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.

Verse 2. - Their heart is divided. Here their wickedness is traced to its fountainhead; its source was in the corrupt state of the heart. Their heart was

(1) divided, and so they halted between two opinions - between the worship of Jehovah and idolatry. Chalaq is taken in this signification by the Chaldee, Syriac, Septuagint, and Jerome, as also by the Hebrew commentators. The LXX. have

(a) ἐμέρισεν in the singular, which affords some support to Hitzig's rendering, "He (God)divided their heart," - but this is unsuitable and unscriptural; another

(b) reading of the same version is ἐμέρισαν, "They have divided their hearts," which is somewhat better, yet incorrect.

(c) The Authorized Version is also questionable, as the verb is not used intransitively in Qal.

(2) Kimchi, indeed, understands chalaq as equivalent to niehloq in the Niphal, and interprets, "From the fear of God and from his Law their heart is divided," i.e. separated; similarly Rashi: "Their heart is divided from me;" Aben Ezra somewhat peculiarly, though to the same purport: "They (their heart) has not one part (but several),"or is divided. But, notwithstanding this consensus in favor of the meaning of "divide," the rendering preferred, and justly so, by modern expositors in general, is "smooth." This is, indeed, the primary sense, that of "divide" being secondary, as division was made by lot or a smooth stone, cheleq, used for the purpose.

(3) "Their heart is smooth," that is, bland, deceitful, hypocritical; though it must be admitted that the word is mostly applied to the tongue, lip, throat, mouth, speech, and not to the heart. Their heart was hypocritical and faithless. Now shall they be found faulty; rather, they shall be dealt with as such, or punished; better still, perhaps, is the rendering, now shall they atone. The "now" defines sharply the turning-point between God's love and God's wrath. The state of things hitherto existing cannot continue; it must soon come to an end. Ere long they are doomed to discover their guilt in its punishment; they shall find out their sin by suffering; suddenly and to their cost they shall have a fearful awaking to a sense of their iniquity by the inflictions of Divine wrath upon their guilty heads. He shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images. The verb עדפ is peculiar; being a denominative from ערֶפ, the neck, it signifies "to break the neck of," like the Greek τραχηλίζειν, decollate, then figuratively "tear down," "break in pieces." This bold expression of breaking the neck of the altars may allude to their destruction by breaking off the horns of the altars, or rather to their beheading, cutting off the heads of victims at those altars. The Hebrew expositors make the heart of the people, not God, the immediate object of the verb. "Their heart," says one of them, "shall tear down their altars and lay waste their pillars, because it is divided from me. It will tear down their altars which they are said also to have multiplied, and lay waste their pillars which they made so goodly." The means of sinning shall be taken from them and destroyed - their altars broken down and their images spoiled. As the heads of victims had been cut off at these altars erected for idolatrous worship; so the heads of their altars would be broken off.

Their heart is divided,.... Some say from Hoshea their king, who would have reformed them from their idolatry, and returned them to the true worship of God; but of that there is no proof; better from one another, their affections being alienated from each other, by their discords and animosities, their conspiracies against their kings, and the murders of them, and the civil wars among themselves; they also not being of one mind, but disagreeing in their sentiments about their idols; some being for one, and some for another: or rather from God himself, from the fear of him, from his worship and service; or from the law, as the Targum; or their hearts were divided between God and their idols, as in Ahab's time between God and Baal; they pretended to worship God when they worshipped the calves, and so shared the service between them; or it may be rendered, "their heart flatters" (r) them; as if they had done that which was right and good, and were guilty of no evil, nor would any punishment be inflicted on them:

now shall they be found faulty; be convicted of their sin and folly, and appear guilty; when they shall be punished for their idolatry, and their idols not able to save them, as the destruction of them next mentioned will fully evince: or, "now shall they become desolate" (s) their land shall be desolate, and they carried captive:

he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images: that is, the king of Assyria shall do all this, or God by him: or, "behead their altars" (t); take off the top of them, as the Targum; the horns of them, which might be made of gold, or other ornaments which were of value; and therefore became the plunder of the enemy; and who also would break in pieces their images, for the sake of the metal, gold or silver, of which they were made; as was usually done by conquerors, and to show their entire power over the conquered, that even their gods could not deliver them out of their hands.

(r) "adblanditur cor eorum", Schmidt. (s) "nunc desolabuntur", Pagninus, Montanus, Munster, Drusius; so Kimchi and Ben Melech. (t) "decollabit", Drusius, Piscator, Tarnovius, De Dieu; "decervicabit", Cocceius.

2. heart … divided—(1Ki 18:21; Mt 6:24; Jas 4:8).

now—that is, soon.

he—Jehovah.

break down—"cut off," namely the heads of the victims. Those altars, which were the scene of cutting off the victims' heads, shall be themselves cut off.

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