Hosea 12:2

The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah,.... The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the ten tribes; for though they had ruled with God, and had been faithful with the saints in the

The LORD hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him.

The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah; though Judah, compared with Ephraim, be faithful, yet when considered in his ways and doings he is found faulty in many things, and God hath just matter of complaint against Judah in point of manners; in public worship Judah was faithful, kept to God and the temple, though not without some defects, but in their lives there were many more and greater faults, about which God will contend that Judah may be reformed. Judah; the two tribes. Will punish; or visit with chastising to amend, else to destroy: there is hope of Judah that he will be reclaimed, therefore I will try by gentler visitations, by fatherly corrections, yet I will not leave him as hopeless, nor as faultless. Jacob; not the patriarch, but those who are of him; his children, but that have degenerated from his ways of love, fear, trust, and obedience. Both Ephraim and Judah are of Jacob, but both have corrupted themselves, and therefore will I proceed against both; and if Judah, the less faulty, escape not, Ephraim can have no hope to escape; if Judah be whipped with rods because a disobedient son, Ephraim may fear a sword because he hath been and still is an obstinate rebel. According to his ways; neither can justly complain then, since their different ways are made the standard of the different proceedings of God against them, he will not lay upon either more than is equal; who suffers most hath deserved more, and who suffers least needed so much to amend him. According to his doings will he recompense him: this is an elegant and very usual ingemination of the same thing, which doth assure it will be done, and should affect us the more.

Hosea 12:2 The LORD hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him.Ver. 2. The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah] Lest the prophet should be thought partial in the law, Malachi 2:9, and lest Ephraim should say of Judah, as once Oded did of Israel, "Are there not with them, even with them also, sins against the Lord?" 2 Chronicles 28:10. The prophet answers by way of concession, that there were so indeed; and that therefore God had a controversy with them, a litigation, or disceptation: he was expostulating with them by words, and some lighter strokes, notwithstanding he had commended them before, as ruling with God, and retaining his pure worship. God would take his time to deal with them too for their many impieties, and especially for running to Egypt for help, as they did in the days of Ahaz and Zedekiah, see Isaiah 30:2; Isaiah 31:1; but because they were not yet so bad as the ten tribes, nor so desperately wicked, therefore the Lord was yet but pleading with them; he had not passed sentence, he was not resolved upon their ruin and utter extirpation, Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:5-14; Hosea 6:11; as he was for the ten tribes, those foul apostates and shameless covenantbreakers; concerning whom he saith, and is set upon it, I will punish Jacob according to his ways] See the like words Hosea 4:9. He calls them Jacob, because they gloried much in him, their progenitor; as did likewise the Samaritans that succeeded them, John 4:12. So did the Jews in Micah 2:7. But the prophet Hosea answereth them in effect (as there) by proving a disparity. "O thou that art named the house of Jacob" (that wilt needs be named so, and therein pridest thyself), "is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" (ye are not surely straitened in him, but in your own bowels, that ye express Jacob no better, that ye resemble him no more). "Are these his doings?" was Jacob a man of your practices? No; for he left no means unattempted that he might attain the blessing; he strove for it with his brother in the womb, βρεφος, afterwards with the angel, against whom with much wrestling and raising of dust he prevailed, as it followeth in the two next verses. Odiosum et impium dogma Anabaptistarum, qui ideo pueris baptismum negant, quia sensu ac mente careant. Luther in loc.

(2) Jacob refers to the northern kingdom.

Verse 2. The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah] The rest of the prophecy belongs both to Judah and Israel. He reproaches both with their ingratitude, and threatens them with God's anger. In order to make their infidelity the more hateful, and their malice the more sensible, he opposes to them the righteousness, obedience, and piety of their father Jacob. He recalls to their minds the benefits they had received since they returned from Egypt. He speaks afterwards of their kings; and how, in their ingratitude, they refused to have him for their monarch. Having mentioned this fact, he subjoins reflections, exhortations, invectives, and threatenings, and continues this subject in this and the two following chapters.-Calmet.

2. Jacob] Here used for the northern kingdom, to prepare the way for the etymological allusion in Hosea 12:3.

The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob - The guilt of Judah was not open apostasy, nor had he filled up the measure of his sins.

2. The southern kingdom was equally guilty. Controversy — See on Hosea 4:1. Judah — Some substitute “Israel.” Also, which is in the English translations, is not in the original (see on Hosea 5:5).