4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without statue, and without ephod and teraphim.
And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and teraphim, and installed one of his sons, who became his priest.
And Laban had gone to shear his sheep. And Rachel stole the teraphim that [belonged] to her father.
And he shall confirm a covenant with the many [for] one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and because of the protection of abominations [there shall be] a desolator, even until that the consumption and what is determined shall be poured out upon the desolate.
And he went out to meet Asa, and said to him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: Jehovah is with you while ye are with him; and if ye seek him he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him he will forsake you.
And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah; and all Israel played the harlot after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.
And these are the garments which they shall make: a breastplate, and an ephod, and a cloak, and a checkered vest, a turban, and a girdle; and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may serve me as priest.
Israel is an unpruned vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the abundance of his fruit he hath multiplied altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly statues. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found guilty: he will break down their altars, he will destroy their statues. For now they will say, We have no king, for we feared not Jehovah; and a king, what can he do for us?
And I will cause all her mirth to cease: her feasts, her new moons, and her sabbaths! and all her solemnities.
I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.
And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and overthrow all thy strongholds. And I will cut off sorceries out of thy hand; and thou shalt have no soothsayers. Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy statues out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more bow down to the work of thy hands. And I will pluck up thine Asherahs out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy cities.
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith Jehovah of hosts, [that] I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered; and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.
And Jesus went forth and went away from the temple, and his disciples came to [him] to point out to him the buildings of the temple. And he answering said to them, Do ye not see all these things? Verily I say to you, Not a stone shall be left here upon a stone which shall not be thrown down.
But they cried out, Take [him] away, take [him] away, crucify him. Pilate says to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
And they set false witnesses, saying, This man does not cease speaking words against the holy place and the law; for we have heard him saying, This Jesus the Nazaraean shall destroy this place, and change the customs which Moses taught us.
And David danced before Jehovah with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.
And he put upon him the vest and girded him with the girdle, and clothed him with the cloak, and put the ephod on him, and he girded him with the girdle of the ephod, and fastened the ephod on him.
and the five men who had gone to spy out the land went up, and entered and took the graven image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate with the six hundred men armed with weapons of war. And when these went into Micah's house and took the graven image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said to them, "What are you doing?" And they said to him, "Keep quiet, put your hand upon your mouth, and come with us, and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and family in Israel?" And the priest's heart was glad; he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people. So they turned and departed, putting the little ones and the cattle and the goods in front of them. When they were a good way from the home of Micah, the men who were in the houses near Micah's house were called out, and they overtook the Danites. And they shouted to the Danites, who turned round and said to Micah, "What ails you that you come with such a company?" And he said, "You take my gods which I made, and the priest, and go away, and what have I left? How then do you ask me, 'What ails you?'"
And Samuel ministered before Jehovah, a boy girded with a linen ephod.
(And Ahijah the son of Ahitub, Ichabod's brother, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, Jehovah's priest in Shiloh, wore the ephod.) And the people did not know that Jonathan was gone.
And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of terebinths, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod; if thou wilt take that, take it; for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that: give it me.
And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall on the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and fell on the priests, and put to death that day eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod.
And it came to pass, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah, he came down with an ephod in his hand.
The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh come, And to him will be the obedience of peoples.
Moreover the necromancers and the soothsayers, and the teraphim and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah took away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkijah the priest had found in the house of Jehovah.
In that day shall there be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to Jehovah: and it shall be for a sign and for a witness to Jehovah of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they shall cry unto Jehovah because of the oppressors, and he will send them a saviour and defender, who shall deliver them.
And I will give them over to be driven hither and thither amongst all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem. For who shall have pity upon thee, Jerusalem? and who shall bemoan thee? and who shall turn aside to ask after thy welfare?
And that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, in serving wood and stone.
(And he magnified [himself] even to the prince of the host, and from him the continual [sacrifice] was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And a time of trial was appointed unto the continual [sacrifice] by reason of transgression.) And it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised and prospered. And I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that one who spoke, How long shall be the vision of the continual [sacrifice] and of the transgression that maketh desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden down under foot?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Hosea 3
Commentary on Hosea 3 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 3
God is still by the prophet inculcating the same thing upon this careless people, and much in the same manner as before, by a type or sign, that of the dealings of a husband with an adulterous wife. In this chapter we have,
Hsa 3:1-5
Some think that this chapter refers to Judah, the two tribes, as the adulteress the prophet married (ch. 1:3) represented the ten tribes; for this was not to be divorced, as the ten tribes were, but to be left desolate for a long time, and then to return, as the two tribes did. But these are called the children of Israel, which was the ten tribes, and therefore it is more probable that of them this parable, as well as that before, is to be understood. Go, and repeat it, says God to the prophet; Go yet again. Note, For the conviction and reduction of sinners it is necessary that precept be upon precept, and line upon line. If they will not believe one sign, try another, Ex. 4:8, 9. Now,