Hosea 4:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

In acknowledging my people, they are likened to those devoid of comprehension, despite being provided with the guidance of the Law. They were called to know the true God, confirmed by miraculous signs, and possessed everything necessary to enlighten the ignorant and impart righteous understanding. However, since you have rejected this understanding—which is embodied in Christ, through whom the Father can be known—you have ultimately lost your right to serve as a priest and to offer acceptable sacrifices, becoming like an unclean individual. By arriving at a state of neglecting the divine commandments, missing the spiritual essence of the Mosaic Law, and failing to accept Christ's teachings in humility and goodwill, I will, so to speak, forget your children. This indicates that I shall no longer remember them for the purpose of showing them mercy and care, for those whom God chooses to remember are rewarded with His benevolence. Alternatively, it signifies that Israel forsook God and rejected understanding when they began to worship idols.

It is common for the sacred Scriptures to depict the lost as akin to the night, as reflected in the words of the Lord addressing the Jews during Jerusalem's return to idolatry: "I will liken the night to your mother; my people shall be likened to those who have no wisdom" (Hosea 4:5-6). Is it not evident that he uses the term "night" to denote those ignorant of the true and natural divinity? Thus, the adversary of all despised the times and seasons of his demise, while we are embraced in salvation. He who bears this hatred will inherit his fate of persistent punishment alongside him.

It is not because the mother and children are distinct that He refers to both; the Lord speaks to the people of Israel, saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to you. How often have I longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). This does not imply that Jerusalem and its inhabitants are separate entities, for He does not address mere rubble, wood, or stone devoid of people. Similarly, the crowd and the entirety of the Jewish nation to whom He speaks are termed mother, while the sons may refer to individuals among the people or those dispersed across towns and villages. Thus, amid the night and the shadows of exile and hardship, Israel is cast away, and her people are silenced eternally, for they lacked a rightful claim to the law of God and did not uphold His commandments, facing consequences befitting their actions. Having turned away from God's law, they forfeited the priesthood indefinitely, devoting themselves instead to golden calves at Dan and Bethel; and because they neglected God's law, fully surrendering to pagan idols, the Lord will forget their children, putting them into everlasting captivity; for as it is written, "If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized" (1 Cor. 14:38). In the Psalms, it is declared, "They do not know, nor do they understand; they walk in darkness" (Ps. 81:5). The messages addressed to the ten tribes can also be applied to heretics who have turned away from the kingdom of David and Jerusalem, which symbolizes Christ and the Church, and thus dwell in perpetual darkness, devoid of knowledge of God, rejected by the Lord from the priesthood before Him, and their offspring are forgotten as they are now estranged from Him.

Since they have yielded themselves to the shadows of ignorance and are unwilling to accept even a glimmer of the light of God's truth, they, rightly, enveloped by such darkness, are likened to the night. The prophet refers to the synagogue as the mother, with the people as her children. This is also echoed in the words of Isaiah: What is this book concerning the removal of your mother (Isaiah 50:1)? Thus it is stated, Because you have dismissed your understanding, I will also dismiss you from serving Me; and because you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. Further illustrating His kindness and their lack of response, He continues: