Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you… I. THE PERSONS. "My people." A frequent designation of the Israelitish people. Jehovah was emphatically to them a God, and they were emphatically to Him a people. But is God's greatest goodness to Israel to be compared with the civil and religious privileges with which He has distinguished this favoured country? There is a tendency in nations as well as in individuals to be rendered careless and secure by the long possession of privileges and advantages. And the history of Israel is intended to teach a lesson of national warning. II. THEIR CONDITION. "My people are destroyed." Notwithstanding all God's favour towards them, yet He abandoned them to desolation, He gave them over to destruction. And what ground of security has Britain any more than Israel, except in the favour and protection of God? It is impossible for any reflecting person to consider the internal state of our country without feeling that we have within ourselves the elements of destruction, the materials for a wide-wasting desolation. III. THE CAUSE OF THAT CONDITION. "For lack of knowledge." Lack of the knowledge of God and religion. This was God's ground of complaint, and for this He entered into judgment with them. This lack of knowledge was accompanied and followed by a general corruption of morals, as the next words to our text show. When the corruption became general, and the fruit, of this religious ignorance were ripe, God thrust in the sharp sickle of His judgments, and reaped the harvest in His wrath. Observe then the bearing which the state of the collective body of the people as to religious knowledge must have upon the question of national safety and national ruin. If there be a lack of the knowledge of God and His truth in the bulk of the people, the destruction of the nation will be inevitable. And if ruin come upon any land, who are the sufferers? If the body be crushed by a fall, which of the members will escape the anguish? Hence the state of the people is the concern of all. God has bound all classes in one common bond of interest: all must rejoice, or all must suffer together. What then is the state of our population with respect to religious knowledge? And what must be the end of these things? (Thomas Best, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. |
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