l, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thine
help.'--HOSEA xiii. 9 (A.V.).

'It is thy destruction, O Israel, that thou art against Me, against
thy Help' (R.V.).

These words are obscure by reason of their brevity. Literally they might
be rendered, 'Thy destruction for, in, or against Me; in, or against thy
Help.' Obviously, some words must be supplied to bring out any sense.
Our Authorised Version has chosen the supplement 'is,' which fails to
observe the second occurrence with 'thy Help' of the preposition, and is
somewhat lax in rendering the 'for' of the second clause by the neutral
'but.' It is probably better to read, as the Revised Version, with most
modern interpreters, 'Thou art against Me, against thy Help,' and to
find in the second clause the explanation, or analysis, of the
destruction announced in the first. So we have here the wail of the
parental love of God over the ruin which Israel has brought on itself,
and that parental love is setting forth Israel's true condition, in the
hope that they may discern it. Thus, even the rebuke holds enclosed a
promise and a hope. Since God is their help, to depart from Him has been
ruin, and the return to Him will be life. Hosea, or rather the Spirit
that spake through Hosea, blended wonderful tenderness with unflinching
decision in rebuke, and unwavering certainty in foretelling evil with
unfaltering hope in the promise of possible blessing. His words are set
in the same key as the still more wonderfully tender ones that Jesus
uttered as He looked across the valley from Olivet to the gleaming city
on the other side, and wailed, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would
I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not! Therefore your house is left unto you
desolate.'

We may note here

I. The loving discovery of ruin.

It is strange that men should need to be told, and that with all
emphasis, the evil case in which they are; and stranger still that they
should resent the discovery and reject it. This pathetic pleading is the
voice of a divine Father trying to convince His son of misery and
danger; and the obscurity of the text is as if that voice was choked
with sobs, and could only speak in broken syllables the tragical word in
which all the evil of Israel's sin is gathered up--'his destruction,' or
'corruption.' It gathers up in one terrible picture the essential nature
of sin and the