Hosea 5

The original text was written in Hebrew language. This chapter is divided into 15 verses.

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.[13]

• "Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king": The persons here addressed comprise all the estates of the realm - priests, people, and princes. The house of Israel is the northern kingdom; and the house of the king is the members of the king's family, of his court and of his government. Thus the rulers and the ruled, the spiritual teachers and the taught, are comprehended in this address. Neither priestly office, nor popular power, nor princely dignity was to be exempted.[14]
• "King": probably Pekah; the contemporary of Ahaz, king of Judah, under whom idolatry was first carried so far in Judah as to call for the judgment of the joint Syrian and Israelite invasion, as also that of Assyria.[3]
• "Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor": these were two high mountains in the land of Israel; the former was near Hermon and Lebanon, and the same with Gilead, Joshua 11:3; the latter was a mountain in Galilee, between Issachar and Zebulun, six miles from Nazareth: it was, according to Joseph ben Gorion[15] almost four miles high, had on the top of it a plain of almost three miles; the true Josephus[16] says it was three and a quarter miles; See Jeremiah 46:18; the Jews[17] have a tradition, that Jeroboam set spies upon these mountains at the time of the solemn feasts, to watch who went to them out of Israel, and to inform against them; but these could not command all the roads leading to Jerusalem. It may be these mountains were much infested with hawkers and hunters, to which there may be an allusion; and the sense be, ye priests, people, and king, are like to those that set snares and nets on those hills, as they to ensnare and catch creatures, so ye to ensnare and draw men into idolatrous practices; or rather, since there is no note of comparison, the meaning is, that they set up altars, and offered sacrifices on these hills, and thereby ensnared not only those of their own tribes, but drew and enticed many of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to fall in with the same idolatrous practices.[18]
• "Mizpah": The place "Mizpah" is the scene of the solemn covenant of Jacob with Laban, and of his signal protection by God, lay in the mountainous part of Gilead on the East of Jordan. Mizpah, being a sacred place in the history of the patriarch Jacob Genesis 31:23-49, was probably, like Gilgal and other sacred places, desecrated by idolatry.[19]
• "Tabor": Tabor was the well-known Mountain of the Transfiguration, which rises out of the midst of the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, one thousand feet high, in the form of a sugar-loaf. Of Mount Tabor it is related by Jerome, that birds were still snared upon it.[19] Tabor was the scene of God's deliverance of Israel by Barak Judges 4. There, by encouraging idolatries, they became hunters, not pastors, of souls Ezekiel 13:18, Ezekiel 13:20.[19]

When Ephraim saw his sickness,

and Judah saw his wound,

then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb:

yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.[20]

• "went Ephraim to the Assyrian": First, Menahem (2 Kings 15:19) applied to Pul; again, Hoshea to Shalmaneser (2 Kings 17:3).[3]
• "king Jareb": Or, as in the English margin "a king who should plead, or, an avenging king." The "hostile king" is, probably, the same Assyrian Monarch, whom both Israel and Judah courted, who was the destruction of Israel and who weakened Judah. Ahaz king of Judah did send to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria to come and save him, when "the Lord brought Judah low; and Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came unto him and distressed him, but strengthened him not" 2 Chronicles 28:19-20. He who held his throne from God sent to a pagan king, "I am thy servant and thy son; come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me" 2 Kings 16:7-8. He emptied his own treasures, and pillaged the house of God, in order to buy the help of the Assyrian, and he taught him an evil lesson against himself, of his wealth and his weakness. God had said that, if they were faithful, "five shall chase an hundred, and an hundred put ten thousand to flight" Leviticus 26:8. He had pronounced him cursed, who trusted in man, and made flesh his arm, and whose heart departed from the Lord" Jeremiah 17:5. But Judah sought man's help, not only apart from God, but against God. God was bringing them down, and they, by man's aid, would lift themselves up. "The king" became an "avenger," for, "whoso, when God is angry, striveth to gain man as his helper, findeth him God's avenger, who leadeth into captivity God's deserters, as though he were sworn to avenge God."[19]

• Related Bible parts: Hosea 4, Hosea 6, James 4

• Collins, John J. (2014). Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures. Fortress Press. ISBN 9781451469233.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Day, John (2007). "27. Hosea". In Barton, John; Muddiman, John (eds.). The Oxford Bible Commentary (first (paperback) ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 571–578. ISBN 978-0199277186. Retrieved February 6, 2019.
• Fitzmyer, Joseph A. (2008). A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 9780802862419.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Hayes, Christine (2015). Introduction to the Bible. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300188271.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Ulrich, Eugene, ed. (2010). The Biblical Qumran Scrolls: Transcriptions and Textual Variants. Brill.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Würthwein, Ernst (1995). The Text of the Old Testament. Translated by Rhodes, Erroll F. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 0-8028-0788-7. Retrieved January 26, 2019.