Hosea 4 - Bible Study, Explanation, and Application

Hosea 4 Bible Study

HOSEA CHAPTER REVIEW:

• Hosea 1 – God told Hosea to marry a wife of whoredom as a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to Him. Hosea married Gomer, and together they had 3 children together. Their names were “Jezreel,” “No Mercy,” and “Not My People.” Though Israel had acted very wickedly, God promised them hope for a positive future, but judgement was coming first.

• Hosea 2 – Hosea’s wife returned to her sins and committed adultery, just as Israel had turned its back on God repeatedly. God warned Israel to repent or suffer severe consequences. Israel didn’t realize all of its blessings came from God and God could take them all away. God would punish Israel, but Hosea foretold a day when God would restore His wife (Israel) to Himself by grace.  

• Hosea 3 – God told Hosea to buy his wife back after she was unfaithful to him. This was a picture of God’s grace to Israel after their unfaithfulness. Israel’s immediate future was going to be spend enduring the consequences of their sins, but God promised He would show them grace in the “latter days” when they were reunited under “David their king.”

TIMELINE:

• The first verse of the book informs the reader that Hosea lived during the reigns of Uzziah (Azariah), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in Judah, and the reign of Jeroboam II in Israel.

• Uzziah’s (Azariah’s) reign began around 815 B.C.

• Hezekiah’s reign ended sometimes around 695 B.C.

• Jeroboam II reigned ended in the mid-700s B.C.

• This puts Hosea’s prophetic work squarely in the 700s B.C. The text indicates he did most of his teaching prior to 721 B.C. That was the year God punished Israel by bringing the Assyrians against them and exiling them from the Promised Land.

OUTLINE:

• THE DEPRAVITY OF ISRAEL (4:1-19):

  • God spoke a word against Israel because no virtue was to be found in their land. There was no faithfulness, love, or knowledge of God.

  • In their place was a prevalence of swearing, lying, murder, stealing, adultery, and violence.

  • The land was described as mourning over its terrible condition

  • The priests were guilty of not teaching the people God’s law, and the so-called prophets of Israel were useless.

  • God said His people were being destroyed because of their lack of knowledge.

  • The more the population increased, the more sin increased.

  • The priests encouraged the people’s sin and profited from it.

  • God assured Israel He would punish both the people and the priests.

  • Like fools, the people consulted their idols made of wood rather than asking the true God of Heaven for help.

  • The young women of Israel gave themselves up to sexual immorality and the men of Israel slept with prostitutes, everyone had been corrupted.

  • Hosea warned the people of Judah (the southern kingdom) not to associate with their northern neighbors and risk corrupting themselves.

APPLICATION:

• God spoke of the foolishness of His people by saying, “My people inquire of a piece of wood, and their walking staff gives them oracles” (4:12).

• Most western people would scoff at the idea of looking to a carved wooden idol to get wisdom to direct their lives, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t equally as foolish when they look to secular self-help books, horoscopes, witchcraft, podcasts, AI, and “the universe” to get their answers.

• Before you laugh at the people of Israel or the idol worshiping cultures of the world, ask if your source of wisdom is at all superior to theirs.

• Hint: If it doesn’t involve God, it isn’t!