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God Accuses Israel

Hear the word of the L ord, O people of Israel;

for the L ord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.

There is no faithfulness or loyalty,

and no knowledge of God in the land.

Swearing, lying, and murder,

and stealing and adultery break out;

bloodshed follows bloodshed.

Therefore the land mourns,

and all who live in it languish;

together with the wild animals

and the birds of the air,

even the fish of the sea are perishing.

Yet let no one contend,

and let none accuse,

for with you is my contention, O priest.

You shall stumble by day;

the prophet also shall stumble with you by night,

and I will destroy your mother.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;

because you have rejected knowledge,

I reject you from being a priest to me.

And since you have forgotten the law of your God,

I also will forget your children.

The more they increased,

the more they sinned against me;

they changed their glory into shame.

They feed on the sin of my people;

they are greedy for their iniquity.

And it shall be like people, like priest;

I will punish them for their ways,

and repay them for their deeds.

They shall eat, but not be satisfied;

they shall play the whore, but not multiply;

because they have forsaken the L ord

to devote themselves to ¹¹whoredom.

The Idolatry of Israel

Wine and new wine

take away the understanding.

My people consult a piece of wood,

and their divining rod gives them oracles.

For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray,

and they have played the whore, forsaking their God.

They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains,

and make offerings upon the hills,

under oak, poplar, and terebinth,

because their shade is good.

Therefore your daughters play the whore,

and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore,

nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery;

for the men themselves go aside with whores,

and sacrifice with temple prostitutes;

thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.

Though you play the whore, O Israel,

do not let Judah become guilty.

Do not enter into Gilgal,

or go up to Beth-aven,

and do not swear, “As the L ord lives.”

Like a stubborn heifer,

Israel is stubborn;

can the L ord now feed them

like a lamb in a broad pasture?

Ephraim is joined to idols—

let him alone.

When their drinking is ended, they indulge in sexual orgies;

they love lewdness more than their glory.

A wind has wrapped them in its wings,

and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Prophet now expresses more clearly the dispute which he mentions in the first verse; and it now evidently appears, that it was not a judgment expressed in words, for God had in vain tried to bring the people to the right way by threats and reproofs: he had contended enough with then; they remained refractory; hence he adds, “Now mourn shall the whole land”; that is, God has now resolved to execute his judgment: there is therefore no use for you any more to contrive any evasion, as you have been hitherto wont to do; for God stretches forth his hand for your ultimate destruction. Mourn, therefore, shall the land, and cut off shall be every one that dwells in it, as I prefer to render it; unless the Prophet, it may be, means, that though God should for a time suspend the last judgment, yet the Israelites would gain nothing, seeing that they would, by continual languor, pine away. But as he mentions mourning in the first place, the former meaning, that God would destroy all the inhabitants, seems more appropriate. He adds, gathered shall they be all, or destroyed, (for either may suit the place,) from the beast of the field, and the bird of heaven, to the fishes of the sea. The Prophet here enlarges on the greatness of God’s wrath; for he includes even the innocent beasts and the birds of heaven, yea, the fishes of the sea. When Godly vengeance extends to brute animals, what will become of men?

But some one may here object and say, that it is unworthy of God to be angry with miserable creatures, which deserve no such treatment: for why should God be angry with fishes and beasts? But an answer may be easily given: As beasts, and birds, and fishes, and, in a word, all other things, have been created for the use of men, it is no wonder that God should extend the tokens of his curse to all creatures, above and below, when his purpose is to punish men. We seek, indeed, for the most part, some vain comforts to delight us, or to moderate our sorrows when God shows himself angry with us: but when God curses innocent animals for our sake, we then dread the more, except, indeed, we be under the influence of extreme stupor.

We now then understand why God here denounces destruction on brute animals as well as on birds and fishes of the sea; it is, that men may know themselves to be deprived of all his gifts; as when a person, in order to expose a wicked man to shame, pulls down his house and burns his whole furniture: so also does God do, who has adorned the world with so much and such varied wealth for our sake, when he reduces all things to a waste: He thereby shows how grievously offended he is with us, and thus constrains us to become humble. This then is the Prophet’s meaning.