Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 26:16 LORD, in trouble have they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.
Jeremiah 29:12-14 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
Deuteronomy 4:29-31 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
Psalms 78:34 When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and enquired early after God.
Leviticus 26:40-42 If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also…
Psalms 50:15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
Jeremiah 3:13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under ev…
Job 27:8-10 For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 5:8–end
Here is, I. A loud alarm sounded, giving notice of judgments coming (Hos 5:8): Blow you the cornet in Gibeah and in Ramah, two cities near together in the confines of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, Gibeah a frontier-town of the kingdom of Judah, Ramah of Israel; so that the warning is hereby sent into both kingdoms. "Cry aloud at Beth-aven, or Bethel, which place seems to be already seized upon by the enemy, and therefore the trumpet is not sounded there, but you hear the outcries of those that shout for mastery, mixed with theirs that are overcome." Let them cry aloud, "After thee, O Benjamin! comes the enemy. The tribe of Ephraim is already vanquished, and the enemy will be upon thy…
return to my place--that is, withdraw My favor.
till they acknowledge their offence--The Hebrew is, "till they suffer the penalty of their guilt." Probably "accepting the punishment of their guilt" (compare Zac 11:5) is included in the idea, as English Version translates. Compare Lev 26:40-41; Jer 29:12-13; Eze 6:9; Eze 20:43; Eze 36:31.
seek my face--that is, seek My favor (Pro 29:26, Margin).
in . . . affliction . . . seek me early--that is, diligently; rising up before dawn to seek Me (Psa 119:147; compare Psa 78:34).
Next: Hosea Chapter 6
Adam Clarke on Hosea 5:15
I will go and return to my place - I will abandon them till they acknowledge their offenses. This had the wished-for effect, as we shall see in the following chapter; for they repented and turned to God, and he had mercy upon them. These two verses are considered as instances of the true sublime.
John Gill on Hosea 5:15
I will go and return to my place,.... Leave the countries of Israel and of Judah, where he had used to grant his gracious and spiritual presence unto his people, and watched over them, and cared for them, and bestowed many favours on them, and go up to heaven, the place of his more glorious presence, as the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi, interpret it; and there, as it were, shut himself up, particularly with respect to these people, as if he had no more thought of them, or concern for them: this is to be understood in a sense becoming and agreeable to the omnipresence of God:
till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face; till the Israelites acknowledge their idolatry, and the Jews the…
The Church Fathers
"They seek early" seems to indicate here that they, as if awakened from the sleep of thoughtlessness which was in them, and further as if brought from night and darkness to light and day, will call out to one another that it is fitting to return to the Lord. This is a return to the senses of those fallen into deception and those taken up by the worship of idols. For the fruit of vigilance is at present seeking to get out of the gloom which is demonic.
By "my place" we have to understand God's place, his splendor and majesty, so that by no means according to the dispensation does he descend to men, become angry, merciful, forgetful, become as a panther, turn into a lion, change into beasts. On the contrary, he disdains human things and allows those whom he once protected to be cast to enemies so that they may languish, disappear and be destroyed, and seek eventually the face of the Lord.… Others consider God's place the heaven where God returns after being offended by the inhabitants of the earth, and he allows to go to ruin those who, due to the multitude of their sins, turned the mercy of the Lord into the rage of beasts toward them.
It seems that the saying refers very suitably to the mystery of Christ and the redemption through him, pointing to the conversion to God. For the face of God we seek signifies most certainly the Son himself, "who is the image, and the radiance, and the very seal of the Father's nature." Thus the true face of God and Father is the Son, inasmuch as he is recognized in him: "And who saw him, saw the Father." The psalmist thus calls him when he cries out to God of all, saying: "Cause your face to shine upon your servant." Indeed, just as from the person of those who were already transformed according to the Son through the Spirit: "The light of your face, O Lord, has been marked upon us." Or as the prophet says: "The light of our face, the anointed Lord."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Afflictions Made Beneficial · In leading us to seek God in prayer — In leading us to seek God in prayer
Backsliding · Afflictions sent to heal — Afflictions sent to heal
Confession Of Sin · God requires — God requires
Seekers · 5:8;8:5,6; — 5:8;8:5,6;
Seeking God · Afflictions designed to lead to — Afflictions designed to lead to
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Hosea 5:15
15. I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.
15. Ibo, revertar ad locum meum, donex agnoscant se peccasse (ad verbum est, peccare,) et quaerant faciem meam: ubi fuerit ipsis afflictio, properabunt ad me (vel, me quaerent.)
The word schr, shicker, signifies the morning: hence the verb means, "to seek early," or, "to rise early," as men do when they apply themselves diligently to anything: but in many places of Scripture it is taken simply in the sense of seeking; and this simple meaning seems most suitable to this place, They will seek me in their tribulation God here declares, that afte…
No help is to be expected from Assyria, because the Lord will punish His people. Hos 5:14. "For I am like a lion to Ephraim, and like the young lion to the house of Judah: I, I tear in pieces, and go; I carry away, and there is no deliverer. Hos 5:15. "I go, return to my place, till they repent and shall seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early." For the figure of the lion, which seizes its prey, and tears it in pieces without deliverance, see Hos 13:7 and Isa 5:29. אשּׂא denotes the carrying away of booty, as in Sa1 17:34. For the fact itself, compare Deu 32:39. The first clause of Hos 5:15 is still to be interpreted from the figure of the lion. As the lion withdraws into i…
Hosea again reminded Israel that divine judgment was not merely punitive. God’s purpose was to convince Israel to admit their guilt and return to the Lord (see 2:2, 14).
Rashi on Hosea 5:15
I will go away I will withdraw from them and return to the heaven.
until they admit their guilt i. e., until they consider themselves guilty, to confess their guilt.
they will seek Me Heb. יִשַׁחֲרֻנְנִי.
