Hosea 14

Hosea 14:1-9 . GOD'S PROMISE OF BLESSING, ON THEIR REPENTANCE: THEIR ABANDONMENT OF IDOLATRY FORETOLD: THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE, THE JUST SHALL WALK IN GOD'S WAYS, BUT THE TRANSGRESSOR SHALL FALL THEREIN.

1. fallen by thine iniquity--( Hosea 5:5 , 13:9 ).

2. Take with you words--instead of sacrifices, namely, the words of penitence here put in your mouths by God. "Words," in Hebrew, mean "realities," there being the same term for "words" and "things"; so God implies, He will not accept empty professions ( Psalms 78:36 , Isaiah 29:13 ). He does not ask costly sacrifices, but words of heartfelt penitence.
receive us graciously--literally "(for) good."
calves of our lips--.that is, instead of sacrifices of calves, which we cannot offer to Thee in exile, we present the praises of our lips. Thus the exile, wherein the temple service ceased, prepared the way for the gospel time when the types of the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament being realized in Christ's perfect sacrifice once for all, "the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips" ( Hebrews 13:14 ) takes their place in the New Testament.

3. Three besetting sins of Israel are here renounced, trust in Assyria, application to Egypt for its cavalry (forbidden, Deuteronomy 17:16 ; compare Hosea 7:11 , 11:5 , 12:1 , 2 Kings 17:4 , Psalms 33:17 , Isaiah 30:2 Isaiah 30:16 , 31:1 ), and idolatry.
fatherless--descriptive of the destitute state of Israel, when severed from God, their true Father. We shall henceforth trust in none but Thee, the only Father of the fatherless, and Helper of the destitute ( Psalms 10:14 , 68:5 ); our nation has experienced Thee such in our helpless state in Egypt, and now in a like state again our only hope is Thy goodness.

4. God's gracious reply to their self-condemning prayer.
backsliding--apostasy: not merely occasional backslidings. God can heal the most desperate sinfulness [CALVIN].
freely--with a gratuitous, unmerited, and abundant love ( Ezekiel 16:60-63 ). So as to the spiritual Israel ( John 15:16 , Romans 3:24 , 5:8 , 1 John 4:10 ).

5. as the dew--which falls copiously in the East, taking the place of the more frequent rains in other regions. God will not be "as the early dew that goeth away," but constant ( Hosea 6:3 Hosea 6:4 , Job 29:19 , Proverbs 19:12 ).
the lily--No plant is more productive than the lily, one root often producing fifty bulbs [PLINY, Natural History, 21.5]. The common lily is white, consisting of six leaves opening like bells. The royal lily grows to the height of three or four feet; Matthew 6:29 alludes to the beauty of its flowers.
roots as Lebanon--that is, as the trees of Lebanon (especially the cedars), which cast down their roots as deeply as is their height upwards; so that they are immovable [JEROME], ( Isaiah 10:34 ). Spiritual growth consists most in the growth of the root which is out of sight.

6. branches--shoots, or suckers.
beauty . . . as the olive--which never loses its verdure. One plant is not enough to express the graces of God's elect people. The lily depicts its lovely growth; but as it wants duration and firmness, the deeply rooted cedars of Lebanon are added; these, however, are fruitless, therefore the fruitful, peace-bearing, fragrant, ever green olive is added.
smell as Lebanon--which exhaled from it the fragrance of odoriferous trees and flowers. So Israel's name shall be in good savor with all ( Genesis 27:27 , Solomon 4:11 ).