---
title: "Commentary on Hosea"
author: "John Calvin"
translator: "John Owen"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 81 of 86
url: https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-hosea/81/
cite: "John Calvin, tr. John Owen, Commentary on Hosea, section 81. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-hosea/81/"
---

# Commentary on Hosea

*John Calvin, tr. John Owen*

Calvin on Hosea, the prophet of a faithful God and an unfaithful people.

## 81. Chapter 9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-hosea/81/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/john-calvin-commentary-on-hosea/81/#p-N

[¶0] 1 Rejoice not, Israel, with joy like that of the people; For thou hast become wanton from thy God; Thou hast loved wages on all the floors of corn. —

[¶1] 2 The floor and the vat shall not feed them, And the new wine shall disappoint them:

[¶2] 3 They shall not dwell in the land of Jehovah; And return shall Ephraim to Egypt, And in Assyria they shall eat what is unclean:

[¶3] 4 To Jehovah they shall not pour wine, And acceptable to him shall not be their libations; Their sacrifices shall be to them as the bread of mourners, — Whosoever will eat shall be polluted; For their bread for their soul, It shall not come into the house of Jehovah.

[¶4] 5 What will ye do on the solemn day, On the festal-day of Jehovah?

[¶5] 6 For, behold, they are gone away on account of desolation; — Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them. The wished-for store of their silver will the nettle possess, — The thorn shall be in their tents.

[¶6] 7 The days of visitation have come, The days of retribution have come: Israel shall know the prophet to be foolish, And mad the man of the spirit, — For the number of thy iniquity and great hatred.

[¶7] 8 The watchman of Ephraim for my God, the prophet, Is a snare of a fowler on all his ways, A hateful thing in the house of his God. — (327)

[¶8] 9 They are deeply fixed, corrupt are they as in the days of Gibeah: He will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins.

[¶9] 10 As grapes in the desert I found Israel, As the first fruit of the fig-tree, at its beginning, I saw your fathers: — They went in into Baalpeor, And separated themselves unto shame, And became abominable like their lovers.

[¶10] 11 Ephraim! — as a bird has fled their glory — (336) From the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception:

[¶11] 12 For if they bring up their children, I shall exterminate them, that they shall not be men: — Surely, woe to them, when I shall depart from them!

[¶12] 13 Ephraim, as I have seen in Tyrus, Is a tree planted in a house: (339) Yet Ephraim is to bring forth to the slaughter his children!

[¶13] 14 “Give to them, Jehovah, — what wilt thou give? Give to them an abortive womb and dry breasts.”

[¶14] 15 All their evil is in Gilgal; For there I conceived hatred against them: On account of the wickedness of their works, From my house I will cast them out; I will not continue to love them; — All their princes are apostates.

[¶15] 16 Smitten has Ephraim been; Their root has dried up, — fruit they will not bear: And if they bring forth, I will slay The wished—for fruit of their womb. —

[¶16] 17 Cast them away will my God; For they hearkened not to him: And they shall be wanderers among the nations.