lie his
name, by which he had been dedicated to the helping and saving God, and
which he had received, _non sine numine_. ([Hebrew: hvwe], properly the
Inf. Abs. of [Hebrew: iwe], is, in substance, equivalent to Joshua,
_i.e._, the Lord is help.) Zeal for the Lord fills and animates him,
not only in the energy of his threatenings, but also in the intensity
and strength of his conviction of the pardoning mercy and healing love
of the Lord, which will, in the end, prevail. In this respect, Hosea is
closely connected with the Song of Solomon--that link in the chain of
Holy Scripture into which he had, in the first instance, to fit. There
are in Hosea undeniable references to the Song of Solomon. (Compare my
Comment. on the Song of Solomon, on chap. i. 4, ii. 3.) It is certainly
not by accident that the brighter views appear with special clearness
at the beginning, in chap. i. 3 (compare ii. 1-3, 16-25 [i. 10, ii. 1,
14-23], iii. 5), and at the close, xiv. 2-10 (1-9), where the
fundamental thought is expressed in ver. 4 (3): "For in Thee the
fatherless findeth mercy." But even in the darker middle portions, they
sometimes suddenly break through; compare v. 15, vi. 3, where the
subject is: "He teareth and He healeth us; He smiteth and He bindeth
up;" vi. 11, where, after the threatening against Israel, we suddenly
find the words: "Nevertheless, O Judah! He grants thee a harvest, when
I (_i.e._, the Lord) return to the prison of My people." (Judah is [Pg
182] here mentioned as the main portion of the people, in whom mercy is
bestowed upon the whole, and in whose salvation the other tribes also
share.) Compare also xi. 8-11, where we have this thought: After wrath,
mercy; the Covenant-people can never, like the world, be altogether
borne down by destructive judgments; xiii. 14, where the strong
conviction of the absolutely imperishable nature of the Congregation of
the Lord finds utterance in the words, "I will ransom them from the
hand of hell; I will redeem them from death: O death! where is thy
plague? O hell! where is thy pestilence? repentance is hid from Mine
eyes." _Simson_ is perplexed "by the sudden transition of the
discourse, in this passage, from threatening to promise,--and this
without even any particle to indicate the mutual relation of the
sentences and thoughts." But the same phenomenon occurs also in vi. 11
(compare Micah ii. 12, 13), where, likewise, several expositors are
perplexed by the suddenness and abru