(1) Controversy.--A judicial suit, in which Jehovah is plaintiff as well as judge (Isaiah 1:23; Isaiah 41:21). By the "children of Israel" we are to understand the northern kingdom of the ten tribes, as distinguished from Judah.

Mercy.--Better rendered love. The Hebrew word chesed expresses (1) the love of God for Israel under covenant relationship; (2) the corresponding quality in man exhibited to God or towards his fellow-men. (See Hupfeld on Psalm 4:4; and Duhm, Theologie der Propheten, p. 100.)

Verse 1. - A new and distinct division of the book commences with this fourth chapter and continues till the close. What had previously been presented in figure and symbol is now plainly and literally stated. The children of Israel are summoned in the first verse of this chapter to hear the charge preferred against them and the sentence pronounced. Having convened, as it were, a public assembly and cited the persons concerned, the prophet proceeds to show cause why they are bound to give an attentive hearing. In God's controversy with the people of the land the prophet acts as his ambassador, accusing the people of great and grievous sins, and vindicating the justice of God's judgments in their punishment. The ki with which the last clause of the verse commences may be either causal or recitative, and may thus specify either the ground or subject of controversy. It is commonly understood here in the former sense. Israel is charged with want of truth, mercy, and the knowledge of God. Kimchi comments on this controversy as follows: "With the inhabitants of the land of Israel I have a controversy, for I gave them the land on the condition that they should exercise righteousness and judgment, and on this condition I pledged myself to them that my eyes would be upon them from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. But since they practice the opposite - cursing, lying, etc. - I also will act with them in a way contrary to what I assured them, and will hide my face from them." He adds, "There were some righteous among them, but they were few, and they hid themselves from the face of the multitude who were wicked." Truth and mercy are at once Divine attributes and human virtues; it is in the latter sense, of course, that they are here employed. Truth includes works as well as words, doing as well as saying; it implies uprightness in speech and behavior - thorough integrity of character and conduct, Mercy goes beyond and supplements this. We sometimes say of such a one that he is an honest but a hard man. Mercy combined with truth, on the contrary, makes a man kind as well as honest, benevolent as well as upright. In a somewhat similar sense the apostle conjoins goodness and righteousness when he says, "Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die." The knowledge of God is the real root of these two virtues of truth and mercy. If we know God as he is in himself and as he stands in his relations to us, we shall conform our conduct to his character and our actions to his will. If we know God to be a God of truth, who delighteth in truth in the inward parts, we shall cultivate truth in our hearts, express it with our lips, and practice it in our lives. If we know God as a God of mercy, who has shown such boundless mercy to us in pardoning our multiplied and aggravated offences, we shall imitate that mercy in our relations to our fellow-man; nor shall we enact the part of the merciless man in the parable, who owed his lord ten thousand talents, and who, having nothing to pay, was freely forgiven the debt; but finding his fellow-servant, who owed him only an hundred pence, laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, "Pay me that thou owest," and, deaf to that fellow-servant's supplications, east him into prison till he should pay the debt. The intimate connection of the knowledge of God with the virtues in question is confirmed by the Prophet Jeremiah, "Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him? he judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me, saith the Lord?"

4:1-5 Hosea reproves for immorality, as well as idolatry. There was no truth, mercy, or knowledge of God in the land: it was full of murders, 2Ki 21:16. Therefore calamities were near, which would desolate the country. Our sins, as separate persons, as a family, as a neighbourhood, as a nation, cause the Lord to have a controversy with us; let us submit and humble ourselves before Him, that he may not go on to destroy.Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel,.... The people of the ten tribes, as distinct from Judah, Hosea 4:15, the prophet having finished his parables he was ordered to take up and deliver, and his explanations of them, and concluded with a gracious promise of the conversion of the Jews in the latter day, enters upon a new discourse, which begins with reproof for various sins; since what had been delivered in parables and types had had no effect upon them, they are called upon to hear what the Lord would say to them by the prophet, in more clear and express terms; silence is ordered, and attention required to what follows:

for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land; the land of Israel; against him they had sinned, before him they stood guilty; he had something, yea, many things, against them; a charge is brought into open court, the indictment is read, an answer must be made: God is the antagonist, that moves and brings on the controversy in a judicial way, and who can answer him for one of a thousand? or stand before him, or in court with him, when he marks iniquity? the charge is as follows,

because there is no truth; none that do or speak truth; that are true and faithful men, true to their word, and faithful to their trust; no truth of grace in them, nor truth of doctrine held and received by them; truth failed from among them, and none were valiant for it; no truth or civil faith with respect to men, nor any truth of word or worship with respect to God:

nor mercy: to poor and indigent creatures; no compassion shown them; no offices of humanity or acts of beneficence exercised towards them; though these are more desirable by the Lord than, and are preferred by him to, all ceremonial sacrifices, Hosea 6:6, or no piety, religion, godliness, powerful godliness, which has the promise of this life, and that to come:

nor knowledge of God in the land; in the land of Israel, where God was used to be known; where he had been worshipped; were his word had been dispensed, and his prophets had been sent, and his saints that knew him, and his mind and will, formerly had dwelt; but now a company of atheists, at least that lived as such, and had no true spiritual saving knowledge of God, and communion with him; they had not true love to him, nor a godly reverence of him, which this implies; and that was the source of all the wickedness committed by them, afterwards expressed. The Targum is,

"there are none that do truth, nor dispense mercy, nor walk in the fear of the Lord, in the land.''