Hosea 4:16 For Israel slides back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place. What is a backsliding heifer? We do not know; there is no such creature. But read: "Israel acts stubbornly, like a heifer," and the meaning is clear. The heifer will not go as its owner wants it to go. The heifer stands back when it ought to go forward; turns aside when it ought to move straight on; wriggles and twists, and, as it were, protests; and only by greater strength, or by the infliction of suffering, can the heifer be made to go to its destined place. The prophet, looking upon that heifer, now on the right, now on the left, now stooping, now throwing up its head in defiance, says, Such is Israel, such is Ephraim. The metaphor is full of suggestion, and full of high philosophy. Israel complained of limitation; Israel was chafed by the yoke; Israel resented the puncture of the goad. Israel said, "I want liberty, I do not want this moral bondage any longer; I do not want to be surrounded by commandments, I do not want to live in a cage of ten bars called the ten commandments of God; I want liberty; let me follow my reason, my instincts; let me obey myself." The Lord said, "So be it. Thou shalt have liberty enough, but it shall be the liberty of a wilderness." You can have liberty, but you will find no garden in it; if you want the garden, you must have the law. Let us take care how we trifle with law, obligation, responsibility, limitation. (Joseph Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place. |
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