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Ho 6:1; 12:6 1Sa 7:3,4 2Ch 30:6-9 Isa 55:6,7 Jer 3:12-14; 4:1

Verse 1. O lsrael, return unto the Lord] These words may be considered as addressed to the people now in captivity; suffering much, but having still much more to suffer if they did not repent. But it seems all these evils might yet be prevented, though so positively predicted, if the people would repent and return; and the very exhortation to this repentance shows that they still had power to repent, and that God was ready to save them and avert all these evils. All this is easily accounted for on the doctrine of the contingency of events, i.e., the poising a multitude of events on the possibility of being and not being, and leaving the will of man to turn the scale; and that God will not foreknow a thing as absolutely certain, which his will has determined to make contingent. A doctrine against which some solemn men have blasphemed, and philosophic infidels declaimed; but without which fate and dire necessity must be the universal governors, prayer be a useless meddling, and Providence nothing but the ineluctable adamantine chain of unchangeable events; all virtue is vice, and vice virtue, or there is no distinction between them, each being eternally determined and unalterably fixed by a sovereign and uncontrollable will and unvarying necessity, from the operation of which no soul of man can escape, and no occurrence in the universe be otherwise than it is. From such blasphemy, and from the monthly publications which avouch it, good Lord, deliver us!

Ver. 1. O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God , etc.] From whom they had revolted and backslidden; whose worship and service they had forsaken, and whose word and ordinances they had slighted and neglected, and had served idols, and had given into idolatry, superstition, and will worship; and are here exhorted to turn again to the Lord by repentance and reformation, to abandon their idols, and every false way, and cleave to the Lord with full purpose of heart; and the rather, since he was their God; not only their Creator, Preserver, and kind Benefactor, but their God, by his special choice of them above all people; by his covenant with them; by his redemption of them; and by their profession of him; and who was still their God, and ready to receive them, upon their return to him: and a thorough return is here meant, a returning “even unto” f288 , or quite up to the Lord thy God; it is not a going to him halfway, but a going quite up to his seat; falling down before him, acknowledging sin and backslidings, and having hold upon him by faith as their God, Redeemer, and Saviour: hence, from the way of speaking here used, the Jews have a saying, as Kimchi observes, “great is repentance, for it brings a man to the throne of glory;” the imperative may be here used for the future, as some take it; and then it is a prediction of the conversion of Israel, “thou shalt return, O Israel” f290 ; and which was in part fulfilled in the first times of the Gospel, which met with many of the Israelites dispersed among the Gentiles, and was the means of their conversion; and will have a greater accomplishment when all Israel shall be converted and saved: for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity ; or “though thou art fallen” f291 ; into sin, and by it into ruin, temporal and spiritual; from a state of great prosperity and happiness, both in things civil and religious, into great adversity, and calamities of every sort; yet return, repent, consider from whence thou art fallen, and by what; or thou shall return, be recovered and restored, notwithstanding thy fall, and the low estate in which thou art. The Targum is, “return to the fear of the Lord.”

Hos. 13:1-8 While Ephraim kept up a holy fear of God, and worshippe Him in that fear, so long he was very considerable. When Ephrai forsook God, and followed idolatry, he sunk. Let the men that sacrific kiss the calves, in token of their adoration of them, affection for them, and obedience to them; but the Lord will not give his glory to another, and therefore all that worship images shall be confounded. N solid, lasting comfort, is to be expected any where but in God. God no only took care of the Israelites in the wilderness, he put them in possession of Canaan, a good land; but worldly prosperity, when it feeds men's pride, makes them forgetful of God. Therefore the Lor would meet them in just vengeance, as the most terrible beast tha inhabited their forests. Abused goodness calls for greater severity.

Hos. 13:9-16 Israel had destroyed himself by his rebellion; but he could not save himself, his help was from the Lord only. This may wel be applied to the case of spiritual redemption, from that lost stat into which all have fallen by wilful sins. God often gives i displeasure what we sinfully desire. It is the happiness of the saints that, whether God gives or takes away, all is in love. But it is the misery of the wicked, that, whether God gives or takes away, it is all in wrath, nothing is comfortable. Except sinners repent and believe the gospel, anguish will soon come upon them. The prophecy of the ruin of Israel as a nation, also showed there would be a merciful and powerfu interposition of God, to save a remnant of them. Yet this was but shadow of the ransom of the true Israel, by the death, burial, an resurrection of Christ. He will destroy death and the grave. The Lor would not repent of his purpose and promise. Yet, in the mean time Israel would be desolated for her sins. Without fruitfulness in goo works, springing from the Holy Spirit, all other fruitfulness will be found as empty as the uncertain riches of the world. The wrath of God will wither its branches, its sprigs shall be dried up, it shall com to nothing. Woes, more terrible than any from the most cruel warfare shall fall on those who rebel against God. From such miseries, and from sin, the cause of them, may the Lord deliver us _________________________________________________

שׁובה7725 ישׂראל3478 עד5704 יהוה3068 אלהיך430 כי3588 כשׁלת3782 בעונך׃5771