Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart - (Literally, "takes away"). Wine and fleshly sin are pictured as blended in one, to deprive man of his affections and reason and understanding, and to leave him brutish and irrational. In all the relations of life toward God and man, reason and will are guided by the affections. And so, in God's language, the "heart" stands for the "understanding" as well as the "affections," because it directs the understanding, and the understanding, bereft of true affections, and under the rule of passion, becomes senseless. Besides the perversion of the understanding, each of these sins blunts and dulls the fineness of the intellect; much more, both combined. The stupid sottishness of the confirmed voluptuary is a whole, of which each act of sensual sin worked its part. The Pagan saw this clearly, although, without the grace of God, they did not act on what they saw to be true and right. This, the sottishness of Israel, destroying their understanding, was the ground of their next folly, that they ascribed to "their stock" the office of God. "Corruption of manners and superstition" (it has often been observed) "go hand in hand."

Whoredom and wine - These debaucheries go generally together.

Take away the heart - Darken the understanding, deprave the judgment, pervert the will, debase all the passions, etc.

Whoredom and wine, and new wine, take away the heart. Uncleanness and intemperance besot men, deprive them of reason and judgment, and even of common sense, make them downright fools, and so stupid as to do the following things; or they take away the heart from following the Lord, and taking heed to him, and lead to idolatry; or they "occupy" (z) the heart, and fill it up, and cause it to prefer sensual lusts and pleasures to the fear and love of God: their stupidity brought on hereby is exposed in the next verse; though it seems chiefly to respect the priests, who erred in vision through wine and strong drink, and stumbled in judgment, Isaiah 28:7.

(z) "occupant cor", so some in Calvin and Rivet; "occupavit cor", Schmidt.

The allusion to whoredom leads to the description of the idolatrous conduct of the people in the third strophe, Hosea 4:11-14, which is introduced with a general sentence. Hosea 4:11. "Whoring and wine and new wine take away the heart (the understanding"). Zenūth is licentiousness in the literal sense of the word, which is always connected with debauchery. What is true of this, namely, that it weakens the mental power, shows itself in the folly of idolatry into which the nation has fallen. Hosea 4:12. "My nation asks its wood, and its stick prophesies to it: for a spirit of whoredom has seduced, and they go away whoring from under their God." שׁאל בּעצו is formed after בּיהוה, to ask for a divine revelation of the idols made of wood (Jeremiah 10:3; Habakkuk 2:19), namely, the teraphim (cf. Hosea 3:4, and Ezekiel 21:26). This reproof is strengthened by the antithesis my nation, i.e., the nation of Jehovah, the living God, and its wood, the wood made into idols by the people. The next clause, "and its stick is showing it," sc. future events (higgı̄d as in Isaiah 41:22-23, etc.), is supposed by Cyril of Alexandria to refer to the practice of rhabdomancy, which he calls an invention of the Chaldaeans, and describes as consisting in this, that two rods were held upright, and then allowed to fall while forms of incantation were being uttered; and the oracle was inferred from the way in which they fell, whether forwards or backwards, to the right or to the left. The course pursued was probably similar to that connected with the use of the wishing rods.

(Note: According to Herod. iv. 67, this kind of soothsaying was very common among the Scythians (see at Ezekiel 21:26). Another description of rhabdomancy is described by Abarbanel, according to Maimonides and Moses Mikkoz: cf. Marck and Rosenmller on this passage.)

The people do this because a spirit of whoredom has besotted them.

By rūăch zenūnı̄m the whoredom is represented as a demoniacal power, which has seized upon the nation. Zenūnı̄m probably includes both carnal and spiritual whoredom, since idolatry, especially the Asherah-worship, was connected with gross licentiousness. The missing object to התעה may easily be supplied from the context. זנה מתּחת אל, which differs from זנה מאחרי (Hosea 1:2), signifies "to whore away from under God," i.e., so as to withdraw from subjection to God.

{m} Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

(m) In giving themselves to pleasures, they become like brute beasts.

4:11 Take away the heart - Deprive men of their understanding and judgment.

11. A moral truth applicable to all times. The special reference here is to the licentious orgies connected with the Syrian worship, which lured Israel away from the pure worship of God (Isa 28:1, 7; Am 4:1).

take away the heart-that is, the understanding; make men blind to their own true good (Ec 7:7).

4:6-11 Both priests and people rejected knowledge; God will justly reject them. They forgot the law of God, neither desired nor endeavoured to retain it in mind, and to transmit the remembrance to their posterity; therefore God will justly forget them and their children. If we dishonour God with that which is our honour, it will, sooner or later, be turned into shame to us. Instead of warning the people against sin, from the consideration of the sacrifices, which showed what an offence sin was to God, since it needed an atonement, the priests encouraged the people to sin, since atonement might be made at so small an expense. It is very wicked to be pleased with the sins of others, because they may turn to our advantage. What is unlawfully gained, cannot be comfortably used. The people and the priests hardened one another in sin; therefore justly shall they share in the punishment. Sharers in sin must expect to share in ruin. Any lust harboured in the heart, in time will eat out all its strength and vigour. That is the reason why many professors grow so heavy, so dull, so dead in the way of religion. They have a liking for some secret lust, which takes away their hearts.