Hosea 4:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Yet; though judgments great and wasting are so sure, though the approaching calamities will lay all utterly waste. Let no man; none of private capacity, no priest or prophet, any more open their mouths to reason and debate with this people; let all know they are so obstinate and hardened it is to no purpose to warn any more. Strive; contend, as in causes pleaded before a judge; lay not the law before them, who have so often refused to hear it. Nor reprove; no more chide, or sharply inveigh against their sins and ways. Or this whole passage may be thus read, Yet certainly there is none that may or can strive, & c. All are so corrupted, that there is none free who may with confidence argue against others. But our version is better of the two. Thy people; thy countrymen, Hosea, if the former words be the words of God to the prophet. Or else, if they be the words of the prophet to the people, then he speaks to them of the temper of their neighbours and people with whom they dwelt. It is much one which we take, for Hosea was now among them; and whether his people or no, they are still the same persons spoken of. Are as they that strive with the priest; there is no ingenuity, modesty, or fear of God or man left among them, they will contend with their teachers, reprovers, and counsellors; they will justify themselves, and contemn all reproof; they will adhere to sin, and reject all better advice, just as they Zechariah 1:2,7 Zechariah 2:14. This doth not suppose, much less assert, the priests of Baal and the calves to be true priests; but were they as true as they are false, yet such is the temper of the people, they would not hear, consider, and amend, whoever contested with them. Let them alone therefore to perish with obstinate sinners.