Bible Strands
Hosea 4:18
When their liquor is gone, they turn to prostitution; their rulers dearly love disgrace.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Hosea addresses the northern kingdom of Israel during a period of entrenched idolatry and moral collapse, immediately following his declaration that Ephraim is abandoned to its idols.
The words — הִזְנ֔וּ (hiz.Nu) = they have prostituted themselves describes the people’s shift into sexual and covenantal unfaithfulness once their intoxication fades. קָל֖וֹן (ka.Lon) = shame names the disgrace that the rulers actively cherish rather than avoid.
The thread — The pattern of insatiable corruption and leadership that trades integrity for gain echoes in Proverbs 30:15, Micah 3:11, and Exodus 23:8. These passages collectively trace how compromised authority and unrestrained appetite produce national shame.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that moral decay begins when restraint ends and accelerates when leaders normalize disgrace. It requires the reader to see that spiritual abandonment precedes judicial exposure.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Their drink is sour: they have committed whoredom continually: her rulers with shame do love, Give ye.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 30:15 The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’:
- Micah 3:11 Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD, saying, “Is not the LORD among us? No disaster can come upon us.”
- Exodus 23:8 Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.
- Deuteronomy 16:19 Do not deny justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
- Deuteronomy 32:32 But their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.
- 1 Samuel 8:3 But his sons did not walk in his ways; they turned aside toward dishonest gain, accepting bribes and perverting justice.
- 1 Samuel 12:3 Here I am. Bear witness against me before the LORD and before His anointed: Whose ox or donkey have I taken? Whom have I cheated or oppressed? From whose hand have I accepted a bribe and closed my eyes? Tell me, and I will restore it to you.”
- 2 Kings 17:7 All this happened because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They had worshiped other gods
- Psalms 47:9 The nobles of the nations have assembled as the people of the God of Abraham; for the shields of the earth belong to God; He is highly exalted.
- Jeremiah 2:21 I had planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. How could you turn yourself before Me into a rotten, wild vine?