Israel's Conversion
George Hutcheson. Hosea 3:5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king… 1. Albeit that Israel as a nation hath been, and yet is, rejected and lost, yet they will certainly return to God. This we should long and pray for. 2. As true repentance and conversion will appear in men's being sensible of their great distance from God, and in their seeking to make up this distance, so all this is a sweet and blessed fruit of affliction. 3. The covenant standeth still to be forthcoming for apostates, when they repent and turn to God, renouncing false ways and worship. 4. There is no right seeking of God, nor finding Him, or the comforts of the Covenant, but through Christ, whom converted Israel shall acknowledge and embrace. 5. The conversion will appear in its constancy and perseverance, and particularly in the converts entertaining a holy fear and awe of God. 6. As God is always good to His own people, whatever they may think to the contrary, so much of His goodness will be manifested in the time of that life from the dead, when all Israel shall be saved. 7. The goodness of God will not make a true convert presumptuous, but will be unto him matter of reverence and holy fear and trembling. 8. Albeit Israel be long in gathering and converting, yet we are firmly to believe that, before time end, it will certainly come to pass; for all this shall be in the latter days. (George Hutcheson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days. WEB: Afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to his blessings in the last days.