John Gill Commentary Hosea 4

Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel
The people of the ten tribes, as distinct from Judah, (Hosea 4:15), the prophet having finished his parables he was ordered to take up and deliver, and his explanations of them, and concluded with a gracious promise of the conversion of the Jews in the latter day, enters upon a new discourse, which begins with reproof for various sins; since what had been delivered in parables and types had had no effect upon them, they are called upon to hear what the Lord would say to them by the prophet, in more clear and express terms; silence is ordered, and attention required to what follows:

for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land ;
the land of Israel; against him they had sinned, before him they stood guilty; he had something, yea, many things, against them; a charge is brought into open court, the indictment is read, an answer must be made: God is the antagonist, that moves and brings on the controversy in a judicial way, and who can answer him for one of a thousand? or stand before him, or in court with him, when he marks iniquity?

The charge is as follows, because there is no truth ;
none that do or speak truth; that are true and faithful men, true to their word, and faithful to their trust; no truth of grace in them, nor truth of doctrine held and received by them; truth failed from among them, and none were valiant for it; no truth or civil faith with respect to men, nor any truth of word or worship with respect to God:

nor mercy :
to poor and indigent creatures; no compassion shown them; no offices of humanity or acts of beneficence exercised towards them; though these are more desirable by the Lord than, and are preferred by him to, all ceremonial sacrifices, (Hosea 6:6), or no piety, religion, godliness, powerful godliness, which has the promise of this life, and that to come:

nor knowledge of God in the land ;
in the land of Israel, where God was used to be known; where he had been worshipped; were his word had been dispensed, and his prophets had been sent, and his saints that knew him, and his mind and will, formerly had dwelt; but now a company of atheists, at least that lived as such, and had no true spiritual saving knowledge of God, and communion with him; they had not true love to him, nor a godly reverence of him, which this implies; and that was the source of all the wickedness committed by them, afterwards expressed.

The Targum is, ``there are none that do truth, nor dispense mercy, nor walk in the fear of the Lord, in the land.''

By swearing, and lying
Which some join together, and make but one sin of it, false swearing, so Jarchi and Kimchi; but that swearing itself signifies, as the Targum interprets it; for it not only takes in all cursing and imprecations, profane oaths, and taking the name of God in vain, and swearing by the creatures, but may chiefly design perjury; which, though one kind of "lying", may be distinguished from it here; the latter intending "lying" in common, which the devil is the father of, mankind are incident unto, and which is abominable to God, whether in civil or in religious things: "and killing, and stealing and committing adultery"; murders, thefts, and adulteries, were very common with them; sins against the sixth, eighth, and seventh commandments:

they break out ;
through all the restraints of the laws of God and man, like an unruly horse that breaks his bridle and runs away; or like wild beasts, that break down the fences and enclosures about them, and break out, and get away; or like a torrent of water, that breaks down its dams and banks, and overflows the meadows and plains; such a flood and deluge of sin abounded in the nation.

Some render it, "they thieve" ^F15 ; or act the part of thieves and robbers: and the Targum, "they beget sons of their neighbours' wives;" and so Abarbinel interprets it of breaking through the hedge of another man's wife; but these sins are observed before:

and blood toucheth blood ;
which some understand of sins in general, so called, because filthy and abominable; and of the addition and multiplication of them, there being as it were heaps of them, or rather a chain of them linked together. So the Targum, "and they add sins to sins."

Others interpret it of impure mixtures, of incestuous lusts, or marriages contrary to the ties of blood, and laws of consanguinity, (Leviticus 18:6) (Ezekiel 22:11) , or rather it is to be understood of the great effusion of blood, and frequency of murders; so that there was scarce any interval between them, but a continued series of them.

Some think respect is had to the frequent slaughter of their kings; Zachariah the son of Jeroboam was slain by Shallum, when he had reigned but six months; and Shallum was slain by Menahem when he has reigned but one month; and this Menahem was a murderer of many, smote many places, and ripped up the women with child; Pekahiah his son was killed by Pekah the son of Remaliah, and he again by Hoshea, (2 Kings 15:8 2 Kings 15:10 2 Kings 15:13 2 Kings 15:14 2 Kings 15:16 2 Kings 15:25 2 Kings 15:30) .

FOOTNOTES:

• F15: (wurp) "latrocinantur, [vel] latrones agunt", Schmidt

Therefore shall the land mourn Because of the calamities on it, the devastations made in it; nothing growing upon it, through a violent drought; or the grass and corn being trodden down, or eaten up, by a foreign army: and everyone that dwells therein shall languish ; that is, every man, an inhabitant thereof, shall become weak, languish away, and die through wounds received by the enemy; or for want of food, or being infected with the wasting and destroying pestilence: with the beasts of the field, and with the birds of heaven ; the one shall die in the field for want of grass to eat, and the other shall drop to the earth through the infection of the air: yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away ; or "gathered" ^F16 ; to some other place, so as to disappear; or they shall be consumed and die, as Kimchi interprets it; and as all these creatures are for the good of men, for sustenance, comfort, and delight, when they are taken away, it is by way of punishment for their sins. So the Targum, ``the fishes of the sea shall be lessened for their sins.''

FOOTNOTES:

• F16: (wpoay) "congregabuntur", V. L.; "collgentur", Montanus, Vatablus, Drusius, Schmidt.

Yet, let no man strive, nor reprove another
Or rather, "let no man strive, nor any man reprove us" ^F17 ; and are either the words of the people, forbidding the prophet, or any other man, to contend with them, or reprove them for their sins, though guilty of so many, and their land in so much danger on that account: so the Targum,

``but yet they say, let not the scribe teach, nor the prophet reprove:'' or else they are the words of God to the prophet, restraining him from striving with and reproving such a people, that were incorrigible, and despised all reproof; see (Ezekiel 3:26) or of the prophet to other good men, to forbear anything of this kind, since it was all to no purpose; it was but casting pearls before swine; it was all labour lost, and in vain:

for your people are as they that strive with the priest ;
they are so far from receiving correction and reproof kindly from any good men that they will rise up against, and strive with the priests, to whom not to hearken was a capital crime, (Deuteronomy 17:12) .

Abarbinel interprets it, and some in Abendana, like the company of Korah, that contended with Aaron; suggesting that this people were as impudent and wicked as they, and there was no dealing with them. So the Targum, ``but your people contend with their teachers;'' and will submit to no correction, and therefore it is in vain to give it them.

Though some think the sense is, that all sorts of men were so corrupt, that there were none fit to be reprovers; the people were like the priests, and the priests like the people, (Hosea 4:9) , so that when the priests reproved them, they contended with them, and said, physician, heal thyself; take the beam out of your own eye; look to yourselves, and your own sins, and do not reprove us.

FOOTNOTES:

• F17: (vya hkwy law) "et ne reprehendito quisquam, [scil.] nos", Schmidt.

Therefore you shall fall in the day
Either, O you people, everyone of you, being so refractory and incorrigible; or, O you priest, being as bad as the people; for both, on account of their sins, should fall from their present prosperity and happiness into great evils and calamities; particularly into the hands of their enemies, and be carried captive into another land: and this should be "in the day", or "today" ^F18 ; immediately, quickly, in a very short time; or in the daytime, openly, publicly, in the sight of all, of all the nations round about, who shall rejoice at it; or in the day of prosperity, while things go well, amidst great plenty of all good things, and when such a fall was least expected: and the prophet also shall fall with you in the night :
or the false prophets that are with you, as the Targum, and so Jarchi; either with you, O people, that dwell with you, teach you, and cause you to err; or with you, O priest, being of the same family, as the prophets, many of them, were priests; now these should fall likewise into the same calamities, as it was but just they should, being the occasion of them: and this should be in the night; in the night of adversity and affliction, in the common calamity; or in the night of darkness, when they could not see at what they stumbled and fell, and so the more uncomfortable to them; or as the one falls in the day, the other falls in the night; as certainly as the one falls, so shall the other, and that very quickly, immediately, as the night follows the day.

and I will destroy your mother ;
either Samaria, the metropolis of the nation; or the whole body of the people, the congregation, as the Targum, and Kimchi, and Ben Melech, being as a mother with respect to individuals; and are threatened with destruction because the corruption was general among prophets, priests, and people, and therefore none could hope to escape.

FOOTNOTES:

• F18:
  F18 (Mwyh) "hodie", Munster, Montanus, Drusius, Tarnovius, Rivet; "hoc tempore", Pagninus. So Kimchi and Ben Melech.