Hosea 5:1-7

ISRAEL'S INGRATITUDEREBELLION AND TRANSGRESSION

TEXT: Hosea 5:1-7

1

Hear this, O ye priests, and hearken, O house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the king; for unto you pertaineth the judgment; for ye have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.

2

And the revolters are gone deep in making slaughter; but I am a rebuker of them all.

3

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me; for now, O Ephraim, thou hast played the harlot, Israel is defiled.

4

Their doings will not suffer them to turn unto their God; for the spirit of whoredom is within them, and they know not Jehovah.

5

And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face: therefore Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in their iniquity; Judah also shall stumble with them.

6

They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Jehovah; but they shall not find him: he hath withdrawn himself from them.

7

They have dealt treacherously against Jehovah; for they have borne strange children: now shall the new moon devour them with their fields.

QUERIES

a.

Why did Hosea direct his prophecy to the priests and king?

b.

How did their doings keep them from turning to God?

c.

Why did God withdraw from them when they sought Him? Hosea 5:6

PARAPHRASE

Listen to this, you priests and members of the royal family who dearly love shame; you are doomed! You have enticed the whole nation, east and west of the Jordan, and they have been trapped like birds in your net of sin. These rebellious people are deeply sunken in excesses; but I, Jehovah, will punish them all because their idolatrous conduct is fully known to me. The demoniacal power of idolatry and its consequent immoral excesses has taken complete possession of their thoughts and actions, and stifled every vestige of knowledge of God. The spirit of promiscuity and anarchy is in their hearts and they refuse to know Jehovah. Israel's arrogance and pride will soon be shown to be vain when God brings her to shame. And because Judah has consorted with her, she too will be brought to shame. The offering of sacrifices will be no help to them. God has withdrawn Himself from hearing their prayers. Their sacrifices are not offered with penitent hearts. This is evident from the rebellion and idolatry of this generation of Israelites. Therefore their hypocritical sacrifices, instead of bringing salvation, will bring upon them ruin and destruction.

SUMMARY

The leaders have enmeshed the people in a net of moral excesses and rebellion. The people are pleased to have it so and refuse to have God in their knowledge. Pride and hypocritical worship testifies that their destruction by God is inevitable.

COMMENT

Hosea 5:1 HEAR THIS, O YE PRIESTS. AND. HOUSE OF THE KING. UNTO YOU PERTAINETH. JUDGMENT. When the light of truth begins to flicker and fade, invariably the social and religious leadership is at fault. Men who propose to lead others face an awesome responsibility toward truth and morality. They are charged not only with proclaiming the dogmas of truth but with practicing them! (cf. James 3:1 ff; Romans 2:1 ff). But not only this, both priest and king were charged with enforcing certain moral standards according to law, This, to certain degrees, is still the responsibility of civil government today. Since their responsibility is so great and their sin of trapping the populace in excess so heinous, the wrath of God is directed at these leaders first and foremost.

The king of Hosea's day was either Zechariah or Menahem; possibly both, since Hosea prophesied in both reigns. However, Hosea's reference to making a military alliance with Assyria (Hosea 5:13) refers to Menahem (2 Kings 15:19-20). Both of these were wicked kings. Mizpah (Ramah-Mizpah of Gilead) and Tabor are both wooded mountains representing east and west of the Jordan, respectively, thus typifying the whole populace of the nation of Israel. The fact that they were wooded hills makes them noted as places peculiarly adapted for bird-trapping.

Hosea 5:2 AND THE REVOLTERS ARE GONE DEEP IN MAKING SLAUGHTER. Ephraim (Israel) is deeply sunken in excesses. Delitzsch translates the phrase literally, they understand from the very foundation how to spread out transgressions. In other words, they have studied or gone to great lengths to learn how to become more indulgent, more lascivious, (cf. Isaiah 31:6). God rebuked them time and time again, through His law, through the prophets, through natural catastrophes, but their revolt was deeply embedded in their hearts, and they were deeply sunken in the mire of their immoralities. There is nothing left now for God to do but to give them up to total destruction and ruin.

Hosea 5:3 I KNOW EPHRAIM. THOU HAST PLAYED THE HARLOT. God was all too well aware of the unfaithfulness of Israel. His heart was broken; their rottenness sickened Him. Be sure your sin will find you out (Numbers 32:23)!

Hosea 5:4 THEIR DOINGS WILL NOT SUFFER THEM TO TURN UNTO THEIR GOD. What they were doing took possession of them. When a man yields the mind and the members of his body to sin, he becomes a slave to that to which he has yielded (cf. Romans 6:12-23). When one allows himself to be enslaved to falsehood and immoral deeds he at the same time, permits himself to be blinded to truth and goodness. Men love darkness because their deeds are evil (John 3:18-21) and they refuse to come to the light of truth lest their evil deeds be exposed for what they really arevain, useless, degrading, etc. It was the same spirit of harlotry that possessed them as is referred to in Hosea 4:12 (see our comments there).

Hosea 5:5 AND THE PRIDE OF ISRAEL DOTH TESTIFY TO HIS FACE. K & D interpret the pride of Israel as the glory of IsraelJehovah God. Thus they make God testify to the face of Israel. Lange and Pussey both interpret the phrase simplyIsrael's arrogant pride. We prefer the last for it seems to suit the context better. Israel is like those of whom Paul wrote, claiming to be wise, they became fools. they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil. (cf. Romans 1:18 ff). Pride goeth before a fall. Pride was the very snare of the devil (1 Timothy 3:6-7). Amos 6:8 shows how the excellency (pride) of Jacob was the cause of her sin and how abhorrent such pride was to God. Remember that God told Edom the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, (Obadiah Hosea 5:3). So, Israel, will soon know how foolish her pride and haughtiness was. Soon Israel's insolence will be changed to shame and regret when God's wrath is poured out. Then will her pride testify to her face that all her arrogance was futile, vain and shameful.

Judah, too, will be brought to the same shame. Hosea warned Judah (Hosea 4:15) not to take part in Ephraim's idolatry. Evidently Judah did not heed the warning and became a partaker in Israel's guilt (cf. Jeremiah 3:6-11).

The Russian communist Zinonieff boasted: We shall grapple with the Lord God. In due time we shall vanquish him from the highest Heaven, and where he seeks refuge, we shall subdue him forever. What arrogance, what insolence! American theologians, however, have gone him one better! They have declared God is dead; they have held requiem chorales in honor of his death! This, if anything, is worse than insolence! How longsuffering the mercy of the Omnipotent God! It is a marvel of love and grace that He has not consumed such proud and boastful men with fire as He did of old.

Hosea 5:6 THEY SHALL GO WITH THEIR FLOCKS. TO SEEK JEHOVAH; BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND HIM. These hypocrites, when disaster seems ready to strike, will bring thousands of lambs to the places of sacrifices, and gallons of oil (cf. Micah 6:6-8), but they will have left off the weighter matters of the law, mercy, righteousness and justice. Their sacrifices will not be offered with penitent hearts, or in faith. Their worship will be ritualistic, from hearts sunken deep in sin, wishing only to be saved in their sins, not saved from their sins. God will not honor such worship for the simple reason such worship does not honor Him, He will not hear their prayers for the simple reason such prayers are not directed to Him. Isaiah had a great deal to say about such sham worship (cf. Isaiah 1:10-20). It is not the trampling of the courts of God that counts with Him so much as willingness and obedience (Isaiah 1:19). These were a people who honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him (cf. Isaiah 29:13-16; Matthew 15:1-20).

Hosea 5:7 THEY HAVE DEALT TREACHEROUSLY AGAINST JEHOVAH. The word translated treacherously is bagad which means to act faithlessly and is frequently applied to the infidelity of a wife towards her husband. We are not surprised that Hosea would use such a word. Gomer acted treacherously toward Hosea when she deserted him for her paramours. Israel acted like that toward her husband, God, when she went off after her idols. Such idolatry, from the very beginning of the nation under Jeroboam, has produced generation after generation of strange children (idolaters).

Israel should have produced generation after generation of children worshipping the Lord God in spirit and truth. Quite to the contrary, however, each generation became more idolatrous and immoral than the next, They retained just enough of the Mosaic forms of worship to ease their hypocritical hearts and salve their conscience. But, says God, your hypocritical worship is not going to save youno, it is going to bring about your destruction. This is the meaning of the phrase, now shall the new moon devour them.

QUIZ

1.

Why do those who propose to be leaders of God's people face an awesome task?

2.

How deeply were the people involved in their sin?

3.

Why were these Israelites not able to turn to God?

4.

Why is pride dangerous? How does it bring men to shame?

5.

Why would Israel's sacrifices not be noticed by God?