16 For Israel is refractory as an untractable heifer; now will Jehovah feed them as a lamb in a wide [pasture].
And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out the sword after you; and your land shall be desolation, and your cities waste.
It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he is turned away from following me, and hath not fulfilled my words. And Samuel was much grieved; and he cried to Jehovah all night.
And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] a man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep, and it shall come to pass, from the abundance of milk they shall give, [that] he shall eat butter; for every one that remaineth in the midst of the land shall eat butter and honey. And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] every place, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver pieces, shall become briars and thorns: with arrows and with the bow shall they come thither, for the whole land shall become briars and thorns. And all mountains that have been dug up with the hoe -- thither will they not come, from fear of briars and thorns; and they shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of small cattle.
Rolling thee up completely, he will roll thee as a ball into a wide country: there shalt thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, O shame of thy lord's house!
And I saw that when for all the causes wherein backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce, yet the treacherous Judah, her sister, feared not, but went and committed fornication also.
And Jehovah said unto me, Backsliding Israel hath shewn herself more just than treacherous Judah.
Therefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings shall waste them; the leopard lurketh against their cities, every one that goeth out thence is torn in pieces: for their transgressions are multiplied, their backslidings are increased.
But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.
Why hath this people of Jerusalem slidden back with a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.
Yea, my people are bent upon backsliding from me: though they call them to the Most High, none at all exalteth [him].
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,