Hoseachapter 11
12 verses · KJVHosea book hub →
Key verse
When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.
It stands in Out of Egypt I called my son and taught him to walk, verses 1 to 4.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The tenderest chapter in the prophets. 'When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt' (11:1): the line Matthew applies to the Christ-child's return from Egypt (Matthew 2:15). God remembers teaching Ephraim to walk, taking him up in his arms, drawing him with cords of a man and bands of love, lifting the yoke to feed him: 'but they knew not that I healed them.' Judgment is announced, and then divine anguish breaks in: 'How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? … my heart is turned within me' (11:8). He will not execute the fierceness of his anger, 'for I am God, and not man.'
Context
Prophecy · Hosea · Hosea overview
The world behind this chapter
Hosea 11The history
The picture changes from marriage to parenthood, and every detail is domestic. Teaching a toddler to walk by holding his arms, picking him up when he stumbles, bending down to feed him, these were the ordinary acts of a father in an Israelite household, and they are being used of God and the nation coming out of Egypt.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The cords of a man and bands of love play against the harness of an animal. A working ox was led by a rope through the nose and controlled by the yoke on its neck; the yoke could be lifted off the jaws to let it eat. God says he led Israel with human ties, not livestock tack, and eased the yoke so the animal could feed.
Admah and Zeboiim were two of the cities of the plain destroyed alongside Sodom and Gomorrah. Naming the two lesser-known ones rather than the famous pair is deliberate, these are the cities nobody thinks about, and the point is that God cannot bring himself to do to Israel what was done to them.
The lion's roar at the end is a homing signal rather than a threat. In this picture the children come trembling from the west, from Egypt and Assyria, and are settled in their houses, the exiles walking back along the same roads they were marched out on.
What it meant to them
This is the chapter where the argument breaks open. God asks how he can give Israel up, and answers his own question by saying that his heart recoils within him and his compassion grows warm, and then gives the reason: I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst.
For hearers who understood judgment as a machine that ran once it was started, that was the most important sentence in the book. A human judge in that position would have finished it. God says his holiness is precisely why he will not.
Sources cited
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
Where the chapter sits
Hosea 11 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).
‘When Israel was a child’. ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’, the covenant love of a father for Israel, applied by Matthew to Christ (Matt 2:15).
Before it: The marriage and the children, chapters 1–3.
The whole shape of Hosea→The structure of this chapter
Threads running through this chapter
- Out of Egypt have I called my sonType, v. 1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Out of Egypt I called my son and taught him to walk
1. (v. 1)
Hosea 11:1
"Just as the morning passes, the king of Israel passes away: for Israel is a boy, and I have loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt: they called them: so they went from their presence: they sacrificed to Baalim, and offered sacrifices to idols." LXX: "They have cast off the morning, the king of Israel has been cast off, because Israel is a little one, and I have loved him, and have called his sons out of Egypt.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 11:1-2patristic
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 11:1
“When Israel was a child, then I loved him - God loved Israel, as He Himself formed it, ere it corrupted itself. He loved it for the sake of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as he saith, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated” Mal 1:2. Then, when it was weak, helpless, oppressed by the Egyptians, afflicted, destitute, God loved him, cared for him, delivered him from oppression, and called him out of Egypt. : “When did He love Israel?”
Hosea 11:1
“What baseness was this, and how shameful the wickedness, to make such a return to the author of their life and salvation? The Prophet therefore enhances the sin and baseness of the people by this circumstance, that the Lord had loved them even from childhood; when yet, he says, Israel was a child, I loved him The nativity of the people was their coming out of Egypt.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Hosea 11:1
“Called my son - Adopted him to be my son, and as my son, provided for him, and brought him out of servitude. Out of Egypt - But Israel, the first adopted son was a type of Christ the first-born. And the history of Israel's coming out was a type of Christ's future coming out of Egypt.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 11:1
- Quoted inMatthew 2:15where he stayed until the death of Herod. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
'that it might be fulfilled... Out of Egypt I called my son' (contested: typological/corporate-Israel reading, each view at full strength)
called my son out of Egypt: When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt looks back to the exodus as an act of fatherly love toward a nation still in its infancy, the calling out of Egypt naming Israel corporately as God's son (Ex 4:22-23). Matthew 2:15 quotes the verse of the infant Jesus carried back from Egypt after Herod's death, reading Israel's exodus as a pattern Messiah himself relives and completes, the true Son succeeding where the son of Hosea's day failed. The bench states this as Matthew's own reading of the text, the exodus recapitulated in the one greater than Israel.
2. (vv. 2-4)
Hosea 11:2
“They were fond of idols, and worshipped them: They sacrificed to Baalim, first one Baal and then another, and burnt incense to graven images, though they were called to by the prophets of the Lord again and again not to do this abominable thing which he hated. Idolatry was the sin which from the beginning, and all along, had most easily beset them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 11:2
“As they called them, so they went from them - The prophet changes his tone, no longer speaking of that one first call of God to Israel as a whole, whereby He brought out Israel as one man, His one son; which one call he obeyed. Here he speaks of God’s manifold calls to the people, throughout their whole history, which they as often disobeyed, and not disobeyed only, but went contrariwise. “They called them.” Whether God employed Moses, or the judges, or priests, or kings, or prophets, to call them, it was all one.”
Hosea 11:2
“As they called them--"they," namely, monitors sent by Me. "Called," in Ho 11:1, suggests the idea of the many subsequent calls by the prophets. went from them--turned away in contempt (Jer 2:27).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 11:3
“I taught Ephraim also to go - Literally, “and I set Ephraim on his feet;” i. e., while they were rebelling, I was helping and supporting them, as a nurse doth her child, teaching it to go with little steps, step by step, “accustoming it to go by little and little without weariness;” and not only so, but “taking them by their arms;” or it may be equally translated, “He took them in His arms,” i. e., God not only gently “taught” them “to walk,” but when they were wearied, “He took them up in His arms,” as a nurse doth a child when tired with its little attempts to walk.”
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 11:3
"And I, as a foster father to Ephraim, carried them in my arms, and they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with cords of Adam, with the bonds of love. And I will be to them like one who lifts the yoke from their cheeks, and I inclined to him so he could eat." LXX: "And I gathered" ((or "placed")) Ephraim, I took him up on my arm; and they did not know that I healed them in the corruption of humans. I drew them with the cords of my love.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 11:3-4patristic
Hosea 11:3
“I taught Ephraim also to go,.... All the tribes of Israel and Ephraim, or the ten tribes with the rest; these the Lord instructed in the way of his commandments, and taught them to walk therein; he his angel before them, to conduct them through the wilderness; yea, he himself went before them in the pillar of cloud by day, and in the pillar of fire by night, to which history this seems to refer.”
Hosea 11:3
“Ac 13:18, which probably refers to this passage of Hosea; He took them by the arms, to guide them that they might not stray, and to hold them up that they might not stumble. knew not that I healed them--that is, that My design was to restore them spiritually and temporally (Ex 15:26).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 11:4
“I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love,.... As Ephraim is compared to a heifer in the preceding chapter, here he is said to be drawn; but not with such cords and bands as cattle are, but with such as men are; in a rational and gentle way, in a kind, loving, tender, humane, friendly, and fatherly way and manner; so the Lord drew Israel on in the wilderness, till he was brought to Canaan's land, by bestowing kind favours upon them, and by making precious promises to them.”
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 11:4
“And as the lover of humankind I will draw them to believing in cords of love, just as that which is written in the Gospel: "No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me will have drawn him." But they thought that my light yoke was very heavy; and I bent toward them, leaving the kingdom of heaven so that I may eat with them, having assumed the human form. Or rather, I gave them my body as food; I was both food and table companion.”
Jerome· written before 420· COMMENTARY ON HOSEA 3:11patristic
Hosea 11:4
“I drew them with cords of a man - This is a reference to leading strings, one end of which is held by the child, the other by the nurse, by which the little one, feeling some support, and gaining confidence, endeavors to walk.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 11:4
“Cords of man - With such kindness as best fits and most prevails with a man. I was to them - As a careful husband-man in due season takes the yoke from his labouring oxen, and takes off the muzzle with which they were kept from eating, when at work.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
they sacrificed unto Baalim: As they called them, so they went from them: the more the Lord called through Moses and the prophets, the further Israel walked into Baal worship, love answered with idolatry through the whole span of the nation's history. Verses 3-4 turn tender, the Lord as the parent who taught Ephraim to walk, took him by the arms, and healed him without his even knowing whose hand it was, drawing him with cords of a man and bands of love, the gentlest possible language for covenant discipline, lifting the yoke off the jaws and laying meat before him like a father feeding a child rather than a farmer driving an ox.
B. They refuse to return, so the sword falls on their citiesvv. 5-7
the Assyrian shall be his king: He shall not return into the land of Egypt reads with the readings named: some of the bench take it literally against a flight to Egypt for help, others read it as Egypt standing for the old bondage now to be exchanged for a new one under Assyria, since they refused to return to the Lord who called them. The sword shall abide on his cities pictures the coming invasion consuming what their own counsels built, and my people are bent to backsliding names a settled posture rather than a single lapse, called to the most High yet none exalting him, the plea met with silence.
Hosea 11:5
"It won't return to the land of Egypt, and Assur himself" (The Vulgate adds "is") "its king, because they refused to convert. The sword has begun in its cities, and will consume its chosen ones: it will eat their heads, and my people will hang in my return. But a yoke will be imposed on them together, which will not be removed." LXX: "Ephraim will dwell in Egypt, and Assur himself will be its king: because he did not want to convert.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 11:5-7patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 11:5
“He shall not return to Egypt - Some had probably returned already to Egypt; the rest were looking to Egypt for help, and rebelling against the Assyrian, (whose servant their king Hoshea had become), and making alliance with So king of Egypt. The prophet tells them, as a whole, that they shall not return to Egypt to which they looked, but should have the Assyrian for their king, whom they would not. “They refused to return” to God, who lovingly called them; therefore, what they desired, they should not have; and what they feared, that they should have.”
Hosea 11:5
“In a figurative sense, "he shall return to Egypt" (Ho 9:3), that is, to Egypt-like bondage; also many Jewish fugitives were literally to return to Egypt, when the Holy Land was to be in Assyrian and Chaldean hands.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 11:6
“The sword shall abide on his cities - Israel was agitated with external and intestine wars from the time of Jeroboam the Second. Although Zechariah his son reigned twelve years, yet it was in continual troubles; and he was at last slain by the rebel Shallum, who, having reigned one month, was slain by Menahem. Pekahiah succeeded his father Menahem, and reigned two years, and was killed by Pekah, son of Remaliah.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 11:7
“And My people are bent to backsliding from Me - Literally, “are hung to it!” as we say, “a man’s whole being “hangs” on a thing.” A thing “hung to” or “on” another, sways to and fro within certain limits, but its relation to that on which it is hung, remains immovable. Its power of motion is restrained within those limits. So Israel, so the sinner, however he veer to and fro in the details and circumstances of his sin, is fixed and immovable in his adherence to his sin itself.”
C. How can I give you up, Ephraim? My heart turns within me
1. (vv. 8-9)
Hosea 11:8
“How shall I give thee up - See the notes on Hos 6:4, where we have similar words from similar feeling. Mine heart is turned within me - Justice demands thy punishment; Mercy pleads for thy life. As thou changest, Justice resolves to destroy, or Mercy to save. My heart is oppressed, and I am weary with repenting - with so frequently changing my purpose. All this, though spoken after the manner of men, shows how merciful, compassionate, and loath to punish the God of heaven is.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 11:8
“Give thee up - To utter destruction. Admah and Zeboim were two of the four cities which were destroyed with fire from heaven. My repentings - Not that God is ever fluctuating or unresolved; but these are expressions after the manner of men, to shew what severity Israel had deserved, and yet how divine grace would be glorified in sparing them.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 11:8
“So the phrase is used of a new turn given to the feeling (Ps 105:25). repentings--God speaks according to human modes of thought (Nu 23:19). God's seeming change is in accordance with His secret everlasting purpose of love to His people, to magnify His grace after their desperate rebellion.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 11:8
“His bowels yearned towards them, and his soul was grieved for their sin and misery, Judg. x. Since I spoke against him my bowels are troubled for him. When God was to give up his Son to be a sacrifice for sin, and a Saviour for sinners, he did not say, How shall I give him up?”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 11:9
“I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger - It is the voice of “mercy, rejoicing over judgment.” mercy prevails in God over the rigor of His justice, that though He will not suffer them to go utterly unpunished, yet He will abate of it, and not utterly consume them. I will not return to destroy Ephraim - God saith that He will not, as it were, glean Ephraim, going over it again, as man doth, in order to leave nothing over. As it is in Jeremiah, “They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel, as a vine.”
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 11:9
“Return - Conquerors that plunder the conquered city, carry away the wealth of it, and after some time return to burn it; Not man - Therefore my compassions fail not. The holy One - A holy God, and in covenant, though not with all, yet with many among you.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 11:9
“THE Lord, speaking of Himself as, "God, and not man," mentions as the special point in which He is above and beyond man, that He has greater Grace, greater long-suffering, and greater willingness to forgive—"I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man." In a thousand respects, God is greater than man!”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2447: “"God, and Not Man"—What Does It Mean?” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Hosea 11:9
“One would think this were a reason why he should reject such a provoking people. God knows how to spare and pardon poor sinners, not only without any reproach to his holiness, but very much to the honour of it, as he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and therein declares his righteousness, now Christ has purchased the pardon and he has promised it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?: how shall I deliver thee, Israel? is the emotional summit of the book, the Lord naming Admah and Zeboim, the two lesser cities destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah (Deut 29:23), as the fate Ephraim deserves and then recoiling from pronouncing it, mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger does not cancel the judgment already announced in the chapters around it but restrains it from becoming annihilation, for I am God, and not man grounding the restraint in the difference between divine and human anger, the Holy One who will not simply cast off what he has loved.
2. (vv. 10-12)
Hosea 11:10
“They shall walk after the Lord - They shall discern the operations of his providence, when, He shall roar like a lion - When he shall utter his majestic voice, Cyrus shall make his decree. The people shall tremble - be in a state of commotion; every one hurrying to avail himself of the opportunity to return to his own land.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 11:10
“The word of the Lord (so says the Chaldee) shall be as a lion that roars. Christ is called the lion of the tribe of Judah, and his gospel, in the beginning of it, was the voice of one crying in the wilderness. When Christ cried with a loud voice it was as when a lion roared, Rev. x.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 11:11
“They shall tremble - At their return into their own land, some shall hasten, yet with solicitude, out of Egypt, whither they fled for shelter; others like doves shall hasten out of Assyria, but with fear and trembling. I will place them - A seasonable and comfortable promise.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 11:11
“Wherever those are that belong to the election of grace--east, west, north, or south--they shall hear the joyful sound, and be wrought upon by it; those of Egypt and Assyria shall come together; those that lay most remote from each other shall meet in Christ, and be incorporated in the church. Of the uniting of Egypt and Assyria, it was prophesied, Isa. xix.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 11:12
“Ephraim compasseth me about with lies - I think this verse does not well unite with the above; it belongs to another subject, and should begin the following chapter, as in the Hebrew. Judah yet ruleth with God - There is an allusion here to Gen 32:24, where Jacob having “wrestled with the Angel,” had his name changed to Israel, one that rules with God. That glory the Israelites had lost by their idolatry; but Judah still retained the true worship, and alone deserved the name of Israel.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 11:12
"Ephraim surrounded me with his falsehood, and the house of Israel and Judah with his deceitfulness. But now God has perceived them, and they will be called people of God's sanctuary." The Hebrews tell a story of this kind: In the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, when on one side there was a mountain, on the other the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's army surrounded them, and the trapped people were held, the other tribes despairing of salvation and either wishing to return to Egypt or wanting to fight, only Judah faithfully entered the sea.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 11:12patristic
Hosea 11:12
“With lies - Play the hypocrite with me still. Yet ruleth - While idolaters are slaves to the devil, the true worshippers of God, like princes, rule with God. Faithful - Retains purity, at least truth of worship, and comparatively is faithful.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 11:12
“But as this verse praises Judah, whereas Ho 12:2 censures him, it must belong rather to the eleventh chapter and a new prophecy begins at the twelfth chapter. To avoid this, MAURER translates this verse as a censure, "Judah wanders with God," that is, though having the true God, he wanders after false gods. ruleth with God--to serve God is to reign.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
he shall roar like a lion: They shall walk after the Lord: he shall roar like a lion turns the lion figure from threat to summons, the same roar that elsewhere announces judgment (Amos 1:2, 3:8) here calling the children home trembling as a bird out of Egypt and a dove out of Assyria, the two lands of exile named as the two directions the gathering will come from. The chapter closes with Ephraim's lies and Israel's deceit set against Judah, who yet ruleth with God and is faithful with the saints, the bench reading this not as flattery of Judah's own conduct elsewhere condemned but as a comparative statement standing at this point in the record.
This page carries no textual note on Hosea 11. 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 context
John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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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