John Calvin Commentary Hosea 7:5

"On the day of our king the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with scoffers." — Hosea 7:5 (ASV)

The Prophet here rebukes especially the king and his courtiers. He had spoken of the whole people and shown that the filth of evils was diffused everywhere; but he now relates how strangely the king and his courtiers ruled. Hence he says, The day of our king! the princes have made him sick; that is, so great was the intemperance of their excess that the king himself became sick from too much drinking and extended his hand to mockers. In short, the Prophet means that the members of government in the kingdom of Israel had become so corrupt that in the king's hall or palace there was no regard for decency and no shame.

By “the day of the king,” some understand his birthday; and we know that it has been a very old custom even for the common people to celebrate their birthday. Others refer it to the day of coronation, which is more probable. Some take it as the very beginning of his reign, which seems strained. The day of our king! That is, “Our king is now seated on his throne; he has now undertaken the government of the kingdom; let us then feast plentifully and glut ourselves with eating and drinking.” This sense fits well, but I do not know whether it can fit the term “day”; he calls it the day of the king. I would then rather adopt the opinion of those who explain it as the annual day of coronation: The day then of our king. Still other interpreters translate the sentence as follows: “In the day the princes have made the king sick”; but I make this separation in it: The day of the king! the princes have made him sick.

It was not indeed sinful or blameworthy to celebrate yearly the memory of the coronation; but then the king ought to have stirred up himself and others to give thanks to God; the goodness of the Lord, in preserving the kingdom safe, ought to have been acknowledged at the end of the year; the king ought also to have asked God for the spirit of wisdom and strength for the future, so that he might rightly discharge his office.

But the Prophet shows here that nothing then was in a sound state, for they had turned into gross abuse what was in itself, as I have said, useful. The day then of our king—how is it spent? Does the king humbly ask for pardon before God if he has done anything unworthy of his station, if in anything he has offended?

Does he give thanks that God has until now sustained him by His support? Does he prepare himself for the future discharge of his duty? No such thing; instead, the princes indulge in excess and stimulate their king; yes, they so overcome him with immoderate drinking that they make him sick. This then, he says, is their way of proceeding; nothing royal, or even anything worthy of men, now appears in the king’s palace; for they abandon themselves like beasts to drunkenness, and such great intemperance prevails among them that they ruin the king himself with a bottle of wine.

Some translate this as “a flagon”; חמת, chemet, properly means a bottle; and we know that wine was then preserved in bottles, as people in Eastern lands still do today. So, with a bottle of wine, with immoderate drinking, they made the king sick.

He then says that the king stretched forth his hand to scorners; that is, forgetting himself, he retained no seriousness, but became like a buffoon and indecently mixed with worthless men. For the Prophet, I do not doubt, calls those scorners, who, having cast away all shame, indulge in buffoonery and wantonness. He therefore says that the king held forth his hand to scorners as a sign of friendship. Since he was then the companion of buffoons and worthless men, he had cast away from himself everything royal that he ought to have possessed. This is the meaning.

The Prophet, therefore, deplores this corruption: that there was no longer any dignity or decency in the king and his princes, since they were wholly given, as they were, to excess and drunkenness; yes, they turned sacred days into this abuse, when the king ought to have conducted himself in a manner worthy of the highest rank of honor: he prostituted himself to every kind of wantonness, and his princes were his leaders and encouragers. The Prophet now deplores this great depravity.