Hosea 4:18

Their drink is sour,.... In their stomachs, having drank so much that they cannot digest it; hence nauseous eructations, with a filthy stench, are belched out; so it is a charge of drunkenness which

Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye. Their drink is sour - metaphor for utter degeneracy of principle (Isaiah 1:22).

Though in their idol feasts they drink wine and strong drinks, yet this is either sour and unpleasant, or corrupt and hurtful, there is no good savour in it; therefore, O Judah, decline thou the intimate familiarity, and have nothing to do with the idolatries, of Israel. They have committed whoredom, both spiritual and corporal, continually, without ceasing from Jeroboam’ s time to this day, two hundred years, one king after another, and one idolater after another; not one but either was an idolatrous worshipper of Baal or the calves, &c. Her rulers with shame do love, Give ye; beside all this, there is shameful oppression and bribery among them; and what good then, O Judah, canst thou look for from society and friendship with them?

Hosea 4:18 Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers [with] shame do love, Give ye.Ver. 18. Their drink is sour] That is, they are past grace, and it is now past time a day to do them good: for thou seest how the matter mends with them, even as sour ale mends in summer: and how they even stink above ground, as Psalms 14:2. Vina probantur odore, colore, sapore, &c., but their wine hath neither good colour, smell, nor savour or taste; it is dead and gone, and they are as trees twice dead and rotten, and therefore pulled up by the roots, such as the Latins call vappae, worthless fellows, that is, past the best, and now good for nothing: see Isaiah 1:22. What life or sweetness can be in apostates? yea, how sour and unsavoury to such are all fleshly comforts! They use to drink away their terrors, and drive away their melancholy dumps with merry company. But will that hold? what are such plasters better than the devil’ s drugs, than his whistle, to call men off from better practices? There is a cup in the hands of the Lord, it is full of mixture, but extremly sour; and the very dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them up, Psalms 75:8, though it be eternity to the bottom. They have committed whoredom continually] Here they are taxed for whoredom, as before for drunkenness (so some carry it), and afterwards for covetousness. This is that chariotmen of shame, flagitiorum trigae, whereby the prophet persuadeth Judah to shake off Israel, as not fit to be conversed with. He had charged them before with fornication of both sorts; here he showeth how unwearied they were in their wickedness, and in addition how intense, for fornicando fornicati sunt, they have done wickedly as they could, they have eked out their idolatries and adulteries, and though wearied and even wasted with the multitude of their wickedness, yet they have not given over, but are unsatisfied, and would sin in perpetuity: as that filthy fornicator who said he would desire no other heaven but to live for ever on earth, and to be carried from one brothel house to another. "She hath wearied herself with lies, and yet her great scum went not forth out of her: therefore shall it be in the fire," Ezekiel 24:12. Therefore shall graceless wretches be tormented for ever, because they would sin for ever; and therefore suffer all extremity, because they do wickedly with both hands earnestly, Micah 7:3; woefully wasting the marrow of their time, the flower of their age, the strength of their bodies, the vigour of their spirits, in the pursuit of their lusts, in the froth and filth whereof is bred that worm that never dieth; which is nothing else but the furious reflection of the soul upon its own once wilful folly, and now woeful misery.

(18, 19) The Authorised version is here very defective. Translate, Their carousal hath become degraded; with whoring they whore. Her shields love shame. A blast hath seized her in its wings, so that they are covered with shame for their offerings. “Shields” mean the princes of the people, as in Psalms 47:9. The fern. “her” in these verses refers to Ephraim, in accordance with the common Hebrew idiom. The change of person to the masculine plural is characteristic of the style of Hebrew prophecy. The storm-wind hath seized upon her with its wings—carried her away like a swarm of locusts or a baffled bird.

Verse 18. Their drink is sour] Or rather, he is gone after their wine. The enticements of idolatry have carried them away. Her rulers with shame do love] Rather, have loved shame; they glory in their abominations. Give ye.] Perhaps it would be better to read, Her rulers have committed, &c. They have loved gifts. What a shame! These were their rulers, literally, their shields. Justice and judgment were perverted.

18. Their drink is sour …] This translation is cannot be sustained philologically. If the text is correct, the only version at once intelligible and philologically sound is, ‘Their drunkenness has passed by.’ For the rendering of the verb comp. 1 Samuel 15:32 Hebr., and for ‘drunkenness’, lit. drink, comp. 1 Samuel 1:14; 1 Samuel 25:37 (where ‘wine’ must be synonymous with ‘the fumes of wine’). Connecting this clause with the following, we may render (as Henderson, following the Jewish commentator Abarbanel), When their carousal is over they indulge in lewdness, i.e. when tired of one sin they plunge without scruple into another. The Sept. rendering ἡρέτισεΧαναναίους is very difficult to justify. The Peshito omits the words. St Jerome explains the whole clause, Factum est, inquit Deus, convivium eorum ΰ me alienum. her rulers with shame do love, Give ye] Rather, her shields are enamoured of infamy (Henderson). This involves a slight change in the points, necessary in order to make sense of the word rendered ‘infamy.’ Probably, however, as Abp. Seeker was the first to infer from Sept. and Pesh., there is an erroneous repetition of three letters (comp. a similar case in Psalms 88:17), so that we may render simply, ‘her shields love infamy’ (‘shields’ for ‘rulers’, as Psalms 47:9). The Septuagint, indeed, suggests a various reading which possibly deserves the preference; it renders, ἠγάπησανἀτιμίανἐκφρυάγματοςαὐτῆς. Here, as in Amos 8:7, the Greek translator seems to have misunderstood the expression, ‘the excellency of Jacob’ (i.e. Jehovah). The Hebrew which he had before them may be thus put into English, they love infamy rather than her Excellency (or, her Pride, i.e. Jehovah, Israel’s God). Φρύαγμα is in fact the rendering of Heb. gβτn in Zechariah 11:3 and three other passages.

Their drink is sour - Literally, “turned,” as we say of milk. So Isaiah says, “Thy silver is become dross; thy wine is mingled,” i.

Hosea 4:18 is obscure; here, as elsewhere in 15-19, the correctness of the Hebrew text is open to question. The uncertainty is increased by the conflicting testimony of the ancient versions.