Hosea 4-14

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Hosea 4

Prophets were sent to be reprovers, to tell people of their faults, and to warn them of the judgments of God, to which by sin they exposed themselves; so the prophet is employed in this and the following chapters. He is here, as counsel for the King of kings, opening an indictment against the people of Israel, and labouring to convince them of sin, and of their misery and danger because of sin, that he might prevail with them to repent and reform. I. He shows them what were the grounds of... read more

Matthew Henry

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

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - Hosea 4:12-19

In these verses we have, as before, I. The sins charged upon the people of Israel, for which God had a controversy with them, and they are, 1. Spiritual whoredom, or idolatry. They have in them a spirit of whoredoms, a strong inclination to that sin; the bent and bias of their hearts are that way; it is their own iniquity; they are carried out towards it with an unaccountable violence, and this causes them to err. Note, The errors and mistakes of the judgment are commonly owing to the corrupt... read more

John Gill

John Gills Exposition of the Bible Commentary - Hosea 4

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 4 This chapter contains a new sermon or prophecy, delivered in proper and express words, without types and figures, as before; in which the people of Israel are summoned to appear at the tribunal of God, to hear the charge brought against them, and the sentence to be pronounced upon them, and which would be executed. They are charged with sins of omission and commission; with want of truth and mercy to men, and with ignorance of God; with swearing, lying, murder,... 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

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