Hosea 5:6

They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord,.... Not only the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, to whom Kimchi, Aben Ezra, and Abarbinel, restrain the words; but the ten

They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the LORD; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them.

They; the people of Judah, say some, but I rather think it is spoken of the Ephraimites, and either implies by what they did support their confidence of escaping ruin, or else foretells that extremity of sufferings should force them at last to offer sacrifices to God; and the Jewish doctors tell us, that under Hoshea’ s reign Israel had liberty of bringing their offerings and sacrifices to Jerusalem: whether this were so or not, it is certain they did not seek him in right manner, it was with their flocks and herds, but not with their hearts, not with sound repentance. But they shall not find him; whilst he might have been found they would not seek him, now as a punishment, and to leave them remediless, God will not be found of them; he will not either accept a sacrifice, or pardon their sin, or return to save them. He hath withdrawn himself from them; in displeasure hath withdrawn his favourable presence from them, and with resolution to leave them to the violences of the Assyrian powers.

Hosea 5:6 They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the LORD; but they shall not find [him]; he hath withdrawn himself from them.Ver. 6. They shall go with their flocks, and with their herds] Cursitabunt, they shall cut up and down, from altar to altar, with all their stock, as if they would buy off their sins, redeem their sorrows, with hecatombs, and store of holocausts; and then be ready to say, as that heathen emperor did, when he was to meet his enemy in the field, Non sic Deos coluimus, aut sic viximus ut ille nos vinceret (Antonin. Philosoph.). We have not so served the gods, or lived so, that the enemy should have the better of us. They thought they had merited better at God’ s hands by their thousands of rams, and ten thousand rivers of oil, Micah 6:7, than to fall, as in Hosea 5:5, than to be relinquished by him, as here. Lo, this is the guise of graceless hypocrites: by their outward performances they think to oblige God unto them, and by their good deeds to set off for their bad. Thus Brunheldis (that French Athaliah), after many murders and much mischief wrought by her, 600 AD, built many colleges for priests and monks in Burgundy and Austria, eo scilicet beneficio maleficia sun expiavit, saith the French chronicler; thereby thinking to satisfy for all her cruelty. So here in King Stephen’ s time, there were more abbeys built than in a hundred years before. So the Papists at this day spend and are spent in their blind devotions; they "lavish money out of the bag," and run up and down from saint to saint with their cost; they pray publicly in public calamities, for forty hours together, by the pope’ s command, that they may pacify God, and divert his displeasure ( Quarantoras Italico nomine istas preces recant. Polan. in loc.). For the same cause they make the same man (in their greater cities appointed) to preach every day in Lent without intermission; so as six days in the week he preacheth on the gospel of the days; and on the Saturday, in honour and praise of our Lady, as they call her (Spec. Europ.). Lo, thus they go, as they think, to seek God with their will worship and work done, but they find him as little as they did here, with their flocks, and with their herds. And why? First, they go to seek him; they run, but in a wrong way; and so fulfil that sacred proverb, "He that hasteth with his feet sinneth," Proverbs 19:2; for the faster he runs the farther he is out. Next, they pretend to seek him, but indeed they seek themselves; they seek him, but it is to be rid of his rod; they do not so much serve him as serve themselves, and their own turns upon him; as those hypocrites in Zachary fasted to themselves; not to get off their sins, but their chains, Zechariah 7:6.

(6) The vain effort to repent when it is too late. The spirit with which sacrifices of flocks and herds were offered is of more consequence than the multitude of such oblations (Micah 3:4; Isaiah 1:11; Psalms 40:6). Ghastly and revolting results follow the substitution of ritual of any kind for the weightier matter of the law.

Verse 6. They shall go with their flocks] They shall offer many sacrifices, professing to seek and be reconciled to the Lord; but they shall not find him. As they still retain the spirit of their idolatry, he has withdrawn himself from them.

6. with their flocks and with their herds] i.e., with their sacrificial offerings. This passage affords decisive proof (if indeed the converging evidence from other quarters can be held incomplete) that the Israelites of the north simply and in good faith professed to be worshippers of Jehovah. It will be too late, says the prophet, to use the ordinary means of appeasing Jehovah’s wrath, which have only a value as the outward signs of penitence and faith (see on Hosea 6:6). Micah uses similar expressions respecting prayers which are offered too late (Micah 3:4).

They shall go with their flocks - “They had let slip the day of grace, wherein God had called them to repentance, and promised to be found of them and to accept them.

6. It is impossible to appease the divine wrath and to avert the threatened judgment by the means with which Israel is accustomed to seek the favor of Jehovah.