Hosea 2:11

I will also cause all her mirth to cease,.... As it must in course, this being her case, as before described, whether considered in individuals, or as a body politic, or in their church state, as

I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

I will also cause all her mirth to cease; the jollity of Israel was certainly damped when Tiglath-pileser took Ijon, and other cities, and captivated Naphtali, , which was some, yet but few, years after this prophecy: but sure all their joy ceased about ten or twelve years after, when Samaria was taken, and Hoshea and all Israel made captives: so the threat was executed in this sense. But the prophet speaks (as by what follows appeareth) of their sacred or religious joys, which God will abolish. He did not set them up, but he will pull them down. Her feast days: though apostate Israel was fallen to idolatry, and renounced the true worship of God, yet by this text it appears they retained many of the rites and ceremonies that were used by the Jews, or else set up others like them, as their solemn feast at setting up the calves at Dan and Beth-el, in Jeroboam’ s time. New moons: these were days of greater sacrifices, , and greater feasting, . Sabbaths; their weekly sabbaths. All her solemn feasts; the three annual feasts of tabernacles, weeks, and passover, or others with them, all which should cease when these people were carried captive, as they were by Shalmaneser.

Hosea 2:11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.Ver. 11. I will also cause her mirth to cease] Idolaters are frolic and jovial, the greatest mirth mongers, the merry Greeks of the world; set altogether upon the merry pin, they spend their days in pleasure, and suddenly turn into hell, Job 21:13. Thus it was with these old idolaters. See Amos 6:4. And thus it is with the Papists at this day. They have a proverb among them, Spiritns Calvinianus est spiritus melancholicus, A Calvinistic spirit is a melancholy spirit. Turn Protestant once, and you must for ever bid adieu to mirth and jollity, and lead a monkish, melancholy life. In their supplication to King James for a toleration, they used this as an argument for their religion above ours, because more suitable and pleasing to man’ s nature. It is indeed an alluring, tempting, bewitching religion, Revelation 13:14. Sir Walter Raleigh knew what he said, That were he to choose a religion for licentious liberty, lasciviousness, and merry making, he would be a Papist. Hence the whole world is said to wonder after the beast, which is said to be like unto a leopard or panther (πανθηρ, quod omnium animalium amicus sit. Isidor). Now the panther is admired and followed by most other beasts of the field (and thence hath his name), either for the beauty of his hide, or for the sweetness of his smell. So is the pope for those sensual delights and swinish pleasures he alloweth his followers. Lupanar utriusque Veneris Roma condidit, saith Agrippa, concerning Pope Sixtus Quintus. But what should I rake in that dunghill? Such sinful mirth, as it is base born, so it is of short continuance: God will make it to cease, and to go soon out in a vexing snuff. For what reason? There is a snare (or cord) in the sin of the wicked, sc. to strangle their joy with, but the righteous sing and are merry, Proverbs 29:6, yea, they are merry (or right set in their minds, as the apostle’ s word, ενθυμει, signifies, James 5:13), and therefore they sing, yea, and shall sing for joy of heart, when wicked men shall cry for sorrow of heart, yea, howl again for vexation of spirit, Isaiah 65:14. Meanwhile their mirth is but the hypocrisy of mirth. It may wet the mouth, but not warm the heart; smooth the brow, but not fill the breast. It is like a little counterfeit complexion; as they repent only in the face, Matthew 6:16, so they rejoice only in the face, 2 Corinthians 1:5; 2 Corinthians 1:12. Indeed, they revel rather than rejoice, and the end of that mirth is heaviness, Proverbs 14:13; as lightning is attended with thunder, and as comets end in a pestilent vapour.

(11) Mirth . . . Cease.—The mirth is here indicative of the general character of the ceremonial—certainly not in itself a bad sign. David danced before the Lord, and justified the act. No one was to appear with sad countenance before Jehovah, any more than before an earthly potentate. (Comp. Nehemiah 2:2.) The “feast days” are to be distinguished from the “solemn feasts.” The latter term is more generic in Hebrew, while the former denoted the three great festivals of the year (especially the Feast of Tabernacles). These feasts, which Jeroboam I. had instituted, are not spoken of in themselves as sinful.

Verse 11. Her feast days] Jerusalem shall be pillaged and destroyed; and therefore all her joyous assemblies, and religious feasts, &c., shall cease.

11. her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths] (The Hebrew has the singular, ‘her feast-day’ &c.) These expressions are remarkable, for Hosea is a prophet of northern Israel. It would appear, then, that the separation of north and south did not involve a discontinuance of the festivals in the north (see Hosea 9:5). Amos had already predicted the ruin of the ‘feasts’ in N. Israel (Amos 8:10). In addition to the ‘feasts’ which are doubtless those mentioned in the earliest body of legislation (Exodus 23:14, &c., Exodus 34:18, &c.), Hosea specifies the new moon and the sabbath (comp. 2 Kings 4:23) as passing away together with the national independence. This was not strictly speaking the case with regard to the sabbath, which became one great bond of union among the Jews in exile. But the old, popular sabbath of unrestrained joy (comp. Hosea’s ‘all her mirth’) did pass away; the sabbath of Isa 58:13 was very different from that which was popularly observed in ancient Israel. and all her solemn feasts] Or, festal assemblies. The term is more comprehensive than ‘feast’; the Levitical legislation recognizes seven ‘festal assemblies’, but only three ‘feasts’ (comp. Lev. 33).

I will also cause her mirth to cease, her feast days ... - Israel had forsaken the temple of God; despised His priests; received from Jeroboam others whom God had not chosen; altered, at least, one

11. An inevitable result of the calamity will be the cessation of mirth — As the context shows, the merrymaking in connection with religious celebrations.