Hosea Chapter 9 verse 4 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 4, 5. - They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them the broad of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted. Having predicted their inability to observe the ritual distinctions between clean and unclean, which the Law prescribed, whether from the tyranny of their oppressors or from scarcity, or from the absence of sanctification by the presentation of the firstfruits, the prophet proceeds to predict their cessation altogether. Such is the prophet's picture of their miserable position in Assyria. It is aptly remarked by Grotius that "they failed to pour out libations to the Lord when they could; now the time shall come when they may wish to make such libations, but cannot." According to the Massoretic punctuation and the common rendering, (1) which is that of the Authorized Version, the people themselves are the subject of the second verb. They were neither able to offer drink offerings, a part for the whole of the meat offerings and unbloody oblations; nor, if they did, could they hope for acceptance for them away from the sanctuary and its central altar. (2) Hitzig supplies niskeyhens, their drink offerings, from the foregoing clause, as subject to the verb of the following one, and the verb is explained by some in the sense of "mire." If (3) we neglect the segholta, and make zibh-chehem the subject, the meaning is clearer, and the contrast between the unbloody and bloody offerings more obvious; thus: "They will not pour out libations of wine to Jehovah, nor will their sacrifices [equivalent to 'bloody oblations'] please him," that is to say, not such as were actually offered, but such as they might feel dis. posed to offer. The same noun may be repeated in next clause; thus, their sacrifices, or rather slaughtered meats, are unto him as bread of mourners, or, what is better, their food (supplied from ke lechem) shall be unto them like bread of mourners. Mourners' bread is that eaten at a funeral feast, or meal by persons mourning for the dead, and which was legally unclean, since a corpse defiled the house in which it was and all who entered it for seven days, as we read in Numbers 19:14, "This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days." Of course, all who partook of the food would be polluted; so with that of Israel in exile, being unsanctified by the offering of firstfruits. For their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord. "Their bread for their soul," that is, for appeasing their appetite, whatsoever their soul lusted after, or bread for the preservation of their life, would not come into the house of the Lord to be sanctified by representative offerings. What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the Lord? On such occasions they would feel the misery of their position most keenly. Away in a far foreign land, without temple and without ritual, they would bewail the loss of their annual celebrations, their national festivals and religious solemnities - those holiday-times of general joy and spiritual gladness. The distinction between moed and chag is variously given. . . .

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) Offer--i.e., pour out as a libation. A better rendering is to be obtained by abandoning the Hebrew accentuation: And their sacrifices will not be pleasing to Him; it shall be to them as bread of sorrow--i.e., funeral food, which defiles for seven days those who partake of it. Another reference to the Mosaic legislation (Deuteronomy 26:14)--Yea, their bread is for their appetite (i.e., only for bodily sustenance), it cometh not to Jehovah's house as a sacred offering.[12] These verses show that Hosea did not consider the worship of the Northern Kingdom as in itself illegal.[12] Kuenen (Hibbert Lecture, p. 312) proposes an alteration in the text, whereby the parallelism becomes more harmonious and the construction simpler. He then renders, "They shall pour no libation of wine to Jehovah, and shall not lay out their sacrifices before Him: as food eaten in mourning is their food." This agrees better with Hosea 3:4.