Hosea 9:4

4 They will not pour out their wine offerings to the Lord,[a] and their sacrifices will not please Him. Their [food] will be like the bread of mourners; all who eat it become defiled.[b] For their bread will be for their appetites [alone]; it will not enter the house of the Lord.

Hosea 9:4 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 9:4

They shall not offer wine [offerings] to the Lord
This is either a threatening of the cessation of sacrifices, being carried into Assyria, a strange land, where it was not lawful to offer sacrifice, there being no temple nor altar to offer in or at; and so as they would not offer to the Lord when they should, now they shall not if they would: or this respects not, the future time of their exile, but their present time now, as Kimchi observes; and so is a reproof of their present sacrifices, which are forbidden to be observed; because they were offered not in faith, nor in sincerity, but hypocritically, and before their calves: besides, the future tease is sometimes put for the present; and this way goes Schmidt; neither shall their sacrifices be pleasing unto him;
unto the Lord, if they were offered; and is a reason why they should not, because unacceptable to him, and that for the reasons before mentioned: their sacrifices [shall be] unto them as the bread of mourners: all
that eat thereof [shall be] polluted;
as all that ate of the bread of such who were mourning for their dead, that partook of their funeral feasts, or ate bread with them at any time during their mourning, were defiled thereby, according to the Levitical law, and were unqualified for service, ( Leviticus 21:1 ) ( Deuteronomy 26:14 ) ; so the sacrifices of these people being offered up with a wicked mind instead of atoning for their sins, more and more defiled them; and, instead of being acceptable to God, were abominable to him: for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the
Lord;
in the captivity there was no house of the Lord for them to bring it into; and, when in their own land, they did not bring their offerings to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, as they should have done, but offered them before their calves at Dan and Bethel; and which is the thing complained of, that the bread for their souls, that is, the offerings accompanied with the "minchah", or bread offering, for the expiation of the sins of their souls, were not brought into the house of the Lord (the future for the present); or else, this being the case, their sacrifices were reckoned by the Lord as no other than common bread, which they ate for the sustenance of their lives.

Hosea 9:4 In-Context

2 Threshing floor and wine vat will not sustain them, and the new wine will fail them.
3 They will not stay in the land of the Lord. Instead, Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
4 They will not pour out their wine offerings to the Lord, and their sacrifices will not please Him. Their [food] will be like the bread of mourners; all who eat it become defiled. For their bread will be for their appetites [alone]; it will not enter the house of the Lord.
5 What will you do on a festival day, on the day of the Lord's feast?
6 For even if they flee from devastation, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Thistles will take possession of their precious silver; thorns will invade their tents.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. Nm 15:5,7,10
  • [b]. Nm 19:11-14; Dt 26:12-14; Jr 16:5-7
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