Hosea 5:1

Hear ye this, O priests,.... Though idolatrous ones, who called themselves priests, and were reckoned so by others, though not of the tribe of Levi, but such as Jeroboam had made priests, or were

Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.

HOSEA CHAPTER 5 God’ s judgments against the priests, the people, and the princes of Israel, for their manifold sins, , until they repent, . Hear ye this, O priests: proclamation is made, and the criminals are cited to appear, and attend their charge; amongst which the priests are first summoned: not of the tribe of Levi, not God’ s priests, but Baal’ s priests, priests of the high places; such they called themselves, so accounted by the people, and priests they were as good as their constitution by Jeroboam son of Nebat could make them. Hearken, ye house of Israel; all the people of Israel, hearken and consider duly. Give ye ear, O house of the king; all you of Menahem’ s court, and all you that are of the royal family. It is very probable, if not plainly certain, that Menahem was king at this time over Israel, and that Hosea points him out with his whole family. For judgment is toward you; for to you it appertained to execute judgment, and do right, so some; but the most read it, as we do, judgment is toward, i.e. against you; you have sinned, and God will punish. God’ s controversy, , is with you all, but first with priests who neglected to instruct the people, next with the body of the people, and lastly with the king, court, and his family. Ye have been a snare; you, O priests and princes, nobles and judges, have insnared the people by your examples and practices, which have been idolatrous, and the people have imitated you: it may possibly refer to that the Jews say was done, spies set to watch who went to Jerusalem to worship and to inform, that they might be punished: or else thus. By commending the calves, and palliating the idolatry committed in worshipping them, by persuading the people they might as well worship there as at Jerusalem, you have been a snare unto them, and drawn them into idolatry. On Mizpah; either taken comparatively, as fowlers and hunters have taken many birds and beasts, by gins and snares, on Mizpah, so you have insnared many souls in idolatry; or, by idolatries acted at Mizpah you have insnared many: so at Mizpah there was a high place, and idolatrous worship performed there; whether at Mizpah in Judah, which is not very likely, or Mizpah part of Libanus, which is the more likely, I determine not. And a net spread upon Tabor; a very famous mount for its exact roundness, and the height thereof, and as famous for the pleasantness thereof, which easily persuades me to think this hill must needs have some high place on it, and that where high places were so much in fashion, Tabor could not be omitted. Here, as in Mizpah, idolatry caught men as birds or wild beasts are taken in a net: or briefly thus.

Hosea 5:1 Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment [is] toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.Ver. 1. Hear ye this, ye priests] For you are not so wise but that ye may "hear and increase learning," Proverbs 1:5 Hosea 4:6; and besides, from you is profaneness gone forth into all the land, Jeremiah 23:15. For you, therefore, in the first place, I have a citation to appear before God’ s tribunal to hear your sin and your sentence, your crime and your doom. God cited Adam immediately and by himself, Genesis 3:9, "Adam, where art thou?" so he did Cain, Laban, Nabal, and others, when he sends for them by death, saying as once to that pope, Veni miser in iudicium, Come away, and hear thy sentence. Centum revolutis annis Deo respondebitis et mihi. Mediately he citeth men by the mouth of his ministers; as he did the Council of Constance by his faithful martyr, John Huss, and his word stood: and as he doth here the three estates of the kingdom, priests, people, and princes, by the prophet Hosea. That was very strange and extraordinary, that Mr Knox reporteth in his history of Scotland, of one Sir John Hamilton, murdered by the king’ s means; that he appeared to him in a vision with a naked sword drawn, and strikes off both his arms with these words, Take this before thou receive a final payment for all thine impieties: and within twenty-four hours two of the king’ s sons died. It is, indeed, but part of their punishment that wicked men here receive, seem it never so grievous, when God entereth into judgment with them, as here it is said. For judgment is toward you] That is, I am about to pronounce sentence against you, and to do execution: and therefore hear, hearken, and give ear, the first, second, and third time I admonish you, that ye may know that my citation is serious and peremptory: and that your damnation sleepeth not. Priest and people are set before the house of the king; because theirs was sedes prima, et vita ima, a high place but a low life (Salvian). And besides, courtiers and great men, though they be in other cases forward enough to take the places of others, yet in point of punishment they slink back, and are well content that others should go before them. God regards none for his greatness ( potentes potenter torquebuntur), neither spareth he any for his meanness, or because they were borne down either by the laws or lives of their superiors. The people are here placed between the priests and princes, and with them appealed and impreached, to show how frigid and insufficient their excuse is, who plead that they did but as they were taught by their ministers, and as they were commanded by their governors.

(1) House of the king refers to his following on both sides of the Jordan—Mizpah on the east side, in Gilead, and Tabor on the west. They are singled out as being military strongholds, where the princes of the royal house, with the apostate priests, exercised their deadly hold upon the people, waylaying them, as birds and beasts are snared in the mountains of prey. (Comp. Hosea 6:8-9.) Judgment is toward you.—More accurately, is meant for you.

CHAPTER V This chapter begins with threatening the Israelites for ensnaring the people to idolatry by their sacrifices and other rites on Mizpah and Tabor, 1-5. Their sacrifices, however costly, are declared to be unacceptable, 6; and their substance is devoted to the locust, 7. Nor is judgment to stop here. The cities of Judah are called upon, in a very animated manner, to prepare for the approach of enemies. Benjamin is to be pursued; Ephraim is to be desolate; and all this is intimated to Israel, that they may by repentance avert the judgment, 8, 9. The following verses contain farther denunciations, 10-13, expressed in terms equally terrible and sublime, 14. The Lord afflicts not willingly the children of men; he visits them with temporal calamities that he may heal their spiritual malady, 15. NOTES ON CHAP. V Verse 1. Hear ye this, O priests] A process is instituted against the priests, the Israelites, and the house of the king; and they are called on to appear and defend themselves. The accusation is, that they have ensnared the people, caused them to practise idolatry, both at Mizpah and Tabor. Mizpah was situated beyond Jordan; in the mountains of Gilead; see Judges 11:29. And Tabor was a beautiful mountain in the tribe of Zebulun. Both these places are said to be eminent for hunting, &c., and hence the natural occurrence of the words snare and net, in speaking of them.

1–7. A personal arraignment of the priesthood (accused less directly in chap. 4) and of the court, who, instead of warning the people, have led them into the snare of sin. So entangled are they in it that they cannot repent, and Judah too has fallen. They may seek to propitiate Jehovah by sacrifices, but in vain: the judgment is close at hand.

Hear ye this, O ye priests - God, with the solemn threefold summons, arraigns anew all classes in Israel before Him, not now to repentance but to judgment.

Rebuke of Israel’s apostasy, Hosea 5:1-7.Hosea 5:1 opens with a summons. Priests — Already condemned in chapter 4. House of Israel — The people. House of the king — The king and his courtiers.