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Hosea 14

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

A call to return

1 Return, O Israel, to Yahweh your Elohim, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. 2 Take words with you, and return to Yahweh. Say to Him, "Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, and we will offer the bulls of our lips. 3 Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will no longer say, 'Our gods,' to the work of our hands. For in You the fatherless finds mercy."

Yahweh heals and restores

4 I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him. 5 I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily, and strike his roots like Lebanon. 6 His shoots shall spread out; his splendor shall be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. 7 Those who dwell in his shade shall return; they shall revive like grain, and blossom like the vine; his renown shall be like the wine of Lebanon. 8 O Ephraim, what have I to do anymore with idols? It is I who answer and look after him. I am like a green cypress; from Me your fruit is found.

9 Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is discerning? Let him know them. For the ways of Yahweh are right, and the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.

Notes

  • 14:1 "Return" (shuvah) is the heart of Hosea's message, and the same root runs through this chapter: Israel is to return (verses 1-2), Yahweh will heal their turning away (verse 4), and His anger has turned (verse 4). Deuteronomy 30:1-3 had promised that if Israel, scattered among the nations, would return to Yahweh, He would gather them again. In later Jewish tradition this chapter is read on the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which is called Shabbat Shuvah after its first word.
  • 14:2 "The bulls of our lips" means words of confession and praise offered in place of, or along with, the bulls of the altar (compare Psalm 51:16-17; 69:30-31). The Greek Septuagint reads "the fruit of our lips," and Hebrews 13:15 echoes that wording when it speaks of a sacrifice of praise. Yahweh asks Israel to bring words, not only animals.
  • 14:3 "Finds mercy" (yeruchham) comes from the same root as the name of Hosea's daughter, Lo-Ruhamah, "No Mercy" (1:6). The people who were told they would no longer receive mercy now confess that in Yahweh the fatherless finds mercy, as 2:23 had promised.
  • 14:6 The images of dew, lily, cedar roots, olive and the fragrance of Lebanon are the language of love in the Song of Songs (2:1; 4:11), now used for Yahweh and restored Israel. The olive tree is a picture of Israel elsewhere too (Jeremiah 11:16), and Paul later uses it for Israel into which the nations are grafted (Romans 11:17-24).
  • 14:8 Nowhere else in Scripture does Yahweh compare Himself to a tree. The evergreen cypress (berosh) stays green all year, and from Yahweh Ephraim, whose name means "fruitful," will at last find its fruit (13:15). The Hebrew does not name the speaker of the first line; the TRB, with many, reads the whole verse as Yahweh's words, while others take the first line as Ephraim's own words of repentance: "What have I to do anymore with idols?"

Hosea 13 · Joel 1

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