Hosea 4:1-10

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Hosea 4:1-5

Here is, I. The court set, and both attendance and attention demanded: ?Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for to you is the word of this conviction sent, whether you will hear or whether you will forbear.? Whom may God expect to give him a fair hearing, and take from him a fair warning, but the children of Israel, his own professing people? Yea, they will be ready enough to hear when God speaks comfortably to them; but are they willing to hear when he has a controversy with... read more

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Hosea 4:6-11

God is here proceeding in his controversy both with the priests and with the people. The people were as those that strove with the priests (Hos. 4:4) when they had priests that did their duty; but the generality of them lived in the neglect of their duty, and here is a word for those priests, and for the people that love to have it so, Jer. 5:31. And it is observable here how the punishment answers to the sin, and how, for the justifying of his own proceedings, God sets the one over-against... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:1

Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel ,.... The people of the ten tribes, as distinct from Judah, Hosea 4:15 , the prophet having finished his parables he was ordered to take up and deliver, and his explanations of them, and concluded with a gracious promise of the conversion of the Jews in the latter day, enters upon a new discourse, which begins with reproof for various sins; since what had been delivered in parables and types had had no effect upon them, they are called upon... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:2

By swearing, and lying ,.... Which some join together, and make but one sin of it, false swearing, so Jarchi and Kimchi; but that swearing itself signifies, as the Targum interprets it; for it not only takes in all cursing and imprecations, profane oaths, and taking the name of God in vain, and swearing by the creatures, but may chiefly design perjury; which, though one kind of "lying", may be distinguished from it here; the latter intending "lying" in common, which the devil is the father... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:3

Therefore shall the land mourn ,.... Because of the calamities on it, the devastations made in it; nothing growing upon it, through a violent drought; or the grass and corn being trodden down, or eaten up, by a foreign army: and everyone that dwelleth therein shall languish ; that is, every man, an inhabitant thereof, shall become weak, languish away, and die through wounds received by the enemy; or for want of food, or being infected with the wasting and destroying pestilence: with... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:4

Yet, let no man strive, nor reprove another ,.... Or rather, "let no man strive, nor any man reprove us" F17 ואל יוכה איש "et ne reprehendito quisquam, scil. nos", Schmidt. ; and are either the words of the people, forbidding the prophet, or any other man, to contend with them, or reprove them for their sins, though guilty of so many, and their land in so much danger on that account: so the Targum, "but yet they say, let not the scribe teach, nor the prophet reprove:' or... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:5

Therefore shall thou fall in the day ,.... Either, O ye people, everyone of you, being so refractory and incorrigible; or, O thou priest, being as bad as the people; for both, on account of their sins, should fall from their present prosperity and happiness into great evils and calamities; particularly into the hands of their enemies, and be carried captive into another land: and this should be "in the day", or "today" F18 היום "hodie", Munster, Montanus, Drusius, Tarnovius, Rivet;... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:6

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge ,.... This is not to be understood of those who are the Lord's people by special grace; for they cannot he destroyed, at least with everlasting destruction; God's love to them, his choice of them, covenant with them, the redemption of them by Christ, and the grace of God in them, secure them from such destruction: nor can they perish through want of knowledge; for though they are by nature as ignorant as others, yet it is the determinate will of... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:7

As they were increased, so they sinned against me ,.... As the children of the priests increased and grew up, they sinned against the Lord, imitating their parents; they were as many sinners as they were persons, not one to be excepted: this expresses their universal depravity and corruption. Some understand it of their increase, as in number, so in riches, wealth, honour, dignity, and authority, and yet they sinned more and more; which shows their ingratitude. So the Targum, "as I have... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4:8

They eat up the sin of my people ,.... That is, the priests did so, as the Targum, the priests of Jeroboam; they ate up the sacrifices which the people brought for their sins: and their fault was, either that they ate that which belonged to the true priests of the Lord, so Jarchi; or they did that, and had no concern to instruct the people in the right way; all that they regarded were good eating and drinking, and living voluptuously; and were altogether careless about instructing the people... read more

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