OF THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
H O S E A.
I. WE have now before us the twelve minor
prophets, which some of the ancients, in reckoning up the books of the
Old Testament, put all together, and reckon but as one book.
They are called the minor prophets, not because their writings are of
any less authority or usefulness than those of the greater prophets, or
as if these prophets were less in God's account or might be so in ours
than the other, but only because they are shorter, and less in bulk,
than the other. We have reason to think that these prophets preached as
much as the others, but that they did not write so much, nor is so much
of their preaching kept upon record. Many excellent prophets wrote
nothing, and others but little, who yet were very useful in their day.
And so in the Christian church there have been many burning and shining
lights, who are not known to posterity by their writings, and yet were
no way inferior in gifts, and graces, and serviceableness to their own
generation, than those who are; and some who have left but little
behind them, and make no great figure among authors, were yet as
valuable men as the more voluminous writers. These twelve small
prophets, Josephus says, were put into one volume by the men of the
great synagogue in Ezra's time, of which learned and pious body of
men the last three of these twelve prophets are supposed to have been
themselves members. These are what remained of the scattered pieces of
inspired writing. Antiquaries value the fragmenta veterum--the
fragments of antiquity; these are the fragments of prophecy, which
are carefully gathered up by the divine Providence and the care of the
church, that nothing might be lost, as St. Paul's short epistles after
his long ones. The son of Sirach speaks of these twelve prophets with
honour, as men that strengthened Jacob,
Ecclus. xlix. 10.
Nine of these prophets prophesied before the captivity, and the last
three after the return of the Jews to their own land. Some difference
there is in the order of these books. We place them as the ancient
Hebrew did; and all agree to put Hosea first; but the ancient thing is
not material. And, if we covet to place them according to their
seniority, as to some of them we shall find no certainty.
II. We have before us the prophecy of Hosea, who was the first of all
the writing prophets, being raised up somewhat before the time of
Isaiah. The ancients say, He was of Bethshemesh, and of the tribe of
Issachar. He continued very long a prophet; the Jews reckoned that he
prophesied nearly fourscore and ten years; so that, as Jerome observes,
he prophesied of the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes when
it was at a great distance, and lived himself to see and lament it, and
to improve it when it was over, for warning to its sister kingdom. The
scope of his prophecy is to discover sin, and to denounce the judgments
of God against a people that would not be reformed. The style is very
concise and sententious, above any of the prophets; and in some places
it seems to be like the book of Proverbs, without connexion, and rather
to be called Hosea's sayings than Hosea's sermons. And a
weighty adage may sometimes do more service than a laboured discourse.
Huetius observes that many passages in the prophecies of Jeremiah and
Ezekiel seem to refer to, and to be borrowed from, the prophet Hosea,
who wrote a good while before them. As
and Ezek. xxvi. 13,
speak the same with
Hosea 2:11;
so
Ezekiel 16:16,
&c., is taken from
Hosea 2:8.
And that promise of serving the Lord their God, and David
their king,
Jeremiah 30:8,9.
Ezekiel 34:23,
Hosea had before,
Hosea 3:5.
And
Ezekiel 19:12
is taken from
Hosea 13:15.
Thus one prophet confirms and corroborates another; and all these
worketh that one and the self-same Spirit.
Matthew Henry "Verse by Verse Commentary for 'Hosea' Matthew Henry Bible Commentary".
.