Hosea 7:6

For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait,.... The prince, people, and scorners before mentioned, being heated with wine, and their lust enraged, they were ready for

For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

For; surely. They; those luxurious and drinking princes, . Have made ready their heart like an oven; do keep close some fire of ambition, revenge, or covetousness, like as a baker keeps a hot fire within his oven. Whiles they lie in wait, either against the life or estate of some of their fellow subjects, or it may be, as appears , against the life which they seemed in their cups to pray for. Their baker sleepeth all the night; he who should watch and prevent mischief is swallowed up in the day with feasting and drunkenness, and sleeps in security all the night, never suspecting the projects of conspirators. In the morning it burneth as a flaming fire; but when he awakes too late, he seeth all in flames, and past quenching. Sedition and rebellion is among these a sin as hateful to God as dangerous to the public, yet frequently acted by the usurpers of those dissolute times.

Hosea 7:6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.Ver. 6. For they have made ready their hearts like an oven] As an oven red-hot is ready to bake whatsoever is cast into it, so are wicked men’ s hearts, heated from hell, prepared for any evil purpose or practice that the devil shall suggest ( ad male cogitandum, Pagnin., ad pessima facinora, Tigur.); but especially to lie in wait for blood, and to hunt every man his brother with a net, Micah 7:2. David complains of some that lay in wait for his soul, Psalms 59:8, that Satanically hated him, Psalms 38:20; Psalms 7:13; Psalms 109:4; Psalms 109:6; Psalms 109:20; Psalms 109:29; that sought his soul to destroy it; not his life only, but his soul too; as that monster of Milan did, that made his adversary first forswear Christ in hope of life, and then, stabbing him to the heart, said, Now go thy ways soul and body to the devil; and as the Papists dealt by John Huss and Jerome of Prague, to whom they denied a confessor, which he required, after the manner of those times, to fit him for heaven; and for John Huss, after they had burnt him, how despitefully did they beat his heart (which was left untouched by the fire) with their staves! Besides that the bishops, when they put the triple crown of paper (painted with ugly devils on it) on his head, they said, Now we commit thy soul to the devil. Did not these men’ s hearts burn like an oven with hellish rage and cruelty? Their baker sleepeth all the night] Concoquens illa, scilicet corda, so Vatabius. He that concocteth or worketh their hearts, that is, the devil, as some interpret it, or evil concupiscence, as others; tota nocte protrahitur furor eorum, so the Chaldee; their rage is deferred, or drawn out to the length all night long, till in the morning, i.e. at a convenient season, it break out and bestir itself. A metaphor from a baker, who casting fire into the oven with good store of lasting fuel, lets it burn all night and sleeps securely; as knowing that he shall find it thoroughly hot in the morning. Those scorners in the former verse, by being overly familiar with their drunken king, came not only to fight him for his base behaviours, but also to conspire against him, and to plot his death; wherein their heart is the oven, ambition the fire, treason the flame of that fire, Satan, that old manslayer, the baker; who, though he make as if he slept all night, yet by the morning he hath set his agents, the traitors, to work (either by secret treacheries or open seditions) to do as in the next verse, and as is to be seen, 2 Kings 15:10; 2 Kings 15:14; 2 Kings 15:25; 2 Kings 15:30.

(6) Render, Yea, they draw nigh together. Like an oven in their heart with their wiles. Their baker sleepeth all the night, &c. The metaphor of Hos 7:4 is resumed. The baker, having left his dough to become leavened and his fire to smoulder, can afford to sleep. The baker may mean the evil passion which has been raging. Indeed, Wünsche and Schmoller, by a slight change of punctuation, obtain the rendering “their anger,” instead of “their baker,” which is supported by the Targum and Syriac version. After the murderous plots and carousal, the conspiracy ripens with the day; then will come the outburst of violence.

6. For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait] Better, with Ewald, ‘Yea, almost like the oven have they made their heart in their intrigue’, if there were only sufficient justification for the rendering. This view of the verse makes it a climax to Hosea 7:5. Better still, by self-evident corrections of the text, For their inward part is like an oven, their heart burneth in them (the reason for the strong expression ‘scorners’). their baker] Better, to follow the vocalizing of Targum and Peshito, and render, their anger, viz. against the destined victims of their intrigue. sleepeth all the night] Rather, still retaining the consonants of the text, smoketh all the night (for the phrase, comp Deuteronomy 29:20). The night is mentioned as the time when evil devices are matured.

For they have made ready their heart like an oven - He gives the reason old their bursting out into open mischief; it was ever stored up within.

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