God’s charges against Israel
4
📚Hear the word of the LORD 📖,you children of Israel;
for the LORD has a controversy 📖
to bring with the inhabitants of the land:
“For there is no faithfulness 📖,
or mercy 📖,
or knowledge 📖 of God in the land,
2 📚but swearing 📖, and lying,
and killing, and stealing,
and committing adultery.
They use violence, and bloodshed
follows bloodshed 📖.
3 📚Therefore the land will mourn,
and everyone who lives in it
will waste away,
along with the beasts of the field
and the birds of the sky;
yes, the fish in the sea will
also be taken away.
4:3 There are terrible penalties that come on people who live as Israel did. Their whole country would be involved in punishment for their sins.⚜
4 📚“But let no man strive,
or rebuke another;
for your people are like
those who strive with the priest 📖.
4:4 All were guilty, people and priests alike, so no one should accuse and condemn anyone else. Compare Rom 2:1-4.⚜
5 📚Therefore you will stumble in the day,
and the prophet also 📖 will stumble
with you in the night 📖,
and I will destroy your mother 📖.
6 📚My people are destroyed for
lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge 📖,
I will also reject you,
so that you will not be a priest for me.
Since you have forgotten the law 📖
of your God,
I will also forget your children 📖.
4:6 Lack of knowledge of God and His ways is a great destroyer of people – Prov 1:29-32; 10:21; Isa 1:3; Eph 4:18-19.⚜
7 📚The more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
therefore I will change
their glory into shame.
8 📚They feed on the sin of my people,
and they set their heart on their evil.
4:8 When people sinned they brought sacrifices to the priests to offer. The priests ate those offerings – Lev 6:24-29. The more the people sinned the more sacrifices they brought and the more the priests could take for themselves. They were not the last of the priests or religious leaders to make use of people’s sins for selfish reasons. It goes on to this day.⚜
9 📚And it will be,
‘Like people, like priest’;
and I will punish them for their ways,
and repay 📖 them for their deeds.
4:9 People will become like their religious teachers and leaders and they will be punished like them.⚜
10 📚For they will eat,
but not have enough 📖. They will engage in prostitution 📖,
but shall not increase;
because they have stopped
obeying the LORD.
11 📚Prostitution and wine 📖
and new wine take away the heart.
12 📚My people ask counsel
from their wooden idols, 📖
and get their answers from their rod
of divination.
For the spirit of prostitution 📖 has caused
them to go astray,
and they have given themselves
to prostitution against their God.
13 📚They sacrifice on the tops
of the mountains,
and burn incense on the hills 📖,
under oaks and poplars
and terebinths,
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters engage
in prostitution
and your brides commit adultery.
14 📚“I will not punish your daughters
when they engage in prostitution,
or your brides when they commit adultery,
because the men themselves go off
with harlots and offer sacrifices
with temple prostitutes 📖.
So a people without understanding 📖
fall into ruin.
4:14 The daughters and daughters-in-law learned their evil behavior from the men and so the men were more guilty than they.⚜
15 📚“Though you,
Israel, act like a prostitute,
let not Judah offend.
So do not come to Gilgal,
nor go up to Beth-Aven 📖,
nor swear,
‘As the LORD lives 📖.’
4:15 Notice the distinction between the northern kingdom and the southern. Gilgal and Beth Aven were places where the northern kingdom had places of idol worship.⚜
16 📚For Israel is as stubborn 📖
as a rebellious heifer 📖.
How can the LORD pasture them
like a lamb 📖 in a large field?
17 📚Ephraim 📖 is joined to idols;
let him alone 📖.
18 📚Their drink is sour;
they give themselves to prostitution
continually;
her rulers love shamefully,
saying, ‘Give!’
4:18 They did not need to drink in order to abandon themselves to sin.⚜
19 📚The wind 📖 wraps her up in its wings,
and they will be put to shame 📖
because of their sacrifices.