Hosea 4:1

The Lord’s Covenant Lawsuit against the Nation Israel

4:1 Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites! ¹ 

For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit ²  against the people of Israel. ³ 

For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land,

nor do they acknowledge God. ⁴ 

Hosea 4:5-6

4:5 You stumble day and night,

and the false prophets stumble with you;

You have destroyed your own people! ⁵ 

4:6 You have destroyed ⁶  my people

by failing to acknowledge me!

Because you refuse to acknowledge me, ⁷ 

I will reject you as my priests.

Because you reject ⁸  the law of your God,

I will reject ⁹  your descendants.

Hosea 14:9

Concluding Exhortation

14:9 Who is wise?

Let him discern ¹⁰  these things!

Who is discerning?

Let him understand them!

For the ways of the Lord are right;

the godly walk in them,

but in them the rebellious stumble.

Proverbs 28:5

28:5 Evil people ¹¹  do not understand justice, ¹² 

but those who seek the Lord ¹³  understand it all.

Isaiah 44:18-20

44:18 They do not comprehend or understand,

for their eyes are blind and cannot see;

their minds do not discern. ¹⁴ 

44:19 No one thinks to himself,

nor do they comprehend or understand and say to themselves:

‘I burned half of it in the fire –

yes, I baked bread over the coals;

I roasted meat and ate it.

With the rest of it should I make a disgusting idol?

Should I bow down to dry wood?’ ¹⁵ 

44:20 He feeds on ashes; ¹⁶ 

his deceived mind misleads him.

He cannot rescue himself,

nor does he say, ‘Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?’ ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 56:11

56:11 The dogs have big appetites;

they are never full. ¹⁸ 

They are shepherds who have no understanding;

they all go their own way,

each one looking for monetary gain. ¹⁹ 

Daniel 12:10

12:10 Many will be purified, made clean, and refined, but the wicked will go on being wicked. None of the wicked will understand, though the wise will understand.

John 8:43

8:43 Why don’t you understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot accept ²⁰  my teaching. ²¹ 

Romans 3:11

3:11 there is no one who understands,

there is no one who seeks God.

Ephesians 4:18

4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, ²²  being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

[4:1]  ¹ tn Heb “sons of Israel” (so NASB); KJV “children of Israel”; NAB, NRSV “people of Israel.”

[4:1]  ² tn The noun רִיב (riv, “dispute, lawsuit”) is used in two contexts: (1) nonlegal contexts: (a) “dispute” between individuals (e.g., Gen 13:7; Isa 58:1; Jer 15:10) or (b) “brawl; quarrel” between people (e.g., Exod 17:7; Deut 25:1); and (2) legal contexts: (a) “lawsuit; legal process” (e.g., Exod 23:3-6; Deut 19:17; 21:5; Ezek 44:24; Ps 35:23), (b) “lawsuit; legal case” (e.g., Deut 1:12; 17:8; Prov 18:17; 25:9), and (c) God’s “lawsuit” on behalf of a person or against his own people (Hos 4:1; 12:3; Mic 6:2; HALOT 1225-26 s.v. רִיב). The term in Hosea refers to a covenant lawsuit in which Yahweh the suzerain lodges a legal case against his disobedient vassal, accusing Israel and Judah of breach of covenant which will elicit the covenant curses.

[4:1]  ³ tn Heb “with the inhabitants of the land” (so KJV); NAB, NASB, NRSV “against the inhabitants of the land.”

[4:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “there is no truthfulness nor loyalty nor knowledge of God in the land.” Here “knowledge of God” refers to recognition of his authority and obedience to his will.

[4:5]  ⁵ tc The MT reads וְדָמִיתִי אִמֶּךָ (vÿdamiti ’immekha, “and I will destroy your mother”), and is followed by most English versions; however, the text should probably be emended to וְדָמִית עַמֶּךָ (vÿdamit ’ammekha, “and you have destroyed your own people”). The 2nd person masculine singular form וְדָמִית (vÿdamit, “and you have destroyed”) is preserved in several medieval Hebrew mss and reflected in Jerome’s Vulgate. For discussion in favor of the MT reading, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:232.

[4:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “they have destroyed” or “my people are destroyed” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).

[4:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “Because you reject knowledge”; NLT “because they don’t know me.”

[4:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “have forgotten”; NAB, NIV “have ignored.”

[4:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “forget” (so KJV, NRSV); NLT “forget to bless.”

[14:9]  ¹⁰ tn The shortened form of the prefix-conjugation verb וְיָבֵן (vÿyaven) indicates that it is a jussive rather than an imperfect. When a jussive comes from a superior to an inferior, it may connote exhortation and instruction or advice and counsel. For the functions of the jussive, see IBHS 568-70 §34.3.

[28:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “men of evil”; the context does not limit this to males only, however.

[28:5]  ¹² tn The term translated “justice” is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat); it refers to the legal rights of people, decisions that are equitable in the community. W. G. Plaut observes that there are always those who think that “justice” is that which benefits them, otherwise it is not justice (Proverbs, 282).

[28:5]  ¹³ sn The contrast (and the difference) is between the wicked and those who seek the Lord. Originally the idea of seeking the Lord meant to obtain an oracle (2 Sam 21:1), but then it came to mean devotion to God – seeking to learn and do his will. Only people who are interested in doing the Lord’s will can fully understand justice. Without that standard, legal activity can become self-serving.

[44:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for their eyes are smeared over so they cannot see, so their heart cannot be wise.”

[44:19]  ¹⁵ tn There is no formal interrogative sign here, but the context seems to indicate these are rhetorical questions. See GKC 473 §150.a.

[44:20]  ¹⁶ tn Or perhaps, “he eats on an ash heap.”

[44:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Is it not a lie in my right hand?”

[56:11]  ¹⁸ sn The phrase never full alludes to the greed of the leaders.

[56:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “for his gain from his end.”

[8:43]  ²⁰ tn Grk “you cannot hear,” but this is not a reference to deafness, but rather hearing in the sense of listening to something and responding to it.

[8:43]  ²¹ tn Grk “my word.”

[4:18]  ²² tn In the Greek text this clause is actually subordinate to περιπατεῖ (peripatei) in v. 17. It was broken up in the English translation so as to avoid an unnecessarily long and cumbersome statement.