[247] Hosea i. 4. “For yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Israel upon the house of Jehu.” This prophecy was given in the days of Jeroboam, a king of the house of Jehu, not long before the destruction of that house; for Zechariah, Jeroboam’s son and successor, was the last that reigned of that family, and he reigned but six months. Jehu’s killing all that were of the house of Ahab, was both rewarded and punished; it was rewarded, because as to the matter of it, it was agreeable to God’s command; (see 2 Kings x. 30.;) but it was done in a wicked manner. He did not do it so much from a spirit of obedience as from an aim at his own advancement; for he little regarded God’s honour in it, as afterwards plainly appeared by his idolatry, the very sin for which he was bid to kill Ahab and destroy his family. God saw that he did it with a murderous heart, and so punishes it by the overthrow of his family. As Jehu with a murderous heart slew Ahab and all his family, so shall the posterity of Jehu be slain, and his family be overthrown in their turn. So the house of Baasha was rooted out, because he did the like to Jeroboam, 1 Kings xvi. 7. because Jehu performed the matter of God’s command, he was rewarded by continuing the crown of Israel in his family unto the fourth generation, but because he did it in a wicked manner, as his after-behaviour manifested, therefore it was continued no longer, but then taken away. His doing the matter of his duty was rewarded, but his doing it in a murderous manner was punished: which two things are not at all inconsistent.
[250] Hosea vii. 14. “And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds.” In their calamities which they suffered, they are compared to sick and wounded men, as chap. v. 16.; and many of them were doubtless literally sick, wounded men, in grievous pain on their beds, by reason of the continual wars that they had of late been embroiled in. They howled in pain and distress on their beds, and cried that God would help them. When he slew them, then they sought him, but it was all in hypocrisy, and probably they cried in their prayers under distress with a loud voice, as they used to cry to Baal and other idols, as if they must be awakened, or could be prevailed upon by the loudness of the noise they made; but God, to show his abhorrence of it, calls it howling.
“They assembled themselves for corn and wine, and they rebelled against me.” They assembled themselves to fast and pray for these blessings, when they were by divine judgments cut short in them, but they sought in such a manner that God looked upon it as rebellion, as the prophet Isaiah says, Isa. i. 17. “The calling of assemblies I cannot away with, it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.”
[252] Hosea x. 9, 10. “O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah; there they stood, the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. It is my desire that I should chastise them,” &c. When the Benjamites committed such wickedness in Gibeah, they stood and defended themselves, and were victors in the first and second battle that was fought against them, and at last the battle did not overtake them all, but six hundred made their escape; that wicked tribe was not extirpated, and they have stood and remained in their successors in their wickedness to this very day, until the generation of such wicked men in Israel has now at length so increased, that they have overspread not only one tribe, but all the tribes of Israel. That wicked tribe of Benjamin was not overtaken or rooted out by the battle in Gibeah. “But I have a design now that the battle shall overtake them, my desire is that I should chastise them,” as it follows in the next verse. When the Benjamites committed such wickedness in Gibeah, the other tribes had a desire to chastise them, by wholly rooting out that tribe; they seemed to be greatly engaged about it, but failed of it; there they stood and remained notwithstanding. “Now I have a desire to chastise them, I myself will take it in hand, and I will make more thorough work; I will root out all of them; none shall be able to stand against me.”
“And the people shall be gathered against them when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.” That is, when they shall fortify themselves in their two furrows, where they have ploughed wickedness and sowed iniquity, ver. 13. i. e. in Dan and Bethel, the places of their two calves, or in the service of their two gods. In this field they bind themselves; they are resolute not to depart from these two furrows that they have ploughed; they remain there as if they were bound there; they are obstinate in their wicked works, in their two furrows. Their two ways of wickedness, or two wicked works, viz. their worshipping the two calves, are here compared to two furrows that they have ploughed, in analogy to the rest of the allegory in the following verses. In these wicked works they persist, and think to stand it out as the Benjamites did, out they shall not be able to defend themselves as they did, but the people shall be gathered against them as the tribes of Israel were gathered against the wicked Benjamites, and to more effect.