Matthew Poole and continuators on Hosea 4:3

3 Therefore shall the land mourn , and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish , with the beasts of the field , and with the fowles of heaven , yea the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away .

Since their sins are so many and so great, for those very sins already mentioned in the 1. and 2. verses.

Which the ten Tribes did now inhabit.

It is a Metaphorical expression, for properly it cannot be spoken of the sensless, and inanimate Creatures, but as Men and Women mourn under the loss of their Comforts and Joyes, as they neglect themselves in their Habits, and go less neat, so when the sins of the People shall bring an Enemy upon the land, when War shall first spoil their Cities, Townes, Vineyards and Oliveyards, and finally shall carry the people Captive, all shall run into horrid and saddest state, and in doleful plight. The same expression see in I[illegible: 1 letter]a. 24.4. and much like Amos 1.2.

No sort of men but had provoked God and sin'd, no sort but should be punished; all that continue in the land till these threatned Judgments overtake them.

Shall with grief, and vexation pine away, what they see with their eye shall make their heart ake, and faint with greatest dejectedness and despair; as the word imports, Isa. 16.8. and Ioel 1.12.

These are elsewhere menaced, Zeph. 1.2. which see; God punisheth man in cutting off what was made for Mans benefit and comfort; and 'tis probable that the tamer Cattle were starved for want of grass or fodder, all being eaten up and consumed by the wasting Armies.

The tamer and innocent either kill'd by Enemies, or offended with stench and noxious Air dye or forsake the Country, or are devoured by Eagles and birds of Prey, which in those Countries wait on Armies.

Whether by drying up the waters of Rivers, Lakes, and ponds, or by corrupting them with blood and carcasses, or by what other way we know not he can do it, who saith he will; and we are sure it speaks the greatness of the threatned desolation.