Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 6:8
Gilead [is] a city of them that work iniquity, [and is] polluted with blood.
8. Gilead ] Here alone, and probably in Jdg 10:17, mentioned as the name of a town. We still find the name of Gilead (in its Arabic form Jil‘d) lingering at various parts of the ancient Gilead, but we cannot venture on a combination with the prophet’s Gilead. Ramoth-Gilead would seem, from its importance, a not unlikely place to be meant.
polluted with blood ] Rather, tracked with bloody foot-prints; comp. the striking expression used of Joab in 1Ki 2:5. The Gileadites, half-civilized mountaineers, seem to have been distinguished for their ferocity (comp. 2Ki 15:25). From the next verse we may perhaps infer that at Gilead too the priests were foremost in lawlessness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
8, 9. Two spots of specially ill fame are singled out Gilead and the road to Shechem.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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 Jos 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 1Ki 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 2Ki 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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Hos 6:8
Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood.
Divine institutions corrupted
It is supposed that Gilead here means Ramoth Gilead: the metropolis of the mountainous region beyond Jordan and south of the river Jabbok, known by the name of Gilead (Jos 21:28; 1Ki 4:18). It was here that Jacob and Laban entered into a sacred covenant with each other. It was once a very sacred place; it was one of the celebrated cities of refuge (Deu 20:23; Jos 23:28). The place, which was once a city of refuge, an institution of the God of heaven, had now been desecrated by wicked men, and become the scene of iniquity and blood.
I. That Divine institutions, specially designed for mans good, are often corrupted by him. Whilst all places on earth are for the good of man, Gilead had a specific appointment.
1. The Bible is a special ordinance of God for good. Men have corrupted that by perverting its doctrines.
2. The Gospel ministry is a special ordinance of God for good.
II. That Divine institutions specially designed for mans good, when corrupted become the worst of all evils. Holy Gilead, once the scene of Divine mercy, was now filled with iniquity and blood.
1. A corrupted Bible is the worst of all books. Political tyrannies, slaveries, wars, persecutions, have all been sanctioned and encouraged by a corrupted Bible.
2. A corrupted pulpit is the worst of all ministries. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 8. 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Gilead; one of the six cities of refuge, situate in the country of that name, on a high hill, whence it is called Ramoth-gilead: now as a city of refuge it was a city pertaining to the priests and Levites, as all the cities of refuge did, in what tribe soever they were, Num 35:6.
Is a city of them that work iniquity; a sacerdotal city, where priests did, and religion, i.e. knowledge of God and mercy to man, should, dwell; but Gilead is a city full of most notorious transgressors, the inhabitants, though Levites and priests, are a generation of men that work all manner of wickedness.
And is polluted with blood; murders committed there have polluted it, or murderers protected there against the law of God, who provided these cities a relief for such as unawares, without malice, by chance slew his neighbour, not for wilful murderers; yet these for money or interest got in and were secured there; and probably many were kept out or delivered up to the avenger of blood contrary to the law: thus Gilead by name, and all the rest of the cities of refuge intended too, were polluted with blood.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. Gilead . . . cityprobablyRamoth-gilead, metropolis of the hilly region beyond Jordan, south ofthe Jabbok, known as “Gilead” (1Ki4:13; compare Ge31:21-25).
work iniquity (Ho12:11).
polluted with blood“markedwith blood-traces” [MAURER].Referring to Gilead’s complicity in the regicidal conspiracy of Pekahagainst Pekahiah (2Ki 15:25).See on Ho 6:1. Many homicideswere there, for there were beyond Jordan more cities of refuge, inproportion to the extent of territory, than on this side of Jordan(Num 35:14; Deu 4:41-43;Jos 20:8). Ramoth-gilead was one.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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 Dan 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 Moloch: 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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The prophet cites a few examples in proof of this faithlessness in the two following verses. Hos 6:8. “Gilead is a city of evil-doers, trodden with blood. Hos 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 Jdg 12:7 and Jdg 10:17, any more than from Gen 31:48-49,
(Note: The statement of the Onomast. ( s.v. ), 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., Jer 22:6, Galaad tu mihi initium Libani , taken in connection with Num 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. : a denom. of , 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 – yabhesh , as signifying citizens of Jabesh, that Hitzig was able to trace a connection between it and Gilead.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
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,” עקובה מדם, okube medam: עקב , okob, in Hebrew, means “to deceive,” and also, “to hold” or “retain.” עקב, okob, is the sole of the foot; hence עקב, 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 עקובה מדם, 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 עקב, 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 —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Hos. 6:8. Gilead] A city of refuge, the residence of priests, and the centre or metropolis of the hilly region beyond Jordan, yet polluted and the leader of ruin!
Hos. 6:9.] Even priests acted like predatory bands, to murder and surprise travellers on the way. Destruction was met where safety was sought. By consent] Lit. with one shoulder, as oxen yoked together (Zep. 3:9). The sanctity of the place and the privileges of the priesthood did not check them in banding together for mischief. Lewdness] Heb. from a root to form deliberate purpose; deliberate crime, enormity (Marg.). The word literally means, a thing thought of, especially an evil, and so, deliberate wickedness, be thought of and contrived. They did deliberate wickedness, gave themselves to do it, and nothing else [Pusey],
Hos. 6:10. Horrible thing] Heb. from a word meaning to shudder, be astonished. Whoredom] spiritual and literal singled out as the chief sinIn another nation, idolatry was error. In Israel, which had the knowledge of the one true God, and had received the law, it was horror [Pusey].
Hos. 6:11. Harvest] Not a harvest of joy, a promise of ingathering of Israel, but a ripeness for Divine judgments to be inflicted by Assyrians. When] I would, upon their repentance, have turned away the captivity of my people. Judgment might have been averted, but will end in captivity. The Heb. is used of restoration also (Deu. 30:3; Psa. 14:7); hence many take it in this sense, as in harmony with the beginning of the chaptera promise of restoring their captivity in due time, which yet imports a sentence of banishment tor sin to be inflicted before [Hutcheson].
HOMILETICS
A SAD TRANSFORMATION.Hos. 6:8-11
We have now particular proofs of the charges brought against Israel. Special places, certain persons, and the whole people are faithless and polluted. The best become the worst.
I. Sacred places become polluted with sin. Regarding Gilead as a city of refuge, or the country beyond Jordan, it is a city of them that work iniquity. God had hallowed the place, and made it a city of safety; an institution of heaven, designed for special good. But this place of justice and protection, the glory of the land and the centre of distinguished privileges, was polluted with crime. Its inhabitants had stained its name and filled it with blood. Cities are blessed or cursed by the character and conduct of the inhabitants. Wealth and population, genius and prosperity, fade away by vice and debauchery. Great cities may be filled with great sins; exalted to heaven with privileges, they may be cast down to hell for abusing them. Rome and Paris have been by-words, and Nero and Robespierre have left a stain in history. By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted; but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
II. Ministers of religion become abettors of murder. The priests, who should have been examples of virtue, fostered abominable sins and were guilty of murder. It was their duty to save life, but they killed both body and soul. They were
1. cruel in their designs. They sought to lie in wait and murder pilgrims on their way to the city.
2. Crafty in their designs. They plot as troops of robbers wait for a man.
3. Deliberate in their designs. They thought of their schemes, and deliberately adopted and carried them out.
4. Confederate in their designs. By consent. They were one in sympathy, agreed in sentiment, and banded together in purpose. They were taken from the lowest of the people, intruders in office, and were a curse to the land. Of all societies of men, none are more vile and mischievous than ministers corrupted by office or evil. The sweetest wine becomes the sourest vinegar, the whitest ivory burnt becomes the blackest coal; so the best men, the noblest institutions, may be transformed into the most disgraceful and criminal. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane.
III. The noblest design perverted to destruction. The way to the cities of refuge, by Gods command, was to be prepared (Deu. 19:3); clear and kept open without hindrance or danger to fugitives; but it was filled with robbers and tracked with blood. Those who fled for life met with death. What power in the human will and in human conduct to corrupt the ordinances and hinder the designs of God! Means of grace perverted to motives of crime, and sacred places changed to scenes of corruption. The devil gets into the church, and the foulest crimes are committed in the garb of religion and a good name. In Christendom now we see religion made the tool of priests and governments: its sanctions brought to support schemes of aggrandizement and oppression; and plans that display Gods wisdom and benevolence employed to prostrate our nature, to pollute the land, and make it desolate and a perpetual hissing.
IV. A chosen people degraded with punishment. All these crimes were done in the house of Israel, an elect nation. Whoredom was widespread, and the whole land was defiled.
1. The enormity of their sin was great. An horrible thing, enough to make one shudder; a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth shall tingle. Ordinary sins are evil, but the sins of Israel were gross abominations. Sins against light and privileges, the warnings of prophets and the judgments of God. Heathen nations could not commit such crimes, the greatness of which can only be estimated by God. But ancient Israel and modern Churches, pre-eminent above other peoples, exchange God for vain idols. Holy heaven is amazed at the monstrous folly of men. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be ye horribly afraid; be ye very desolate, saith the Lord.
2. The punishment of their sin was disgraceful. The people of God were bereft of their glory and defence; carried captives and humbled by a foreign foe. The seed was reaped in an awful harvest of punishment by both Ephraim and Judah. God is no respecter of personsthe highest and the lowest, the priest and the peasant, are alike judged for their sins. He makes them base and contemptible before all the people. Sin sinks the most exalted to the most degraded. It is a blot in the escutcheon of the mightiest nation which no worldly glory can efface. Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
The substance of these verses may be summed up in few words.
1. Man has a tendency to abuse the best and highest things. This is proved from history, Scripture, and observation.
2. When the best and highest things are abused they become the worst. Moral order and distinctions are confounded. A downward course is begun. Conscience must be quieted, moral feelings be suppressed, and bold extravagance required to cover and defend sin.
3. Abuse of the best and highest things greatly increases the guilt. When men check religious impulse and resist good they go at a faster rate than merely doing wrong. The effect of sin must be measured by the power of moral sensibility. Perfection of guilt and punishment is gained by using the truth and ordinances of God, to do the bidding of selfishness and lust.
I have seen an horrible thing. God discerns sin when covered by craft and counsel, by excuse and ignorance. The smallest sins and the most horrible crimes are detected by him, and will be discovered to the perpetrators. Men may cover their ways and hide their sins, but they cannot prosper.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 6
Hos. 6:8-11. Best and worst. The best things when abused become the worst: there is no devil like a fallen angel; no enemy to the gospel like an apostate Christian; no hate like the theological hate; no war like a religious war; and no corruption like religious corruption. The reasons are not far to seek. The best things are the strongest: they can do most always, most evil when used in an evil way. Bad men know this: Simon the magician was not the only one that has cast a covetous look at Christianity and said, Give me also this power [A. J. Morris].
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(8) Polluted . . .More accurately, betrodden (or foot-tracked) with blood. We infer from Jdg. 10:17 that there was a town called Gilead east of the Jordan distinct altogether from Mizpah (identified by many with the city of refuge Ramoth-Gilead), and this is confirmed by notices in Eusebius and Cyril. Murder in a city of refuge adds to the horror. On the murderous propensities of the Gileadites see 2Ki. 15:25.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Hos 6:8. And is polluted with blood “It is now no longer what it ought to be, a city of refuge, but the city of bloodshed and slaughter.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Hos 6:8 Gilead [is] a city of them that work iniquity, [and is] polluted with blood.
Ver. 8. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity ] Another ; such a city there was in Greece, and so called by King Philip, for the naughtiness of the inhabitants. This Gilead was one of those ten cities of refuge beyond Jordan, given to the priests for a possession, Jos 21:38 , &c., and probably the chief city, which therefore bare the name of the whole country, as Athens was called the Greece of Greece ( ’ E ‘ E ). The inhabitants thereof (though Levites) were the worst of men, workers of iniquity, such as did wickedly with both hands, earnestly wearying themselves in the devil’s drudgery; and then sitting down to rest them in the chair of pestilence. There is not a worse creature upon earth, or so fit for hell, as a profane priest, a debauched minister, Mat 5:13 . Corruptio optimi pessima, as the sweetest wine makes the sourest vinegar, as the finest flesh is resolved into the vilest earth, and as the whitest ivory burnt becomes the blackest coal. Who would have looked for so much wickedness at Gilead, at Shiloh, at Anathoth, at Jerusalem, where the priests and scribes bare sway, and did dominari in suggestis? And yet that once faithful city was “become a harlot; it was full of judgment, righteousness lodged in it, but now murderers,” Isa 1:21 . In our Saviour’s time it was prophetarum macellum, the slaughter house of the saints, as now Rome is, and once London was in bloody Bonner’s days: whom a certain good woman once told in a letter, that he was deservedly called the common cut-throat and general slaughter slave to all the bishops of England. At his death he boasted (as Stokesley had done before him) how many heretics he had burned: seven hundred saints in four or five years’ time those bloody and deceitful men sent to heaven in fiery chariots. There are none so cruel to the lives of men as wicked clergy.
Gilead was polluted with blood
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
iniquity. Hebrew. ‘aven = vanity (App-44.) Referring here, to the sin of idolatry. Compare “Beth-aven”, Hos 4:15.
polluted with = tracked with heel-marks of.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Gilead: Hos 12:11, Jos 21:38
polluted with blood: or, cunning for blood, Hos 5:1, 2Sa 3:27, 2Sa 20:8, 1Ki 2:5, Psa 10:8, Psa 59:2, Isa 59:6, Jer 11:19, Mic 7:2, Mat 26:15, Mat 26:16, Act 23:12-15, Act 25:3
Reciprocal: Hos 7:1 – the iniquity
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 6:8. Ollead is a word of various significance in the Bible, usually re fering to an extensive region of the land of the Jews. But it sometimes refers to a city and it is so used in this verse. The inhabitants of that city were sinners to a special degree and hence are mentioned in this specific manner. The particular evil of which they were guilty was murder.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Hos 6:8-9. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, &c. Archbishop Newcome translates these two verses very literally thus: Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity: she is marked with footsteps of blood. And as bands wait for a man, a company of priests murder in the way to Shechem. If Gilead be put here for Ramoth-gilead, (and I know not, says Bishop Horsley, what other city can be meant,) it was a city of refuge, Deu 4:43; and such also was Shechem, or Sichem, Jos 20:7; both, therefore, inhabited by priests and Levites. By describing the first of these two cities as polluted with blood, and the high-road to the other as beset with knots of priests, like robbers, intent on blood, and murdering on the whole length of the way, up to the very walls of the town, the prophet means to represent the priests as seducers of the people to that idolatry which proved the ruin of the nation. Insomuch that, like a man who should be murdered in a place of religious retreat, or upon his way to it, the people, under the influence of such guides, met their destruction in the quarter where, by Gods appointment, they were to seek their safety. The word , rendered by consent, in Hos 6:9, signifies toward Shechem. For they commit lewdness Hebrew, , they work enormity, or that which is wicked and abominable.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6:8 {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.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The Lord viewed Gilead, a region of Israel east of the Jordan River, as a city. Perhaps He meant that the whole area was similar to a city in which violence and murder were so widespread that one could see bloody footprints in the streets. He may have been referring to a particular city named Gilead (Ramoth-Gilead?) in the region of Gilead where those conditions prevailed (cf. Gen 31:47-48; Jdg 10:17). In any case, the point is clear. Evidence of gross violence against one’s neighbors demonstrated lack of love for Yahweh and lack of respect for His covenant.