Hosea 6:1-9

A Call to Repentance

1 Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn [us], and He will heal us; He has wounded [us], and He will bind up our wounds.

2 He will revive us after two days, and on the third day He will raise us up so we can live in His presence.^[a]

3 Let us strive to know the Lord. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.

The Lord's First Lament

4 What am I going to do with you, Ephraim? What am I going to do with you, Judah? Your loyalty is like the morning mist and like the early dew that vanishes.

5 This is why I have used the prophets to cut them down;^[b] I have killed them with the words of My mouth. My judgment strikes like lightning.^[c]

6 For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.^[d]

7 But they, like Adam,^[e] have violated the covenant; there they have betrayed Me.

8 Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with bloody footprints.

9 Like robbers who wait in ambush for someone, a band of priests murders on the road to Shechem. They commit atrocities.

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Hosea 6:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 6

This chapter gives an account of some who were truly penitent, and stirred up one another to return to the Lord, encouraged by his power, grace, and goodness, Ho 6:1-3; and of others, who had only a form of religion, were very unstable in it; regarded more the ceremonial law, and the external sacrifices of it, than the moral law; either that part of it which respects the love of the neighbour, or that which concerns the knowledge of God; and dealt treacherously with the Lord, transgressing the covenant, Ho 6:4-7; particularly the city of Gilead is represented as full of the workers of iniquity, and is charged with bloodshed, Ho 6:8; yea, even the priests were guilty of murder and lewdness, Ho 6:9; and Israel, or the ten tribes in general, are accused of whoredom, both corporeal and spiritual, with which they were defiled, Ho 6:10; nor was Judah clear of these crimes, and therefore a reckoning day is set for them, Ho 6:11.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Footnotes 5

[a]. Dt 32:39
[b]. Or have cut down the prophets
[c]. LXX, Syr, Tg; MT reads Your judgments go out as light
[d]. Mt 9:13; 12:7
[e]. Or they, as at Adam, or they, like men,