Matthew Poole and continuators on Hosea 10:4

4 They have spoken words , swearing falsly in making a covenant : thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field .

The Nobles, and great men in Israel, the heads of the Parties, or the Counsellors of the Kingdom.

Have i[illegible: 1 letter] long and repeated consultations and debates, contrived and laid forth the designs most like to help us; but all in vain; all is but words, or thus they have deceived one another, and ruin'd all; and this latter seems exactly to suit with what follows.

By perjury deceiving those they treated with,

Either among themselves, accepting an Usurper, promising, and swearing fealty to him: or with their Allies, as with the Assyrian King▪ whose Covenant they perjuriously broke, and contrary to Oath sent to, and confederated with Sua, or So, King of Egypt.

Judgment, i. e. Divine Revenges do so abound every where, or else unequal and sinful projects, counsels, and resolutions of their Rulers are instead of just, wholsom, and saving, turn'd into bitter, poysonous, and pernicious as hemlock:

A proverbial speech, expressing the greatness of this pernicious evil. So this will be explain'd by Amos 6.12. oppression, injustice, and all sins spread (as hemlock quickly overruns a Field) over all the Kingdom.

Marginal references: See Deut. 29.[illegible: 1 letter]8. Acts 8.23. [illegible: 1 letter]eb. 12.15.