Hosea 9:17

My God will cast them away,.... With loathsomeness and contempt, having sinned against him, and done such abominable things; cast them out of their own land, as men not fit to live in it; cast them

My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.

My God; no more thy God, O Ephraim, thou canst no more have hope on that account, but my God, saith the prophet, my God who hath revealed his purpose to me, and who will accomplish it, who will make good the word I have spoken against you. Will cast them away: your sins have been a weariness, a loathing to my God, and now as a vile, loathed, and wearisome thing is cast off by a man, so shall you be cast off from your God. They did not hearken unto him; neither did hearken to God to prevent apostacy, nor would ever after hearken to God at first to repent and turn to him; like a wilful adulteress, they would not keep faithful to their Husband, nor return to him when once departed from him. They shall be wanderers; have no city of their own, no settled dwelling-place; as much suspected, hated, ill used, and punished as vagabonds are in well-ordered commonwealths; all which is fully come upon them. Among the nations: Gentiles were such the proud circumcision did despise and hate, but now the sins of the circumcised shall bring them under as much contempt with the nations; nay, these proud apostates from God, when cast off and wanderers, shall account it a favour to be admitted to incorporate with, and so to grow up heathens among heathens, as after long time they did.

Hosea 9:17 My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.Ver. 17. My God will cast them away] My God, not their God, for they are castaways and apostates; see the like, 1 John 5:17, and learn to stick to God the closer when others start from him; and to secure our own interest in a general defection, by siding with God, and subscribing, as here the prophet doth, to his perfect righteousness in the rejection and destruction of reprobates. Will cast them away] With disdain and detestation, as vile and execrable. He will do it, saith the prophet here, not without a great deal of grief, as finding that God was fully resolved, and would not alter. The eternity of Israel will not lie, nor repent, 1 Samuel 15:29; for he is not a man, that he should repent, saith Samuel to Saul, that castaway; and it is very dreadful; as indeed it is for any wicked men to have such as have interest in God to declare against them; since "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," Psalms 25:14, and their sentence is not to be slighted. God’ s messengers especially, out of their acquaintance with their Master’ s proceedings, can foresee and foretell a punishment. Because they did not hearken unto him] Haec notabilis est sententia, This is a notable sentence, saith Luther upon the text; and worthy to be written upon all our walls and windows. Death came into the world by the ear, so must life; for it is, Hear, and your souls shall live; and they that will not hear the instruction of life are doomed to destruction, as were Eli’ s sons, 1 Samuel 2:25, and Amaziab, 2 Chronicles 25:16. A heavy ear is a singular judgment, Isaiah 6:10, an uncircumcised ear a forerunner of ruin, Jeremiah 6:10-11. Oh pray God to pull off that filthy foreskin, and to give us a hearing ear (that way to wisdom), an understanding heart, such as Solomon begged, 1 Kings 3:9. Pray that he would bore our ears, as Psalms 40:6, and make the bore big enough, that we may not only hear, but hearken; listen as for life. "Hear and give ear, be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken it," Jeremiah 13:15 : when God hath spoken once let us hear it twice, as David did, Psalms 62:11; he preached over the sermon again to himself at home. We must do with the word’ s directions, as we do with oil to a stiff joint; rub and chafe them on our hearts by deep and frequent meditation and prayer; lest else we hear with these in the text, Because they did not hearken unto him, they shall be wanderers among the nations] Heb. Nodedim: Cain’ s curse shall befall them.

(17) Wanderers.—Strangely confirmed from Assyrian monuments and the entire subsequent history of the bulk of Israel; and Israel still wanders, not coalescing with any nation, unless they lose their ancient faith by corruption into idolatry, or conversion to Christianity. (See Pusey.)

Verse 17. My God will cast them away] Here the prophet seems to apologize for the severity of these denunciations; and to vindicate the Divine justice, from which they proceeded. It is - Because they did not hearken unto him] That "my God," the fountain of mercy and kindness, "will cast them away." And they shall be wanderers among the nations.] And where they have wandered to, who can tell? and in what nations to be found, no man knows. Wanderers they are; and perhaps even now unknown to themselves. Some have thought they have found them in one country; some, in another; and a very pious writer, in a book entitled, The Star in the West, thinks he has found their descendants in the American Indians; among whom he has discovered many customs, apparently the same with those of the ancient Jews, and commanded in the Law. He even thinks that the word Je-ho-vah is found in their solemn festal cry, Ye-ho-wa-he. If they be this long lost people, they are utterly unknown to themselves; their origin being lost in a very remote antiquity.

17. The prophet has quelled his brief paroxysm, and calmly proceeds. But the threat is not now extermination. My God] No longer, alas! Israel’s God. Comp. Isaiah’s ‘this people’ for ‘my people’ (Isaiah 6:9). wanderers] Or, fugitives (it is the participle of the verb used in Hosea 7:13, see note).

My God hath cast them away - “My God” (he saith) as if God were his God only who clave to him, not their’s who had, by their disobedience, departed from Him.