Hosea 11:1

Child. Verses 1-4 of this chapter give an account of the benefits the people of Israel had received from the Lord from the time of the Exodus, and of Israel’s subsequent ingratitude for these blessings. God had every reason to be provoked against Israel because of their attitude toward the love and care He bestowed upon them, from their infancy, so to speak (see Eze. 16:1-8; PK 312). His interest in them and for them was indeed that of a father toward his son, an interest no other nation shared to the same extent (see Deut. 7:6-8). Hosea refers to this relationship, beginning at the time Moses gave the Lord’s message to Pharaoh to let His people go (see on Ex. 4:22, 23). Hosea 11:1 shows that the one chief design of the Bible is to recommend to sinners the goodness and grace of God (see 8T 275). “The whole Scripture,” says Luther, “aims especially at this, that we doubt not, but certainly hope, trust, and believe that God is gracious, merciful and longsuffering.” Called my son. The experience of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt was declared by the Gospel writer Matthew, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to be a figure or prophecy of the experience of the child Jesus in Egypt and His return to Palestine (see on Matt. 2:15). Although Matthew’s reference may not be considered as a verbatim quotation of either the Hebrew or the LXX of Hosea 11:1, there is no doubt that the Gospel writer had this comparison of experiences in mind.