Introduction: Rebuking the Generation
Chapter 4 of Hoshea opens a new direction. Radak explains: here the prophet returns to words of rebuke aimed directly at that generation. While the previous chapters dealt with the allegory of the wife and harlotry, here things are stated openly: a detailed indictment of the spiritual and moral state of the land, of the kohanim who were supposed to teach knowledge, and of a people that despised reproof. Following the order of the pesukim, we will examine the original approach of the Malbim, who reads some of these verses not as the words of the prophet, but as the words of the people themselves.
Pasuk 1: Hashem Has a Grievance with the Inhabitants of the Land
שִׁמְעוּ דְבַר־יְהֹוָה בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי רִיב לַיהֹוָה עִם־יוֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ כִּי אֵין־אֱמֶת וְאֵין־חֶסֶד וְאֵין־דַּעַת אֱלֹהִים בָּאָרֶץ׃ - "Hear the word of Hashem, children of Israel, for Hashem has a grievance with the inhabitants of the land; for there is no truth, nor lovingkindness, nor knowledge of God in the land."
"Hashem has a grievance" - the Holy One, blessed be He, says: I have a legal dispute and contention with them. I gave them the land on condition, and the condition was that they practice righteousness and justice. If they do so, then "the eyes of Hashem your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year." Yet come and see that they act contrary to these conditions. There is a breach of contract here. In the wake of this breach, I have hidden My face from them, which leads to "Therefore the land shall mourn, and every inhabitant within it shall languish" in pasuk 3. The sequence is vital: they breached the covenant first, and therefore I too retracted My covenant with them.
So too did Yirmeyahu declare: "If there is one who executes justice, who seeks faithfulness, then I will pardon her" - had there been upright people, the Holy One, blessed be He, would have been willing to forgive. But the reality was grim.
Radak asks: Are there not prophecies and verses that suggest otherwise? King David states, "They gave the carcasses of Your servants as food to the birds of heaven, the flesh of Your pious ones to the beasts of the earth" - which shows that there were indeed pious ones, there were servants of Hashem! How, then, can it be said that the entire land was wicked, and that Hashem hid His face because of their wickedness? Radak answers: There were righteous people among them, but they were few. Not only were they few, but they went into hiding out of fear of the wicked majority. Thus, in practice, "there is no truth, nor lovingkindness, nor knowledge of God in the land."
"There is no truth" - there is no one who acts with truth and no one who speaks truth. "Nor lovingkindness" - all the more so is there no lovingkindness. For truth means giving what is rightfully due, whereas lovingkindness means giving beyond what is deserved. If there is no truth, all the more so is there no one performing lovingkindness.
And what is "knowledge of God"? Radak presents several explanations. First: knowledge of God means practicing righteousness and justice, as stated in Yirmeyahu: "Did not your father eat and drink, and execute justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Is this not what it means to know Me?" We see that showing compassion to the poor and practicing righteousness and justice is termed knowing Hashem. Therefore, after stating there is no truth and no lovingkindness, meaning there is no righteousness and justice, it follows that there is no knowledge of God in the land. A second explanation: knowledge of God is contemplating His Divine essence, probing into the workings of the Divine, and meditating on Hashem's presence. In simple terms: no one gives thought to the Holy One, blessed be He. The Targum translates, "there are none who walk in My fear" - according to which the knowledge of God is synonymous with the fear of God.
The Malbim's Approach: These Are the Words of the People to the Prophet
Here the Malbim takes a different approach from the other commentators. In his view, this speech is not a Divine declaration, but rather the speech and argument of the people themselves. This is what the people argue against the prophets: You come to contend with us, to rebuke us, to tell us that we are doing forbidden things - yet with whom is the quarrel? With the Holy One, blessed be He! "For Hashem has a grievance with the inhabitants of the land" - the dispute belongs to Him, it is against Him that we have sinned, and He has cause to contend against us. If so, why should any man fight the battle of the Creator, blessed be He? Let Him wage His own battle and pour out His wrath upon those who rebel against Him. You, prophets, stay out of it!
And note: they themselves admit that there are severe flaws in the people's conduct, and they themselves enumerate the failings - yet they still tell the prophet: Do not interfere. Do not serve as a spokesman for the Holy One, blessed be He; if Hashem wants to contend, let Him contend on His own. What do they really want? "You, prophet, are bothering us; your words sting and unsettle us, so step aside and keep quiet." They want to push the prophet out of the way so that he will not disturb them with his words of rebuke.
And they continue: Look, Hashem has justified reasons to contend with us, we admit it - "for there is no truth, nor kindness, nor knowledge of God in the land." The Malbim explains: Mitzvot are divided into those between man and his fellow and those between man and the Omnipresent. The essence of the mitzvot between man and his fellow is kindness and truth, and that is absent in the land. Yet a mere absence of the positive is not yet outright active negativity; and it is regarding this that the next verse speaks.
Verse 2: Not Just a Deficiency, but the Complete Opposite
אָלֹה וְכַחֵשׁ וְרָצֹחַ וְגָנֹב וְנָאֹף פָּרָצוּ וְדָמִים בְּדָמִים נָגָעוּ׃ - Swearing falsely, lying, murdering, stealing, and committing adultery - they have breached all bounds, and bloodshed touches bloodshed.
The Malbim explains: Not only is there an absence of the positive, but there is active negativity. "Swearing falsely" (alah) - they swear falsely in Hashem's Name, as in the verse "if someone sins when he hears a solemn adjuration (kol alah)"; "lying" (vechachesh) - they deny the very existence of Hashem, blessed be He, which is the exact antithesis of "knowledge of God." It is not merely that they failed to attain spiritual perception, but that they do the complete opposite. "Murdering, stealing, and committing adultery" - the antithesis of truth and kindness; not only do they fail to perform acts of kindness, but they actively murder, steal, and commit adultery.
The Malbim aligns these actions against the Ten Commandments. The five commandments of the first tablet are primarily mitzvot between man and the Omnipresent - "I am Hashem," "You shall have no other gods," etc. Corresponding to them: "lying" (vechachesh) corresponds to "I am Hashem your God Who took you out of the land of Egypt" and "You shall have no other gods before Me," for one denies His very existence; and likewise, he denies the matter of Shabbat, as Shabbat is meant to tangibly demonstrate and instill within us belief in Hashem's existence through the creation of the world and its continuous maintenance. "Swearing falsely" (alah) corresponds to "You shall not take Hashem's Name in vain," for they swear falsely by Hashem's Name; and alah is an expression of an oath, as in "and Moshe agreed (vayo'el) to dwell with the man," which the Sages expounded as meaning he took an oath to him. And "murdering, stealing, and committing adultery" correspond to the second tablet, the five commandments between man and his fellow.
"They have breached all bounds" (partzu) - they have burst through all boundaries in these sins, to such an extent that "bloodshed touches bloodshed": from the sheer volume of murder, the blood of one victim flows and touches the blood of another. And to all of this, the people say: True, there are very severe matters here, but leave that to the Holy One, blessed be He. If He wishes, let Him contend with us; you, the prophet, do not interfere at all.
Rav Saadia Gaon explains alah differently: not as an oath sworn falsely now, but from the curses (alot) of the covenant - you entered into the curses of the covenant, the oath by which the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured us at Mount Sinai. For it is said, "Cursed is the man who makes a carved or molten image," yet they make carved and molten images, denying the God they accepted upon themselves as Deity, and breaching the safeguards and boundaries of the Torah. According to the Targum, partzu is also an expression of promiscuity (pritzut): they would lie with their neighbors' wives and father children by them. "And bloodshed touches bloodshed" - the blood of the murdered victims touches one another.
Verse 3: The Land Shall Mourn - And They Prefer This over Rebuke
עַל־כֵּן תֶּאֱבַל הָאָרֶץ וְאֻמְלַל כׇּל־יוֹשֵׁב בָּהּ בְּחַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמָיִם וְגַם־דְּגֵי הַיָּם יֵאָסֵפוּ׃ - Therefore the land shall mourn, and every inhabitant in it shall languish, along with the beasts of the field and the fowl of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea shall be gathered up.
According to the Malbim, this is a continuation of the people's words: You, Hoshea, do not rebuke us. Are there terrible things that the people are doing? True - and therefore let Hashem plead His grievance, and let Him be the One to punish the sinners and make the land mourn. "And every inhabitant in it shall languish (ve'umlal)" - all the inhabitants of the land will be cut off. Umlal is an expression of being cut off, just as we recite in Hallel, "In the Name of Hashem I will cut them off (amillam)," from the same root as brit milah, which is the cutting off of the foreskin. And to what extent? Until even the beasts of the field, who lack speech, and the fowl of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea will be swept away. That is to say: Let Hashem wage His dispute and cut off all living things - so long as you, the prophets, do not come with words of rebuke.
The Malbim notes in his explanation of the words that the distress here intensifies progressively, as is the scriptural manner of moving from the less severe to the more severe: first "the land shall mourn," worse than that, "and every inhabitant in it shall languish," and worse still - that nothing will remain, neither beast nor bird nor fish.
Verse 4: Let No Man Contend, and Let No Man Rebuke
אַךְ אִישׁ אַל־יָרֵב וְאַל־יוֹכַח אִישׁ וְעַמְּךָ כִּמְרִיבֵי כֹהֵן׃ - Yet let no man contend, and let no man reprove, for your people are like those who contend with the priest.
All this Hashem will do - but "let no man contend," let no man fight Hashem's battle, "and let no man reprove" the people. These are the words of the people to the prophet: Leave us alone; let Hashem reprove us. What is the difference between "contend" (yariv) and "reprove" (yochach)? The Malbim explains: a quarrel (riv) is forceful, creating strife through power; whereas reproof (tochechah) appeals to reason, from the term for debate (vikuach), where one presents evidence of his correctness, and it is delivered gently. They were saying: We do not want anyone to quarrel with us, nor even to reprove us gently - not even that. And "man" (ish) here stands in contrast to Hashem: the dispute belongs solely to Hashem, not to any man.
From here emerges a piercing moral lesson: they preferred that the land be destroyed rather than hear the reproof of the prophets. One sees how unbearable it was in their eyes to hear rebuke. Incidentally, this also shows that they were people of truth. For one who is not a person of truth - you can tell him all day long how flawed he is, and he will merely answer, "Fine, true," and it neither bothers nor upsets him. But a person of truth knows that what he is being told is correct, and that is precisely what torments him. In our day, a person develops a thick skin: the prophet stands in a public square and delivers his message, and what do I care? I simply will not go there and will not listen. But for them, the very hearing of the words caused intense anguish, the pain of "how can you live in contradiction to how you ought to live?" Therefore, they were willing to make even absurd claims: Do not reprove; let the Holy One, blessed be He, reprove - let Him wipe out the land - so long as this nuisance of a prophet, who constantly tells me how bad I am, is removed from me.
"For your people are like those who contend with the priest" - not only do they refuse to hear reproof, but they actively pick a fight with the kohen. Yet "for the lips of the priest should safeguard knowledge, and they should seek Torah from his mouth, for he is an angel of the Lord of Hosts"; the kohen is the one who is supposed to reprove the people, and the kohanim were the masters of the Torah. Come and see: not only do they refuse to hear prophecy and reproof, but they go and quarrel with the kohen who comes to teach them knowledge, and they even turn around to reprove him.
Rashi explains that the prophet is addressing the people here: You warn the true prophets not to contend with you and not to reprove you - just as Amatzyah, the priest of Beit El, said to Amos, "Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac," which occurred in the days of Yarovam son of Yoash, the very time when Hoshea prophesied. Here is another example of people who spurned the words of prophecy. And "for your people are like those who contend with the priest" is rendered by the Targum as "they quarrel with their teachers" - with the kohanim of whom it is said, "They shall teach Your judgments to Jacob" - simply to avoid hearing their words. The Radak notes that this reflects a generation that judges its own judges. Some commentators explain "like those who contend with the priest" as meaning: You, the kohen, come to reprove us? You are worse than we are; you commit deeds far worse than ours - they themselves quarrel with the kohen and reprove him. Still others interpret "like those who contend with the priest" as an allusion to the assembly of Korach, who quarreled and challenged the priesthood.
Verse 5: "And you shall stumble by day" - Defaming Those Who Reprove
וְכָשַׁלְתָּ הַיּוֹם וְכָשַׁל גַּם־נָבִיא עִמְּךָ לָיְלָה וְדָמִיתִי אִמֶּךָ׃ - And you shall stumble by day, and the prophet also shall stumble with you by night, and I will destroy your mother.
According to the Malbim, the people are reproving the kohen here, saying to him: You, the kohen, reprove us? Why, you yourself have stumbled into all kinds of corrupt ways by day, in plain sight, in broad daylight! "And the prophet also shall stumble with you by night" - and not just you; the reproving prophet has also stumbled, except that he did not commit his transgressions openly by day. Surely he is no small transgressor either, and who knows what sins he committed at night. Notice the cunning: about the kohen they can still find something to say, but what can they say about the prophet, who is holy of holies, whose evil inclination has no sway over him whatsoever? Therefore, they pin "night" upon him - he surely committed sins in secret.
And what is their conclusion? "And I have become like your mother" (ve-damiti imecha). The Malbim explains: "your mother" is the congregation, the Community of Israel, as we saw in "Contend with your mother, contend" - you, the children, the kohen and the prophet, contend with the mother, who is the collective of Israel. And here the mother says: I am the Community of Israel; what do you want from me? After all, "I have become like you" (damiti). You, the kohen, are a transgressor by day, and the prophet is a transgressor by night, and I merely follow your deeds - if so, how can you claim to be righteous in your own eyes and come to reprove me? I am just like you, and you have no standing to offer reproof.
Notice that this is the foolish way of the betrayers of the covenant in every generation. Even today, one of the favorite pursuits of the media is to find the transgressor-of-the-day from the Torah-observant community, hold him up, and place him in the pillory. What are they trying to convey? That everyone is the same, everyone is corrupt, it is not just us. You claim that a person must be moral, God-fearing, upright, and protect family integrity - well, look at what that rabbi did, look at what so-and-so did. This is precisely what that generation did: "like those who contend with the priest," and they quarrel with the prophet, saying: Whatever we do, you do as well. Do they have proof? No, but they treat it as a certainty.
An anecdote illustrates this: a discussion once took place with a woman who was told that in Torah institutions, drug use is entirely unacceptable. She immediately began to argue: "Surely you do not know." When told, "Speaking from personal experience in yeshivah - in yeshivah there are no drugs and there is no alcohol," she stood her ground: "There is no such thing; there is no place without drugs, you are certainly covering it up." It was utterly unfathomable to her that a clean environment could exist. Later, when told that there is no violence - that no one slashes the tires of the principal, the rosh yeshivah, or the mashgiach, and that no yeshivah student raises a hand against his peer - she was convinced that these were pure fabrications, depicting the observant community in a utopian light that does not exist. A person who is mired in mud cannot grasp that someone else can be clean. When such a person finds a story about someone who was caught - now he is finally at ease. And when he has no story? "The prophet also shall stumble with you by night" - Did you see it? "No, I did not see it, it happened at night, so how could I see? But he is surely a criminal." To such lengths a person will cling to fictitious stories, simply so he can say, "and I have become like your mother" - I am just like you, so what do you want from me?
This is the Malbim's explanation. Others interpret "and I will destroy your mother" (ve-damiti imecha) differently. Rashi explains it from the root of silence and shock (nidmu), like a person who is stunned and at a loss for words. He follows the Targum, according to which the entire passage is the prophet's rebuke to the people, not the words of the people to the prophet: "And you shall stumble by day, and the prophet also shall stumble with you by night" - you stumble by day, and the false prophets stumble with you by night. And "I will put your congregation to shame" - I will bring shame upon the Congregation of Israel, who will stand stunned from the humiliation and disgrace over their corrupt deeds. The Radak likewise explains that this is a prophecy against Israel: you will stumble, and the false prophet will stumble with you by night. Why night? Because the most common time to stumble is at night, when a person strikes an obstacle in the darkness; you stumble by day, and the false prophet who misleads you stumbles with you like someone stumbling in the dark, which is far worse. The Radak explains ve-damiti as an expression of cutting off and destruction, as in "all the people of Canaan are cut off (nidmah)," "the king of Israel is cut off (nidmah)," and like "and it was silenced (ve-nidmah) there" in the haftarah of Tisha B'Av. We thus have three interpretations: from the language of shock and bewilderment, from the language of destruction, or from the language of resemblance and likeness.
Verse 6: Rejecting Knowledge and Forgetting the Torah
נִדְמוּ עַמִּי מִבְּלִי הַדָּעַת כִּי־אַתָּה הַדַּעַת מָאַסְתָּ וְאֶמְאָסְךָ מִכַּהֵן לִי וַתִּשְׁכַּח תּוֹרַת אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֶשְׁכַּח בָּנֶיךָ גַּם־אָנִי׃ - My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from serving Me as priest; since you have forgotten the Torah of your God, I too will forget your children.
Radak explains here as well that this is an expression of destruction: My people are cut off for lack of knowledge, because there is no one to inform them and no one to teach them the right path. "Because you have rejected knowledge" - this is addressed to the kohen: you rejected knowledge, and consequently you did not go to teach the people knowledge. Had you known and loved knowledge, you would have taught it to the people; but if you yourself rejected it, you certainly did not go to teach it to others. Therefore, "I will also reject you from serving Me as priest" - since you do not fulfill what is incumbent upon you, I will reject you from being a kohen to Me, a kohen in My House. Just as we saw with the sons of Eli, where Hashem rejected them from being kohanim for this very same reason, because they failed to fulfill their duty.
Radak asks: How can it say "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge," meaning they were cut off because there was no one to instruct them? After all, in every era there were true prophets who taught knowledge and rebuked them daily, rising early and sending them! He answers: The kohanim, whose role was to teach Torah, strayed from the upright path - and this refers to actual kohanim of Hashem, during a time of great corruption. Since the kohanim represented spiritual authority yet acted corruptly, the people had someone to rely upon and follow. And what about the true prophets? Against them stood the false prophets, who thoroughly confused the people. They had great talent in imitating the true prophets in numerous ways: in their manner of speech, by picking up fragments of prophecies and passing them along, and when they came to pass saying, "Behold, I said so," and by wearing hairy mantles "to deceive" and other methods to project the outward appearance of true prophets. This bred doubt among the people over who was a true prophet and who was a false prophet. Consequently, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" - even though there were true prophets, when there are such kohanim and deceptive false prophets, it is no wonder that knowledge ceased to be the guiding force, and therefore they were cut off.
"Seeing you have forgotten the Torah of your God" - the Torah was entrusted to the kohanim to teach the people, as it is said, "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the Torah at his mouth," and Moshe Rabbeinu wrote the Torah and delivered it to the kohanim the sons of Levi, "They shall teach Your judgments to Jacob." Yet you, the kohen, forgot the Torah, whose preservation and teaching are your responsibility. Therefore, "I too will forget your children": you will die, for I have rejected you from serving Me as priest, and do not think that your children will continue in your place, for the honor of the priesthood will not pass to them, and they too will die or go into exile. And how can "forgetting" be attributed to the Holy One, Blessed be He, when there is no forgetfulness before His Throne of Glory? Radak explains that this is spoken allegorically, like a person who pays no attention to something and is said to have forgotten it, meaning He will withdraw His providence from them, as in "Has God forgotten to be gracious?" and "He will not forget the covenant of your fathers."
The Malbim adds a deeper dimension here: "Seeing you have forgotten the Torah of your God" is trouble upon trouble. Initially, when you still remembered the Torah, even though there was no knowledge - "you have rejected knowledge," you had no interest in the knowledge of Hashem - you still studied Torah. Of this it was said, "Would that they had abandoned Me but kept My Torah," for there still remained the illumination within it to bring you back to the good. But once My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge and the Torah too has been forgotten, what will bring you back to the good, and what will rectify you? After forgetting Hashem and forgetting the Torah, there is no hope left. Therefore, "I too will forget your children," for there is no hope that a shoot and righteous offspring will emerge from the children - for how could a righteous seed emerge after "you have forgotten the Torah of your God"?
And at the beginning of the verse, the Malbim remains consistent with his interpretive approach: just as "I will destroy [vedamiti] your mother" stems from the root of similarity and likeness, so too "My people are destroyed [nidmu]" is related to likeness - My people have become like and are likened to someone devoid of knowledge, just like the kohen who is likewise devoid of knowledge; as with the kohen, so with the people.
Verse 7: As They Were Increased, So They Sinned Against Me
כְּרֻבָּם כֵּן חָטְאוּ־לִי כְּבוֹדָם בְּקָלוֹן אָמִיר׃ - As they increased, so they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame.
Radak explains: In Aharon's mouth was the Torah of truth, but now that the descendants have multiplied - "as they increased, so they sinned against Me" and forgot My Torah. That is to say: the more I multiplied them, instead of showing gratitude and giving thanks, the more they transgressed against Me. Therefore, "I will change their glory into shame" - I bestowed honor upon them and multiplied them, yet they sin; therefore, I will exchange their glory ("amir" being an expression of exchange) for shame and disgrace.
Another interpretation: "As they increased" - I increased them in wealth and possessions, as it is said, "And Jeshurun grew fat and kicked," and "I multiplied her silver and gold, which they used for the Baal." The abundance, which ought to have led them to give more thanks to Hashem, led them to the exact opposite: the more wealth I added to them, the more sins they added. Therefore, I will exchange their glory for disgrace.
The Malbim explains "their glory" as referring to the honor of the priesthood: The Holy One, Blessed be He, granted that the kohen would eat from the Table of the Most High - what is brought as an offering to Hashem, the kohen eats, and "the kohanim eat and the owners achieve atonement." This eating is an elevated level of holiness that brings about rectification and atonement, placing the kohen like a minister dining at the king's table, where as the king dines, the minister eats from his table - and this is the highest distinction. But since this honor is no longer fitting for them, as it says, "I will also reject you from serving Me as priest," therefore "I will change their glory into shame": I will distance them from the Altar of Hashem and from Hashem's Table, and they will no longer receive the priestly gifts that were due to them.
Pasuk 8: "They Eat the Sin of My People"
חַטַּאת עַמִּי יֹאכֵלוּ וְאֶל־עֲוֺנָם יִשְׂאוּ נַפְשׁוֹ׃ - They eat the sin-offering of My people, and toward their iniquity they lift up its soul.
They do not eat from the fire-offerings of Hashem with the intention of rectifying the sin - where the Kohanim eat and the owners achieve atonement, with pure intention for the sake of Heaven. Rather, what do they eat? They feed on the sins of My people. And this is a stinging indictment: you make your livelihood off the people's sins! For had this person not desecrated Shabbat inadvertently, where would you have gotten something to eat? He desecrated inadvertently, brought a sacrifice - and behold, a meal for the Kohen. It turns out that he waits for the people to sin just so he will have food to eat.
And worse still: he actively initiates his "meals," so to speak. If you do not sin, I have nothing to eat; therefore, I will cause you to sin so that I will have food. This is the meaning of "and toward their iniquity they lift up its soul": they direct the soul of the people toward sin, where "its soul" (*nafsho*, singular) refers to the nation. The Malbim notes that this is a more precise grammatical reading of the verse. According to Rashi's explanation - that the Kohanim lift up their own soul and long for Israel to commit sins so they will have sacrifices to eat - the verse should have said *yis'u nafsham* ("they lift up their soul," plural). Yet Scripture says *nafsho* (singular), which refers to the nation. Therefore: in order that they commit sins, they entice the soul of the people toward iniquity and cause them to stumble.
Pasuk 9: "And Like People, Like Priest" - Ways and Deeds
וְהָיָה כָעָם כַּכֹּהֵן וּפָקַדְתִּי עָלָיו דְּרָכָיו וּמַעֲלָלָיו אָשִׁיב לוֹ׃ - And it shall be, like people, like priest; and I will visit upon him his ways, and his deeds I will repay him.
Rashi explains: I will liken the people to the disgrace of the Kohanim. Just as the Kohanim will be disgraced - "I too will forget your children," "I will reject you from serving Me as priest," "I will turn their glory into shame" - so too the people will be disgraced just like the Kohanim, and I will desecrate the people through idolaters and the nations who will come, capture, and exile them, as we will see further on.
The Malbim explains that the people were committing sins willfully, and how did they reach such a state? Through "and it shall be, like people, like priest." In his usual approach, *nidmu* relates to resemblance (*dimyon*): whatever the Kohanim do, the people emulate them and learn to copy their actions. The Kohanim's way is corrupt, and the people follow suit and imitate their evil deeds. Therefore, "and I will visit upon him his ways" - according to the Malbim, this refers to the Kohen, and not to the people as Rashi and Targum Yonatan explain it: I will punish the Kohen for his corrupt ways and repay him measure for measure, for it was from you that the people became like the priest. You corrupted your ways, and the people learned to be like you; therefore, justice dictates that you bear the punishment.
And what is the difference between "his ways" (*derachav*) and "his deeds" (*ma'alalav*)? The Malbim explains: the "ways" are the character traits, the inclinations of the soul, and they are the root of the deeds; and the "deeds" are the actual actions, the external deeds that a person performs. From the way emerge the deeds - from the internal character traits spring the resulting actions. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: Before I examine the deeds, I must examine the ways. For two people can perform the exact same action, yet one deserves severe punishment, the second a light punishment, and a third might even deserve reward. The deeds are identical; the question is from what ways, from what soul-forces, they originated.
For example: incest with one's father is among the gravest sins, carrying a severe punishment. On the other hand, regarding the daughters of Lot, our Sages teach that as a reward for the older daughter taking precedence over the younger, she merited the royal lineage of King David; thus, it was regarded as a mitzvah. Our Sages said, "Greater is a transgression performed with pure intent (*aveirah lishmah*)" - an act that was indeed a transgression, but done purely for the sake of Heaven. We need not get into the fact that this occurred before the giving of the Torah, for that is not the point. The principle is that an act can appear terrible in its outward deeds, yet the inner way is what determines: from what place did it stem, and what was the intention? They genuinely believed that the entire world had been destroyed, that "a world of lovingkindness must be built," and that they were acting to preserve humanity, just as the children of Adam HaRishon married their sisters because a world needed to be populated. Thus, deeds can appear utterly negative on the surface yet be fundamentally positive, because the underlying ways were pure.
And conversely, when deeds are negative, there is a severe negative and a mild negative. Suppose two people eat pork: one walked past a delicatessen, caught the aroma, could not control himself, and went and ate - he is a transgressor, but a transgressor out of appetite (*le-te'avon*). The second person is medically forbidden to eat meat, suffers from high cholesterol, and experiences stomach pains afterward, yet he ate it solely to provoke the Master of the Universe (*le-hach'is*). Can one compare their punishments? The one who acts out of spite faces a terrible punishment, while the one who acts out of physical desire will be punished, but not to the same degree. The deeds are identical, but the ways are different. Therefore, Hashem says: "And I will visit upon him his ways" - first I will weigh the traits of the soul, examining where the act sprang from, and based on that, "and his deeds I will repay him," judging how to requite his deeds, because the ways prove what was the true cause and motivation behind those deeds.
In summary:
The chapter opens with an indictment: there is no truth, no lovingkindness, and no knowledge of God in the land. This is not merely an absence of good, but its complete opposite - swearing falsely and lying corresponding to the first Tablet, and murder, theft, and adultery corresponding to the second Tablet. According to the Malbim, the people themselves admit to all these corruptions, as long as the prophet holds his tongue: "Hashem has a dispute" - let Him contend on His own, even at the price of "the land shall mourn" and the destruction of all living things, as long as we do not have to hear rebuke. And when that is not enough, they defame the rebukers themselves: the kohen stumbles by day and the prophet by night, "and I will destroy your mother" - we are all equal, and you have no right to rebuke. This approach continues in every generation, searching for the culprit of the moment in order to soothe one's conscience. In response, the prophet rebukes the kohanim who spurned knowledge and forgot the Torah, who consumed the sin of the people and even led them into sin so as to sustain themselves from their misdeeds; and from the kohen, the people learned - "and it shall be, like people, like priest." Finally, Scripture teaches us a fundamental principle in divine judgment: "And I will punish them for their ways, and repay them for their deeds" - first their ways, their inner character traits and intentions, are scrutinized, and only in light of them are their deeds evaluated.