Hosea 10:4

10:1-8 A vine is only valuable for its fruit; but Israel now brought no fruit to perfection. Their hearts were divided. God is the Sovereign of the heart; he will have all, or none. Were the stream of the heart wholly after God, it would run strongly, and bear down all before it. Their pretences to covenant with God were false. Even the proceeding of justice was as poisonous hemlock. Alas, how empty a vine is the visible church even at this day! But all earthly prosperity is but a collection of bubbles, soon destroyed like foam upon the water. Sinners will in vain seek shelter from that Judge, whom they now despise as a Saviour.

They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making {e} a covenant: thus {f} judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field. (e) In promising to be faithful toward God. (f) In this way their integrity and fidelity which they pretended, was nothing but bitterness and grief.

4. words—mere empty words. swearing falsely in making a covenant—breaking their engagement to Shalmaneser (2Ki 17:4), and making a covenant with So, though covenants with foreigners were forbidden. judgment … as hemlock—that is, divine judgment shall spring up as rank, and as deadly, as hemlock in the furrows (De 29:18; Am 5:7; 6:12). Gesenius translates, "poppy." Grotius, "darnel."

Hosea 10:4 . They have spoken words — Mere empty words; swearing falsely in making a covenant — This may be spoken either of their breaking their solemn covenant with God, (see Hosea 5:7 ,) or of their treachery toward their kings, against whom they had formed several conspiracies: see 2 Kings 15:10 ; 2 Kings 15:14 ; 2 Kings 15:25 ; 2 Kings 15:30 . Thus judgment — Divine vengeance; springeth up as hemlock, &c. — Destructive calamities, inflicted by the righteous judgment of God, will necessarily abound, as hemlock does in the furrows of a field. Bishop Horsley renders the verse, Negotiate, (or, talk words, ) swear false oaths, ratify a treaty; nevertheless judgment shall sprout up, like hemlock over the ridges of the field. Which version he paraphrases thus: “Negotiate alliances with one power after another; make a treaty with the Assyrians; bind yourselves to it with an oath; break your oath, and make a new alliance with the Egyptian. In spite of all measures of crooked policy, all acquisitions of foreign aid and support, judgment is springing up.”

They, the nobles and great men in Israel, the heads of the parties, or the counsellors of the kingdom, have spoken words; have in long and repeated consultations and debates contrived and laid forth the designs most like to help us; but all in vain, all is but words; or thus they have deceived one another, and ruined all; and this latter seems exactly to suit with what follows. Swearing falsely, by perjury deceiving those they treated with, in making a covenant; either among themselves, accepting a usurper, promising and swearing fealty to him; or with their allies, as with the Assyrian king, whose covenant they perjuriously broke, and, contrary to oath, sent to and confederated with Sun, or So, king of Egypt. Judgment, i.e. Divine revenges, do so abound every where; or else unequal and sinful projects, counsels, and resolutions of their rulers are, instead of just, wholesome, and saving, turned into bitter, poisonous, and pernicious as hemlock. As hemlock in the furrows of the field; a proverbial speech, expressing the greatness of this pernicious evil. So this will be explained by Amos 6:12 , oppression, injustice, and all sins spread (as hemlock quickly overruns a field) over all the kingdom.

4 . They have spoken words ] i.e. mere ‘words of the lips’ ( Isaiah 36:5 , comp. Isaiah 58:13 ), and, as the context shows, deliberate falsehoods (comp. Isaiah 29:21 ). swearing falsely in making a covenant ] Better, they swear falsely, they make covenants. The ‘covenants’ spoken of are those entered into with Assyria and Egypt ( Hosea 10:6 , Hosea 12:2 ), not those of everyday life, since it is the making of covenants, and not the breaking of them, which the prophet denounces. thus judgment springeth up as hemlock , &c.] Rather, so judgment shall spring up as the poppy. Their sins are as it were the seed from which a plant is produced as bitter and as abundant as the poppy of the fields. The plant in question (Heb. rôsh ) is often referred to, and cannot be identified with precision (see on Jeremiah 8:14 ); most think it is some umbelliferous plant, rôsh being the common word for ‘head.’ Elsewhere its bitterness is the point of comparison ( Deuteronomy 29:18 ; Jeremiah 9:15 ; Lamentations 3:19 ); here its abundant growth as well. Hence some have been led to render, continuing the description of the immorality of Israel, ‘and justice springs up like the poppy’, i.e., understanding the passage ironically, acts of hurtful injustice are as luxuriantly abundant as that noxious weed, comp. Amos 6:12 .

But the universality of the divine judgment can be as well expressed by this figure as the universality of sin, and Hosea 10:5 requires some previous reference to the punishment to explain it. The judgment began with the man who was foremost in those illegitimate covenants—with the prophet’s royal namesake (Hoshea); see 2 Kings 17:4 .

They have spoken words - The words which they spoke were eminently "words;" they were mere "words," which had no substance; "swearing falsely in making a covenant, literally, swearing falsely, making a covenant, and judgments springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field." : "There is no truth in words, no sanctity in oaths, no faithfulness in keeping covenants, no justice in giving judgments." Such is the result of all their oaths and covenants, that "judgment springeth up," yea, flourisheth; but, what judgment? Judgment, bitter and poisonous as hemlock, flourishes, as hemlock would flourish on ground broken up and prepared for it. They break up the ground, make the "furrows." They will not have any chance self-sown seed; they prepare the soil for harvest, full, abundant, regular, cleared of all besides. And what harvest? Not any wholesome plant, but poison. They cultivate injustice and wickedness, as if these were to be the fruits to be rendered to God from His own land. So Amos says, "Ye have turned judgment into gall or wormwood" Amos 6:12 ; Amos 5:7 , and Habakkuk, "Judgment went forth perverted" Habakkuk 1:4 .

Verse 4. - God, by the prophet, had charged Israel with fruitlessness , or with bringing forth fruit to themselves; with perverting the bounties of his providence in promoting idolatry; with their division of heart, or deceitfulness of heart. He had also threatened to punish them for their sin, and to deprive them of the means of sinning by destroying the instruments thereof, and to prevent their obtaining any help from their king, proving to them the folly of depending on him. He now proceeds, in this and following verses (4-8), to point out their moral corruption, the usual consequence or concomitant of irreligion and of false religion, instancing their deceptive dealing in the common affairs of life and their perjury in public compacts or covenants, as also their general unrighteousness. He threatens to destroy their idols to the distress of their worshippers and ministering priests as well as of their chief city. He threatens further to cause their calf-idols to be carried into captivity, pouring shame and contempt on their enterprises; to cut off their king; to leave the places of their idol-worship desolate, filling the people with distress and despair because of all their sins. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant. In this fourth verse the prophet deplores the absence of truth, faithfulness, and loyalty to duty.

This expression, "they have spoken words," is generally understood to signify (a) "empty words," "false words," only words and no more, like the Latin verba alicui dare . Thus their vain, deceitful, lying words in private transactions and common affairs of everyday life would correspond to their perjury in public treaties and covenants. Their words were deceitful and their oaths falsehood. In their ordinary business transactions they used words, empty words, words without truth, corresponding thereto; in international concerns they had pursued the same course of falsifying and covenant-breaking. After entering into an engagement with the Assyrian king Shalmaneser, they made a covenant with So King of Egypt, as we read in 2 Kings 17:4 , " And the King of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So King of Egypt, and brought no present to the King of Assyria, as he had done year by year." In this latter case they acted as covenant-breakers, and at the same time contravened the Divine command, which forbade them entering into covenants with foreigners.