Verse 4
‘Yet let no man strive, nor let any man reprove, for your people are as those who strive with the priest.’
But none of the people of Israel will have any cause to grumble, or disagree with YHWH’s actions, or reprove Him for what He has done, because they themselves are lawless. They are like ‘priest-challengers’. In Israel the priests were the final supreme court, and to openly challenge their final decision was seen as worthy of death (see Deuteronomy 17:12-13). It was to engage in anarchism. And those who are lawless and anarchists are in no position to lay charges against anyone else at all, and especially not against God.
(Rendering ’al (not) as God (’El) instead of as the negative, although possible linguistically, does not seem likely in view of the fact that Hosea uses El elsewhere only in order to distinctively stress His power e.g. Hosea 1:10; Hosea 11:9; Hosea 11:12).
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