Hosea 4:14

14 I will not visit upon your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor upon your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery: for they offer with whores, and they sacrifice with cult prostitutes; therefore the people without understanding shall fall.

Hosea 4:14 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 4:14

I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredoms,
nor your spouses when they commit adultery
Either not punish them at all, so that they shall go on in sin, and to a greater degree, to the disgrace and reproach of their parents and husbands; or not as yet, or not so severely in them, because it was by their example they were led into it. Jarchi's note is very impertinent, that God threatens them with the disuse of the bitter waters of jealousy. The words are by some rendered interrogatively, "shall I not punish your daughters?" &c. F18; verily I will; and not them only, but their parents and husbands too, who deserve more severe corrections: for themselves are separated with whores, and sacrifice with harlots;
they separated themselves to Baalpeor, that shameful idol, ( Hosea 9:10 ) , the Priapus of the Gentiles, in whose idolatrous worship many obscene rites were used; these men separated themselves from their wives, as well as from God and his worship, and from the company and conversation of men, and in private committed uncleanness with the women that attended, and with the female priests that officiated at the worship of idols; those "sanctified" ones, as the word may be rendered; and after that ate of things offered to idols with them. So the Targum,

``they associated themselves with whores, and ate and drank with harlots.''
Some versions understand the latter of catamites, or sodomitical persons, and of the wickedness practised by them in such places. Therefore the people that doth not understand;
the law, as the Targum; what is to be done, and what to be avoided; the difference between the true and false religion; have no knowledge of divine and spiritual things, at least are very wavering and unsettled in their minds about religion, having thought little, and know less, of the matter: shall fall:
into idolatry and adultery, led by such examples. So the Septuagint version, "is implicated with a whore"; or "embraces a whore", as the Syriac and Arabic versions; see ( Proverbs 7:22 ) ( 22:14 ) or shall fall into calamities, ruin, and destruction; shall be dashed, as the Targum; so the Arabic interpreter of ( Mark 9:26 ) ( Luke 9:42 ) , uses the word: though Aben Ezra and Kimchi say, that in the Arabic language it signifies to be perplexed and disturbed, so as not to know what to do {s}. The first sense seems to be best, of being scandalized, offended, and stumbling and falling into sin; and which Abarbinel suggests, and it agrees with what follows concerning Judah.
FOOTNOTES:

F18 So Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt.
F19 Vid. R. Sol. Urbin, Ohel Moed, fol. 43. 2.

Hosea 4:14 In-Context

12 My people ask counsel of their wooden idol, and their stick declares unto them; for the spirit of whoredoms has caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring under their gods.
13 They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, that had good shade; therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law shall commit adultery.
14 I will not visit upon your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor upon your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery: for they offer with whores, and they sacrifice with cult prostitutes; therefore the people without understanding shall fall.
15 Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah be guilty; and do not come unto Gilgal, neither go up to Bethaven, nor swear, The LORD lives,
16 for Israel has turned away as a wild heifer; shall the LORD now feed them as rams in a large place?
The Jubilee Bible (from the Scriptures of the Reformation), edited by Russell M. Stendal, Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010