Jerome : Galaad a city of idolaters, supplanted by blood, and like the throats of robbers (or "the city of a robber") for both readings are possible. The Septuagint: "There Galad despised me, a city that is devoted to vanity, and disturbs the water, and your strength, O violent men." We read in Ramoth Galaad that Jehu was anointed in king (IV Kings IX), who mixed blood with blood, and overthrew the house of Achab, and before sunrise ordered heaps of his sons' heads to be placed; in this city across the Jordan in the possession of the tribe of Gad, an idol was consecrated, which was inhabited by priests, for it was a city of fugitives. Therefore, the more celebrated and authoritative it was, because it had been delegated to a part of the priests, the more it was the beginning of idolatry and all evil for Israel living across Jordan, so that those who had sinned first were the first to be captured by the Assyrians. And since the province itself is full of thefts, compares them to thieves, just as priests have laid ambushes for the simplicity of the people, so have those [the thieves] done to travelers. Furthermore, according to the tropology, "Gilead" means "migration of testimony"; and he despises God, while he twists the testimonies of the Scriptures into perverse doctrines, and all his works are in vain, and he disturbs the waters of the Church, and from the purest fountains makes muddy and dirty streams that stain the baptized rather than cleanse them. And all the strength of this city, like that of pirate men, while imitating the devil, who, in the sea of this age, in which ships cross over, lies in wait for those who strive to reach port. Finally Symmachus has more clearly interpreted, saying: "And your throat like that of a lying pirate." We read about such pirates in Job: "There is no delay for the pirates" (Job XXV, 3, sec. LXX). Although they seem to boast of themselves in the present age, to stir up the waters, to act vainly, and to carry on piracy, yet there is no delay to the punishments that will quickly overtake them. — Commentary on Hosea 6:8