Hosea 8:4-14

Israel's Unsanctified National Life. Man-made kings, like man-made gods (the calf of Samaria), are impotent; Israel sows the wind and shall reap the whirlwind; the sources of the national life are withered, and the nation ceases to count (Hosea 8:4). Resort to foreign aid only further diminishes its vital forces (Hosea 8:8). Multiplication of altars only multiplies sin; the rites of an unholy cultus can but hasten the Divine punishment (Hosea 8:11). Probably Hosea 8:14 is an addition, and there may be glosses besides.

Hosea 8:4. Hosea is the first prophet to denounce the gold and silver calves under which form Yahweh was worshipped in N. Israel (cf. 1 Kings 12:28 ff*.).

Hosea 8:5. Read, I have cast off.

Hosea 8:5 b, Hosea 8:6 a may be a later addition. The connexion is improved by the omission.

Hosea 8:7 b. Better, Hath it grown up? (then) it hath no shoot nor bringeth forth fruit (so Wellhausen, G. A. Smith). The assonance is original. The general idea, expressed under the metaphor of sowing and reaping, is that futile and unprofitable conduct brings ruin at the end.

Hosea 8:8. Israel has already, within a few years of the death of Jeroboam II, dissipated its national prestige. Marti and Nowack transpose like a wild ass alone by himself from Hosea 8:9 to Hosea 8:8, and (reading Ephraim for pere), render, Israel is swallowed up, Ephraim isolated. as a vessel, etc.: cf. Jeremiah 22:28; Jeremiah 48:38.

Hosea 8:9 f. It is difficult to extract coherent sense from MT. With the transposition of Hosea 8:9 b (see above), and slight emendation (misraim, Egypt, for Ephraim and scatter for gather), Hosea 8:9 f. will run: For they they are gone up to Assyria; to Egypt have given love-gifts. (Though they give [such] among the nations now will I scatter them) and they shall soon cease to anoint kings and princes (cf. LXX). Marti regards the bracketed clause as a gloss.

Hosea 8:11. Omit the first to sin.

Hosea 8:12. my law. precepts: read, the multitude of my laws (directions) not the written Law in the later sense. as a strange thing: render, as those of a stranger.

Hosea 8:13 a. Text obscure. Read, perhaps Sacrifices they loved and did sacrifice; flesh, and did eat, etc. The sacrifice and feasts of the cultus are dear to the Israelites, but not to Yahweh.

Hosea 8:14. Probably an addition. For Hosea 8:14 b, cf. Amos 1:4 *.