Hosea 6:10

I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) House of Israel.—This phrase means Ephraim and Judah subsequently discriminated. The “horrible thing” refers to polluting idolatry. This peculiar word occurs again in Jeremiah. According to the punctuation of the Hebrew the reciter hesitates before pronouncing the “horrible thing” which grated through his teeth.

Benson Commentary

Hosea 6:10-11. I have seen a horrible thing — Such an apostacy from God as cannot be mentioned without horror. There is the whoredom of Ephraim — Or rather, there, namely, in the house of Israel, BY the whoredom of Ephraim, that is, by the idolatry of Jeroboam, who was of that tribe, and first began the worship of the golden calves; Israel is defiled — The whole ten tribes are corrupted: for they soon all followed the example of Jeroboam in this idolatrous worship. Also, O Judah, he — That is, Ephraim; hath set a harvest for thee — For Ephraim, or Israel, had corrupted Judah by leading them into idolatry, and into the vices connected therewith, in consequence of which they were made ripe for destruction: for that the harvest is often a type of judgment is evident, among many other passages that might be adduced, from those quoted in the margin. When I returned the captivity of my people — Or rather, the Hebrew being in the future tense, when I shall turn, &c., (so the Vulgate,) or, more literally, and as the Seventy render it, in my turning the captivity of my people. According to this interpretation, the phrase of turning the captivity of God’s people is not to be taken in the sense in which the same phrase is generally understood in the Scriptures, namely, for bringing them out of captivity; punishment, and not a blessing, being supposed to be predicted: but the sense of the expression will be, When I shall return to make captives of my people; or, as Archbishop Newcome proposes rendering it, When I lead away the captivity of my people; that is, after I have again caused the Israelites to be carried into captivity. Tiglath-pileser first carried a part of them into captivity; then Shalmaneser carried away the remainder; and after this came Sennacherib, who wasted Judea, and laid siege to Jerusalem. Some eminent commentators, however, are of opinion, that not a judgment, but a blessing, is predicted to be conferred on Judah in this passage. They therefore translate the verse thus: But for thee, O Judah, a harvest is prepared; then when I shall bring back the captivity of my people: see Houbigant and Horsley. Mr. S. Clark’s note on the verse takes in both interpretations, thus: “And as Israel has been drawn to idolatry by Jeroboam, (Hosea 6:10,) so hast thou, Judah, too: and therefore God has prepared a harvest of sorrow and sufferings for thee too, by sending thee into captivity; which yet afterward shall be turned into a harvest of joy, when thou shalt be returned out of captivity again.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:4-11 Sometimes Israel and Judah seemed disposed to repent under their sufferings, but their goodness vanished like the empty morning cloud, and the early dew, and they were as vile as ever. Therefore the Lord sent awful messages by the prophets. The word of God will be the death either of the sin or of the sinner. God desired mercy rather than sacrifice, and that knowledge of him which produces holy fear and love. This exposes the folly of those who trust in outward observances, to make up for their want of love to God and man. As Adam broke the covenant of God in paradise, so Israel had broken his national covenant, notwithstanding all the favours they received. Judah also was ripe for Divine judgments. May the Lord put his fear into our hearts, and set up his kingdom within us, and never leave us to ourselves, nor suffer us to be overcome by temptation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I have seen a horrible thing - Literally, "what would make one shudder." God had seen it; therefore man could not deny it. In the sight of God, and amid the sense of His presence, all excuses fail.

In the house of Israel - o: "For what more horrible, more amazing than that this happened, not in any ordinary nation but "in the house of Israel," in the people of God, in the portion of the Lord, as Moses said, "the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob is the lot of His inheritance?" In another nation, idolatry was error. In Israel, which had the knowledge of the one true God and had received the law, it was horror." "There is the whoredom of Ephraim," widespread, over the whole land, wherever the house of Ephraim was, through the whole kingdom of the ten tribes, "there" was its spiritual adultery and defilement.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

10. horrible thing—(Jer 5:30; 18:13; 23:14).

whoredom—idolatry.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I have seen: it may be understood of the prophet speaking what he had seen; or of God, who seeth now, and hath seen,

an horrible thing, a very horrible thing, as some observe from the word, in the house of Israel, the ten tribes.

The whoredom, idolatry,

of Ephraim; which was brought in by an Ephraimite, by Jeroboam the First, two hundred years ago, and it is there still.

Israel is defiled; it hath overspread all Israel, none free, but all defiled greatly with it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel,.... Idolatry, the calves set up at Dan and Bethel, which God saw with abhorrence and detestation; or the prophet saw it, and it made his hair stand on end as it were, as the word (g) signifies, that such wickedness should be committed by a professing people:

there is the whoredom of Ephraim; in the house of Israel is the whoredom of Jeroboam, who was of the tribe of Ephraim, and caused Israel to sin, to go a whoring after idols; or the whoredom of the tribe of Ephraim, which belonged to the house of Israel, and even of all the ten tribes; both corporeal and spiritual whoredom, or idolatry, are here meant:

Israel is defiled; with whoredom of both kinds; it had spread itself all over the ten tribes; they were all infected with it, and polluted by it; see Hosea 5:3.

(g) a "pilus".

Geneva Study Bible

I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10, 11. Jehovah is still the speaker. From his heavenly ‘place’ he points indignantly (as Hosea 6:7) to the abominations practised ‘there’, i.e. in the whole land of Israel, for even Judah has not escaped the infection. The structure of the verses becomes more symmetrical, if we attach the concluding words of Hosea 6:10 to Hosea 6:11, and turn Hosea 6:11 thus, altering one vowel-point, Israel is defiled; for thee also, Judah, a harvest is appointed. The Septuagint partly favours this, rendering ἐμιάνθη Ἰσραὴλ καὶ Ἰούδα. The concluding words of Hosea 6:11 should rather be attached to Hosea 6:1 of chap. 7.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled. The house of Israel comprises

(1) the ten tribes of the northern kingdom, according to some; it seems more correct

(2) to understand it of the whole nation, including both the northern and southern kingdoms, in which case the remainder of the verse relates to the northern kingdom of the ten tribes, and the succeeding verse to the southern kingdom of the two tribes. Further, Israel is not synonymous with the parallel Ephraim, as Keil thinks; the latter is the principal tribe which led the way in Israel's apostasy. The "horrible thing" comprehends every sort of crime and abomination; while the" whoredom," literal or spiritual, is specified as an example thereof. (For the explanation of "there," see on ver. 7.) Hosea 6:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In these crimes the priests take the lead. Like highway robbers, they form themselves into gangs for the purpose of robbing travellers and putting them to death. חכּי, so written instead of חכּה (Ewald, 16, b), is an irregularly formed infinitive for חכּות (Ewald, 238, e). 'Ish gedūdı̄m, a man of fighting-bands, i.e., in actual fact a highway robber, who lies in wait for travellers.

(Note: The first hemistich has been entirely misunderstood by the lxx, who have confounded כּחכּי with כּחך, and rendered the clause καὶ ἡ Ἰσχύς ἀνδρὸς πειρατοῦ· ἔκρυψαν (חבו or חבאו instead of חבר) ἱερεῖς ὁδόν. Jerome has also rendered כחכי strangely, et quasi fauces (כּחכּי) virorum latronum particeps sacerdotum. Luther, on the other hand, has caught the sense quite correctly on the whole, and simply rendered it rather freely: "And the priests with their mobs are like footpads, who lie in wait for people.")

The company (chebher, gang) of the priests resembled such a man. They murder on the way (derekh, an adverbial accusative) to Sichem. Sichem, a place on Mount Ephraim, between Ebal and Gerizim, the present Nablus (see at Joshua 17:7), was set apart as a city of refuge and a Levitical city (Joshua 20:7; Joshua 21:21); from which the more recent commentators have inferred that priests from Sichem, using the privileges of their city to cover crimes of their own, committed acts of murder, either upon fugitives who were hurrying thither, and whom they put to death at the command of the leading men who were ill-disposed towards them (Ewald), or upon other travellers, either from avarice or simple cruelty. But, apart from the fact that the Levitical cities are here confounded with the priests' cities (for Sichem was only a Levitical city, and not a priests' city at all), this conclusion is founded upon the erroneous assumption, that the priests who were taken by Jeroboam from the people generally, had special places of abode assigned them, such as the law had assigned for the Levitical priests. The way to Sichem is mentioned as a place of murders and bloody deeds, because the road from Samaria the capital, and in fact from the northern part of the kingdom generally, to Bethel the principal place of worship belonging to the kingdom of the ten tribes, lay through this city. Pilgrims to the feasts for the most part took this road; and the priests, who were taken from the dregs of the people, appear to have lain in wait for them, either to rob, or, in case of resistance, to murder. The following כּי carries it still higher, and adds another crime to the murderous deeds. Zimmâh most probably refers to an unnatural crime, as in Leviticus 18:17; Leviticus 19:29.

Thus does Israel heap up abomination upon abomination. Hosea 6:10. "In the house of Israel I saw a horrible thing: there Ephraim practises whoredom: Israel has defiled itself." The house of Israel is the kingdom of the ten tribes. שׁערוּריה, a horrible thing, signifies abominations and crimes of every kind. In the second hemistich, zenūth, i.e., spiritual and literal whoredom, is singled out as the principal sin. Ephraim is not the name of a tribe here, as Simson supposes, but is synonymous with the parallel Israel.