Mercy.—Better rendered love. The Hebrew word chésed expresses (1) the love of God for Israel under covenant relationship; (2) the corresponding quality in man exhibited to God or towards his fellow-men. (See Hupfeld on Psalm 4:4; and Duhm, Theologie der Propheten, p. 100.)

For the Lord hath a controversy - God wills, in all His dealings with us His creatures, to prove even to our own consciences, the righteousness of His judgments, so as to leave us without excuse. Now, through His servants, He shows people their unrighteousness and His justice; hereafter our Lord, the righteous Judge, will show it through the book of people's own consciences.

With the inhabitants of the land - God had given the land to the children of Israel, on account of the wickedness of these whom He drave out before them. He gave it to them "that they might observe His statutes and keep His laws" (Psalm 105 ult.). He had promised that His "Eyes should always be upon it from the beginning of the year unto the end of the year" Deuteronomy 11:12. This land, the scene of those former judgments, given to them on those conditions (see Deuteronomy 4:1, Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 6:21-25, etc.), the land which God had given to them as their God, they had filled with iniquity.

Because there is no truth, nor mercy - "Truth and mercy" are often spoken of, as to Almighty God. Truth takes in all which is right, and to which God has bound Himself; mercy, all beyond, which God does out of His boundless love. When God says of Israel, "there is no truth nor mercy," He says that there is absolutely none of those two great qualities, under which He comprises all His own Goodness. "There is no truth," none whatever, "no regard for known truth; no conscience, no sincerity, no uprightness; no truth of words; no truth of promises; no truth in witnessing; no making good in deeds what they said in words."

Nor mercy - The word has a wide meaning; it includes all love of one to another, a love issuing in acts. It includes loving-kindness, piety to parents, natural affection, forgiveness, tenderness, beneficence, mercy, goodness. The prophet, in declaring the absence of this grace, declares the absence of all included under it. Whatever could be comprised under love, whatever feelings are influenced by love, of that there was nothing.

Nor knowledge of God - The union of right knowledge and wrong practice is hideous in itself; and it must be especially offensive to Almighty God, that His creatures should know whom they offend, how they offend Him, and yet, amid and against their knowledge, choose that which displeases Him. And, on that ground, perhaps, He has so created us, that when our acts are wrong, our knowledge becomes darkened Romans 1:21. The "knowledge of God" is not merely to know some things of God, as that He is the Creator and Preserver of the world and of ourselves. To know things of God is not to know God Himself. We cannot know God in any respect, unless we are so far made like unto Him. "Hereby do we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him. Every one that loveth is born of' God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love" 1 John 2:3-4; 1 John 4:7-8.

Knowledge of God being the gift of the Holy Spirit, he who hath not grace, cannot have that knowledge. A certain degree of speculative knowledge of God, a bad man may have, as Balaam had by inspiration, and the Pagan who, "when they knew God, glorified Him not as God." But even this knowledge is not retained without love. Those who "held the truth in unrighteousness" ended (Paul says Romans 1:21, Romans 1:18, Romans 1:28) by corrupting it. "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and so God gave them over to a reprobate," or undistinguishing mind, that they could not. Certainly, the speculative and practical knowledge are bound up together, through the oneness of the relation of the soul to God, whether in its thoughts of Him, or its acts toward Him. Wrong practice corrupts belief, as misbelief corrupts practice. The prophet then probably denies that there was any true knowledge of God, of any sort, whether of life or faith or understanding or love. Ignorance of God, then, is a great evil, a source of all other evils.

Ho 4:1-19. Henceforth the Prophet Speaks Plainly and without Symbol, in Terse, Sententious Propositions.

In this chapter he reproves the people and priests for their sins in the interregnum which followed Jeroboam's death; hence there is no mention of the king or his family; and in Ho 4:2 bloodshed and other evils usual in a civil war are specified.

1. Israel—the ten tribes.

controversy—judicial ground of complaint (Isa 1:18; Jer 25:31; Mic 6:2).

no … knowledge of God—exhibited in practice (Jer 22:16).God’s judgments against the sins of the people, Hosea 4:1-5, and of the priests, Hosea 4:6-11, and against their idolatry, Hosea 4:12-14. Judah is exhorted to take warning by Israel’s calamity, Hosea 4:15-19.

Hear; attend, consider, and duly weigh: it is the hearing of the mind, as well as of the ear, is here required.

The word of the Lord; he that speaks is the great God, though the messenger be a man; the message is not man’s, but it is the word, the message of the sovereign, holy; just, and mighty Jehovah, who ever speaks most important things, things that respect our duty and safety.

Ye children of Israel; you of the ten tribes, with whose ancestors my covenant was made, who received the law by the disposition of angels, but have not kept it, you that have turned aside from your God to idols.

The Lord; who knoweth your sins, who hateth, threateneth, and will judge, and punish unless you repent, it is he that speaketh, and summoneth you to plead with him.

Hath a controversy; just matter of debate or arguing against you; you have wronged him, and he will right himself, yet so that he will be clear in his judgment, all shall see that the just Lord doth justly, and that this people’s sins are the cause of all their sufferings, that God doth not delight to afflict the children of men.

With the inhabitants of the land; who dwell in the cities and towns of Israel, divided from the house of David, and from the house of God; ye that dwell with idolatrous neighbours: it is not a few, but the generality of the inhabitants; it is the whole land I have an action against.

There is no truth, no faithfulness, in their minds, words, or works; they cover falsehood with fair words, till they may fitly execute their designed frauds. There is neither plain-heartedness nor constancy in their purposes and words.

Nor mercy, kindness or gentleness of mind; all are hardened, and restrain their bowels, which should be opened toward the indigent and necessitous. There is neither compassion nor beneficence among them, they pity not, nor relieve any.

Nor knowledge of God; all generally are ignorant, know not what God hath done for them, or what God is in himself, or what candour and truth, or what tenderness and beneficence, he requires in his word; if they have a slight knowledge of those things, yet they consider them not. They have rased the knowledge of God out of their minds.

In the land: this speaks the universal ignorance, mercilessness, and unfaithfulness of that age.

for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land; the land of Israel; against him they had sinned, before him they stood guilty; he had something, yea, many things, against them; a charge is brought into open court, the indictment is read, an answer must be made: God is the antagonist, that moves and brings on the controversy in a judicial way, and who can answer him for one of a thousand? or stand before him, or in court with him, when he marks iniquity? the charge is as follows,

because there is no truth; none that do or speak truth; that are true and faithful men, true to their word, and faithful to their trust; no truth of grace in them, nor truth of doctrine held and received by them; truth failed from among them, and none were valiant for it; no truth or civil faith with respect to men, nor any truth of word or worship with respect to God:

nor mercy: to poor and indigent creatures; no compassion shown them; no offices of humanity or acts of beneficence exercised towards them; though these are more desirable by the Lord than, and are preferred by him to, all ceremonial sacrifices, Hosea 6:6, or no piety, religion, godliness, powerful godliness, which has the promise of this life, and that to come:

nor knowledge of God in the land; in the land of Israel, where God was used to be known; where he had been worshipped; were his word had been dispensed, and his prophets had been sent, and his saints that knew him, and his mind and will, formerly had dwelt; but now a company of atheists, at least that lived as such, and had no true spiritual saving knowledge of God, and communion with him; they had not true love to him, nor a godly reverence of him, which this implies; and that was the source of all the wickedness committed by them, afterwards expressed. The Targum is,

"there are none that do truth, nor dispense mercy, nor walk in the fear of the Lord, in the land.''

(a) Because the people would not obey the admonitions of the Prophets, he accuses them before the judgment seat of God, against whom they chiefly offended; Isa 7:13 Zec 12:10 Mic 6:1,2.