The Lord Will Punish Israel
All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters. Hos. 9:15
is in Gilgal... Gilgal was the place where Jehovah was rejected and man’s king set up; where Saul received his message of rejection (1Sam. 13:4-15; 15:12-33); and where God hated them for their wickedness (cp. Hos. 4:15; 12:11).
for there I....Gilgal as a center of idol worship (compare 4:15), the place was representative of Israel’s spiritual adultery. Therefore, He had rejected them from intimate fellowship.
for the wickedness... God first began to know of their evil ways at Gilgal. It seems they were evil, even in their spirit. This had been the place Abraham made covenant with God. It had been the place of the renewal of that covenant by the people on the way to the Promised Land. The 12 memorial stones had been set up here also. This place, where God had met with His people, had become a place of much sorrow to Him. They had developed the worship of the calf at this very place. Gilgal became the center for their sin. Suddenly, God's great love for Israel is turned to hate.
them no more... No more until they come to repentance and quit the sins for which they were driven away and rejected by God (Hos. 5:15).
All their mischief is in Gilgal again the Divine voice strikes the connection between the national worship and the national sin yea, there do I hate them: for the evil of their doings from My house I will drive them. I will love them no more: all their nobles are rebels.
The sinful people were now the object of God’s hatred, rather than His love. The language employed here should probably be seen against a domestic background. The Lord had become displeased with His wife, unfaithful Israel. Such displeasure is termed hatred (cf. Deut. 22:13; 24:3, where the same verb, śānē', is used). God was prepared to drive her from the household drive them out of My house, withdrawing His love His devotion and protective care as her Husband; cf. Hos. 1:6; 2:4-5). The rebellious nation, whose opposition to the Lord’s covenant was epitomized by the Gilgal fertility cult (cf. Hos. 4:15; 12:11), would be expelled from His house i.e., the land; cf. Hos. 8:1; 9:8). Drive… out gāraš is used frequently of the conquest of Canaan, whereby the Lord gave Israel possession of His land (cf. Exo. 23:28, 23:31; Deut. 33:27). Now Israel was about to suffer the same fate as the Canaanites, whose practices it had assimilated. Hosea may also be alluding here to the sinful couple’s initial expulsion from God’s presence (cf. Gen. 3:24).
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