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Hosea 10:13

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

Ye have ploughed wickedness - Ye have labored sinfully.

Ye have reaped iniquity - The punishment due to your iniquity.

Ye have eaten the fruit of lies - Your false worship and your false gods have brought you into captivity and misery.

Because thou didst trust in thy way - Didst confide in thy own counsels, and in thy mighty men, and not in the God who made you.

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

Ye have plowed wickedness - They not only did not that which God commanded, but they did the exact contrary. They cultivated wickedness. They broke up their fallow ground, yet to sow, not wheat, but tares. They did not leave it even to grow of itself, although even thus, on the natural soil of the human heart, it yields a plenteous harvest; but they bestowed their labor on it, plowed it, sowed, and as they sowed, so they reaped, an abundant increase of it. “They brought their ill doings to a harvest, and laid up as in provision the fruits thereof.” Iniquity and the results of iniquity, were the gain of all their labor. Of all their toil, they shall have no fruits, except the iniquity itself.: “By the plowing, sowing, eating the fruits, he marks the obstinacy of incorrigible sinners, who begin ill, go on to worse, and in the worst come to an end. Then too, when the corrupted soul labors with the purpose of a deed of sin, and resolves in its inmost thoughts, how it may bring the ungodly will into effect in deed, it is like one plowing or sowing. But when, having completed the work of iniquity, it exults that it has done ill, it is like one reaping. When further it has broken out so far as, in pride of heart to defend its sins against the law of God prohibiting them, and goes on unconcerned in impenitence, he is like one who, after harvest, eats the fruits stored up.”

Ye have eaten the fruit of lies - They had been full of “lies” Hosea 4:1-2; Hosea 7:3; they had “lied” against God by hypocrisy Hosea 5:7; Hosea 6:7; Hosea 7:16; Hosea 10:4 and idolatry; they had “spoken lies against Him” Hosea 7:13; by denying that He gave them what He bestowed upon them, and ascribing it to their idols Hosea 2:5, Hosea 2:12. All iniquity is a lie. Such then should be “the fruit” which they tasted, on which they fed. It should not profit, nor satisfy them. It should not merely be empty, as in the case of those who are said to “feed on ashes” Isaiah 44:20, but hurtful. As Isaiah saith, “they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice‘ eggs, and weave the spider‘s web; he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed, breaketh out into a viper” Isaiah 59:4-5. “Gain deceives, lust deceives, gluttony deceives; they yield no true delight; they satisfy not, they disgust; and they end in misery of body and soul.” “Bodily delights,” says a father, “when absent, kindle a vehement longing; when had and eaten, they satiate and disgust the eater. Spiritual delights are distasteful, when unknown; when possessed, they are longed for; and the more those who hunger after them feed upon them, the more they are hungered for. Bodily delights please, untasted; when tasted, they displease; spiritual, when untasted, are held cheap; when experienced, they please. In bodily delights, appetite generates satiety; satiety, disgust. In spiritual, appetite produceth satiety; satiety appetite. For spiritual delights increase longing in the soul, while they satisfy. For the more their sweetness is perceived, so much the more is “that” known which is loved more eagerly. Unpossessed, they cannot be loved, because their sweetness is unknown.”

Because thou didst trust in thy way - “Thy way,” i. e., not God‘s. They forsook God‘s way, followed “ways of wickedness and misbelief.” While displeasing God, they trusted in the worship of the calves and in the help of Egypt and Assyria, “making flesh their arm, and departing from the living God.” So long as a man mistrusts his ways of sin, there is hope of his conversion amid any depths of sin. When “he trusts in his ways,” all entrance is closed against the grace of God. He is as one dead; he not only justifies himself, but is self-justified. There is nothing in him, neither love nor fear, which can be awakened.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
Because God does not desire the death and ruin of sinners, therefore in mercy he desires their chastisement. The children of iniquity still remained in Israel. The enemies would be gathered against them. It is just with God to make those know what hardships mean, who indulge themselves in ease and pleasure. Let them cleanse their hearts from all corrupt affections and lusts, and be a broken and contrite spirit. Let them abound in works of piety towards God, and of justice and charity towards one another: herein let them sow to the Spirit. Seeking the Lord is to be every day's work, but there are special occasions when to seek him. Christ shall come as the Lord our righteousness, and grant us of it abundantly. If we sow in righteousness, we shall reap according to mercy; a reward not of debt, but of grace. Even the gains of sin yield the sinner no satisfaction. As our comforts, so our confidences in the service of sin will certainly fail us. Come and seek the Lord, and thy hope in him shall not deceive thee. See what cruel work war makes. Whatever mischief is done, it is sin that does it. What miseries men's sins bring on them, even in this world!
Ellen G. White
Prophets and Kings, 280

Of Ephraim the prophet testified, “Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.” [The prophet Hosea often referred to Ephraim, a leader in apostasy among the tribes of Israel, as a symbol of the apostate nation.] “Israel hath cast off the thing that is good.” “Broken in judgment,” unable to discern the disastrous outcome of their evil course, the ten tribes were soon to be “wanderers among the nations.” Hosea 7:9; 8:3; Hosea 5:11; 9:17. PK 280.1

Some of the leaders in Israel felt keenly their loss of prestige and wished that this might be regained. But instead of turning away from those practices which had brought weakness to the kingdom, they continued in iniquity, flattering themselves that when occasion arose, they would attain to the political power they desired by allying themselves with the heathen. “When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian.” “Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.” “They do make a covenant with the Assyrians.” Hosea 5:13; 7:11; Hosea 12:1. PK 280.2

Through the man of God that had appeared before the altar at Bethel, through Elijah and Elisha, through Amos and Hosea, the Lord had repeatedly set before the ten tribes the evils of disobedience. But notwithstanding reproof and entreaty, Israel had sunk lower and still lower in apostasy. “Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer,” the Lord declared; “My people are bent to backsliding from Me.” Hosea 4:16; 11:7. PK 281.1

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