Hosea 9:7

9:7-10 Time had been when the spiritual watchmen of Israel were with the Lord, but now they were like the snare of a fowler to entangle persons to their ruin. The people were become as corrupt as those of Gibeah, Jud 19; and their crimes should be visited in like manner. At first God had found Israel pleasing to Him, as grapes to the traveller in the wilderness. He saw them with pleasure as the first ripe figs. This shows the delight God took in them; yet they followed after idolatry.

(7) The latter part of the verse should be translated Crazed is the prophet, mad the inspired one, because of the multitude of thy iniquity, while persecution is increased. The prophet is crazed either in the depraved public opinion that Hosea scornfully describes, or, he is driven mad, distracted, by the persecutions to which he is subjected. The latter is more probable. (Comp. the following verse.) Other commentators, including Maurer and Hitzig (preceded by Jerome and many Jewish as well as Christian expositors) take the words for prophet in this verse as signifying “false prophet,” and would connect the clauses thus:—“Israel shall recognise that the prophet (who prophesied good to them) is a fool, the inspired one a madman, because of,” &c. But it is doubtful whether the Hebrew for “inspired one” ( îsh harûach ) can bear this unfavourable sense, with the definite article affixed (comp. 1Kings 22:21 , Heb.); so Nowack. The passage is very difficult, and no decisive superiority can be claimed for any rendering yet proposed.

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come; Israel shall know it: {h} the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred. (h) Then they will know that they were deluded by those who claimed themselves to be their prophets and spiritual men.

7. visitation—vengeance: punishment (Isa 10:3). Israel shall know it—to her cost experimentally (Isa 9:9). the prophet is a fool—The false prophet who foretold prosperity to the nation shall be convicted of folly by the event. the spiritual man—the man pretending to inspiration (La 2:14; Eze 13:3; Mic 3:11; Zep 3:4). for the multitude of thine iniquity, &c.—Connect these words with, "the days of visitation … are come"; "the prophet … is mad," being parenthetical. the great hatred—or, "the great provocation" [Henderson]; or, "(thy) great apostasy" [Maurer]. English Version means Israel's "hatred" of God's prophets and the law.

Hosea 9:7 . The days of visitation are come — The days of punishment, or retribution, are at hand. This resembles the well-known line of Virgil: — Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus Dardaniæ. — — — ÆN. lib. 2. 50:324. The fatal day, th’ appointed hour is come, The time of Troy’s irrevocable doom. Israel shall know it — The Hebrew is only, Israel shall know, namely, that I have spoken the truth; that is, in denouncing misery and calamity against them, as the Chaldee supplies the ellipsis. God’s judgments upon the ten tribes shall be so evident, that the most incredulous shall not be able to deny it. Others interpret this clause in connection with the following words, thus: Israel shall know that the prophet was foolish, that the man of the spirit was mad, namely, who encouraged the Israelites to continue in their sins, by promising them peace and prosperity notwithstanding their corrupt manners. Bishop Horsley’s translation of the passage is peculiarly spirited and sublime: The days of visitation are come! The days of retribution are come! Israel shall know it. Stupid is the prophet! The man of the spirit is gone mad! “Stupid,” he remarks, “if he himself discerneth not the signs of the times.

Gone mad, if, aware of the impending judgment, he flatters the people with delusive hopes; and by that conduct makes himself an instrument in bringing on that public ruin, in which he himself must be involved.” For the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred — Namely, which thou deservest. Or probably the sense is, as Bishop Horsley’s version gives it, In proportion to the greatness of thine iniquity, great also is the vengeance.

The days of visitation are come, the days of recompence are come: the prophet doubleth the same thing, both to confirm the certainty of it, and to awaken the stupid Israelites: the days of God’s just displeasure, in which he will punish, and render to these incorrigible idolaters and abominable debauchees as their wickedness deserveth, are come, they are very near, within four years at most. Israel shall know it; Israel will not believe it, though God hath often told them of it, but when it is come, and they feel it, they shall then know indeed, as fools know when they smart for their folly. The prophet is a fool; their false prophets were all, to a man of them, fools and rash, judging by present greatness or alliances of Israel, not observing what were their sins and God’s wrath. Now when Hosea preached what was contained in this 9th chapter, Israel had made a league with So king of Egypt, cast off the Assyrian, and not sought to God, but vainly trusted to the Egyptian succours; now any wise man might imagine that likely which the prophet Hosea did foretell as certain, that the Assyrian with all his power would fall upon the revolters; none but fools would promise such a people a time of safety when the war was falling upon their heads.

The spiritual man, that pretends to be full of the Spirit of prophecy, and foretells good to them, whom we thought a true prophet; but. now find by sad experience that we believed a madman, one much out of his wits; yet were we more, to believe what he promised. For the multitude of thine iniquity: God was highly displeased with the multitude of their iniquities, and began his punishments in giving them over to believe the lies of their false prophets, and to expect what peace these prophets did promise. And the great hatred which God had against your sins and ways: you would walk in ways which God hated, yet would have prophets to foretell peace and plenty; such you have had as described Micah 2:11 , and you believed them; and God, out of his just dislike, suffered this to be, left you to your choice.

7 . are come ] Rather, come . The sense is that the days of punishment shall surely come (the tense is the prophetic perfect). shall know it ] i.e. by experience; as Isaiah 9:9 . Another view of these words (in connexion with the following clause) is, ‘Israel shall perceive (but too late) how it has been deceived by its prophets.’ But a false prophet would never be called a ‘man of the spirit’, but rather ‘one that followeth his own spirit’ ( Ezekiel 13:3 ); and neither ‘a fool’ nor ‘mad’ suggests the idea of falsehood or hypocrisy. the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad ] These words evidently convey a reproach, for though ‘mad’ might be taken in a good sense (= frenzied with sorrow, as Deuteronomy 28:34 ), ‘a fool’ could hardly be. But if so, introductory words must have dropped out of the text, such as ‘who say in their pride.’ ‘The spiritual man’ is, literally, ‘the man of the Spirit’, i.e. ‘the inspired man’, Sept. ἄνθρωπος ὁ πνευματοφόρος . ‘Mad’, or ‘a madman’, ‘a fanatic’, is a term applied disparagingly to a prophet’s disciple in 2 Kings 9:11 , and to Jeremiah by an opponent in Jeremiah 29:26 . The expression was doubtless received from those early times, in which the acts performed by prophets were often strange and startling. for the multitude …] Rather, for the greatness of thine Iniquity, and because the enmity hath been great . These words are to be connected with the preceding.

The days of visitation are come - The false prophets had continually hood-winked the people, promising them that those days would never come. "They had put far away the evil day" Amos 6:3 . Now it was not at hand only. In God's purpose, those "days" were "come," irresistible, inevitable, inextricable; days in which God would visit, what in His long-suffering, He seemed to overlook, and would "recompense each according to his works." Israel shall know it - Israel would not know by believing it; now it should "know," by feeling it. The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad - The true prophet gives to the false the title which they claimed for themselves, "the prophet" and "the man of the spirit." Only the event showed what spirit was in them, not the spirit of God but a lying spirit. The people of the world called the true prophets, "mad," literally, maddened, "driven mad," , as Festus thought of Paul; "Thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad" Acts 26:24. Jehu's captains called by the same name the young prophet whom Elisha sent to anoint him. "Wherefore came this mad fellow unto thee?" 2 Kings 9:11. Shemaiah, the false prophet, who deposed God's priest, set false priests to "be officers in the house of the Lord," to have an oversight as to "every man who is mad and maketh himself a prophet," calling Jeremiah both a false prophet and a "madman" (Jeremiah 29:25-26. The word is the same). The event was the test.

Of our Lord Himself, the Jews blaspbemed, "He hath a devil and is mad" John 10:20. And long afterward, "madness," "phrensy" were among the names which the pagan gave to the faith in Christ . As Paul says, that "Christ crucified" was "to the Greeks" and to "them that perish, foolishness," and that the "things of the Spirit of God, are foolishness to the natural man, neither can he know" them, "because they are spiritually discerned" 1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 1:23; 1 Corinthians 2:14. The man of the world and the Christian judge of the same things by clean contrary rules, use them for quite contrary ends. The slave of pleasure counts him mad, who foregoes it; the wealthy trader counts him mad, who gives away profusely. In these days, profusion for the love of Christ has been counted a ground for depriving a man of the care of his property. One or the other is mad. And worldlings must count the Christian mad; else they must own themselves to be so most fearfully. In the Day of Judgment, Wisdom says, "They, repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit, shall say within themselves, This was he whom we had sometimes in derision and a proverb of reproach. We fools counted his life madness, and his end to be without honor. How is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints!" (Wisd. 5:3-6). For the multitude of thine iniquity and the great hatred - The words stand at the close of the verse, as the reason of all which had gone before.