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In the verse immediately preceding, God has spoken of sending his prophets to "hew," and his words to "slay," and of visiting the nation with a sunrise of judgment. And now, in the remainder of the chapter, he proceeds to justify these threatenings by setting forth the reason why he felt compelled to deal with the Hebrews in this fashion.

I. THE NATURE OF TRUE RELIGION. (Vers. 6, 7.) It is described here in a twofold manner.

1. Faithfulness to the covenant of grace. (Ver. 7.) The covenant office has been made by God with his elect people, the Lord Jesus Christ being Mediator in their behalf. It rests upon the covenant of redemption which was formed from eternity between the Father and the Son. The promise of the covenant of grace is spiritual and eternal life; and faith in Christ is the condition of it. This covenant has been the same under all dispensations; but, as made with the Hebrews in the time of Moses, it is presented in three aspects:

(1) national and political;

(2) legal, as seen in the moral and ceremonial laws;

(3) evangelical, for all the Mosaic institutions pointed to Christ.

Under every economy, also, religion has consisted in acceptance of this covenant and fidelity to its obligations. In every age faith in God has been the bond of living fellowship with him.

2. The offering of the worship of a holy life. (Ver. 6.) Religion must have a form in order to its manifestation. Piety has an outward side as well as an inward. Where there is wine, there must also be bottles in which to hold it (Matthew 9:17). Among the Jews this outward expression of piety was to take the form of "sacrifice" and "burnt offerings." But religion itself is a spirit. It consists in "mercy" towards man, and in the experimental "knowledge of God." Jehovah says here that holiness in the life is the test of sincerity in the observance of ritual. He does not reject sacrifices in themselves; indeed, he had himself instituted them. But he will not accept heartless oblations. He thinks of sacrifice without mercy as being like a body from which the spirit has fled. All the prophets of the Old Testament asserted the superiority of ethical over ceremonial laws. And the Lord Jesus Christ on two different occasions quoted the words before us, "Mercy, and not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13; Matthew 12:7), in support of the position that the righteousness of forms is not the righteousness of faith, and that it is the discharge of moral duties rather than the observance of positive institutions that makes the true life of religion. Such also is the doctrine of the apostles; e.g. James says in his Epistle that the ritual of Christianity consists in a life of personal purity and active benevolence (James 1:27).

II. THE IRRELIGION OF ISRAEL. (Vers. 7-11.) The entire Hebrew nation, and both of the kingdoms into which it was divided, had failed to maintain any appreciable measure of religious life.

(1) They had been faithless to the covenant. (Ver. 7.) In this respect they were "like Adam" (margin), i.e. they had "sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." They had violated the covenant alike under all its aspects - national, legal, and evangelical.

(2) Their worship was an insincere formalism. (Ver. 6.) "There" (ver. 7), even at Bethel, whither they went "with their flocks and with their herds to seek Jehovah" (Hosea 5:6), they in so doing "dealt treacherously against him." For they brought "sacrifice," but showed not "mercy;" they presented "burnt offerings," but had lost "the knowledge of God." Hosea, in the remainder of the chapter, adduces one or two illustrations of the deep and universal apostasy.

1. Sacred places had become polluted. (Ver. 8.) "Gilead" perhaps means Ramoth-gilead, a famous city in Gad, and the center of the mountainous region called Gilead. Moses appointed it for one of the cities of refuge. The place seems to have had now a bad eminence in crime. Many homicides were there, not of the class alone for which the cities of refuge were intended, but also many culpable homicides and murderers. Gilead was "tracked with blood."

2. A sacred office had become infamous. (Ver. 9.) The priests of the northern kingdom belonged to "the lowest of the people," and they were now giving themselves over to perpetrate the grossest wickedness. They "did evil with both hands earnestly." One "enormity" which the sacerdotal guild committed was actually that of lying in wait for the pilgrims from the north who were "in the way to Shechem" (margin), perhaps en route for Bethel - to demand, like robbers, their money or their life!

3. The sacred nation itself had become abominable. (Vers. 10, 11.)

(1) Israel's apostasy was "a horrible thing;" a godly mind could only contemplate it with a shudder. The sin of the ten tribes was "whoredom," both spiritual and literal. But is not that of our own Christian land the same? There is doubtless a large portion of the British people who love and follow purity, and thus far as a nation we are morally better than Ephraim; but those who study our national life upon its seamy side "sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof."

(2) Judah also has sown the bad seed of sin, and therefore cannot escape reaping "a harvest" of wrath. Already, in fact, the southern kingdom is almost ripe for destruction. It is to be carried into "captivity." Only as the result of such a process of judgment shall Jehovah purge out the wickedness of his people, and restore them again to his favor. In the closing words of the chapter the dark clouds break a little, and there appears just for a moment a glimpse of blue sky. The Jewish nation, says Jehovah, is still "my people," and one day "I will return their captivity." This anticipation shall be fully realized only when at last Israel shall be converted as a nation to the faith of Jesus Christ.

LESSONS.

1. The right relation of the form and the spirit in religion (ver. 6).

2. The appalling wickedness and shamefulness of sin (vers. 7, 10, 11).

3. When man prostitutes the best institutions from their proper uses, they often become the worst things (vers. 8, 9). - C.J.

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KJV: For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

WEB: For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.