Hosea 12:7

[He is] a merchant,.... Here is a change of person from "thou" to "he", from Judah to Ephraim, who is said to be a "merchant"; and if that was all, there is nothing worthy of dispraise in it; but he

He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

He is a merchant; Ephraim, of whom here, is so far from being Jacob, or as Jacob, that you may call and account him a Canaanite, a subtle merchant. The balances of deceit are in his hand; what he cannot gain by fair trading, he will by downright cheating; he is covetous, and very unjust. He loveth to oppress; where violence, calumnies, and false accusations are needful to compass his covetous and cozening designs, he will not stick at them; this way of gain he loveth, his heart is upon it; though God hate the false balance, and false witness, and the violent man, yet Ephraim loves them all for his gain.

Hosea 12:7 [He is] a merchant, the balances of deceit [are] in his hand: he loveth to oppress.Ver. 7. He is a merchant] Heb. He is Canaan that is, a mere natural man, Ezekiel 16:3, money merchant, who, so he may have it, careth not how he comes by it; he is more like a Canaanite than a Jacobite. Jacob said, "I have enough, my brother"; but Ephraim is sick of the plague of unsatisfiableness; and instead of keeping mercy and judgment, as in the former verse, he keepeth false balances in his hand and false weights in his bag, Deuteronomy 15:13-15 Leviticus 19:36 Proverbs 11:1; Proverbs 16:11; Proverbs 20:10 He that hath his hands full of the balances of deceit, and will not loose them to take hold of God, will not part with his fat and sweet (as the vine and olive in Jotham’ s parable), though it be to reign in heaven how can it be expected that he should turn to God, or that he should love to be his servant in Isaiah 56:6. When he loveth to oppress] To get gain, if not by fraud and cunning contrivance, then by force, and by forged cavillation, as Luke 19:8. Sic quaecunque potest arte nocere, nocet and all this he loveth to do; he delights in it he not only is pleased with it, but pleadeth for it, and opposeth with crest and breast whatsoever standeth in the way of his own heart; exercised with covetousness (as St Peter’ s phrase is, 2 Peter 2:14), which he constantly followeth as the artificer doth his trade. Let such Canaanites read that flaming text, 1 Thessalonians 4:6 and take heed, lest while they get all they can by wrench and wile, lest while they count all good fish that comes to net, they catch at length the devil and all; lest they receive no less sums of curses than of coin; lest screechowls of woe cry aloud, from the beams of their chambers, &c.

(7) He is a merchant.—The vivid and fierce light of the prophet’s words is obscured in the English version. The rendering “he is a merchant” originates from the fact that Canaan (rendered “merchant”) is often used predominantly of Phœnicia, and Canaanites of Phœnicians, the great trading race (Isaiah 23:11; Job 40:30). Translate: As for Canaan, in his hand are false balances. He loves cheating. The descendants of Canaan (the son of Ham, the abhorred son of Noah) became in their whole career a curse and a bye-word in every religious and ethical sense. The princes of Tyre, the merchandise of Phœnicia, were, perhaps, then in the prophet’s mind. (Comp. Ezekiel 27) Moreover, the prophet hints that Ephraim had imbibed Phœnicia’s love of gain and habits of unscrupulous trade. The literature of this period contains frequent references to these tendencies in Israel (Amos 2:6; Amos 8:5; Micah 6:10).

Verse 7. He is a merchant] Or a Canaanite; referring to the Phoenicians, famous for their traffic. Ephraim is as corrupt as those heathenish traffickers were. He kept, as many in all ages have done, a weight and a weight; a heavy one to buy with and a light one to sell by.

7. He is a merchant, &c.] Rather, Canaan! in his hand are deceitful balances; he loveth to extort. The geographical term ‘Canaan’ simply means ‘lowland’, and therefore might be, and was, applied to Phœnicia (Isaiah 23:11) as well as to other lowland parts of Palestine; ‘Canaanite’ too became a synonym for ‘merchant’ (Job 41:6; Proverbs 31:24, comp. Zephaniah 1:11; Ezekiel 17:4), as ‘Chaldean’ was a synonym for ‘astrologer.’ Hosea uses the word collectively and metaphorically:—his ‘Canaan’ is a degenerate Israel. The sarcasm derives its point from the low repute of the Phœnician merchants for honesty (comp. Odyss. xiv. 290, 291).

He is a merchant - Or, indignantly, “a merchant in whose hands are the balances of deceit!” How could they love “mercy and justice,” whose trade was “deceit,” who weighed out deceit with their goods?

7. He is a merchant [“trafficker”] — Literally, Canaan, without “he is”; hence margin of R.V., “As for Canaan, the… ,” is preferable. Addressed to the degenerate Israel.