◄ Hosea 10:10 ►
I will chasten them when I please; nations will be gathered against them to put them in bondage for their double transgression.
Study Bible
I will chasten them when I please;
This phrase indicates God's sovereign authority and timing in disciplining His people. The concept of divine chastening is consistent throughout Scripture, where God disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6). The timing is at God's discretion, emphasizing His control over history and events. This reflects the covenant relationship between God and Israel, where disobedience leads to correction (Deuteronomy 28:15-68).

nations will be gathered against them
This part of the verse suggests a collective judgment involving multiple nations. Historically, Israel faced invasions and captivities by foreign powers such as Assyria and Babylon. This gathering of nations can be seen as a fulfillment of warnings given by prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, who spoke of foreign nations as instruments of God's judgment (Isaiah 10:5-6). It also foreshadows eschatological themes where nations gather against God's people, as seen in prophetic books like Daniel and Revelation.

to put them in bondage
The bondage refers to the physical captivity and oppression experienced by Israel due to their disobedience. This is historically realized in the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. Bondage is a recurring theme in the Bible, symbolizing the consequences of sin and rebellion against God. It also serves as a type pointing to spiritual bondage from which Christ redeems believers (John 8:34-36).

for their double transgression.
The "double transgression" likely refers to Israel's idolatry and social injustice, two major sins frequently condemned by the prophets. Hosea, in particular, highlights Israel's unfaithfulness to God through idolatry and their failure to uphold justice and righteousness (Hosea 4:1-2). This dual sinfulness underscores the depth of their rebellion and the justification for divine chastening. The concept of "double" may also imply the severity and repeated nature of their offenses, echoing the warnings found in the law and the prophets.

Persons / Places / Events
1. Hosea
A prophet in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Hosea's ministry focused on calling Israel to repentance and warning of impending judgment due to their unfaithfulness to God.

2. Israel
The Northern Kingdom, often referred to as Ephraim in Hosea, which had fallen into idolatry and moral decay, prompting God's judgment.

3. Nations
Refers to the foreign powers that God would use as instruments of judgment against Israel, such as Assyria.

4. Double Iniquity
This term highlights the compounded sins of Israel, including idolatry and social injustice, which warranted divine discipline.

5. Discipline
God's corrective action intended to bring Israel back to righteousness and covenant faithfulness.
Teaching Points
God's Sovereignty in Discipline
God exercises His authority to discipline His people at His discretion, emphasizing His control over nations and events.

The Consequences of Sin
Israel's "double iniquity" serves as a warning about the seriousness of sin and its inevitable consequences.

The Purpose of Divine Discipline
God's discipline is not merely punitive but redemptive, aiming to restore His people to a right relationship with Him.

The Role of Nations in God's Plan
God can use even foreign nations to accomplish His purposes, demonstrating His power over all creation.

Call to Repentance
The passage serves as a call to examine our own lives for areas of unfaithfulness and to seek repentance and restoration.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does understanding God's sovereignty in discipline affect your view of current events in your life or the world?

2. In what ways can the concept of "double iniquity" be seen in today's society, and how should Christians respond?

3. How can we discern when God is using difficult circumstances as a form of discipline in our lives?

4. What steps can you take to ensure that you are living in obedience to God, avoiding the pitfalls of Israel's disobedience?

5. How can the principles of divine discipline and repentance in Hosea 10:10 be applied to strengthen your personal relationship with God?
Connections to Other Scriptures
Deuteronomy 28
This chapter outlines the blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience, providing a backdrop for understanding the consequences Israel faced in Hosea.

Amos 3:2
Emphasizes that God disciplines those He has chosen, reinforcing the idea of divine correction seen in Hosea.

Hebrews 12:6
Discusses God's discipline as an act of love, which can be related to the purpose of God's actions in Hosea.
Sermons
Divine ChastisementJoseph Parker, D. D.Hosea 10:9-11
Past and PresentJ. Orr Hosea 10:9-11
Sin and PunishmentA. Maclaren, D. D.Hosea 10:9-11
National Prosperity and CalamityC. Jerdan Hosea 10:9-15
People
Hosea, Jacob, Jareb, Shalman
Places
Assyria, Aven, Beth-arbel, Beth-aven, Bethel, Gibeah, Gilgal, Samaria
Topics
Assembled, Bind, Bonds, Bound, Chastise, Chastised, Desire, Double, Furrows, Gathered, Guilt, Iniquities, Iniquity, Nations, Peoples, Pleasure, Punish, Punishment, Reward, Rings, Sin, Sins, Themselves, Transgressions, Wayward, Yoked
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Hosea 10:8

     4520   thorns
     5067   suicide
     5225   barrenness
     7241   Jerusalem, significance
     7442   shrine

Hosea 10:5-8

     7233   Israel, northern kingdom

Library
'Fruit which is Death'
'Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images. 2. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: He shall break down their altars, He shall spoil their images. 3. For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us? 4. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

A Divided Heart
I intend, however, to take the text this morning specially with reference to our individual condition. We shall look at the separate individual heart of each man. If divisions in the great main body--if separation among the distinct classes of that body should each promote disasters, how much more disastrous must be a division in that better kingdom--the heart of man. If there be civil tumult in the town of Mansoul, even when no enemy attacks its walls, it will be in a sufficiently dangerous position. …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

How to Promote a Revival.
Text.--Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.--Hosea x. 12. THE Jews were a nation of farmers, and it is therefore a common thing in the Scriptures to refer for illustrations to their occupation, and to the scenes with which farmers and shepherds are familiar. The prophet Hosea addresses them as a nation of backsliders, and reproves them for their idolatry, and threatens them with the judgments of God. I have showed you in my first …
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

The Books of the Old Testament as a Whole. 1 the Province of Particular Introduction is to Consider the Books of the Bible Separately...
CHAPTER XVIII. THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A WHOLE. 1. The province of Particular Introduction is to consider the books of the Bible separately, in respect to their authorship, date, contents, and the place which each of them holds in the system of divine truth. Here it is above all things important that we begin with the idea of the unity of divine revelation--that all the parts of the Bible constitute a gloriously perfect whole, of which God and not man is the author. No amount of study devoted …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Arbel. Shezor. Tarnegola the Upper.
"Arbel a city of Galilee."--There is mention of it in Hosea 10:14. But there are authors which do very differently interpret that place, viz. the Chaldee paraphrast, R. Solomon, Kimchi: consult them. It was between Zippor and Tiberias. Hence Nittai the Arbelite, who was president with Josua Ben Perahiah. The valley of Arbel is mentioned by the Talmudists. So also "The Arbelite Bushel." "Near Zephath in Upper Galilee was a town named Shezor, whence was R. Simeon Shezori: there he was buried. There …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Letter Xli to Thomas of St. Omer, after He had Broken his Promise of Adopting a Change of Life.
To Thomas of St. Omer, After He Had Broken His Promise of Adopting a Change of Life. He urges him to leave his studies and enter religion, and sets before him the miserable end of Thomas of Beverley. To his dearly beloved son, Thomas, Brother Bernard, called Abbot of Clairvaux, that he may walk in the fear of the Lord. 1. You do well in acknowledging the debt of your promise, and in not denying your guilt in deferring its performance. But I beg you not to think simply of what you promised, but to …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Of Love to God
I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children's bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Prophet Hosea.
GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS. That the kingdom of Israel was the object of the prophet's ministry is so evident, that upon this point all are, and cannot but be, agreed. But there is a difference of opinion as to whether the prophet was a fellow-countryman of those to whom he preached, or was called by God out of the kingdom of Judah. The latter has been asserted with great confidence by Maurer, among others, in his Observ. in Hos., in the Commentat. Theol. ii. i. p. 293. But the arguments …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

The Worst Things Work for Good to the Godly
DO not mistake me, I do not say that of their own nature the worst things are good, for they are a fruit of the curse; but though they are naturally evil, yet the wise overruling hand of God disposing and sanctifying them, they are morally good. As the elements, though of contrary qualities, yet God has so tempered them, that they all work in a harmonious manner for the good of the universe. Or as in a watch, the wheels seem to move contrary one to another, but all carry on the motions of the watch: …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. "
We come now to speak more particularly to the words; and, first, Of his being a way. Our design being to point at the way of use-making of Christ in all our necessities, straits, and difficulties which are in our way to heaven; and particularly to point out the way how believers should make use of Christ in all their particular exigencies; and so live by faith in him, walk in him, grow up in him, advance and march forward toward glory in him. It will not be amiss to speak of this fulness of Christ …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Barren Fig-Tree;
OR, THE DOOM AND DOWNFALL OF THE FRUITLESS PROFESSOR: SHOWING, THAT THE DAY OF GRACE MAY BE PAST WITH HIM LONG BEFORE HIS LIFE IS ENDED; THE SIGNS ALSO BY WHICH SUCH MISERABLE MORTALS MAY BE KNOWN. BY JOHN BUNYAN 'Who being dead, yet speaketh.'--Hebrews 11:4 London: Printed for J. Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1688. This Title has a broad Black Border. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This solemn, searching, awful treatise, was published by Bunyan in 1682; but does not appear …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Directions to Awakened Sinners.
Acts ix. 6. Acts ix. 6. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do. THESE are the words of Saul, who also is called Paul, (Acts xiii. 9,) when he was stricken to the ground as he was going to Damascus; and any one who had looked upon him in his present circumstances and knew nothing more of him than that view, in comparison with his past life, could have given, would have imagined him one of the most miserable creatures that ever lived upon earth, and would have expected …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

"There is Therefore Now no Condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. "
Rom. viii. 1.--"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." There are three things which concur to make man miserable,--sin, condemnation, and affliction. Every one may observe that "man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward," that his days here are few and evil. He possesses "months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed" for him. Job v. 6, 7, vii. 3. He "is of few days and full of trouble," Job xiv. …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Hosea
The book of Hosea divides naturally into two parts: i.-iii. and iv.-xiv., the former relatively clear and connected, the latter unusually disjointed and obscure. The difference is so unmistakable that i.-iii. have usually been assigned to the period before the death of Jeroboam II, and iv.-xiv. to the anarchic period which succeeded. Certainly Hosea's prophetic career began before the end of Jeroboam's reign, as he predicts the fall of the reigning dynasty, i. 4, which practically ended with Jeroboam's …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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