Hosea 4:5

5 Night and day you blunder on, and the prophets do no better than you. I am going to destroy Israel, your mother.

Hosea 4:5 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 4:5

Therefore shall thou fall in the day
Either, O ye people, everyone of you, being so refractory and incorrigible; or, O thou priest, being as bad as the people; for both, on account of their sins, should fall from their present prosperity and happiness into great evils and calamities; particularly into the hands of their enemies, and be carried captive into another land: and this should be "in the day", or "today" ^F18; immediately, quickly, in a very short time; or in the daytime, openly, publicly, in the sight of all, of all the nations round about, who shall rejoice at it; or in the day of prosperity, while things go well, amidst great plenty of all good things, and when such a fall was least expected: and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night:
or the false prophets that are with you, as the Targum, and so Jarchi; either with you, O people, that dwell with you, teach you, and cause you to err; or with thee, O priest, being of the same family, as the prophets, many of them, were priests; now these should fall likewise into the same calamities, as it was but just they should, being the occasion of them: and this should be in the night; in the night of adversity and affliction, in the common calamity; or in the night of darkness, when they could not see at what they stumbled and fell, and so the more uncomfortable to them; or as the one falls in the day, the other falls in the night; as certainly as the one falls, so shall the other, and that very quickly, immediately, as the night follows the day: and I will destroy thy mother;
either Samaria, the metropolis of the nation; or the whole body of the people, the congregation, as the Targum, and Kimchi, and Ben Melech, being as a mother with respect to individuals; and are threatened with destruction because the corruption was general among prophets, priests, and people, and therefore none could hope to escape.

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FOOTNOTES:

F18 (Mwyh) "hodie", Munster, Montanus, Drusius, Tarnovius, Rivet; "hoc tempore", Pagninus. So Kimchi and Ben Melech.

Hosea 4:5 In-Context

3 And so the land will dry up, and everything that lives on it will die. All the animals and birds, and even the fish, will die."

4 The Lord says, "Let no one accuse the people or reprimand them - my complaint is against you priests.

5 Night and day you blunder on, and the prophets do no better than you. I am going to destroy Israel, your mother.

6 My people are doomed because they do not acknowledge me. You priests have refused to acknowledge me and have rejected my teaching, and so I reject you and will not acknowledge your sons as my priests.

7 "The more of you priests there are, the more you sin against me, and so I will turn your honor into disgrace.