They all practise adultery, as an oven heated by the baker he ceaseth from stirring [the fire] after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.
God moved to heal Israel, and His kindness only brought the sin to the surface. Verse 4 opens a run of images from the bakery — oven, fire, dough, leaven. Together they picture a nation with its passions lit, held back, and waiting.
One writer sums up the chapter before the oven ever appears:
Hosea 7 gives a most solemn description. It follows up the same proof and reproof of sin against them all. It shows that, despite the patient mercy and touching appeals of God, they would only get worse and worse. The day of deliverance was as yet far off. God's intervention in goodness only revealed the people's sin.
The charge covers everyone. The leaders were no exception, and the adultery here belongs with the idol worship Israel copied from its neighbours:
The king and the princes, the political heads, were as corrupt as the priests. They were pleased that their subjects would not repent and went on in wickedness. Then follows a graphic description of their moral depravity. They were adulterers, burning with lust, "like an oven heated by the baker, who rests from stirring the fire, after he has kneaded the dough until it is leavened." They took part in all the vile, obscene practices tied to the idol worship of the nations around them.
Hosea borrows the baker's trade to say something about the timing of sin:
In Hosea 7:4, 6, the baker heating the oven stands for people who, as it were, prepared their lusts for evil. Then they waited for the moment when they could satisfy them more greedily. Sad, that it should be Israel of whom the prophet speaks like this.
The heat is held back, not sudden.
The baker stops stirring because he is waiting for the dough. One writer uses this verse to show how leaven does its work:
Add a small particle of leaven to a mass of pure dough, and its special character always passes to the whole lump. This spreading action of leaven is automatic, and needs no human help. The subtle influence works silently and unnoticed. It goes on until the hidden spreading and blending is complete, and the result shows. So the baker kneads his dough, then waits until it is leavened before he makes up his oven fire for the baking (Hosea 7:4, R.V.). He does not need to help the leaven do its work in the dough, though it works faster and better when screened from the light.
Commentators read the baker's pause differently. Some take it as stopping the fire; others as resting while the dough rises. Both land on the same picture: evil working on quietly while nothing seems to be happening.
Verse 4 opens a sequence. Read on, and the banked oven becomes a blaze. One writer names the fuel, quoting verse 7 in an older translation:
What can be more graphic... than the description which follows in verses 4–7, where the heart burns with the fire of passion, and indulgence and flattery furnish fuel? "They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges. All their kings have fallen. No one among them calls to me."
Who is the baker? One writer identifies him:
They made their heart like an oven. Their baker — meaning their own evil will and imagination — slept all night. But waking in the morning, their lust is stirred up again.
The figure does not stay a picture of lust. Scripture uses oven heat in another direction as well:
The heat of the oven is used symbolically for rapid destruction. Ps. 21:9; Mal. 4:1.
This was not a distant, foreign people. It was the nation God had bound Himself to:
Such was the moral depravity of a people with whom the Lord had entered into covenant, the favoured nation. The source of it was unbelief and the rejection of His Word. The sad history of Israel is repeated in professing Christendom today.
- Kindled — God's kindness came to heal, and instead it exposed the sin it touched.
- Banked — The oven is lit, then left. Lust was prepared in advance and held back, waiting for the moment to feed it.
- Rising — Like leaven, the evil works silently and needs no help; it spreads best out of sight, while the baker rests.
- Blazing — By morning the stored heat burns, fed by indulgence and flattery, and not one of them calls on God.
- Burnt — The oven that pictured their passion also pictures swift destruction. A covenant people fell this way, and one writer warns the pattern repeats today.
In the day of our king, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine he stretched out his hand to scorners.
Hosea pictures a feast day at Israel's royal court: the princes drink themselves sick, and the king joins hands with men who mock. What happens to a nation when the people in power turn a celebration into corruption?
Verses 4 to 7 form one picture. One writer reads them as a heart on fire, with the feast supplying the fuel.
Nothing is more graphic than the description that follows in verses 4-7. It is a little hard to follow, because the style is so compressed and the images change so fast. In it the heart burns with the fire of passion, and self-indulgence and flattery supply the fuel.
Flattery is the second fuel, poured out beside the wine.
One commentator traces the disorder in Israel back to a season of national success.
Israel had great prosperity and expansion under Jeroboam II. This appears to have corrupted the people and given free rein to their evil desires and violence. Those in authority did not check this spirit of lawlessness. They found pleasure in it. These princes went to excess until they were sick: "On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine" (Hosea 7:5). No wonder public life fell apart, when the king himself encouraged the scorn of lawless men: "he stretched out his hand with mockers" (Hosea 7:5). Disintegration and bloodshed followed as a natural result.
The rot was not confined to one class. Another writer puts the political leaders beside the priests, and ends with what no one was doing.
The king and the princes, the political heads, were as corrupt as the priests. They were pleased with the wickedness of their subjects, who would not repent... They were drunkards too, as heated with wine as they were with lust. They made their heart like an oven. Their baker — their own evil will and imagination — slept all night, but in the morning their lust stirred up again. And no one called on the name of the Lord.
It would be easy to blame the leaders alone. One writer points the other way: the people pushed their rulers on.
They encouraged the king and the princes in their wickedness. Israel's sin was already bearing fruit in the weakness of the people. Strangers devoured them too. Yet for all this they did not return to Jehovah. At times they felt their misery and howled on their beds, but they still did not cry to God. What a picture of man under the effect of sin, who will not turn to the Lord!
The king stretches out his hand with mockers. Older translations call them "scorners." One commentator, writing on Proverbs, says what such a man is like.
The scorner is the most detestable of all. He is not only evil in mind and heart. He also takes pleasure in putting down and slandering the righteous.
Wine here stands for more than wine. One writer widens it to anything that clouds sober judgment.
Wine stands for anything that only excites or stimulates for the moment. A man may be drunk on pleasure, as Solomon was for a time. He may be drunk on pride, on making money, or on any of the many things that stir the desires of the flesh. These things can so affect his thinking that he loses sound, sober judgment for a while. Let us remember this too, as Scripture urges us: "do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18).
The writer who described Israel's court names what lay under the drinking.
The source of it was unbelief and the rejection of His Word. The sad history of Israel is repeated in the professing Christian world today.
- Fuel. Self-indulgence and flattery feed the fire here. The princes pour the wine, and they pour the flattery with it.
- Fire. Prosperity gave appetite free rein. The men in authority should have checked the lawlessness. They took pleasure in it instead.
- Spread. The fire spread both ways. The people encouraged the king and princes in their wickedness, so leaders and subjects corrupted each other.
- Silence. The hardest line in the chapter is not about drink. It is about prayer: no one among them called on the name of the Lord.
- Root. Under it all lay unbelief and the rejection of God's Word. The same warning stands today for anyone drunk on pleasure, pride or money.
For they have applied their heart like an oven to their lying in wait their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth like a flaming fire.
Hosea pictures Israel's inner life as a baker's oven: someone builds the fire, holds it overnight, and by dawn it blazes. Two questions follow — who is the baker, and what are the plotters cooking?
This is no sudden fall. It is a heart kept hot, and one writer names the fuel.
Nothing could be more graphic than the description that follows in verses 4-7. It is a little hard to follow, because the style is so compressed and the word-pictures change so fast. There the heart burns with the fire of passion, and self-indulgence and flattery supply the fuel.
So the heat is no accident. Comfort and praise keep it going. Someone is stoking the fire.
Older translations read the middle line as "their baker sleeps all the night." The ESV instead speaks of anger that smolders all night. One writer names that baker as something inside the people.
They made their heart like an oven. Their baker — meaning their own evil will and imagination — slept all night. But it woke in the morning, and their lust was stirred up again. And no one called on the name of the Lord.
So the sleeping baker is no bystander. It is their own will. It rests only because the fire needs no tending — the oven keeps its heat until morning wakes the will again.
The oven's night-long warmth explains the phrase about lying in wait. The fire is not idle; it is being held ready.
In Hosea 7:4, 6, the baker heating the oven is a picture of people who, as it were, made their lusts ready for evil. Then they waited for the moment when they could satisfy them more greedily. It is sad that it should be Israel the prophet speaks of in this way.
Delay, here, is not restraint. It is preparation. Waiting does not cool the desire; it sharpens it. The appetite is greedier when the moment comes.
The plotting was not hypothetical. The history of the northern kingdom in Hosea's day was a chain of murdered rulers, and one writer sets the prophet's words directly against that record.
Here begins the last period of stolen thrones and murders, just before the ten tribes were carried away. Hosea, the prophet of Israel, spoke of that period: "They are all hot as an oven, and they devour their judges; all their kings have fallen; not one of them calls to me" (Hosea 7:7, older translation). In his long lament the prophet's heart shows his anguish over Israel.
The heat kept overnight in the heart came out in the morning as treason and bloodshed at the top of the nation. What they cooked in secret, they served in public.
The image carries its own verdict. A household oven in Israel was a clay-lined pit, and Scripture uses its heat for more than baking.
Any kind of grass soon dried in the sun, and they threw it into the oven to heat it... Scripture uses the heat of the oven as a symbol of rapid destruction.
The same fire that bakes also burns. Israel lit its oven to serve its own desires, and in the end that fire consumed the nation.
So where was God while the oven heated? He had not stayed silent.
Hosea 7 gives a most solemn description. It carries on the same proof and rebuke of sin against them all. It shows that, despite God's patient mercy and moving appeals, they would only get worse and worse... God's intervention in goodness only brought the people's sin to light.
Mercy did not cool the fire. It showed how hot the fire already was.
- Fuel. The oven is the heart on fire with passion. Self-indulgence and flattery are the wood.
- Baker. The baker is their own evil will and imagination. The fire did not happen to them. They built it.
- Held. A night's sleep does not cool the oven. The waiting is desire held back, so they can feed it more greedily later.
- Blaze. At dawn the hidden heat breaks out. In Israel that meant murdered judges and fallen kings, and no one calling on God.
- Ashes. In Scripture an oven's heat pictures swift destruction. A nation that heats its heart for its own appetites burns in the fire it lit.
They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges; all their kings are fallen there is none among them that calleth unto me.
Hosea 7:7 closes a picture of a nation burning from the inside: hot hearts, murdered rulers, king after king falling, and no one calling on God. The verse forces two questions: what kind of fire is this, and why does a people in freefall still not pray?
The pictures in verses 4-7 change fast. One writer explains what they all add up to.
Nothing could be more graphic than the description in verses 4-7. It is a little hard to follow, because the style is so compressed and the images change so fast. There the heart burns with the fire of passion, and indulgence and flattery supply the fuel.
So who is the baker? One writer says he is not an outsider, but something inside the people themselves.
They made their heart like an oven. Their baker — meaning their own evil will and imagination — slept all night. But it woke in the morning, and their lust was stirred up again. And no one called on the name of the Lord.
"All their kings have fallen" was not a figure of speech. It matched a stretch of Israel's history when the throne changed hands by murder.
Here begins the final period of stolen thrones and assassinations before the ten tribes were carried away. This is the period Hosea, the prophet of Israel, described in this verse.
The record backs this up in plain numbers.
Of the nineteen kings who reigned from the great split to the deportation to Assyria, only seven died natural deaths. Seven were assassinated, one killed himself, and one died of wounds received in battle... Add to this list two long periods of anarchy, when "there was no king in Israel," and every man most likely did "what was right in his own eyes."
Why did men keep killing their way to the throne?
Shallum conspired against Zechariah, killed him, and reigned in his place. His crime did him little good. A month later he fell under the blows of Menahem. We are touching the reason for all this violence: each man wants to seize power for his own gain. Conscience no longer raises its voice. So sinners are handed over to every instinct of their evil nature.
Who is to blame? One writer looks past the killers to the men who should have stopped them.
Two rulers, Zachariah and Shallum, were killed within half a year. That says much about the anarchy in the kingdom at the time... Those in authority should have checked this spirit of lawlessness. Instead they took pleasure in it.
The saddest words in the verse come last.
The fruit of Israel's iniquity already showed in the weakness of the people. Strangers devoured them too. Yet for all this they did not return to Jehovah. If at times, feeling their misery, they howled on their beds, they did not cry to God. What a picture of man under the effect of sin, who will not turn to the Lord!
One writer separates the two sounds:
There is all the difference in the world between a cry to God from the heart and a howl upon one's bed. The heart-cry sends a man to his knees in repentance toward God. The howl means only annoyance and distress, and rebellion against God.
This is not just an ancient tragedy for one nation. One writer holds it up as a mirror.
Such was the moral depravity of a people with whom the Lord had made a covenant, the favoured nation. The source of it was unbelief and the rejection of His Word. The sad history of Israel is repeated in professing Christendom today.
- Heat. The fire feeds itself. Indulgence and flattery are the fuel. Inside sits a "baker" — their own will and imagination — keeping the coals alive overnight.
- Silence. When conscience goes quiet, nothing holds ambition back. Each man grabs power for his own gain.
- Devouring. The heat shows up in public life: rulers destroyed, kings fallen, seven of nineteen murdered.
- Complicity. The men in power could have cooled the fire. Instead they enjoyed the lawlessness.
- Prayerlessness. The final charge is not violence but the missing cry. Howling on a bed is not the heart-cry that sends a man to his knees.