Hosea 4:1

This chapter opens the last section of the prophecy in which the same themes recur again and again. The guilt of the nation is stressed (Hosea 4:1-3), with particular attention to the guilt of the priests (Hosea 4:4-8), the prophecy of punishment for all (Hosea 4:9-10), and an elaboration of the immoral practices in their religion (Hosea 4:11-19). The terminology of the chapter, especially in the first three verses, is technical and legal.

"The source of the forms is legal procedure as practiced in Israel's court, and their use has the effect of putting the entire nation on trial."[1]

In this accusation and arraignment of Israel, it is God Himself who makes the charges and pronounces the judgment. The crime of Israel which forms the burden of God's formal charge against the nation is a specific one: "It is a breach of contract!"[2] The sacred covenant that God had made with the chosen people had been wantonly violated and repudiated; and the specifics of it are spelled out by Hosea's delivery of God's message to the rebellious nation. "One could literally translate part of Hosea 4:1 as, `The Lord has a lawsuit with the inhabitants of the land.'"[3] The whole thrust of this chapter and of the whole prophecy of Hosea presupposes prior relationship between God and Israel; and, without this basic prior condition assumed by Hosea, his prophecy would have little meaning. As Harper said:

"A relationship has existed between Yahweh and Israel, the terms of which Israel has not observed ... There is every reason to suppose that the Decalogue in its original form was at this time in existence."[4]

Hosea 4:1

"Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel; for Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor goodness, nor knowledge of God in the land."

Hosea moved at once to make clear what had been signified already in his own tragic marriage, which had been providentially designed to portray that which was happening upon a far greater scale in the life of the entire nation. The terrible message had already been spelled out by what had happened in the case of Gomer. Her infidelity resulted in her leaving her husband; and when she had been reduced to a state of slavery as a result of her sins, Hosea bought her back, not for the purpose of remarrying her, but with the purpose of reducing her to the status of a servant retained without conjugal rights of any kind, and in certain areas required to do his will without regard to her own inclinations. God inspired Hosea to recount the sordid details of his marriage as a warning to Israel, and as a symbol of what would happen to the nation; but in this chapter and to the end of Hosea, God dropped any further use of allegory and spelled it out dramatically in the plainest and most literal language possible.

This verse announces a change of status for Israel, once the chosen bride of Yahweh, but now no longer a bride but an adversary.

"Jehovah hath a controversy with the inhabitants ..." God appears here not as the beloved husband of the chosen nation but as their opponent.

"Because there is no truth ..." God had not changed, but Israel had changed. Having once known the true God, they knew him no more, having forsaken him to worship the old pagan gods of the land of Canaan. Perhaps, "There were some righteous people left; but they were few, and they hid themselves from the face of the multitude who were wicked."[5] The "truth" which was missing from Israel was the knowledge of God and of his revealed will, which is the only dependable, objective standard of "truth" the world has ever known. Truth, God's truth, is the only basis of morality, order, and trust that has ever proved effective. Morality cannot be subjectively determined. Morality cannot be either determined or perpetuated upon humanistic considerations. Morality can not be predicated upon merely intellectual and philosophical premises. Either God's truth is received and honored, or immorality, shame and debauchery are the inevitable alternative. Israel had chosen that awful alternative; and, as Butler stated it:

"When the divine standard of truth, God's revealed word, is rejected, moral and political suicide is the result. This is exactly what happened to Israel in Hosea's time, and to Judah in Jeremiah's time, complete moral and political anarchy. The same will happen to any nation that rejects God's Word, the Bible!"[6]

"The ultimate cause of the decline and final collapse of every nation or civilization has been moral and spiritual rather than material."[7] The word here rendered "truth" is translated as "faithfulness" in some versions; and the term certainly includes the sense of "truth obeyed"; but "faithfulness" has the weakness of leaving open the question of "faithfulness to what?" "Truth" is to be preferred here.

"Nor knowledge of God in the land ..." All of the vain efforts of some expositors to defend the notion that the true God of Israel was actually being worshipped any longer in the Northern Kingdom are defeated in this simple statement. The knowledge of God had disappeared in Israel, despite the fact of some pagan worshippers using his sacred name alongside that of their pagan idols. Knowing God in the Biblical sense means an active and obedient knowledge that consciously conforms to the teaching of God's Word. People who "obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" are one in every sense with the people "who know not God" (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).