John Calvin Commentary Hosea 6:9

"And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way toward Shechem; yea, they have committed lewdness." — Hosea 6:9 (ASV)

The Prophet expands further on what he had briefly touched upon, for he does not now confine himself to the common people but directs his accusation against the priestly order. “See,” he says, “the priests conspire among themselves like robbers, so that they may slay wretched men who may meet them on the way.” It is indeed certain that the Prophet is not speaking here of open murders, for it is not believable that the priests had gone to such extremes of licentiousness that Gilead had become a slaughterhouse.

But the Prophets, we know, are accustomed to speak in this way whenever they reproach men for being bloodthirsty and cruel; they compare them to robbers, and rightly so. Hence he says, The faction of the priests kill men in the way, as if they were robbers conspiring together. And then he shows that the priests were so devoid of any fear of God that they committed every kind of cruelty, as if they were entirely devoted to robberies. This is the meaning.

The word שכמה, shicame, is undoubtedly taken by the Prophet for “consent.” What is meant by שכם, shicam, is properly the “shoulder,” but it is metaphorically used in the sense I have mentioned, as it is in Zephaniah 3: They shall serve the Lord שכם אחד, shicam ached, with one shoulder; that is, “with one consent” (Zephaniah 3). So also in this place, the priests conspire together שכמה, shicame, “with consent.” For those who think that the name of a place is intended are greatly mistaken.

Now, in the last clause of the verse, it is made clear why the Prophet had said that the priests were like robbers: ‘because,’ he says, ‘they do the thought,’ or ‘wickedness.’ The verb זמם, zamem, signifies “to think,” as has already been said; hence זמה, zame, is “thought” in general but is often taken by the Hebrews in a bad sense for a “bad design” or “wicked trick:” They do then their conceived wickedness.

We learn from this that they were not overt robbers, publicly infamous in the sight of men, but they were robbers before God because the city was full of wicked schemes, which were devised there. And since they carried out their schemes, the Prophet rightly says of them that they imitated the licentiousness of robbers. Let us now continue.