Hosea 9

Hosea 9:1

K. The Captivity of Israel Predicted as a Result of Its Iniquity (9:110:15)9:1, 2 Israel should not rejoice. Their idols would not give them the rich harvests they expected. Idolatry is spiritual adultery. Francis Shaeffer explains: Notice the form of speech God uses. A woman is out harvesting, and there is a freedom in the midst of the harvest. She takes a gift of money from some man to sleep with him on the corn floor in the midst of the harvesting. That is what those who had been God’s people had become. The wife of the living God is this in her apostasy. 9:3, 4 Because of their adultery, the people would go into captivitynot literally to Egypt, but to captivity in Assyria similar to the bondage in Egypt. Theirs was a mixed worshipidolatry mixed with the worship of Jehovah, pleasing neither Him nor themselves. 9:5-9 They would not be in the land to observe the appointed feasts; rather, they would be taken into captivity. The tents of Ephraim would be inhabited by nettles and thorns instead of by the people themselves. The exile was near, as well as the doom of false prophets. 9:10-17 Israel had been such promising fruit at the outset, like the firstfruits on the fig tree, but it lapsed into terrible idolatry, and so is appointed to barrenness and loss of children. The expression “to the last man” (v. 12) must be understood relatively, not absolutely (see v. 17c). The male population would be drastically reduced. Because of exchanging their glory for abomination, Ephraim was given the sentence"No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception!"