed "ways of wickedness and misbelief." While displeasing God, they trusted in the worship of the calves and in the help of Egypt and Assyria, "making flesh their arm, and departing from the living God." So long as a man mistrusts his ways of sin, there is hope of his conversion amid any depths of sin. When "he trusts in his ways," all entrance is closed against the grace of God. He is as one dead; he not only justifies himself, but is self-justified. There is nothing in him, neither love nor fear, which can be awakened.
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