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Hosea 12:7-11

King James Version (KJV)

“In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”
— D.L. Moody

Scripture focus

7. [He is] a merchant, the balances of deceit [are] in his hand: he loveth to oppress. 8. And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: [in] all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that [were] sin. 9. And I [that am] the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast. 10. I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets. 11. [Is there] iniquity [in] Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars [are] as heaps in the furrows of the fields.

Hosea 12:7-11 — KJV

Commentary

Commentary on Hosea 12:7

Theological / Devotional

Merchant. In vs. 7-11 we have a further description of the apostasy of the northern kingdom, suggested by the first part of this chapter. Israel’s apostasy presents a strong contrast to Jacob’s earnestness to obtain the divine blessing, the sincerity of his repentance, the evidences of his conversion, and his constant waiting on God. This sad condition of the nation apparently prompts Hosea to repeat the story of Ephraim’s spiritual degeneracy. Balances of deceit. Ephraim was not on the high spiritual plane of the patriarch, wrestling and prevailing with God, but was a materialistically-minded huckster and exploiter, given to fraud and oppression. Instead of the mercy and justice that God required, the Israelites had descended into greedy, dishonest, oppressive trafficking, using the “balances of deceit” (see Lev. 19:36; Deut. 25:13-16).

By SdaBc