What shall I do unto thee, Ephraim? What shall I do unto thee, Judah? For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that early passeth away.
The prophet has just called Israel back to the Lord, and God answers with a question asked twice: what is He to do with a people whose devotion keeps evaporating? He compares their love — "goodness" in older translations — to a cloud at sunrise and to dew that dries before noon.
Up to this point Hosea has been pleading with the people. From verse 4 the speaker changes, and the grief becomes God's own.
Next we have from verse 4 Jehovah's grief, to which Hosea gives expression... It is the language of Jehovah, as the earlier verses were the prophet's exhortation. From there he slides into the words of the One who appointed him. A prophet was the voice of Jehovah. So Hosea starts as a prophet and rises into words that suit Jehovah Himself.
God picked two beautiful things. Both are gone by mid-morning.
But while He loved them, their love was like the morning cloud, like the dew, vanishing soon away. The morning cloud looks beautiful, lit up by the rays of the rising sun. Then the heat of the sun burns it off. The dew glitters in the early morning, but soon it is gone. So was their love, fluctuating and changing. How often is the love of His heavenly people like the morning cloud and the dew! Thank God that His love never changes!
Later the same picture returns as a judgment: they themselves would vanish like the mist.
Just as the rising sun quickly disperses the morning clouds and the dew, so they should pass away (chapter 6:4).
Read as God's own words, the question shows how little He needs before He acts.
In verse 4 the Spirit expresses the lovingkindness of God towards His rebellious children. He is ready to meet the smallest movement of their heart towards good. Therefore God had sent them the testimony of the prophets — an extraordinary means... In the heart and mind of God it was not a question of outward forms; the moral relationship with God had failed. He had raised up prophets, as a means of relationship with Himself, to bring back the hearts of the people.
Commentators trace the fading to one cause: religion that never reaches the conscience.
In sinners or in saints, if the conscience is never reached, nothing is gained. The ministry of the truth may produce outward effects, but they count for nothing. In all such cases it will be as with Ephraim and Judah, of whom Hosea speaks. Their "goodness" will be "as a morning cloud, and as the early dew which passes away." (Hosea 6:4.) On the other hand, the fear of the Lord always appears in a soul whose conscience is at work before God.
Commentators see the same pattern in professions of faith that shine and then fade. One writer tells of a young man who seemed converted along with three others in his family.
When reminded of what he had so recently professed, and asked why he had given it up so soon, he could not tell. The feeling, he said, had gone completely away. He had nothing before his mind: neither himself as a sinner, nor Christ as a Saviour. He had no real sense of sin, and no appreciation of the Person and work of Christ. He was naturally pleasant, so there was no opposition. But like the morning cloud and the early dew, what at first seemed a happy conversion passed away. But its lessons remain; it teaches the need of dealing with the conscience.
Hosea does not end with the fading dew. At the close of the book, God promises to become for Israel what their love never was for Him. The lines below come from an older translation.
Then comes Jehovah's answer: "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"... What mercy, faced with such fickleness and with hearts firm only in rebellion!... Love that is free and full, with its motive in God Himself! He once struck His people in anger. Now He will be as the dew to them, who were so long without one drop of moisture to refresh them!
- Grief, not verdict. The double question is Jehovah's own grief, spoken through the prophet. Hosea's plea rises into the words of the One who sent him.
- Beautiful, brief. Cloud and dew are lovely things that vanish by mid-morning. That is their love: fluctuating and changing, set against a love that never changes.
- The cause. Goodness fades where the conscience was never reached. Where God's word does touch it, the fear of the Lord follows.
- The gift. God watches for the smallest movement of the heart toward good. He sent prophet after prophet to draw those hearts back.
- The reversal. What Israel's love failed to be, God promises to become for them: "I will be as the dew to Israel." Love given freely, with His anger turned away.
Therefore have I hewed [them] by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth and my judgment goeth forth as the light.
Hosea 6 opens with people saying the right words about returning to the Lord. Yet their goodness fades like a morning cloud. Verse 5 is God's answer to that fading. He says what He has already done about it, and His instrument was not an army but a message.
The chapter opens with the prophet pleading. By verse 5 the speaker has changed:
It is the language of Jehovah, as the earlier verses were the prophet's appeal. From there he slides, so to speak, into the language of Him who gave him his office. A prophet was really the voice of Jehovah. So, beginning as a prophet, he rises to the language that suits Jehovah Himself. The hewing of the people by the prophets is a vivid picture of God's moral dealings, which did not spare the wicked. "I have slain them by the words of my mouth," he adds, to make still plainer what kind of slaying it was.
(Kelly works from an older translation reading "their judgments are as the light that goes forth"; the ESV has "my judgment goes forth as the light.")
Their love for God kept fading, and that shaped the message the prophets brought:
The morning cloud looks beautiful, turned gold by the rays of the rising sun. But the heat of the sun soon makes it disappear. The dew glitters in the early morning, but soon it is gone. That was their love — unsteady and changing… So the prophets He had sent to them came with words of condemnation, instead of words of comfort and cheer. They came to hew, as stone or wood is hewn. The message of judgment they preached condemned them. That is what the words mean: "I have slain them by the words of My mouth."
Verse 5 runs straight on into verse 6, where the reason is given. The people were careful about religious ceremony while their lives were corrupt. This writer quotes verse 6 in an older wording — its "mercy" is "steadfast love" in the ESV:
Both Ephraim and Judah (Hosea 5, 6) had badly corrupted themselves. Yet at the same time they seem to have been strict about their sacrificial ceremonies, as if attention to outward forms could win God's favour. "Therefore," says the prophet, speaking in Jehovah's name, "I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth… for I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." That is, character and state — the character and state produced by the knowledge of Jehovah as a God of mercy — were of more value before God than outward observances. Those observances were completely worthless unless they were the sign of a spiritual condition.
The hewing was not a sudden reaction. It came after centuries of patience with the same people:
But for centuries in the land He bore with their lawless behaviour. He pleaded with them by the love He had shown them from the time He first stepped in to help them. He hewed them by His prophets. He slew them by the words of His mouth. He disciplined them with the rod of the land's original inhabitants, who were barbs in their eyes and thorns in their sides. He whipped them with the attacks of the nations, until from head to foot they were wounds and bruises and festering sores. No one had bound them up or soothed them with ointment — and all to no purpose.
Centuries later the pattern repeated, and the One who had sent the prophets spoke in person:
Who does not recall here Hosea 6:5, where He said, "I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth"? Listen to the One whose voice once shook the earth: "Blind guides," "whitewashed tombs," "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?"
The same word still divides its hearers, and the outcome depends on the response:
The truth either brings repentance or resentment. Those who resent the truth of God's word pressing on their conscience, and do not answer it, are morally slain before God. They have missed their opportunity. They are judged because they refused that word. It is wise for us to obey the word of God when we hear it pricking our conscience. We do not fight back, but accept what God has to say to us.
- Voice — The prophet's plea gives way to God's own speech, because a prophet was the voice of the Lord Himself.
- Tool — God's instrument is His word: He hews as stone or wood is hewn, and the slaying is moral, not military.
- Cause — The blow fell because ceremony had replaced character. God wanted mercy and the knowledge of Himself, not offerings.
- Patience — The hewing was one stage in centuries of pleading and discipline. The people still refused.
- Reach — That same voice later confronted the religious leaders in person. Today the word still brings repentance, or it leaves the hearer morally slain.
For I delight in loving-kindness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings.
Israel kept up its sacrifices, yet God says He wants something else. That raises two hard questions: why would God refuse the sacrifices He Himself commanded, and what is the "knowledge of God" He prefers?
The chapter opens with the prophet pleading with the people. By verse 6 the speaker has changed.
It is the language of Jehovah, as the earlier verses were the prophet's exhortation. From there he slides, so to speak, into the language of Him who gave him his office. A prophet was the voice of Jehovah. So he begins as a prophet, then rises to speak what belongs to Jehovah Himself.
God is not only refusing something here. He is naming what He loves. (Where the ESV says "steadfast love," older translations read "mercy" or "loving-kindness," and the writers quoted here use those words.)
But of mercy He speaks. "For I desired mercy" — this is what He loves, and to this end, that He may be morally vindicated in displaying it.
The people were not neglecting worship. That was the problem.
Both Ephraim and Judah had corrupted themselves badly. Yet they seem to have been careful about their sacrificial ceremonies, as if outward forms could win them God's favour... That is, God valued character and state more than outward observances — the character and state that come from knowing Jehovah as a God of mercy. Those observances are worthless unless they show a real spiritual condition.
If sacrifices were not the point, what was? One writer says God was after the relationship, not the ceremony.
In the heart and mind of God it was not a question of outward forms; the moral relationship with God had failed. He had raised up prophets, as a means of relationship with Himself, to bring back the hearts of the people. But, like Adam in the garden of Eden, they had broken the covenant. Their enjoyment of all the blessings God had heaped on them depended on that covenant.
The phrase "the knowledge of God" is not about information. Earlier in the same book, not knowing the LORD is what blocks Israel's return.
This too stood in the way of their return to God: "they know not the LORD" (Hosea 5:4). But God will work repentance in them and raise them up to live before Him. Then they will know Him, and will "press on to know the LORD" (Hosea 6:3). They will learn that this pleases God more than anything else: "the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
Mercy is not the only thing God ranks above sacrifice.
Sacrifice without obedience — a solemn truth — is no better than idol worship. The first mark of faith is obedience... Besides, there are many things God prefers to sacrifice.
The Pharisees prized ceremony. Jesus turned this verse against them.
What counts before Him is moral, not ceremonial. By Hosea God said, "I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice"; and the Lord quoted this twice (Matt. 9:13; Matt. 12:7). So we see the hypocrisy that came into full display and reached its peak in the Pharisees when our Lord was on earth.
Commentators differ on what Jesus meant by the quotation. Some read it as a rebuke of empty ritual. Another writer says the point is what Christ Himself was doing.
The words of the prophet, as the Lord uses them here, show what He was doing in receiving tax collectors and sinners. He was carrying out the divine work of displaying mercy, and that agreed with the will of God. God did not want sacrifice from people whose hearts were far from Him, like the Pharisees. The Servant of Jehovah, the "sunrise from on high," had visited His people to forgive sins, not to judge them.
- Mercy is what God loves. The verse is not God rejecting worship. He is naming His own delight — "this is what He loves" — and He works so that He may be morally justified in showing it.
- Mercy known produces character. Knowing God as a God of mercy shapes character. God valued that character more than ceremonies, which were worthless without it.
- Mercy refused breaks relationship. Outward forms were never the question. The relationship with God had failed. Like Adam, they had broken the covenant their blessings depended on.
- Mercy sought is knowledge gained. Not knowing the LORD blocked their return. Pressing on to know Him pleases God more than burnt offerings.
- Mercy shown is Christ. Jesus quoted this verse twice. In receiving tax collectors and sinners, He was doing the divine work of showing the mercy the verse calls for.