"Nevertheless, let no one judge, and let no man be accused: for thy people are as they that contradict the priest, and thou shalt fall this day, and the prophet shall fall with thee." LXX: "That no one be judged, nor anyone be rebuked: but my people are like a priest who is contradicted, and shall be weakened" "during the day, and the prophet shall be weakened with thee." According to the Septuagint interpreters, what we have placed "that no one be judged or rebuked," should be combined with the previous chapter, but we follow the Hebrews. Summoned to the judgment of God, children of Israel, who dwelt in the land so that they might hear the reasons for the indignation of the Lord, and recognize past sins for which they would be delivered to their enemies, now because they persist in wickedness and contemptuously face God, they hear: It is not necessary for you to come to judgment, so that you may be accused of your shameful deeds; for you are of such impudence, that even when convicted, you have neither shame nor modesty; but you contradict me, as if a disciple contradicts his master, the priest of the people, who does not have the dignity of priesthood. And because you are such, therefore you fall today, that is, you are led into captivity, and the kingdom of Israel is lost. What he says, "today," means the present time, or not by fraud and deceit, but by clear light you are led into captivity, and such will be your weakness that even the prophets, who used to prophesy falsehood to you, will fall with you and feel the captivity. We must accept either prophets or false prophets, or certainly all prophetic grace. For as long as the ten tribes were not captured, they had both the prophet Elijah and Elisha, and the other sons of the prophets who prophesied in Samaria. Hence the prophet Amos, who was from the tribe of Judah and from the village of Tekoa, was forced to return to his homeland, lest he prophesy in a foreign kingdom and in Samaria.
Of the ones who first made use of false predictions to deceive you, most will also themselves become weak because of the calamity that holds them back. As if they were wrapped up in some kind of night darkness, they see the pursuit of deceit, which was useless for them.
For us too, you see, once the night of this age is done, there will be a resurrection of the flesh for the kingdom; it’s the model or sample of this that has already occurred in our head. That, indeed, is why the Lord wished to rise again at night; because, in the apostle’s words, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, has shone in our hearts.” So the Lord represented light shining out of darkness by being born at night and also by rising at night. Light out of darkness, in fact, is Christ out of the Jews, to whom it was said, “I have likened your mother to night.” But in that nation, as it were in that night, the virgin Mary was not night but somehow or other a star of the night; which is why a star also signaled her childbearing, guiding a far distant night, that is the magi from the east, to worship the light. Thus in them too would be realized the command to “the light to shine out of darkness.”
“Day continues according to your ordinance.” For all these things are day: “and this is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” and “let us walk honestly as in the day.” “For all things serve you.” He said “all things of some,” “all” which belong to this day “serve you.” For the ungodly, of whom it is said, “I have compared thy mother unto the night,” do not serve you.
The mother of the people is the synagogue, which—since it is covered by the darkness of ignorance and did not receive the radiance of God’s knowledge—may be compared to the night.
[AD 420] Jerome on Hosea 4:4-5