Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.… 1. It is adopting love. God loved Israel in Egypt, Israel in captivity, Israel among the brick-kilns, and called him "His son." It is by no merit or righteousness of our own that we are made sons of God. We become children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. God's love is adopting love. God delights in adopting children, and giving them the spirit of adoption, and taking them to the home of the ransomed family. 2. It is a tender love. The Lord describes the manner of a mother teaching her babe to walk. "I taught Ephraim to go." The Omnipotent became as a nurse to Israel. When difficulties arose He bore him in His arms as a man doth bear his little child. And the heavenly Father is ever the same. 3. His inviting love. "Called My son out of Egypt." We know how cruel Pharaoh was, and how hard were his taskmasters. But there was One who loved them, who said, "I have heard their cry, and have come down to help them." His fiery cloudy pillar was the symbol of his inviting love. 4. It is weeping love. God mourns over their iniquities. God's love as weeping love was displayed by "The Man of Sorrows," whose grief was for the hardness of men's hearts, and whose hot tears over Jerusalem were because she knew not the things which belonged to her peace. 5. His incarnate love. "The cords of a man." Incarnate love is the magnet by which souls are drawn to God. "The Word was made flesh" begins the story of redemption. Christ became man, to stand in man's place and deal with God in man's behalf, and to be able to enter into our feelings and fears as a merciful and compassionate High Priest. (A. Clayton Thiselton.) Parallel Verses KJV: When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.WEB: "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. |
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