people would be such that,
nevertheless, its election should stand firm and sure,--and, finally,
that the adoption should not be invalid by which He had chosen
Abraham's progeny as His people" (_Calvin_).--The case is quite
analogous, when corrupted Christian churches harden themselves in
trusting in the promise that the Lord would be with them all the days,
and that the gates of hell should not prevail against His Church. The
[Pg 217] Lord knoweth how to execute His judgments so that His promises
shall not suffer thereby, yea, that their fulfilment is thereby
rendered possible. The relation of our passage to Is. x. 22 requires
_further_ to be considered: "For though thy people Israel be as the
sand of the sea, the remnant only shall return." Here, too, the
reference to the promises in Genesis cannot be mistaken. But there is
this difference,--that in the time of Isaiah, the people, viewing the
partial fulfilment of the promises of God in their then prosperous
condition, as a sure pledge of divine mercy, founded thereupon their
false security. To this, however, the prophet replies, that even the
perfect fulfilment would give no warrant for it. In Hosea, however,
they rely on the perfect fulfilment, which had, as yet, no existence at
all. But Hosea has in view the godly as much as the ungodly. To the
former he shows that here also there would be a fulfilment of what is
written in Num. xxiii. 19: "God is not a man, that He should lie;
neither the son of man, that He should repent. Should He say, and not
do it; and speak, and not fulfil it?" Moreover, we cannot fail to see
that, in the verse under review, as also in ver. 2, there is an
allusion to the first child, Jezreel,--that in the second member of the
verse there is an allusion to Lo-Ammi, and in ver. 3, to Lo-Ruhamah.
But the name Jezreel is now taken in a good sense, probably in the
sense in which it was first given to the valley (compare remarks on i.
4), and also to the town by its founders. Jezreel means "God sows." The
founders of the town thereby expressed the hope that God would cause an
abundant harvest to proceed from a small sowing--a glorious end from a
small beginning. Thus God will now sow the small seed of Israel, and an
infinitely rich harvest shall be gained from this sowing; compare
remarks on ver. 25.--But if now we seek for the historical reference of
the announcement, we are compelled to go back to the sense of those
declarations in Genesis. By ma