Hosea 4:5

“Therefore shall thou fall in the day, etc.] Either, O ye people, everyone of you, being so refractory and incorrigible; or, O thou priest, being as bad as the people; for both, on account of their sins, should fall from their present prosperity and happiness into great evils and calamities; particularly into the hands of their enemies, and be carried captive into another land: and this should be “in the day”, or “today”f64; immediately, quickly, in a very short time; or in the daytime, openly, publicly, in the sight of all, of all the nations round about, who shall rejoice at it; or in the day of prosperity, while things go well, amidst great plenty of all good things, and when such a fall…”

“fall in the day--in broad daylight, a time when an attack would not be expected (see on Jer 6:4-5; Jer 15:8). in . . . night--No time, night or day, shall be free from the slaughter of individuals of the people, as well as of the false prophets. thy mother--the Israelitish state, of which the citizens are the children (Hos 2:2).”

“Therefore shalt thou fall - The two parts of the verse fill up each other. “By day and by night shall they fall, people and prophets together.” Their calamities should come upon them successively, day and night. They should stumble by day, when there is least fear of stumbling John 11:9-10; and night should not by its darkness protect them. Evil should come “at noon-day” Jeremiah 15:8 upon them, seeing it, but unable to repel it; as Isaiah speaks of it as an aggravation of trouble, “thy land strangers devour it in thy presence” Isaiah 1:7; and the false prophets, who saw their visions in the night, should themselves be overwhelmed in the darkness, blinded by moral, perishing in actual,…”

“Therefore - The prophet turns his speech to the people, thou O Israel; he speaks to them as to one person. Fall - Stumble, and fall, and be broken. This day - Very suddenly; your fall shall be no longer delayed. The prophet - Prophesied lies. In the night - In the darkest calamities. Thy mother - Both the state, or kingdom; and the synagogues, or churches: the publick is as a mother to private persons, so all shall be destroyed. Hosea 4:6”

“and the prophet: Hos 9:7, Hos 9:8; Isa 9:13-17; Jer 6:4, Jer 6:5, Jer 6:12-15, Jer 8:10-12, Jer 14:15, Jer 14:16; Jer 15:8, Jer 23:9; Eze 13:9-16, Eze 14:8-10; Mic 3:5-7; Zac 11:8, Zac 13:2 destroy: Heb. cut off thy: Hos 2:2; Isa 50:1; Jer 15:8, Jer 50:12; Eze 16:44, Eze 16:45; Gal 4:26 Hosea 4:6”

“"And so wilt thou stumble by day, and the prophet with thee will also stumble by night, and I will destroy thy mother." Kshal is not used here with reference to the sin, as Simson supposes, but for the punishment, and signifies to fall, in the sense of to perish, as in Hos 14:2; Isa 31:3, etc. היּום is not to-day, or in the day when the punishment shall fall, but "by day," interdiu, on account of the antithesis לילה, as in Neh 4:16. נביא, used without an article in the most indefinite generality, refers to false prophets - not of Baal, however, but of Jehovah as worshipped under the image of a calf - who practised prophesying as a trade, and judging from Kg1 22:6, were very numerous in the…”