a man as an individual or a male person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
company
חֶבֶרcheber
H2267
a society
priests
כֹּֽהֲנִ֔יםko.ha.Nim
H3548
literally one officiating · noun, common masculine plural absolute
murder
יְרַצְּחוּye.ra.tze.chu-
H7523
properly · verb, piel imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
way
דֶּ֖רֶךְDe.rekh
H1870
a road (as trodden) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
consent
שְׁכֶםshᵉkem
H7926
the neck (between the shoulders) as the place of burdens
commit
עָשֽׂוּ'a.Su
H6213
to do or make · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
lewdness
זִמָּ֖הzi.Mah
H2154
a plan · noun, common feminine 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
Proverbs 1:11-19 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:
Zephaniah 3:3 Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.
Hosea 5:1 Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have…
Hosea 7:1 When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and…
Ezra 8:31 Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go unto Jerusalem: and the hand of our God was upon us, a…
Job 1:15-17 And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alon…
Jeremiah 7:9-10 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;
Jeremiah 11:9 And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 6:4–end
Two things, two evil things, both Judah and Ephraim are here charged with, and justly accused of: -
I. That they were not firm to their own convictions, but were unsteady, unstable as water, Hos 6:4, Hos 6:5. O Ephraim! what shall I do unto thee? O Judah! what shall I do unto thee? This is a strange expression. Can Infinite Wisdom be at a loss what to do? Can it be nonplussed, or put upon taking new measures? By no means; but God speaks after the manner of men, to show how absurd and unreasonable they were, and how just his proceedings against them were. Let them not complain of him as harsh and severe in tearing them, and smiting them, as he has done; for what else should he do? What other…
company--"association" or guild of priests.
murder by consent--literally, "with one shoulder" (compare Zep 3:9, Margin). The image is from oxen putting their shoulders together to pull the same yoke [RIVETUS]. MAURER translates, "in the way towards Shechem." It was a city of refuge between Ebal and Gerizim; on Mount Ephraim (Jos 20:7; Jos 21:21), long the civil capital of Ephraim, as Shiloh was the religious capital; now called Naploos; for a time the residence of Jeroboam (Kg1 12:25). The priests there became so corrupted that they waylaid and murdered persons fleeing to the asylum for refuge [HENDERSON]; the sanctity of the place enhanced the guilt of the priests who abused their priestl…
As troops of robbers - What a sad picture is this of the state of the priesthood! The country of Gilead was infamous for its robberies and murders. The idolatrous priests there formed themselves into companies, and kept possession of the roads and passes; and if they found any person going to Jerusalem to worship the true God, they put him to death. The reason is given: -
For they commit lewdness - They are gross idolaters.
John Gill on Hosea 6:9
The Church Fathers
"The participation of the priests on the road of those going to kill from Shechem: for they have committed a crime." LXX: "The priests have hidden" "the way of the Lord and killed Shechem: for they have committed iniquity." Symmachus interpreted this passage as: "The association of priests were killing Shechem on the road:" Theodotion in this way, "The priests hid the way, they killed from behind:" Aquila, "The participation of the priests on the road were killing shoulders:" when we sought the understanding of these versions in accordance with the story from the Hebrew, it was presented to us as follows: The priests of Bethel, or rather the fanatics of Bethaven, during the times of Passover and Pentecost, as well as Scenopegiae, when it was necessary to go to Jerusalem through Sichem, which is now called Neapolis, placed robbers on the road who would lay in wait for those who were traveling, so that they would worship the golden calves in Dan and Bethaven more than in Jerusalem and in the temple of God. But what he says: "Participation and partnership of priests", signifies their conspiracy and agreement for an evil purpose. But if we read it, as we have interpreted it, "partaker of the priests", he says, it refers to Gilead, which works with an idol; it has also been saturated with blood, which followed the impiety of the priests, and is free of plundering and bloody deeds. If they have said this, we must say, let us cut off heretics so that we do not proceed from Shechem, that is, from good works, to Jerusalem, that is, to the Church. These are like the jaws of bandits, and they kill those who wish to proceed through the way of truth in this age. Sichem is interpreted as "shoulders," that is, shoulders: we understand the work on the shoulders, and all false priests hide the way, and kill men with evil deeds so that they do not reach Jerusalem. But what the shoulder work signifies is shown by: "Put your heart on your shoulder" (Gen. IV, 9, 15), that is, what you understand, turn into actions. And of Issachar we read, that he placed his shoulder to work, and was a farmer.
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
Robbery — Practised by the Ishmaelites (Gen. 16:12), the Chaldeans and Sabeans (Job 1:15, 17), and the men of Shechem (Judg. 9:25. See also 1 Sam. 27:6-10; 30; Hos. 4:2; 6:9). Robbers infested Judea in our…
Robbers · Bands of — Bands of
Theft · The wicked: Lie in wait to commit — The wicked: Lie in wait to commit
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).
And as troops of robbers wait for a man,.... As a gang of highwaymen or footpads lie in wait in a ditch, or under a hedge, or in a cave of a rock or mountain, for a man they know will come by that way, who is full of money, in order to rob him; or, as Saadiah interprets it, as fishermen stand upon the banks of a river, and cast in their hooks to draw out the fish; and to the same purpose is Jarchi's note from R. Meir:
so the company of priests murder in the way by consent; not only encourage murderers, and commit murders within the city, but go out in a body together upon the highway, and there commit murders and robberies, and divide the spoil among them; all which they did unanimously, an…
Hosea 6:9
9. And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.
9. Et sicut expectant latrones hominum, societas sacerdotum (vel, factio;) in via trucidant consensu, quia cogitationem (aut, scelus) perficiunt.
The Prophet pursues more at large what he had briefly touched; for he does, not now confine himself to the common people, but directs his accusation against the sacerdotal order. "See," he says, "the priests conspire among themselves like robbers, that they may slay wretched men, who may meet them in the way." It is indeed certain that the Prophet speaks not here of open murders; for it is not credible that the…
In these crimes the priests take the lead. Like highway robbers, they form themselves into gangs for the purpose of robbing travellers and putting them to death. חכּי, so written instead of חכּה (Ewald, 16, b), is an irregularly formed infinitive for חכּות (Ewald, 238, e). 'Ish gedūdı̄m, a man of fighting-bands, i.e., in actual fact a highway robber, who lies in wait for travellers.
(Note: The first hemistich has been entirely misunderstood by the lxx, who have confounded כּחכּי with כּחך, and rendered the clause καὶ ἡ Ἰσχύς ἀνδρὸς πειρατοῦ· ἔκρυψαν (חבו or חבאו instead of חבר) ἱερεῖς ὁδόν. Jerome has also rendered כחכי strangely, et quasi fauces (כּחכּי) virorum latronum parti…
Priests form bands of robbers: Hosea again condemns the religious leaders for their crimes (see 4:4-8).
Rashi on Hosea 6:9
And as a man gathers fish, so do bands Heb. וּכְחַכֵּי. And as a fisherman gathers fish, who gathers them with a fishhook together, so do bands gather. Companies of their priests, who gather to go on the road, will all murder there in one group.
for they devised a plot For this is a plot which they plotted prior to their gathering, to which place they would go to murder and to loot. וּכְחַכֵּי means ajjmedours in O.F, fishermen. And also in mishnaic Hebrew, חַכֵּי is an expression of joining. The Gemara states (Baba Kamma 119b): “And he shall not put into it more than three חַכִּין.” Those are the stitches with which the comber joins together both ends of the garment when he beats it with s…
