Hosea 4:6 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
a people (as a congregated unit) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
destroyed
נִדְמ֥וּnid.Mu
H1820
to be dumb or silent · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
knowledge
הַדָּ֑עַתha.Da.'at
H1847
knowledge · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
rejected
מָאַ֗סְתָּma.'As.ta
H3988
to spurn · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
knowledge
הַדַּ֣עַתha.Da.'at
H1847
knowledge · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
reject
וְאֶמְאָֽסְאךָ֙ve.'em.'a.se.Kha
H3988
to spurn · conjunction + verb, qal, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
priest
מִכַּהֵ֣ןmi.ka.Hen
H3547
to officiate as a priest · preposition + verb, piel infinitive construct
forgotten
וַתִּשְׁכַּח֙va.tish.Kach
H7911
to mislay · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
law
תּוֹרַ֣תto.Rat
H8451
a precept or statute · noun, common feminine singular construct
God
אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ'e.lo.Hei.kha
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
forget
אֶשְׁכַּ֥ח'esh.Kach
H7911
to mislay · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
children
בָּנֶ֖יךָba.Nei.kha
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
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
Isaiah 5:13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude drie…
Proverbs 19:2 Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth.
Hosea 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
2 Corinthians 4:3-6 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
Hosea 4:1 Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no trut…
Matthew 15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
Proverbs 1:30-32 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
Isaiah 17:10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant plea…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 4:6-11
God is here proceeding in his controversy both with the priests and with the people. The people were as those that strove with the priests (Hos 4:4) when they had priests that did their duty; but the generality of them lived in the neglect of their duty, and here is a word for those priests, and for the people that love to have it so, Jer 5:31. And it is observable here how the punishment answers to the sin, and how, for the justifying of his own proceedings, God sets the one over-against the other.
I. The people strove with the priests that should have taught them the knowledge of God; justly therefore were they destroyed for lack of knowledge, Hos 4:6. Note, Those that rebel against the li…
lack of knowledge--"of God" (Hos 4:1), that is, lack of piety. Their ignorance was wilful, as the epithet, "My people," implies; they ought to have known, having the opportunity, as the people of God.
thou--O priest, so-called. Not regularly constituted, but still bearing the name, while confounding the worship of Jehovah and of the calves in Beth-el (Kg1 12:29, Kg1 12:31).
I will . . . forget thy children--Not only those who then were alive should be deprived of the priesthood, but their children who, in the ordinary course would have succeeded them, should be set aside.
Adam Clarke on Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge - They have not the knowledge of God, nor of sacred things, nor of their own interest, nor of the danger to which they are exposed. They walk on blindly, and perish.
Because thou hast rejected knowledge - So they might have become wise, had they not rejected the means of improvement.
Thou shalt be no priest to me - If this be the true reading, there must be reference to some particular priest, well known, to whom these words are personally addressed; unless by priest the whole priesthood is meant, and then it may apply to the priests of Jeroboam's calves.
John Gill on Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,.... This is not to be understood of those who are the Lord's people by special grace; for they cannot he destroyed, at least with everlasting destruction; God's love to them, his choice of them, covenant with them, the redemption of them by Christ, and the grace of God in them, secure them from such destruction: nor can they perish through want of knowledge; for though they are by nature as ignorant as others, yet it is the determinate will of God to bring them to the knowledge of the truth, in order to salvation; and that same decree which fixes salvation as the end, secures the belief of the truth as the means; and the covenant of grace provid…
The Church Fathers
"At night, I made your mother be silent, my people have become silent, because they have no knowledge: for you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you, and you will not serve as a priest to me; and you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your sons." LXX: "I have compared thy mother to the night, and my people to have no knowledge. Since thou hast refused knowledge, I will also refuse thee, that thou shalt not be a priest to me. Thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, and I will forget thy children." Not because there are other mothers and other sons, does she call herself mother and sons; but just as the Lord spoke to the Jewish people and said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest those sent to thee, how often I have desired to gather thy children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and thou didst not want it." (Matthew 23, 5). Not as another Jerusalem, and another people thereof: for it did not speak without the people to the building of the city and the wood and the stones. Thus the mother is called the crowd of the people and every multitude of the Hebrew nation, to whom it speaks: but the sons, either single or dispersed through the towns and villages of the people. Therefore in the night and darkness of captivity, mourning and pressing distress, Israel is surrendered and its people remain silent in eternal silence; because it did not have knowledge of the law, nor did it keep the commandments of God, and received what it had done. For she herself has rejected God's law, and thus she has lost the priesthood forever, and worships the golden calves in Dan and Bethel; and because she has forgotten God's law, and entirely enslaved herself to Egyptian idols, therefore the Lord will also forget her children, delivering them to eternal captivity: "For he who is ignorant, let him be ignorant." (I Cor. XIV), and in the Psalms we read: "They did not know, nor did they understand, they walked in darkness." (Ps. LXXXI, 5). We can refer everything that is said about the ten tribes to the heretics who have left the kingdom of David and Jerusalem, that is, Christ and the Church: and therefore they are covered with eternal night, they do not have the knowledge of God, and they are rejected by the Lord so that they may not perform the priesthood to him, and they never remember the children they have…
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
Blindness · 21:14;22:13,14; — 21:14;22:13,14;
Forgetting God · Law — Law
Ignorance · SINS OF — SINS OF
Knowledge · Rejected — Rejected
Law Of God, The · Forget — Forget
Punishment Of The Wicked, The · On account of their: Rejection of the law of God — On account of their: Rejection of the law of God
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).
Hosea 4:6
6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
6. Preriit (perierunt ad verbum: sed quia m estnomen collectivum, ideo promiscuoe conjungitur utrique numero, populus meus absque scientia: quia tu scientiam repulisti, etiam rplellam te: ne sacerdotio fungaris mihi: et quia oblitus es legis Dei tui, obliviscar filiorum tuorum ego quoque.
Here the Prophet distinctly touches on the idleness of the priests, whom the Lord, as it is well known, had set over the people. For though it could not have availed to…
This thought is carried out still further in the second strophe, Hos 4:6-10. Hos 4:6. "My nation is destroyed for lack of knowledge; for thou, the knowledge hast thou rejected, and so do I reject thee from being a priest to me. Thou didst forget the law of thy God; thy sons will I also forget." The speaker is Jehovah: my nation, that is to say, the nation of Jehovah. This nation perishes for lack of the knowledge of God and His salvation. Hadda‛ath (the knowledge) with the definite article points back to da‛ath Elōhı̄m (knowledge of God) in Hos 4:1. This knowledge Israel might have drawn from the law, in which God had revealed His counsel and will (Deu 30:15), but it would not. It rejected…
Because the priests refused to know the Lord, neither did the people know their God. As a result, the people were being destroyed. • A primary function of the priests of Israel was to know, practice, and teach the laws of . . . God. Ironically, these guardians of the law had forgotten it.
Rashi on Hosea 4:6
forget your children For those who stood on Mt. Sinai offered their children as surety for their parents to keep the Torah. [based on Tanhuma, vayigash 2, Mid. Psalms 8:4]
