Hosea 4:18

Their drink is sour This translation is cannot be sustained philologically. If the text is correct, the only version at once intelligible and philologically sound is, -Their drunkenness has passed by." For the rendering of the verb comp. 1 Samuel 15:32 Hebr., and for -drunkenness", lit. drink, comp. 1 Samuel 1:14; 1 Samuel 25:37 (where -wine" must be synonymous with -the fumes of wine"). Connecting this clause with the following, we may render (as Henderson, following the Jewish commentator Abarbanel), When their carousal is over they indulge in lewdness, i.e. when tired of one sin they plunge without scruple into another. The Sept. rendering ἡρέτισε Χαναναίους is very difficult to justify. The Peshito omits the words. St Jerome explains the whole clause, Factum est, inquit Deus, convivium eorum à me alienum.

her rulers with shame do love, Give ye Rather, her shields are enamoured of infamy (Henderson). This involves a slight change in the points, necessary in order to make sense of the word rendered -infamy." Probably, however, as Abp. Seeker was the first to infer from Sept. and Pesh., there is an erroneous repetition of three letters (comp. a similar case in Psalms 88:17), so that we may render simply, -her shields love infamy" (-shields" for -rulers", as Psalms 47:9). The Septuagint, indeed, suggests a various reading which possibly deserves the preference; it renders, ἠγάπησαν ἀτιμίαν ἐκ φρυάγματος αὐτῆς. Here, as in Amos 8:7, the Greek translator seems to have misunderstood the expression, -the excellency of Jacob" (i.e. Jehovah). The Hebrew which he had before them may be thus put into English, they love infamy rather than her Excellency (or, her Pride, i.e. Jehovah, Israel's God). Φρύαγμα is in fact the rendering of Heb. gâônin Zechariah 11:3 and three other passages.