This chapter either begins a new sermon, discourse,
or prophecy, or it is a continuation of the former; at
least it seems to be of the same argument with the
latter part of it, only it is directed to Israel alone; and
consists of complaints against them because of their
manifold sins, and of denunciations of punishment for
them. They are charged with ingratitude to God, sin-
ning in a daring manner against mercy, and with false-
hood, thefts, and robberies, ver. 1. with want ofconside-
ration of the omniscience of God, and his notice of their
sins, which surrounded them, yet. 2. with flattery to
their king and princes, ver. 3. with adultery, which lust
raged in them like a heated oven, vet. 4. with drunken-
Hess, aggravated by drawing their king into it, vet. 5.
with raging lusts, which devoured their judges, made
their kings to fall, and brought on such a general cor-
ruption, that there were none that called upon the Lord,
vet. 6, 7. with mixing themselves with the nations of the
earth, and so learning their ways, and bringing their su-
perstition and idolatry into the worship of God, so that
they were nothing in religion, like a half-baked cake,
ver. 8. with stupidity and insensibility of their declining
state, ver. 9. with pride, irapenitence, and stubbornness,
ver. 10. with folly, in seeking to Egypt and Assyria
for help, and not to the Lord; for which they would
be taken as birds in a net, and sorely chastised, ver.
11, lc2. with ingratitude, hypocrisy, and. deceitfulness;
for all which they are threatened with destruction,
ver. 13, 14, 15, 16.
Vet. 1. When I would have healed Israel, &c.] Or
rather, when I healed Israel {k}; for this is not to be un-
derstood of a ve!!eity, wish, or desire of healing and
saving them, as Jarchi; nor of a bare attempt to do it
by the admonitions of the prophets, and by corrections
in Providence; but of actual healing them; and by
which is meant, not healing them in a spiritual and re-
ligious sense, as in ch. vi. 1. but in a political sense, of
the restoring of their civil state to a more flourishing
condition; which was done in the times of Jeroboam
the son of Joash, as Kimchi rightly observes; who re-
stored the coast of Israel, from the entering of Hamath,
unto the sea of the plain, 2 Kings xiv. 25, 26: then the
iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness
of Samaria; some refer this to the times of Jeroboam
the first, and that the sense is, that the Lord having
cured Israel of the idolatry introduced by Solomon,
quickly a new scene of idolatry broke out in Ephraim,
or the ten tribes, of which Samaria was the me-
tropolis; for Jeroboam soon set up the calves at Dan
and Beth-el to be worshipped; but it does not ap.
pear that Israel was corrupted with the idolatry of
Solomon, and needed a cure then; nor was Samaria
built in Jeroboam's time: others apply it to the times
of Jehu, who, though he slew the worshippers of Baal,
and broke his images, and destroyed him out of Israel,
yet retained the worship of the calves at Dan and
Beth-el, 2 Kings x. 25--30. so, though they were healed
of one sort of idolatry, another prevailed. It is right,
in both these senses, that the iniquity of Ephraim, and
wickedness or wickednesses of Samaria, are taken for
the idolatrous worship of the golden calves; but then
it respects the times of Jeroboam the second, the son
of Joash, in whose days Israel was prosperous; and
yet these superstitious and idolatrous practices of wor-
ship were flagrant and notorious, were countenanced
by the king and his courtiers that dwelt at Samaria, as
is clear from Amos vii. 10--13. which was an instance
of great ingratitude to the Lord. For they commit
falsehood; among themselves, lying to one another,
and deceiving each other; or to God, deal falsely with
him, are guilty of false worship, worshipping idols,
which are vanities and lies: and the thiefcomcth in,
and the troop of robbers spoileth without; which may
be interpreted either of their sins, their sins in general,
both private and public; and their sins of theft and
robbery in particular; both such as were committed in
houses by the thief privately entering there, and by a
gang of robbers in the streets, or on the highway: so
the Targum, "in the night they thieve in houses, and
"in the day they rob on the plain," or fields: or else
of punishment for their sins; and then the words may
be rendered {l}, therefore the thief entereth in, and the troop
or arm. y spreads without; this thief was Shallum, who
came m to kill and to steal; he slew Zachariah the son
of Jeroboam, after he had reigned six months, and
usurped the kingdom, and so put an end to the family
of Jehu, according as the Lord had threatened, 2 Kings
viii. l2. the troop or army is the Assyrian army under
Pul, who came against Menahem, king of Israel, of
whom he exacted a tribute, and departed, 2 Kings
xv. 19, 20. so Cocceius.
Ver. 2. And they consider not in their hearts that I
remember all their wiclcedness, &c.] That is, the peo-
ple of the ten tribes, and the inhabitants of Samaria,
whose iniquity and wickedness are said to be disco-
vered, and to be very notorious: and yet they said not
to their hearts {m}, as in the original text; they did not
think willfin themselves; they did not commune with
their own hearts; they did not put themselves in mind,
or put this to their consciences, that the Lord saw all
their wicked actions, their idolatry, falsehood, thefts,
and robberies, and whatsoever they were guilty of;
that the Lord took notice of them, and put them down
in the book of his remembrance, in order to call them
to an account, and punish them for them: now their
own 'doings have beset them about; or, that now their own
doings, &c. {n}; they don't consider in their hearts that
their sins are all around them, on every side, com-
mitted by them openly, and in abundance, and are
notorious to all their neighbours, and much more to

{k} \^yaprk\^ "dum curo", Junius & Tremellius; "dum medeor", Piscator,
Zanchius, Calvin; "quando sanavi, vel sano", Schmidt.
{l} \^Uwxb dwdg jvp awby bngw\^ "ideo fur ingreditur", Munster. So some
in Drusius.
{m} \^Mbbll wrmay lbw\^ "& non dicebant ad cor suum", Cocceius; "& non
dicunt cordi suo", Schmidt
{n} \^Mhyllem Mwbbo hte\^ "quod circumdent ipsos opera eorum", Schmidt.