Hosea 4:5

Therefore shall thou fall in the day,.... Either, O ye people, everyone of you, being so refractory and incorrigible; or, O thou priest, being as bad as the people; for both, on account of their

Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.

Therefore, because thy sins are so many and so great, and thou art incorrigible in them, shalt thou fall; the prophet turns his speech to the people, thou, O Israel; he speaks to them as to one person, they were all of one piece in sin, and should be so one in punishment. Fall; stumble, and fall, and be broken. In the day; or this day, i.e. very suddenly, your fall shall be presently effected by your enemies’ power, vigilance, and successes; it shall be no longer delayed. The prophet; who spake smooth things, who prophesied lies; the false prophets of Baal and the groves, 23:15. Shall fall; be in as sad calamitous condition as any. With thee; either the prophet that is with thee, that lived with and prophesied to this people; or, as we read it, when the people are ruined and captivated, with them the false prophet shall be likewise ruined and captivated. In the night; either proverbially taken, people and prophet shall continually fall; or allusively, both shall fall as a man that falls in the night. Or else, the prophet shall fall in the darkest calamities, he shall be covered with thickest clouds, who falsely foretold and promised light unto such people. And I, the Lord, against whom thou hast sinned, will destroy, cut off, or make to cease or be silent for ever: see . Thy mother; both the state, or kingdom, and the synagogues, or mock churches: the public is as a mother to private persons: so all shall be destroyed; which also came to pass before the prophet Hosea died, he lived to see his threats fulfilled.

Hosea 4:5 Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother.Ver. 5. Therefore shalt thou fall] How could they do otherwise that were a nation so incorrigibly flagitious, so unthankful for mercies, so impatient of remedies, so incapable of repentance, so obliged, so warned, so shamelessly, so lawlessly wicked? Therefore shalt thou fall in the day] Vivens vidensque peribis, thou shalt stumble at noon day, because there is no knowledge of God in the land; but thou hast loved darkness rather than light, therefore shalt thou have enough of it; thy feet shall stumble upon the dark mountains, Jeremiah 13:16, yea, thou shalt stumble and fall and never rise again, which is threatened expressly to these swearers, Amos 8:14, and implied in the Hebrew word here used. Such was Eli’ s fall off his stool, and Haman’ s fall before Mordecai the Jew, Esther 6:13. Impenitent persons are brats of fathomless perdition, they are ripe for ruin, shall fall into remediless misery, and (though never so insolent and angry against those that deal plainly and faithfully with them, as in the former verse, yet) they shall never want a Hosea to tell them so to their teeth; that those that will not bend may break, that if they will needs fall they may fall with open eyes, and not have cause to say that they were not forewarned. And this shall be done today, αυθημαρ, that is, very shortly, in this present age (so some interpret it), aut certe clarissima luce, saith Mercer, or else in the open light, and in the view of all men, not in huggermugger. Tremellius thinks it is as much as rebus adhuc integris subito opprimentur, Thou shalt be suddenly surprised when thou art in thy flourish, and fearest no changes. What can be more fair and flourishing than the field a day before harvest? than the vineyard a day before the vintage? certissime citissimeque corrues. Most ertainly, most certainly, fall down. Every wicked man may apply it; wherefore also it is delivered in the second person singular, Thou, even thou: to thee be it spoken. And the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night] The Chaldee hath it, "as in the night, if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him," John 11:10. The false prophet cannot lay his hand upon his breast and say, as dying Oecolampadius did, Hic sat lucis, Here is store of light. Such are woefully benighted, yet more may look to be, for "their right eye shall be utterly darkened," Zechariah 11:17 (being blind leaders of the blind), yea, the night shall be upon them, and it shall be dark unto them; the sun shall go down over their heads, Micah 3:6, and when they fall together with those seduced souls into the ditch of destruction, themselves shall fall undermost, Matthew 15:14, and receive the deeper damnation, Matthew 23:14.

(5) The priest’s function is discharged in the day, and the prophet dreams in the night. Both will totter to their fall. Thy mother—i.e., thy nation.

Verse 5. Therefore shalt thou fall in the day] In the most open and public manner, without snare or ambush. And the prophet also shall fall - in the night] The false prophet, when employed in taking prognostications from stars, meteors, &c. And I will destroy thy mother.] The metropolis or mother city. Jerusalem or Samaria is meant.

5. the prophet also] Hosea of course refers to the lower class of prophets, to whom prophecy was simply a means of livelihood (comp. Micah 3:11 and Amaziah’s words in Amos 7:12), and who, like the priests, often came visibly drunk to their most solemn functions (Isaiah 28:7). The spiritually-minded prophets of this period do not inveigh against their rivals as false prophets (this term came from the Sept. version of Jeremiah), but as those who prostitute a sacred calling to selfish purposes. Very similar charges are brought against the priests, who are not on that account called false priests, though from the highest point of view they were such. thy mother] i.e. the stock from which thou springest, i.e. either the entire Israelitish race (comp. Hosea 2:2), or some partly independent portion of that race, not indeed here a city (as 2 Samuel 20:19; comp. Psalms 149:2), but the caste or clan of the priests (so Prof. Robertson Smith). The expression ‘I will also forget thy children’ (see below) favours the latter view.

Therefore shalt thou fall - The two parts of the verse fill up each other. “By day and by night shall they fall, people and prophets together.” Their calamities should come upon them successively, day and night.

The religious leaders are chiefly responsible for the sins of the people, Hosea 4:4-8.Hosea 4:4, as it stands now, offers considerable difficulties to the interpreter, and has been variously explained.