10 They will have food, but they will not be full; they will be false to me, but they will not be increased, because they no longer give thought to the Lord.
You will have food, but not enough; your shame will be ever with you: you will get your goods moved, but you will not take them away safely; and what you do take away I will give to the sword.
When I take away your bread of life, ten women will be cooking bread in one oven, and your bread will be measured out by weight; you will have food but never enough.
Now after the death of Jehoiada, the chiefs of Judah came and went down on their faces before the king. Then the king gave ear to them.
In the words of his mouth are evil and deceit; he has given up being wise and doing good.
The upright man has food to the full measure of his desire, but there will be no food for the stomach of evil-doers.
For this cause says the Lord God, My servants will have food, but you will be in need of food: my servants will have drink, but you will be dry: my servants will have joy, but you will be shamed: My servants will make songs in the joy of their hearts, but you will be crying for sorrow, and making sounds of grief from a broken spirit. And your name will become a curse to my people, and the Lord God will put you to death, and give his servants another name: So that he who is requesting a blessing will make use of the name of the true God, and he who takes an oath will do so by the true God; because the past troubles are gone out of mind, and because they are covered from my eyes.
But when the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, like all the disgusting things which the evil man does, will he have life? Not one of his upright acts will be kept in memory: in the wrong which he has done and in his sin death will overtake him.
I will not give punishment to your daughters or your brides for their evil behaviour; for they make themselves separate with loose women, and make offerings with those who are used for sex purposes in the worship of the gods: the people who have no wisdom will be sent away.
As for Ephraim, their glory will go in flight like a bird: there will be no birth and no one with child and no giving of life. Even though their children have come to growth I will take them away, so that not a man will be there; for their evil-doing will be complete and they will be put to shame because of it. As I have seen a beast whose young have been taken from her, so Ephraim will give birth to children only for them to be put to death. O Lord, what will you give them? Give them bodies which may not give birth and breasts without milk. All their evil-doing is in Gilgal; there I had hate for them; because of their evil-doing I will send them out of my house; they will no longer be dear to me; all their rulers are uncontrolled. The rod has come on Ephraim, their root is dry, let them have no fruit; even though they give birth, I will put to death the dearest fruit of their bodies. My God will give them up because they did not give ear to him; they will be wandering among the nations.
And those who are turned back from going after the Lord, and those who have not made prayer to the Lord or got directions from him.
And now, O you priests, this order is for you. If you will not give ear and take it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of armies, then I will send the curse on you and will put a curse on your blessing: truly, even now I have put a curse on it, because you do not take it to heart. See, I will have your arm cut off, and will put waste on your faces, even the waste from your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
For if, after they have got free from the unclean things of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again taken in the net and overcome, their last condition is worse than their first. For it would have been better for them to have had no knowledge of the way of righteousness, than to go back again from the holy law which was given to them, after having knowledge of it. They are an example of that true saying, The dog has gone back to the food it had put out, and the pig which had been washed to its rolling in the dirty earth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Hosea 4
Commentary on Hosea 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
Prophets were sent to be reprovers, to tell people of their faults, and to warn them of the judgments of God, to which by sin they exposed themselves; so the prophet is employed in this and the following chapters. He is here, as counsel for the King of kings, opening an indictment against the people of Israel, and labouring to convince them of sin, and of their misery and danger because of sin, that he might prevail with them to repent and reform.
Hsa 4:1-5
Here is,
Hsa 4:6-11
God is here proceeding in his controversy both with the priests and with the people. The people were as those that strove with the priests (v. 4) when they had priests that did their duty; but the generality of them lived in the neglect of their duty, and here is a word for those priests, and for the people that love to have it so, Jer. 5:31. And it is observable here how the punishment answers to the sin, and how, for the justifying of his own proceedings, God sets the one over-against the other.
Hsa 4:12-19
In these verses we have, as before,