Hosea 10:15

So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) King . . . Cut off.—The close of the kingdom (721 B.C.), already more than once referred to (comp. Hosea 10:7), is here prophesied. Translate, So shall He do to you at Bethel.

In the morning.—Should be, in the early morning Hoshea was utterly cut off, leaving neither root nor branch.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:9-15 Because God does not desire the death and ruin of sinners, therefore in mercy he desires their chastisement. The children of iniquity still remained in Israel. The enemies would be gathered against them. It is just with God to make those know what hardships mean, who indulge themselves in ease and pleasure. Let them cleanse their hearts from all corrupt affections and lusts, and be a broken and contrite spirit. Let them abound in works of piety towards God, and of justice and charity towards one another: herein let them sow to the Spirit. Seeking the Lord is to be every day's work, but there are special occasions when to seek him. Christ shall come as the Lord our righteousness, and grant us of it abundantly. If we sow in righteousness, we shall reap according to mercy; a reward not of debt, but of grace. Even the gains of sin yield the sinner no satisfaction. As our comforts, so our confidences in the service of sin will certainly fail us. Come and seek the Lord, and thy hope in him shall not deceive thee. See what cruel work war makes. Whatever mischief is done, it is sin that does it. What miseries men's sins bring on them, even in this world!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

So shall Bethel do unto you - God was the judge, who condemned them so to suffer from the enemy. The Assyrian was the instrument of the wrath of God. But, in order to point out the moral government of God, the prophet says, neither that God did it, nor that the Assyrian did it, but Bethel, once "the house of God," now the place where they dishonored God, "because of your great wickedness," literally, "the wickedness of your wickedness." In their wickedness itself, there was an essence of wickedness, malice within malice.

In a morning shall the king of Israel be cut off - Hoshea was cut off finally, leaving neither root nor branch. His kingdom perished; he left no memorial. Like the morning, he seemed to dawn on the troubles of his people: he sinned against God: and "in a morning," the kingdom, in "the multitude of" whose "mighty men" he trusted, "was cut off" forever.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. So shall Beth-el do unto you—that is, Your idolatrous calf at Beth-el shall be the cause of a like calamity befalling you.

your great wickedness—literally, "the wickedness of your wickedness."

in a morning—that is, speedily, as quickly as the dawn is put to flight by the rising sun (Ho 6:4; 13:3; Ps 30:5).

king—Hoshea.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

So; mercilessly and universally min.

Beth-el; one place put for every one, and the place put for the idolatry committed there.

Do; procure, bring your idolatry and sins, do all this evil against you.

Unto you, O Samaritans, and the rest of the ten tribes.

Because of your great wickedness: this idolatry, and the concomitant sins, are here summed up in their total sum,

great wickedness, exceeding great.

In a morning; suddenly, or so soon as it is day; possibly the Assyrians might assault the city towards morning, and master it.

Shall the king of Israel, Hoshea,

utterly be cut off; his power broken, for his life was spared, and he made a prisoner, 2 Kings 17:4.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So shall Bethel do unto you, because of your great wickedness,.... Or, "because of the evil of your evil" (s); their extreme wickedness, and exceeding sinfulness; the evil of evils they were guilty of was their idolatry, their worshipping the calf at Bethel; and this was the cause of all their ruin: God was the cause of it; the king of Assyria the instrument; but the procuring or meritorious cause was their abominable wickedness at Bethel; which therefore should be as Betharbel; yea, the whole land should be, on the account of that, like unto it, or be spoiled as that was. Or the words may be rendered, "so will he do unto you, O Bethel" (t); that is, either God, or Shalman or Shalmaneser, shall do the same to Bethel as he did to Betharbel; utterly destroy it and its inhabitants, showing no mercy to age or sex;

in a morning shall the king of Israel be utterly cut off; meaning Hoshea the last king of Israel, and the kingdom entirely destroyed; so that afterwards there was no more king in Israel, nor has been to this day; there was not only an utter destruction of that king, but of all kingly power and government, and ever since the children of Israel have been without a king, Hosea 3:4; and this was to be done, and was done, in a "morning": in the beginning of his reign, as Joseph Kimchi; but this seems not so well to agree with the history, since it was in the ninth year of his reign that Samaria was taken: but the sense is, either that it would be certainly done, as sure as the morning came; or suddenly and quickly, as the morning light breaks forth; or in the morning of prosperity, when they were expecting light and good days, from their alliance with the king of Egypt, against the king of Assyria.

(s) "propter malitiam malitiae vestrae", Pagninus, Cocceius, Schmidt. (t) "sic faciet vobis, Deus, O Bethel", Drusius; "sic faciet vobis Salman, O Bethel", Schmidt.

Geneva Study Bible

So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. So shall Beth-el, &c.] Such is the awful judgment of which the idolatry of Bethel is the cause.

your great wickedness] Lit., ‘your wickedness of wickedness’, with which some compare the phrases ‘song of songs’, ‘holy of holies.’ But it is more natural to suppose that the word ‘wickedness’ was written twice over by accident.

in a morning] Rather, in the dawn. The meaning is that when the morning-grey appears, the king will be found to be cut off. All has happened as quickly as time seems to have passed when we awake (comp. Psalm 90:6, ‘they become as a sleep’).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness (margin, the evil of your evil): in a morning shall the King of Israel utterly be cut off. Their coming sufferings were all traceable to their sin. Bethel, the principal place of calf-worship, was the cause of their coming calamities, not the place itself, but the wickedness of which it was the scene. The real cause was the great and crowning wickedness practiced there. Bethel, once the house of God, would in consequence become another Beth-arbel, the house of the ambush of God. In the morning, when perhaps a season of prosperity seemed beginning to dawn, or at an early dale and in a speedy manner, quickly as the morning dawn gives place before the rising sun, the king, Hoshea, or perhaps no particular king, but merely the representative of the royal office, would be cut off-entirely cut off. Thus their main refuge would come to an ignominious end, bringing along with it the frustration of all their hopes and the conclusion of their mistaken and misplaced confidences.



Hosea 10:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And tumult will arise against thy peoples, and all thy fortifications are laid waste, as Shalman laid Beth-Arbeel waste in the day of the war: mother and children are dashed to pieces. Hosea 10:15. Thus hath Bethel done to you because of the wickedness of your wickedness: in the morning dawn the king of Israel is cut off, cut off." קאם with א as mater lect. (Ewald, 15, e), construed with ב: to rise up against a person, as in Psalm 27:12; Job 16:8. שׁאון, war, tumult, as in Amos 2:2. בּעמּיך: against thy people of war. The expression is chosen with a reference to rōbh gibbōrı̄m (the multitude of mighty men), in which Israel put its trust. The meaning, countrymen, or tribes, is restricted to the older language of the Pentateuch. The singular יוּשּׁד refers to כּל, as in Isaiah 64:10, contrary to the ordinary language (cf. Ewald, 317, c). Nothing is known concerning the devastation of Beth-Arbeel by Shalman; and hence there has always been great uncertainty as to the meaning of the words. Shalman is no doubt a contracted form of Shalmanezer, the king of Assyria, who destroyed the kingdom of the ten tribes (2 Kings 17:6). Bēth-'arbē'l is hardly Arbela of Assyria, which became celebrated through the victory of Alexander (Strab. Isaiah 16:1, Isaiah 16:3), since the Israelites could scarcely have become so well acquainted with such a remote city, as that the prophet could hold up the desolation that befel it as an example to them, but in all probability the Arbela in Galilaea Superior, which is mentioned in 1 Maccabees 9:2, and very frequently in Josephus, a place in the tribe of Naphtali, between Sephoris and Tiberias (according to Robinson, Pal. iii. pp. 281-2, and Bibl. Researches, p. 343: the modern Irbid). The objection offered by Hitzig, - viz. that shōd is a noun in Hosea 9:6; Hosea 7:13; Hosea 12:2, and that the infinitive construct, with ל prefixed, is written לשׁדד in Jeremiah 47:4; and lastly, that if Shalman were the subject, we should expect the preposition את before בּית, - is not conclusive, and the attempt which he makes to explain Salman-Beth-Arbel from the Sanscrit is not worth mentioning. The clause "mother and children," etc., a proverbial expression denoting inhuman cruelty (see at Genesis 32:12), does not merely refer to the conduct of Shalman in connection with Beth-arbel, possibly in the campaign mentioned in 2 Kings 17:3, but is also intended to indicate the fate with which the whole of the kingdom of Israel was threatened. In 2 Kings 17:16 this threat concludes with an announcement of the overthrow of the monarchy, accompanied by another allusion to the guilt of the people. The subject to כּכה עשׂה is Beth-el (Chald.), not Shalman or Jehovah. Bethel, the seat of the idolatry, prepares this lot for the people on account of its great wickedness. עשׂה is a perf. proph.' and רעת רעתכם, wickedness in its second potency, extreme wickedness (cf. Ewald, 313, c). Basshachar, in the morning-dawn, i.e., at the time when prosperity is once more apparently about to dawn, tempore pacis alluscente (Cocc., Hgst.). The gerund נדמה adds to the force; and מלך ישׂ is not this or the other king, but as in 2 Kings 17:7, the king generally, i.e., the monarchy of Israel.