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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
6:4-7:3 Transgressors of the Covenant. Israel's sins are worse than simply violating the law: they repudiate the gracious covenant that is the foundation of their life and hope.
6:4 What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? . . . O Judah? One must not miss this outburst of emotion, like an anguished father not knowing what to do with his wayward child, or a husband agonizingly frustrated with his promiscuous bride (cf. 11:8; Luke 15:20). Israel's response, as envisaged in Hos. 6:1-3, is described as a morning cloud and the dew that goes early away, both representing the inconstancy of an adulterous wife.
6:5 My judgment goes forth as the light means that God's light exposes Israel's idolatry.
6:6 rather than burnt offerings. God prefers real participation in the covenant on the part of his people, here expressed as steadfast love and knowledge of God, to the polluted ceremonies of the northern kingdom that ignore these qualities (cf. notes on 4:15; Amos 4:4-5).
6:7 But like Adam they transgressed the covenant. "Covenant" appears four other times in Hosea (2:18; 8:1; 10:4; 12:1). Twice it refers to the transgressing of covenant (6:7; 8:1). The following phrase, there they dealt faithlessly with me, along with 8:1 ("they have transgressed my covenant and rebelled against my law") makes it virtually certain that the "covenant" in view is the Mosaic covenant. In addition, the kinds of sins and curses pronounced in the Sinai covenant dovetail precisely with the warnings of the prophet: the end of agricultural prosperity, military disaster, foreign exile, the demise of their offspring, and a return to slavery in Egypt. In sum, the crisis in Israel was Israel's failure to keep covenant. The hard issue is: to whom or to what does "Adam" refer? Many commentators suggest a geographical locality. The difficulty is that there is no record of covenant breaking at a place called Adam (Josh. 3:16), and it requires a questionable taking of the preposition "like" (Hb. ke-) to mean "at" or "in." "There" represents the act wherein Israel was unfaithful to the covenant (cf. Hos. 5:7; 6:10). "Mankind" is another suggestion for "Adam," but that would be a vague statement with no known event indicated, and therefore it would not clarify the sentence. It is best to understand "Adam" as the name of the first man; thus Israel is like Adam, who forgot his covenant obligation to love the Lord, breaking the covenant God made with him (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:17). This also implies that there was a "covenant" relationship between God and Adam, the terms of which were defined in God's words to Adam, though the actual word "covenant" is not used in Genesis 1-3.
6:8 Gilead is another of Hosea's allusions to former glories (Judg. 10:17-11:11).
6:9 On the road to Shechem, the priests became involved in a conspiracy to assassinate defenseless people. The word for villainy (Hb. zimmah) is a powerful term for human depravity.
6:11 a harvest is appointed. A harvest which is supposed to depict joy but which will instead depict tragedy. Thus it is a "harvest" of judgment (cf. Joel 3:13; Rev. 14:18-19), which stands in ironic contrast to the harvest of joy that will come to the faithful, when I restore the fortunes of my people.
7:1 When I would heal Israel. Similar motifs link this chapter with the previous chapters (5:13 and 7:1; 6:8 and 7:1; 6:9 and 7:11; 5:15 and 7:2). It is the Lord's generosity, not his threats, that weighs heavy.
