Hosea — Chapter 4

Audite verbum Domini filii Israel

The prophetic summons echoes the Sinai covenant. À Lapide notes the fourfold absence—no truth, no mercy, no knowledge of God, no judgment—as a comprehensive diagnosis of spiritual desolation. He cites Ambrose: where priests fail in teaching, the people perish for lack of knowledge (v.6). This becomes the basis for his extended polemic on priestly formation.

Quia tu scientiam repulisti

'Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee that thou shalt not do the priest's office.' À Lapide calls this the most terrible sentence in the prophets against negligent clergy. He applies it to the Protestant reformers who, he argues, rejected the Church's authoritative teaching office. The multiplication of priests who sin is read as a sign of ecclesial decadence.

Populus meus in ligno suo interrogavit

Israel consults its wooden idols—a corruption of the prophetic oracle. À Lapide notes how superstition corrupts worship: the people prefer divination and fornication to the true cult. The spirit of fornication (spiritus fornicationum) is glossed as both literal sexual immorality and spiritual adultery, i.e., idolatry, following St. Augustine's typological reading.