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According to their pasture - They had a rich pasture, and were amply supplied with every good. They became exalted in their heart, forgat their God, and became a prey to their enemies. "He that exalteth himself shall be abased."
According to their pasture, so were they filled - o“He implies that their way of being ‹filled‘ was neither good nor praiseworthy, in that he says, ‹they were filled according to their pastures.‘ What or of what kind were these “their pastures?” What they longed for, what they murmured for, and spoke evil of God. For instance, when they said, ‹who wil give us flesh to eat? We remember the flesh which we did eat in Egypt freely. Our soul is dried up, because our eyes see nothing but this manna‘ Numbers 11:4-6. Since they desired such things in such wise, and, desiring, were filled with them to loathing, well are they called ‹their pastures.‘ For they sought God, not for Himself, but for them. They who follow God for Himself, things of this sort are not called ‹their‘ pastures, but the word of God is their pasture, according to that, ‹Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, which proceedeth out of the mouth of God‘ Deuteronomy 8:3.
These words, ‹according to their pastures,‘ convey strong blame. It is as if he said, ‹in their eating and drinking, they received their whole reward for leaving the land of Egypt and receiving for a time the law of God.‘ It is sin, to follow God for such ‹pastures.‘ Blaming such in the Gospel, Jesus saith, ‹Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto everlasting life‘ John 6:26-27. In like way, let all think themselves blamed, who attend the altar of Christ, not for the love of the sacraments which they celebrate, but only to ‹live of the altar.‘ This fullness is like that of which the Psalmist says, ‹The Lord gave them their desire and sent leanness withal into their bones‘ Psalm 106:15. For such fullness of the belly generates elation of spirit; such satiety produces forgetfulness of God.” It is more difficult to bear prosperity than adversity. They who, in the waste howling wilderness, had been retained in a certain degree of duty, forgat God altogether in the good land which he had given them. Whence it follows;
They were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten Me - For they owned not that they had all from Him, therefore they were puffed up with pride, and forgot Him in and by reason of His gifts. This was the aggravation of their sin, with which Hosea often reproaches them Hosea 2:5; Hosea 4:7; Hosea 10:1. They abused God‘s gifts, (as Christians do now) against Himself, and did the more evil, the more good God was to them. God had forewarned them of this peril, “When thou shalt have eaten and be full, beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage” (Deuteronomy 6:11-12; add Deuteronomy 8:11, … ). He pictured it to them with the song of Moses; “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked; thou art waxen fat; thou art grown thick; thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him; thou hast forgotten God that formed thee” Deuteronomy 32:15, Deuteronomy 32:18.
They acted (as in one way or other do most Christians now,) as though God had commanded what he foretold of their evil deeds, or what he warned them against. “As their fathers did, so did they” Acts 7:51. “They walked in the statutes of the pagan, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel which they made. They did wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger. And the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all the prophets and by all the seers, saying, turn ye from your evil ways. And they hearkened not, and hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the Lord their God” 2 Kings 17:8, 2 Kings 17:11, 2 Kings 17:13-14.: “The words are true also of those rich and ungrateful, whom God hath filled with spiritual or temporal goods. But they, ‹being in honor, and having no understanding,‘ abuse the gifts of God, and, becoming unworthy of the benefits which they have received, have their hearts uplifted and swollen with pride, despising others, ‹glorying as though they had not received,‘ and not obeying the commands of God. Of such the Lord saith in Isaiah, ‹I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against Me. ‹“