(1) House of the king refers to his following on both sides of the Jordan--Mizpah on the east side, in Gilead, and Tabor on the west. They are singled out as being military strongholds, where the princes of the royal house, with the apostate priests, exercised their deadly hold upon the people, waylaying them, as birds and beasts are snared in the mountains of prey. (Comp. Hosea 6:8-9.)

Judgment is toward you.--More accurately, is meant for you.

Verse 1. - Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king. The persons here addressed comprise all the estates of the realm - priests, people, and princes. The house of Israel is the northern kingdom; and the house of the king is the members of the king's family, of his court and of his government. Thus the rulers and the ruled, the spiritual teachers and the taught, are comprehended in this address. Neither priestly office, nor popular power, nor princely dignity was to be exempted. But, though all are summoned to give audience, the heads of the people, the men of light and leading, are first arraigned. For judgment is toward you, as the clause is correctly rendered; not, "it devolves on you to maintain judgment," as some understand it. It had, indeed, been the province of the priest to teach, and of the king to execute the judgments of God in Israel; but now they are themselves the subjects of judgment. Judgment was now to begin at the house of the king and of the priest; God was about to execute judgment upon them - the judgment from that judgment-seat where justice never miscarries, and where no mistake is ever made. The cause of this is assigned. Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor. Instead of being safeguards of the people, they had been a snare to them; instead of being true leaders, as God had intended them, they had misled them; instead of contributing to their security, they had seduced them to sin and so helped to prepare them for destruction; they had been a snare to entrap and a net to entangle. East as well as west of the Jordan their evil influence had wrought ruin. Mizpah, now es-Salt, was on the east of the river among the hills of Gilead, where Jacob and Laban entered into covenant; Tabor, like a solitary cone or sugar-loaf, rises up from the plain of Jezreel, or Esdraelon, on the west of the river. On the wooded slopes of Tabor and the beacon-hill of Mizpah game, no doubt, abounded and found covert, and hence the origin of the figure here used; but they had probably become scenes of idolatry or wickedness.

5:1-7 The piercing eye of God saw secret liking and disposition to sin, the love the house of Israel had to their sins, and the dominion their sins had over them. Pride makes men obstinate in other sins. And as Judah was treading in the same steps, they would fall with Israel. By dealing treacherously with the Lord, men only deceive themselves. Those that go to seek the Lord with their flocks and their herds only, and not with their hearts and souls, cannot expect to find him; nor shall any speed who do not seek the Lord while he may be found. See how much it is our concern to seek God early, now, while it is the accepted time, and the day of salvation.Hear ye this, O priests,.... Though idolatrous ones, who called themselves priests, and were reckoned so by others, though not of the tribe of Levi, but such as Jeroboam had made priests, or were their successors; and there might be some of the family of Aaron and tribe of Levi, that might continue in the cities of Israel, and who gave in to the idolatrous worship of those times. Some render it "princes" (c) and the word signifies both:

and hearken, ye house of Israel; not the kingdom of Judah, as Kimchi, for this is manifestly distinguished from Israel in this chapter; nor the sanhedrim, to which sense Aben Ezra seems to incline; but the ten tribes, the whole kingdom of Israel, the common people in it:

and give ye ear, O house of the king; of the king of Israel, who, at this time, is thought to be Menahem; the royal family, the princes of the blood, and all that belonged to the king's court; all of every office, priestly or kingly, of every rank, high and low, are called upon to hearken to what is about to be said, both concerning their sin and punishment:

for judgment is toward you: either to know and do that which is just and right; it belonged to the priests to know and teeth divine judgment, to instruct the people in the knowledge of the judgments, statutes, and laws of God; and it belonged to, the king to execute human judgment, to do justice and judgment according to the laws of God, and of the realm; and it belonged to the people to attend to both: so the Targum,

"does it not "belong" to you to know judgments?''

or rather this is to be understood of punitive justice and judgment, of the sentence of condemnation, or denunciation of punishment for sin: the reasons of which follow,

because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor; these were two high mountains in the land of Israel; the former was near Hermon and Lebanon, and the same with Gilead, Joshua 11:3; the latter was a mountain in Galilee, between Issachar and Zebulun, six miles from Nazareth: it was, according to Joseph ben Gorion (d) almost four miles high, had on the top of it a plain of almost three miles; the true Josephus (e) says is was three and a quarter miles; See Gill on Jeremiah 46:18; the Jews (f) have a tradition, that Jeroboam set spies upon these mountains at the time of the solemn feasts, to watch who went to them out of Israel, and to inform against them; but these could not command all the roads leading to Jerusalem. It may be these mountains were much infested with hawkers and hunters, to which there may be an allusion; and the sense be, ye priests, people, and king, are like to those that set snares and nets on those hills, as they to ensnare and catch creatures, so ye to ensnare and draw men into idolatrous practices; or rather, since there is no note of comparison, the meaning is, that they set up altars, and offered sacrifices on these hills, and thereby ensnared not only those of their own tribes, but drew and enticed many of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to fall in with the same idolatrous practices.

(c) "significat sacerdotes et principes", vid. 2 Samuel 8.18. "Sacerdotes ac domum regis", i.e. "regem cum principibus et aulicis", Liveleus. (d) Hist. Heb. l. 4. c. 25. p. 635. (e) De Bello Jud. l. 4. c. 1. sect. 9. (f) Jarchi ex Tanehuma, Abendana ex Midrash.