Hosea 6:4

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?.... Or, "for thee" (x)?

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? - to bring thee back to piety.

The Lord now enters a debate with both Israel (here called Ephraim) and the two tribes, with all that were his, people anciently; much after the manner of men, who having to do with froward and ungovernable children, or servants, whom they pity, and would not cast off, after much kindness and patience showed to them, and abused by them, at last seem at a stand what more to do, or appeal to by-standers whether more might be done, or demand of the untractable ones what they can desire more to be done. So ,5. What is it I may do becoming my holy, just, and wise procedures, with my reasonable creatures? What should I do more to save you from ruin, and salve my own honour, truth, add justice? Would you of the ten tribes, and you of the two tribes, have me cease to be God, and resign to your idols? or repeal my own laws, and subscribe to your idols’ rites? Or would you have Satan the wicked one, who hath seduced your kings, prophets, priests, and people, whom you worship in your idols, would you that he should still retain your love and service, and I maintain you in it? I would do, as appears by what I have done, any thing that may be done to reduce, reclaim, and reform you, who are as impudent adulteresses, that will not be sincere and faithful to their reconciled husband. Your goodness, or your kindness, your love to me, my law, worship, and honour, your promises of love and loyalty, is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew; vanisheth without effect, it is deceitful; you are hypocrites, nothing but short and empty signs of goodness, piety, and amendment. Their hypocrisy and unconstancy, elegantly expressed in this double allusion, renders them uncapable of further gentleness.

Hosea 6:4 O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness [is] as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.Ver. 4. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee, &c.] See how soon the prophet changeth his note. Hitherto he had set forth their repentance in sense of mercy; now all of a sudden he upbraideth and threateneth them for their incorrigibleness and inconstancy. Ministers must turn themselves, as it were, into all shapes and fashions, both of speech and spirit, to win people to God. Aaron’ s bells must be wisely rung, saith one. Sometimes the treble of mercy sounds well, at other times the tenor of judgment, or counter tenor of reproof, sounds better; and it often happens that the means of exhortation soundeth best of all. It is his wisdom to observe circumstances, and know how to curse as well as bless, chide as well as comfort, and speak war to a rebel as well as peace to a friend. And herein indeed lieth the wisdom and faithfulness of a teacher. Then, and only then, shall he prove himself sincere and impartial, when he holds this course. "What shall I do unto thee?" It is as if God should say, I have done my utmost, as Isaiah 5:5 Micah 5:3, and now am I at a stand, and can scarce tell what to do more. See the like expostulatory complaints, Jeremiah 2:30-31 Hosea 5:3 Amos 4:6 Isaiah 26:10 Matthew 11:16-18; Matthew 23:37. I would, but thou wouldst not. As the loving hen is always caring for her chickens, and calling them about her, that she may gather and guard them from the mischief of all vermin; but they will needs be straggling, and so perish; so if God’ s people will not hearken to his voice, if Israel will none of him, what can he do less than give them up to their own hearts’ lusts, Psalms 81:12, yea, give them up to the devil, to be further hardened to their just destruction, saying, that which will die, let it die? All that God can do is, as here, to mourn for their obstinacy and fool-hardiness in rejecting his grace, as he wept over Jerusalem, Luke 19:42. We should also do the like, crying out with Isaiah, "My leanness, my leanness!" and with Jeremiah, "My bowels, my bowels!" and with Paul, I have "great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart," for my perverse countrymen, Isaiah 24:16 Jeremiah 4:19 Romans 9:2. Peter calleth them an untoward generation, Acts 2:40; such crooked pieces that there was no working upon them. A cunning carver can cut the similitude of any creature, yet not on a crooked or rotten stick. Where lieth the fault? surely in the crookedness of the stick, and not in the carver’ s cunning: so is it here.

(4) Here ends the supposed language of the penitents. If it were genuine, and accompanied by a deep sense of sin, it would not be in vain. But the prophet utters the heartrending response and expostulation of Jehovah, who bewails the transitory nature of their repentance. Your goodness . . .—Better rendered, Your love (to me) is like the morning cloud (which promises rain, and does not give it; like the dew (or, “morning mist;” see Note, Hosea 14:5), which early goeth away, vanishing in the blaze of summer day—your tears leaving you parched and dried as before.

Verse 4. O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee?] This is the answer of the Lord to the above pious resolutions; sincere while they lasted, but frequently forgotten, because the people were fickle. Their goodness (for goodness it was while it endured) was like the morning cloud that fadeth away before the rising sun, or like the early dew which is speedily evaporated by heat. Ephraim and Judah had too much goodness in them to admit of their total rejection, and too much evil to admit of their being placed among the children. Speaking after the manner or men, the justice and mercy of God seem puzzled how to act toward them. When justice was about to destroy them for their iniquity, it was prevented by their repentance and contrition: when mercy was about to pour upon them as penitents its choicest blessings, it was prevented by their fickleness and relapse! These things induce the just and merciful God to exclaim, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?" The only thing that could be done in such a case was that which God did.

4. The answer of Jehovah, who cannot be satisfied with such a superficial repentance and such hasty resolutions of ‘knowing’ Him. what shall I do unto thee?] ‘What other means can possibly be employed to move thee to a serious repentance?’ Comp. Isaiah 5:4. your goodness] Rather, your piety. The word (khésedh) is the same as that rendered in Hosea 6:6 ‘mercy’; and so St Jerome here (‘the mercy which I had been wont to shew’), and Keil (explaining, as in Hosea 4:1, ‘your kindness to those in need’). But the context requires another sense—‘your love to God’, and this is what A.V. means, though it expresses it weakly. The Peshito also renders ‘goodness’, and again in Hosea 6:6. as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away] Rather, … and as the night mist which early goeth away (so again Hosea 13:3). The ‘cloud’ spoken of, then, is a cloud such as Isaiah speaks of as coming ‘in the heat of harvest’ (Isaiah 18:4); more precisely, it is one of those dense masses of night-vapour, which the westerly winds of summer bear from the Mediterranean Sea, and which more than supply the place of dew. After ‘making a fair show’ in the bright morning light, they are soon sucked up by the hot sun, and pass away (Neil, Palestine Explored, p. 138). The cognate word in Arabic means a soft rain (comp. Deuteronomy 32:2). Comp. on Hosea 14:6.

O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? - It is common with the prophets, first to set forth the fullness of the riches of God’s mercies in Christ, and then to turn to their own generation, and upbraid

4, 5. What shall I do unto thee — What more can I do to move you to heartfelt repentance? Goodness — In Hosea 2:19, “lovingkindness” (see comment there); here the loving attitude and disposition toward Jehovah.