Hosea 7:4

To this there is added the passion with which the people make themselves slave to idolatry, and their rulers give themselves up to debauchery (Hos 7:4-7). Hos 7:4. "They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker, who leaves off stirring from the kneading of the dough until its leavening. Hos 7:5. In the day of our king the princes are made sick with the heat of wine: he has stretched out his hand with the scorners. Hos 7:6. For they have brought their heart into their ambush, as into the oven; the whole night their baker sleeps; in the morning it burns like flaming fire. Hos 7:7. They are all red-hot like the oven, and consume their judges: all their kings have fallen; none among them calls to me." "All" (kullâm: Hos 7:4) does not refer to the king and princes, but to the whole nation. נאף is spiritual adultery, apostasy from the Lord; and literal adultery is only so far to be thought of, that the worship of Baal promoted licentiousness. In this passionate career the nation resembles a furnace which a baker heats in the evening, and leaves burning all night while the dough is leavening, and then causes to turn with a still brighter flame in the morning, when the dough is ready for baking. בּערה מאפה, burning from the baker, i.e., heated by the baker. בּערה is accentuated as milel, either because the Masoretes took offence at תּנּוּר being construed as a feminine (Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 546; Ewald, Gramm. p. 449, note 1), or because tiphchah could not occupy any other place in the short space between zakeph and athnach (Hitzig). העיר, excitare, here in the sense of stirring. On the use of the participle in the place of the infinitive, with verbs of beginning and ending, see Ewald, 298, b. Hos 7:5-7 Both king and princes are addicted to debauchery (Hos 7:5). "The da…

In this chapter we have, I. A general charge drawn up against Israel for those high crimes and misdemeanors by which they had obstructed the course of God's favours to them (Hos 7:1, Hos 7:2). II. A particular accusation, 1. Of the court - the king, princes, and judges (Hos 7:3-7). 2. Of the country. Ephraim is here charged with conforming to the nations (Hos 7:8), senselessness and stupidity under the judgments of God (Hos 7:9-11), ingratitude to God for his mercies (Hos 7:13), incorrigibleness under his judgments (Hos 7:14), contempt of God (Hos 7:15), and hypocrisy in their pretences to return to him (Hos 7:16). They are also threatened with a severe chastisement, which shall humble them (Hos 7:12), and, if that prevail not, then with an utter destruction (Hos 7:13), particularly their princes (Hos 7:16).

7:4 adulterers: Hosea used this term earlier to describe spiritual apostasy (3:1); it refers here to those who were disloyal to the king.