Gen 18:24, Gen 18:26, etc.). The explanation, “I will take away from them, sc. everything” (Hengstenberg), has no tenable support in Hos 5:14, because there the object to be supplied is contained in the context, and here this is not the case.
Verse 7
Hos 1:7“And I will favour the house of Judah, and save them through Jehovah their God; and I will not save them through bow, and sword, and war, through horses and through horsemen.” By a reference to the opposite lot awaiting Judah, all false trust in the mercy of God is taken away from the Israelites. From the fact that deliverance is promised to the kingdom of Judah through Jehovah its God, Israel is to learn that Jehovah is no longer its own God, but that He has dissolved His covenant with the idolatrous race. The expression, “through Jehovah their God,” instead of the pronoun “through me” (as, for example, in Gen 19:24), is introduced with special emphasis, to show that Jehovah only extends His almighty help to those who acknowledge and worship Him as their God.[1]
And what follows, viz., “I will not save them by bow,” etc., also serves to sharpen the punishment with which the Israelites are threatened; for it not only implies that the Lord does not stand in need of weapons of war and military force, in order to help and save, but that these earthly resources, on which Israel relied (Hos 10:13),
- ↑ “The antithesis is to be preserved here between false gods and Jehovah, who was the God of the house of Judah. For it is just as if the prophet had said: Ye do indeed put forward the name of God; but ye worship the devil, and not God. For ye have no part in Jehovah, i.e., in that God who is the Creator of heaven and earth. For He dwells in His temple; He has bound up His faith with David,” etc. - Calvin.
