Hosea 10:4

They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant,.... Those are other crimes they were guilty of, for which the wrath of God could not be awarded from them by a king, if they had one, or by any other.

They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field. They have spoken words - mere empty words.

They, the nobles and great men in Israel, the heads of the parties, or the counsellors of the kingdom, have spoken words; have in long and repeated consultations and debates contrived and laid forth the designs most like to help us; but all in vain, all is but words; or thus they have deceived one another, and ruined all; and this latter seems exactly to suit with what follows. Swearing falsely, by perjury deceiving those they treated with, in making a covenant; either among themselves, accepting a usurper, promising and swearing fealty to him; or with their allies, as with the Assyrian king, whose covenant they perjuriously broke, and, contrary to oath, sent to and confederated with Sun, or So, king of Egypt. Judgment, i.e. Divine revenges, do so abound every where; or else unequal and sinful projects, counsels, and resolutions of their rulers are, instead of just, wholesome, and saving, turned into bitter, poisonous, and pernicious as hemlock. As hemlock in the furrows of the field; a proverbial speech, expressing the greatness of this pernicious evil. So this will be explained by , oppression, injustice, and all sins spread (as hemlock quickly overruns a field) over all the kingdom.

Hosea 10:4 They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.Ver. 4. They have spoken words] Bubbles of words, great swelling words, thereby thinking to bear down and outface the prophets, and the godly party. They speak violent words (as the Chaldee hath it), robust words, as if they would yet carry it (though their king could not help them) by confederacies and covenants confirmed with oaths; holding that rule of the Priscillianists for gospel (as they say), “ Iura, periura: secretum prodere noli: ” and that maxim of Machiavel, that religion itself (in contracts and covenants) should not be cared for; but only the appearance, because the credit is a help, the use a cumber; but all these are but words, saith the prophet, and those but wind; they shall do them no good, because without God. “ Quid nisus? risus; conamina? inania, vana: Conventus? ventus; foedera? verba mera. ” Swearing falsely in making a covenant] A foul business, whether it be understood of covenant with God (whereof before) or with the Assyrian, with whom they broke, to ingratiate with "So, king of Egypt," 2 Kings 17:4. How God plagueth perjurers, &c., covenant breakers, see Zechariah 5:3 Malachi 3:5. He will appoint the sword to avenge the quarrel of his covenant, Leviticus 26:25, as he did upon Jerusalem, not leaving there one stone upon another; upon those seven golden candlesticks, long since broken in pieces for their breach of covenant; upon Bohemia, that seat of the first open and authorized Reformation whatever will yet become of England. Thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field] Heb. of my field, where I have ploughed and made long furrows, fitted for good seed, wherein I "looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry," Isaiah 5:7. This root of bitterness, these stalks of hemlock (that venomous weed, full of deadly poison), is bad anywhere, but worst of all when found in God’ s field, noted for a habitation of justice and mountain of holiness, Jeremiah 31:23. Where should a man look for justice, but where holiness is professed? since primo praecepto reliquorum omnium observantia praecipitur, the second table of the law is included in the first; yea, the keeping of all the ten is enjoined in the first commandment? Of Rome it was anciently said, that all the neighbouring cities were the better for her example of singular care to do justice. It should be so said of the city of God; where when judgment is turned into wormwood, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock, as Amos 6:12, well, it may grow till it be ripe in the field, but God will not suffer it to shed, to grow again, but cuts it up by a just and seasonable vengeance.

(4) Judgment—i.e., Divine judgments shall prevail not as a blessing, but as a curse; not as a precious harvest, but as a poisonous plant (poppy or hemlock) in the ridges of the field.

Verse 4. They have spoken words] Vain, empty, deceitful words. Swearing falsely] This refers to the alliances made with strange powers, to whom they promised fidelity without intending to be faithful; and from whom they promised themselves protection and support, notwithstanding God was against them, and they knew it. All their words were vain, and in the end as bitter as gall. Judgment springeth up as hemlock] As our land lies without cultivation, so that we have nothing but noxious weeds instead of crops; so we have no administration of justice. What is done in this way is a perversion of law, and is as hurtful to society as hemlock would be to animal life. All this may refer to the anarchy that was in the kingdom of Israel before Hoshea's reign, and which lasted, according to Archbishop Usher, nine years. They then, literally, "had no king."

4. They have spoken words] i.e. mere ‘words of the lips’ (Isaiah 36:5, comp. Isaiah 58:13), and, as the context shows, deliberate falsehoods (comp. Isaiah 29:21). swearing falsely in making a covenant] Better, they swear falsely, they make covenants. The ‘covenants’ spoken of are those entered into with Assyria and Egypt (Hosea 10:6, Hosea 12:2), not those of everyday life, since it is the making of covenants, and not the breaking of them, which the prophet denounces. thus judgment springeth up as hemlock, &c.] Rather, so judgment shall spring up as the poppy. Their sins are as it were the seed from which a plant is produced as bitter and as abundant as the poppy of the fields. The plant in question (Heb. rôsh) is often referred to, and cannot be identified with precision (see on Jeremiah 8:14); most think it is some umbelliferous plant, rôsh being the common word for ‘head.’ Elsewhere its bitterness is the point of comparison (Deuteronomy 29:18; Jeremiah 9:15; Lamentations 3:19); here its abundant growth as well. Hence some have been led to render, continuing the description of the immorality of Israel, ‘and justice springs up like the poppy’, i.e., understanding the passage ironically, acts of hurtful injustice are as luxuriantly abundant as that noxious weed, comp. Amos 6:12. But the universality of the divine judgment can be as well expressed by this figure as the universality of sin, and Hosea 10:5 requires some previous reference to the punishment to explain it. The judgment began with the man who was foremost in those illegitimate covenants—with the prophet’s royal namesake (Hoshea); see 2 Kings 17:4.

They have spoken words - The words which they spoke were eminently “words;” they were mere “words,” which had no substance; “swearing falsely in making a covenant, literally, swearing falsely, making

1, 2. Empty vine — Or, emptying vine, that is, the vine that “pours forth its internal strength in abundance of growth and fruit”; therefore R.V., correctly, “luxuriant” (compare Hosea 9:10).