a collective name for a flock (of sheep or goats) · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
herds
וּבִבְקָרָ֗םu.viv.ka.Ram
H1241
beef cattle or an animal of the ox family of either gen… · conjunction + preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
seek
לְבַקֵּ֥שׁle.va.Kesh
H1245
to search out (by any method · preposition + verb, piel infinitive construct
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
find
יִמְצָ֑אוּyim.Tza.'u
H4672
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
withdrawn
חָלַ֖ץcha.Latz
H2502
to pull off · verb, qal perfect, 3rd 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
Proverbs 1:28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
John 7:34 Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.
Micah 6:6-7 Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a y…
Proverbs 15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight.
Isaiah 1:11-15 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed be…
Jeremiah 7:4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these.
Lamentations 3:44 Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
Ezekiel 8:6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 5:1-7
Here, I. All orders and degrees of men are cited to appear and answer to such things as shall be laid to their charge (Hos 5:1): Hear you this, O priests! whether in holy orders (as those in Judah, and perhaps many in Israel too, for in the ten tribes there were divers cities of priests and Levites, who, it is probable, staid in their own lot after the revolt of the ten tribes and did so much of their office as might be done at a distance from the temple) or pretending holy orders, as the priests of the calves, who, some think, are included here. "Hearken, you house of Israel, the common people, and give ear, O house of the king!" let them all take notice, for they have all contributed to th…
with . . . flocks--to propitiate Jehovah (Isa 1:11-15).
seek . . . not find--because it is slavish fear that leads them to seek Him; and because it then shall be too late (Pro 1:28; Joh 7:34).
Adam Clarke on Hosea 5:6
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.
John Gill on 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 tribes of Israel also, who, when in distress, and seeing ruin coming upon them, should seek the Lord; seek help from him against their enemies, and the pardon of their sins; seek his face and favour, and to appease his wrath, by bringing a multitude of sacrifices out of their flocks and herds; such a number of them, as if they brought all their flocks and herds with them; but not with true repentance for their sins, nor with faith in the great sacrifice, which legal sacrifices, rightly performed, pr…
"In their flocks and herds they will go to seek the Lord, but they will not find Him; He has withdrawn Himself from them. They have transgressed against the Lord, for they have produced illegitimate children. Now the month and its parts will devour them." LXX: "When they go with sheep and calves seeking the Lord, but shall not find him, he hath withdrawn himself from them. Because they have forsaken the Lord, and have brought up strange children, their rust shall devour them and their portions." Not only Israel and Ephraim will go with flocks and herds to seek the Lord, but also Judah, of whom it is written above: "Judah will also fall with them," all having this struggle, that they may try to appease with sacrifices those whom they have offended with their transgressions; and they will not find whom they seek, because he also departed from those who were departing. Especially when elsewhere he says, "Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?" And again, "I will not accept a bull from your house, nor goats from your flocks" (Ps. 49:13 and 9). And in Isaiah: "I do not want the sacrifices of rams or the fat of lambs or the blood of goats and bulls" (Isaiah 1:11). For they have transgressed against the Lord; because fornicating with idols, they did not beget children to God, but to demons. Some think that this signifies what is said in Ezra much later (1 Esdras 10) when they took foreign wives, creating children with them, and later were compelled to repudiate them. But it is better to accept foreign children who were generated in idolatrous error or whom they consecrated to idols by leading them through fire. Because, therefore, they did this, shortly afterwards, not after infinite periods of years, and as I used to predict before, far from the future; but now and in the present, the Assyrian and Chaldean will come and devour them with their parts, that is, with the possessions that they received in the division of the land according to the measure of the rope. Because we said "he will devour them," the Seventy translated "rust" for "them"; yet indeed rust, that is, ἐρυσίβη, in Hebrew is called Hasil, as they also said in the Prophet Joel: "The remnants of a worm will eat rust," which is to say, Hasil. But the month is called Hodes; finally Aquila translated "neomenias," that is, "Kalendas"; Symmachus and Theodotion translated "month"; and…
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
Opportunity · THE MEASURE OF RESPONSIBILITY — THE MEASURE OF RESPONSIBILITY
Reprobacy · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
John Calvin on Hosea 5:6
Hosea 5:6
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.
6. Cum ovibus suis et cum armentis suis ibunt ad quaerendum Jehovam, et non invenient: subduxit se ab illis.
The Prophet here laughs to scorn the hypocrisy of the people, because they thought they had ready at hand a way of dealing with God, which was, to pacify him with their sacrifices. He therefore shows that neither the Israelites nor the Jews would gain any thing by accumulating burnt-offerings, for they could not in this way return into favor with God. He thereby intimates that God requires true repentance, and that he will not be reco…
Israel, moreover, will not be able to avert the threatening judgment by sacrifices. Jehovah will withdraw from the faithless generation, and visit it with His judgments. This is the train of thought in the next strophe (Hos 5:6-10). Hos 5:6. "They will go with their sheep and their oxen to seek Jehovah, and will not find Him: He has withdrawn Himself from them. Hos 5:7. They acted treacherously against Jehovah, for they have born strange children: now will the new moon devour them with their fields." The offering of sacrifices will be no help to them, because God has withdrawn Himself from them, and does not hear their prayers; for God has no pleasure in sacrifices which are offered in an im…
The people might think that they could win God’s favor with their sacrifices, but Hosea warned them that they would not find him; God had left them to the consequences of their sin.
Rashi on Hosea 5:6
With their flocks and with their cattle With their sacrifices.
He has withdrawn Heb. חָלַץ, slipped away. Comp. (II Sam. 2:21) “and take to yourself his clothing (חֲלִצָתוֹ),” the clothing that you will slip off them.
