John Calvin on Hosea 13:8

But he afterwards adds, I will rend, or will tear, the inclosure of their heart. They who understand the enclosure of the heart to be their obstinate hardness, seem to refine too much on the words of the Prophet. We know, indeed, that the Prophets sometimes use this mode of speaking; for they call that a hard heart, or a heart covered with fatness, which is not pliant, and does not willingly receive sound doctrine. But the Prophet rather alludes to the savageness of the bear, when he says, I will rend or tear in pieces the membrane of the heart, and will devour you as a lion. For it is the most cruel kind of death, when the lion with his claws and teeth aims at the heart itself and tears the bowels of man. The Prophet therefore intended to set forth this most cruel kind of death. “I will therefore,” he says, “tear asunder the pericardium, or the enclosure of the heart.” I do not at the same time say, that the Prophet does not allude to the hardness of the people, while he retains his own similitude.

And the beast of the field shall rend them He speaks now without a similitude; for God means that all the wild beasts would be his ministers to execute his judgement. “I will then send all the beasts of the field to rend and tear them, so that nothing among them shall remain safe.” We now see the purport of this passage, and to what use it ought to be applied. If we are by nature so slothful, yea, and careless, and when God does not stir us up, we indulge our own delusions, we ought to notice those figurative representations which tend to shake off from us our tardiness and show to us how dreadful the judgement of God is. For the same purpose are those metaphors respecting the eternal fire and the worm that never dies. For Gods seeing the feelings of men to be so torpid has in Scripture applied those things which may correct their sluggishness. Whenever then God puts on a character not his own, let us know that it is through our fault; for we suffer him not to deal with us according to his own nature, inasmuch as we are intractable. Let us go on —

Hosea 13:9-11

9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.

9. Perdidit te Israel; quia in me auxilium tuum. Bishop Horsley’s rendering of this verse which was that of Rivet, is the following — “It is thy destruction, O Israel, that upon me (alone it lies) to help thee.” He adds in a note — “Thy great privilege, to have God alone for thy defense, becomes the occasion of thy destruction. In my wrath I withdrew my special aid; and since forsaken by me, thou hast no other helper, thy ruin must ensue.

In this instance our version, as to the first clause, seems preferable to that offered by Calvin. The verb is not in the third person, but the second. Its final radica; letter is ת, tau, and the same letter is characteristic of the second person, and it is not here doubled; another instance of which we find in Ezekiel 28:17, שהת חכמתך. ‘Thou hast corrupted,’ or ‘destroyed, thy wisdom.’

There is reason to doubt the correctness of our version, as well as that of Calvin, as to the second clause. Literally it is, “Though in me for thy help,” which seems to mean this, “Though it was in my power to help thee.”

But if the first word of the verse be taken as a substantive, as it is by many critics, then the first clause may be considered as having reference to the preceding verses. The meaning then would be, that such would be Israel’s destruction, though at the same time there was for him help in God, if he had sought it: —

Such thy destruction, Israel! Though in me there was help for thee.

Then follows the next verse, — I will be the same: thy king, where is he? etc. For changing אהי into איה, the authority is very small, only one MS., and another doubtful: and there is no need, and indeed the sense is thereby injured. In the Geneva Bible it is rendered, ‘I am.’ The future tense in Hebrew includes often the present as well as what is future. To give it its full meaning, it must be thus rendered, ‘I am and will be,’ that is, thy help; for he had before said, that there had been help for them in him. — Ed.

10 I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?

10 Ero: Rex tuus ubi, ut servet te in cunctis urbibus tuis, et judices tui, de quibus dixisti, Da mihi regem et principes?

11 I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.

11 Dabo tibi (hoc est), Dedi tibi regem in ira mea, et sustuli in furore meo.