Bible Commentaries

An Empty Vine

Hosea 10:1-6

This chapter is an admirable piece of human criticism, even if it had no claim to that which we gladly assign it, namely, divine inspiration. Viewed from a merely literary standpoint, it is beautiful; listened to as men listen to music, it is enchanting. This we say, apart altogether from its claim to be considered a distinctly inspired criticism and message. Sometimes expositors of the broader sort are charged with reading things into the Bible. It is impossible to read into the Bible anything that is true, wise, pure, good, beautiful,—because all such things are there already; they are the offspring of eternity. Every man should read his own experience into the Bible, that he may see whether he can get it out again or not, and if he can get it out, then he may conclude with himself that his experience is profoundly true. Say to the sculptor: You have read that statue into the marble; Nature did not put it there; when you got that marble into your hands it was without form or beauty or comeliness; all this chiselling, all this shapely suggestiveness, all this almost life, you have put into it. That would be as just a criticism as to say to the true expositor of the Bible, You have read these things into the Bible, if they be things that are in themselves true, beautiful, musical, useful, beneficent, and moving in the direction of heroic and useful life. Say to the composer: You have read that Oratorio into the seven notes of music; the seven notes were simple enough, why were you not content to sound them in their purity, and let them stand for what they were worth? All this Oratorio, sublimity, inventiveness, apocalyptic charm—all this only shows that you have read yourself into the seven notes. It would be just as wise a criticism as to say to the true Bible reader that he had read himself into the Bible, because he finds in that infinite sky all stars, all planets, Pleiades innumerable, ineffable, and burning centres that men dare not even name. He is a poor Bible reader that does not see everything in the Bible. There are a thousand times ten thousand Bibles in the Bible; yet all the Bibles are one in their spirit of love, in their purpose of redemption, in the glitter of their beneficent all-illuminating light Have no confidence in the critic that finds nothing but grammar in the Bible; have as much confidence in the man who tells you all the literature you need is in the alphabet. He could defend his declaration, but it would be at the expense of his sanity. All literature is in the alphabet; words are useless in their singularity: so oftentimes are men; they are nothing in units. The dictionary is nothing in the way of exposition, education, illumination, stimulus, when it stands there in its mere catalogue of words. Words must be put together; must colour one another; must combine and recombine, and be made to palpitate with soul: then the dictionary may become a poem, and its catalogue may be evolved into a "Paradise Lost." It is even so with God's book. It is never read: Lord, evermore give us this bread. Let the child read the Bible, and make a child's book of it; above all, let the woman read the Bible, and get out of it all its music.

"Israel is an empty vine." Yet, literally, it might read, Israel is a luxuriant vine; he bringeth forth fruit unto himself; and yet, literally, he brings forth no fruit at all, only long stem and tendril and leaves innumerable; his fruit is all foliage. The apostle said the grace of God that was in him was not in vain; that is to say, it was not useless, not introspective; not only useful to himself, but it was expressive, outwardly, beneficently, feedingly, so that all men who came in contact with that grace ate bread from Heaven and drank the wine of Paradise. The figure is very Hebraic and very grand. Israel is a vine, and a growing vine, but Israel misses the purpose of the vine by never growing any wine; growing nothing but weed, leaves, and so disappointing men when they come to find fruit thereon and discover none. The Church is an empty vine; theology is an empty vine. All religious controversy that is conducted for its own sake—that is to say, with the single view of winning a victory in words—is an empty vine,—luxuriant enough, but it is the luxuriance of ashes; as who should say, His iron safe is full; open it, and out runs the worthless dust to the ground, without a sparkle of gold, or precious metal of any kind. The safe was full, but full of nothingness; the vine was luxuriant, but only in that which never yet appeased human hunger. "According to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images." They have gone pari passu with the Almighty—he the living Father doing the good, and they the rebellious men doing proportionate evil. When the harvest has been plentiful the idolatry has been large, increasing in urgency and importance; when the vine has brought forth abundantly another image has been put up. That is the teaching of the prophet; yea, that is the impeachment of God. God may be represented as saying, Your wickedness has been in proportion to my goodness; the more I have given you, the less I have received from you; the larger the prosperity with which I have crowned you, the more zealous have you been in your idolatry; the more lovingly I have revealed myself to you, the greater your wantonness, selfishness, and rebellion. That is not only Hebrew, it is English; that is not only ancient history, it is the tragedy, the blasphemy of to-day.

What is the explanation? Where is the point at which we can stand and say, This is the beginning of the mischief? The answer is in the second verse, "Their heart is divided." That has always been the difficulty of God; he has so seldom been able to get a consenting heart. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." That is not a jeremiad; it is a fact. God says, These people want to do two irreconcilable things—they want to serve God and mammon; they want to courteously recognise the existence of Jehovah, and then run to kiss the lips of Baal. Their heart does not all go one way; they cannot wholly throw off the true religion; it has indeed become to them little better than a superstition, but men do not like to gather up all the traditions of the past, and cast them in one bundle into the flowing river in the hope that it may be carried away and lost for ever. So they come to the altar sometimes; now and again they look in at the church door; intermittently they listen to the old psalm and the half-remembered hymn; but in the soul of them they are drunk with idolatry. There are persons very anxious to maintain orthodoxy who are the most notorious thieves in society; there are those who would subscribe to any society to defend Sunday if they might do on Monday just what they liked; they are zealous about the Sabbath, and specially zealous that other people should keep it, but on Monday you would never imagine that there was a Sunday. "Their heart is divided"; they have no sympathy with Arianism—largely because they do not know what it Hosea 10:3).

The bitterness of that complaint is found in the fact that they had a king, and yet had no king; they had a figure-head, they had a man who was called king, and to whom certain courteous loyalty was reluctantly paid; but as to faculty, true sovereignty, noble influence, he was no king. This is as bad as the divided heart—to be nominally one thing and really another; to have a pulpit, and no gospel; to have a church, but no way out of it to heaven; to have the form of a Hosea 10:15).

There are various interpretations of this vivid passage. The one which is to be, in my judgment, preferred is that which regards the king of Israel in the light of one who has risen upon the troubles of his nation as the dawn rises upon the darkness. Hoshea was the last king of Israel. When the people hailed him on his accession they said in their hearts, This is he who shall bring liberty and joy and fame to Israel. They regarded him as a morning after a long weary night. They said, This same shall comfort us; he is a strong man and wise, and his heart is bound up with the fortunes of Israel, and he shall be the deliverer of the people. They were doomed to disappointment; the bright dawn perished, the light of hope went out—the sky that was to have been filled with glory carried with it a sullen cloud. The king of Israel was cut off, he disappointed the people; whatever talents he had were not spent in the interests of his nation; whether incapable or false, he let fall the fortunes and destinies of his people. How many men there are who have disappointed their families! If we said, There are many men who have disappointed the world, the sentiment might be received with general applause—it is one of those heroic deliverances which leave every person unharmed—but we say, How many people there are who have disappointed their families! Then we come closely home to men; then we set up a process of self-examination, ending in a process of self-conviction and self-reprobation. See, however, if this be not true. The parents have said concerning the child, "This same shall comfort us," and he has failed to shed one beam of light on the kind old hearts. The parents have said, "This same shall be wise, honest, honourable, chivalrous, heroic; men shall know that he lives and shall bless the day of his birth," and suddenly the light has set, the promise has sunk in disappointment, and they who prophesied gracious things of the child are broken in heart. If what is called, atheistically, fate has anything to do with the disappointments which we inflict upon our kindred and our country, we must in some degree submit. We need not, however, be parties to the disappointment; we can be good if we cannot be great; we can be faithful if we cannot be brilliant; we can help a child if we cannot teach a king. The only thing we have to aim at in life is to win the recognition, "Well done, good and faithful servant,"—not Brilliant soldier, Splendid genius, Unprecedented statesman, but Good and faithful servant, making the best of everything, watching every opportunity, rising early to catch the light and to prevent the singing lark, to go before as if to seek out occasions of beautiful, unselfish, yea, self-sacrificing service. Blessed is he whose early promise comes to noble fruition, and blessed are they who own him as their child. Do not let us be discouraged because we cannot do great things. All good things are great; the moral is the eternal.

The Lord continues his lament over his chosen one, and puts his plaint into the tenderest form of expression:—

"When Israel was a child, then I loved him" ( Hosea 11:1).

The meaning is not, necessarily, when Israel was an infant, a child in mere years, but when Israel was a child in spirit, docile, simple of mind, sincere of purpose, true in worship. When Israel lifted his eyes heavenward and sought for me, then I stooped over him as a man might stoop over his child to lift him into his arms and press him closely to his heart. There is a unit of the individual; let us take care lest we rest there, and so miss the ever-enlarging revelation of the divine purpose in human history. There is not only a unit of the individual, there is a unit of the nation. Israel is here spoken of as if he were one Hosea 11:3).

The picture is one that befits the life of the nursery. We have seen how a child is taught to walk; we have watched, partly with amusement, and partly with apprehension, early efforts at locomotion—how unsteady the eye, how uncertain the action of the little limbs. Still the lesson was to be taught; it was the beginning of a career. It is easy to measure the first walk, but who can lay a line upon all we do which that first walk begins? Devious is the way of life; a thousand paths break away from the central road, and some adventurous spirits go down by-paths to get their first sight of the devil. God's complaint is that "they knew not that I healed them." We have given up in many instances the divine personality, the living, loving, redeeming Fatherhood of God; and with what are we now satisfied? With fine words, with pompous syllables, with the continuity of law. Many a man will accept the theory of the continuity of law as if he were accepting the simplest proposition. The continuity of law is as great a mystery as the continuity of God. Yet we are deceived by names. Law is abstract, law is impersonal, and is something to be talked about, but never to be seen; but personality means criticism, companionship, benediction, reproach, malediction, heaven, hell. Men do not like to be pressed upon so forcibly. Think of any man in full possession of his senses supposing that continuity of law is a simpler expression than the Fatherhood of God. We never saw God; we never saw law; we never saw anything. We might see more if we looked more closely; we might see further if we cleansed the lense through which we look, that lense the heart; and blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. They are sensitive, they are responsive; every ray of light tells upon them; every whispered word, though it has been millions of ages in coming from world to world, falls on them like a gospel, and they answer it with praise. We now put away the personality of God, and accept the law of development. The mystery Hosea 11:4).

The figure is that of subjugating the heifer. Beasts were drawn with cords, it may have been with iron or chains; they were forced into servility; they were beaten and chastised into humiliation; they were made to obey the human will. The Lord represents himself as drawing his people with cords of a Hosea 11:6).

The Lord takes the wise in their own craftiness; he allows men to work up their programmes, and bring them to a fine point; he permits builders to go so far up with their tower; he allows men to whet their swords, and to lift those weapons of war as if in defiance, but he will only allow them to take down the sword in such a way as to bring the gleaming point of it into their own heart The meaning of this passage is that the very opposite shall occur to that which the counsellors proposed. Men shall dig pits for others, and fall into them themselves; men shall build a gallows on which to hang their enemies, and they shall swing from the gallows-tree themselves, and none shall pity them as they perish in the air; the bad man shall plan his plot, and lo, when he would go home to watch the outcome of it, he cannot lift his feet: he made the snare, let him break it if he can. Here is the action of a mysterious power in life, that men are always made, when they oppose God, to do the very things they did not want to do; they will build a place in which they will be secure from the Lord God Almighty, and lo, they are obliged to see that very tower that was to have excluded the Eternal turned into a sanctuary for his adoration.

Another complaint is very graphically and tenderly expressed:—

"And my people are bent to backsliding from me" ( Hosea 11:7).

The figure is that of a man who seizes a crossbeam; holding to that beam with his hands, he swings from it; there is an oscillatory motion, but there is no progress; the hands clutch the crossbeam. So the Lord says, "My people are bent to backsliding from me"; they seem to be making progress, but are making none; the centre is always the same, the movement is pendular; it passes from point to point, but the points are always the same; the centre never changes: they are bent on iniquity, they are attached to lies. Who has not seen this very figure personalised in his own case? We have wanted to do two different things at the same time, and that miracle has lain beyond the possibility of our power; we have wanted to keep the Sabbath day, and do what we like on the day succeeding, and the days would not thus be yoked together by our evil hands; we have wanted to be nominal Christians and real downright atheists, and the Lord would not permit this infamous irony. My people are bent upon backsliding from me; they keep hold, and the body moves as if progress were being made; but I judge not by the oscillation, but by the clutching fingers, and these fingers are still laid upon things that are forbidden. What then will the Lord do? He will suddenly destroy these men; he will burn them with unquenchable fire; he will treat them as chaff is treated—they shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace, and go up as smoke. Nay, hear the Lord, and say if that prophecy be true:—

"How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together" ( Hosea 11:8).

This is the voice of a pleader. Ephraim had done wrong, but the Lord said, He may still do right, and I will not give him up utterly. How shall I deliver thee, Israel, when I have set my love upon thee, and fixed mine expectation upon all thy progress? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? (two cities of the plain, salted with fire, devoured and poisoned with brimstone.) How shall I burn Ephraim? There are some things we do not want to burn; we hold them long over the fire before throwing them into the hungry flame; we say, Let us try once more, let us begin again? How shall I burn Ephraim? How shall I reduce Israel to ashes? How can I set fire to my only son—to the prodigal that wounded me, to the life that disappointed me? Even yet the prodigal may come home. I have burned Sodom and Gomorrah; I have burned Admah and Zeboim; I have choked the plain with brimstone, but I cannot give up these hearts, though they grieve me every day. How shall I, how shall I, how can I? That is the voice of eternal love. God never willingly destroys. He is a God of salvation; he wants the worst to be saved; he wants none to be burned. God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. The Son of man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Nothing would be easier for God than to burn up the universe; but to save it—what does that require?

An Overthrown Altar

Hosea 10:8-12

The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed." We have seen that "Beth-el" means The house of God, and that by iniquity, manifold and black, Beth-el was turned into Bethaven, and that Bethaven means The house of vanity. This is an instance of deterioration, and more than mere deterioration; it is an instance of transformation from good to bad, from the heights of heaven to the depths of the world of fire. Such miracles can be accomplished in the individual character, and such miracles have been found possible in ecclesiastical relationship. Nature will not let things alone at any given point; nature is a destroyer; its very growths, if not checked and regulated, may come to express judgment, destruction, ruin. But the case is worse We now read of "the high places also of Aven"; the "Beth" is left out: once it was Bethaven, the house of vanity; now nothing is left but the vanity itself. As a house it was significant of definition, limitation: it was so much and no more for the time being; but the walls of definition have fallen down, the hedges and the boundaries are taken away, and there is nothing left but the smoke of vanity. That is the process of unchecked, untaught, unsanctified nature. We say of a Hosea 10:10).

That is a graphic expression; the whole meaning of it does not appear in the English tongue. God does not willingly afflict the children of men; it is not the delight of Almightiness to crush. It is the vanity of considerable strength to tyrannise, but in proportion as strength becomes complete it pities, it spares the helpless, for it knows that by one uplifting of its arm, and the down-bringing of the same, it could crush every opponent. Imperfect strength is a despot: Almightiness is mercy. But now there is a stirring in the divine emotions. God says, It will be better for these people to be afflicted; they have left nothing for themselves now but depletion, and they must be brought to the very point of extermination. "It will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies"; "Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted." These are not the first words that God utters. Their meaning is in their postponement. Our eloquence has to be forced out of us. The Lord is very pitiful and kind, and his eyes are full of tears, and judgment is his strange work; but there have been times in the history of Providence which could only be consistently and rationally construed by granting that even the divine Father must be stirred to the desire to chastise and humble wicked men. "And the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows." Change the grammar if you would see the deeper meaning. Not, They shall bind themselves; but, They shall be bound as well. There shall be a voluntary Hosea 10:11).

Poor Ephraim! History has no good word to say about Ephraim. Ephraim, though carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle; Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, whose appetites are excited and trained and directed along certain lines, and Ephraim loveth to tread out the corn. Is not that a compliment to Ephraim? Have we not in Jewish history seen the patient oxen going round and round the mill, and causing the stones to revolve so that the corn might be ground? Is not that a very excellent thing to do? No, not for Ephraim, because Ephraim gets advantage from this. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." Ephraim wanted plenty to eat; put Ephraim in a pasture, and he was most buoyantly, though selfishly, obedient and religious; put Ephraim to treading out the corn where he could fill himself from morning till night, and he walked as if an obedient child. There are too many men who are wonderfully obedient and pious when they are making gain by it. History is not wanting in instances in which men have apparently been going about their business in the most faithful, obedient, scrupulous manner, when in reality they were only going about it in order that they might eat the feast. Hence the meaning of the words that follow: "But I passed over upon her fair neck": I handled the yoke daintily, I did not force it upon the face of Ephraim, as if to break his teeth in the act of putting the yoke over the neck; but I acted daintily; I studied the occasion, I watched when Ephraim lifted the head, and presently the yoke was put over the fair neck, and that which lifted itself in pride found itself to be bent down in humiliation. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." We never know what God is doing. In the very midst of our rioting and feasting he slips a yoke over our fair neck, and we who sat down as guests remain as prisoners. "I will make Ephraim to ride." The grammar must be changed in order to get at the meaning: I will send a rider upon Ephraim, who shall so handle the bridle and dig the spurs into his quaking sides as to make him feel that he is no longer master. "Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods": they shall begin at the other end of the work; they shall not have all the corn-grinding and corn-eating to do, but they shall plough, do the hard work. "And Jacob shall break his clods": clods that he cannot eat; if he attempt to eat them, they shall break his teeth as with gravel-stones. Judah and Jacob shall be taught to work, to do what is useful, and by-and-by they may have plentifulness of bread. Until this is done nothing is done solidly in life. If you have not learned how to make your money's worth your money is of no use to you; if you are operating by trickery or by falsity, the end is simply disappointment and possible ruin. He who cannot plough and break his clods has no right to the loaf. We have only a right to the bread we have worked for. When men understand this, boys will be brought up to be independent. No boy is independent who cannot work. There is only one independent man in the world, and that is the working man. He is independent in poverty; nature lives for him, nature waits for him, nature says to him, I am your humble servant. A man who has only money can lose it; a man who has skill has treasure in a bank that will not fail. This is the difficulty of all education—to bring parents to understand that their children must be taught to plough and to break up the clods. No, it is better that the boy should be clothed in broadcloth, and should have white hands, and should not be put to any inconvenience; the boy must not go out at five in the morning, and yoke horses and get the plough into the furrow and attend to the drudgery of husbandry,—the boy must be a "gentleman farmer"! This is called kindness. The boy will live to curse the cruelty of such benevolence.

"Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy." Rather, Sow righteousness in the proportion of mercy: as God has been merciful to you, so be ye righteous to him; keep pace for pace with the divine mercy: be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect; be ye holy as your Father in heaven is holy. This is the ideal; God would have human righteousness in proportion to divine mercy. The standard is not arbitrary, it is gracious and tender and condescending; but who can attain unto it? It is not in man that liveth to keep pace with God. "Break up your fallow ground": this is not the order of husbandry. The Scripture cares nothing for your orders and chronologies. This Book in particular is a book that is urgent, energetic, tumultuous in its style. There are those who will only go with the clock, and have the clock strike two after it has struck one; this Book will strike twelve after one, and ten after seven. It is God's indicator; it will excite attention; it cares nothing for your mechanical orders; it rushes, roars, exclaims as with a trumpet voice, whispers as it delivering the message of burdened life. "Break up your fallow ground." Stir your souls, put on your strength, excite yourselves to the highest, noblest animation; no longer live the life of indifference, but live the life of enthusiasm and passion: make the best of yourselves; cultivate every out-of-the-way corner of your lives: break up, break up, break up; prepare for the harvest. "For it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." It is always time to seek the Lord; let us say here, It is high time, it is more than time; the hour is almost past—up! It is the appeal of one who would stir the sluggard from his sloth, and break in upon the glamour of his destructive dreams. "Till he come and rain righteousness upon you." That is an unfamiliar figure; that, indeed, is not the figure which the prophet represented. To rain righteousness means, in the Scriptures, to teach righteousness. Here some of the ripest and holiest commentators have found what they believe to be a prophecy of the coming of the Holy Ghost It is the business of the Spirit to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; it is the function of the Spirit to reveal the righteousness of God. We are therefore to seek the Lord till he come, in some form or personality of ministry, to represent righteousness, to teach righteousness, to make the world forget all its mistakes, and begin anew, to do the right thing and the beautiful thing. No prophet could anticipate the coming of the Holy Ghost who did not first accept in his deepest consciousness the coming of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, from whom, as from the Father, proceedeth the eternal Spirit Whilst we are anxious not to import meanings into the Bible, we should be equally anxious not to impoverish the Bible of its richest suggestiveness.