Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 7:3
They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
3 6. The highest personages are not too refined for the most sensual pleasures. A consuming passion inflames them as if with the heat of a furnace. Their way of celebrating a royal commemoration is to indulge in monstrous excess.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
They make the king glad with their wickedness – Wicked sovereigns and a wicked people are a curse to each other, each encouraging the other in sin. Their king, being wicked, had pleasure in their wickedness; and they, seeing him to be pleased by it, set themselves the more, to do what was evil, and to amuse him with accounts of their sins. Sin is in itself so shameful, that even the great cannot, by themselves, sustain themselves in it, without others to flatter them. A good and serious man is a reproach to them. And so, the sinful great corrupt others, both as aiding them in their debaucheries, and in order not to be reproached by their virtues, and because the sinner has a corrupt pleasure and excitement in hearing of tales of sin, as the good joy to hear of good. Whence Paul says, who, knowing the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them Rom 1:32.
But whereas, they all, kings, princes, and people, thus agreed and conspired in sin, and the sin of the great is the rarest destructive, the prophet here upbraids the people most for this common sin, apparently because they were free from the greater temptations of the great, and so their sin was the more willful. An unhappy complaisance was the ruling character of Israel. It preferred its kings to God. Conscience was versatile, accommodating. Whatever was authorized by those in power, was approved. Ahab added the worship of Baal to that of the calves; Jehu confined himself to the sin of Jeroboam. The people acquiesced in the legalized sin. Much as if now, marriages, which by Gods law are incest, or remarriages of the divorced, which our Lord pronounces adultery, were to be held allowable, because mans law ceases to annex any penalty to them.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. They make the king glad] They pleased Jeroboam by coming readily into his measures, and heartily joining with him in his idolatry. And they professed to be perfectly happy in their change, and to be greatly advantaged by their new gods; and that the religion of the state now was better than that of Jehovah. Thus, they made all their rulers, “glad with their lies.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
They, either the subjects in general, or rather the courtiers in particular who were about the king,
make the king glad with their wickedness: the kings of Israel, every one of them from first to last, were addicted to vicious practices, and their minds were vitiated, deeply tainted with all kind of sins, and they it seems took pleasure in sins, both in their own and other mens; and here are a parcel of flagitious fellows that make it their work to invent pleasing wickedness, to acquaint their king with it, who is so far from doing his duty in discountenancing it, that it is one of his delights to hear or see it.
The princes; great men about the court.
With their lies; with false accusations brought in against the more innocent, or by false reports made of their words and actions, representing them as ridiculous or foolish, drolling them into infamy.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. Their princes, instead ofchecking, “have pleasure in them that do” such crimes (Ro1:32).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
They make the king glad with their wickedness,…. Not any particular king; not Jeroboam the first, as Kimchi; nor Jehu, as Grotius; if any particular king, rather Jeroboam the second; but their kings in general, as the Septuagint render it, in succession, one after another; who were highly delighted and pleased with the priests in offering sacrifice to the calves, and with the people in attending to that idolatrous worship, by which they hoped to secure the kingdom of Israel to themselves, and prevent the people going to Jerusalem to worship: it made them glad to the heart to hear them say that God was as well pleased with sacrifices offered at Dan and Bethel, as at Jerusalem:
and the princes with their lies; with their idols and idolatrous practices, which are vanity and a lie; though some interpret this of their flatteries, either of them, or their favourites; and of their calumnies and detractions of such they had a dislike of.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet now arraigns all the citizens of Samaria, and in their persons the whole people, because they rendered obedience to the king by flattery, and to the princes in wicked things, respecting which their own conscience convicted them. He had already in the fifth chapter mentioned the defection of the people in this respect, that they had obeyed the royal edict. It might indeed have appeared a matter worthy of praise, that the people had quietly embraced what the king commanded. This is the case with many at this day, who bring forward a pretext of this kind. Under the papacy they dare not withdraw themselves from their impious superstitions, and they adduce this excuse, that they ought to obey their princes. But, as I have already said, the Prophet has before condemned this sort of obedience, and now he shows that the defection which then reigned through all Israel, ought not to be ascribed to the king or to few men, but that it was a common evil, which involved all in one and the same guilt, without exception. How so? By their wickedness, he says, they have exhilarated the king, and by their lies the princes; that is, If they wish to cast the blame on their governors, it will be done in vain; for whence came then such a promptitude? As soon as Jeroboam formed the calves, as soon as he built temples, religion instantly collapsed, and whatever was before pure, degenerated; how was the change so sudden? Even because the people had inwardly concocted their wickedness, which, when an occasion was offered, showed itself; for hypocrisy did lie hid in all, and was then discovered. We now perceive what the Prophet had in view.
And this place ought to be carefully noticed: for it often happens that some vice creeps in, which proceeds from one man or from a few; but when all readily embrace what a few introduce, it is quite evident that they have no living root of piety or of the fear of God. They then who are so prone to adopt vices were before hypocrites; and we daily find this to be the case. When pious men have the government of a city, and act prudently, then the whole people will give some hope that they will fear the Lord; and when any king, influenced by a desire of advancing the glory of God, endeavors to preserve all his subjects in the pure worship of God, then the same feeling of piety will be seen in all: but when an ungodly king succeeds him, the greater part will immediately fall back again; and when a magistrate neglects his duty, the greater portion of the people will break out into open impiety. I wish there were no proofs of these things; but throughout the world the Lord has designed that there should exist examples of them.
This purpose of God ought therefore to be noticed; for he accuses the people of having made themselves too obsequious and pliant. When king Jeroboam set up vicious worship, the people immediately offered themselves as ready to obey: hence impiety became quite open. They then delighted the king by their wickedness, and the princes by their lies; as though he said, “They cannot transfer the blame to the king and princes. Why? Because they delighted them by their wickedness; that is, they haltered the king by their wickedness and delighted the princes by their lies.” It follows —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) Glad.The evil awakens no alarm, but rather sympathy and gladness, in the breasts of their kings and rulers, who are ready to follow suit in all deeds of violence.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
They make the king glad with their wickedness,
And the princes with their lies.’
We might cite here ‘like people, like king’. For as the people carry on in the ways of sinfulness and apostasy, and especially in whoredom after the Baalim, their kings are delighted with them, and their princes delight in their false behaviour. They are all one together in their rejection of the true covenant of YHWH. The princes may include the leaders of the ‘ten tribes’ (compare Num 1:16) and also the king’s advisers and generals.
Others see a reference here to court intrigue with the king seen as being pleased with those who have brought about the overthrow of his predecessor by wickedness and lies.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The People And Their Kings Are Both Alike, Burning Hot In Their Sins, In Consequence Of Which Their Kings Are Assassinated One After The Other ( Hos 7:3-7 ).
Hosea now likens the people of Israel in their sins to a burning baker’s oven which is overheated. They are hot after adultery, they are hot after injustice. And their kings and princes go along with them. Finally they are hot after their kings. But none of them call on YHWH.
Analysis of Hos 7:3-7 .
a
b They are all adulterers (Hos 7:4 a)
c They are as an oven heated by the baker, he ceases to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened (Hos 7:4 b).
d On the day of our king the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine, he stretched out his hand with scoffers (Hos 7:5).
c For they have made ready their heart like an oven, while they lie in wait, their baker sleeps all the night, in the morning it burns as a flaming fire (Hos 7:6).
b They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges (Hos 7:7 a).
a All their kings are fallen, there is none among them who calls to me (Hos 7:7 b).
Note that in ‘a’ the kings and princes rejoice in the wickedness of the people, and in the parallel all the kings are fallen and none calls on YHWH. In ‘b’ they are all adulterers, and in the parallel they are all judge devourers. In ‘c’ they are hot like an oven heated by the baker and in the parallel their hearts are like an oven, which the baker has left to continue burning. Centrally in ‘d’ the folly of the king is revealed.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Hos 7:3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
Ver. 3. They make the king glad with their wickedness ] A sad commentary surely of king and people, exhilarating themselves and each other in wickedness. Their kings were well paid of their people’s compliances with their unlawful edicts; and the people no less well pleased to gratify and flatter their kings, as the Romans did Tiberius and other tyrants, who therefore said of them, that they were servum pecus, servile souls, et homines ad servitutem parati, men-made slaves. Tyrants care not how wicked their subjects are; for then they know they will swallow down any command, though never so impious, without scrupling or conscience-making. They like to have such about them as will down with anything, digest iron for a need, with the ostrich; and say, as that wretched man said (when one complained he could not do such a thing for his conscience), “I am master of my conscience, I can do anything for all that.” Thus Balaam resolved to curse, whatever came of it; he went not aside as at other times, neither built he any more altars, but set his face towards the wilderness, as fully bent to do it, and nothing should hinder him now, Num 24:1-2 cf. Luk 9:51 . He also gave wicked counsel to King Balak (and so made him glad at parting, though before he had angered him) to lay a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, viz. to set fair women to tempt them to corporal and spiritual fornication, that God might see sin flagrant in Jacob, some transgression in Israel, and so fall foul upon them with his plagues, Num 23:21 . Parasites propound to kings suavia potius quam sana consilia, pleasing, but pestilent counsel; they also act for them, and under them, as Doeg did for Saul, and so gratify them, letify them, as here, make them glad; but it proves to be no better than risus Sardonius, such a mirth as brings bitterness in the end. Woe to such mirthmongers and mirth makers, for if they shall do thus wickedly, they shall be consumed, both they and their king, 1Sa 12:25 .
And the princes with their lies
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
consider not in = say not to. Some codices, with one early printed edition, Aramaean, Syriac, and Vnlg., read “say not in”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Hos 5:11, 1Ki 22:6, 1Ki 22:13, Jer 5:31, Jer 9:2, Jer 28:1-4, Jer 37:19, Amo 7:10-13, Mic 6:16, Mic 7:3, Rom 1:32, 1Jo 4:5
Reciprocal: 1Sa 22:18 – he fell 1Sa 24:1 – it was told 2Ch 18:12 – Behold Psa 62:4 – delight Pro 2:14 – and Pro 19:10 – Delight Pro 31:4 – General Isa 1:23 – princes Isa 59:3 – your lips Hos 7:13 – spoken Mar 14:11 – they were 1Co 13:6 – Rejoiceth not 2Th 2:12 – but
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 7:3. The pronoun they refers to the people in general, and their conduct was agreeable to the king and princes, because all classes had conspired to corrupt the law of the Lord. (See Jeremiah 5; Jeremiah 31.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Hos 7:3. They make the king glad with their wickedness They study to please their kings and great men, by complying with the idolatry they have set up. The Seventy (with whom agree the Syriac and Arabic) read , kings, in the plural number, meaning the succession of the kings of Israel from Jeroboam. And the princes with their lies Which they speak to please and flatter them. But the word lie sometimes signifies an idol, and the practice of idolatry, as being set up in direct opposition to the true God and his truth. Bishop Horsley renders the verse, By their evil doings they pleasure the king, and by their perfidies the rulers, namely, their perfidies toward God, in deserting his service for idolatry.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Hos 7:3-7. Wickedness Encouraged in High Places.King and princes gladly share in the prevailing wickednessadultery, drunkennessand the court itself is the scene of treachery, conspiracy, and assassinations. The text is corrupt, and contains allusions to events of the details of which we are ignorant.
Hos 7:3. Read with a slight emendation (yimshh): In their wickedness they anoint kings, and in their falseness princes (cf. Hos 8:4).
Hos 7:4. Read, they are like a glowing ovena figure for lust. Read Hos 7:4 b (? a gloss on Hos 7:6), whose baker ceaseth from kneading, etc.
Hos 7:5. Perhaps the kings birth-or coronation-day is meant. Hos 7:5 b (probably corrupt) as it stands can only mean that the king made scorners his associates.
Hos 7:6. Text corrupt. Read, their inward part is like an oven, and for baker read anger (mg.), omitting whiles they lie in wait as a gloss.
Hos 7:7. The root-cause of the political and social unrest is the peoples passion and irreligion. With the murder of king Zechariah (2Ki 15:10), the period of anarchy, depicted by Hosea, began.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
7:3 They make the {b} king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.
(b) They esteem their wicked king Jeroboam above God, and seek how to flatter and please him.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Their political leaders rejoiced in the wickedness of the people because that made it easier for them to get away with sinning. These leaders, of course, should have opposed all forms of ungodliness since they were Yahweh’s representatives on earth.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
4. WICKEDNESS IN HIGH PLACES
Hos 7:3-7
There follows now a very difficult passage. The text is corrupt, and we have no means of determining what precise events are intended. The drift of meaning, however, is evident. The disorder and licentiousness of the people are favored in high places; the throne itself is guilty.
“With their evil they make a king glad, and princes with their falsehoods: all of them are adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker”
“On the day of our king”-some coronation or kings birthday-“the princes were sick with fever from wine. He stretched forth his hand with loose fellows,” presumably made them his associates. “Like an oven have they made their hearts with their intriguing. All night their anger sleepeth in the morning it blazes like a flame of fire. All of them glow like an oven, and devour their rulers: all their kings have fallen, without one of them calling on Me.”
An obscure passage upon obscure events; yet so lurid with the passion of that fevered people in the flagrant years 743-735 that we can make out the kind of crimes described. A king surrounded by loose and unscrupulous nobles: adultery, drunkenness, conspiracies, assassination: every man striking for himself; none appealing to God.
From the court, then, downwards, by princes, priests, and prophets, to the common fathers of Israel and their households, immorality prevails. There is no redeeming feature, and no hope of better things. For repentance itself the capacity is gone.
In making so thorough an indictment of the moral condition of Israel, it would have been impossible for Hosea not to speak also of the political stupidity and restlessness which resulted from it. But he has largely reserved these for that part of his discourse which now follows, and which we will take in the next chapter.