Hoseachapter 10
15 verses · KJVHosea book hub →
Key verse
Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.
It stands in A luxuriant vine that only multiplied altars, verses 1 to 4.
The chapter
Chapter summary
'Israel is a luxuriant vine', and the more fruit, the more altars; the better the land, the better the pillars. A divided heart is now found guilty. The calf of Beth-aven will be crated off to Assyria as tribute, its priests wailing over departed glory, and Samaria's king will vanish like foam on water. Thorn and thistle will grow over the altars, and men will say to the mountains, 'Cover us', the cry Jesus and Revelation both take up. Then the plea in farming terms: 'break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek Jehovah' (10:12), for they had plowed wickedness and reaped iniquity.
Context
Prophecy · Hosea · Hosea overview
The world behind this chapter
Hosea 10The history
The opening image is agricultural and exact. A luxuriant vine that produces heavily also puts out enormous leaf growth, and the more it produced the more standing stones and altars Israel built. Wealth had not made them faithful; it had funded better shrines.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The calf being carried off to Assyria as tribute was the ordinary fate of a defeated nation's gods. Assyrian reliefs show soldiers carrying divine images out of captured cities in procession, the standard way of announcing that a people's god had lost. Hosea says Bethel's calf will go the same way, and the priests who profited from it will wail over it.
The farming instructions in the middle are technical. A trained heifer used for threshing had the easiest job on the farm and was allowed to eat as she worked; being put to the yoke for ploughing was harder labour on a heavier neck. Breaking up fallow ground means driving the plough through soil left unworked, where the crust has hardened and thorn roots have taken hold. It is the slowest, most punishing work in the farming year, and it is what Hosea calls seeking the LORD.
Shalman's destruction of Beth-arbel is referred to as something everyone remembered and nobody today can identify with certainty; it was probably a recent atrocity in one of the campaigns rolling through the region, and the detail that mothers were dashed in pieces with their children fits Assyrian and Moabite warfare as it is described in their own records.
What it meant to them
Sow righteousness, reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground, the whole chapter turns on that instruction. Repentance is described not as an emotion but as the hardest field work of the year, undertaken because it is time to seek the LORD until he comes and rains righteousness.
The alternative is spelled out just as physically. You have ploughed wickedness and reaped injustice, because you trusted in your own way and in the multitude of your warriors. A kingdom with a strong army had put its confidence exactly where every other kingdom put it.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
Where the chapter sits
Hosea 10 falls in The LORD's controversy with Israel (chapters 4–14). Oracles against the northern kingdom's idolatry, political faithlessness, and corruption, closing with the great call ‘O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God’ (14:1).
Before it: The marriage and the children, chapters 1–3.
The whole shape of Hosea→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. A luxuriant vine that only multiplied altars
1. (vv. 1-2)
Hosea 10:1
“MAURER translates, "A widespreading vine"; so the Septuagint. Eze 17:6. bringeth forth fruit unto himself--not unto ME. according to . . . multitude of . . . fruit . . . increased . . . altars--In proportion to the abundance of their prosperity, which called for fruit unto God (compare Ro 6:22), was the abundance of their idolatry (Ho 8:4, 11).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 10:1
“Those who think vvqq, bukok, here applied to the vine, means "empty," are mistaken; for the Prophet means rather, that Israel was like a vine, which is robbed after the ingathering is come: for the word vqq, bekok, means properly to pillage, or to plunder.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Hosea 10:1
“Israel is an empty vine - Or, in the same sense, “a luxuriant vine;” literally, “one which poureth out,” poureth itself out into leaves, abundant in switches, (as most old versions explain it,) luxuriant in leaves, emptying itself in them, and empty of fruit; like the fig-tree, which our Lord cursed.”
Hosea 10:2
“Their heart is divided; now they shall perish: he shall break down their idols, he shall lay waste their altars." LXX: "They have divided their hearts: now shall they perish: he shall break down their altars, he shall distress their statues." The Hebrews hand down a similar story, confirming their suspicion with the authority of Scripture: captivity did not come until both kings and peoples alike adored golden calves and were united in impiety.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:2patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 10:2
“But God is the sovereign of the heart and he will by no means endure a rival; he will either have all or none. Satan, like the pretended mother, says, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it; but, if this be yielded to, God says, Nay, let him take it all. A heart thus divided will be found faulty, and be rejected as treacherous in covenanting with God.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 10:2
“THIS passage may be taken as referring to the people of Israel as a nation, and it is not less applicable to the church of God. It is one grand and grievous fault with the church of Christ at the present day, that it is not merely divided somewhat in its creed, and somewhat also in its practice of the ordinances, but alas, it is also somewhat divided in heart.”
Israel is an empty vine: , he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: the vine figure the prophets return to again and again turns bitter here, prosperity spent on altars rather than offered back in worship, the goodness of the land building goodly images instead of gratitude. Their heart is divided names the root under the fruit, a people split between the Lord and the calves, and a divided heart is the reason the altars themselves will be broken down. The bench reads the doubling of altars and images as wealth misused rather than wealth itself condemned, the same warning Deuteronomy gave before the land was ever entered.
2. (vv. 3-4)
Hosea 10:3
“Because now they will say, 'There is no king for us, for we did not fear the Lord, and what will the king do to us?' Speaking words of useless vision, and you will strike a covenant, and judgment will germinate like bitterness over the furrows of the field. "LXX: "Therefore now they will say, there is no king for us, because we did not fear the Lord, but what will the king do to us? Speaking words, false excuses: he will arrange a testament, and judgment will arise like grass over the desert of the field.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:3-4patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 10:3
“For now they shall say, we have no king - These are the words of despair, not of repentance; of people terrified by the consciousness of guilt, but not coming forth out of its darkness; describing their condition, not confessing the iniquity which brought it on them. In sin, all Israel had asked for a king, when the Lord was their king; in sin, Ephraim had made Jeroboam king; in sin, their subsequent kings were made, without the counsel and advice of God; and now as the close of all, they reflect how fruitless it all was.”
Hosea 10:4
“They have spoken words - Vain, empty, deceitful words. Swearing falsely - This refers to the alliances made with strange powers, to whom they promised fidelity without intending to be faithful; and from whom they promised themselves protection and support, notwithstanding God was against them, and they knew it. All their words were vain, and in the end as bitter as gall. Judgment springeth up as hemlock - As our land lies without cultivation, so that we have nothing but noxious weeds instead of crops; so we have no administration of justice.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 10:4
“Swearing falsely - By perjury deceiving those they treated with. A covenant - With the Assyrian king. Judgment - Divine vengeance.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 10:4
“They swore falsely in making a covenant; they were deceitful in their covenanting with God, the covenant of circumcision, the fair promises they made of reformation when they were in distress; and no marvel if those that were false to their God were false to all mankind.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
We have no king: , because we feared not the Lord confesses the political chaos of Israel's last decades, a throne seized by murder five times over in Hosea's own lifetime, and the confession admits the cause was spiritual before it was ever political. What then should a king do to us voices the people's own despair at a monarchy that never delivered what it promised. Judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows names the covenant sworn falsely turning bitter in the very ground it was meant to bless, the field itself yielding poison instead of grain.
B. The calf of Beth-aven carried off to Assyriavv. 5-8
the calves of Beth–aven: The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven, Hosea's contemptuous renaming of Beth-el, the house of God turned into the house of vanity, and the calf itself is carried off to Assyria as tribute, an idol that could not even save its own gold plating. Ephraim shall receive shame names the reversal: the object of confidence becomes the badge of humiliation before the nations. Verse 8 pictures Israel begging the mountains to fall and the hills to cover them, language the Lord Jesus takes up of a later and greater judgment (Luke 23:30, Rev 6:16), the older writers reading Hosea's despair as the pattern later terror will repeat.
Hosea 10:5
"The inhabitants of Samaria have worshipped the cows of Bethaven, because its people have mourned over it; and its priests have rejoiced over it, for its glory has departed from it. Moreover, it has been carried away to Assyria, as a gift to the avenging king. Ephraim will be put to shame by the confusion he caused; Israel will be ashamed of his own will." LXX: "At the calf of the house of Ὦn, those who dwell in Samaria will reside: because his people mourned over him.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:5-6patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 10:5
“The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of - (i. e., for) the calves of Beth-aven He calls them in this place “cow-calves,” perhaps to denote their weakness and helplessness. So far from their idol being able to help “them, they” shall be anxious and troubled for their idols, lest these should be taken captive from them.”
Hosea 10:6
“A present to King Jareb - See on Hos 5:13 (note). If this be a proper name, the person intended is not known in history: but it is most likely that Pul, king of Assyria, is intended, to whom Menahem, king of Israel, appears to have given one of the golden calves, to insure his assistance.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 10:7
"He made his king pass like foam over the face of the water of Samaria, and the high places of idols shall be destroyed, the sin of Israel." LXX: "He has cast out his king from Samaria as a brand on the face of the water, and the altars will be removed." For "foam," which the LXX and Theodotion translated as φρύγανον, that is, "brand," Symmachus has placed ἐπίζεμα, wanting to show the upper waters of boiling water, and the foam and bubbles rising, which the Greeks call πομφόλυγας.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:7-8patristic
Hosea 10:8
“The high-places - Idol temples. Of Aven - Beth-aven. The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars - Owing to the uncultivated and unfrequented state of the land, and of their places of idol worship, the people being all carried away into captivity. “And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us, And to the hills, Fall on us.” “This sublime description of fear and distress our Lord had in view, Luk 23:30, which may be a reference, and not a quotation.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 10:8
- Quoted inLuke 23:30“At that time ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!”’”
'say to the mountains, Fall on us' (weeping women of Jerusalem)
C. Ephraim, a trained heifer who loved to thresh
1. (vv. 9-10)
Hosea 10:9
"Israel sinned from the days of Gabaa: there they stood. They will not be caught at Gabaa in battle against the sons of iniquity. According to my desire, I will rebuke them: when the peoples are gathered together against them and will be corrected over their two iniquities." LXX: "Since Israel sinned on the hills, there they stood; they were not captured in battle on the hills against the sons of lawlessness. He came to rebuke them, and the peoples will be gathered against them when they are rebuked for their two iniquities."
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:9-10patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 10:9
“O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah - There must have been great sin, on both sides, of Israel as well as Benjamin, when Israel punished the atrocity of Gibeah, since God caused Israel so to be smitten before Benjamin.”
Hosea 10:9
“Not only the wickedness that was committed in that age is revived in this, and reacted, a copy from that original, but the wickedness that was committed in that age has been continued in a constant series and succession through all the intervening ages down to this; so that the measure of iniquity had been long in filling; and still there had been made additions to it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 10:10
“When they shall bind themselves in their two furrows - “When they are chastised for their two iniquities,” i.e., the calves in Dan and Beth-el. - Newcome. But this double iniquity may refer to what Jeremiah says, Jer 11:13: “My people have committed two evils.” - 1. They have forsaken me. 2. They have joined themselves to idols.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 10:10
“The Chaldee says, Those that are gathered against them shall exercise dominion over them, in like manner as a pair of heifers are tied to their two furrows. Thus those that would not be God's freemen shall be their enemies' slaves, and shall be made to know the difference between God's service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries, 2 Chron. xii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 10:10
“Ho 10:11, which specifies the two, favors this view. HENDERSON prefers the Keri (Hebrew Margin) "for their two iniquities"; and translates, "when they are bound" in captivity.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
from the days of Gibeah: O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah reaches back to Judges 19-20, the Benjamite outrage and the civil war it triggered, naming a wound the nation carries from its earliest years in the land rather than a recent lapse. There they stood recalls how the tribes once rallied to punish that crime, and the note the battle did not overtake them at Gibeah marks a judgment then withheld that will not be withheld now, the people gathered against Israel this time for a sin grown old rather than new.
2. (v. 11)
Hosea 10:11
"Ephraim likes to tread his grain, as a trained cow; and I passed over his beauty in the hill and climbed over Ephraim: Judah will plow; Jacob will break up the land for himself." LXX: "Ephraim is a cow" (or "heifer:" for what is called Egla in Hebrew means both a calf and heifer), so "Ephraim is a trained cow that loves to thresh; but I will come over his beautiful hill; I will set upon Ephraim, and Judah will be silent. Jacob will again be strengthened."
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:11patristic
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 10:11
“And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn,.... Like a heifer taught to bear the yoke, and to plough; but learned it not, as the Targum; does not like it; chooses to tread out the corn where it can feed upon it, its mouth not being then muzzled, according to the law; oxen or heifers were used both in ploughing and treading out corn, to which the allusion is.”
Hosea 10:11
“Ephraim is an heifer that is taught and that loveth to tread out the corn - The object of the metaphor in these three verses seems to be, to picture, under operations of husbandry, what God willed and trained His people to do, how they took as much pains in evil, as He willed them to do for good. One thing only they did “which” He willed, but not because He willed it - what pleased themselves.”
Hosea 10:11
I passed over upon--I put the yoke upon. make . . . to ride--as in Job 30:22; that is, hurry Ephraim away to a distant region [CALVIN]. LYRA translates, "I will make (the Assyrian) to ride upon Ephraim." MAURER, "I will make Ephraim to carry," namely, a charioteer. his clods--"the clods before him."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 10:11-13
an heifer that is taught: Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn pictures the easiest labor an ox can do, unmuzzled and eating as it works (Deut 25:4), and the Lord now puts the yoke of harder labor on her fair neck, plowing rather than treading, discipline replacing an indulged ease. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy turns the agricultural figure into a call to repentance, the harvest a man reaps matching exactly what he has sown, and it is time to seek the Lord names the window still open before verse 13's charge lands: ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity, the fruit of lies already gathered in.
D. Sow righteousness, break up your fallow ground
1. (vv. 12-13)
Hosea 10:12
“HOSEA uses a great many figures taken from farming. He describe the seeking of the Lord in the former part of this verse as plowing, and sowing, and breaking up fallow ground. I suppose he intends by this to describe conviction of sin, humiliation of soul as the work that plows, the reception of the Truth of the Gospel by faith in Jesus Christ as sowing, for this introduces the Living Seed into the soul. And he here gives two reasons why this matter of seeking the Lord should be attended to at once. His first reason is the season.”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3557: “An Urgent Necessity” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 10:12
“Act righteously and ye shall reap the reward; a reward not of debt, but of grace. in mercy--according to the measure of the divine "mercy," which over and above repays the goodness or "mercy" which we show to our fellow man (Lu 6:38). break . . . fallow ground--Remove your superstitions and vices, and be renewed. seek . . .”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 10:13
“Eaten - Fed yourselves with vain hopes. In thy way - Their way was their idolatry. Mighty men - The next lie on which they lived was the wisdom and valour of their great men.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 10:13
"You harvested impiety and iniquity; you consumed the fruit of lies." LXX: "Why are you silent about his impieties and injustices? You harvested the fruit of deceit." Against my will, I often find myself debating the nuances of the Hebrew language. For we do not merely repeat sentiments in the manner of rhetoricians, we construct words and rouse the admiration of our listeners or readers by means of our declamatory style. Instead, we strive to explain what is obscure, especially to those who are unfamiliar with the language of others.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:13patristic
2. (vv. 14-15)
Hosea 10:14
"Because you trusted in your ways: tumult shall arise among your people because of the multitude of your strong ones, and all your fortifications shall be laid waste. Just as Salman was devastated in his own house, he who was judging Baal on the day of the battle, when a mother was dashed upon her children, so has Bethel done to you because of the malice of your wickedness."
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 10:14-15patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 10:14
“Shall a tumult arise - The enemy shall soon fall upon thy people, and take all thy fortified places. As Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel - Some think that this refers to Jerubbaal, or Gideon’s victory over Zalmunna, general of the Midianites; see Jdg 7:8. Others think that an allusion is made here to the destruction of Arbela, a city of Armenia, by Shalmaneser, here called Shalman; and this while he was only general of the Assyrian forces, and not yet king. I think the history to which this refers is unknown. It seems that it was distinguished by some remarkable ferocities.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 10:14
“Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel--that is, Shalmaneser, a compound name, in which the part common to it and the names of three other Assyrian kings, is omitted; Tiglath-pileser, Esar-haddon, Shar-ezer. So Jeconiah is abbreviated to Coniah.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 10:15
“So shall Bethel do unto you - God was the judge, who condemned them so to suffer from the enemy. The Assyrian was the instrument of the wrath of God. But, in order to point out the moral government of God, the prophet says, neither that God did it, nor that the Assyrian did it, but Bethel, once “the house of God,” now the place where they dishonored God, “because of your great wickedness,” literally, “the wickedness of your wickedness.” In their wickedness itself, there was an essence of wickedness, malice within malice.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 10:15
“Hoshea was the last king of Israel; in him the whole kingdom was cut off and came to a period; it may refer either to him or to some of his predecessors that were cut off by treachery.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
as Shalman spoiled Beth–arbel: in the day of battle, the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children names an atrocity contemporary readers would have recognized at once though its exact identity is debated by the bench, whether Shalmaneser's own campaign or an otherwise unrecorded raid, the horror serving as the coming pattern for what Israel's own cities will suffer. So shall Beth-el do unto you closes the chapter where it opened, the house of vanity delivering the very ruin it promised to prevent, and in a morning the king of Israel utterly cut off names the swiftness of the fall the whole chapter has been tracing.
This page carries no textual note on Hosea 10. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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