Instead of these virtues, He observed swearing (cursing others by misusing oaths and imprecations), deception, murder, stealing, adultery, violence, and continual bloodshed. An imprecation is a formal curse made in the name of some deity in which one person calls down calamity on another (cf. Job 31:29-30). These were things He had forbidden in His covenant. He identified violations of at least five of the Ten Commandments ( Numbers 3 , 9 , 6 , 8 , , 7). Violent crimes were so common that they seemed to follow one another without interruption. [source][source][source]
Context Summary
Hosea 4:1-10 - "like People, Like Priest"
This chapter contains a terrible indictment against the whole kingdom. There was neither truth nor mercy in the land, but swearing, lying, and adultery. Apart from the restraints of religion, such would be the condition of human society today. Even atheists have been known to remove from mining-camps, where there was no semblance of religion, to places within the sound of the church-bell. Notice in Hosea 4:3 how man's sin seems to affect even the animals. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth"¦ waiting for our adoption" as the recognized sons of God, Romans 8:22-23.
Rightly enough, the prophet remonstrates with the priests. They were drunken and sensual; they rejected the knowledge and rule of God; they promoted outward ritual in order to fatten on the offerings of the people; and as it was with them, so it became with the deluded worshipers. What a solemn lesson is contained in the proverb which originated in this passage, Like people, like priest! It is not what we teach, but what we are, that really affects men. The colorless rays of the sun, lying outside the prismatic band of color, give health. [source]
Chapter Summary: Hosea 4
1God denounces judgments on Israel, for their aggravated impieties and iniquities 12He exposes the ignorance and wickedness of the priests, 13and moral dissolution of the people, 14he will leave their wives and daughters to commit lewdness, without present punishment 15He warns Judah, not to imitate Israel's crimes, which are still further reproved
What do the individual words in Hosea 4:2 mean?
[By] swearingand lyingand Killingand stealingand committing adulterythey break all restraintand with bloodshedupon bloodshedtouches
Parse: Conjunctive waw, Verb, Piel, Infinitive absolute
Root: כָּחַשׁ
Sense: to deceive, lie, fail, grow lean, be disappointing, be untrue, be insufficient, be found liars, belie, deny, dissemble, deal falsely.