A commentary on the prophecy of Hosea by Edward Pococke.

v. 2. Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee.

For connecting these with the former words, we may either look on them with q some, as what they shall say, when those evils threat∣ned shall come upon them, for deprecating Gods wrath, and moving his compassion, because they acknowledge him to be their

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God, and are his people; or, with r others, as an apology for themselves, when they hear those heavy judgments denounced against them, that certainly they deserve not such severe dealing, because they acknowledged him to be their God, and were his Israel; s or else a declaration of what they ought to have done for preventing those evils, or to do for removing them. In the first way, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Yiz'aku, rendred, they shall cry, must be ren∣dred according to its proper form in the Future tense; in the other it may indifferently be rendred either so, or in the Present tense, as by t some it is, clamant, do cry, so as to signifie, u clamare solent, they use to cry, or else to signifie, they w ought to cry, or, x clament, let them cry; others will have it to amount to as much as, quamvis me invocant, y although they cry unto me.

Concerning the signification of the words there is no difference or difficulty, but from the placing or construction of them there is. The reason of which that we may see, it is to be observed, that the name, Israel, which is in our translation (and others) put in the be∣ginning, is in the Original put in the end of the verse, the last word of all; hence is va∣riety of opinions concerning the construction of it. z Many think that here is a transposi∣tion of the words, and that, Israel, which is in the last place, ought in the construction to be transferred to the first, Israel shall cry, &c. a Others take it so as to retain its place, in the last member of the verse; We Israel know thee, or, we know thee, we are Israel; so as that that name may seem urged as a proof that they know God, and as an argument to move God to have respect to them, because they are the seed of Jacob, who was called Israel because he prevailed with God, and they by his name called, might have confi∣dence also to prevail with him for his prote∣ction. But what little reason they have to make this a proof or claim of interest in God, and their peculiar owning him, and a reason why they should be as so owned by him, behaving themselves so unworthy of that name as they did, the next verse will shew.

I know not how it comes to pass that some in their translations quite leave out this word, as the Greek, and printed Arabick, and the Syriack. The MS. Arab. supplies before it the name, God, so making it, not so much an appellation of themselves, as an Epither of God, thus rendring, They shall cry unto me, and thus they shall say, O our Lord, now we know thee, O God of Israel; in which, besides this, and the other supply of, they shall say &c. may be noted also a difference, in that he puts the affixe in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Rabbona, our Lord, in the plural, whereas in the Hebrew it is in the singular, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Elohai, my God, which b others make a little scruple or difficulty at, viz. how it comes to pass that that affixe is put in the singular number, whereas the Verbs, referred to the same persons speaking, are in the plural, they shall cry, and, we know, to which, our God, might seem more regu∣larly to agree than, my God: which scruple c some take away by expounding it, as if they, that is, every one of them should say, my God. But it is easily answered otherwise also, by observing, (according to that mentio∣ned on the preceding v. out of Kimchi,) that Israel, with like names signifying a people, one body consisting of many members, is in∣differently used, either in the singular, as one, or plural, as more; and so the Verbs and Af∣fixes referred to them, indifferently and fre∣quently are put in either number, sometimes one, sometimes the other. By that whole ren∣dring in Arabic it is manifest, the author thereof understood it of what the Israelites would say, when the denounced judgments seized on them, as if they received instructi∣on, and learned to know God by them, in that he saith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Now we have known (or know) thee. The Chaldee, is loo∣ked on as giving a good explication of the words, thus, Whensoever I bring upon them affliction, they pray before me, saying, Now we know that there is no God to us but thee; Redeem us, because we are thy people Israel.

In all these Israel may be taken, as mostly hitherto it hath been, as a distinct Kingdom from Judah, and it seems, for reasons in the former v. mentioned, most convenient that it should be so taken. But Abarbinel takes the different way, and thinks it taken as it is common to both, (as before the division made between them,) and that those, who here it is said shall challenge it to themselves, are they of Judah, addressing themselves to God, and pretending themselves not to be so bad as the ten Tribes, in forsaking God and falling from him, and d not crying to him, and who e knew him not, and that therefore they hoped or desired that such severe judgments might not fall on them as did on the others. That thus they should do, he thinks the Pro∣phet declares from God; and among Chri∣stian f Expositors, Arias Montanus follows him, and seems to think that their doing so as he here says they would do, was a cause of

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hindring Senacherib, (who after that his Prede∣cessor Shalmaneser had destroyed Samaria, and carried captive the ten tribes, came with Ea∣gle-like swiftness and violence against Jeru∣salem, and the house of the Lord, the Temple) from accomplishing his design, and so re∣spited Judah from being destroyed so soon as Israel was. Thus they, taking Israel here for that name precious in Gods sight, whereby Judah would ingratiate themselves to him, and move him to have respect to them: but then the Israel, presently subjoyned in the next words, to be taken in its more restrai∣ned notion, for the ten rebellious tribes, who had cast off God, and all that was good (and so are distinguished from Judah who turned unto God) by that their stubborn and wicked behaviour. But I conceive, that considering when, and in respect to what, the Prophet spake, and like circumstances, according to what hath been said on the foregoing v. we shall see no reason to forsake that way, which others generally take, in ascribing that name to the same persons in both verses, viz. Israel of the ten Tribes: and then as this v. shews what they would pretend to do, so will the next shew how false that pretence was, and how bootless like to be to them, in regard that all the repentance or love to God that they made shew of, in crying unto God, and owning him for their God, and saying they know him, and acknowledg him only as such, and desire to be owned by him as his Israel, was all but hypocrisy; and that they called not on him as true penitents in uprightness of heart, nor out of love to him and his ways, which really they had cast off and forsa∣ken, but for fear of the evils only which they saw like to come on them from him; and therefore shall obtein nothing of good by their feigned applications to him, but find those evils which really they deserve and pull on themselves, viz. that they be by him deliver∣ed up to the hands of their enemies. So saith he,