Hosea 11:9-10a - “No, I will not unleash my fierce anger. I will not completely destroy Israel, for I am God and not a mere mortal. I am the Holy One living among you,and I will not come to destroy. They will follow me. I, the Lord, will roar like a lion.And when I roar, my people will return trembling from the west.“

“He is God, and not man, as in other things, so in pardoning sin and sparing sinners. If they had offended a man like themselves, he would not, he could not have borne it; his passion would have overpowered his compassion, and he would have executed the fierceness of his anger; but I am God, and not man.

“… If an earthly prince were in such a strait between justice and mercy, he would be at a loss how to compromise the matter between them; but he who is God, and not man, knows how to find out an expedient to secure the honor of his justice and yet advance the honor of his mercy. Man’s compassions are nothing in comparison with the tender mercies of our God, whose thoughts and ways, in receiving returning sinners, are as much above ours as heaven is above the earth.

“…It is a great encouragement to our hope in God’s mercies to remember that he is God, and not man. He is the Holy One. One would think this were a reason why he should reject such a provoking people. No; God knows how to spare and pardon poor sinners, not only without any reproach to his holiness, but very much to the honor of it, as he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and therein declares his righteousness, now Christ has purchased the pardon and he has promised it (Matthew Henry’s commentary).”

Today, let’s thank God and be in awe of who he is and his overflowing compassion. Let us follow him as we have heard/hear his roar in Jesus Christ.

-AP