Hosea 4 KJV
The Charge Against Israel
Hosea Chapter 4: The Charge Against Israel
Hosea 4 frames Israel's indictment as a covenant lawsuit (rib) in which Yahweh functions simultaneously as plaintiff, witness, and judge, mirroring ancient Near Eastern treaty structures rather than a simple prophetic oracle.
1ear 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.
2 By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.
3 Therefore 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.
4 Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest.
5 Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.
6 My 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.
7 As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.
8 They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.
9 And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings.
10 For 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.
11 Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
12 My 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.
13 They 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.
14 I 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.
15 Though 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.
16 For Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer: now the LORD will feed them as a lamb in a large place.
17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
18 Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye.
19 The wind hath bound her up in her wings, and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.
โ โ arrow keys to navigate chapters ยท spacebar to play/pause audio
Did You Know?
Hosea 4 frames Israel's indictment as a covenant lawsuit (rib) in which Yahweh functions simultaneously as plaintiff, witness, and judge, mirroring ancient Near Eastern treaty structures rather than a simple prophetic oracle.
The absence of "knowledge of God" is not presented as intellectual ignorance but as the rupture of covenantal relationship, directly causing the collapse of hesed and emet and unleashing the five social crimes listed in verse 2.
The chapter's ecological motif. That fish of the sea are taken away because of human sin. Anticipates later prophetic and Pauline ideas of creation's participation in humanity's moral state, a motif rare in eighth-century prophecy.
Priests are accused of literally feeding on the people's sin offerings while simultaneously abetting the very transgressions that generate those offerings, exposing an institutional economy built on sustained moral failure.
The warning to Judah not to "offend" at Gilgal and Beth-aven subtly invokes the earlier patriarchal and conquest traditions associated with those sites, implying that northern cultic geography itself has become a vector of contagion for the south.