Hosea 12:11

Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Translate, If Gilead be worthless, surely they have become nought. In Gilgal they sacrificed bullocks; their altars also are like heaps upon the field’s furrows, referring to a past event, the desolating invasion of Gilead by Tiglath-pileser, in 734 B.C. To this military expedition we have undoubted references in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser II. But unfortunately they are in a very mutilated condition. From one passage we learn:—“The city Gil [ead] and [A] bel [Maacha] which is on this side the land Beth Omri (Samaria) the distant . . . I joined in its whole extent to the territory of Assyria.” The biblical passage, 2Kings 15:29, supplements this account by stating that Napntali and Galilee also fell victims to the victorious arms of the invader. From the verse before us we infer that Gilgal, on the western bank of the Jordan near Jericho (see Note on 4:15), likewise felt the heavy hand of the conqueror, or perhaps the inhabitants fled in panic and the local shrines became deserted ruins. From this time forth we hear no more of Gilgal as a religious centre. Nowack, however, follows Ewald in regarding the passage as prophetic of a coming calamity. (See Introduction.) In the word for “heaps” (gallîm) there is a play on the name Gilgal.

Benson Commentary

Hosea 12:11-13. Is there iniquity in Gilead? — Or, Was there idolatry in Gilead? as the word אוןoften signifies. Surely they are vanity, &c., in Gilgal — The tribes settled about Gilead beyond Jordan, were already captivated by Tiglath-pileser. And God declares here by the prophet, that the idolatry still practised in Gilgal was equally abominable, and would bring down similar judgments upon the remaining tribes on the west of Jordan. Yea, their altars are as heaps — Notwithstanding this judgment of God upon Gilead, they continue to offer sacrifices to their idols in Gilgal; and their altars stand so thick, that they are discernible as stones gathered up, and laid in heaps in the fields. Some understand the sentence as containing a threatening that their altars should be demolished, and become so many ruinous heaps, 2 Kings 19:25. But Jacob fled into the country of Syria, &c. — “So opposite to yours was the conduct of your father Jacob, that he fled into Syria to avoid an alliance with any of the idolatrous families of Canaan; and, in firm reliance on God’s promises, submitted to the greatest hardships.” And therefore by a prophet, &c. — “And, in reward of his faith, God did such great things for his posterity, bringing them out of the land of Egypt, and leading them through the wilderness like sheep by the hand of his servant Moses.” — Horsley.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:7-14 Ephraim became a merchant: the word also signifies a Canaanite. They carried on trade upon Canaanitish principles, covetously and with fraud and deceit. Thus they became rich, and falsely supposed that Providence favoured them. But shameful sins shall have shameful punishments. Let them remember, not only what a mighty prince Jacob was with God, but what a servant he was to Laban. The benefits we have had from the word of God, make our sin and folly the worse, if we put any slight upon that word. We had better follow the hardest labour in poverty, than grow rich by sin. We may form a judgment of our own conduct, by comparing it with that of ancient believers in the like circumstances. Whoever despises the message of God, will perish. May we all hear his word with humble, obedient faith.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Is there iniquity in Gilead? - The prophet asks the question, in order to answer it the more peremptorily. He raises the doubt, in order to crush it the more impressively. Is there "iniquity" in "Gilead?" Alas, there was nothing else. "Surely they are vanity," or, strictly, "they have become merely vanity." As he said before, "they become abominations like their love." "For such as men make their idols, or conceive their God to be, such they become themselves. As then he who worships God with a pure heart, is made like unto God, so they who worship stocks and stones, or who make passions and lusts their idols, lose the mind of men and become 'like the beasts which perish.'" "In Gilgal they have sacrificed oxen. Gilead" represents all the country on its side, the East of Jordan; "Gilgal," all on its side, the West of Jordan. In both, God had signally shown forth His mercies; in both, they dishonored God, sacrificing to idols, and offering His creatures, as a gift to devils.

Yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the field - Their altars are like the heaps of stones, from which men clear the plowed land, in order to fit it for cultivation, as numerous as profuse, as worthless, as desolate. "Their" altars they were, not God's. They did, (as sinners do,) in the service of devils, what, had they done it to God, would have been accepted, rewarded, service. Full often they sacrificed oxen; they threw great state into their religion; they omitted nothing which should shed around it an empty show of worship. They multiplied their altars, their sins, their ruins; many altars over against His one altar; : "rude heaps of stones, in His sight; and such they should become, no one stone being left in order upon another." In contrast with their sins and ingratitude, the prophet exhibits two pictures, the one, of the virtues of the patriarch whose name they bore, from whom was the beginning of their race; the other, of God's love to them, in that beginning of their national existence, when God brought those who had been a body of slaves in Egypt, to be His own people.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. Is there iniquity in Gilead?—He asks the question, not as if the answer was doubtful, but to strengthen the affirmation: "Surely they are vanity"; or as Maurer translates, "They are nothing but iniquity." Iniquity, especially idolatry, in Scripture is often termed "vanity." Pr 13:11: "Wealth gotten by vanity," that is, iniquity. Isa 41:29: "They are all vanity … images." "Gilead" refers to Mizpah-gilead, a city representing the region beyond Jordan (Ho 6:8; Jud 11:29); as "Gilgal," the region on this side of Jordan (Ho 4:15). In all quarters alike they are utterly vile.

their altars are as heaps in the furrows—that is, as numerous as such heaps: namely, the heaps of stones cleared out of a stony field. An appropriate image, as at a distance they look like altars (compare Ho 10:1, 4; 8:11). As the third member in the parallelism answers to the first, "Gilgal" to "Gilead," so the fourth to the second, "altars" to "vanity." The word "heaps" alludes to the name "Gilgal," meaning "a heap of stones." The very scene of the general circumcision of the people, and of the solemn passover kept after crossing Jordan, is now the stronghold of Israel's idolatry.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Is there iniquity in Gilead? in this concise interrogatory the prophet warns the refractory, ungodly Israelites by an example of God’s wrath on them. About A.M. 326.1, at Ahaz’s request and charges, Tiglath-pileser came up against Israel, and took Gilead among other towns, leading the inhabitants captives, 2 Kings 15:29; now some sixteen or seventeen years after doth our prophet mind the sinful and secure Ephraimites what they must expect, and doth it in this pungent question,

Is there iniquity in Gilead? i.e. is there only? or is there more? much like that of Christ’s, Luke 13:2,

Suppose ye them greater sinners? Be it so, captive Gilead was all iniquity, and Gilgal is no better. They that come up to Gilgal to sacrifice are idolaters, they sin against God in offering to them, and against their own welfare in trusting to them, both ways they appear to be vanity; whilst they multiply these altars and sacrifices, they multiply their sins, God’s displeasure is increased, and the danger more near and dreadful.

Their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields: idolatrous Israel, thou aboundest in altars; but if they are for number like heaps of stones, gathered out of ploughed land and laid in furrows, they are as common too, i.e. as far from sacred, as far from commending any offering to God, or stoning his displeasure. And canst thou, Ephraim, hope to escape, whose sins exceed the sins of captive Gilead? wilt thou never be wise, never warned, never repent?

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Is there iniquity in Gilead?.... Idolatry there? strange that there should be, seeing it was a city of the priests; a city of refuge; or there is none there, say the priests, who pretended they did not worship idols, but the true Jehovah in them: or, "is there not iniquity", or idolatry, "in Gilead" (e)? verily there is, let them pretend to what they will: or, "is there only iniquity in it" (f)? that the men of it should be carried captive, as they were by TiglathPileser, before the rest of the tribes; see 2 Kings 15:29; no, there is iniquity and idolatry committed in other places, as well as there, who must expect to share the same fate in time: or, "is Gilead Aven?" (g) that is, Bethaven, the same with Bethel; it is as that, as guilty of idolatry as Bethel, where one of the calves was set up:

surely they are vanity: the inhabitants of Gilead, as well as of Bethel, worshipping idols, which are most vain things, vanity itself, and deceive those that serve them, and trust in them:

they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal: to idols, as the Targum adds; and so Jarchi and Kimchi; according to Aben Ezra, they sacrificed them to Baal; this shows that Gilead was not the only place for idolatry, which was on the other side Jordan, but Gilgal, which was on this side Jordan, was also polluted with it. The Vulgate Latin version is,

"in Gilgal they were sacrificing to bullocks;''

to the calves there, the same as were at Dan and Bethel; so, in the Septuagint version of 1 Kings 12:29; it was formerly read: and so Cyril (h) quotes it, "he (Jeroboam) set the one (calf) in Gilgal, and the other in Dan"; hence the fable that Epiphanius (i) makes mention of, that, when Elisha was born, the golden ox or heifer at Gilgal bellowed very loudly, and so loud as to be heard at Jerusalem. The Targum makes mention of an idol temple here; and as it was near to Bethel, as appears from 1 Samuel 10:3; and from Josephus (k); and so Jerom says (l), hard by Bethel; some suspect another Gilgal; hence it might be put for it; however, it was a place of like idolatrous worship; it is mentioned as such along with Bethaven or Bethel, in Hosea 4:15; see also Hosea 9:15;

yea, their altars are as heaps in, the furrows of the fields; not only in the city of Gilgal, and in the temple there, as the Targum; but even without the city, in the fields they set up altars, which looked like heaps of stones; or they had a multitude of altars that stood as thick as they. So the Targum,

"they have multiplied their altars, like heaps upon the borders of the fields;''

and the Jewish commentators in general understand this as expressive of the number of their altars, and of the increase of idolatrous worship; but some interpret it of the destruction of their altars, which should become heaps of stones and rubbish, like such as are in fields. These words respect Ephraim or the ten tribes, in which these places were, whose idolatry is again taken notice of, after gracious promises were made to Judah. Some begin here a new sermon or discourse delivered to Israel.

(e) "an non in Galaad iniquitas?" Vatablus. (f) "En in Gileade tantum iniquitas?" Piscator. (g) "Num Gilead Aven?" Schmidt. (h) Apud Reland. Palestina Illustrata, tom. 2. l. 3. p. 783. (i) De Vita & Interitu Prophet. c. 6. & Paschal. Chronic. p. 161. apud Reland. ib. (k) Antiqu. l. 6. c. 4. sect. 9. (l) De locis Hebr. fol. 91. M.

Geneva Study Bible

Is there {k} iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields.

(k) The people thought that no man dare have spoken against Gilead, that holy place, and yet the Prophet says that all their religion was but vanity.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. The ruin of two famous centres of idolatry, representing together the entire northern kingdom.

Is there iniquity, &c.] More probably, If Gilead is (given to) idolatry, mere vanity shall they (the Gileadites) become, i.e. apostacy from Him who is the only source of life leads to sure destruction; ‘they that make the idols become like unto them.’ The town of Gilead has already been singled out for reprobation in Hosea 6:8-9. For the historical fulfilment of the prophecy, see 2 Kings 15:29—‘in the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, and took … Gilead and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria’ (compare Tiglath-Pileser’s own account of his expedition against Philistia in b.c. 734; G. Smith, Eponym Canon, p. 123, Schrader, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, on 2 Kings 15:29).

they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal] Or, as it might well be stated in the margin, ‘in Heap-town’ (see next note). They affront Jehovah by sacrificing at idolatrous shrines, especially at Gilgal (see on Hosea 4:15). So the Targum. Others, by a slight emendation, ‘they sacrifice to the bullocks in Gilgal’, i.e. to the steer-gods; but there is no parallel for such a use of the word ‘bullocks.’ St Jerome’s ‘bobus immolantes’ is an ungrammatical rendering of our present text (see his note).

yea, their altars are as heaps, &c.] Rather, so then their altars shall he as stone-heaps, i.e. like heaps of stones which a careful husbandman has gathered out of his ploughed field (comp. Micah 1:6). The idiom employed (lit., ‘also their altars’ &c.) indicates the correspondence between cause and effect, a sin and its retribution (comp. Isaiah 66:3 b, 4a); the tense is the prophetic perfect. There is a paronomasia in Gilgal (as if ‘Heap-town’, comp. Joshua 4:20), and gallim (‘heaps’); the very name of Gilgal seems to suggest its impending fate. Some think the name ‘Gilead’ is also included in the paronomasia, but in spite of the apparent support of Genesis 31:47-48, this is not the more natural view of Hosea’s language. At most, there is a play upon the similarity of sound in Gilead and Gilgal; not upon any supposed similarity of meaning.

Hosea 12:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Yet am I Jehovah thy God, from the land of Egypt hither: I will still cause thee to dwell in tents, as in the days of the feast. Hosea 12:10. I have spoken to the prophets; and I, I have multiplied visions, and spoken similitudes through the prophets. Hosea 12:11. If Gilead (is) worthlessness, they have only come to nothing: in Gilgal they offered bullocks: even their altars are like stone-heaps in the furrows of the field." The Lord meets the delusion of the people, that they had become great and powerful through their own exertion, by reminding them that He (ואנכי is adversative, yet I) has been Israel's God from Egypt hither, and that to Him they owe all prosperity and good in both past and present (cf. Hosea 13:4). Because they do not recognise this, and because they put their trust in unrighteousness rather than in Him, He will now cause them to dwell in tents again, as in the days of the feast of Tabernacles, i.e., will repeat the leading through the wilderness. It is evident from the context that mō‛ēd (the feast) is here the feast of Tabernacles. מועד (the days of the feast) are the seven days of this festival, during which Israel was to dwell in booths, in remembrance of the fact that when God led them out of Egypt He had caused them to dwell in booths (tabernacles, Leviticus 23:42-43). אד אושׁיבך stands in antithesis to הושׁבתּי ot si in Leviticus 23:43. "The preterite is changed into a future through the ingratitude of the nation" (Hengstenberg). The simile, "as in the days of the feast," shows that the repetition of the leading through the desert is not thought of here merely as a time of punishment, such as the prolongation of the sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years really was (Numbers 14:33). For their dwelling in tents, or rather in booths (sukkōth), on the feast of Tabernacles, was intended not so much to remind the people of the privations of their unsettled wandering life in the desert, as to call to their remembrance the shielding and sheltering care and protection of God in their wandering through the great and terrible wilderness (see at Leviticus 23:42-43). We must combine the two allusions, therefore: so that whilst the people are threatened indeed with being driven out of the good and glorious land, with its large and beautiful cities and houses full of all that is good (Deuteronomy 6:10.), into a dry and barren desert, they have also set before them the repetition of the divine guidance through the desert; so that they are not threatened with utter rejection on the part of God, but only with temporary banishment into the desert. In Hosea 12:10 and Hosea 12:11 the two thoughts of Hosea 12:9 are still further expanded. In Hosea 12:10 they are reminded how the Lord had proved Himself to be the God of Israel from Egypt onwards, by sending prophets and multiplying prophecy, to make known His will and gracious counsel to the people, and to promote their salvation. דּבּר with על, to speak to, not because the word is something imposed upon a person, but because the inspiration of God came down to the prophets from above. אדמּה, not "I destroy," for it is only the kal that occurs in this sense, and not the piel, but "to compare," i.e., speak in similes; as, for example, in Hosea 1:1-11 and Hosea 3:1-5, Isaiah 5:1., Ezekiel 16 etc.: "I have left no means of admonishing them untried" (Rosenmller). Israel, however, has not allowed itself to be admonished and warned, but has given itself up to sin and idolatry, the punishment of which cannot be delayed. Gilead and Gilgal represent the two halves of the kingdom of the ten tribes; Gilead the land to the east of the Jordan, and Gilgal the territory to the west. As Gilead is called "a city (i.e., a rendezvous) of evil-doers" (פּעלי און) in Hosea 6:8, so is it here called distinctly און, worthlessness, wickedness; and therefore it is to be utterly brought to nought. און and שׁוא are synonymous, denoting moral and physical nonentity (compare Job 15:31). Here the two notions are so distributed, that the former denotes the moral decay, the latter the physical. Worthlessness brings nothingness after it as a punishment. אך, only equals nothing, but equivalent to utterly. The perfect היוּ is used for the certain future. Gilgal, which is mentioned in Hosea 4:15; Hosea 9:15, as the seat of one form of idolatrous worship, is spoken of here as a place of sacrifice, to indicate with a play upon the name the turning of the altars into heaps of stones (Gallim). The desolation or destruction of the altars involves not only the cessation of the idolatrous worship, but the dissolution of the kingdom and the banishment of the people out of the land. שׁורים, which only occurs in the plural here, cannot of course be the dative (to sacrifice to oxen), but only the accusative. The sacrifice of oxen was reckoned as a sin on the part of the people, not on account of the animals offers, but on account of the unlawful place of sacrifice. The suffix to mizbechōthâm (their sacrifices) refers to Israel, the subject implied in zibbēchū.