Hosea 5:5

"Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their God, for the spirit of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know the LORD."

Key Reflection

These verses suggest that the Israelites' persistent sins and idolatrous practices have hardened their hearts, making genuine repentance difficult. The "spirit of prostitution" symbolizes their deep-seated spiritual adultery, indicating a profound disregard for the LORD, thus preventing them from turning back to Him.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

And the pride of Israel -Pride was from the first the leading sin of Ephraim. Together with Manasseh, (with whom they made, in some respects, one whole, as “the children of Joseph,Joshua 16:4;Joshua 17:14), they were nearly equal in number to Judah. When numbered in the wilderness, Judah had 74,600 fighting men, Ephraim and Manasseh together 72,700. They speak of themselves as a “great people, forasmuch as the Lord has blessed me hitherto”Joshua 17:14. God having chosen, out of them, the leader under whom He brought Israel into the land of promise, they resented, in the following time of the Judges, any deliverance of the land, in which they were not called to take a part.

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