Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Their drink is sour - Literally, "turned," as we say of milk. So Isaiah says, "Thy silver is become dross; thy wine is mingled," i. e., adulterated, "with water" Isaiah 1:22; and our lord speaks of "salt which had lost its savor." The wine or the salt, when once turned or become insipid, is spoiled, irrecoverably, as we speak of "dead wine." They had lost all their life, and taste of goodness.
Her rulers with shame do love, give ye - Avarice and luxury are continually banded together according to the saying, "covetous of another' s, prodigal of his own." Yet it were perhaps more correct to render, "her rulers do love, do love, shame." They love that which brings shame, which is bound up with shame, and ends in it; and so the prophet says that they "love the shame" itself. They act, as if they were in love with the shame, which, all their lives long, they are unceasingly and, as it were, by system, drawing upon themselves. They chase diligently after all the occasions of sins and sinful pleasures which end in shame; they omit nothing which brings it, do nothing which can avoid it. What else or what more could they do, if they "loved the shame" for its own sake?
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Hosea 4:18:
Isaiah 15:5
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