Hosea 6:4 - Meaning and Application

Two things, both Judah and Ephraim are fairly charged with here, and both are evil. First, they were not steady in their own convictions, but unstable as water (Hosea 6:4, Hosea 6:5). Second, they were not faithful to God’s covenant with them (Hosea 6:6, Hosea 6:7).

“O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you?” This is a striking expression. Can infinite wisdom really be at a loss for what to do? Can God be confused or forced to try a new plan? No, but he speaks in human language to show how foolish and unreasonable they were, and how right his judgments were. They should not complain that he has torn and struck them, because what else should he do? He had already tried many ways with them. “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done?” (Isaiah 5:4). He was very unwilling to let things come to the worst. He even reasons with himself later, “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” (Hosea 11:9).

God would have done them good, but they were not fit for it. “What shall I do to you?” means, “What else can I do but cast you off, when I cannot in honor save you?” Note that God never destroys sinners until he sees there is no other way to deal with them.

Now see what their conduct was toward God. “Their goodness,” or kindness, was like the morning cloud. Some take this to mean their kindness to themselves, shown in repentance. It is indeed mercy to ourselves to repent of sin, but they soon took that kindness back and hurt their own souls again. More likely, it refers to their piety and religion. Whatever good appeared in them for a time soon vanished, like a morning cloud or early dew.

That was the kind of goodness Israel showed in Jehu’s time, and Judah in Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s times. It did not last. In a dry season, a morning cloud seems to promise rain, and the early dew gives the earth a little refreshment. But then the cloud disappears, and hypocrites are like clouds without water (Jude 1:12). The dew does not soak in, but is drawn back into the air, and the ground stays dry. So God says, in effect, “What am I to do with them? Should I accept their goodness?” No, because it passes away. What does not continue can hardly be called a real thing.

This kind of goodness will never please God or help us if it is like the morning cloud and early dew. It is seen when men promise well but do not keep their word, when they begin well in religion but do not continue, when they leave their first love and first works, or when they still keep up religion but are uneven, unstable, and inconstant in it.

Now consider what course God had taken with them (Hosea 6:5). “Therefore, because they were so rough and badly shaped, I have hewn them by the prophets, as timber or stone is hewn for use; I have slain them by the words of my mouth.” What the prophets did was really done by God’s word in their mouths, and that word never returns empty. Through it, they felt as if they were being slain. They were ready to say the prophets had killed them, or cut them to the heart, when those prophets spoke faithfully to them.

The prophets hewed them by showing them their sin and trying to cut off their transgressions. Since they were uneven in religion, God hewed them. Sinners’ hearts are not just like stone, but like rough stone that takes much work to shape, or knotty timber that is very hard to square. Ministers have to hew such hearts, and God works through the minister’s word. “With the crooked you show yourself crooked” (Psalm 18:26). Some people must be rebuked sharply. Every word should cut, and though the chips fly into the workman’s face, though the person corrected treats the rebuker like an enemy for speaking truth, the work must still go on.

They were also slain by warnings of wrath, because the prophets foretold their ruin. Ezekiel is said to destroy the city when he prophesied its destruction (Ezekiel 43:3). In the same way, God carried out what had been foretold: “I have slain them by my judgments, according to the words of my mouth.” The word of God will either kill sin or kill the sinner. It will be either a fragrance of life leading to life, or a fragrance of death leading to death.

Some read this differently: “I have hewn the prophets, and slain them by the words of my mouth,” meaning God put them into hard, tiring service for the people’s good. Their work wore them out, and hazardous labor cost many of them their lives. Ministers are tools God uses in working on people, and though they labor in vain with many, God will still account for the wear of his tools.

By all this, God was justified in later dealing with the people more severely. His prophets had taken much pains with them. They had warned them of their sin and danger, but the means used did not have the desired effect. Some good impressions may have been made for a time, but they passed away like the morning cloud. So the people cannot accuse God of harshness if he brings on the misery he had warned them about. The prophet turns to God and admits, “Your judgments are like the light that goes forth,” clearly right and just.

So even if sinners are not changed by the labor of ministers, God will still be shown right when he speaks, and clear when he judges (see Matthew 11:17-19).

It was not that sacrifices and offerings had no place. They were required, had their proper use, and were pleasing to God when joined with mercy and the knowledge of God. But without those things, God did not accept them at all, and he despised them (Isaiah 1:10-11). This may be mentioned here to show the difference between the true God they had left and the false gods they had turned to.

The true God wanted his people to be good and to live good lives, for their own good. The outward ceremony of sacrifice was one of the smaller parts of his law. False gods, by contrast, demanded only sacrifices and offerings. Their priests and altars could be fed, while the people were left to live as they pleased. How foolish, then, to leave a God who wanted to give his worshipers a new heart, for gods who only wanted to make a name for themselves!

This also shows that God’s dispute with Israel was not about the lack of sacrifices. He said, “I will not reprove you for your sacrifices” (Psalm 50:8). His complaint was that there was no justice, no mercy, and no knowledge of God among them (Hosea 4:1). It teaches us that real godliness is the main thing God requires. Without it, the outward form of religion has no value.

Deep piety in heart and life is the one thing needed. Apart from that, acts of worship, however impressive or costly, count for nothing. Our Lord used this truth to show that moral duties are higher than rituals when they conflict. He defended eating with tax collectors and sinners, because it showed mercy to their souls, and healing on the Sabbath, because it showed mercy to human bodies. In both cases, the rule of ceremony had to give way to mercy (Matthew 9:13; Matthew 12:7).

They had also paid little attention to this covenant, though it was carefully ordered in every way and would have been for their own benefit. We can see what came of that. In general, they broke their covenant with God and proved unfaithful. Good things had been entrusted to them, like mercy, piety, and the knowledge of God, as if kept in a cabinet of sacrifice and burnt offering. But they betrayed their trust. They kept the cabinet and pawned the jewels to satisfy a filthy desire. For this, God had a just quarrel with them (Hosea 6:7).

“They, like men, have transgressed the covenant.” They broke the terms of the covenant God had made with them, and so they lost its blessings. By throwing off mercy, the knowledge of God, and other duties, they had become guilty of oath-breaking and covenant-breaking. They acted like people who have solemnly bound themselves to an agreement and then betray it. The whole world cries shame on such people, and they are no longer fit to be trusted.

In another sense, they had only acted like fallen human beings are prone to act. People are generally false and unstable, and deceit is part of corrupt human nature. All have turned aside (Psalm 14:2-3). They broke the covenant like ordinary men, or like low and base men, with no sense of honor. They were acting in the way of a degenerate race.

They also walked in the steps of our first parents. “Like Adam, they have transgressed the covenant.” As Adam broke the covenant of innocence, so they broke the covenant of grace, foolishly and treacherously. He violated his duty to God in paradise, and they violated theirs in Canaan, another kind of paradise. By their treachery, they ruined themselves and their children, just as Adam had done. Sin is worse when it closely resembles Adam’s transgression (Romans 5:14).

Low thoughts of God, his authority, and his favor lay at the root of all this. Some read the words this way: “They have transgressed the covenant, as if it were a man’s covenant.” That is, they treated it as though it were only an agreement made by one person with another, standing on equal ground. They acted as if God’s commands were no more than human commands, and as if the kindness promised in the covenant were no more valuable than that of a man. A human covenant is still binding (Galatians 3:15), but God’s covenant is far more sacred. Yet they lightly counted it, promised well, and then failed to keep their word.

Dealing falsely with God is called dealing treacherously against him, because it is both an insult to him and a fight against him. Those who desert him are traitors, and he will treat them as such. A rebellious heart is a heart in revolt.

Some particular examples of their treachery are then given. “There they dealt treacherously,” that is, in the places now named. Look first to the other side of the Jordan, the area most exposed to attacks from neighboring nations. There, where they most needed God’s protection, you find the boldest insults to his majesty (Hosea 6:8).

Gilead, which was in the territory of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, was a city of workers of evil. Wickedness was their trade. The land was called Gilead, but it is spoken of as a city, because they were all joined together like one body of rebels against God. Or, as many think, the city meant is Ramoth Gilead, one of the three cities of refuge east of the Jordan, and a city of the Levites, the tribe set apart for religious service. Even there, among people of sacred standing, there were workers of evil who planned and practiced wickedness.

It is especially bad when a Levites’ city becomes a city of evil, when those who are meant to teach good doctrine live wicked lives. It was polluted with blood, as if that were a sin these wicked Levites were especially guilty of. In Roman Catholic countries, clergy have often been known as harsh persecutors. Or, because it was a city of refuge, they polluted it with blood by abusing their power over murder cases. They would protect, for a bribe, those guilty of murder and should have been put to death. At the same time, they would hand over poor men, who had only caused accidental death, to the avenger of blood if those men had nothing to pay. In both ways, they became guilty of blood.

Blood defiles the land where it is shed, especially where no proper inquiry is made and no punishment follows.

See how even the best institutions, if they are meant to hold justice and mercy in balance, can be twisted and misused. Instead of helping, they can become a clear violation of both.

Look next at those whose duty was to serve in holy things. They were just as bad as the worst people, and as vile as the vilest (Hosea 6:9). The whole company of priests had gone the same way, not just one bad man who brought shame on the office. They moved together, literally with “one shoulder,” and so they made one another bolder in sin, more shameless, more cunning, and more cruel. A group of priests can agree to say and do things together that none of them would dare attempt alone.

They were like bands of robbers, gangs of highwaymen who cut throats for money. First, they were cruel and bloodthirsty. They murdered anyone who stood in their way or angered them, and nothing less would satisfy them. Second, they were crafty. They laid traps for people so they could carry out their evil plans. In that way, the priests laid plans to seize Christ, saying, “Not on the feast day.”

Third, they acted together as one man. They murdered on the road, where travelers should have been safe. There they attacked by common agreement, helping and encouraging one another in evil. See how united wicked people can be when they do harm, and ask whether good people should not be just as united in doing good. The phrase may also mean they murdered on the way to Shechem, that is, the road travelers took toward Jerusalem for worship. Or it may point to the same kind of fraud and deceit used by their ancestor Levi, with Simeon his brother, when they murdered the Shechemites (Genesis 34). Some also understand this as their destroying people’s souls by leading them into sin.

Fourth, they did it with careful planning. “They commit lewdness,” that is, wickedness done deliberately and with evil intent. The more planning there is in sin, the worse it is.

Now look at the whole nation, and you find the same thing (Hosea 6:10). “I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel.” Even if people hide it skillfully, God sees it, and he will make it known. Who can deny what God himself says he has seen? There is the shameful sin of Ephraim, both bodily unfaithfulness and spiritual unfaithfulness. It is plain enough, and it cannot be denied. The sin of sinners, especially those in the house of Israel, is enough to make them tremble, because it is a horrible thing. It is shocking and threatening, and it should make them ashamed, because Israel is defiled and made hateful in God’s sight.

Look also at Judah, and you find they are joining Israel in guilt (Hosea 6:11). “Also, O Judah, he has set a harvest for you.” Judah must be called to account too. Judah is ripe for destruction as well, and the time of that destruction is drawing near, the time when they will reap what they have sown in wickedness. The final judgment is compared to a harvest (Matthew 13:39), and so are smaller acts of judgment (Joel 3:13; Revelation 14:15). God had set a time to deal with Judah, even when he restored the captivity of his people, that is, when the Judahite captives taken by the men of Israel were returned in obedience to God’s command through the prophet Oded (2 Chronicles 28:8-15). When God spared them then, he was only setting another harvest for later, a time to settle accounts for all their sins together.

Take this lesson to heart: when God spares people from one judgment, and they do not make good use of that mercy, it only stores up greater judgment later.