\\INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 12\\

This chapter contains complaints and charges both against Israel and
Judah, and threatens them with punishment in case they repent not,
which they are exhorted to: and first Ephraim is charged with idolatry,
vain confidence in, and alliances with, foreign nations, \\#Ho 12:1\\; and
then the Lord declares he has a controversy with Judah, and will punish
the inhabitants of it for their sins, \\#Ho 12:2\\; which are aggravated by
their being the descendants of so great a man as Jacob, who got the
advantage of his elder brother, had much power with God, and received
favours from him, and they also, \\#Ho 12:3-5\\; and therefore are exhorted
to turn to God, wait on him, and do that which is right and good,
\\#Ho 12:6\\. Ephraim is again in his turn charged with fraudulent dealing
in trade, and with oppression, and the love of it; and yet pretended he
got riches by his own labour, without wronging any, \\#Ho 12:7,8\\;
nevertheless, the Lord promises them public ordinances of worship, and
joy in them, and the ministry of his prophets, \\#Ho 12:9,10\\; though for
the present they were guilty of gross idolatry, \\#Ho 12:11\\; which is
aggravated by the raising of Jacob their progenitor from a low estate,
and the wonderful preservation of him, and the bringing of them out of
Egypt, \\#Ho 12:12,13\\; and the chapter is closed with observing
Ephraim's bitter provocation of God, for which his reproach should
return unto him, and his blood be left upon him, \\#Ho 12:14\\.