In this pericope God addressed the Israelites as a whole but identified sins of their priests in particular.
4:4 Israel's guilt was so clear that the Lord forbade the people from denying His charge against them. As judge, He silenced them in His court. In defying Him they were like witnesses who brazenly defied their authority on earth, the priest.
4:5 Because of this rebellion the people would have great difficulty and would stumble as they walked through life. Their false prophets would also err. Both types of spiritual leaders, priests and prophets, were guilty before God. The Lord also promised to destroy the mother of the Israelites, probably another reference to the nation as a whole (cf. 2:2).
4:6 God would destroy the Israelites because of their lack of knowledge of Himself. That is, they failed to acknowledge Him as their God (cf. v. 1). God would reject them as His priests on the earth, whose task it was to mediate the knowledge of God to the nations (Exod. 19:6), because they rejected the knowledge that He gave them in His law. He would abandon (forget) their children because they had abandoned (forgotten) His law.
4:7 God had blessed the Israelites by increasing their numbers, but their response to this blessing had been to increase their sinning against Him. Consequently He would change their glory, a large population (or perhaps Yahweh Himself), into shame; He would reduce their numbers (and withdraw from them).
4:8 Israel's priests were feeding on the sin offerings that the people brought to their pagan shrines. Yet since these offerings were to idols it was as though the priests really fed on the people's sins. The priests desired these offerings, which meant they desired the people to practice idolatry so they would bring more sacrifices. King Jeroboam I had appointed as priests people from any tribe and all walks of life in Israel (1 Kings 12:31; 13:33).
4:9 God would, therefore, punish the unfaithful priests of Israel as He would punish the unfaithful people of Israel. Both groups were sinning, so God promised to punish them for their sinful ways and to repay them for their idolatrous works.
4:10 They would eat but not have enough because the Lord would send drought and scarcity of food as punishment (cf. v. 3). They would act like harlots by committing fornication with pagan temple prostitutes, but their numbers would not increase because Yahweh would reduce their fertility. He would do this because they had stopped listening to and obeying Him by observing His law.
