172 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



Amos, we saw, had ceased, even during the brilliant 

 administration of the house of Jehu, to believe that any 

 policy could save a nation that had departed so far from 

 Jahveh and His law. And now the dimmest eyes could 

 see that the days of the nation were numbered. When 

 Hosea calls upon the people to turn from schemes of 

 Egyptian alliance or Assyrian vassalage, he does not 

 dream that the result will be present deliverance. He 

 calls not for the correction of a political error, but for the 

 forsaking of political sin. The worldly policy of the rulers 

 is of one piece with the moral corruption that pervades the 

 whole people. &quot; The people,&quot; he says, &quot; fear not Jahveh, 

 and what can a king do for them ? &quot; 1 The calf worship, 

 the Baal worship, the impurity, the deceit and violence 

 that filled the land, called for a judgment that could not 

 fail. 



The trumpet to thy lips ! 



He swoops like an eagle On the House of Jahveh, 



Because they have transgressed my covenant, 



Trespassed against my law . . . 



Israel hath cast off the gracious One, 



The foe pursue him ! 2 



The prophet is conscious indeed that he is called to 

 proclaim truths which, if listened to, would save the 

 people. Could they be brought to trust in Jahveh, and 

 obey Him, He would save them ; but so little does he look 

 for such an issue that he feels that the prophetic spirit 

 too must stumble and fall in the general ruin. But with 

 all this, there is in Hosea another side, which we may 

 characterise in the words of Ewald : 



&quot; If Hosea had resigned himself to these painful feelings 

 alone, he might have been a poet, but could never have 

 been a prophet. As a prophet of Jahveh, he can indeed 

 forebode the necessity of the fall of the present form of 

 the kingdom, but must not overlook the eternal truths and 

 hopes that lie beyond ; and to these, in the last instance, 

 he must expressly point, as the only light which dissipates 

 the darkness of the present and the nearest future. . . . 



1 Hosea x. 3. 2 Ibid. viii. i seq. 



