13 Woe to them! For they have wandered from me. Destruction to them! For they have trespassed against me. Though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Here the Prophet takes away from the Israelites the hope of pardon, and declares that it was all over with them, for God had now resolved to destroy them. For as God everywhere declares himself to be ready and inclined to pardon, hypocrites hope that God will be propitious to them; and entertaining this vain confidence, they despise his threatening and boldly rise up against him. Hence the Prophet here shows, that God would hereafter be inexorable to them, because they had too long pertinaciously abused his patience. Woe to them! he says, for they have withdrawn from me: desolation to them! for they have acted perfidiously towards me There is then no reason, says the Prophet, for them to delude themselves in future with vain confidence, as they have hitherto done; for this has been once for all determined by God -- to indict on them his extreme vengeance, for their defection deserves this. He then adds, I will redeem them, and they have spoken lies against me. They who render the first word in the future tense, think that the Prophet asks a question, "Shall I redeem them? for they have spoken lies against me:" and they think it to be an indefinite mode of speaking -- "Should I redeem them, men of no faith; for what good should I do by such kindness?" Others give this expositions -- "Though I wished to redeem them, yet I found that this would not be beneficial nor just, because they speak lies against me;" as though God did not express here what he had done, but what he had wished to do. But the past tense is not unsuitable to this place; and we know how common and familiar to the Hebrews was the change of tenses. The meaning, then, will be, "I have redeemed them, and they have spoken lies against me;" that is, "I have often delivered them from death, when they were in extreme peril; but they have not changed their disposition; nay, they have deprived me of the praise due for their deliverance, and they have lived in no way better after their deliverance. Since, then, I have hitherto conferred my benefits to no good purpose, nothing now remains but that I must destroy them." And this seems to me to be the Prophet's meaning. He then declares, in the first clause, that they hoped for mercy in vain from God, because their ultimate destruction was decreed. Then follows the reason for this, because they had foolishly and impiously abused the favor of God, inasmuch as, having been redeemed by him, they yet went on in their own wickedness, and even acted perfidiously towards God, while yet they pretended to act differently. Since, then, there was no change for the better, God now shows that he would spend his favor no longer on men so impious. Now this place teaches how intolerable is our ingratitude, when, after having been redeemed by the Lord, we keep not the faith pledged to him, and which he requires from us; for God is our deliverer on this condition, that we be wholly devoted to him. For he who has been redeemed ought not so to live, as if he had a right to himself and to his own will; but he ought to be wholly dependent on his Redeemer. If, then, we thus act perfidiously towards God, after having been delivered by his grace, we shall be guilty of such impiety and perfidiousness as deserve a twofold vengeance: and this is what the Prophet here teaches. We indeed know how mercifully God had spared the people of Israel: after they had fallen away into superstitious worship, and had also violated their faith to the posterity of David, the Lord did not yet cease to show to that people many favors, notwithstanding their unworthiness. We know also, that under Jeroboam prosperity had attended them beyond all human expectation. But they yet hardened themselves more and more in their wickedness, so far were they from returning to the right way. Let us now proceed --
Woe unto them, for they have fled from Me - The threatening rises in severity, as did the measure of their sin. Whereas "Salvation belonged to God" Psalm 3:8 alone, and they only "abide under His shadow" Psalm 91:1-2, who make Him their "refuge, woe" must needs come on them, who leave Him. "They forsake their own mercy" Jonah 2:8. "Woe" they draw upon themselves, who forget God; how much more then they, who willfully and with a high hand transgress against Him! "Destruction unto them, for they have transgressed against Me." To be separated from God is the source of all evils; it is the "pain of loss" of God's presence, in hell; but "destruction" is more than this; it is everlasting death.
And I have redeemed them and they have spoken lies against Me - The "I" and "they" are both emphatic in Hebrew; "I redeemed;" "they spoke lies." Such is man's requital of His God. Oft as He redeemed, so often did they traduce Him. Such was the history of the passage through the wilderness; such, of the period under the Judges; such had it been recently, when God delivered Israel by the hand of Jereboam II 2-Kings 14:25-27. The word, "I have redeemed," denotes "habitual oft-renewed deliverance," "that He was their constant Redeemer, from whom they had found help, did still find it, and might yet look to find it, if they did not, by their ill behavior, stop the course of His favor toward them" . God's mercy overflowed their ingratitude. "They" had Spoken lies against Him, often as He had delivered them; He was still their abiding Redeemer. "I do redeem them."
They have spoken lies against Me - People "speak lies" against God, in their hearts, their words, their deeds; whenever they harbor thoughts, speak words, or act, so as to deny that God is what He is, or as to imply that He is not what He has declared Himself to be. Whoever seeks anything out of God or against His will; whoever seeks from man, or from idols, or from fortune, or from his own powers, what God alone bestows; whoever acts as if God was not a good God, ready to receive the penitent, or a just God who will avenge the holiness of His laws and "not clear the guilty," does in fact, "speak lies against God." People, day by day, "speak lies against God," against His Wisdom, His providence, His justice, His Goodness, His Omniscience, when they are thinking of nothing less. Jeroboam spake lies against God, when he said, "these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt," whereas God had so often enforced upon them Exodus 20:2; Leviticus 19:36; Leviticus 23:43; Numbers 15:41; Deuteronomy 5:6, Deuteronomy 5:15, "the Lord redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt (Deuteronomy 7:8; add. Deuteronomy 13:5; Deuteronomy 15:15; Deuteronomy 24:18); the Lord thy God brought thee out thence with a mighty hand and stretched out arm."
Israel "spake lies against God," when he said, "these are my rewards which my lovers have given me" Hosea 2:12, or when, "they returned not to Him" but "called on Egypt," as though God would not help them, who said that He would, or as though Egypt could help them, of whom God said that it should not. Sometimes, they "spoke" out "lies" boldly, telling God's true prophets that He had not sent them, or forbidding them to speak in His Name; sometimes covertly, as when they turned to God, not sincerely but feignedly; but always perversely. And when God the Son came on earth to "redeem them," then still more, they spoke lies against Him, all His life long, saying, "He deceiveth the people," and all their other blasphemies, and , "when He, forgave them the sin of His death, saying, "Father, forgave them for they know not what they do," they persevered in "speaking lies" against Him, and bribed the soldiers to speak lies against Him," and themselves do so to this day.
Wo unto them! - They shall have wo, because they have fled from me. They shall have destruction, because they have transgressed against me.
Though I have redeemed them - Out of Egypt; and given them the fullest proof of my love and power.
Yet they have spoken lies against me - They have represented me as rigorous and cruel; and my service as painful and unprofitable.
Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have (k) redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
(k) That is, at different times redeemed them, and delivered them from death.
Woe unto them, for they have fled from me,.... From the Lord, from his worship, and the place of it; from obedience to him, and the service of him; as birds fly from their nests, and leave their young, and wander about; so they had deserted the temple at Jerusalem, and forsaken the service of the sanctuary, and set up calves at Daniel and Bethel, and worshipped them; and, instead of fleeing to God for help in time of distress, fled further off still, even out of their own land to Egypt or Assyria: the consequence of which was, nothing but ruin; and so lamentation and woes:
destruction unto them, because they have transgressed against me; against the laws which God gave them; setting up idols, and worshipping them, and so broke the first table of the law; committing murder, adultery, thefts and robberies, with which they are charged the preceding part of this chapter, and so transgressed the second table of the law; and by all brought destruction upon themselves, which was near at hand, and would certainly come, as here threatened; though they promised themselves peace, and expected assistance from neighbouring nations, but in vain, having made the Lord their enemy, by breaking his laws:
though I have redeemed them; out of Egypt formerly, and out of the hands of the Moabites, Ammonites, Philistines, and others, in the times of the judges; and more lately in the times of Joash and Jeroboam the second, who recovered many cities out of the hands of the Syrians. Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret this of the good disposition of God towards them, having it in his heart to redeem them now from their present afflictions and distresses, but that they were so impious and wicked, and so unfaithful to him:
yet they have spoken lies against me; against his being and providence, being atheistically inclined; or pretending repentance for their sins, when they were hypocrites, and returned to their former courses; or setting up idols in opposition to him, which were vanity to him; attributing all their good things to them, and charging him with all their evils. Abendana reads the words interrogatively, "should I redeem them, when they have spoken lies against me?" (t) no, I will not.
(t) "et ego redimerem eos?" so some in Rivet.
fled--as birds from their nest (Proverbs 27:8; Isaiah 16:2).
me--who both could and would have healed them (Hosea 7:1), had they applied to Me.
redeemed them--from Egypt and their other enemies (Micah 6:4).
lies-- (Psalm 78:36; Jeremiah 3:10). Pretending to be My worshippers, when they all the while worshipped idols (Hosea 7:14; Hosea 12:1); also defrauding Me of the glory of their deliverance, and ascribing it and their other blessings to idols [CALVIN].
"Woe to them! for they have flown from me; devastation to them! for they have fallen away from me. I would redeem them, but they speak lies concerning me. Hosea 7:14. They did not cry to me in their heart, but howl upon their beds; they crowd together for corn and new wine, and depart against me." The Lord, thinking of the chastisement, exclaims, Woe to them, because they have fled from Him! Nâdad, which is applied to the flying of birds, points back to the figures employed in Hosea 7:11, Hosea 7:12. Shōd, used as an exclamation, gives the literal explanation of 'ōi (woe). The imperfect 'ephdēm cannot be taken as referring to the redemption out of Egypt, because it does not stand for the preterite. It is rather voluntative or optative. "I would (should like to) redeem them (still); but they say I cannot and will not do it." These are the lies which they utter concerning Jehovah, partly with their mouths and partly by their actions, namely, in the fact that they do not seek help from Him, as is explained in Hosea 7:14. They cry to the Lord; yet it does not come from the heart, but (כּי after לא) they howl (יילילוּ, cf. Ges. 70, 2, note) upon their beds, in unbelieving despair at the distress that has come upon them. What follows points to this. Hithgōrēr, to assemble, to crowd together (Psalm 56:7; Psalm 59:4; Isaiah 54:15); here to gather in troops or crowd together for corn and new wine, because their only desire is to fill their belly. Thus they depart from God. The construction of סוּר with ב, instead of with מן or מאחרי, is a pregnant one: to depart and turn against God.
Spoken lies - They belied his corrections as if not deserved; they belied the good done, as if too little, or not done by God, but by their idol.
*More commentary available at chapter level.