Book of Hosea Chapter 4 Vs. 11

The Lord Accuses Israel 

Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart. Hos. 4:11

Whoredom and wine... The prophet does not mince his words in describing the morals of his time. We are reminded of Bunyan’s words: “My original and inward pollution was my plague. It was always putting itself forth in me, and I was more loathsome in my own eyes than a toad, and I thought I was in God’s eyes also.

Drunkenness and Whoredom go together. Those who drink too much lose control of their own will.

take away the... Here is a moral truth applicable to all people and times. (Verses 12-13), are illustrations of the enslavement in Israel.

The Hebrew reads literally, “for the Lord they have forsaken to obey” (KJV, NASB). In this case the clause must be understood as highly elliptical, the sense being, “they have forsaken the Lord, refusing to observe His commandments.”

The priests’ sin is summarized here. They had deserted the Lord by breaking His covenant (cf. Deut. 28:20; 29:25; 31:16). The NIV puts the last three words of Hos. 4:10 with Hos. 4:11, to give themselves (lit., “to keep or watch”) to prostitution (RSV, “to cherish harlotry”).