*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
I shall first speak of the subject, and then something shall be added in its place of the words. The Prophet here notices, no doubt, something special against Gilead, which through the imperfection of history is now to us obscure. But in the first place, we must remember, that Gilead was one of the cities of refuge; and the Levites possessed these cities, which were destined for fugitives. If any one killed a man by chance, that the relatives might not take revenge, the Lord provided that he should flee to one of these cities appointed for his safety. He was there safe among the Levites: and the Levites received him under their protection, the matter being previously tried; for a legal hearing of the cause must have preceded as to whether he who had killed a man was innocent. We must then first remember that this city was occupied by the Levites and the priests; and they ought to have been examples to all others; for as Christ calls his disciples the light of the world, so the Lord had chosen the priests for this purpose, that they might carry a torch before all the people. Since then the highest sanctity ought to have shone forth in the priests, it was quite monstrous that they were like robbers, and that the holy city, which was as it were the sanctuary of God, became a den of thieves. It was then for this reason that the Prophet especially inveighs against the city Gilead, and says Gilead is a city of the workers of iniquity, and is covered with blood But if Gilead was so corrupt, what must have been the case with the other cities? It is then the same as if the Prophet had said, "Where shall I begin? If I reprove the people indiscriminately, the priests will then think that they are spared, because they are innocent; yea, that they are wholly without blame: nay," he says, "the priests are the most abandoned, they are even the ringleaders of robbers. Since then so great corruptions prevail among the order of priests, in whom the highest sanctity ought to have shone forth, how great must be the licentiousness of the people in all kinds of wickedness? And then what must be said of other cities, since Gilead is so bad, which God has consecrated for a peculiar purpose, that it might be a sort of sanctuary? Since then Gilead is a den of robbers, what must be the other cities?" We now comprehend the meaning of the Prophet. "Polluted with blood," qvvh mdm, okube medam: qv, okob, in Hebrew, means "to deceive," and also, "to hold" or "retain." qv, okob, is the sole of the foot; hence qv, okob, signifies "to supplant." And there is no doubt but that "to deceive" is its meaning metaphorically. I will now come to the meaning of the Prophet; he says that the city was qvvh mdm, okube, medan; some say, "deceptive in blood," because they did not openly kill men, but by lying in wait for them; and hence they elicit this sense. But I approve more of what they hold who say, that the city was "full of blood;" not that such is the strict sense of the Hebrew word; but we may properly render it, "occupied by blood." Why so? Because qv, okob, as I have said, means sometimes to hold, to stay, and to hinder. We may then properly and fitly say, that Gilead was "occupied" or "possessed by blood." But here follows a clearer and a fuller explanation of this sentence --
Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity - If we regard "Gilead," (as it elsewhere is,) as the country beyond Jordan, where the two tribes and a half dwelt, this will mean that the whole land was banded in one, as one city of evil-doers. It had an unity, but of evil. As the whole world has been pictured as divided between "the city of God" and the city of the devil, consisting respectively of the children of God and the children of the devil; so the whole of Gilead may be represented as one city, whose inhabitants had one occupation in common, to work evil. Some think that there was a city so called, although not mentioned elsewhere in Holy Scripture, near that Mount Gilead, dear to the memory of Israel, because God there protected their forefather Jacob. Some think that it was Ramoth in Gilead , which God appointed as "a city of refuge," and which, consequently, became a city of Levites and priests Joshua 21:38.
Here, where God had preserved the life of their forefather, and, in him, had preserved them; here, where He had commanded the innocent shedder of blood to be saved; here, where he had appointed those to dwell, whom He had hallowed to Himself, all was turned to the exact contrary. It, which God had hallowed, was become "a city of workers of iniquity," i. e., of people, whose habits and custom was to work iniquity. It, where God had appointed life to be preserved, was "polluted" or "tracked with blood." Everywhere it was marked and stained with the bloody footsteps of those, who (as David said) "put" innocent "blood in their shoes which were on their feet" 1-Kings 2:5, staining their shoes with blood which they shed, so that, wherever they went, they left marks and signs of it." "Tracked with blood" it was, through the sins of its inhabitants; "tracked with blood" it was again, when it first was taken captive 2-Kings 15:29, and "it, which had swum with the innocent blood of others, swam with the guilty blood of its own people." It is a special sin, and especially avenged of God, when what God had hallowed, is made the scene of sin.
Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity - In this place Jacob and Laban made their covenant, and set up a heap of stones, which was called Galeed, the heap of testimony; and most probably idolatry was set up here. Perhaps the very heap became the object of superstitious adoration.
(h) Gilead [is] a city of them that work iniquity, [and is] polluted with blood.
(h) Which was the place where the priests dwelt, and which should have been best instructed in my word.
Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity,.... The chief city in the land of Gilead, which lay beyond Jordan, inhabited by Gad and Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh; and so belonged to the ten tribes, whose sins are here particularly observed. It had its name from the country, or the country from that, or both from the mountain of the same name. It is thought to be Ramothgilead, a city of refuge, and put for all the cities of refuge in those parts, which were inhabited by priests and Levites; and who ought to have had knowledge of the laws, and instructed the people in them, and observed them themselves, and set a good example to others; but, instead of this, the whole course of their lives, was vicious; they made a trade of sinning, did nothing else but work iniquity; and this was general among them, the city or cities of them consisted of none else; and all manner of iniquity was committed by them, particularly idolatry; for so the words may be rendered, "a city of them that serve an idol" (a); not only at Daniel and Bethel, but in the cities of the priests, idols were set up and worshipped; this shows the state to be very corrupt:
and is polluted with blood; with the blood of murderers harboured there, who ought not to have been admitted; or with the blood of such who were delivered up to the avenger of blood, that ought to have been sheltered, and both for the sake of money; or with the blood of children, sacrificed to Mo: the word used has the signification of supplanting, lying in wait, and so is understood of a private, secret, shedding of blood, in a deceitful and insidious way: hence some render it, "cunning for blood" (b); to which the Targum seems to agree, calling it a city
"of them that secretly or deceitfully shed innocent blood.''
It has also the signification of the heel of a man's foot, and is by some rendered, "trodden by blood" (c); that is, by bloody men: or "footed" or "heeled by blood" (d); that is, such an abundance of it was shed, that a man could not set his foot or his heel any where but in blood.
(a) "civitas operantium idolum", V. L. (b) "callida et astuta sanguine", so some in Vatablus; "callida sanguine", Castslio. (c) "Calcata a sanguine", Piscator. (d) "Vestigiata a sanguine", Capellus, Tarnovius; "vestigis sanguinolentis", Juuius & Tremellius.
Gilead . . . city--probably Ramoth-gilead, metropolis of the hilly region beyond Jordan, south of the Jabbok, known as "Gilead" (1-Kings 4:13; compare Genesis 31:21-25).
work iniquity-- (Hosea 12:11).
polluted with blood--"marked with blood-traces" [MAURER]. Referring to Gilead's complicity in the regicidal conspiracy of Pekah against Pekahiah (2-Kings 15:25). See on Hosea 6:1. Many homicides were there, for there were beyond Jordan more cities of refuge, in proportion to the extent of territory, than on this side of Jordan (Numbers 35:14; Deuteronomy 4:41-43; Joshua 20:8). Ramoth-gilead was one.
The prophet cites a few examples in proof of this faithlessness in the two following verses. Hosea 6:8. "Gilead is a city of evil-doers, trodden with blood. Hosea 6:9. And like the lurking of the men of the gangs is the covenant of the priests; along the way they murder even to Sichem: yea, they have committed infamy." Gilead is not a city, for no such city is mentioned in the Old Testament, and its existence cannot be proved from Judges 12:7 and Judges 10:17, any more than from Genesis 31:48-49,
(Note: The statement of the Onomast. (s.v. Γαλαάδ), that there is also a city called Galaad, situated in the mountain which Galaad the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, took for the Amorite, and that of Jerome, "from which mountain the city built in it derived its name, viz., that which was taken," etc., furnish no proof of the existence of a city called Gilead in the time of the Israelites; since Eusebius and Jerome have merely inferred the existence of such a city from statements in the Old Testament, more especially from the passage quoted by them just before, viz., Jeremiah 22:6, Galaad tu mihi initium Libani, taken in connection with Numbers 32:39 -43, as the words "which Gilead took" clearly prove. And with regard to the ruined cities Jelaad and Jelaud, which are situated, according to Burckhardt (pp. 599, 600), upon the mountain called Jebel Jelaad or Jelaud, it is not known that they date from antiquity at all. Burckhardt gives no description of them, and does not even appear to have visited the ruins.)
but it is the name of a district, as it is everywhere else; and here in all probability it stands, as it very frequently does, for the whole of the land of Israel to the east of the Jordan. Hosea calls Gilead a city of evil-doers, as being a rendezvous for wicked men, to express the thought that the whole land was as full of evil-doers as a city is of men. עקבּה: a denom. of עקב, a footstep, signifying marked with traces, full of traces of blood, which are certainly not to be understood as referring to idolatrous sacrifices, as Schmieder imagines, but which point to murder and bloodshed. It is quite as arbitrary, however, on the part of Hitzig to connect it with the murder of Zechariah, or a massacre associated with it, as it is on the part of Jerome and others to refer it to the deeds of blood by which Jehu secured the throne. The bloody deeds of Jehu took place in Jezreel and Samaria (2 Kings 9-10), and it was only by a false interpretation of the epithet applied to Shallum, viz., Ben-yâbhēsh, as signifying citizens of Jabesh, that Hitzig was able to trace a connection between it and Gilead.
A city - A city full of notorious transgressors, the inhabitants though Levites and priests, work all manner of wickedness. With blood - Murders committed there.
*More commentary available at chapter level.