Notes on Hosea
1The word of the Lord, that came to Osee the son of Beeri, in the days of Ozias, Joathan, Achaz, and Ezechias kings of Juda, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joas king of Israel.
2The beginning of the Lord’s speaking by Osse: and the Lord said to Osee: Go, take thee a wife of fornications, and have of her children of fornications: for the land by fornication shall depart from the Lord.
1Say ye to your brethren: You are my people, and to your sister: Thou hast obtained mercy.
2Judge your mother, judge her: because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts.
3Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born: and I will make her as a wilderness, and will set her as a land that none can pass through, and will kill her with drought.
1Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel, for the Lord shall enter into judgment with the inhabitants of the land: for there is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land.
2Cursing, and lying, and killing, and theft, and adultery have overflowed, and blood hath touched blood.
3Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth in it shall languish with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the air: yea, the fishes of the sea also shall be gathered together.
4But yet let not any man judge: and let not a man be rebuked: for thy people are as they that contradict the priest.
5And thou shalt fall today, and the prophet also shall fall with thee: in the night I have made thy mother to be silent.
6My people have been silent, because they had no knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me: and thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children.
7According to the multitude of them so have they sinned against me: I will change their glory into shame.
8They shall eat the sins of my people, and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity.
9And there shall be like people like priest: and I will visit their ways upon them, and I will repay them their devices.
10And they shall eat and shall not be filled: they have committed fornication, and have not ceased: because they have forsaken the Lord in not observing his law.
11Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding.
12My people have consulted their stocks, and their staff hath declared unto them: for the spirit of fornication hath deceived them, and they have committed fornication against their God.
13They offered sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burnt incense upon the hills: under the oak, and the poplar, and the turpentine tree, because the shadow thereof was good: therefore shall your daughters commit fornication, and your spouses shall be adulteresses.
14I will not visit upon your daughters when they shell commit fornication, and upon your spouses when they shall commit adultery: because themselves conversed with harlots, and offered sacrifice with the effeminate, and the people that doth not understand shall be beaten.
15If thou play the harlot, O Israel, at least let not Juda offend: and go ye not into Galgal, and come not up into Bethaven, and do not swear: The Lord liveth.
16For Israel hath gone astray like a wanton heifer: now will the Lord feed them, as a lamb in a spacious place.
17Ephraim is a partaker with idols, let him alone.
18Their banquet is separated, they have gone astray by fornication: they that should have protected them have loved to bring shame upon them.
19The wind hath bound them up in its wings, and they shall be confounded because of their sacrifices.
1Hear ye this, O priests, and hearken, O ye house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the king: for there is a judgment against you, because you have been a snare to them whom you should have watched over, and a net spread upon Thabor.
2And you have turned aside victims into the depth: and I am, the teacher of them all.
3I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now Ephraim hath committed fornication, Israel is defiled.
4They will not set their thoughts to return to their God: for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord.
5And the pride of Israel shall answer in his face: and Israel and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity, Juda also shall fall with them.
6With their flocks, and with their herds, they shall go to seek the Lord, and shall not find him: he is withdrawn from them.
7They have transgressed against the Lord, for they have begotten children that are strangers: now shall a month devour them with their portions.
8Blow ye the cornet in Gabaa, the trumpet in Rama: howl ye in Bethaven, behind thy back, O Benjamin.
9Ephraim shall be in desolation in the day of rebuke: among the tribes of Israel I have shewn that which shall surely be.
10The princes of Juda are become as they that take up the bound: I will pour out my wrath upon them like water.
11Ephraim is under oppression, and broken in judgment: because he began to go after filthiness.
12And I will be like a moth to Ephraim: and like rottenness to the house of Juda.
13And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Juda his band: and Ephraim went to the Assyrian, and sent to the avenging king: and he shall not be able to heal you, neither shall he be able to take off the band from you.
14For I will be like a lioness to Ephraim, and like a lion’s whelp to the house of Juda: I, I will catch, and go: I will take away, and there is none that can rescue.
3They have made the king glad with their wickedness: and the princes with their lies.
4They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by the baker: the city rested a little from the mingling of the leaven, till the whole was leavened.
5The day of our king, the princes began to be mad with wine: he stretched out his hand with scorners.
6Because they have applied their heart like an oven, when he laid snares for them: he slept all the night baking them, in the morning he himself was heated as a flaming fire.
7They were all heated like an oven, and have devoured their judges: all their kings have fallen: there is none amongst them that calleth unto me.
8Ephraim himself is mixed among the nations: Ephraim is become as bread baked under the ashes, that is not turned.
9Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knew it not: yea, grey hairs also are spread about upon him, and he is ignorant of it.
10And the pride of Israel shall be humbled before his face: and they have not returned to the Lord their God, nor have they sought him in all these.
11And Ephraim is become as a dove that is decoyed, not having a heart: they called upon Egypt, they went to the Assyrians.
12And when they shall go, I will spread my net upon them: I will bring them down as the fowl of the air, I will strike them as their congregation hath heard.
13Woe to them, for they have departed from me: they shall be wasted because they have transgressed against me: and I redeemed them: and they have spoken lies against me.
14And they have not cried to me with their heart, but they howled in their beds: they have thought upon wheat and wine, they are departed from me.
15And I have chastised them, and strengthened their arms: and they have imagined evil against me.
16They returned, that they might be without yoke: they became like a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword, for the rage of their tongue. This is their derision in the land of Egypt.
1Let there be a trumpet in thy throat like an eagle upon the house of the Lord: because they have transgressed my covenant, and have violated my law.
2They shall call upon me: O my God, we, Israel, know thee.
3Israel hath cast off the thing that is good, the enemy shall pursue him.
4They have reigned, but not by me: they have been princes, and I knew not: of their silver, and their gold they have made idols to themselves, that they might perish.