Hosea 7:1

When I would have healed Israel,.... Or rather, "when I healed Israel" (k); for this is not to be understood of a velleity, wish, or desire of healing and saving them, as Jarchi; nor of a bare

When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without.

HOSEA CHAPTER 7 Israel reproved for manifold sins, . God’ s wrath against them for their hypocrisy, . When: whether this chapter be a new sermon, or a continuation of that begun Hosea 6, we need not inquire, nor are there any particulars by which we can guess at the time when this healing work was attempted; but, so soon as it was endeavoured; indefinitely it is spoken, and so to be interpreted. I would have healed Israel: God doth assume the person of a physician or chirurgeon, who compassionately endeavours to cure a people sick and wounded: such was the house of Israel, the whole body of the people. The iniquity; the hidden, old, and putrefying sores, here called iniquity, the impieties and injustice. Of Ephraim; of Israel, called Ephraim, or of Ephraim, the chief tribe of this revolting kingdom; some would have it mean the rulers, or principal men. Was discovered; broke out; as many times in cures of old sores it happens some deeper and more rooted distemper, unthought of by the chirurgeon, appears. The wickedness, the great and many sins of Samaria, the royal city of the kingdom, where citizens, priests, prophets, and courtiers as much outsinned others as they exceeded them in wealth and ease. They commit falsehood; lying and cozening each other is acted as if it were a business they were bound to attend. The thief cometh in; secret thefts, or robbing others by subtle and undiscerned methods. The troop of robbers spoileth without; and open violence by hands joined to hands to spoil abroad. In a word, the strength and danger of their disease appears and increaseth more and more under endeavours to heal them.

Hosea 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, [and] the troop of robbers spoileth without.Ver. 1. When I would have healed Israel, &c.] Whereas Israel, hearing of a happy harvest promised to Judah, Hosea 6:11, and themselves excluded, might complain of hard dealing; God shows them here, that crudelem medicum intemperans aeger facit, the fault was merely in themselves. God came with his healing medicines to have cured them, but they hated to be healed, and, like madmen, railed and raged against the physician, spilt the portions, would have none of those slibber-sauces, as they accounted them; yea, as if on purpose to cross God, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness ( malitia multiplex) of Samaria] Of so perverse a spirit were they; and therefore (in Solomen’ s judgment, Proverbs 12:8) worthy to have been despised and let alone to perish in their corruptions. In Hippocrates’ time the physicians were bound by oath to leave such under their wounds to perish by them as were unruly, and would not be ordered. "We would have healed Babylon," (saith the Church), "but she would not be healed; forsake her therefore," saith God, Jeremiah 51:9. "Let them alone," saith Christ, Matthew 15:14. That which will die, let it die: a fearful sentence. Let them swelter and pine away in their iniquities, Leviticus 26:39. In their filthiness is lewdness, their disease is complicated, it is the leprosy in the head, it breaketh forth in their forehead, and my people love to have it so; but "what will they do in the end thereof?" Jeremiah 5:31. Ephraim here discovereth a headstrong wilfulness that was uncounsellable, incurable. He runs away after conviction, with a bit between his teeth, as it were; he runs, I say, upon the rock, Amos 6:12, where he first breaketh his hoofs, and then his neck. Some grow desperately sinful, like those Italian senators, that despairing of their lives (when upon submission they had been promised their lives, yet), being conscious of their villany, made a curious banquet; and at the end thereof every man drank up his glass of poison: and killed himself. So men, feeling such horrible hard hearts, and privy to such notorious sins they cast away souls and all for lust; and perish woefully, because they lived desperately, and so securely. It is a fearful sign of reprobation when God’ s means and medicines do men no good, but hurt rather; when medicine, which should remove the disease, doth co-operate with it, then death comes with the more pain and speed. The stronger the conviction of sin is the deeper will be the wrath against it, if it be not by repentance avoided.

(1) Translate, When I heal Israel (referring to a cessation in the attacks of the menacing foe, or to such a thrill of finer feeling as that which is recorded in 2 Chronicles 28:8-15), then is revealed the iniquity of Ephraim and the wickedness of Samaria, that they commit falsehood. Samaria here sustains the same relation to Israel that Jerusalem does to Judah, and it is the very source of the corruption of the whole country.

CHAPTER VII Here God complains that though he had employed every means for reforming Israel, they still persisted in their iniquity, without fearing the consequences, 1, 2; that those who ought to check their crimes were pleased with them, 3; and that they all burned with adultery, as an oven when fully heated, and ready to receive the kneaded dough, 4. The fifth verse alludes to some recent enormities; the sixth charges them with dividing their time between inactivity and iniquity; the seventh alludes to their civil broils and conspiracies; (see 2Kg 15:10; 2Kg 15:14; 2Kg 15:25;) the eighth to their joining themselves with idolatrous nations; and the ninth describes the sad consequence. The tenth verse reproves their pride and open contempt of God's worship; the eleventh reproves their foolish conduct in applying for aid to their enemies; (see 2Kg 15:19; 2Kg 17:4;) the twelfth and thirteenth threaten them with punishments; the fourteenth charges them with hypocrisy in their acts of humiliation; the fifteenth with ingratitude; and the image of the deceitful bow, in the sixteenth verse, is highly expressive of their frequent apostasies; and their hard speeches against God shall be visited upon them by their becoming a reproach in the land of their enemies. NOTES ON CHAP. VII Verse 1. When I would have healed Israel] As soon as one wound was healed, another was discovered. Scarcely was one sin blotted out till another was committed. The thief cometh in] Their own princes spoil them. The troop of robbers spoileth without.] The Assyrians, under different leaders, waste and plunder the country.

1–7. The moral degradation of Israel, especially of its ruling class, which, so far from stemming the tide of corruption, applauds and encourages its progress 1. How foolish is the conduct of Israel! When the great turning-point in her fortunes arrives, the day of mingled punishment and mercy, all his wickedness will be remembered and brought to light. To improve the sense and restore balance to the opening of the verse, it is expedient to read thus, with Ewald, When I turn the fortunes of my people, when I heal Israel, then will be manifest Ephraim’s guilt and Samaria’s wickedness, how they practise falsehood, and the thief cometh in, and bandits roam abroad without. Comp. Hosea 4:2. Samaria is mentioned, as the abode of the princes next spoken of.

When I would have healed Israel - God begins anew by appealing to Israel, that all which He had done to heal them, had but served to make their sin more evident, and “that,” from highest to lowest,

NEW PICTURE OF THE MORAL AND ANARCHY, Hosea 6:11 to Hosea 7:7.1, 2.