4 "Yet let no man bring a charge, neither let any man accuse; For your people are like those who bring charges against a priest.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet here deplores the extreme wickedness of the people, that they would bear no admonitions, like those who, being past hope, reject every advice, admit no physicians, and dislike all remedies: and it is a proof of irreclaimable wickedness, when men close their ears and harden their hearts against all salutary counsels. Hence the Prophet intimates, that, together with their great and many corruptions, there was such waywardness, that no one dared to reprove the public vices. He adds this reason, For the people are as chiders of the priest, or, they really contend with the priest: for some take k, caph, in this place, not as expressive of likeness, but as explaining and affirming what is said, They altogether strive with the priest.' But I prefer the former sense, which is, that the Prophet calls all the people the censors of their pastors: and we see that froward men become thus insolent when they are reproved; for instantly such an objection as this is made by them, "Am I to be treated like a child? Have I not attained sufficient knowledge to understand how I ought to live?" We daily meet with many such men, who proudly boast of their knowledge, as though they were superior to all Prophets and teachers. And no doubt the ungodly make a show of wit and acuteness in opposing sound doctrine: and then it appears that they have learnt more than what one would have thought, -- for what end? only that they may contend with God. Let us now return to the Prophet's words. But, he says: 'k, ak is not to be taken here as in many places for "verily:" but it denotes exception, "In the meantime". But, or, in the meantime, let no one chide and reprove another. In a word, the Prophet complains, that while all kinds of wickedness abounded among the people, there was no liberty to teach and to admonish, but that all were so refractory, that they would not bear to hear the word; and that as soon as any one touched their vices, there were great doctors, as they say, ready to reply. And he enlarges on the subject by saying, that they were as chiders of the priest; for he declares, that they who, with impunity, conducted themselves so wantonly against God, were not yet content in being so wayward as to repel all reproofs, but also willfully rose up against their own teachers: and, as I have already said, common observation sufficiently proves, that all profane despisers of God are inflated with such confidence, that they dare to attack others. Some conjecture, in this instance, that the priest was so base, as to become liable to universal reprobation; but this conjecture is of no weight, and frigid: for the Prophet here did not draw his pen against a single individual, but, on the contrary, sharply reproved, as we have said, the perverseness of the people, that no one would hearken to a reprover. Let us then know that their diseases were then incurable, when the people became hardened against salutary counsels, and could not bear to be any more reproved. It follows --
Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another - Literally, "Only man let him, not strive, and let not man reprove." God had taken the controversy with His people into His own hands; the Lord, He said , "hath a controversy (rib) with the inhabitants of the land" Hosea 4:1. Here He forbids man to intermeddle; man let him not strive. He again uses the same word . The people were obstinate and would not hear; warning and reproof, being neglected, only aggravated their guilt: so God bids man to cease to speak in His Name. He Himself alone will implead them, whose pleading none could evade or contradict. Subordinately, God, teaches us, amid His judgments, not to strive or throw the blame on each other, but each to look to his own sins, not to the sins of others.
For thy people are as they that strive with the priest - God had made it a part of the office of the priest, to "keep knowledge" Malachi 2:7. He had bidden, that all hard causes should be taken "to Deuteronomy 17:8-12 the priest who stood to minister there before the Lord their God;" and whose refused the priest's sentence was to be put to death. The priest was then to judge in God's Name. As speaking in His Name, in His stead, with His authority, taught by Himself, they were called by that Name, in Which they spoke, אלהים 'elohı̂ym Exodus 21:6; Exodus 22:8-9, "God," not in regard to themselves but as representing Him. To "strive" then "with the priest" was the highest contumacy; and such was their whole life and conduct. It was the character of the whole kingdom of "Israel." For they had thrown off the authority of the family of Aaron, which God had appointed. Their political existence was based upon the rejection of that authority. The national character influences the individual. When the whole polity is formed on disobedience and revolt, individuals will not tolerate interference. As they had rejected the priest, so would and did they reject the prophets. He says not, they were "priest-strivers," (for they had no lawful priests, against whom to strive,) but they were like priest-strivers, persons whose habit it was to strive with those who spoke in God's Name. He says in fact, let not man strive with those who strive with God. The uselessness of such reproof is often repeated. He "that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame, and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot" Proverbs 9:7-8. "Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee" Proverbs 23:9. Speak not in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words." Stephen gives it as a characteristic of the Jews, "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do ye" Acts 7:51.
Yet let no man strive - Or, no man contendeth. All these evils stalk abroad unreproved, for all are guilty. None can say, "Let me pluck the mote out of thy eye," because he knows that "there is a beam in his own."
For thy people are - The people and the priest are alike rebels against the Lord; the priests having become idolaters, as well as the people. Bp. Newcome renders this clause, "And as is the provocation of the priest, so is that of my people." The whole clause in the original is ועמך כמריבי כהן veammecha kimeribey cohen, "and thy people as the rebellions of the priest." But one of my oldest MSS. omits כהן cohen, "priest;" and then the text may be read, And thy people are as rebels. In this MS. כהן cohen is added in the margin by a much later hand.
Yet (c) let no man strive, nor reprove another: for thy people [are] as they that strive with the priest.
(c) As though he would say that it was in vain to rebuke them, for no man can endure it: indeed, they will speak against the prophets and priests whose office it is chiefly to rebuke them.
Yet, let no man strive, nor reprove another,.... Or rather, "let no man strive, nor any man reprove us" (q); and are either the words of the people, forbidding the prophet, or any other man, to contend with them, or reprove them for their sins, though guilty of so many, and their land in so much danger on that account: so the Targum,
"but yet they say, let not the scribe teach, nor the prophet reprove:''
or else they are the words of God to the prophet, restraining him from striving with and reproving such a people, that were incorrigible, and despised all reproof; see Ezekiel 3:26 or of the prophet to other good men, to forbear anything of this kind, since it was all to no purpose; it was but casting pearls before swine; it was all labour lost, and in vain:
for thy people are as they that strive with the priest; they are so far from receiving correction and reproof kindly from any good men that they will rise up against, and strive with the priests, to whom not to hearken was a capital crime, Deuteronomy 17:12. Abarbinel interprets it, and some in Abendana, like the company of Korah, that contended with Aaron; suggesting that this people were as impudent and wicked as they, and there was no dealing with them. So the Targum,
"but thy people contend with their teachers;''
and will submit to no correction, and therefore it is in vain to give it them. Though some think the sense is, that all sorts of men were so corrupt, that there were none fit to be reprovers; the people were like the priests, and the priests like the people, Hosea 4:9, so that when the priests reproved them, they contended with them, and said, physician, heal thyself; take the beam out of your own eye; look to yourselves, and your own sins, and do not reprove us.
(q) "et ne reprehendito quisquam, scil. nos", Schmidt.
let no man . . . reprove--Great as is the sin of Israel, it is hopeless to reprove them; for their presumptuous guilt is as great as that of one who refuses to obey the priest when giving judgment in the name of Jehovah, and who therefore is to be put to death (Deuteronomy 17:12). They rush on to their own destruction as wilfully as such a one.
thy people--the ten tribes of Israel; distinct from Judah (Hosea 4:1).
Notwithstanding the outburst of the divine judgments, the people prove themselves to be incorrigible in their sins. Hosea 4:4. "Only let no man reason, and let no man punish; yet thy people are like priest-strivers." אך is to be explained from the tacit antithesis, that with much depravity there would be much to punish; but this would be useless. The first clause contains a desperatae nequitiae argumentum. The notion that the second 'ı̄sh is to be taken as an object, is decidedly to be rejected, since it cannot be defended either from the expression אישׁ בּאישׁ in Isaiah 3:5, or by referring to Amos 2:15, and does not yield any meaning at all in harmony with the second half of the verse. For there is no need to prove that it does not mean, "Every one who has a priest blames the priest instead of himself when any misfortune happens to him," as Hitzig supposes, since עם signifies the nation, and not an individual. ועמּך is attached adversatively, giving the reason for the previous thought in the sense of "since thy people," or simply "thy people are surely like those who dispute with the priest." The unusual expression, priest-disputers, equivalent to quarrellers with the priest, an analogous expression to boundary-movers in Hosea 5:10, may be explained, as Luther, and Grotius, and others suppose, from the law laid down in Deuteronomy 17:12-13, according to which every law-suit was to be ultimately decided by the priest and judge as the supreme tribunal, and in which, whoever presumes to resist the verdict of this tribunal, is threatened with the punishment of death. The meaning is, that the nation resembled those who are described in the law as rebels against the priest (Hengstenberg, Dissertations on Pentateuch, vol. 1. p. 112, translation). The suffix "thy nation" does not refer to the prophet, but to the sons of Israel, the sum total of whom constituted their nation, which is directly addressed in the following verse.
Let no man strive - They are so hardened, it is to no purpose to warn them any more. As they that strive - There is no modesty, or fear of God or man left among them, they will contend with their teachers, reprovers, and counsellors.
*More commentary available at chapter level.