Sin its own punishment.
These verses exhibit
But perhaps the most prominent thought in the passage is that of the self-punishing nature of sin, as illustrated in the early history and the later fortunes of Ephraim. We see this fact reflected—
I. IN THE NATIONAL CALF-WORSHIP. (Hosea 8:5-7) Samaria had "cast off good" (Hosea 8:3) by departing from the pure ritual which Jehovah had prescribed; and therefore the "calf" which she had set up, and in which she gloried, had "cast her off." There was no help in the golden god during the crisis of the country's peril. How could there be?—for "the workman made it." Instead, therefore, of interposing to save their worshippers from exile, the two calves were themselves taken to Nineveh as a spoil. Tiglath-pileser carded away the calf of Dan, and Shalmaneser that of Bethel. The worship of Jeroboam's images proved the ruin of the nation. It was a sowing of the wind. For the breach of the second commandment paved the way for the violation of the first, and for contempt of the whole Decalogue; and then Israel "reaped the whirlwind."
II. IN THE MULTIPLICATION OF ALTARS AND SACRIFICES (Hosea 8:11-14) The Divine will had appointed but one central sanctuary and place of sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:5-14). But Israel evinced the corruption of her worship by multiplying temples all over the land, not only to Jehovah, but to the gods of heathendom. The people protested, indeed, that they did not deny the Lord God of their fathers, even when they called upon Baal (Hosea 2:11). But Jehovah could not accept a divided homage; he regarded their altars as set up only "to sin," and he rejected the sacrifices which they laid upon them. The temples which the men of Ephraim built, thus became a millstone round their neck to drag them to destruction (Hosea 8:11). What a pathetic word-picture of a dead ritualism is sketched with one slight touch in Hosea 8:14, "Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples"! Yet these shrines were not true temples after all, for there was no Divine presence in them. Without the presence of God the most splendid cathedral is not a sanctuary, but a sepulcher.
III. IN THE POLITICAL FLIRTATIONS WITH ASSYRIA. (Hosea 8:8-10) Again and again the kingdom of Israel endeavored to bolster itself up by abject vassalage to the King of Assyria, and by paying heavy tribute to buy off his invading armies. To this adulterous policy Hosea refers in the words, "Ephraim hath hired lovers." But such expedients, so far from contributing to the safety of the nation, served rather to precipitate and aggravate its ruin. First of all, the tribute imposed upon the people caused them to "sorrow" (verse 10); and at length Israel was entirely "swallowed up" by the invader. The nation became, in its headstrong obstinacy of disobedience, like the solitary "wild ass" of the desert; and it fell an easy prey to the Assyrian lion.
IV. IN THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE IN MATERIAL DEFENSES.. A fortified city is certainly a place of refuge from the invading host. But the motto of such should be, "Nisi Dominus frustra;" for, "except the Lord keep the city," it will be quite defenseless, in spite of its fortifications. Judah's battlements were not the Lord's; so they attracted the thunderbolts of the Divine vengeance, and were at last burned with fire by Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:13), and by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:9, 2 Kings 25:10). His cities and towers had been erected, Babel-like, in proud self-confidence; and thus they ultimately became his destruction.
CONCLUSION.
1. What was true of Ephraim will be true also of England, so soon as the national life of our land shall resemble his. If we claim that the spiritual promises made to Ephraim apply to England, we ought also to acknowledge that the denunciations directed against Ephraim may possibly be deserved by England too.
2. If Ephraim's sin turned out to be its own punishment, it is the same also with that of each individual sinner. Retribution fails upon the wrong-doer in the course of natural law. For Providence is just, and "of our pleasant vices makes instruments to plague us."—C.J.