Hosea 11

Hosea 11:1-12 . GOD'S FORMER BENEFITS, AND ISRAEL'S INGRATITUDE RESULTING IN PUNISHMENT, YET JEHOVAH PROMISES RESTORATION AT LAST.

Hosea 11:5 shows this prophecy was uttered after the league made with Egypt ( 2 Kings 17:4 ).

1. Israel . . . called my son out of Egypt--BENGEL translates, "From the time that he (Israel) was in Egypt, I called him My son," which the parallelism proves. So Hosea 12:9 and Hosea 13:4 use "from . . . Egypt," for "from the time that thou didst sojourn in Egypt." Exodus 4:22 also shows that Israel was called by God, "My son," from the time of his Egyptian sojourn ( Isaiah 43:1 ). God is always said to have led or brought forth, not to have "called," Israel from Egypt. Matthew 2:15 , therefore, in quoting this prophecy (typically and primarily referring to Israel, antitypically and fully to Messiah), applies it to Jesus' sojourn in Egypt, not His return from it. Even from His infancy, partly spent in Egypt, God called Him His son. God included Messiah, and Israel for Messiah's sake, in one common love, and therefore in one common prophecy. Messiah's people and Himself are one, as the Head and the body. Isaiah 49:3 calls Him "Israel." The same general reason, danger of extinction, caused the infant Jesus, and Israel in its national infancy (compare Genesis 42:1-43:34,45:18,46:3,4'Ezekiel 16:4-6'Jeremiah 31:20') to sojourn in Egypt. So He, and His spiritual Israel, are already called "God's sons" while yet in the Egypt of the world.

2. As they called them--"they," namely, monitors sent by Me. "Called," in Hosea 11:1 , suggests the idea of the many subsequent calls by the prophets.
went from them--turned away in contempt ( Jeremiah 2:27 ).
Baalim--images of Baal, set up in various places.

3. taught . . . to go--literally "to use his feet." Compare a similar image, Deuteronomy 1:31 , Deuteronomy 8:2 Deuteronomy 8:5 Deuteronomy 8:15 , Deuteronomy 32:10 Deuteronomy 32:11 , Nehemiah 9:21 , Isaiah 63:9 , Amos 2:10 . God bore them as a parent does an infant, unable to supply itself, so that it has no anxiety about food, raiment, and its going forth. Acts 13:18 , which probably refers to this passage of Hosea; He took them by the arms, to guide them that they might not stray, and to hold them up that they might not stumble.
knew not that I healed them--that is, that My design was to restore them spiritually and temporally ( Exodus 15:26 ).

4. cords of a man--parallel to "bands of love"; not such cords as oxen are led by, but humane methods, such as men employ when inducing others, as for instance, a father drawing his child, by leading-strings, teaching him to go ( Hosea 11:1 ).
I was . . . as they that take off the yoke on their jaws . . . I laid meat--as the humane husbandman occasionally loosens the straps under the jaws by which the yoke is bound on the neck of oxen and lays food before them to eat. An appropriate image of God's deliverance of Israel from the Egyptian yoke, and of His feeding them in the wilderness.

5. He shall not return into . . . Egypt--namely, to seek help against Assyria (compare Hosea 7:11 ), as Israel lately had done ( 2 Kings 17:4 ), after having revolted from Assyria, to whom they had been tributary from the times of Menahem ( 2 Kings 15:19 ). In a figurative sense, "he shall return to Egypt" ( Hosea 9:3 ), that is, to Egypt-like bondage; also many Jewish fugitives were literally to return to Egypt, when the Holy Land was to be in Assyrian and Chaldean hands.
Assyrian shall be his king--instead of having kings of their own, and Egypt as their auxiliary.
because they refused to return--just retribution. They would not return (spiritually) to God, therefore they shall not return (corporally) to Egypt, the object of their desire.