When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
God speaks here as a father, remembering the first days of the nation He rescued from Egypt — and the rest of the chapter shows how that child repaid Him. Centuries later Matthew applies this same line to Jesus, which raises one question: how can a line about the exodus be a prophecy about Christ?
The verse opens with God's feeling toward a nation still in its infancy. The picture is of a parent with a small child.
Think of the tender, loving care in these touching words, so full of a parent's affection: "When Israel was a child, I loved him … and I was the one who taught Ephraim to walk — He took them in His arms" (Hosea 11:1, 3). A mother holds her child in her arms as the object of her protecting love and care. She holds its arms when she teaches it to walk. God dealt with His earthly people in the same way.
Commentators tie this line to the exodus itself.
The allusion is clear to the past history of Israel, when they were the object of Jehovah's love and delivering power and special government.
The title "my son" was not new with Hosea. God had used it of the nation when He first sent Moses to Pharaoh.
Moses was to say to Pharaoh, "Thus says the Lord, Israel is My son, even My firstborn." Ex. 4:22. God called him out of Egypt, which is applied also to the Lord Jesus. Hosea 11:1; Matt. 2:15.
But the two sonships are not the same. One writer draws the difference as the nation loses its place.
God was setting aside the people He had called out of Egypt — the nation He was pleased to call "My son, even My firstborn" (Exodus 4:22)… Into this gap steps One who, like the nation before Him, is called out of Egypt… There is this similarity, but there is also an essential difference. Israel became Jehovah's son by His calling the Nation to that place. Son is not what Christ became but what He is in His eternal Being.
Read on its own, the verse looks backward, not forward. It sounds like a complaint, not a prediction.
The prophecy to be fulfilled is Hosea 11:1: "Out of Egypt I called my son." But at first glance this does not look like a prophecy at all, and surely not a prophecy of Christ. Anyone reading it would say it was only a rebuke of Israel as a nation. They had repaid the love God showed in redeeming them long ago by turning away from Him to worship Baal.
The same writer insists Matthew is doing more than borrowing a convenient phrase.
And yet applying the first verse to the Lord is more than an application… The wording of the quotation is far too exact for that. The Lord went down into Egypt for the very purpose of fulfilling what Hosea said.
One answer is that Jesus, carried into Egypt and called out again, begins Israel's story over.
He went down into Egypt to escape Herod's cruel plan to take His life. There He becomes the true Branch. In His own Person He starts the history of Israel over again — morally, that is… The prophecy of Hosea, "out of Egypt I called my son", is not the only word that applies to this true beginning of Israel in grace, as the beloved of God and according to God's purposes. The people had failed completely, and without this God would have had to cut them off.
Another writer says the prophet joins the two together.
God inspired the prophet to blend, as it were, Israel of old and Christ called out of Egypt. Before God, Christ was the true Israel. Israel's history started again in that blessed Person — the One for Whose sake God had led the ancient people out at their beginning.
Because Christ takes up the story, Israel's own future is not lost. He holds it.
Israel had failed completely. It even failed to listen to this glorious Person when He came. Israel comes to fulfil its destiny only in and through Christ, who comes of Israel… In Him, the "Son born" to them, Israel as a nation is yet to revive. His glory carries their blessing with it. He begins their history again for God, cleansed of its failure and its shame. From this comes the necessary application of passages like the one in Hosea, "Out of Egypt I called my son."
- Loved — God loved Israel as a child nation, carrying it and teaching it to walk.
- Called — that love called Israel out of Egypt and gave the nation the title "My son, even My firstborn."
- Failed — the son called out of Egypt turned to Baal, so the chapter is as much rebuke as memory.
- Replaced — Jesus went down into Egypt and came out at God's call, taking the failed son's place and starting Israel's history again in His own Person.
- Restored — Israel's blessing is not lost. It is held for them in Christ, whose glory carries their blessing with it.
As they called them, so they went from them they sacrificed unto the Baals, and burned incense to graven images.
In this chapter God recalls how He loved Israel as a child and called His son out of Egypt. This verse is the nation's answer to that love. Two questions sit inside it. Who was doing the calling? And why does kindness so often meet retreat?
Older translations read the verse as "As they called them, so they went from them." So who are "they"? One writer names the callers: the prophets God kept sending.
The first seven verses of Hosea 11 draw attention to the love and care He had given them, yet the people were set on backsliding from Him. God sent the prophets to call them to repentance, but even so: "As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images" (Hosea 11:2).
The ESV turns it into a rising pattern: the more God called, the further they ran. The movement is the same. Every call back produced more distance.
Taken on its own, this verse is an accusation. God had taken a slave people and made them family. This is what they gave Him back.
Anyone looking at it would say it was simply a rebuke of Israel as a nation. They repaid with apostasy and Baal-worship the love God had shown in redeeming them long ago. He had them taken out of the misery of their bondage, and called them to adoption as His own family among the families of the earth. But how had they repaid it? "As they [the prophets] called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images."
Verse 1 speaks of a son called out of Egypt. Verse 2 records how that son answered. One writer sets Israel's record beside the Son of God, who carried the same title and did not fail.
But while the Son of God, the true Israel, was perfect and holy in all His ways, Israel was unfaithful. Here the record of Jehovah's faithfulness and mercy is opened up. He sent them prophets who called them, but they turned away from Him and gave themselves over to the Baals and the idol-gods. How loving He had been to them! He led them, took them into His arms and healed them.
Another writer sees this chapter placing Christ between Israel's past and Israel's future.
Meanwhile the Lord Jesus comes in between the two, living the history over again in His own person, and becoming the basis for the future restoration of Israel.
God led them, carried them, and healed them. Their reaction shows how badly a heart set on going away can misread even kindness.
So, despite all His goodness in every form they needed, they saw Him as one of those who lay the yoke on the Jews — however He fed them.
Burning incense to carved images did not, in their own minds, mean abandoning Jehovah. God will not accept that mixture. The same instinct shows up outside Israel too.
It did not matter that they pretended to honour Jehovah alongside their false gods. In fact such a partnership made things worse in His sight. Their zeal for His feasts might look serious. But their tampering with idols only increased their guilt and His anger. And there is no doubt: they often showed themselves more zealous for the false gods than for the true God. Christians do the same now. When they take up bad doctrine, the error absorbs them, and they seem to lose the very truth they once professed.
Verse 2 is not the last word of the chapter. The God who records the running away still holds on to His love.
After all this (Hosea 11), God still remembers His early love for Jacob. He reminds them of all His loving kindness, His goodness, His care for them. They would not return to their former condition in Egypt; Assyria would be the place of their captivity. But however great the sin of Israel, the heart of their God cannot forsake His people: He will not destroy them; He is God, and not man.
- Called — God kept sending prophets to call Israel back to Himself. The calling never stopped.
- Refused — The more He called, the further they went. Distance from God was not an accident of circumstance but a settled direction of the will.
- Replaced — They turned to Baal worship and incense to carved images. Many kept God's name alongside the idols, and that mixture made the guilt worse, not lighter.
- Reversed — Israel repaid redeeming love with apostasy. Christ, the true Son called out of Egypt, walked the same history in perfect faithfulness.
- Retained — Even after all this, God will not forsake His people, because He is God and not man. Love answers the running away, not abandonment.
And I it was that taught Ephraim to walk, -- He took them upon his arms, -- but they knew not that I healed them.
God speaks here as a parent remembering a child's first steps. The child is Ephraim, God's people Israel. The verse holds two things together: God's most personal care, and a people who never realised what He was doing for them.
One writer starts from an everyday family scene to show what those arms mean:
A mother holds her child in her arms as the object of her protecting love and care. She holds its arms when she teaches it to walk. God dealt with His people on earth in the same way. He carried them the way you carry a baby. His everlasting arms held them up as He taught them to walk in His ways, leaning on Him completely and trusting Him without wavering. But how unsteady and uncertain their steps were! They stumbled all the way — at Marah, in the wilderness of Sin, at Rephidim. Still those mighty arms held them up, with a patience that never ran out.
God gave this care to a people already turning their backs on Him. One writer sets them beside Christ, the true Israel:
But while the Son of God, the true Israel, was perfect and holy in all His ways, Israel was unfaithful. Here the record of Jehovah's faithfulness and mercy unfolds. He sent them prophets who called them. But they turned away from Him and gave themselves over to the Baals and the idol-gods. How loving He had been to them! He led them, took them into His arms and healed them. He drew them with cords of love… It is a beautiful picture of His great gentleness with them.
God withheld nothing. Israel read His kindness as something else. One writer names what they saw instead:
Despite all His goodness, shown in every fitting form, He was in their eyes like those who put the yoke on them, however well He fed them.
God keeps going back over the record — the calling, the arms, the healing. One writer takes that as a mark of real affection, and a mirror for us:
See how God remembers and points back to every kind of contact between Himself and Israel! He recalls the moments of grace on His part, and faith even on Jacob's part. This is true affection. Now Israel drifted on, completely unfeeling and forgetful… But how wonderful this is! And how we forget the proofs of most loving grace we have had from God, and go on with idle minds! We ought to be with Him in the present. Then memory is, so to speak, not needed. But God has dealt with us, and His heart calls it to mind when we grow cold and forget, because He loves.
Christ met the same refusal when He stood among that people Himself:
But who can tell the sorrows of Emmanuel among that people? They mocked His tender words and refused all His gracious appeals. What words can describe the feelings that filled His soul? He had to cry out to the rebellious city: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Luke 13:34).
- Taught. God held Israel's arms like a parent teaching a toddler. He taught them to walk in His ways, depending on Him.
- Carried. Their steps were unsteady from the start, and they stumbled at stop after stop in the desert. The arms that held them never let go, and His patience never ran out.
- Healed. He led them, took them into His arms and healed them. It is a picture of great gentleness, shown to a people who had already turned to idols.
- Unnoticed. For all His goodness, they saw Him as one who laid a yoke on them, not as the God who healed them.
- Remembered. God recalls old kindnesses because He loves. We forget the proofs of grace He has given us. That same love later grieved over Jerusalem.
I drew them with bands of a man, with cords of love; and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I gently caused them to eat.
God looks back here on how He led Israel: not by force, but by ties fitted to a human heart. What kind of power is that, and what happens when people mistake such kindness for harshness?
The pictures come from farm life: a yoke-strap lifted off the jaws so the animal can eat, and food held out to its mouth. One writer sets these alongside the leading, carrying and healing that come before them.
How loving He had been to them! He led them, took them into His arms and healed them. He drew them with cords of love. He was towards them "as those that would raise the yoke-strap over their jaws, and I reached out to them to eat" (verse 4). It is a beautiful picture of His great gentleness with them.
The ESV reads "cords of kindness." Older translations render the same phrase "cords of a man," and the writers below build on that wording. God does not come to us through creatures that would terrify us.
"A MAN." Not an angel or fiery seraph. We would be afraid of these, and they could not help us in our need. But He has drawn us with "the cords of a man," with "the bands of love."
One writer ties this human word to the name the Lord kept using of Himself, and to the friendship it brings.
The title He constantly used of Himself was "the Son of Man." With the cords of a Man He draws us — with the cords of love! He is "a friend who sticks closer than a brother," a Friend tested in hard times. He walked in paths such as ours, and His heart is with us in the same path still.
The verse that speaks of a lifted yoke also exposes how Israel saw their God. What He did and what they believed about Him were opposites.
So, despite all His goodness in every fitting form, in their eyes He was like those who put the yoke on the Jews, however He might feed them.
The cords did their work: they brought a nation into a land of plenty. What followed was Israel's failure, not God's — and it is not His last word on them.
It is true that the Lord "drew them with cords of a man," and "with bands of love," into a land flowing with milk and honey. But they turned from the Lord and went after strange gods. Yet in the days to come God will again bring Israel into the wilderness. There He will "speak to her heart," and from there open to her "a door of hope."
A cord leads, but it also holds. One writer finds the same lesson in the cords that held the boards of Israel's tent of worship.
Each board tells of an individual believer... the top was held fast by cords. We read of the cords of a man, with bands of love (Hosea 11:4). So I think the cords tell of love: and once again we find that love makes everything strong and firm. So in this beautiful picture we see that each believer is to "stand fast in the Lord."
Hosea 11 sets these memories inside a chapter that also announces captivity. The reminder of past kindness is not nostalgia; it carries a promise.
After all this (Hosea 11) God still remembers His early love for Jacob; He reminds them of all His lovingkindness, His goodness, His care for them... But however great the sin of Israel, the heart of their God cannot forsake His people. He will not destroy them; He is God, and not man. In the end He will place the people, trembling now and submissive, once more in their dwellings.
- Cords — God moves His people by ties fitted to human hearts, not by force. The picture is gentleness: a lifted yoke and food held out.
- A Man — the cords are human ones. An angel would frighten us. The One who draws us took the title Son of Man and walked our path as a Friend.
- Blindness — Israel took the hand that lifted the yoke for the hand that laid it on. They read His goodness as harshness.
- Holding — the same cords that lead also hold. Love is what makes a believer stand firm.
- Return — the love that once drew them into a good land pledges that God will speak to their heart again. His heart cannot forsake His people, for He is God and not man.
He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king; for they refused to return [to me];
Hosea 11 looks back on the God who chose Israel and brought them out of slavery in Egypt. Verse 5 is the turn: that love now meets a people who would not come back to Him. Three questions follow: why Egypt is named, why Assyria becomes king, and what it means that a whole nation "refused to return."
Assyria took the ten tribes captive, not Egypt. So the denial in this verse points at something Israel was hoping for. One writer reads it as a door shut on an escape plan:
As a whole the tribes were carried into Assyria. Hosea says here, "They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me." What this implies is that in their rebellion against God some would have liked Egypt as a refuge from the Assyrian destroyer... Israel had no reason to love the iron furnace they had come out of. It was their house of slavery until God delivered them through Moses. But man is always perverse. Even Egypt displeases God, and Egypt will be judged after Israel. Yet to their blind unbelief it looks like a good shield from the sword of the Assyrian when it comes — and it will come. What we run from against God's will becomes our worst punishment.
Elsewhere Hosea says Israel "shall return to Egypt." The two statements fit together once you see what returning to Egypt means:
Some have supposed that part of the ten tribes fled to Egypt at that time. We do not think that the words in Hosea 8:13, "they shall return to Egypt," should be read that way. "Return into the land of Egypt" does not have to mean fleeing there. It can mean seeking help there, as Isaiah 31:1 says: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help."
Israel had courted Assyria for protection instead of trusting the Lord. The sentence in this verse fits the sin:
Hosea 7:11 says, "Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria." The prophet has the ten tribes in view, and he tells of their coming captivity... Israel relied on Assyria instead of the Lord, so the Lord allowed him to be a captive to the nation he had relied on.
The verse names the cause: they would not come back to God. Jeremiah describes the same refusal in almost the same words, and the warning reaches us too:
Move on to the eighth chapter of Jeremiah, where the Lord asks, "Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return" (Jeremiah 8:5). If I do not listen to His word and return, I will end up in this dreadful condition of perpetual backsliding.
The same pull works today. One writer names the instinct behind it:
The Lord warns His people against the tendency to seek help in Egypt. It is no longer only taking counsel without God; it is leaning on the flesh. It is the tendency of all of us not to turn to God unless we are forced to. The prodigal son ate the pods fed to pigs before he thought of his father's house... Egypt stands for the natural strength of the world, Babylon for the world's corruption. Israel seeks support in the natural strength of man. That does not irritate pride or expose what we are. You cannot lean on God without having your pride broken down and learning that you are nothing.
The sentence is real. A people who thought slavery could never touch them again would serve foreign masters. Yet a grieving God speaks it:
Their punishment is threatened to the very last degree: outside the land, slaves of the nations — something they assumed could never happen... Still, we have a fresh outburst of sorrow on God's part. He grieved, though He had to strike, and He would not wipe out the people He had chosen.
- Refusal. The cause of the whole sentence is plain: they would not come back to God.
- Substitute. Turning from God leaves no empty space. It sends you looking for an Egypt — some worldly strength to lean on instead of Him.
- Sentence. The help they courted became the power over them: they relied on Assyria, and the Lord let Assyria be their king.
- Shut door. God closed the escape route they preferred. What we run from against His will becomes our worst punishment.
- Sorrow. A grieving God announces the judgment, and He will not wipe out the people He chose.
and the sword shall turn about in his cities, and shall consume his bars, and devour [them], because of their own counsels.
Hosea 11 remembers God's love for Israel — His kindness, His goodness, His care. Then the sword arrives, and verse 6 blames it not on Assyria's ambition but on Israel's own plans.
Verse 5 says Assyria will be their king "because they have refused to return." Verse 6 shows what that refusal produced. Israel had a plan for escaping Assyria, and the plan itself destroyed them. Kelly points to Egypt, the shelter Israel kept eyeing.
The meaning implied is that in rebellion against God some would have liked Egypt as a refuge from the Assyrian invader… It was not that Israel had reason to love the iron furnace they had come out of — their house of slavery until God rescued them through Moses; but man is always perverse. Even Egypt displeases God and is due for judgment after Israel. Still, to their blind unbelief it looks like a shield they want against the sword of Assyria when it comes — and come it surely will. What we run from against God's will becomes our worst punishment.
The "counsels" were not vague attitudes. Rossier ties them to a real piece of foreign policy under Hoshea, Israel's king.
"But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year." In fact, the prophet mentions this two-faced, suspicious conduct of the king: "Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt." So Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, discovered Hoshea's plot and "shut him up and bound him in prison."
Assyria appears twice: first as the power Israel leaned on, then as the power that carried them off.
It is similar in Hosea 8:9, "For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild donkey wandering alone" — only here it seems to be one of the reasons for the captivity. Israel relied on Assyria instead of Jehovah. So Jehovah let him become a captive of the nation he had relied on.
Verse 6 leaves nothing standing: the sword rages, consumes, devours. Gaebelein reads the judgment as complete — and then points to what comes next in the chapter.
But the Lord declares that they shall not return to Egypt, but Assyria is to be their king, because they refused to return. The sword of judgment would do its work completely (verses 6–7). Then follows a most wonderful outburst of deepest sorrow over the stubborn nation.
The sword of verse 6 is not the last word of the chapter. Darby traces the whole movement: love remembered, captivity, then home again.
After all this (Hosea 11), God still remembers His early love for Jacob; He reminds them of all His lovingkindness, His goodness, His care for them. They should not return to their former condition in Egypt; Assyria should be the place of their captivity. But however great the sin of Israel, the heart of their God cannot forsake His people. He will not destroy them. He is God, and not man. In the end He will place the people, trembling now and submissive, back in their homes.
- Counsel. The sword comes from a source inside Israel. Their own plans, not just Assyria's armies, bring the blade to their gates.
- Refusal. Those plans grew out of one root sin: they would not return to God, so they went looking for a shield somewhere else.
- Egypt. The shield they wanted was Egypt, the land of slavery God had rescued them from. What we run from against God's will becomes our worst punishment.
- Assyria. The nation they leaned on became the nation that carried them off. Their chosen ally became their king.
- Mercy. God carries the sentence out to the full, and still His heart will not let Ephraim go. He strikes, grieves, and promises to settle them in their homes again.
Yea, my people are bent upon backsliding from me though they call them to the Most High, none at all exalteth [him].
Hosea 11 has just described God carrying Ephraim — that is, Israel — in His arms and drawing him with cords of love. Verse 7 shows how Israel answered that love, and what God says to a people set on leaving Him.
Translations differ at the end of this verse. The ESV has "he shall not raise them up at all"; others read "none at all exalts Him."
The Hebrew word behind "turning away" carries a stronger sense than the English suggests. The same word links this verse to Jeremiah and to Hosea's final chapter.
meshubah, "a turning away, apostasy." Jeremiah 2:19; Jeremiah 3:6-12, 22; Jeremiah 5:6; Jeremiah 8:5; Jeremiah 14:7; Hosea 11:7; Hosea 14:4.
The verse describes a direction, not a single slip. One writer traces where that direction leads when it is not judged.
Nor is this all, because unjudged sin leads to worse evil. Go on to Jeremiah 8, where the Lord asks, "Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return" (Jeremiah 8:5). If I do not listen to His word and return, I will get into this dreadful condition of perpetual backsliding. We may well take to heart the warning of Hebrews 3:12-13. "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God … that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
God did not leave them to drift in silence. What He had already done for them makes their refusal starker.
He sent them prophets who called them, but they turned away from Him and gave themselves over to the Baals and the idol-gods. How loving He had been to them! He led them, took them into His arms and healed them. He drew them with cords of love … It is a beautiful picture of His great gentleness with them … The Lord declares that they will not return to Egypt. Assyria is to be their king, because they refused to return. The sword of judgment would do its work completely (verses 6-7).
Israel hoped to slip away from Assyria into Egypt. The place they ran to for safety was the last place that could give it.
The meaning implied is that, in rebellion against God, some would have liked Egypt as a refuge from the Assyrian destroyer … Israel had no reason to love the iron furnace they had come out of. Egypt was their house of slavery until God delivered them through Moses. But man is always perverse. Egypt displeased God, and He was about to judge it after Israel. Even so, to their blind unbelief it looked like a fine shield from the sword of the Assyrian — and that sword will surely come. What we run from in opposition to God's will becomes our severest scourge.
The problem is not that God's call is hard to understand. It is that His call cuts across what a person wants.
It is the truth that grates on the reluctant will of man. This is the source of all unbelief … Why then does man not love it? Because he has departed from God and refuses to return in God's way. He fools himself with the comfortable idea that he would like to serve God someday, if not now. But he likes nothing except his own will. Yet anyone who serves God must serve Him according to His will, which alone is holy and good.
Verse 7 is not the last word. Even here, they are still "My people." The next verse shows God refusing to give Ephraim up — and His own feel the same toward those who wander.
Speaking through Hosea, the Lord says, "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? … My heart recoils within Me; My compassion grows warm and tender." (Chapter 11:8.) No! The Lord never forgets His people, however badly they may have sinned … If He does not forget backsliders, His people will not forget them either. If He yearns over them and pleads with them, they will do the same — when His own affections are active in their hearts.
The same word appears again in Hosea's last chapter. There God promises to heal it Himself.
"I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for My anger has turned from them" (Hosea 14:4). What could be more blessed than this? … It is love's victory over the lack of it.
- Bent — the word behind "turning away" means apostasy: a settled direction, not one slip.
- Hardened — sin left unjudged grows into "perpetual backsliding": people hold fast to deceit and refuse to return.
- Refused — God carried them in His arms and sent prophets to call them. They refused to return, and Assyria came.
- Enslaved — leaving God frees no one. The refuge chosen against His will becomes the severest scourge.
- Healed — the apostasy no one could cure is the very thing God promises to heal, loving them freely.
How shall I give thee over, Ephraim? [how] shall I deliver thee up, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? [how] shall I set thee as Zeboim? My heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
Hosea 11 has just sentenced Israel to exile, and then the sentence breaks off. God turns to the people He is punishing, and His four questions are the sound of a heart that cannot let them go.
In this verse Ephraim and Israel are two names for the same people. Up to this point the chapter has been nothing but threat, and one writer sets out what that threat meant:
Their punishment is threatened to the last extreme: out of the land, slaves of the nations around them, which they assumed could never happen... Still, we have a new burst of sorrow on God's part. He grieved even though He had to strike, and He would not completely destroy the people He had chosen.
Admah and Zeboiim are the least familiar names in the verse. A Bible dictionary explains the first one:
One of the cities in the plains of Jordan destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah... The LORD, speaking of His fierce anger against Ephraim, said, "How can I make you like Admah?"
Israel had sunk to the level of towns God had already wiped out. Even so, the answer to the question is no:
Were they not just as bad as the doomed cities of the plain? Yet He would spare them in sovereign mercy. He is not like a man who comes back to finish the job, or who enters the city to make sure it is done completely.
The closing lines of the verse are not cool regret from a distance. God speaks like a man who cannot bring himself to end a relationship:
In Hosea we hear the heart of God pleading. God comes down to man's level and pleads face to face, like a man, with a people He loves... a people He loved and could not give up. His compassion grows warm and tender. He yearns over that people... He does not stand at a distance, high above them, passing judgment on them. Instead He comes down, through the prophet, to their true condition. He comes down to their unfaithfulness to Him, and He begs them to return.
One writer hears the same voice in the Gospels, when Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He then turns it into a question about how we warn others:
The One who wept over Jerusalem is the same majestic Person who said in Hosea's day, "How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? My heart recoils within Me." If judgment must come, it was still painful to the divine heart to be forced to carry it out. Judgment is "His strange work" (Isa. 28:11)... As faithful witnesses for God, it is our duty to warn an evil world of the judgment that is coming. Woe to us if we fail to sound the warning! But how do we do it? Do we do it in a harsh spirit of condemnation, or with trembling lips and hearts full of compassion?
One writer applies these words to believers who have drifted away. What God feels toward them sets the standard for what we should feel:
But first, remember this: the Lord never gives His people up, whatever their state or condition... No! The Lord never forgets His people, however badly they may have sinned. The story of Peter, on the sad night he denied his Lord, announces this truth like a trumpet... If He does not forget those who have drifted away, they will not forget them either. If He yearns over them and pleads with them, they will do the same, as long as His own affections are alive in their hearts.
God's refusal to give Ephraim up is not just a feeling. It ends in a promise for the nation:
But however great the sin of Israel, the heart of their God cannot abandon His people. He will not destroy them. He is God, and not man. In the end He will place the people, trembling now and submissive, back in their own homes.
- Deserved — Ephraim had sunk to the level of Admah and Zeboiim. God had already destroyed those towns alongside Sodom, and Israel had earned the same end.
- Withheld — Judgment falls, but it does not destroy them completely. God does not come back to finish the job as a man would. He spares them in sovereign mercy.
- Grieved — He is not detached from the discipline He sends. He grieves even as He strikes, and judgment is His strange work.
- Pleading — He does not pass sentence from a distance. He comes down to their real condition and begs them to return.
- Restored — His refusal to give them up ends where the chapter ends. He puts a trembling, submissive people back in their own homes.
I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God, and not man, -- the Holy One in the midst of thee and I will not come in anger.
God has just spoken of the judgment Israel had earned, and then, mid-sentence, He holds the blow back. The reason is not that Israel deserved better, but that the One judging is not a man — so what does His holiness do when He stands among a guilty people?
The verse before names Admah and Zeboim, two towns wiped out with Sodom. Commentators do not soften the comparison. They call the sparing sovereign mercy, not a lighter verdict.
Were they not really as bad as the doomed cities of the plain? Yet He would spare in sovereign mercy. He is not like a man who comes back to finish the work, or who enters the city to do it thoroughly. For He is God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of Ephraim.
(Kelly follows an older rendering, "I will not enter into the city," where the ESV reads "I will not come in wrath.")
Man, having struck once, comes back to finish. God does not. Writers trace the difference to God's own nature. His heart for this people outlasts their sin.
However great the sin of Israel, the heart of their God cannot forsake His people. He will not destroy them; He is God, and not man. In the end He will place the people, trembling now and submissive, back in their homes.
People wonder how God can change His mind at all. One writer separates what God never changes from a threatened judgment He may not carry out.
God is not a man, so He does not change His mind about His eternal and unchangeable purposes and His unconditional promises; He never takes those back. But in His grace He may repent of a threatened judgment — that is, not carry it out. He did this with Nineveh. We must remember that the Spirit of God stoops to speak in our human way, because we are weak.
We might expect holiness to be the reason God withdraws. Here it goes with His staying "in your midst." One writer sees this as God's settled way of working: He comes near as the Holy One to bless.
The blessing cannot fail; for God reveals Himself as the redeemer, and comes into the midst of His people, as the Holy One, to bless them. So we read again, as in Isaiah 12:6: "Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel." (Compare Ezekiel 39:7; Hosea 11:9; and Isaiah 29:22–24.)
One writer treats "the Holy One" as more than a description of God. He links the phrase in Hosea to the way the New Testament speaks of Jesus.
In Hosea 11:9 we read of "the Holy One in your midst." In 1 John 2:20 we read that we "have been anointed by the Holy One." Mary was told, "the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). In 1 John 5:20 we read of "him who is true," and "This is the true God." In His Person the Lord Jesus Christ is holiness and truth embodied. More than that, He has the moral glory of being The Holy One and The True One. These words are really divine titles of Christ and not just divine attributes. No created being can claim this essential moral glory.
If the Holy One stays, the ground around Him cannot stay as it was. One writer applies the phrase to Josiah, a king who spent years clearing idols and filth out of the land.
In Hosea 11:9, God spoke of Himself as "the Holy One in your midst." ... In Josiah's day the land was full of detestable things. There were the idols themselves, and also the filthy practices that always go with idolatry. It apparently took eight years of energetic action to clear all this away. Josiah glossed over no evil he could prevent. But he could not look into the hearts of the people. There, sadly, the evils were in many cases still loved.
This sparing is not just a delay. One writer links it to the promises God makes later in the book.
This same God gave them a king in His anger and took him away in His wrath (Hosea 13:11). Now He says, "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death" (Hosea 13:14). And again, "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for My anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily, and cast forth his roots like Lebanon."
- Guilty — Israel had earned what fell on Admah and Zeboim; the sparing never pretends otherwise.
- Not man — a man returns to finish what he started; God does not, because His purpose never changes.
- Holy One — the title marks what no creature can claim, and the New Testament writers attach it to Christ.
- In your midst — His holiness does not keep Him away. He comes near to bless, and His nearness leaves no room for evil.
- Result — the withheld anger opens into healing, free love, and a people placed back in their homes.
They shall walk after Jehovah; he shall roar like a lion; when he shall roar, then the children shall hasten from the west
This promise follows God's decision not to destroy Ephraim. His reason is Himself: He is God and not man. What comes next is not a threat but a summons. The Lord roars, the earth shakes with terror, and His scattered children come home.
This promise grows out of God's affection for His people. One writer knows of only one thing in Scripture like it:
How deeply touching are the movements and appeals of divine affections — God's affections — in this book! I know of nothing quite like it in Scripture, unless it is the Lord weeping over Jerusalem.
Whose roar is this? One writer hears the same sound in Revelation:
Revelation 10:3 — He "called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring." Along with the angel's act we have His voice of majesty and power. It causes intense terror throughout the whole earth (Hosea 11:10; Joel 3:16). It is the voice of Christ. "Behold, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice" (Ps. 68:33). Here we have the roar of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. That heavenly and magnificent scene in Revelation 5 names Him this way alongside the Lamb. But there we watch the action of the Lamb; here that of the Lion.
The verse fixes a moment for Israel's obedience — they follow when He roars. That timing is what makes the promise a prophecy of His appearing rather than a general call to be faithful:
How He loves His people! Though He has punished them, He does not forsake them. He will not be angry forever. He is a covenant-keeping God: "for I am God and not a man" (verse 9)... And so this chapter of the Lord's mercy ends by promising their future restoration and blessing. They will follow the Lord. That will be when He roars like a lion. That is the day when He appears again as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah."
Why does God not wipe Ephraim out? Not because their sin was small. One writer answers from what God is:
Were they not really as bad as the cities of the plain that God destroyed? Yet He would spare in sovereign mercy. He is not like a man who comes back to finish the work, or who enters the city to destroy it thoroughly. For He is God and not man, the Holy One in the middle of Ephraim. Here He gives assurance of two things: that He will step in, and that they will submit and answer His summons. They come from the west, the south, and the north-east; the Assyrians stand for the north as surely as for the east.
Why do they come back from Egypt and Assyria? One writer traces the road they travelled:
In Hosea 10:6 God foretells Israel's glory being carried away to Assyria. God brought Israel out of Egypt. Some went back there. Then the king of Assyria ruled the nation — or what remained of it — and led them captive to Assyria (Hosea 11:5). It was with deep sorrow that God punished His people, and He would not destroy them. His judgments would bring them to "come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria." Then He would "return them to their homes" in their own land (Hosea 11:8–11).
- Heart — The promise rests on God's affections for a failing people. One writer finds nothing like it in Scripture, except the Lord weeping over Jerusalem.
- Spare — He is God and not man. So He does not come back to finish the destruction. Sovereign mercy holds His hand.
- Roar — Then that mercy speaks. The lion's voice is the voice of Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and it fills the whole earth with terror. Elsewhere He acts as the Lamb; here as the Lion.
- Follow — Israel answers the voice. They walk after the Lord when He roars — on the day He appears again, not before.
- Home — His summons reaches west, south and north-east. Those who fled to Egypt, and those Assyria carried off, come trembling back, and He returns them to their own homes.
they shall hasten as a bird out of Egypt, and as a dove out of the land of Assyria; and I will cause them to dwell in their houses, saith Jehovah.
This chapter ends with a homecoming, not a threat: Israel comes back from Egypt and Assyria, and God settles them in their own homes again. Why those two lands, why do they come trembling, and when does it happen?
The gathering promised here rests on something in God, not on any change in Israel. One commentator links their homecoming to God's refusal to destroy them:
Were they not really as bad as the doomed cities of the plain? Yet He would spare them in sovereign mercy. He would not come back like a man to finish the work, or enter the city to destroy it completely. He is God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of Ephraim. Here He promises not only that He will step in, but that they will submit and answer His call — from the west, south, and north-east. The Assyrians stand for the north as clearly as for the east.
The two countries named are not random. Assyria held most of the exiles, and Egypt was the escape some of them wanted:
Egypt is not, strictly speaking, the place where most of them lie hidden, though any who are there will surely be called out. As a whole the tribes were carried into Assyria… The meaning implied is that in rebellion against God some would have liked Egypt as a refuge from the Assyrian who came to plunder them… But man is always perverse. Egypt itself displeases God, and God will judge it after Israel. Even so, to their blind unbelief it looks like a fine shield against the sword of the Assyrian when he comes, and he surely will come. What we run from against God's will becomes our sharpest scourge.
The dove appears earlier in Hosea too. The nation Israel leaned on became the nation that took them captive:
In Hosea 7:11 it is written, "Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria." The ten tribes are before the prophet, and he tells of their coming captivity: "Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean food in Assyria" (Hosea 9:3). It is similar in Hosea 8:9, "For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild donkey wandering alone"; only here it seems to be one of the reasons for the captivity. Israel relied on Assyria instead of the LORD, so the LORD let him be a captive to the nation he had relied on.
The trembling of the birds answers the roar of the previous line. One writer reads that roar as the appearing of Christ Himself:
And though He has punished them, He does not forsake them. He will not be angry forever… "They will follow the LORD." That will be "when like a lion He roars." That is the day when He appears again as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah." Then, in that day, like a bird from Egypt they will hasten back and like a dove from Assyria. "I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD." Here is another prophecy of their restoration to their own, God-given homeland.
Translations differ on the verb. Some read "come trembling," others "hasten." Both picture birds flying home at His call.
The trembling and the settled home belong to one sequence. God's judgment comes first:
God punished His people with deep sorrow, and He would not destroy them. After His judgments had brought them to "come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria," He would "return them to their homes" in their own land.
The people who finally get a settled home are described by their new bearing, not their old boasting:
But however great Israel's sin, the heart of their God cannot forsake His people. He will not destroy them; He is God, and not man; and finally He will place the people, now trembling and submissive, once more in their dwellings.
The same regathering from the north runs through several prophets:
Assyria is the land of the north from which Israel will be gathered (Isa. 27:12-13; Hosea 11:11; Zech. 10:10; Jer. 16:15; Jer. 23:8).
The mention of Egypt looks back to where the nation's story began:
The coming out from Egypt is also mentioned as a renewal of their history, as though they were beginning afresh under the hand and grace of God.
- Roar — the promise begins with God's voice: when the Lion roars, the scattered people move. The homecoming starts on His side, not theirs.
- Reach — the roar carries to Egypt and Assyria. They answer His call from west, south, and north-east.
- Reversal — Israel leaned on Assyria, and Assyria carried them off. What we run from against God's will becomes our sharpest scourge.
- Return — they come back as trembling birds, not proud riders. Judgment has done its work, and they submit.
- Rest — the last word is home. A second exodus ends where the first was meant to end: a people settled under the hand and grace of God.
Ephraim encompasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit; but Judah yet walketh with God, and with the holy things of truth.
Hosea 11 has been full of God's pity for Ephraim. The last line stops and weighs the two halves of the divided nation: what were Ephraim's "lies," and is Judah's walk with God real praise or much less than it sounds?
The chapter has just recorded God refusing to give His people up. This closing line changes register, and writers notice the deliberate contrast.
The last verse, however, judges the present moral state of the two houses of Israel. How far it is from what grace will yet work, even though Judah still stood!
The lying here is not merely dishonest speech. It is a relationship falsified — one thing said, another thing relied on.
Lying and deceit had been Ephraim's course towards the Lord. Instead of trusting Him and following Him faithfully, they had attached themselves to idols.
Judah gets the better word here. One writer looks at what the two kingdoms were like at the time, and at the limit of the praise:
Azariah (Uzziah) reigned in Judah for more than fifty years. In that time he saw five of Israel's kings die, three of them murdered. In Israel there were also at least eleven years with no king at all. This marked contrast is probably what the prophet meant when he wrote these words. … This does not mean that all Judah's ways pleased the Lord. It means that Judah, unlike Israel which had forsaken God, still kept the truth of the Lord as a nation. That truth was revealed in the law and pictured in the temple's worship and service.
Across the whole prophecy, Hosea does not split the two kingdoms into guilty and innocent. Judah's advantage runs no deeper than the surface.
The prophecy presents Ephraim as having completely forsaken God, sunk in wickedness and facing coming judgment. Judah is still faithful outwardly, although unfaithful at heart too (see Hosea 6:11; 8:14; 11:12). Judgment would fall on them both.
The same writer who applies this line to Judah in Hezekiah's day insists the appearance had long stopped matching the reality:
Outwardly, no doubt, Judah "yet walked with God"; but its ruin had already long been obvious… While keeping up this outward appearance, which Ephraim had abandoned from the beginning of its existence, Judah was morally far from God.
Not everyone reads the second half of the verse as commendation at all. The Hebrew word behind "rules" or "still walks" is disputed, and one reading turns the line into a second accusation rather than a contrast.
The word translated "rules" means rambling. A better rendering is: "and Judah is also rambling towards God (or unbridled against Him) and towards the faithful Holy One." … Then the mask is torn from Judah's face. The Lord had a dispute with Judah too, and would repay them according to their evil deeds.
Others keep the positive sense, but only for one moment in Judah's history:
In Hezekiah's time, no matter how guilty Judah was, Scripture tells us that "Judah still walks with God and is faithful to the Holy One." But in the reigns that followed this was not so.
The verse also had a use in history. God removed the northern kingdom, and Judah alone was left standing:
In the end, in His wrath God removed them from before His face, and only the tribe of Judah was left. It was for a short time, no doubt. But God still recognised Judah, just as Hosea's word had said.
God's patience with Judah went further than His patience with Ephraim, and one writer says why:
God was patient a long time with Ephraim: "How shall I give you up, Ephraim? how shall I hand you over, Israel?" He was even more patient with Judah, whose provocations were greater. For His house was in Jerusalem, and His name was recorded there. The covenant went on with Judah after Ephraim (Israel) was gone. When that covenant too was broken, and judgment could not be avoided, there was still a lingering divine pity — for we know Who wept with human tears over Jerusalem.
- Lies — Ephraim claimed the Lord and leaned on idols, surrounding God with words nobody meant.
- Contrast — Judah stands against that as the house that still kept the law, the temple and its worship as a nation. That praises the system it kept up, not the lives its people led.
- Surface — that standing was outward only. Commentators read Judah as faithful in appearance and unfaithful at heart, and judgment fell on both houses.
- Dispute — commentators differ on the wording. Some read the line as praise that soon stopped being true. Others read "rambling" or "unbridled," which makes it a charge against Judah.
- Patience — God still recognised Judah after Israel was removed, and He bore longest with the house nearest to Him. The verse weighs both houses. What will restore them in the end is grace, not their record.