The prophet continues his grave indictment of his people. The court and the priesthood were chiefly responsible for the awful degeneracy that was eating out the national heart. The seductions to idolatry that abounded everywhere resembled the snares and nets set by hunters on the wooded heights of Gilead and Tabor.

Suddenly, within a month, v. 7, an alarm sounds from hill to hill. The foreign invader has entered the country and is slowly marching southward. Even Benjamin is threatened. Ephraim must suffer because of the institutions of Omri and Ahab, v. 11; and Judah, because her princes were grasping and fraudulent. Though message after message was sent to procure the help of Jareb—a symbolical name for Assyria, “the warlike,” he would not be able to avert the approaching dissolution of the Jewish state. You cannot stop the dry-rot by grand alliances. Nothing can save a nation in whose heart the worst forms of corruption are being nourished, except a wholesale return to God and a seeking of his face. It is certain that if this lesson were profoundly learned and then practised, the horrors of a world in arms would come to a speedy and a blessed end.

Hosea 6. How full Scripture is of tender invitations: Come, and let us return! This opening verse is closely connected with 5:15. The hand that smote was the Father’s who waited to welcome the prodigal nation with healing and up-binding. When the sun seems to dip below the horizon, we begin to travel toward its rising again. Then we follow on, to behold the glorious dawn of the next day, which is prepared for us. Presently we catch the first glimpse, and soon come into its full

splendor. The sun does not move toward us, but we toward it. So when the soul turns toward God, if only it is willing to do his will, it has begun to follow on toward the light of his countenance, which presently will be revealed in its full radiance. God’s favor is also compared to the fertilizing rain, for its certainty and refreshment, Gen. 8: 22.

While God’s love is constant, our religious life is fickle and changeful. Emotion is evanescent as the morning clouds, which in Palestine vanish by nine or ten o’clock. Our Lord quoted v. 6 in Matthew 9:13; 12:7. The pomp of outward ritual, however ornate, counts less with God than one contrite sigh or tear.