Hosea 4

Listen to the word of the LORD, people of Israel. The LORD has a case against everyone living in this land, because there is no truth in the land, no faithful love, and no knowledge of God.

1Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

Note"Has a case against" is courtroom language: the Hebrew word (rib) is the term for a lawsuit or formal legal complaint, and the chapter is shaped like one, charges, evidence, sentence. "Faithful love" translates hesed, the loyalty owed between parties bound by an agreement, covering kindness, dependability and keeping faith all at once. "Knowledge of God" here is not private feeling but knowing what God requires, the way one knows the terms of a contract. Hosea spoke in the northern kingdom, also called Israel or Ephraim, in the decades before Assyria destroyed it in 722 BC.

2There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. People break past every limit, and one killing follows right after another.

2By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.

NoteThe five offenses listed (false swearing, lying, murder, theft, adultery) track the second half of the Ten Commandments, so an Israelite hearer would recognize the list as the covenant law itself being read back as a charge sheet. "Cursing" in older English meant swearing a false or binding oath, not bad language.

3So the land will mourn, and everyone living in it will waste away, along with the wild animals and the birds in the sky. Even the fish in the sea will be swept away.

3Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish, with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.

4Yet let no one bring a charge, and let no one accuse someone else, because your people are like those who pick a fight with a priest.

4Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.

NoteThe second half of this verse is one of the most damaged sentences in Hosea, and translators differ sharply. The King James and the rendering take it as "your people are like people who quarrel with a priest": that is, they argue with the one authority who is supposed to settle disputes. Others repoint the same Hebrew letters to read "my quarrel is with you, O priest," which turns the line into the opening of the accusation against the priests that runs through the rest of the chapter.

5So you will stumble in broad daylight, and the prophet will stumble with you at night. And I will destroy your mother.

5Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.

Note"Your mother" is the nation itself, pictured as the mother of the individual Israelites being addressed, a standard Hebrew way of speaking about a city or people as a woman with children. Stumbling "by day" is pointed: daylight is when the road is safe, so falling then means the collapse is total.

6My people are destroyed because they have no knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you as priests who serve me. Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

6My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

NotePriests, not prophets, were the officials responsible for teaching and preserving God's instruction and giving rulings on it. So "knowledge" here is professional: the priests have stopped passing on what they were appointed to transmit. "I will forget your children" carries a further sting, since priesthood was hereditary, losing it cost the family line, not just the man.

7The more they grew in number, the more they sinned against me. So I will turn their glory into shame.

7As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.

NoteAncient Jewish scribes recorded that this line was one of a small set they believed had been softened in transmission. The text as it stands says God turns their glory into shame; the older reading behind it was probably "they exchanged their Glory", God himself, "for something shameful," meaning an idol.

8They feed on the sin of my people, and they are eager for the people to do wrong.

8They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.

NoteA pointed pun: the Hebrew word for "sin" also means "sin offering," the animal brought to atone for wrongdoing, from which the officiating priests were entitled to eat a portion. The charge is that the priests now have a financial interest in the people sinning, because more sin means more offerings and more meat.

9So it will be the same for the people and for the priest. I will punish them both for the way they live and pay them back for what they do.

9And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings.

10They will eat but never have enough. They will be sexually unfaithful but never grow in number, because they have stopped paying attention to the LORD.

10For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD.

NoteIsraelite religion at these shrines borrowed from Canaanite worship aimed at securing fertility, good harvests, many children, healthy flocks. The punishment is framed as the exact failure of what that worship promised: they eat and stay hungry, they pursue fertility rites and have no children.

11Sexual sin, wine, and new wine take away a person's good sense.

11Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

12My people ask advice from a piece of wood, and a wooden stick tells them what to do. A spirit of unfaithfulness has led them off course, and they have left their God to chase after others.

12My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.

NoteTwo forms of consulting an idol. The "piece of wood" is a carved wooden image; the "stick" refers to divination by rods, throwing or dropping marked sticks and reading the answer from how they fall, a widely used method in the ancient Near East. Calling the image simply "wood" is contemptuous.

13They offer sacrifices on the mountaintops and burn incense on the hills, under oak, poplar, and elm trees, because the shade is pleasant. And so your daughters sell themselves, and your sons' wives commit adultery.

13They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery.

NoteHilltops and shady trees were the standard locations for local open-air shrines, called "high places." Height was thought to bring the worshiper nearer the gods, and certain large trees (oak, poplar, terebinth (the KJV's "elm")) were treated as sacred sites in themselves. The word for shade also suggests the protection worshipers hoped to find there.

14I will not punish your daughters when they sell themselves, or your sons' wives when they commit adultery, because the men themselves go off with prostitutes and offer sacrifices along with the women who serve as prostitutes at the shrines. So a people who do not understand will come to ruin.

14I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.

NoteThe women in the second half of the verse are qedeshot, a class of women attached to sanctuaries. The Hebrew word means "consecrated women"; whether their role involved sex as part of worship, or whether the prophets are using "prostitute" as an insult for foreign-style religion, is genuinely disputed. The logic of the verse is that the fathers and husbands who would normally punish their women's conduct are doing the same thing themselves, and so have lost the standing to judge.

15Israel, even though you act like a prostitute, do not let Judah become guilty too. Do not go to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear an oath saying, "As surely as the LORD lives."

15Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven, nor swear, The LORD liveth.

NoteJudah was the southern kingdom, a separate state from Hosea's Israel; the aside warns it not to be drawn into the north's practices. Gilgal and Bethel were ancient sanctuaries with deep roots in Israel's history, now working shrines Hosea regards as corrupt. He refuses to say "Bethel," which means "house of God," and substitutes Beth-aven, "house of wickedness" or "house of nothing." "As surely as the LORD lives" was the standard formula for a binding oath; the point is that swearing by the LORD while worshiping at these places makes the oath worthless.

16Israel is stubborn, like a young cow that keeps pulling away. Now the LORD will feed them like a lamb in an open field.

16For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place.

NoteThe picture is of a young cow that will not accept the yoke and keeps twisting out of it. The second half can be read two ways, and the Hebrew allows both: as a promise that God will now pasture them in open country, or as a bitter question, how can he pasture animals like this in an open field, where a lamb with no fence and no shepherd is simply exposed?

17Ephraim has tied himself to idols. Leave him alone.

17Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.

NoteEphraim was the largest tribe of the northern kingdom, and its name is used throughout Hosea as another name for that kingdom as a whole. "Leave him alone" is an instruction to stop intervening, the standard sense is abandonment rather than tolerance.

18Their drink has gone sour. They keep on being unfaithful. Their rulers dearly love what brings them shame.

18Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye.

NoteThis verse is obscure in Hebrew and every translation is a reconstruction; the first clause may mean their drink has turned, or that their drinking bout is finished. The closing words in the King James, "her rulers with shame do love, Give ye," render a phrase in which the rulers' love is directed at "Give!", the demand of a man taking bribes or gifts.

19The wind has wrapped her up in its wings, and they will be put to shame because of their sacrifices.

19The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

NoteWind wrapping something in its wings is an image of being carried off with no possibility of resistance, the way a storm lifts chaff off a threshing floor. For Hosea's hearers the deportation of a defeated population by an invading empire would have been the obvious real-world form of it.