Hosea 1:10,11

There is a great difference among authorities as to the way in which these verses and Hosea 2:1 should be connected with the context. (a) Those who consult a Hebrew Bible will most probably find the first chapter of Hosea closed at Hosea 1:9, and the second opened with v'hâyâh-and it shall come to pass". Thus Hosea's (like Isaiah's) first prophetic discourse is made to begin with a promise. The objection is that the transition from Hosea 1:3 to Hosea 1:4 of the chapter thus produced is unique for its abruptness even in the Book of Hosea. (-Say ye to your brethren, My people", and directly after, -Plead with your mother, plead".) (b) Still more objectionable is the arrangement of A. V., derived from one form of the Hebrew text, and followed by the Septuagint, Luther, and Calvin. Its only justification lies in the accidental circumstance that two successive verses in the Hebrew text begin with an imperative. Hosea 1:1 chap. 2 in A. V. is utterly unintelligible by itself, and the transition from the first to the second imperative becomes even more strikingly abrupt than in the Hebrew Bible. (c) Feeling these objections, Ewald and Pusey propose to begin the second chapter of the book with the verse which stands fourth in order in our Hebrew Bibles. But most readers cannot help seeing that the transition from threatening to promise, from Lo-ammi, to Ammi, is singularly abrupt, and not to be admitted except from dire necessity, (d) The transposition of lines or sentences is well known to be a fruitful source of error in ancient texts. Hence it has been suggested that Hosea 1:1 of chap. 2 in the common Hebrew Bible (i.e. the last two verses of chap. 1 and the first of chap. 2 in A. V.) originally stood at the end of chap. 2 The plausibility of this suggestion of Heilprin's and Steiner's would be seen to most advantage, if these verses could be explained at the end of chap. 2 This would be only following the precedent of St Paul, who adopts a very similar arragement in Romans 9:25-26. (Hosea 1:9 therefore should be taken as the close of chap. 1, and Hosea 2:1 as the closeof chap. 2)