A PEOPLE IN DECAY: 2.
POLITICALLY
Hos 7:8-10
MORAL decay means political decay. Sins like
these are the gangrene of nations. It is part of Hosea’s greatness
to have traced this, a proof of that versatility which distinguishes
him above other prophets. The most spiritual of them all, he is at
the same time the most political. We owe him an analysis of
repentance to which the New Testament has little to add; but he has
also left us a criticism of society and of polities in Israel,
unrivalled except by Isaiah. We owe him an intellectual conception
of God, which for the first time in Israel exploded idolatry; yet he
also is the first to define Israel’s position in the politics of
Western Asia. With the single courage of conscience Amos had said to
the people: You are bad, therefore you must perish. But Hosea’s is
the insight to follow the processes by which sin brings forth
death-to trace, for instance, the effects of impurity upon a
nation’s powers of reproduction, as well as upon its intellectual
vigor.
So intimate are these two faculties of Hosea that in chapters
devoted chiefly to the sins of Israel we have already seen him
expose the political disasters that follow. But from the point we
have now reached- Hos 7:8 -the proportion of his prophesying is
reversed: he gives us less of the sin and more of the social decay
and political folly of his age.
1. THE CONFUSION OF THE NATION
Hos 7:8-16; Hos 8:1-3
Hosea begins by summing up the public aspect of
Israel in two epigrams, short but of marvelous adequacy:-{Hos 7:8}
"Ephraim-among the nations he mixeth himself:
Ephraim has become a cake not turned."
It is a great crisis for any nation to pass from the seclusion of
its youth and become a factor in the main history of the world. But
for Israel the crisis was trebly great. Their difference from all
other tribes about them had struck the Canaanites on their first
entry to the land; {Num 23:9 b; Jos 2:8} their own earliest writers
had emphasized their seclusion as their strength; {Deu 33:27} and
their first prophets consistently deprecated every overture made by
them either to Egypt or to Assyria. We feel the force of the
prophets’ policy when we remember what happened to the Philistines.
These were a people as strong and as distinctive as Israel, with
whom at one time they disputed possession of the whole land. But
their position as traders in the main line of traffic between Asia
and Africa rendered the Philistines peculiarly open to foreign
influence. They were now Egyptian vassals, now Assyrian victims; and
after the invasion of Alexander the Great their cities became
centers of Hellenism, while the Jews upon their secluded hills still
stubbornly held unmixed their race and their religion. This
contrast, so remarkably developed in later centuries, has justified
the prophets of the eighth in their anxiety that Israel should not
annul the advantages of her geographical seclusion by trade or
treaties with the Gentiles. But it was easier for Judaea to take
heed to the warning than for Ephraim. The latter lies as open and
fertile as her sister province is barren and aloof. She has many
gates into the world, and they open upon many markets. Nobler
opportunities there could not be for a nation in the maturity of its
genius and loyal to its vocation:-
"Rejoice, O Zebulun, in thine outgoings:
They shall call the nations to the mountain;
They shall suck of the abundance of the seas
And of the treasure that is stored in the sands." {Deu 33:18-19}
But in the time of his outgoings Ephraim was not sure of himself nor
true to his God, the one secret and strength of the national
distinctiveness. So he met the world weak and unformed, and, instead
of impressing it, was by it dissipated and confused. The tides of a
lavish commerce scattered abroad the faculties of the people, and
swept back upon their life alien fashions and tempers, to subdue
which there was neither native strength nor definiteness of national
purpose. All this is what Hosea means by the first of his epigrams:
"Ephraim-among the nations he lets himself be poured out," or "mixed
up." The form of the verb does not elsewhere occur; but it is
reflexive, and the meaning of the root is certain. "Balal" is to
"pour out," or "mingle," as of oil in the sacrificial flour. Yet it
is sometimes used of a mixing which is not sacred, but profane and
hopeless. It is applied to the first great confusion of mankind, to
which a popular etymology has traced the name Babel, as if for
Balbel. Derivatives of the stem bear the additional ideas of
staining and impurity. The alternative renderings which have been
proposed, "lets himself be soaked" and "scatters himself" abroad
like wheat among tares, are not so probable, yet hardly change the
meaning.
Ephraim wastes and confuses himself among the Gentiles. The nation’s
character is so disguised that Hosea afterwards nicknames him Canaan
{Hos 12:8} their religion so filled with foreign influences that he
calls the people the harlot of the Ba’alim.
If the first of Hosea’s epigrams satirizes Israel’s foreign
relations, the second, with equal brevity and wit, hits off the
temper and constitution of society at home. For the metaphor of
which this epigram is composed Hosea has gone to the baker. Among
all classes in the East, especially under conditions requiring
haste, there is in demand a round flat scone, which is baked by
being laid on hot stones or attached to the wall of a heated oven.
The whole art of baking consists in turning the scone over at the
proper moment. If this be mismanaged it does not need a baker to
tell us that one side may be burnt to a cinder, while the other
remains raw. "Ephraim," says Hosea, "is an unturned cake."
By this he may mean one of several things, or all of them together,
for they are infectious of each other. There was, for instance, the
social conditions of the people. What can better be described as an
unturned scone than a community one half of whose number are too
rich, and the other too poor? Or Hosea may refer to that unequal
distribution of religion through life with which in other parts of
his prophecy he reproaches Israel. They keep their religion, as Amos
more fully tells us, for their temples, and neglect to carry its
spirit into their daily business. Or he may refer to Israel’s
politics, which were equally in want of thoroughness. They rushed
hotly at an enterprise, but having expended so much fire in the
beginning of it, they let the end drop cold and dead. Or he may wish
to satirize, like Amos, Israel’s imperfect culture-the pretentious
and overdone arts, stuck excrescence-wise upon the unrefined bulk of
the nation, just as in many German principalities last century
society took on a few French fashions in rough and exaggerated
forms, while at heart still brutal and coarse. Hosea may mean any
one of these things, for the figure suits all, and all spring from
the same defect. Want of thoroughness and equable effort was
Israel’s besetting sin, and it told on all sides of his life. How
better describe a half-fed people, a half-cultured society, a
half-lived religion, a half-hearted policy, than by a half-baked
scone?
We who are so proud of our political bakers, we who scorn the rapid
revolutions of our neighbors and complacently dwell upon our equable
ovens, those slow and cautious centuries of political development
which lie behind us-have we anything better than our neighbors,
anything better than Israel, to show in our civilization? Hosea’s
epigram fits us to the letter. After all those ages of baking,
society is still with us "an unturned scone": one end of the nation
with the strength burnt out of it by too much enjoyment of life, the
other with not enough of warmth to be quickened into anything like
adequate vitality. No man can deny that this is so; we are able to
live only by shutting our hearts to the fact. Or is religion equally
distributed through the lives of the religious portion of our
nation? Of late years religion has spread, and spread wonderfully,
but of how many Christians is it still true that they are but
half-baked-living a life one side of which is reeking with the smoke
of sacrifice, while the other is never warmed by one religious
thought. We may have too much religion if we confine it to one day
or one department of life: our worship overdone, with the sap and
the freshness burnt out of it, cindery, dusty, unattractive, fit
only for crumbling; our conduct cold, damp, and heavy, like dough
the fire has never reached.
Upon the theme of these two epigrams the other verses of this
chapter are variations. Has Ephraim mixed himself among the peoples?
"Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not,"
senselessly congratulating himself upon the increase of his trade
and wealth, while he does not feel that these have sucked from him
all his distinctive virtue. "Yea, grey hairs are sprinkled upon him,
and he knoweth it not." He makes his energy the measure of his life,
as Isaiah also marked, {Hos 9:9 f.} but sees not that it all means
waste and decay. "The pride of Israel testifieth to his face,
yet"-even when the pride of the nation is touched to the quick by
such humiliating overtures as they make to both Assyria and
Egypt-"they do not return to Jehovah their God, nor seek Him for all
this."
With virtue and single-hearted faith have disappeared intellect and
the capacity for affairs. "Ephraim is become like a silly dove-a
dove without heart," to the Hebrews the organ of the wits of a
man-"they cry to Egypt, they go off to Assyria." Poor pigeon of a
people, fluttering from one refuge to another! But "as they go I
will throw over them My net, like a bird of the air I will bring
them down. I will punish them as their congregation have heard"-this
text as it stands: can only mean "in the manner I have publicly
proclaimed in Israel." "Woe to them that they have strayed from Me!
Damnation to them that they have rebelled against Me! While I would
have redeemed them they spoke lies about Me. And they have never
cried unto Me with their heart, but they keep howling from their
beds for corn and new wine." No real repentance theirs, but some
fear of drought and miscarriage of the harvests, a sensual and
servile sorrow in which they wallow. They seek God with no heart, no
true appreciation of what He is, but use the senseless means by
which the heathen invoke their gods: "they cut themselves, and "so
"apostatize from Me! And yet it was I who disciplined them, I
strengthened their arm, but with regard to Me they kept thinking"
only "evil!" So fickle and sensitive to fear, "they turn" indeed
"but not upwards"; no Godward conversion theirs. In their repentance
"they are like a bow which swerves" off upon some impulse of their
ill-balanced natures. "Their princes must fall by the sword because
of the bitterness"-we should have expected "falseness"-"of their
tongue: this is their scorn in the land of Egypt!" To the allusion
we have no key.
With so false a people nothing can be done. Their doom is
inevitable. So
"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."
"To thy mouth with the trumpet! The Eagle is down upon the house of
Jehovah!" Where the carcass is, there are the eagles gathered
together. "For"-to sum up the whole crisis-"they have transgressed
My covenant, and against My law have they rebelled. To Me they cry,
My God, we know Thee, we Israeli" What does it matter? "Israel hath
spurned the good: the Foe must pursue him."
It is the same climax of inevitable war to which Amos led up his
periods; and a new subject is now introduced.
2. ARTIFICIAL KINGS AND ARTIFICIAL GODS
Hos 8:4-13
The curse of such a state of dissipation as that
to which Israel had fallen is that it produces no men. Had the
people had in them "the root of the matter," had there been the
stalk and the fiber of a national consciousness and purpose, it
would have blossomed to a man. In the similar time of her outgoings
upon the world Prussia had her Frederick the Great, and Israel, too,
would have produced a leader, a heaven-sent king, if the national
spirit had not been squandered on foreign trade and fashions. But
after the death of Jeroboam every man who rose to eminence in
Israel, rose, not on the nation, but only on the fevered and
transient impulse of some faction; and through the broken years one
party monarch was lifted after another to the brief tenancy of a
blood-stained throne. They were not from God, these monarchs; but
man-made, and sooner or later man-murdered. With his sharp insight
Hosea likens these artificial kings to the artificial gods, also the
work of men’s hands; and till near the close of his book the idols
of the sanctuary and the puppets of the throne form the twin targets
of his scorn.
"They have made kings, but not from Me; they have made princes, but
I knew not. With their silver and their gold they have manufactured
themselves idols, only that they may be cut off"-king after king,
idol upon idol. "He loathes thy Calf, O Samaria," the thing of wood
and gold which thou callest Jehovah. And God confirms this. "Kindled
is Mine anger against them! How long will they be incapable of
innocence?"-unable to clear themselves of guilt! The idol is still
in his mind. "For from Israel is it also-as much as the
puppet-kings"; a workman made it, and no god is it. Yea, splinters
shall the Calf of Samaria become." Splinters shall everything in
Israel become. "For they sow the wind, and the whirlwind shall they
reap." Indeed like a storm Hosea’s own language now sweeps along;
and his metaphors are torn into shreds upon it. "Stalk it hath none:
the sprout brings forth no grain: if it were to bring forth,
strangers would swallow it." Nay, "Israel hath let herself be
swallowed up! Already are they becoming among the nations like a
vessel there is no more use for." Heathen empires have sucked them
dry. "They have gone up to Assyria like a runaway wild-ass. Ephraim
hath hired lovers." It is again the note of their mad dissipation
among the foreigners. "But if they" thus "give themselves away among
the nations, I must gather them in, and" then "shall they have to
cease a little from the anointing of a king and princes." This
willful roaming of theirs among the foreigners shall be followed by
compulsory exile, and all their unholy artificial politics shall
cease. The discourse turns to the other target. For Ephraim hath
multiplied altars-to sin; altars are his own-to sin. Were I to write
for him by myriads My laws, as those of a stranger would they be
accounted. They slay burnt-offerings for Me and eat flesh. Jehovah
hath no delight in them. Now must He remember their guilt and make
visitation upon their sin. They-to Egypt-shall return" Back to their
ancient servitude must they go, as formerly He said He would
withdraw them to the wilderness. {Hos 2:16}
3. THE EFFECTS OF EXILE
Hos 9:1-9
Hosea now turns to describe the effects of exile
upon the social and religious habits of the people. It must break up
at once the joy and the sacredness of their lives. Every pleasure
will be removed, every taste offended. Indeed, even now, with their
conscience of having deserted Jehovah, they cannot pretend to enjoy
the feasts of the Ba’alim in the same hearty way as the heathen with
whom they mix. But, whether or no, the time is near when
nature-feasts and all other religious ceremonies-all that makes life
glad and regular and solemn-shall be impossible.
"Rejoice not, O Israel, to" the pitch of "rapture like the heathen,
for thou hast played the harlot from thy God; a harlot’s hire hast
thou loved on all threshing-floors. Threshing-floor and wine-vat
shall ignore them, and the new wine shall play them false. They
shall not abide in the land of Jehovah, but Ephraim shall return to
Egypt, and in Assyria they shall eat what is unclean. They shall not
pour libations to Jehovah, nor prepare for Him their sacrifices.
Like the bread of sorrows shall their bread be; all that eat of it
shall be defiled": yea, "their bread shall be" only "for their
appetite; they shall not bring" it "to the temple of Jehovah." He
cannot be worshipped off His own land. They will have to live like
animals, divorced from religion, unable to hold communion with their
God. "What shall ye do for days of festival, or for a day of
pilgrimage to Jehovah? For lo," they "shall be gone forth from
destruction," the shock and invasion of their land, only "that Egypt
may gather them in, Memphis give them sepulcher, nettles inherit
their jewels of silver, thorns "come up" in their tents." The threat
of exile still wavers between Assyria and Egypt. And in Egypt
Memphis is chosen as the destined grave of Israel; for even then her
Pyramids and mausoleums were ancient and renowned, her vaults and
sepulchers were countless and spacious.
But what need is there to seek the future for Israel’s doom, when
already this is being fulfilled by the corruption of her spiritual
leaders?
"The days of visitation have come, have come the days of requital.
Israel" already "experiences them! A fool is the prophet, raving mad
the man of the spirit." The old ecstasy of Saul’s day has become
delirium and fanaticism. Why? "For the mass of thy guilt and the
multiplied treachery! Ephraim acts the spy with My God." There is
probably a play on the name, for with the meaning a "watchman" for
God it is elsewhere used as an honorable title of the prophets. "The
prophet is a fowler’s snare upon all his ways. Treachery-they have
made it profound in the "very" house of their God. They have done
corruptly, as in the days of Gibeah. Their iniquity is remembered;
visitation is made on their sin."
These, then, were the symptoms of the profound political decay which
followed on Israel’s immorality. The national spirit and unity of
the people had disappeared. Society-half of it was raw, half of it
was baked to a cinder. The nation, broken into fractions, produced
no man to lead, no king with the stamp of God upon him. Anarchy
prevailed; monarchs were made and murdered. There was no prestige
abroad, nothing but contempt among the Gentiles for a people whom
they had exhausted. Judgment was inevitable by exile-nay, it had
come already in the corruption of the spiritual leaders of the
nation.
Hosea now turns to probe a deeper corruption still.
4. "THE CORRUPTION THAT IS THROUGH LUST"
Hos 9:10-17 CF. Hos 4:11-14
Those who at the present time are enforcing among
us the revival of a paganism-without the pagan conscience-and
exalting licentiousness to the level of an art, forget how
frequently the human race has attempted their experiment, with far
more sincerity than they themselves can put into it, and how
invariably the result has been recorded by history to be weariness,
decay, and death. On this occasion we have the story told to us by
one who to the experience of the statesman adds the vision of the
poet. The generation to which Hosea belonged practiced a periodical
unchastity under the alleged sanctions of nature and religion. And,
although their prophet told them that-like our own apostates from
Christianity-they could never do so with the abandon of the pagans,
for they carried within them the conscience and the memory of a
higher faith, it appears that even the fathers of Israel resorted
openly and without shame to the licentious rites of the sanctuaries.
In an earlier passage of his book Hosea insists that all this must
impair the people’s intellect. "Harlotry takes away the brains." {Hos
4:12} He has shown also how it confuses the family, and has exposed
the old delusion that men may be impure and keep their womankind
chaste. {Hos 4:13-14} But now he diagnoses another of the inevitable
results of this sin. After tracing the sin and the theory of life
which permitted it, to their historical beginnings at the entry of
the people into Canaan, he describes how the long practice of it, no
matter how pretentious its sanctions, inevitably leads not only to
exterminating strifes, but to the decay of the vigor of the nation,
to barrenness and a diminishing population. "Like grapes in the
wilderness I found Israel, like the first fruit on a fig-tree in her
first season I saw your fathers." So had the lusty nation appeared
to God in its youth; in that dry wilderness all the sap and promise
of spring were in its eyes, because it was still pure. But
"they-they came to Ba’al-Peor"-the first of the shrines of Canaan
which they touched-"and dedicated themselves to the shame, and
became as abominable as the object of their love. "Ephraim"-the
"Fruitful" name is emphasized-"their glory is flown away like a
bird. No more birth, no more motherhood, no more conception! Blasted
is Ephraim, withered the root of them, fruit they produce not: yea,
even when they beget children I slay the darlings of their womb.
Yea, though they bring up their sons I bereave them," till they are
"poor in men. Yea, woe upon themselves" also, when I look away from
them! Ephraim"-again the "Fruitful" name is dragged to the
front-"for prey, as I have seen, are his sons destined. Ephraim" -
he "must lead his sons to the slaughter."
And the prophet interrupts with his chorus: "Give them, O Lord-what
wilt Thou give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and breasts that
are dry!"
"All their mischief is in Gilgal"-again the Divine voice strikes the
connection between the national worship and the national sin-"yea,
there do I hate them: for the evil of their doings from My house I
will drive them. I will love them no more: all their nobles are
rebels."
And again the prophet responds: "My God will cast them away, for
they have not hearkened to Him, and they shall be vagabonds among
the nations."
Some of the warnings which Hosea enforces with regard to this sin
have been instinctively felt by mankind since the beginnings of
civilization, and are found expressed among the proverbs of nearly
all the languages. But I am unaware of any earlier moralist in any
literature who traced the effects of national licentiousness in a
diminishing population, or who exposed the persistent delusion of
libertine men that they themselves may resort to vice, yet keep
their womankind chaste. Hosea, so far as we know, was the first to
do this. History in many periods has confirmed the justice of his
observations, and by one strong voice after another enforced his
terrible warnings. The experience of ancient Persia and Egypt; the
languor of the Greek cities; the "deep weariness and sated lust"
which in Imperial Rome "made human life a hell"; the decay which
overtook Italy after the renascence of Paganism without the Pagan
virtues; the strife and anarchy that have rent every court where, as
in the case of Henri Quatre, the king set the example of
libertinage; the incompetence, the poltroonery, the treachery, that
have corrupted every camp where, as in French Metz in 1870, soldiers
and officers gave way so openly to vice; the checks suffered by
modern civilization in face of barbarism because its pioneers
mingled in vice with the savage races they were subduing; the number
of great statesmen falling by their passions, and in their fall
frustrating the hopes of nations; the great families worn out by
indulgence; the homes broken up by infidelities; the tainting of the
blood of a new generation by the poisonous practices of the old,
-have not all these things been in every age, and do they not still
happen near enough to ourselves to give us a great fear of the sin
which causes them all? Alas! how stow men are to listen and to lay
to heart! Is it possible that we can gild by the names of frivolity
and piquancy habits the wages of which are death? Is it possible
that we can enjoy comedies which make such things their jest? We
have among us many who find their business in the theatre, or in
some of the periodical literature of our time, in writing and
speaking and exhibiting as closely as they dare to limits of public
decency. When will they learn that it is not upon the easy edge of
mere conventions that they are capering, but upon the brink of those
eternal laws whose further side is death and hell-that it is not the
tolerance of their fellow men they are testing, but the patience of
God Himself? As for those loud few who claim license in the name of
art and literature, let us not shrink from them as if they were
strong or their high words true. They are not strong, they are only
reckless; their claims are lies. All history, the poets and the
prophets, whether Christian or Pagan, are against them. They are
traitors alike to art, to love, and to every other high interest of
mankind.
It may be said that a large part of the art of the day, which takes
great license in dealing with these subjects, is exercised only by
the ambition to expose that ruin and decay which Hosea himself
affirms. This is true. Some of the ablest and most popular writers
of our time have pictured the facts, which Hosea describes, with so
vivid a realism that we cannot but judge them to be inspired to
confirm his ancient warnings, and to excite a disgust of vice in a
generation which otherwise treats vice so lightly. But if so, their
ministry is exceeding narrow, and it is by their side that we best
estimate the greatness of the ancient prophet. Their transcript of
human life may be true to the facts it selects, but we find in it no
trace of facts which are greater and more essential to humanity.
They have nothing to tell us of forgiveness and repentance, and yet
these are as real as the things they describe. Their pessimism is
unrelieved. They see the "corruption that is in the world through
lust"; they forget that there is an escape from it. {2 Peter 1} It
is Hosea’s greatness that, while he felt the vices of his day with
all needed thoroughness and realism, he yet never allowed them to be
inevitable or ultimate, but preached repentance and pardon, with the
possibility of holiness even for his depraved generation. It is the
littleness of the art of our day that these great facts are
forgotten by her, though once she was their interpreter to men. When
she remembers them the greatness of her past will return.
5. ONCE MORE: PUPPET-KINGS AND PUPPET-GODS
Hosea 10
For another section, the tenth chapter, the
prophet returns to the twin targets of his scorn: the idols and the
puppet-kings. But few notes are needed. Observe the reiterated
connection between the fertility of the land and the idolatry of the
people.
"A wanton vine is Israel; he lavishes his fruit; the more his fruit,
the more he made his altars; the goodlier his land, the more goodly
he made his macceboth, or sacred pillars. False is the heart of
them: now must they atone for it. He shall break the neck of their
altars; He shall ruin their pillars. For already they are saying, No
king have we, for we have not feared Jehovah, and the king-what
could he do for us? Speaking of words, swearing of false oaths,
making of bargains-till law breaks out like weeds in the furrows of
the field."
"For the Calf of Beth-Aven the inhabitants of Samaria shall be
anxious: yea, mourn for him shall his people, and his priestlings
shall writhe for him - for his glory that it is banished from him."
In these days of heavy tribute shall the gold of the golden calf be
safe? "Yea, himself shall they pack to Assyria; he shall be offered
as tribute to King Pick-Quarrel. Ephraim shall take disgrace, and
Israel be ashamed because of his counsel. Undone Samaria! Her king
like chip on the face of the waters!" This may refer to one of the
revolutions in which the king was murdered. But it seems more
appropriate to the final catastrophe of 724-21: the fall of the
kingdom, and the king’s banishment to Assyria. If the latter, the
verse has been inserted; but the following verse would lead us to
take these disasters as still future. "And the high places of
idolatry shall be destroyed, the sin of Israel; thorn and thistle
shall come up on their altars. And they shall say to the mountains,
Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us." It cannot be too often
repeated: these handmade gods, these chips of kings, shall be swept
away together.
Once more the prophet returns to the ancient origins of Israel’s
present sins, and once more to their shirking of the discipline
necessary for spiritual results, but only that he may lead up as
before to the inevitable doom. "From the days of Gibeah thou hast
sinned, O Israel. There have they remained"-never progressed beyond
their position there-"and this without war overtaking them in Gibeah
against the dastards. As soon as I please, I can chastise them, and
peoples shall be gathered against them in chastisement for their
double sin." This can scarcely be, as some suggest, the two calves
at Bethel and Dan. More probably it is still the idols and the
man-made kings. Now he returns to the ambition of the people for
spiritual results without a spiritual discipline.
"And Ephraim is a broken-in heifer, that loveth to thresh. But I
have come on her fair neck. I will yoke Ephraim; Judah must plough;
Jacob must harrow for himself. It is all very well for the unmuzzled
beast," {Deu 25:4; 1Co 9:9; 1Ti 5:18} to love the threshing, but
harder and unrewarded labors of ploughing and harrowing have to come
before the floor be heaped with sheaves. Israel must not expect
religious festival without religious discipline. "Sow for yourselves
righteousness; then shall ye reap the fruit of God’s leal love.
Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek Jehovah, till He
come and shower salvation upon you. Ye have ploughed wickedness;
disaster have ye reaped: ye have eaten the fruit of falsehood; for
thou didst trust in thy chariots, in the multitude of thy warriors.
For the tumult of war shall arise among thy tribes, and all thy
fenced cities shall be ruined, as Salman beat to ruin Beth-Arbel in
the day of war: the mother shall be broken on the
children"-presumably the land shall fall with the falling of her
cities. "Thus shall I do to you, O house of Israel, because of the
evil of your evil: soon shall the king of Israel be undone-undone."
The political decay of Israel, then, so deeply figured in all these
chapters, must end in utter collapse. Let us sum up the gradual
features of this decay: the substance of the people scattered
abroad; the national spirit dissipated; the national prestige
humbled; the kings mere puppets; the prophets corrupted; the
national vigor sapped by impurity; the idolatry conscious of its
impotence.
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