Hosea 4 Footnotes

4:1-3 This passage is an example of the basic form of Israelite prophetic utterances, the “judgment speech.” Scholars sometimes refer to it as the “covenant lawsuit.” The prophet indicted the people of Israel on the basis of the violation of the covenant; there was “no faithful love” (hesed, “loyalty to the covenant”) in the land. The indictment lists several of the Ten Commandments that the people had violated (v. 2; see Ex 20:13-16), and the consequences (Hs 4:3) reflected the desolation of the land that were part of the curses in the Sinai covenant (Lv 26:34-35; Dt 28:23-24,38-42). Commentators who claim that the law of Moses took shape only during the postexilic period ignore evidence, such as that which Hosea provides here, that the provisions of the Torah were well known long before the Babylonian exile.