Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.
Judah too being guilty shall be punished; nor shall Assyria, whose aid they both sought, save them: judgments shall at last lead them to repentance.
O house of the king - according to some, Pekah; the contemporary of Ahaz king of Judah, under whom first idolatry was carried so far in Judah as to call for the judgment of the joint Syrian and Israelite invasion, as also that of Assyria. Pusey, taking, the chapters as chronologically arranged, makes "the king" to be Zachariah, the last of Jehu's line, who reigned only for six months, and was rained to the throne after the eleven years' interregnum of anarchy which succeeded the death of Jeroboam II., and which is the period alluded to in Hosea 4:1. Compare 2 Kings 15:8, margin.
For judgment is toward you - i:e., threatens you from God: you, who have hitherto been the judges, are to be brought to "judgment" - literally, 'the judgment.'
Ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor - as hunters spread their net and snares on the hills Mizpah and Tabor, so ye have snared the people into idolatry, and made them your prey by injustice. As Mizpah and Tabor mean a watch tower and a lofty place (a fit scene for hunters), playing on the words, the prophet implies, in the lofty place in which. I have set you, whereas ye ought to have been the watchers of the people, guarding them from evil, ye have been as hunters entrapping them into it (Jerome). These two places are specified, Mizpah in the east and Tabor in the west, to include the high places throughout the whole kingdom, in which Israel's rulers set up idolatrous altars. Jewish tradition states that liers in wait were set in these two places to intercept and murder those Israelites who would go up to Jerusalem to worship: Hosea 5:2 favours this.