Hosea 9:5

What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the Lord?] Since their sacrifices now were so disagreeable and displeasing to the Lord, and so unavailable to themselves, what would

What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD? What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the Lord? (Hosea 2:11.)

Think with yourselves what you are likely to do then: on those days you were wont to cease from your labours, to offer sacrifices to God, (as you thought and said,) to feast with one another, all was full of seeming religion and real feasting and jollity on those days in your own country; but will your hard masters, that love their own profit, that hate your persons, and despise your religion, will they lose your labour, indulge your ease, encourage your religion, and suffer you to exercise it? Is this imaginable?

Hosea 9:5 What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?Ver. 5. What will ye do in the solemn day, &c.] q.d. How will ye do to laugh and leap then, as ye do now? Hosea 9:1. How will you be able to support yourselves, to keep your hearts from dying within you, when you call to mind and consider your former solemnities and festivities, which now (alas!) in your captivity you are utterly deprived of? There was a time when you went with the multitude to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holy day, Psalms 42:4, with dancing, eating, drinking, and joy, Deuteronomy 16:14-15 Judges 21:19-20. But now the scene is altered; your singing is turned into sighing, your mirth into mourning, your joy into heaviness; and you must needs hold yourselves so much the more miserable, that you have been happy. The epicures indeed held that a man might be cheerful against the most exquisite torments: 1. In consideration of his honesty and integrity; 2. In consideration of those pleasures and delights that formerly he had enjoyed; and now cheered himself up with the remembrance of them ( Ex praeteritarum voluptatum recordatione. Cic. de Finib. 1. 2. Senec. de Benef. 1. 4, c. 22.). This last is a very slight and sorry comfort indeed. The former hath much in it; for a good man keeps every day holy day, said Diogenes; and can be merry without music, saith another philosopher. He hath a merry heart, or good conscience, which is a continual feast; and is bound to "rejoice evermore," 1 Thessalonians 5:16, and to keep the feast in all countries, 1 Corinthians 5:8, the calendar of his whole life is crowned with continual festivals (εορταζωμεν); and he is the happiest man, and may be the merriest, if he but understand his own happiness. But this, alas! was not the case of these woeful caitiffs and captives. They had sinned away all their comforts; and with the sad remembrance of their former enjoyments, and with the sense of their present sevitude, they had little mind to keep holy day. Hence this passionate exclamation, "What will ye do," &c.? God had threatened before, Hosea 2:11, to take away their feast days, new moons, sabbaths, and solemnities; but they heeded him not, tanquam monstra marina Dei verba surda aura praeterierunt; therefore now God fulfilleth what he had forethreatened, and calleth, as in a solemn day, his terrors round about them, Lamentations 2:22. What they were wont to do in their solemn days and festivals may be seen, Numbers 10:10; what we do, or should do, at least, upon our Lord’ s Day sabbaths (the delight of every good soul) we need not be told. Let us take heed, lest by profane violation or careless observing that holy rest, with all its solemnities, we deprive not ourselves (as these Israelites did) of such a precious privilege.

(5) See Note on Hosea 2:11.

Verse 5. What will ye do in the solemn day] When ye shall be despoiled of every thing by the Assyrians; for the Israelites who remained in the land after its subjection to the Assyrians did worship the true God, and offer unto him the sacrifices appointed by the law, though in an imperfect and schismatic manner; and it was a great mortification to them to be deprived of their religious festivals in a land of strangers. See Calmet.

5. What will ye do, &c.] The festivals, which were kept up in N. Israel, even after the schism, were seasons of popular merry-making (see Hosea 2:11). But now as each ‘feast of Jehovah’ comes round in the calendar, ye will neither have the mechanical performance of ritual forms, nor the accompanying holiday-mirth, to fill up the vacant hours.

What will ye do in the solemn day? - Man is content to remain far from God, so that God do not show him, that He has withdrawn Himself from him.

5. In exile what can Israel do in the solemn day — The religious festivals held on sacred days, such as the sabbath and new moon. In an unclean land these celebrations become impossible. LXX. reads “days,” which may be original.