Hosea 5:10

The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound,.... Or landmark, which to do was contrary to the law, Deuteronomy 19:14; and has always been reckoned a heinous sin among all nations, and

Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be. Ephraim ... Judah. - Israel is referred to in Hosea 5:9 , Judah in Hosea 5:10.

The princes; the great men about the king and court, the rulers and governors, who by the law of God and man should have been the maintainers of equity and justice among the people. Of Judah; of the kingdom of Judah, or the two tribes. Were; have been, and now are in the days of Ahaz, for to this man’ s time the prophet now pointeth. Like them that remove the bound; the ancient bounds which limited every one, prevented controversies and oppressions of encroaching, covetous men. The prophet, I doubt not, aims at reproving the sin of these great ones in changing the laws of religion, as well as altering the bounds of civil rights, whether by encroaching upon foreigners, and enlarging the kingdom of Judah by entrenching on the neighbouring kingdoms, or, which is more certain, by injustice and violence seizing what was another’ s. Therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them: this was sin and forbidden, ; this practice is cursed, , and God now will punish it. Like water; like an overflowing flood.

Hosea 5:10 The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound: [therefore] I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.Ver. 10. The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound] A wickedness condemned by the law and light both of nature and Scripture, Deuteronomy 27:17; Deuteronomy 19:14 Proverbs 22:28. The princes are mentioned, because corruption in a people (as putrefication in a fish) begins at the head. Now the landmark of limit is removed many ways: as, first, religione, in religion; when the true is changed into that which is false, as was here in Queen Mary’ s days, against her promise to the Suffolk men (Tarnon.). Secondly, in regione, in the civil state; when one man violently invadeth the right of another (as Ahab did Naboth’ s vineyard), and no man must question them, because it is facinus maioris abollae (Juvenal), the fact of a great one. Thirdly, in officio, in a man’ s office or particular station, when he keeps not within his circle, but takes liberty to transgress, prescribing new worships, as 2 Kings 16:10-11 2 Chronicles 28:23; taking upon them to teach ministers what to teach them, as Micah 2:6; or themselves invading the ministerial office uncalled thereunto, as did Jeroboam, 1 Kings 12:33; 1 Kings 16:3, and Uzziah, 2 Chronicles 26:16, to their cost. This (saith an interpreter) is grandis culpa, et atrox crimen, a foul fault, a crimson crime. Let our lay preachers and levellers look to it, unless they covet a curse. Deuteronomy 27:17, "He that breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him." Fourthly, in negotio, in businesses and transactions, in contracts and covenants: he removeth bounds who defrauds and circumventeth another in any matters, 1 Thessalonians 4:6. These must remember that God is the avenger of all such; and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the punishing hands of the living God, Hebrews 10:31. The Papists fall foul upon us as innovators, and removers of the ancient bounds, because we reject their ecclesiastical traditions and unwritten verities (as they call them) commended unto us by the ancients, and embraced by whole nations tbr many ages. To whom we answer, that multitude and antiquity are but ciphers in divinity; they must (at least) have no more authority than what they can maintain. Let them boast, with the Gibeonites, of their old shoes, mouldy bread, &c., we hold us to the Scriptures, for our limits and landmarks unmoveable and immutable. And when they shall ask us, as they often do, where was your religion before Luther? we answer, as one once did, In the Bible, where yours never was. Erasmus met with an adversary so silly as to charge him for a remover of the ancient bounds, because he had anew translated the New Testament; a work of singular use to the Church of Christ in those dark times. (Erasm. in Apolog.).

(10) The princes of Judah, such as Ahaz, whose pusillanimity brought untold evil on both Israel and Judah (2 Kings 16:10-18). Like them that remove the bound (landmark).—A practice prohibited in Deuteronomy 19:14, and included in the curses of Mount Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:17), an indication that this very legislation existed before the time of the prophet. They break down the barrier between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood, between Jehovah and Baalim.

Verse 10. Like them that remove the bound] As execrable as they who remove the land-mark. They have leaped over law's enclosure, and scaled all the walls of right; they have despised and broken all laws, human and Divine.

10. were like them that remove the bound] Rather, are become like them that remove the landmark. The landmarks were under the protection of religion (Proverbs 22:28; Proverbs 23:10; Deuteronomy 19:14), and to remove them laid the offender under a curse, according to Deuteronomy 27:17. Hosea cites the offence as the greatest conceivable example of revolutionary caprice. Judah, it would seem, was not more fortunate now in its upper classes than Israel (comp. Hosea 6:10-11 Sept., and Isaiah’s ‘these also’, viz. the chief men of Jerusalem, Isaiah 28:7). like water] Jehovah’s wrath is like fire in its destructiveness, and like a swollen stream in its abundant volume.

The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound - All avaricious encroachment on the paternal inheritance of others, was strictly forbidden by God in the law, under the penalty of His curse.

9. The alarm may indeed be given, for Ephraim is doomed. Day of rebuke — Of judgment. Tribes of Israel — The northern tribes only. Among — Perhaps better, concerning, or with regard to.