As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.
Parallel Translations
-
As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.
-
And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.
-
And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so doth the company of priests; they murder in the way toward Shechem; yea, they commit enormity.
Cross-references (15)
Passages linked to Hosea 6:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 1:11-19 If they say, “Come with us. Let’s lay in wait for blood. Let’s lurk secretly for the innocent without cause. Let’s swallow them up alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down into the pit. We’ll find all valuable wealth. We’ll fill our houses with plunder. You shall cast your lot among us. We’ll all have one purse.” My son, don’t walk on the path with them. Keep your foot from their path, for their feet run to evil. They hurry to shed blood. For the net is spread in vain in the sight of any bird; but these lay in wait for their own blood. They lurk secretly for their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain. It takes away the life of its owners.
- Hosea 5:1 “Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, and give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.
- Hosea 7:1 When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.
- Zephaniah 3:3 Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.
- Luke 22:2-6 The chief priests and the scribes sought how they might put him to death, for they feared the people. Satan entered into Judas, who was also called Iscariot, who was counted with the twelve. He went away, and talked with the chief priests and captains about how he might deliver him to them. They were glad, and agreed to give him money. He consented, and sought an opportunity to deliver him to them in the absence of the multitude.
- Ezra 8:31 Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the bandit by the way.
- Job 1:15-17 and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, there also came another, and said, “The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
- Jeremiah 7:9-10 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered,’ that you may do all these abominations?
- Jeremiah 11:9 Yahweh said to me, “A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
- Ezekiel 22:9 Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you.
- Ezekiel 22:27 Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.
- Micah 3:9 Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.
- Mark 14:1 It was now two days before the feast of the Passover and the unleavened bread, and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might seize him by deception, and kill him.
- John 11:47 The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs.
- 1 Kings 12:25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and lived in it; and he went out from there, and built Penuel.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain The Prophet pursues more at large what he had…
The Prophet pursues more at large what he had briefly touched; for he does, not now confine himself to the common people, but directs his accusation against the sacerdotal order. “See,” he says, “the priests conspire among themselves like robbers, that they may slay wretched men, who may meet them in the way.” It is indeed certain that the Prophet speaks not here of open murders; for it is not credible that the priests had proceeded into so great a licentiousness, that Gilead had become a slaughter-house. But the Prophets, we know, are thus wont to speak, whenever they upbraid men with being sanguinary and cruel; they compare them to robbers, and that justly. Hence he says, The faction of the priests kill men in the way, as if they were robbers conspiring together. And then he shows that the priests were so void of every thing like the fear of God, that they perpetrated every kind of cruelty as if they were wholly given to robberies. This is the meaning.
The word שכמה, shicame, is no doubt taken by the Prophet for “consent.” What is meant by שכם, shicam, is properly the “shoulder;” but it is metaphorically changed into the sense which I have mentioned; as it is in the Zephaniah 3 ‘They shall serve the Lord שכם אחד, shicam ached, with one shoulder;’ that is, “with one consent.” So also in this place, the priests conspire together שכמה, shicame, with consent.” For they who think that the name of a place is intended are much mistaken.
Read full note →
Now in the last clause of the verse it is made evident why the Prophet had said that the priests were like robbers, ‘because,’ he says, ‘they do the thought,’ or ‘wickedness.’ The verb to זמם, zamem signifies “to think,” as it has been already said: hence זמה, zame is “thought” in general; but is often taken by the Hebrews in a bad sense, for a “bad design,” or “wicked trick:” They do then their conceived wickedness We hence learn that they were not open robbers, and publicly infamous in the sight of men, but that they were robbers before God, because the city was full of wicked devices, which were there concocted; and since they executed their schemes, it is justly said of them by the Prophet, that they imitated the licentiousness of robbers. Let us now go on —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Hos 6:9 And as troops of robbers wait for…
Hos 6:9 And as troops of robbers wait for a man, [so] the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.
Ver. 9. And as troops of robbers wait for a man] This verse hath much of the former in it, saith an interpreter. The sum of it is, saith Wigandus, to show, that all the forementioned wickednesses were committed, instinctu doctorum, by the instinct of their priests, who were now turned tories or moss troopers. Jerome asked his Jewish doctor the meaning of this text, and received this answer: that at the time of the Passover and the Pentecost the people used to come to Jerusalem; and as they were going in their journey, these priests would stand in the way and slay them. Others think that these corrupt priests took into their city of refuge divers thieves and murderers; who not having whereupon otherwise to subsist, turned highwaymen (as they call them), and returning again into the city, divided the spoil with the priests, who had their share: and are therefore called companions of robbers, and are said to murder in the way by consent, or with one shoulder, or as Simeon and Levi did at Shechem, q.d. Sichemice, craftily and cruelly (for so many ways these words are rendered), and all this they did with malice forethought, of prepensed mischief ( ex destinata malitia et inito consilio), called here committing lewdness. Even as they thought in their hearts so they acted, saith King David. They executed the counsel of the wicked, saith the Chaldee paraphrast. They machinated mischief, and then practised what they had plotted with a deliberate will, and as it were with a high hand. Look now upon the Popish monks, saith Tarnovius, and compare them with these priests whom Hosea reproveth, non tam ovum ovo simile. And Luther saith, that they had a proverb in Germany, that there was nothing so bad which the monks could think of but they would dare to do it. Faciunt quicquid cogitant. 079 &&& Ministers-Immoral
Read full note →
“ Non audet Stygius Pluto tentare quod audet
Effrenis Monachus, ” -
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain What is here charged upon these priests, they turned…
What is here charged upon these priests, they turned highway-men and murderers, some understand of their killing and spoiling those that were going up to Jerusalem to worship God there; but more likely it is, that in this Gilead were many murderers, who durst not go out, nor could get their livelihood within the city, but, reduced to straits, took this wicked course for a livelihood, robbed and murdered on the highway, and then divided the prey with the priests, whose consent to the thing made them deeply guilty. And thus in this manner they act most lewd things; or these things are done and encouraged by the priests, because they make it their business, it is their trade now to contrive and act wickedness, highest wickednesses. Or, if you rather like it in the brief, the priests by companies lay wait, and rob, and murder, like as do the troops which rob towards Shethem.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And as troops of robbers wait for a man,....…
And as troops of robbers wait for a man,.... As a gang of highwaymen or footpads lie in wait in a ditch, or under a hedge, or in a cave of a rock or mountain, for a man they know will come by that way, who is full of money, in order to rob him; or, as Saadiah interprets it, as fishermen stand upon the banks of a river, and cast in their hooks to draw out the fish; and to the same purpose is Jarchi's note from R. Meir:
so the company of priests murder in the way by consent; not only encourage murderers, and commit murders within the city, but go out in a body together upon the highway, and there commit murders and robberies, and divide the spoil among them; all which they did unanimously, and were well agreed, being brethren in iniquity, as well as in office: or, "in the way of Shechem" (e); as good people passed by Gilead to Shechem, and so to Jerusalem, to worship there at the solemn feasts, they lay in wait for them, and murdered them; because they did not give into the idolatrous worship of the calves at Dan and Bethel: or, "in the manner of Shechem" (f); that is, they murdered men in a deceitful treacherous manner, as the Shechemites were murdered by Simeon and Levi: Joseph Kimchi interprets this of the princes and great men, so the word "cohanim" is sometimes used; but the context seems to carry it to the priests:
Read full note →
for they commit lewdness; or "enormity"; the most enormous crimes, and that purposely, with deliberation devising and contriving them.
(e) "Sichemam versus", Gussetius, Schmidt; approved by Reinbeck. De Accent. Heb. p. 442. "qua itur Sichem", Tigurine version; "qua via ad Shechemum factum occidunt", Junius & Tremellius; "quae ducit ad Sichermum", Piscator. So Abendana. (f) "Sicemice", so some in Drusius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The company of priests - The priests by companies…
The company of priests - The priests by companies lay wait, and rob, and murder.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. As troops of robbers] What a sad…
Verse 9. As troops of robbers] What a sad picture is this of the state of the priesthood! The country of Gilead was infamous for its robberies and murders. The idolatrous priests there formed themselves into companies, and kept possession of the roads and passes; and if they found any person going to Jerusalem to worship the true God, they put him to death. The reason is given:-
For they commit lewdness.] They are gross idolaters.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And as troops of robbers wait for a man,…
And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent - Or (more probably) “in the way to Shechem.” Shechem too was a “city of refuge” Joh 20:7, and so also a city of Levites and priests Joh 21:21. It was an important city. For there Joshua assembled all Israel for his last address to them, and made a covenant with them John 24:1, 25. There, Rehoboam came to be accepted by Israel as their king 1Ki 12:1, and was rejected by them. There Jeroboam after the schism, for a time, made his residence 1Ki 12:25. The priests were banded together; their counsel was one; they formed one company; but they were bound together as a band of robbers, not to save people’s lives but to destroy them. Whereas the way to the cities of refuge was, by God’s law, to be “prepared” Deu 19:3, clear, open, without let or hindrance to the guiltless fugitive, to save his life, the priests, the guardians of God’s law, obstructed the way, to roll and destroy. They, whom God appointed to teach the truth that people might live, were banded together against His law.
Shechem, besides that it was a city of refuge, was also hallowed by the memory of histories of the patriarchs who walked with God. There, was Jacob’s well Joh 4:5-6; there Joseph’s bones were buried Jos 24:32; and the memory of the patriarch Jacob was cherished there, even to the time of our Lord Joh 4:5-6. Lying in a narrow valley between Mount Ebal and Gerizim, it was a witness, as it were, of the blessing and curse pronounced from them, and had, in the times of Joshua, an ancient sanctuary of God Jos 24:26. It was a halting-place for the pilgrims of the northern tribes, in their way to the feasts at Jerusalem; so that these murders by the priests coincide with the tradition of the Jews, that they who would go up to Jerusalem were murdered in the way.
Read full note →
For they commit lewdness - Literally, “For they have done deliberate sin” . The word literally means “a thing thought of,” especially an evil, and so, deliberate, contrived, bethought-of, wickedness. They did deliberate wickedness, gave themselves to do it, and did nothing else.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Robbers. Jephte had infested those parts, and the country…
Robbers. Jephte had infested those parts, and the country was noted for murders; whence more cities of refuge were appointed in it, Judges xi., and Josue xx. 8. The prophet alludes to what had been said to Gad, Genesis xlix. 19. --- Out of, or to Sichem. They were jealous of people going thither, (Calmet) wishing to receive their offerings themselves. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain company--"association" or guild of priests.
company--"association" or guild of priests.
murder by consent--literally, "with one shoulder" (compare Zep 3:9, Margin). The image is from oxen putting their shoulders together to pull the same yoke [RIVETUS]. MAURER translates, "in the way towards Shechem." It was a city of refuge between Ebal and Gerizim; on Mount Ephraim (Jos 20:7; Jos 21:21), long the civil capital of Ephraim, as Shiloh was the religious capital; now called Naploos; for a time the residence of Jeroboam (Kg1 12:25). The priests there became so corrupted that they waylaid and murdered persons fleeing to the asylum for refuge [HENDERSON]; the sanctity of the place enhanced the guilt of the priests who abused their priestly privileges, and the right of asylum to perpetrate murders themselves, or to screen those committed by others [MAURER].
Read full note →
commit lewdness--deliberate crime, presumptuous wickedness, from an Arabic root, "to form a deliberate purpose."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. And as troops …] Rather, And as bandits…
9. And as troops …] Rather, And as bandits lying in wait, (so doth) the company of priests; they murder on the road towards Shechem; yea, they commit outrages. The reference in the figure is either to the doings of native banditti (comp. Hos_7:1), or to those of the guerilla-bands of Arameans, Moabites, &c., which were constantly invading Israel and Judah (2Ki_5:2; 2Ki_13:20), whenever the central power was weak. The word for ‘company’ (khébher) implies an organized guild (such as the Pharisees afterwards), so that there was no public opinion to check the offenders. Shechem had long ago been notorious for the highway robberies committed by its inhabitants, and was therefore destroyed by Abimelech (Jdg_9:25; Jdg_9:45). It lay on the road, which was doubtless much frequented, from Samaria and the north to Bethel, now the chief sanctuary of the so-called Ten Tribes. Gilead and Shechem together represent the eastern and western divisions of the kingdom.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9) Should be rendered, As a robber lies in…
(9) Should be rendered, As a robber lies in wait, so the company of priests murder on the road to Shechem; yea, they execute the plot. Shechem, charged with historic interest (Genesis to Judges), is also a city of refuge, a Levitical city, on the road to Bethel, where the priests of the calves resided. (Comp. Hos_5:1.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 6:9 Priests form bands of robbers: Hosea again condemns…
6:9 Priests form bands of robbers: Hosea again condemns the religious leaders for their crimes (see 4:4-8).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.