Hosea 11:12

Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit,.... Here properly we should begin a new chapter, as many interpreters and commentators do; for the prophet, or the Lord by

Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints. Ephraim compasseth me about with lies ... but Judah ... is faithful with the saints.

This verse might better begin the next chapter, and by most interpreters I have seen, it is the first verse of the next chapter; but since we find it here we will here consider it. Ephraim; many or the most of Ephraim. Compasseth me about with lies; play the hypocrites with me still; yet give me good words, call themselves my people, and say I am their God, and that they worship me and seek me; but they flatter me with their mouths, and lie unto me with their tongues, as . So God upbraids them with this their sin. And the house of Israel with deceit; the same thing in an ingeminated phrase, to affect and ascertain the more. Judah; the people of the two tribes, under the government of the house of David. Ruleth with God; while idolaters are vassals and slaves to the devil and to their own superstitious fears, the true worshippers of God, like princes, rule with God. Or rather, keeping to the house of David, retained the government in state affairs, which was Theopolitia, a government set up of God: when Ephraim made kings and princes, but God did not know it, i.e. did not advise nor approve it. And is faithful with the saints; retains also purity, at least truth, of worship, and in the holy things of God keepeth to his word, and comparatively is faithful: whereas Ephraim is hypocritical and false, Judah adheres to God’ s holy prophets, priests, and other saints of God.

Hosea 11:12 Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: but Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints.Ver. 12. Ephraim compasseth me about with lies] They get about me as if they would do me doughty service (Psalms 76:11, the saints are called a people that are round about God; and Psalms 148:14, a people near unto him, and that compasseth his altar. See Revelation 4:4), but all is but counterfeit; a mere imposture, a loud lie, Psalms 78:36, whereby they would deceive me of heaven if they could; putting upon me false coin silvered over a little; and circumventing me, if it lay in their power. But what saith Bernard? Sapiens nummularius Deus est; nummum fictum non recipiet. God is a wise mint man; there is no beguiling him with counterfeit coin. Hypocrisy (that real lie) is an odious, a complexive evil; for it hath in it, 1. Guile, opposite to simplicity, as intending to beguile God, which he cannot, and man, which he fain would, and often doth, to farther his worldly and wicked designs, as Judas, Herod, Matthew 2:8, Pharisees, Matthew 23:14. 2. Falsehood, opposite to truth; as only acting religion, playing devotion, compassing God with deceit, as the house of Israel here, deceiving him not by impotence only, and in the event, but by imposture, and so in purpose; contenting themselves with a show, with a semblance, Luke 8:18, with a form of knowledge, Romans 2:20, and of godliness, 2 Timothy 3:5, rather seeming to be good than seeking to be so. These are hell’ s freeholders; and other sinners are said but to have their part with them. There are those who thus interpret this text: "Ephraim compasseth me," the prophet preaching mercy, and promising good things, they beset me, and gather close about me, as desirous of my doctrine: but it is in mendacio, in hateful hypocrisy, and when I cross them never so little, they craftily conspire to prejudice my ministry, to asperse my person, &c. To preach, saith one, is nothing else but to derive the rage of the whole world upon a man’ s self, to become the butt mark, yea, the centre ad quod omnes lineae dolorum tendunt, to which all the lines of lies and falsehoods do tend (Meisner in loc.). But Judah yet ruleth with God] To serve God is to rule with him; as Livia said, she ruled her husband Augustus by obeying him. It is the greatest liberty, Romans 6:18; Romans 6:22 1 Peter 2:16. Abraham was a prince of God. Jacob prevailed with God, and had power as a prince, Genesis 32:28. Moses (as if he had been chancellor of heaven) overruled the business, and God is fain to bespeak his own freedom, Exodus 32:10.

(12) Should stand as the first verse of Hosea 12, just as in the Hebrew text. The rest of the prophecy appears as a distinct composition, a new commencemen, of judgment and incrimination, followed at last by one more utterance of Divine promise. The rendering of the latter part of the verse in the English version was that of the Jewish scholars who saw here a reference to the reign of Hezekiah, but it is opposed to the mention of the “controversy with Judah” in Hosea 12:3. Accordingly, the rendering adopted by Ewald, Wünsche, Nowack, and others, is more probable:—“And Judah still roves unbridled towards God, and towards the faithful Holy One,” Judah’s inconstancy being contrasted with the faithfulness of God. The plural form, the Holy Ones, may, like the plural forms, Elohîm, Adonîm, suggest personalities within the substance of deity. The LXX. seem to indicate that we have not the right Hebrew text here.

Verse 12. Ephraim compasseth me about with lies] I think this verse does not well unite with the above; it belongs to another subject, and should begin the following chapter, as in the Hebrew. Judah yet ruleth with God] There is an allusion here to Genesis 32:24, where Jacob, having "wrestled with the Angel," had his name changed to Israel, one that rules with God. That glory the Israelites had lost by their idolatry; but Judah still retained the true worship, and alone deserved the name of Israel. Bp. Newcome translates this clause thus: - "But hereafter they shall come down a people of God, even a faithful people of saints." Even allowing this to be the most correct view of the original, I do not see what we gain by this change.

12. The Septuagint, and after it the English Version, mistook the blame of the second half of this verse for praise, and hence attached the verse to chap. 11. Properly, however, it belongs to chap. 12, of which it is the first verse in the Hebrew Bible. Jehovah is the speaker. Israel’s sins of treason and deceit are so numerous that his God is as it were surrounded by them, and can see nothing else; nor has Judah shown any more deference to the repeated warnings of the prophet. but Judah yet ruleth, &c.] Rather, and Judah is yet wayward towards God, and towards the faithful Holy One. ‘Yet’, because Hosea’s earlier prophecies record the long continuance of Judah’s backsliding (Hosea 5:10, Hosea 6:4; Hosea 6:11, Hosea 8:14). The word rendered ‘wayward’ has the root-meaning of roving unrestrained, as when an animal has broken loose. Hence Jeremiah 2:31, ‘Wherefore say my people, We rove at large; we will come no more unto thee.’ ‘The Holy One’ has in the Hebrew the plural termination, as in Proverbs 9:10; it seems formed on the model of Elohim, ‘(the) divinity’, lit. ‘(the) divinities.’ We might express the force of the plural by rendering ‘the All-Holy One’, or (as margin) ‘the Most Holy.’ The Septuagint (partly followed by the Peshito) renders, νῦνἔγνωαὐτοὺςὁθεὸς, καὶὁλαὸςἅγιοςκεκλήσεταιθεοῦ. But dubious as our Hebrew text may be, it gives a more suitable sense than that of the Septuagint.

Ephraim compasseth Me about with lies - Having spoken of future repentance, conversion, restoration, he turns back to those around him, and declares why they can have no share in that restoration. Nothing about them was true.

OF ISRAEL’S ; TO , Hosea 11:12 to Hosea 12:6.The following appears to be the most probable interpretation of this exceedingly difficult section, Hosea 11:12, begins a new series of indictments.