Hosea 4:4

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

Hosea 4:4 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 4:4

Yet, let no man strive, nor reprove another
Or rather, "let no man strive, nor any man reprove us" ^F17; and are either the words of the people, forbidding the prophet, or any other man, to contend with them, or reprove them for their sins, though guilty of so many, and their land in so much danger on that account: so the Targum,

``but yet they say, let not the scribe teach, nor the prophet reprove:''

or else they are the words of God to the prophet, restraining him from striving with and reproving such a people, that were incorrigible, and despised all reproof; see ( Ezekiel 3:26 ) or of the prophet to other good men, to forbear anything of this kind, since it was all to no purpose; it was but casting pearls before swine; it was all labour lost, and in vain: for thy people are as they that strive with the priest;
they are so far from receiving correction and reproof kindly from any good men that they will rise up against, and strive with the priests, to whom not to hearken was a capital crime, ( Deuteronomy 17:12 ) . Abarbinel interprets it, and some in Abendana, like the company of Korah, that contended with Aaron; suggesting that this people were as impudent and wicked as they, and there was no dealing with them. So the Targum,

``but thy people contend with their teachers;''

and will submit to no correction, and therefore it is in vain to give it them. Though some think the sense is, that all sorts of men were so corrupt, that there were none fit to be reprovers; the people were like the priests, and the priests like the people, ( Hosea 4:9 ) , so that when the priests reproved them, they contended with them, and said, physician, heal thyself; take the beam out of your own eye; look to yourselves, and your own sins, and do not reprove us.

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FOOTNOTES:

F17 (vya hkwy law) "et ne reprehendito quisquam, [scil.] nos", Schmidt.

Hosea 4:4 In-Context

2 They make promises and break them; they lie, murder, steal, and commit adultery. Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another.

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.

Footnotes

• [a]. [Probable text] my complaint is against you priests; [Hebrew] your people are like those with a complaint against the priests.