Hosea 8:8

8 Israel is eaten up; the people are mixed among the other nations and have become useless to me.

Hosea 8:8 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 8:8

Israel is swallowed up
Not only their substance, but their persons also, the whole nation of them, their whole estate, civil and ecclesiastic: it notes the utter destruction of them by the Assyrians, so that nothing of them and theirs remained; just as anyone is swallowed up and devoured by a breast of prey; the present is put for the future, because of the certainty of it: now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein [is] no
pleasure;
when Shalmaneser took Samaria, and with it swallowed up the whole kingdom of Israel, he carried captive the inhabitants of it, and placed them among the nations, in "Halah, Habor, by the river Gozan", and in the cities of the Medes, ( 2 Kings 17:6 ) ; where they lived poor, mean, and abject, and were treated with the utmost neglect and contempt; no more regarded than a broken useless vessel, or than a vessel of dishonour, that is made and used for the ease of nature, for which no more regard is had than for that service: thus idolaters, who dishonour God by their idolatries, shall, sooner or later, be brought to disgrace and dishonour themselves.

Hosea 8:8 In-Context

6 The idol is something a craftsman made; it is not God. Israel's calf-shaped idol will surely be smashed to pieces.

7 "Israel's foolish plans are like planting the wind, but they will harvest a storm. Like a stalk with no head of grain, it produces nothing. Even if it produced something, other nations would eat it.

8 Israel is eaten up; the people are mixed among the other nations and have become useless to me.

9 Israel is like a wild donkey all by itself. They have run to Assyria; They have hired other nations to protect them.

10 Although Israel is mixed among the nations, I will gather them together. They will become weaker and weaker as they suffer under the great king of Assyria.