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Commentary on Hosea, Chapter Six
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COMMENTARY ON HOSEA, CHAPTER SIX They will arise to say to me, Come now, let us return to the Lord our God, because it is he who seized, and will heal us; it is he who will strike us and bind up our wounds, and will cure us after two days. On the third day we shall rise and live in his presence and know. We shall press on to know the Lord, for we shall find him ready as the dawn. He will come to us as early and late rain come to the earth (vv.1–3). HE PHRASE They will arise here probably suggests that, as though awakening from the sleep of their dementia, and, as it were, now emerging from the darkness of night into the light of day, they will utter to one another the exhortation that it now behoves them to return to the Lord. This awakening is experienced by people caught up in error and involved in worship of the idols. (137) The benefit, in fact, of being awake is to seek to be rid of the mist—obviously of a demonic kind—and as though now filled with divine light to set a direct course towards knowledge of the one who is by nature and in truth God and Lord despite formerly being of the view that “there are many gods and lords” in the world, reaching such a degree of folly as “to say to a piece of wood, You are my father, and to a stone, You gave birth to me.”1 The verse continues the figure; note how, as in the case of a lion or any other animal, they say, It is he who seized, and will heal us. Since he had said, remember, “I will be like a panther to Ephraim, and like a lion to the house of Judah, I shall rob and make my escape, I shall take and there will be no one to rescue,”2 they maintained the metaphor in saying that the one who seized will cure; in other words, just as the wrath caused distress, he will completely gladden those who also trust in the good effects of 138 1. 1 Cor 8.5; Jer 2.27. 2. Hos 5.14. his clemency. At the same time we shall realize that when God afflicts some, no one can do anything, whereas there would be need of him, and him alone, for restoring the fortunes of those who trust in him. If, on the other hand, we should apply the force of the prophecy to everyone on earth, the sense we shall give it is as follows. In the beginning, remember, Adam seized human nature; he immediately put [the human being] under a curse, subjecting him to death and corruption. Therefore, wrath struck him, but grace bound up his wounds; he was healed by Christ, who called him to knowledge of the true vision of God, confirmed them in observance of the commandments through the Spirit, in turn made us devout by rendering us proof against corruption and ridding us of the ailments of the ancients, namely, sin and passions.3 Now, this was the lot of those on earth, not (138) on the first or second occasion, but on the third, that is, the eventual and final one. All time, you see, is divided into three—the first, the middle , and the last, when Christ was made manifest to us. Consequently , they are saying that the time of binding up wounds will come to us, as it were, as a result of surgical intervention after two days, the prophetic verse assigning us the period of a day. At that time, he says, We shall press on to know the Lord, by press on meaning “hasten”; at that time, too, we shall rise and live in his presence, for we shall be raised with Christ. And since “one died for all,”4 we live his life, no longer placed outside God’s vision as a result of the Fall, nor cast behind him as a result of the sin; instead, we are now admitted to his sight, and have the right to speak freely to him on account of righteousness in Christ. The fact that it is through him that we know also the Father, and that the Son has become for us the fullness of every good in us, they admit by saying, we shall find him ready as the dawn...