Hosea 5:1

Hosea 5:1. Hear this, O ye priests Or rather, princes, as Dr. Waterland renders כהנים , a reading which agrees better with the house of the king that follows, and the word admitting of both significations. For judgment is toward you Or, denounced against you, as Archbishop Newcome renders it, a translation favoured by the LXX., προς υμας εστι το κριμα ; by Houbigant, who reads, adest vobis judicium, judgment is at hand to you, or hangs over you. Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and upon Tabor Mizpah (a name derived from צפה , to watch, namely, from an eminence) was a mountain, and probably a city too, of Gilead. Tabor was a beautiful and fruitful mountain in the tribe of Zebulun. These places being much frequented by hunters and fowlers, many snares and nets were laid in them to catch birds and beasts: and with an allusion to this the Israelites are here described as insnaring men on these places into idolatry, because many of the tribe of Judah had been seduced, or drawn into idolatry, by their bad example.