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Hosea 11

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Yahweh's love for Israel His son

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. 2 The more they called them, the more they went away from them; they sacrificed to the Baals and burned incense to carved images. 3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms; but they did not know that I healed them. 4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love; and I was to them like those who lift the yoke from their jaws, and I bent down to him and fed him. 5 He shall not return to the land of Egypt; but Assyria shall be his king, because they refused to return to Me. 6 The sword shall whirl in his cities, and consume the bars of his gates, and devour them because of their own counsels. 7 My people are bent on backsliding from Me; though they call them to the One on high, none at all exalts Him.

How can I give you up?

8 How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned over within Me; My compassions are kindled together. 9 I will not carry out the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am El and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

10 They shall walk after Yahweh; He will roar like a lion. When He roars, His children shall come trembling from the west. 11 They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, and like a dove from the land of Assyria; and I will settle them in their houses, declares Yahweh.

Ephraim's lies and Jacob's story

12 Ephraim has surrounded Me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit; but Judah still walks with El, and is faithful with the Holy One.

Notes

  • 11:1 Yahweh had told Pharaoh, "Israel is My son, My firstborn" (Exodus 4:22), and the exodus was the Father calling His son out of slavery. Matthew cites this verse when the child Yeshua is brought back from Egypt (Matthew 2:15). Hosea speaks of the nation's past, and Matthew does not deny that; many understand him to see Yeshua living out Israel's story as Israel's Messiah, the true Son who walks the path the nation walked. The Greek Septuagint reads "I called his children," while Matthew's wording agrees with the Hebrew "My son."
  • 11:3 The picture is of a father teaching his small child to walk, holding him up by the arms. The Hebrew shifts between "him" and "them" because Ephraim is both one son and a whole people. "I healed them" recalls Yahweh's word in the wilderness, "I am Yahweh who heals you" (Exodus 15:26).
  • 11:8 Admah and Zeboiim were the cities overthrown with Sodom and Gomorrah (Deuteronomy 29:23). There is a play on words in Hebrew: the verb for "turned over" (haphakh) is the one used for the overthrow of those cities. Instead of overturning Ephraim, Yahweh's own heart is overturned within Him. Jeremiah heard the same love: "Is Ephraim My dear son, a child of delight?… Therefore My heart yearns for him" (Jeremiah 31:20).
  • 11:9 "I am El and not man" is the reason for the mercy: a man would carry out his anger, but Yahweh is the Holy One whose holiness here shows itself in compassion (compare Numbers 23:19, "El is not a man, that He should lie"). The last words may also be read "I will not come into the city"; the TRB follows the sense "in wrath," which fits the verse's opening line.
  • 11:11 After judgment comes return. The children of Ephraim, scattered toward Egypt and carried off to Assyria, will come back to Yahweh, not proudly but trembling, like birds flying home, at the roar of the Lion who calls them. Isaiah 11:11-12 and 27:13 speak of the same gathering from Assyria and Egypt.
  • 11:12 In the Hebrew Bible this verse is 12:1, and the rest of chapter 12 is numbered one higher; the TRB follows the English numbering. The second half is hard: some read it as praise of Judah, as here, while others read it as a charge, "Judah still roams restlessly against El, against the faithful Holy One," which would fit 12:2, where Yahweh has a dispute with Judah too.

Hosea 10 · Hosea 12

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