Hosea 5:4 Meaning Their Deeds Won’t Allow Them to Turn

A people can be so absorbed in their own doings that they never turn back toward the source of life. The endless seeking outside, chasing one form after another to feel whole, is what keeps them from it. This restless reaching is a spirit in the midst of them, a compulsion that always looks elsewhere for what can only be found within.

And because their attention is always spent outward, they have never actually known the presence beneath their lives. Knowing here is not belief or information. It is direct contact with being. They cannot arrive at it while their whole momentum carries them away from the still center where alone it can be felt.