Hoshea 7:3

3 They make the Melech glad with their ra’ah, and the sarim (princes) with their lies.

Hoshea 7:3 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 7:3

They make the king glad with their wickedness
Not any particular king; not Jeroboam the first, as Kimchi; nor Jehu, as Grotius; if any particular king, rather Jeroboam the second; but their kings in general, as the Septuagint render it, in succession, one after another; who were highly delighted and pleased with the priests in offering sacrifice to the calves, and with the people in attending to that idolatrous worship, by which they hoped to secure the kingdom of Israel to themselves, and prevent the people going to Jerusalem to worship: it made them glad to the heart to hear them say that God was as well pleased with sacrifices offered at Dan and Bethel, as at Jerusalem: and the princes with their lies;
with their idols and idolatrous practices, which are vanity and a lie; though some interpret this of their flatteries, either of them, or their favourites; and of their calumnies and detractions of such they had a dislike of.

Hoshea 7:3 In-Context

1 When I would have healed Yisroel, then the avon (iniquity) of Ephrayim was exposed, and the ra’ot (crimes) of Shomron; for they practice sheker; and the ganav intrudes, and the bandit robs bachutz (in the street).

2 And they consider not in their levavot that I remember all their ra’ah; now their own evil doings surround them; they are before My face.

3 They make the Melech glad with their ra’ah, and the sarim (princes) with their lies.

4 They are all no’afim (adulterers), as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth stirring from the kneading of the batzek (dough), until its chametz leavening rises.

5 In the Yom Malkeinu the sarim (princes) have made him sick with the heat of yayin; he has stretched out his hand with the letzim (mockers).