Hosea 6:4-6 O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? for your goodness is as a morning cloud… So froward, heedless, fickle, and incorrigible had Ephraim proved, that God did not know what more he could do with him. The same was true of Judah. The tender mode of speech, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?" shows how loath God is to pass from mercy to judgment. His heart yearns for the conversion of the objects of his solicitude. I. PIETY VALUELESS, IF EVANESCENT. (Ver. 4.) Ephraim arid Judah had fits of piety - of goodness; but they did not last. They are compared here to the "morning cloud" - the vapor which the heat of the sun sucks up as the day advances; and to the "early dew," thick and fresh at dawn, but soon carried off by evaporation. Such an instance of momentary goodness we have in Ephraim in the reign of Pekah, when, rebuked by Oded the prophet, "certain of the heads of the children of Ephraim" compelled the return of the captives from Judah (2 Chronicles 28:12, 15); and there would probably be instances of the same kind under the preaching of Hosea himself. Note: 1. The defect of this kind of piety. It lacked root. It had no depth of earth. It promised well, but brought forth no practical fruit of righteousness. The nature was superficially moved, but there was neither genuine conviction of sin nor true turning of the heart to God. 2. The manifestation of this defect. The impressions did not endure. They hardly "dured even for a while," but as soon as "the sun" was "risen with a burning heat" (James 1:2), they" were scorched" and "withered away" (Matthew 13.). The test of real piety is its endunngness. No piety is worth having which will not endure the heat of the daytime - the test applied to it by the everyday work, trials, engrossmerits, and temptations of life. Yet many have known no other piety than that which consists in passing convictions, in weak desires, in good resolutions that come to nothing, in vague and easily frustrated efforts after amendment. II. JUDGMENT INEVITABLE, IF REPENTANCE IS NOT SINCERE. (Ver. 5.) "Therefore." God says; that is, (1) because of the failure of milder measures to bring Ephraim to repentance; (2) because of this evanishing goodness, which showed the necessity for something that would reach the depths of the nature; (3) because of the sin that waited for punishment, and now must be punished, seeing that the people so utterly refused to turn from it; - "therefore" he is compelled by his prophets to denounce judgments against them. The words of the prophets are said to do that which the judgments themselves will accomplish - "hew," "slay" - to indicate the certainty of the result. The thing is as good as done when God says it. Certainty of fulfillment is a characteristic of God's Word. His judgments would be "as the light that goeth forth," 1. Majestic. 2. Obeying a law (sunrise). 3. Sudden: the lightning (Matthew 24:27). 4. Revealing: God's judgments reveal the sin against which they are directed (Hosea 7:1). If the reading in the Authorized Version, "thy judgments," be retained, it is still God's judgments that are referred to. They belonged to Ephraim as failing upon him. III. SACRIFICE USELESS, IF WITHOUT LOVE. (Ver. 6.) "Mercy," or love to man, is the obverse of "knowledge of God," and the proof of its existence. The Law is summed up in love. It is love God looks for as the reality of religion. 1. Love to man shows itself indeed deeds. It is not a thing of "word" or of "tongue," but of" deed" and of "truth ' (1 John 3:18). It proves its reality by the acts in which it embodies itself (1 John 3:17). This love is the substance of piety. It is the true ritual. "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless," etc. (James 1:27). It is this class of deeds Christ looks to (Matthew 10:42; Matthew 25:35, 36). No one ever laid such great stress on kind deeds, or so entirely embodied the law of love m his own life, as Christ did. 2. The absence of love shows itself in wicked deeds - in injustice, robbery, violence, etc. These are the crimes here charged against Ephraim (vers. 8-10). 3. Without love no outward settee is of any use. No sacrifices, alms-giving, prayers, new moons, or fasts (Isaiah 1:13-15; Isaiah 58:3-8; Matthew 9:13). In vain do we keep sabbaths, practice austerities, uphold orthodoxy, wait on religious ordinances, and engage in outward works of piety, if this, the one thing needful, is wanting (1 Corinthians 13.). - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. |
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