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. (Hosea 4:6 KJV)
Thomas Haweis
Verses 6-11: The sin and punishment of the ungodly priests correspond with each other.
1. They rejected the knowledge of God, and suffered the people to perish for lack of it. And though this will be no excuse for the people, who chose darkness rather than light, yet will their blood be required at the negligent watchman’s hands. I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me, cut off both from the office and benefit of the priesthood. Note, (1.) Ignorance in a priest is doubly scandalous, and willful ignorance the more atrociously criminal, as thereby not only their own souls, but the souls of others are destroyed. (2.) Ignorance in the people is so far from being the mother of devotion, that it is the forerunner of destruction. (3.) Though in such careless days as ours, men unqualified by ignorance, and scandalous by immoralities, are too often permitted to call themselves ministers of God, he will with abhorrence reject their pretensions, and in the great day drive them from his throne with a Depart, accursed, I never knew you.
2. They forgot the law of God, Ho 4:6 took no pains to remember it themselves or inculcate it upon others; therefore God threatens, I also will forget thy children, the children of the priests, who should be degraded, and not succeed their fathers in the priesthood: or the people, whom they should have regarded and taught as their spiritual fathers; but because they had neglected them, God will disown them. Wicked parents thus bring a curse upon their own offspring.
3. The abuse of their blessings shall prove their bane. As they were increased in numbers, wealth, and power, so they sinned against me with more daring profaneness and insolent ingratitude; therefore will I change their glory into shame, when, led into a wretched captivity, they should be stripped of all their possessions and honours, and mingle with the ignominious herd.
4. They were luxurious. They eat up the sin of my people, feasting on the sin-offerings; and, while they were careless about instructing the people concerning the nature and design of the sacrifices, they fattened themselves upon the choicest part of them; they set their heart on their iniquity, wholly given up to the indulgence of their appetites; or lifted up their soul thereunto, well pleased the people should continue to sin, because this would multiply the sacrifices, and provide food for their gluttony. And there shall be like people, like priest, equally ignorant, intemperate, and profane; for when priests show such ill example, no marvel a general profligacy of manners ensues. And I will punish them for their ways: they who are companions in sin shall suffer together; and reward them their doings, pouring out that vengeance upon them which they have provoked: for they shall eat, and not have enough; either their insatiable appetites should ever be craving, and find no satisfaction; or during the famine, or in captivity, they should know the pinchings of hunger, and pine away for very want of sustenance.
5. They committed whoredom, and thought to have a numerous issue by these unlawful means, but they shall not increase; God will disappoint their desires, or slay their children: because they have left off to take heed to the Lord; apostate from his service, and open violators of his law. Note, (1.) When God is disregarded, men stick at no abominations. (2.) God’s curse will blast all unlawful ways of increase.
6. They had given their hearts to wine and women. Whoredom and wine, and new wine, take away the heart, utterly estrange it from God; or such sins stupefy the conscience, and rob men of their reason, so that they act as if infatuated. Thus doth the curse ever follow the sin, close as the shadow doth the body.