John Calvin Commentary Hosea 4:18

"Their drink is become sour; they play the harlot continually; her rulers dearly love shame." — Hosea 4:18 (ASV)

The Prophet, using a metaphor, says here first, that their drink had become putrid. This means that they had so intemperately given themselves up to every kind of wickedness, that all things among them had become fetid. And the Prophet alludes to shameful and beastly excess: for the drunken are so addicted to wine that they emit a disgusting smell, and are never satisfied with drinking until, by vomiting, they throw up the excessive drafts they have taken.

The Prophet then had this in view. He does not speak, however, of the drinking of wine; this is certain. But by drunkenness, on the contrary, he means that unbridled licentiousness which then prevailed among the people. Since then they allowed themselves everything they pleased without shame, they seemed like drunken men, insatiable, who, when wholly given to wine, think it their highest delight always to have wine on the palate, or to fill their throat copiously, or to glut their stomach. When drunken men do these things, then they emit the offensive smell of wine.

This then is what the Prophet means when he says, Putrid has become their drink; that is, the people observe no moderation in sinning. They do not offend God now in the common and usual manner, but are entirely like beastly men, who are not at all ashamed, constantly to belch and to vomit, so that they offend by their fetid smell all who meet them. Such are these people.

He afterward adds, By wantoning they have become wanton. This is another comparison. The Prophet, we know, has until now been speaking of wantonness in a metaphorical sense, thereby signifying that Israel perfidiously abandoned themselves to idols, and thus violated their faith pledged to the true God. He now follows the same metaphor here: By wantoning they have become wanton. Hence he reproaches and represents them as infamous on two accounts: because they cast aside every shame, like the drunken who are so delighted with wine that through excess they emit its offensive smell, and because they were like wantons.

At last he says, Her princes have shamefully loved, Bring you. Here, in a particular way, the Prophet shows that the powerful sinned with extreme licentiousness, for they were given to bribery; and the eyes of the wise, we know, are blinded, and the hearts of the just are perverted, by gifts.

But the Prophet deliberately made this addition, so that we would know that there was then no one among the people who attempted to apply a remedy to the many prevailing vices, for even the rulers coveted gain; no one remembered for what purpose he had been called.

Hence it happened that everyone indulged himself with impunity in whatever pleased him. How so? Because there were no censors of public morals.

Here we see in what a wretched state the people are when there are none to exercise discipline, when even the judges gape for gain and care for nothing but gifts and riches; for then what the Prophet describes here concerning the people of Israel must happen. Her princes, then, have loved, Bring you.

Regarding the word קלון, kolun, we must briefly say that Hosea does not simply allude to any kinds of gifts, but to such gifts as proved that there was a public sale of justice; as if he said, “Now the judges, when they say, Bring you, when they love, Bring you, make no distinction whatever between right and wrong, and think all this lawful; for the people have become insensible to such a disgraceful conduct: hence they basely and shamefully seek gain.”

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that since you have at this time deigned in your mercy to gather us to your Church, and to enclose us within the boundaries of your word, by which you preserve us in the true and right worship of your majesty — O grant, that we may continue contented in this obedience to you. And though Satan may, in many ways, attempt to draw us here and there, and we ourselves are also, by nature, inclined to evil, O grant, that being confirmed in faith, and united to you by that sacred bond, we may yet constantly abide under the guidance of your word, and thus cleave to Christ your only-begotten Son, who has joined us forever to himself, that we may never by any means turn aside from you, but be, on the contrary, confirmed in the faith of his gospel, until at last he will receive us all into his kingdom. Amen.