Hosea 4:6

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

My people

For

I will also reject

Luke 20:16

Seeing

General references

Deuteronomy 32:28

Jeremiah 5:4

Ezekiel 44:23

Bible References

My people

My people consult their [lifeless] wooden idol, and their [diviner’s] wand gives them oracles.
For a spirit of prostitution has led them astray [morally and spiritually],
And they have played the prostitute, withdrawing themselves from their God.

“The ox [instinctively] knows its owner,
And the donkey its master’s feeding trough,
But Israel does not know [Me as Lord],
My people do not understand.”

O My people! Children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Your leaders lead you astray
And confuse (destroy, swallow up) the direction of your paths.

Therefore My people go into exile because they lack knowledge [of God];
And their honorable men are famished,
And their common people are parched with thirst.

“For My people are stupid and foolish,” [says the Lord to Jeremiah];
“They do not know Me;
They are foolish children
And have no understanding.
They are shrewd [enough] to do evil,
But they do not know [how] to do good.”

“Even the stork in the sky
Knows her seasons [of migration],
And the turtledove, the swallow and the crane
Observe the time of their return.
But My people do not know
The law of the Lord.

For

Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel,
For the Lord has a [legal] case with the inhabitants of the land,
Because there is no faithfulness [no steadfast love, no dependability] or loyalty or kindness
Or knowledge of God [from personal experience with Him] in the land.

For I desire and delight in [steadfast] loyalty [faithfulness in the covenant relationship], rather than sacrifice,
And in the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Now for a long time Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest, and without [God’s] law.

“But if they do not hear and obey, they will die by the sword [of God’s destructive judgments]
And they will die [in ignorance] without [true] knowledge.

Also it is not good for a person to be without knowledge,
And he who hurries with his feet [acting impulsively and proceeding without caution or analyzing the consequences] sins (misses the mark).

When its branches are dry, they are broken off;
The women come and make a fire with them.
For they are not a people of understanding,
Therefore He who made them will not have compassion on them,
And He who created them will not be gracious to them.

“Assemble yourselves and come;
Come together, you survivors of the nations!
They are ignorant,
Who carry around their wooden idols [in religious processions or into battle]
And keep on praying to a god that cannot save them.

O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth?
You [have seen their faithless heart and] have stricken them,
But they did not weaken;
You have consumed them,
But they refused to take correction or instruction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
They have refused to repent and return to You.

Leave them alone; they are blind guides

[leading blind followers]. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

But even if our gospel is [in some sense] hidden [behind a veil], it is hidden [only] to those who are perishing;

I will also reject

Then I eliminated the three [incompetent, unfit] shepherds [the civil rulers, the priests, and the prophets] in one month, for I was impatient with them, and they also were tired of me and despised me.

“Now, O priests, this commandment is for you.

They said to Him, “He will put those despicable men to a miserable end, and rent out the vineyard to other tenants [of good character] who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”

So they took him and killed him, and threw his body outside the vineyard.

He will come and put these tenants to death and will give the vineyard to others.” When the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders heard this, they said, “May it never be!”

Seeing

For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces [and pagan temples],
And Judah has built many fortified cities;
But I will send a fire upon their cities so that it may consume their palaces and fortresses.

When they had their pasture, they became satisfied,
And being satisfied, their heart became proud (self-centered);
Therefore they forgot Me.

They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God and made for themselves cast images of two calves; and they made an Asherah [idol] and worshiped all the [starry] host of heaven and served Baal.

The cords of the wicked have encircled and ensnared me,
But I have not forgotten Your law.

Because you [Judah] have forgotten the God of your salvation
And have not remembered the Rock of your Stronghold—
Therefore you plant lovely plants
And set the grounds with vine slips of a strange god,

He replied to them, “Why also do you violate the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition [handed down by the elders]?

Moreover, I selected him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to go up to My altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before Me. And [from then on] I gave to the house of your father all the fire offerings of the sons of Israel.

On that day I will carry out against Eli everything that I have spoken concerning his house (family), from beginning to end.

General references

“For they are a nation devoid of counsel,
And there is no understanding in them.

Then I said, “[Surely] these are only the poor (uneducated);
They are [sinfully] foolish and have no [spiritual] understanding,
For they do not know the way of the Lord
Or the ordinance of their God [and the requirements of His just and righteous law].

The priests shall teach My people the difference between the holy and the common, and teach them to distinguish between the (ceremonially) unclean and the clean.