3.5 Cf. 1.11; 2.7, 15. Return. See note on 2.6–7. The mention of David is a Judean addition; cf. 1.7.
HOSEA 4
God Accuses Israel
1Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel;
for the LORD has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty,
and no knowledge of God in the land.
2Swearing, lying, and murder,
and stealing and adultery break out;
bloodshed follows bloodshed.
3Therefore the land mourns,
and all who live in it languish;
together with the wild animals
and the birds of the air,
even the fish of the sea are perishing.
4Yet let no one contend,
and let none accuse,
for with you is my contention, O priest.a
5You shall stumble by day;
the prophet also shall stumble with you by night,
and I will destroy your mother.
6My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
7The more they increased,
the more they sinned against me;
they changedb their glory into shame.
8They feed on the sin of my people;
they are greedy for their iniquity.
9And it shall be like people, like priest;
I will punish them for their ways,
and repay them for their deeds.
10They shall eat, but not be satisfied;
they shall play the whore, but not multiply;
because they have forsaken the LORD
to devote themselves to 11whoredom.
The Idolatry of Israel
Wine and new wine
take away the understanding.
12My people consult a piece of wood,
and their divining rod gives them oracles.
For a spirit of whoredom has led them astray,
and they have played the whore, forsaking their God.
13They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains,
and make offerings upon the hills,
under oak, poplar, and terebinth,
because their shade is good.
Therefore your daughters play the whore,
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
14I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore,
nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery;
for the men themselves go aside with whores,
and sacrifice with temple prostitutes;
thus a people without understanding comes to ruin.
15Though you play the whore, O Israel,
do not let Judah become guilty.
Do not enter into Gilgal,
or go up to Beth-aven,
and do not swear, “As the LORD lives.”
16Like a stubborn heifer,
Israel is stubborn;
can the LORD now feed them
like a lamb in a broad pasture?
17Ephraim is joined to idols—
let him alone.
18When their drinking is ended, they indulge in sexual orgies;
they love lewdness more than their glory.c
19A wind has wrapped themd in its wings,
and they shall be ashamed because of their altars.e
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a Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
b Ancient Heb tradition: MT I will change
c Cn Compare Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
d Heb her
e Gk Syr: Heb sacrifices
4.1–14.8 Prophetic sayings of judgment and promise.
4.1–11.11 An unfaithful people, their coming punishment, and their parent’s love.
4.1–3 A legal indictment introducing chs. 4–11.
4.1 Indictment (Hebrew riv), a divine lawsuit against the people for breach of the covenant (cf. Ps 50.7, a psalm of Asaph; Mic 6.1–2); for additional courtroom language, see 2.2 (plead); 4.4 (contention); 12.2. Faithfulness entails firm commitment to the Lord (Josh 24.14; Jer 2.21). Loyalty (Hebrew chesed)—a crucial term in Hosea’s theology—is the quality of life required in covenantal relation with God. It also appears translated as (steadfast) love (2.19; 6.4, 6; 10.12; 12.6). On knowledge of God, another crucial term in Hosea (2.8, 20; 4.6; 5.4;6.6), see note on 2.20. Knowledge of God issues from covenant instruction (torah), the special responsibility of Israel’s priests (see note on 4.6).
4.2 Israel is transgressing basic covenantal commandments (cf. Ps 50.18–20, a psalm of Asaph).
4.3 The land, a gift of the Lord for the life of the people, suffers from the sins of its inhabitants.
4.4–19 Both priests (vv. 4–11) and those in their care (vv. 12–19) are guilty of cultic heresy.
4.4 The entire royally sanctioned priesthood is addressed in the following verses (cf. 5.1; Jer 2.26; 4.9;23.11); the singular priest may refer to a chief priest (cf. Amaziah in Am 7.10–17).
4.5–6 Levites such as Hosea valued a priesthood’s genealogical continuity. Destroy your mother (or “destroy your kindred”) and forget your children refer to disruption of the priests’ lineage.
4.6 The prophet also upholds the duty of levitical priests to transmit and authoritatively apply the law (torah) given at Mount Sinai (Deut 17.9–12, 18; 31.9;33.10; 2 Kings 17.27–28; Jer 2.8; 18.18; Mal 2.6–7). In Hosea’s traditions, the Sinai covenant entailed specific, binding regulations on Israel (torah).
4.7 Changed their glory. Cf. Ps 106.19–21; Jer 2.11.
4.8 Priests feed on the sin of the people as they delight in profiting from the many sin offerings brought to their shrines (cf. 1 Sam 2.12–17). Contrary to some scholarly opinion, sacrifices in Hosea’s period aimed to atone for sin and iniquity (see also 8.11; Mic 6.7).
4.10–11a “Futility curses,” a known component of West Semitic treaties, also figure significantly in the Sinai covenant (cf. 8.7; 9.12, 16; Mic 6.14). Play the whore, worship Baal and other fertility deities (1.2; 2.5; Deut 31.16; Ps 78.57–58, a psalm of Asaph).
4.12 Piece of wood, possibly a religious symbol of the goddess Asherah (see Ex 34.13; Deut 16.21; Mic 5.14). Spirit of whoredom, an inner disposition toward fertility religion (cf. 5.4).
4.13 Israel’s popular cultic sites included hilltop precincts, sometimes with sacred standing stones and groves of sacred trees (Deut 12.2; 2 Kings 17.10; Jer 3.6, 13; Ezek 6.13; 20.28). Daughters of Israelites seem to have been involved informally in promiscuous sex and debauchery, which were thought to “jump-start” agricultural fecundity (cf. Ex 32.6; Num 25.1–5;31.13–20).
4.14 Temple prostitutes. Hebrew qedeshah means either a simple harlot (as in Gen 38.15, 21) or perhaps a woman who had vowed to donate her fee for prostitution to a shrine (see Prov 7.14).
4.15 Bethaven, Hebrew, “house of wrong,” a pejorative name for Bethel (cf. Am 5.5). Gilgal (cf. Josh 4.19–20; Am 5.5) and Bethel (12.4; Gen 35.1–4) were cities with once holy shrines that became places of apostasy with the rise of the monarchical state.
4.16 Stubborn heifer. See 10.11; Jer 31.18; cf. Ps 78.8, a psalm of Asaph.
4.17 Ephraim, name for the Northern Kingdom, Israel.
HOSEA 5
Impending Judgment on Israel and Judah
1Hear this, O priests!
Give heed, O house of Israel!
Listen, O house of the king!
For the judgment pertains to you;
for you have been a snare at Mizpah,
and a net spread upon Tabor,
2and a pit dug deep in Shittim;a
but I will punish all of them.
3I know Ephraim,
and Israel is not hidden from me;
for now, O Ephraim, you have played the whore;
Israel is defiled.
4Their deeds do not permit them
to return to their God.
For the spirit of whoredom is within them,
and they do not know the LORD.
5Israel’s pride testifies against him;
Ephraimb stumbles in his guilt;
Judah also stumbles with them.
6With their flocks and herds they shall go
to seek the LORD,
but they will not find him;
he has withdrawn from them.
7They have dealt faithlessly with the LORD;
for they have borne illegitimate children.
Now the new moon shall devour them along with their fields.
8Blow the horn in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah.
Sound the alarm at Beth-aven;
look behind you, Benjamin!
9Ephraim shall become a desolation
in the day of punishment;
among the tribes of Israel
I declare what is sure.
10The princes of Judah have become
like those who remove the landmark;
on them I will pour out
my wrath like water.
11Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment,
because he was determined to go after vanity.c
12Therefore I am like maggots to Ephraim,
and like rottenness to the house of Judah.
13When Ephraim saw his sickness,
and Judah his wound,
then Ephraim went to Assyria,
and sent to the great king.d
But he is not able to cure you
or heal your wound.
14For I will be like a lion to Ephraim,
and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I myself will tear and go away;
I will carry off, and no one shall rescue.
15I will return again to my place
until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face.
In their distress they will beg my favor:
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a Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
b Heb Israel and Ephraim
c Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
d Cn: Heb to a king who will contend
5.1–7 New leaders have misled the Israelites into the trap of Baal worship.
5.1–2 Mizpah, Tabor, and Shittim, towns with shrines of the Baal cult.
5.4 Spirit of whoredom. See note on 4.12. Do not know. See note on 2.20.
5.5–6 For the people to seek the LORD at shrines with sacrifices from their flocks is useless, since they do not acknowledge their guilt and turn to God wholeheartedly (v. 15).
5.7 The Hebrew may mean that the Lord, not the moon, is the devourer (as in 13.8)—either a devourer of Israel’s new moon festival itself (as at 2.11) or one wielding destruction at the time of the festival.
5.8–6.6 The historical setting for this unit is the Syro-Ephraimite war (2 Kings 15.37; 16.5–9; Isa 7.1–9).
5.8–10 These verses presuppose a counterattack by Judah during the Syro-Ephraimite war.
5.8 Gibeah, Ramah, and Beth-aven (Bethel; see note on 4.15), towns in Benjamin’s tribal territory along the path of invasion of the Judean army.
5.10 Judah’s invasion of Ephraim is compared to altering boundaries between farm plots, a crime forbidden in the Sinai covenant (Deut 19.14; 27.17; Prov 22.28; Mic 2.2). Princes. See note on 3.4.
5.11 Go after vanity, Ephraim’s alliance with Syria.
5.13 After the Syro-Ephraimite initiative failed and Assyria invaded the land in 733 BCE, Israel surrendered territory and paid tribute to Assyria (cf. 2 Kings 15.19–20;17.3). Assyria is not able to cure the people, because only the Lord is their suzerain and savior (10.3; 13.4, 9–11; 14.3).
5.14 Hosea takes this metaphorical language from the psalms of Asaph (Ps 50.22).
5.15 Mention of the Lord’s place initially conjures the image of a lion’s den (cf. v. 14; Jer 4.7), but the reference is to God’s heavenly temple (cf. Mic 1.3). Until stresses the possibility of repentance (see note on 2.6–7). Seek my face, revive the traditional rites of the Lord (cf. Pss 24.6; 27.8; 105.4).
HOSEA 6
A Call to Repentance
1“Come, let us return to the LORD;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
2After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
3Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.”
Impenitence of Israel and Judah
4What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?
What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that goes away early.
5Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets,
I have killed them by the words of my mouth,
and mya judgment goes forth as the light.
6For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
7But atb Adam they transgressed the covenant;
there they dealt faithlessly with me.
8Gilead is a city of evildoers,
tracked with blood.
9As robbers lie in waitc for someone,
so the priests are banded together;d
they murder on the road to Shechem,
they commit a monstrous crime.
10In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing;
Ephraim’s whoredom is there, Israel is defiled.
11For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed.
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a Gk Syr: Heb your
b Cn: Heb like
c Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
d Syr: Heb are a company
6.1–3 Hosea presents a parody of the people’s current insufficient gestures at penitence. The song uses some right words but mixes in language from the fertility cult (e.g., v. 3b).
6.2 Revive us and raise us up reflect the mythology of the fertility cult, in which Baal’s rising from death restored both people and nature to new life.
6.4–6 The Lord’s soliloquy, though reflecting inner heartbreak, rejects Israel’s attempt at rapprochement (cf. 5.6; Jer 14.7–12). The people’s penitence does not pass the tests of authenticity and constancy (v. 4b); neither Israel nor Judah maintains a devoted love (Hebrew chesed, v. 6) for God.
6.4 O Ephraim…O Judah reflects Hosea’s understanding of the unity of the covenant people (cf. 5.12–14; Mic 1.5); traditional priests such as Hosea advocate intertribal solidarity.
6.5 Hosea had predecessors, also mediators of the covenant, who announced God’s punishment.
6.6 On steadfast love (Hebrew chesed) and knowledge of God, see note on 4.1. God’s statement is not aimed against sacrifices but stresses the relative importance of integrity of life under the covenant over mere rituals and shows of piety (cf. Mic 6.6–8; 1 Sam 15.22; Jer 7.22–23).
6.7–7.16 Covenant loyalty to the Lord is lacking in Israel.
6.7–7.2 A catalog of treachery.
6.7 On the Sinai covenant, see notes on 1.9; 4.1; 4.6; 4.10–11a; 8.1. Adam. See Josh 3.16.
6.8 On the incident at Gilead, see 2 Kings 15.24–25.
6.9 Shechem, location of an ancient sanctuary of Israel’s covenant God (Gen 33.18–20, E; Josh 24); priests of the new regime (1 Kings 12.31; 13.33–34) now harass pilgrims who visit it.
HOSEA 7
When I would restore the fortunes of my people,
1when I would heal Israel,
the corruption of Ephraim is revealed,
and the wicked deeds of Samaria;
for they deal falsely,
and the bandits raid outside.
2But they do not consider
that I remember all their wickedness.
Now their deeds surround them,
they are before my face.
3By their wickedness they make the king glad,
and the officials by their treachery.
4They are all adulterers;
they are like a heated oven,
whose baker does not need to stir the fire,
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.
5On the day of our king the officials
became sick with the heat of wine;
he stretched out his hand with mockers.
6For they are kindleda like an oven, their heart burns within them;
all night their anger smolders;
in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
7All of them are hot as an oven,
and they devour their rulers.
All their kings have fallen;
none of them calls upon me.
8Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples;
Ephraim is a cake not turned.
9Foreigners devour his strength,
but he does not know it;
gray hairs are sprinkled upon him,
but he does not know it.
10Israel’s pride testifies againstb him;
yet they do not return to the LORD their God,
or seek him, for all this.
Futile Reliance on the Nations
11Ephraim has become like a dove,
silly and without sense;
they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria.
12As they go, I will cast my net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the air;
I will discipline them according to the report made to their assembly.c
13Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.
14They do not cry to me from the heart,
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