to commit adultery (usually of the female · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
Judah
יְהוּדָ֑הye.hu.Dah
H3063
Jehudah (or Judah) · proper noun, a place name
offend
יֶאְשַׁ֖םye'.Sham
H816
to be guilty · verb, qal jussive, 3rd person masculine singular
come
תָּבֹ֣אוּta.Vo.'u
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · verb, qal jussive, 2nd person masculine plural
Gilgal
הַגִּלְגָּ֗לha.gil.Gal
H1537
Gilgal · definite article + proper noun, a place name
up
תַּעֲלוּ֙ta.'a.Lu
H5927
to ascend · verb, qal jussive, 2nd person masculine plural
Beth-aven
בֵּ֣יתbeit
H1007
Beth-Aven · proper noun, a place name
swear
תִּשָּׁבְע֖וּti.sha.ve.'U
H7650
to seven oneself · verb, niphal jussive, 2nd person masculine plural
LORD
יְהוָֽהYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
liveth
חַיchai-
H2416
alive · adjective, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Hosea 9:15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will lo…
Hosea 12:11 Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the…
Amos 4:4 Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three year…
Amos 5:5 But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come t…
Jeremiah 5:2 And though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely.
Hosea 5:8 Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: cry aloud at Beth-aven, after thee, O Benjamin.
Hosea 10:5 The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereo…
Hosea 10:8 The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 4:12–end
In these verses we have, as before,
I. The sins charged upon the people of Israel, for which God had a controversy with them, and they are,
1. Spiritual whoredom, or idolatry. They have in them a spirit of whoredoms, a strong inclination to that sin; the bent and bias of their hearts are that way; it is their own iniquity; they are carried out towards it with an unaccountable violence, and this causes them to err. Note, The errors and mistakes of the judgment are commonly owing to the corrupt affections; men therefore have a good opinion of sin, because they have a disposition towards it. And having such erroneous notions of idols, and such passionate motions towards them, no marvel that wit…
Though Israel's ten tribes indulge in spiritual harlotry, at least thou, Judah, who hast the legal priesthood, and the temple rites, and Jerusalem, do not follow her bad example.
Gilgal--situated between Jordan and Jericho on the confines of Samaria; once a holy place to Jehovah (Jos 5:10-15; Sa1 10:8; Sa1 15:21); afterwards desecrated by idol-worship (Hos 9:15; 12-11; Amo 4:4; Amo 5:5; compare Jdg 3:19, Margin).
Beth-aven--that is, "house of vanity" or idols: a name substituted in contempt for Beth-el, "the house of God"; once sacred to Jehovah (Gen 28:17, Gen 28:19; Gen 35:7), but made by Jeroboam the seat of the worship of the calves (Kg1 12:28-33; Kg1 13:1; Jer 48:13; Amo 3:14; Amo 7…
Let not Judah offend - Israel was totally dissolute; Judah was not so. Here she is exhorted to maintain her integrity. If the former will go to what was once Beth-el, the house of God, now Beth-aven, the house of iniquity, because Jeroboam has set up his calves there, let not Judah imitate them. Gilgal was the place where the covenant of circumcision was renewed when the people passed over Jordan; but was rendered infamous by the worship of idols, after Jeroboam had set up his idolatry.
John Gill
The Church Fathers
"If you fornicate, Israel, let not at least Judah sin, and do not enter into Gilgal, and do not ascend into Bethaven, neither shall you swear, by the living Lord, for as an wanton heifer, Israel has sinned. Now the Lord will feed them as a lamb in a large place." LXX: "But you, Israel, do not ignore, and Judah, do not enter into Galgala, nor ascend into the house [ὢν] and do not swear, the Lord lives: for as a refuge-killed cow, Israel went insane. Now the Lord will feed them like a lamb in a spacious place." "For home" [ὢν] being read in some copies, and most particularly in Theodotion as "house of iniquity," which Aquila and Symmachus interpreted as ἀνωφελοῦς ["house of the profitless,"] that is, "useless" which is of no benefit, and is designated by another word "idol". But Bethel was formerly called the "House of God," but after the calves were placed in it, it was called "Bethaven," that is, "useless house" and "house of idols," which we have expressed as we read it in Hebrew. But it seems to me that both the people of Israel and Jeroboam the son of Nebat made a golden calf to be worshipped in the wilderness, and fashioned golden calves as they had learned in Egypt, where the bulls are worshipped as gods in their superstition. Let us discuss the meaning of the chapter: Sisemel, O Israel, you have been deceived by error and have mixed with prostitutes, so that whoever fulfills the act of offering and giving gifts to the king or himself, would become a priest of the high places. At least you, Judah, who possess Jerusalem and have Levites from the law and perform temple ceremonies, should not imitate the examples of your former sister Oolla in fornication and worship idols with her. Do not enter Galgala, about which we read in this same prophet: 'All their wickedness is in Galgala' (Hosea 9:15), where Saul was anointed king, where the people, coming out of the wilderness, camped for the first time, and were purified by a second circumcision. From that time on, in this notorious place, error of an opposing religion crept in. And do not go up to Bethaven, that is, what was once called Bethel, because after golden calves were placed there by Jeroboam son of Nabath, it is not called the House of God but the house of an idol. For which reason, I wonder why the Septuagint interpreted it as "unless I make a mistake, the middle Jod letter which is surrounded on…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Aven — Nothingness; vanity. (1.) Hosea speaks of the “high places of Aven” (10:8), by which he means Bethel. He also calls it Beth-aven, i.e., “the house of vanity” (4:15), on account of the golden calves…
Beth-aven — House of nothingness; i.e., “of idols”, a place in the mountains of Benjamin, east of Bethel (Josh. 7:2; 18:12; 1 Sam. 13:5). In Hos. 4:15; 5:8; 10:5 it stands for “Bethel” (q.v.), and it is so…
Bethaven — (house of nothingness, i.e. of idols), a place on the mountains of Benjamin, east of Bethel, (Joshua 7:2; 18:12) and lying between that place and Michmash. (1 Samuel 13:5; 14:28) In (Hosea 4:15; 5:8;…
Bethel — House of God. (1.) A place in Central Palestine, about 10 miles north of Jerusalem, at the head of the pass of Michmash and Ai. It was originally the royal Canaanite city of Luz (Gen. 28:19). The…
Gilgal — Rolling. (1.) From the solemn transaction of the reading of the law in the valley of Shechem between Ebal and Gerizim the Israelites moved forward to Gilgal, and there made a permanent camp (Josh.…
Oath — A solemn appeal to God, permitted on fitting occasions (Deut. 6:13; Jer. 4:2), in various forms (Gen. 16:5; 2 Sam. 12:5; Ruth 1:17; Hos. 4:15; Rom. 1:9), and taken in different ways (Gen. 14:22;…
Beth-Aven · A place on the mountains of Benjamin — A place on the mountains of Benjamin
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
on Hosea 4:15
Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend,.... That is, though the Israelites, the people of the ten tribes, committed adultery, both corporeal and spiritual, in their idolatrous worship, as before observed, to which they had been used ever since the times of Jeroboam the first, and were hardened therein, and from which there were little hopes of reforming them; yet let not the men of Judah be guilty of the same crimes, who have as yet retained the pure worship of God among them; where the house of God is, and the priests of the Lord officiate, and sacrifices are offered up to him according to his will, and all other parts of religious service are performed: or the whole…
Hosea 4:15
15. Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven, nor swear, The Lord liveth.
15. Si scortaris tu Israel, ne offendat Jehudah; ne veniatis in Gilgal, et me ascendatis Beth-aven, et ne juretis, Vivit Jehova.
The Prophet here complains that Judah also was infected with superstitions, though the Lord had hitherto wonderfully kept them from pollutions of this kind. He compares Israel with Judah, as though he said, "It is no wonder that Israel plays the wanton; they had for a long time shaken off the yoke; their defection is well known: but it is not to be endured, that Judah also should begin to fall away…
A different turn is now given to the prophecy, viz., that if Israel would not desist from idolatry, Judah ought to beware of participating in the guilt of Israel; and with this the fourth strophe (Hos 4:15-19) is introduced, containing the announcement of the inevitable destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes. Hos 4:15. "If thou commit whoredom, O Israel, let not Judah offend! Come ye not to Gilgal, go not up to Bethaven, and swear ye not by the life of Jehovah." אשׁם, to render one's self guilty by participating in the whoredom, i.e., the idolatry, of Israel. This was done by making pilgrimages to the places of idolatrous worship in that kingdom, viz., to Gilgal, i.e., not the Gilgal i…
Beth-aven refers to the wickedness being practiced at Bethel, the most important worship center in the northern kingdom of Israel (see Amos 7:13; cp. Hos 5:8; 10:5).
Rashi on Hosea 4:15
Though you, O Israel, play the harlot the sons of Judah ought not learn their (sic) way. An alternate explanation is: Though you, O Israel, play the harlot, let not Judah become guilty. Though Israel is as a harlot, the sons of Judah are not guilty thereof, and I shall [therefore] not hold them accountable, as it is written above (1:17): “But I will have compassion upon the house of Judah.”
and do not come you sons of Judah to Gilgal. (Judah shall be blameless) provided the sons of Judah do not come to Gilgal where the ten tribes worship [idols], as it is stated: “All their wickedness is in Gilgal” (Hosea 9:15); “[Come] to Gilgal and multiply transgression” (Amos 4:4).
nor go up to Beth- a…
