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Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Book of Hosea Chapter 4 Vs. 14

 The Lord Accuses Israel


I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall. Hos. 4:14



I will not... This means that God will leave such sinners to follow their own corruption until the time when He will judge them in the next life. "I will not punish your daughters" (that is, punish them in particular more than you).

for themselves are... For you all commit adultery; and the men "are separated with whores." All of you may live as you want to in this life, but there is a judgment day coming for everyone.

your daughters when... Your daughters who become temple women (those consecrated to the unclean worship of heathen idols, by which the most foul corruptions in sex were considered holy duty). Your women commit whoredom and your men are "separated with whores".

and they sacrifice... To idols with harlots; therefore, the whole nation will fall.

Although all who sin will be judged, God forbade punishing the adulteresses alone and leaving the men who patronized them to go free. The heaviest punishment would not be on the women who sin, but the fathers and husbands who set such a bad example by their engagement with prostitutes.

therefore the people... Doth not understand”: (compare 4:6).

Sin feeds upon itself. God was the husband of Israel in the spirit. They, who worshiped false gods, committed spiritual adultery against God. That sin was so terrible that physical adultery paled in comparison. It had been the law to stone to death someone caught in the act of physical adultery. But why punish that individually, when the majority of the nation was guilty of spiritual adultery?



However, these women would not be singled out for divine punishment because the men frequented the shrines as well (Hos. 4:14). In response to such an obvious failure to grasp and apply the most basic principles of covenant life, the Lord cried out, A people without understanding (cf. Hos. 4:11) will come to ruin!

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