Hosea 9
Punishment Through Famine and Exile 1–6
The Rejection of False Prophets 7–9
The Consequence of Historical Apostasy 10–17
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Hosea 9
Verse 1
thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor — ‘Reward’ is ethnan, a harlot’s hire, the word of ‘the hire of a whore’ (Deut 23:18) and ‘the hire of an harlot’ (Mic 1:7). Israel credited its harvest to others: ‘These are my rewards that my lovers have given me’ (2:12). The ‘cornfloor’ is the threshing floor, where the grain was received.
Verse 3
They shall not dwell in the LORD’S land — The land is his: ‘the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me’ (Lev 25:23). ‘Return to Egypt’ is the threat of 8:13 and Deut 28:68. The ‘unclean things’ (tame) eaten in Assyria are the ‘defiled bread among the Gentiles’ of Ezek 4:13.
Verse 4
the bread of mourners — ‘Offer’ is nasak, to pour out, the drink offering of wine that went with the burnt offering (Num 15:5); it will cease. Food eaten in mourning could not be used for holy things: ‘I have not eaten thereof in my mourning’ (Deut 26:14). So these sacrifices make the eater ‘polluted’ (tame), and their bread does not come into the house of the LORD.
Verse 5
the solemn day… the feast of the LORD — ‘Solemn day’ is moed, an appointed time, the word of ‘the feasts of the LORD’ in Lev 23:2, and ‘feast’ (chag) is the word for the pilgrim feasts such as ‘the feast of tabernacles’ (Lev 23:34). The question asks what remains of them once the people are out of his land (v.3) and his house (v.4).
Verse 7
The days of visitation are come — ‘Visitation’ is pequddah, the day the LORD inspects and repays, and ‘recompence’ is shillum, found only here, in Isa 34:8 and in Mic 7:3. ‘Israel shall know it’ is the knowing they lacked in 4:1. ‘Mad’ (shaga) is the word of ‘this mad fellow’ said of the prophet sent to Jehu (2 Kgs 9:11); ‘hatred’ (mastemah) is found only here and in v.8.
Verse 8
The watchman of Ephraim — ‘Watchman’ (tsaphah) is the prophet’s office: ‘I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel’ (Ezek 3:17). He is ‘with my God’, yet he meets ‘a snare of a fowler’ (pach, the word of 5:1) and ‘hatred’ (mastemah, as in v.7) ‘in the house of his God’.
Verse 9
as in the days of Gibeah — The comparison is to Gibeah, where ‘sons of Belial’ beset the house round about (Judg 19:22) and the concubine was forced until she died (Judg 20:5); 10:9 returns to it. ‘Deeply’ is amaq, the ‘profound’ of 5:2. ‘he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins’ repeats the sentence of 8:13.
Verse 10
I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness — The finding recalls ‘He found him in a desert land’ (Deut 32:10) and ‘Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the firstfruits of his increase’ (Jer 2:3). ‘Baalpeor’ is the idolatry of Num 25:3. ‘Separated’ is nazar, the verb for the Nazarite’s separation ‘unto the LORD’ (Num 6:2); they were separated unto ‘that shame’.
Verse 13
as I saw Tyrus — Tyre, ‘the crowning city, whose merchants are princes’ (Isa 23:8), is the comparison for Ephraim ‘planted in a pleasant place’. ‘The murderer’ is the slayer (harag) to whom Ephraim must bring out his children; 9:12 and 9:16 also speak of the loss of children.
Verse 14
a miscarrying womb and dry breasts — ‘Give’ (natan) is repeated three times. The petition undoes the blessing of Gen 49:25, ‘blessings of the breasts, and of the womb’, and of Exod 23:26, ‘There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land’. ‘Miscarrying’ (shakal) is the same word as ‘cast their young’.
Verse 15
All their wickedness is in Gilgal — Gilgal, where Israel first camped in the land (Josh 4:19) and where Saul was made king (1 Sam 11:15), is named also in 4:15 and 12:11. ‘Love them no more’ (yasaf, to add) is set against ‘I will love them freely’ in 14:4. ‘Revolters’ (sarar) is the verb of the stubborn heifer of 4:16.
Verse 17
My God will cast them away — ‘Cast away’ is ma’as, the verb of 4:6, ‘I will also reject thee’. ‘Wanderers’ is nadad, the verb of ‘they have fled from me’ in 7:13; those who fled become the ones driven about. The scattering matches Deut 28:64–65, ‘among these nations shalt thou find no ease’.