Hosea 3:4

Verse Hosea 3:4. Many days without a king] Hitherto this prophecy has been literally fulfilled. Since the destruction of the temple by the Romans they have neither had king nor prince, nor any civil government of their own, but have lived in different nations of the earth as mere exiles. They have neither priests nor sacrifices, nor urim nor thummim; no prophet, no oracle, no communication of any kind from God.

Without an image ephod - teraphim] The Septuagint read, Ουδε ουσης θυσιας, ουδε οντος θυσιαστηριου, ουδε ἱερατειας, ουδε δηλων: "Without a sacrifice, without an altar, without a priesthood, and without oracles;" that is, the urim and thummim. The Vulgate, Arabic, and Syriac read nearly the same. Instead of מצבה matstsebah, an image, they have evidently read מזבח mizbeach, an altar; the letters of these words being very similar, and easily mistaken for each other. But instead of either, one, if not two, of Kennicott's MSS. has מנחה minchah, an oblation.

What is called image may signify any kind of pillar, such as God forbade them to erect, Leviticus 26:1, lest it should be an incitement to idolatry.

The ephod was the high priest's garment of ceremony; the teraphim were some kind of amulets, telesms, or idolatrous images; the urim and thummim belonged to the breastplate, which was attached to the ephod.

Instead of teraphim some would read seraphim, changing the ת tau into ש sin; these are an order of the celestial hierarchy. In short, all the time that the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon, they seem to have been as wholly without forms of idolatrous worship as they were without the worship of God; and this may be what the prophet designs: they were totally without any kind of public worship, whether true or false. As well without images and teraphim, as they were without sacrifice and ephod, though still idolaters in their hearts. They were in a state of the most miserable darkness, which was to continue many days; and it has continued now nearly eighteen hundred years, and must continue yet longer, till they acknowledge him as their Saviour whom they crucified as a blasphemer.