I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice
4 “Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early. 5 Therefore I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like a flash of lightning. 6 For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. 7 But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me there. 8 Gilead is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood. 9 As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes. 10 In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. There is prostitution in Ephraim. Israel is defiled. 11 “Also, Judah, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of my people.
The book's most quoted sentence sits between two questions God asks himself, and what it asks for is what chapter 4 said the land lacked.
Verse 4 opens with a question addressed to both kingdoms and answered by neither: Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? It is the sound of exhausted patience rather than of deliberation.
The reason follows in two weather images that answer the previous paragraph's Hosea 6:3. Their love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early. The problem named is not absence but evaporation — the devotion existed and did not last past the warmth of the day.
Verse 5 describes the prophetic word as an instrument of cutting: I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth.
Then verse 6, and it is the sentence the whole book turns on. For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Both nouns are the ones chapter 4 said were missing from the land — chesed and da'at Hosea 4:1. The charge and the requirement use the same two words, which means the book is not adding a new demand at this point; it is naming what was owed all along.
And the comparison is with sacrifice rather than with sin. The alternative to chesed here is not idolatry but correct worship, offered by people who were bringing flocks and herds Hosea 5:6.
Jesus quotes this verse twice, both times against people confident of their observance Matthew 9:13 Matthew 12:7.
Verse 7 compares the breach to Adam's, and verses 8 and 9 name Gilead and a priestly gang murdering on the Shechem road — the men of verse 6's sacrifices, doing this.
settled What this mark means