Chapter Nine

1–7. Pronouncement of disasters for Israel. 8–10. Condemnation of Israel’s sins. 11–17. Recollection of Israel’s past history.

Hosea 9:1. Do not rejoice, O Israel, in exultation like the peoples, for you have played the harlot, abandoning your God; you have loved gifts on every threshing floor. Hosea 9:2. The threshing floor and the wine press shall not feed them, and the wine shall fail them. “Do not rejoice, Israel, with jubilation”: from verse 2 it is evident that the prophet warns Israel against rejoicing because of an abundant harvest—rejoicing expressed, no doubt, in special festivals marked by pagan characteristics. Like other nations (in Slavonic, “pagans”) Israel saw in the abundance of earthly produce a sign of favor from the Baals they worshipped (“you love the wages of harlotry on every threshing floor”) and, consequently, rejoiced that (ki, or “for”) he had turned away from God and given himself to harlotry, that is, to the service of Baals. But this joy is empty, for Israel will not enjoy the abundance of produce: “the threshing floor and the winepress will not feed them, and the hope for new wine will deceive them.” In verse 1, instead of the words “with jubilation” the Slavonic text reads “nor be glad” (μηδέ εύφραίνου), as the LXX read al gil instead of el gil. In verse 2, instead of the Hebrew lo ireem, “will not feed them,” the LXX read the similarly written lo jedaam; from this comes the Slavonic “will not know them.”

Hosea 9:3. They shall not remain in the land of the Lord; Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food. Ephraim will return to Egypt: the prophet expects punishment of the Israelite people through the Assyrians (Hos 5:13), and in Hos 11:5 says plainly: “he (Israel) will not return to Egypt, but Assyria—he will be their king.” Therefore the expression in verse 3, “Ephraim will return to Egypt,” as also in Hos 8:13, has the sense of a general indication of impending captivity. “In Assyria they will eat what is unclean”—both as a consequence of lack of food and as a consequence of the impossibility, with the cessation of the sacrificial cult, of observing the ordinances of Moses concerning food. —The LXX read lo jeschvu as a perfect form, jaschvu, and translated it as ύ κατώκησαν; from this comes the Slavonic “you will not dwell” (instead of the Russian “will not dwell”). Instead of the expression “Ephraim will return to Egypt” in the Slavonic “Ephraim dwelt in Egypt,” because the LXX derived the form veschav (from schuv, to return) from jaschav, to dwell.

Hosea 9:4. They shall not pour out wine for the Lord, and their sacrifices shall not please Him; like bread for the dead they shall be for them; all who eat of it shall become unclean, for their bread is for themselves; it shall not come to the house of the Lord. Hosea 9:5. What will you do on the day of appointed festival and on the day of the feast of the Lord? The prophet speaks of the hardships of captivity, when legitimate sacrifices cease. “They will be to them like bread of mourning”—from Hebrew kelechem onim lahem, “like bread of mourning for them.” Bread of mourning (in Slavonic, “bread of sorrow”) is unclean bread, defiled by the presence of a dead person in the house (cf. Lev 21:1; Num 19:14; Deut 26:14). The Russian translators understood this comparison with respect to sacrifices and therefore added: “they will be” (that is, sacrifices). But from the further words of the verse it should be concluded that the prophet is speaking of ordinary bread, not sacrifices, and therefore, together with many commentators, the expression can be rendered as: “like bread of mourning—their bread will be to them.” The prophet wishes to express the thought that in captivity Israel will be defiled even by bread, because with the cessation of all sacrifices this bread will not be hallowed by being offered to the Lord; it will be only bread “for themselves” (for them), “but it will not enter the house of the Lord.”

Hosea 9:6. For behold, they are going away because of destruction; Egypt shall gather them, Memphis shall bury them; nettles shall take their precious things of silver, thorns shall be in their tents. In verse 6 a picture of Israel’s future destruction is presented. “Egypt will gather them”—as is evident from the following words (“Memphis will bury them”)—will gather them for burial. Of Egypt and its capital, Memphis, the city of lower Egypt, the prophet again speaks, as in Hos 8:13, in a general sense. —With the destruction of the people, according to the prophet’s words, the land too will be laid waste. The mention of “precious things of silver” need not be understood as referring to idols (Nowack): in accordance with the context (cf. “in their tents”) it is better to see here a reference to precious objects in homes. —The Greek and Slavonic texts of verse 6 deviate from the original. The word Egypt the LXX referred to the first sentence; from this came the reading: “from the devastation of Egypt.” The subject of tekabzem, “will gather them,” the LXX took to be the word “Memphis.” The name of the city Mahmas appeared in the Greek-Slavonic through the error of translators who read machmas instead of the Hebrew machmad, desired, precious.

Hosea 9:7. The days of reckoning have come; the days of repayment have come; Israel shall know it! The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad, because of the abundance of your iniquity and great enmity. “Let Israel know”—from Hebrew more exactly “Israel will know”—will know that the days of recompense have come. Instead of jeden (from jada, to know) the LXX read jerav (from jara, to tremble); from this comes the Slavonic “will be vexed (κακωθήσεται) Israel.” —“The prophet is a fool, he who claims to be inspired is mad.” A difficult expression, variously interpreted by commentators. In our text the Hebrew hannabi (prophet) and isch haruach (man of spirit, inspired one) is understood as referring to false prophets. Therefore I render hannabi as “fool,” and isch haruach as the expression “he who claims to be inspired.” This is how Hitzig, Knabenbauer, and many others understand it. But such understanding cannot be accepted: a) the word nabi with the definite article is usually used in the Bible for the true prophet (cf. 1 Sam 18:19; Ezek 13:3; Zeph 3:4), b) the word ruach with the definite article can only be referred to the Spirit of God, and it is unlikely that a true prophet would attribute to a false one the title “man of the Spirit.” One must therefore think that verse 7 speaks of true prophets. The meaning of the expressions is transmitted differently. According to some commentators, Hosea wants to express the thought that from the heaviness of calamities that have overtaken the people, from sorrow because of awareness of the impossibility of averting disaster, the prophets have become as if maddened,—or—that for the people’s sins the Lord punished the prophets with madness (Schegg). According to others (Wellhausen, Nowack), Hosea in the passage under consideration sets forth judgment about the prophets not his own, but that of wicked Israel, and gives a response to this judgment. The prophet might say to the people: you say—the prophet is a fool, the inspired one is mad; but the cause of this lies solely in the multitude of your iniquities and in your great hostility (toward the prophets).

Hosea 9:8. Ephraim is a watchman with my God, a prophet; yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways, enmity in the house of his God. Verse 8, like the preceding one, is very difficult to understand and is interpreted variously. “Ephraim is a watchman with my God,” zopheh Ephraim imi – elohaj. The word zopheh (watchman) is used in the Bible of a tower watchman, standing at his post (2 Sam 9:17-20; 2 Sam 18:24-27; 1 Sam 14:16), and in a figurative sense of a prophet, awaiting divine revelation (Jer 6:17; Ezek 3:17; Hab 2:1). According to some commentators (Hitzig, Brodovich), in verse 8 the word zopheh is used precisely in the latter sense, and the prophet’s thought is: Israel expects divine revelations not from God—Jehovah—but “with” God, that is, from Baals, from false prophets. Other commentators (Umbreit, Ewald) take the word zopheh in the sense of lurker, sentinel, and the preposition im (Russian “with”) in the sense of against; the prophet’s thought at this interpretation takes on the sense that Ephraim attacks God himself, with Hosea having in mind the people’s persecution of prophets (cf. Amos 7:10-17). According to Hoonacker’s opinion, the words zopheh Ephraim im elohaj serve as an apposition to the further nabi, and their sense in connection with what follows can be rendered thus: “he who is a watchman of Ephraim together (on behalf of) God,—the prophet,—is a snare of a fowler on all his paths, that is, snares and hostility against him. “In the house of his God”... The house of God, evidently, the prophet calls all the land of Israel. The difference of the Greek text from the Hebrew in verse 8 consists in the fact that instead of the words poh jakosch “snare of a fowler,” the LXX read pah ikkesch and translated παγίς σκολιά, Slavonic “crooked snare.” Hebrew mastemah (enmity) the LXX, as in verse 7, translated with the word μανία; from this comes the Slavonic “maddened,” and the verb κατέπηξαν—“were fixed”—they transferred to verse 8 from the following (Hebrew heemiku).

Hosea 9:9. They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah; He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. The prophet recalls a known event from the period of the Judges, when the Benjaminites, inhabitants of Gibeah, committed a vile outrage upon the concubine of a Levite (Judg 19-21). He wants to say that his contemporaries have sunk into sin as once the inhabitants of Gibeah. In the Greek text the first verb of verse 9, heemiku, is referred to verse 8, and the proper name Gibeah is taken as a common noun—hill; from this came the reading in our Slavonic text: “you became corrupt in the days of the hill.”

Hosea 9:10. Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel; like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers—but they went to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to the shameful thing, and became detestable like the thing they loved. “As berries in the wilderness are pleasant to a traveler,” says Saint Ephrem the Syrian in explanation of verse 10, “so were your fathers (the Israelites) dear to God, when they lived among foreigners—the Amorites and Egyptians, represented here by the image of the wilderness.” But the Israelites proved unworthy of Jehovah’s love, having turned to the service of pagan gods. “To Baal-Peor,” baal-poor: in the Hebrew text the proper name of the place is meant, where Baal-Peor was worshipped (cf. Num 25:3). The worship of Baal-Peor, to which the Israelites devoted themselves on the plains of Moab, consisted of crude licentiousness, which women and girls pursued. Therefore the prophet says: “they devoted themselves to shame” (in Slavonic, “turned aside to shame”) “and became detestable like the thing they loved,” that is, became objects of the abhorrence of Jehovah, like Baal-Peor himself.

Hosea 9:11. As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird—no birth, no pregnancy, no conception! Hosea 9:12. And even if they bring up their children, I will bereave them until none is left; yes, woe to them when I depart from them! The prophet threatens Israel with deprivation of the promise given to the patriarchs to multiply their descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the sea (Gen 12:2). In verse 11 the prophet repeats the threat once made by Moses (Deut 32:25)—The LXX read ghl, itheopheph (“to lie idle”) in past tense εξεπετάσθη, and the word kebodam (“their words”) they referred to the following sentence; from this came the obscure reading in our Slavonic text: “Ephraim like a bird flew away, their glory from childbearing and labor and from conception.” At the end of verse 12, instead of Hebrew besuri (from sur, with silent shin) mehenn (“when I depart from them”) the LXX read besari, mehem, σαρξ μου έξ αυτών, from this comes the Slavonic “my flesh from them.”

Hosea 9:13. Ephraim, as I have seen, was planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the slayer. “Ephraim, as I have seen him, is planted in a pleasant place”—in the Hebrew text the expression is considered disputed and is translated variously. Difficulty arises from the word zor (Tyre), since the mention of Tyre seems unnatural in verse 13. Therefore many commentators instead of the proper name see a common noun. Some (Arnoldi, Hitzig, Nowack), deriving the word zor from the Arabic root, take it in the sense of a palm and then the entire expression takes the form: Ephraim, as I see, is a palm tree planted in a pleasant place; others (Scholz) instead of zor read zur, rock, or zurah (Ewald). Modern commentators (Marti, Hoonacker) consider the Hebrew text corrupted and propose their own emendations (Marti): Ephraim—I see him like a man who appointed his children as booty: The LXX instead of zor read zoid (booty) instead of benaveh, on pasture,—baneiha, sons; from this comes the Slavonic text: “Ephraim, as it is seen, appointed his children to hunting.” According to the Russian translation, the prophet’s thought in verse 13 is this: the land of Ephraim flourishes splendidly all the way to Tyre; but it will soon become depopulated and desolate, and Ephraim himself will deliver his children to the enemy.

Hosea 9:14. Give them, O Lord—what will You give? Give them a barren womb and dry breasts. In anger at the great corruption of Israel, the prophet asks for the carrying out of God’s judgment against the people.

Hosea 9:15. All their evil is in Gilgal; there I hated them for the evil of their deeds; I will drive them out of My house; I will love them no more; all their princes are rebels. “All their evil is in Gilgal.” Gilgal was one of the centers of idolatry. Perhaps in this city idolatry reached extreme limits, which is why the prophet mentions Gilgal repeatedly (Hos 4:15). “I will drive them out of My house”—that is, out of the communion of the Lord.