Hoseachapter 13
16 verses · Hosea · 755 to 715 BC · The Twelve
Where is your king now to save you in all your cities, and the rulers to whom you said, “Give me a king and princes”?
Introduction
Hosea, The Twelve, Hosea Overview.
Hosea spoke this chapter as Assyria closed on Samaria, about 725 to 722 BC, to Israelites about to lose their country. It is the last and heaviest charge in the book. Its hearers had seen men kiss the calf images in worship, and they knew the animals that hunted the flocks in their hills. The chapter traces the nation's fall to its years of plenty. Listen for the four animals and the order in which they come. Listen also for the promise set in the middle of the sentence of death, which Paul takes up at 1 Corinthians 15:55.
Context
- Who
- Israelites about to lose their country
- What
- The final charge against Ephraim, from the kissing of calf images to the coming destruction of Samaria, with a promise of ransom from death at its centre.
- Where
- The northern kingdom and its capital Samaria, as the Assyrian army closes in.
- When
- About 725 to 722 BC, as Assyria closed on Samaria; the date is approximate, and the Hebrew Bible counts the last of the chapter's 16 English verses as Hosea 14:1.
- Why
- To show that Israel's pride in its years of plenty had turned it from the God who saved it, and that He alone could rescue it from death.
Historical context
Men kissing calves describes an act of worship people actually performed. Kissing an image, or kissing the hand toward it, was the ordinary gesture of homage across the region, and the same practice lies behind the seven thousand in Elijah's day whose mouths had not kissed Baal. Hosea's contempt is aimed at grown men bowing to something a silversmith had made that year.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The four animals in the middle are the predators of that country, and they are listed in the order a shepherd feared them. A lion in the open, a leopard watching a path, a bear robbed of her cubs, herders knew that a bear whose cubs were taken was the single most dangerous animal in the hills, and then a wild beast tearing.
The childbirth image is medical and grim. A child who does not present at the mouth of the womb at the right moment is a labour going wrong, and in that world it usually killed both mother and child. Israel is called an unwise son who will not come at the proper time.
The atrocity named at the end was standard Assyrian practice, boasted about in their own royal inscriptions and carved on their palace walls: cities put to the sword, pregnant women ripped open, children dashed against stones. Hearers were not being shown a nightmare. They were being shown the newsreel of what happened at the last city that resisted.
Significance
The heart of the charge is deceptively gentle: when they had fed, they were satisfied; being satisfied, their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me. Prosperity, not persecution, is what ended the relationship.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And then, in the middle of the darkest chapter in the book, comes the sentence Paul would later quote over an empty grave: I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death, death, where are your plagues? The promise is planted in the exact spot where the nation dies.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts sets this chapter in the Ashkenazi Haftarah of Vayetzei, Hosea 12:13 to 14:10, on the Sabbath of the portion Genesis 28:10 to 32:3. The Sephardi rite reads Hosea 11:7 to 12:12 on that Sabbath instead, and it does not reach this chapter. A congregation keeping that cycle hears the reading aloud after the Torah portion of its Sabbath. That table carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days, so any further public reading of this chapter is left to a source that holds those readings.
The table's own notes say that its verse numbers are the Hebrew ones, which part from an English Bible in several places. A reader counting in an English translation may find the start or the end of this reading a verse away.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the second verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Appendix to Vaetchanan 2:2. Under the fourteenth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tzav 4:2.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries. He is quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY, and every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern. His lemmas, which carry the verse in that translation's wording, are never quoted.
Rashi reads the first verse as the rise of Jeroboam. "When Jeroboam showed zeal for the Omnipresent and spoke harshly against Solomon", he merited to be raised to the kingship (Rashi on Hosea 13:1:1 and 13:1:2). The second verse is the house of Jehu, who "saw all this" and went on sinning (Rashi on Hosea 13:2:1).
At the fifth verse Rashi meets a word found nowhere else. "There is no similarity to this in Scripture", so he reads it from its setting as a land where people long for good and find none (Rashi on Hosea 13:5:2). The bear robbed of its cubs is "entirely attired with bereavements and ready to bereave people" (Rashi on Hosea 13:8:1).
At the tenth verse Rashi sets Jonathan's rendering aside: "But I say that it is unnecessary to interpret it other than its apparent meaning". God stands far off to see where their king is and what their end will be (Rashi on Hosea 13:10:1). The bound iniquity of the twelfth verse is kept in store: "I did not overlook it; it is laid up with Me" (Rashi on Hosea 13:12:1). The ransom from the grave at the fourteenth verse Rashi reads as what God would have done, set against the words of death He now speaks over them (Rashi on Hosea 13:14:1).
The corpus carries three further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Hosea 13:4:1, 13:7:1 and 13:11:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse it holds Pesikta Rabbati 4:1 and Vayikra Rabbah 12:5. On the second verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 7:15, Midrash Lekach Tov on Ruth 4:17:2, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Appendix to Vaetchanan 2:2, Sanhedrin 63b:13 and Sanhedrin 63b:14. It holds Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 277:1 there as well. On the fifth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 32:10:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 3:12:2.
On the sixth verse it holds Berakhot 32a:12, Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 5:8, Ein Yaakov, Sukkah 5:12, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 25:7, Sukkah 52b:6 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 797:1. On the seventh verse it holds Pesikta Rabbati 29:1 and Pesikta Rabbati 29:20. On the ninth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 32:5:1. On the eleventh verse it holds Pesikta Rabbati 33:1. On the twelfth verse it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 42:35:3 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 24:10. On the thirteenth verse it holds Pesikta DeRav Kahana 3:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 265:4.
On the fourteenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Pesakhim 8:7, Ein Yaakov, Pesakhim 8:9, Jerusalem Talmud Sotah 7:1:5 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Tzav 4:2. It holds Midrash Tanchuma, Tzav 2:1, Midrash Tehillim 116:5, Midrash Tehillim 140:1 and Pesachim 87b:20 there as well. On the fifteenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Gittin 3:2, Gittin 31b:14, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:19 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 5:11. It holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 5:12, Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 1:15:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 41:2:3 and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 41:6:2 there as well. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Hosea 13:1:1 to 13:14:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Hosea 13:4:1, 13:7:1 and 13:11:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/hosea/13.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the Haftarah table and its note on Hebrew verse numbers.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Exalted once, then dead through Baal: gone like morning mist
Hosea 13:1-3
incurred guilt through Baal: The chapter opens with Ephraim's lost standing, "When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling", then names the cause: "he incurred guilt through Baal, and he died". Cast images and idols made by craftsmen follow, and the worshippers "kiss the calves" their own hands made, the maker bowing to the made.
Hosea 13:1
"While Ephraim was speaking, horror invaded Israel, and he sinned in Baal and died, and now they have added more sins. They made an idol for themselves from their silver, resembling the idols made by craftsmen.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 13:1-2patristic
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 13:1
“Some say that trembling was excited in Israel when Ephraim, that is, Jeroboam, who was born of that tribe, exhorted the people to worship the calves. By the word rtt, retat, "trembling," they understand, that the people were so astonished, that they without thought immediately obeyed the will, or rather the humour, of their impious king.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Hosea 13:1
“When Ephraim spake trembling - that is, probably “there was ‘trembling.’” : “Ephraim was once very awful, so as, while he spake, the rest of the tribes were ready to tremble.” The prophet contrasts two conditions of Ephraim, of prosperity, and destruction. His prosperity he owed to the undeserved mercy of God, who blessed him for Joseph’s sake; his destruction, to his own sin. There is no period recorded, “when Ephraim spake trembling,” i. e., in humility. Pride was his characteristic, almost as soon as he had a separate existence as a tribe (see the note at Hos 5:5).”
Clarke notes that to kiss an idol was the old act of worship, and he read the line as a test. Whoever claimed to offer sacrifice had to kiss the calves in the open. Jerome read it as sacrifice to the calves as if offering human victims.
Hosea 13:2
“And now they sin more and more - They increase in every kind of vice, having abandoned the great Inspirer of virtue. Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves - This was the test. If there be a Jew that pretends to sacrifice, and whose conversion is dubious, let him come openly and kiss the calves. This will show what he is; no real Jew will do this. If he be an idolater, he will not scruple. This was the ancient method of adoration. 1. They kissed the idol.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
like the morning mist: Barnes notes that Israel flourished most under Jeroboam II, and a people often stands highest just before it falls. Like the early dew, it vanishes within an hour. The Greek text Jerome read ended the list with vapor from locusts or from tears, his copies divided between the two.
Hosea 13:3
Therefore they will be like morning clouds, and like morning dew that passes away, like dust swept up by a whirlwind, and like smoke from a chimney." (Vulgate "passing by"). And similarly in the Septuagint: "changing only the final image, 'and like the vapor from locusts' or 'from tears,' since we find it rendered as either 'locusts' or 'tears' in most manuscripts. For, he says, they sacrificed to calves as though slaughtering men; therefore they will be like morning clouds, and like the morning dew that passes, like dust swept up by a whirlwind, and like smoke from a chimney."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 13:3patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:3
“Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud - There is often a fair show of prosperity, out of God; but it is short-lived. “The third generation,” says the pagan proverb, “never enjoys the ill-gotten gain.” The highest prosperity of an ungodly state is often the next to its fall. Israel never so flourished, as under Jeroboam II. Bright and glistening with light is “the early dew;” in an hour it is gone, as if it had never been.”
They were filled and forgot me; I will meet them like a bear
Hosea 13:4-6
no Savior besides Me: Against the calves stands the LORD's claim, unbroken since Egypt: "you know no God but Me, for there is no Savior besides Me". Verse 6 gives the book's turn, "when they were satisfied, their hearts became proud, and as a result they forgot Me" (Deuteronomy 8:11 to 14).
Hosea 13:4
“I am the Lord thy God - This was the first discovery I made of myself to you, and the first commandment I gave; and I showed you that besides me there was no Savior. There is a remarkable addition in the Septuagint here: “But I am Jehovah thy God, who stretched out the heavens and created the earth. And I showed them not to thee, that thou shouldest walk after them. And I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” etc. This might have been once in the Hebrew text.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:4
“He gave them a law forbidding them to worship any other: " Thou shalt know no God but me; not only shalt not own and worship any other, but shalt not acquaint thyself with any other, nor make the rites and usages of the Gentiles familiar to thee." Note, It is a happy ignorance not to know that which we ought not to meddle with.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
I knew you in the wilderness: Barnes reads God's knowing as care: the LORD knew Israel in the wilderness by meeting its needs in a land of drought with no food. God knew Israel first, and so deserved to be known. Verse 4 asks Israel to know no God but the LORD.
Hosea 13:5
“I did know thee in the wilderness - “God so knew them, as to deserve to be known by them. By “knowing” them, He shewed how He ought to be acknowledged by them.” “As we love God, because He first loved us,” so we come to know and own God, having first been owned and known of Him. God showed His knowledge of them, by knowing and providing for their needs; He knew them “in the wilderness, in the land of great drought,” where the land yielded neither food nor water.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:5
"But I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt: and thou shalt know no God but me, and there is no saviour beside me. I knew thee in the desert, in the land of drought. According to their pastures they were filled, and were made full: and they lifted up their heart, and have forgotten me." LXX: "But I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt: thou shalt not know any god but me, and there is no savior beside me.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 13:5-6patristic
their hearts became proud: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown set this exalted heart against verse 1, where Ephraim was rightly exalted in Israel. Prosperity, the very reason to remember God, became the cause of forgetting him. Clarke adds that they became a prey to their enemies.
Hosea 13:6
According to their pasture - They had a rich pasture, and were amply supplied with every good. They became exalted in their heart, forgat their God, and became a prey to their enemies. “He that exalteth himself shall be abased.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:6
“In proportion as I fed them to the full, they were so satiated that "their heart was exalted"; a sad contrast to the time when, by God's blessing, Ephraim truly "exalted himself in Israel" (Ho 13:1). therefore have they forgotten me--the very reason why men should remember God (namely, prosperity, which comes from Him) is the cause often of their forgetting Him.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 13:7-8
like a lion I will pounce: The shepherd language the book uses elsewhere reverses: "like a lion I will pounce on them; like a leopard I will lurk by the path". Then comes "a bear robbed of her cubs", proverbially the most dangerous animal a traveler could meet, and "I will tear open their chests".
Hosea 13:7
"And I will be to them like a lioness, like a leopard on the road to Assyria; I will confront them like a bear that has lost its cubs, and I will tear open their chests; there I will devour them like a lion - the wild animals will tear them apart." They were filled and satisfied; they lifted up their hearts and forgot me.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 13:7-8patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 13:7
“Leopards lurk in thickets and thence spring on their victims. observe--that is, lie in wait for them. Several manuscripts, the Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac, and Arabic read, by a slight change of the Hebrew vowel pointing, "by the way of Assyria," a region abounding in leopards and lions. English Version is better.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 13:7
“I will be unto them as a lion - They had waxen fat, were full; yet it was, to become themselves a prey. Their wealth which they were proud of, which they abused, allured their enemies. To cut off all hopes of God’s mercy, He says that he will be to them, as those creatures of His, which never spare. The fierceness of the lion, and the swiftness of the leopard, together portray a speedy inexorable chastisement.”
a bear robbed of her cubs: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the torn chest as the pericardium, the membrane around the heart. Clarke notes that a wild beast that has seized its prey tears first at the heart, where the blood is. The lion here is labi, the old strong lion.
Hosea 13:8
“As a bear - bereaved - This is a figure to denote excessive ferocity. See the note on 2Sa 17:8 (note), where a remarkable instance is given. And will rend the caul of their heart - Every savage beast goes first to the seat of the blood when it has seized its prey; as in this fluid they delight more than in the most delicate parts of the flesh. There will I devour them like a lion - לביא labi, the old strong lion; drinking the blood, tearing the flesh, and breaking the bones to extract the marrow.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:8
"Writers on the natures of beasts say that none is more savage than a she bear, when bereaved of her whelps" [JEROME]. caul of . . . heart--the membrane enclosing it: the pericardium. there--"by the way" (Ho 13:7).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
I gave you a king in my anger and took him away in wrath
Hosea 13:9-11
You are destroyed, O Israel: Verse 9 states Israel's ruin and its cause, "You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against Me". "So in My anger I gave you a king, and in My wrath I took him away" covers Saul's removal and the kingdom's usurper kings.
Hosea 13:9
“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thy help - This is one of the concise sayings of Hosea, which is capable of many shades of meaning. The five words, one by one, are literally, “Israel, thy destruction, for” or “that, in” or “against Me, in” or “against thy help.” Something must be supplied any way; the simplest seems; “O Israel, thy destruction” is, “that” thou hast been, hast rebelled “against Me, against thy help” .”
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 13:9
“All the blame of Israel's ruin laid upon themselves: O Israel! thy perdition is thence; it is of and from thyself; or, " It has destroyed thee, O Israel! that is, all that sin and folly of thine which thou art before charged with. As thy own wickedness has many a time corrected thee, so that has now at length destroyed thee." Note, Wilful sinners are self-destroyers.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 13:9
"Your destruction, Israel, only your help is with me. Where is your king? May he save you now in all your cities; and your judges, of whom you said: Give me a king and princes: I will give you a king in my fury, and take away in my indignation." LXX: "Who will help you in your corruption, O Israel? Where is your king? May he save you in all your cities and judge you as you said: 'Give me a king and prince.' I gave you a king and prince in my anger and took away in my fury."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 13:9-11patristic
Hosea 13:9
“IT would be a very important subject for our meditation if we kept to the text and thought upon its great Truth of God—that the ruin of man is altogether of himself and the salvation of man is altogether of God. These two statements, I believe, comprehend the main points of a sound theology. There have been divisions in the Church over these points where there ought not to have been any. The Calvinist has said and said right bravely, that salvation is of Grace alone.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2425: “Self-destroyed, Yet Saved” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Where is your king now: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown weigh two readings. The King James has God say he will be Israel's king, and the Septuagint and Vulgate ask where the king is to save Israel. Clarke hears Israel's old demand for a king and princes, the day it cast off God and chose Saul.
Hosea 13:10
“Where are thy judges, who by administering public justice should preserve the public peace? For it is righteousness and peace that kiss each other. Where are thy judges that thou hadst such a desire of and such a dependence upon, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 13:10
“Give me a king and princes? - Referring to the time in which they cast off the Divine theocracy and chose Saul in the place of Jehovah.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 13:10
“I will be thy king; where--rather, as the Margin and the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, "Where now is thy king?" [MAURER]. English Version is, however, favored both by the Hebrew, by the antithesis between Israel's self-chosen and perishing kings, and God, Israel's abiding King (compare Ho 3:4, 5). where . . .”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
in My wrath I took him away: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown apply the verse to Israel's last kings: Hoshea took away Pekah, and the king of Assyria would take Hoshea. Gregory drew a lesson for people under a wicked ruler. God gives such kings in anger, so the people should blame their own sin.
Hosea 13:11
“I gave thee a king in Mine anger - o: “God, when He is asked for ought amiss, sheweth displeasure, when He giveth, hath mercy, when He giveth not.” “The devil was heard,” (in asking to enter into the swine) “the Apostle was not heard,” (when he prayed that the messenger of Satan might depart from him) , “God heard him whom He purposed to condemn; and He heard not him whom He willed to heal.” : “God, when propitious, denieth what we love, when we love amiss; when wroth, He giveth to the lover, what he loveth amiss.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:11
“But let no one who suffers such a ruler, blame him whom he suffers: because his being subject to the power of a wicked ruler was doubtless of his own desert. Let him therefore rather blame the fault of his own evil doings, than the injustice of his ruler. For it is written, "I will give thee kings in Mine anger." Why then do we scorn their being set over us, whose authority over us we endure from the anger of the Lord?”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book 25:34patristic
O death, where are your plagues? Samaria bears her guilt
Hosea 13:12-13
his sin is stored up: "The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is stored up" pictures guilt kept like a sealed document. Verse 13 turns to birth: "Labor pains come upon him", since "he fails to present himself at the opening of the womb". The labor stalls at the point of delivery.
Hosea 13:12
"The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his hidden sin is enfolded. Pangs of childbirth come for him, but he is an unwise son, for now he does not present himself at the opening of the womb." LXX: "The congregation of iniquity of Ephraim; his sin is concealed. Labor pains shall come upon him as of a woman giving birth. This is your wise son, for he will not now be able to stand the test of the sons' contrition."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 13:12-13patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 13:12
“Is bound up - As sins unpardoned; for to loose sins is to forgive, and to bind sins is to charge them upon the sinner, Matt. xvi, 19. Hid - Not from God, but laid up with God against the day of recompense.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 13:12
“It is laid up in safety, and will not be forgotten, nor the evidence against him lost; but it is laid up in secret; it is hid; the sinner himself is not aware of it. It is bound up in God's omniscience, in the sinner's own conscience. Note, The sin of sinners is not forgotten till it is pardoned, but an exact account is kept of it, which will be opened in proper time.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
he is an unwise son: Wesley pictures Ephraim as an unwise son at the opening of the womb, now willing and now unwilling, until he dies in the delay. Barnes compares the labor pains to God's chastisements. Pains that bring no birth end in death for mother and son, and so does chastisement without repentance.
Hosea 13:13
“The sorrows - The punishment of his sins will overtake him suddenly, with great anguish. An unwise son - A foolish son, who endangers himself and his mother. He should not stay - As a child that sticks in the birth, so is Ephraim, one while will, another while will not return to God; and thus dies under the delay.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:13
“The sorrows of a travailing woman are come upon him - The travail-pangs are violent, sudden, irresistible. A moment before they come, all is seemingly perfect health; they come, increase in vehemence, and, if they accomplish not that for which they are sent, end in death, both to the mother and the child. Such are God’s chastisements. If they end not in the repentance of the sinner, they continue on in his destruction.”
I will ransom them: The Hebrew of "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from Death" reads two ways. As statements, the clauses promise rescue from death, and Paul takes the taunt into 1 Corinthians 15:55. As questions, they continue the judgment of the verses around them.
Hosea 13:14
“No one could know Wisdom; for no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Therefore, He Himself revealed to John with whom Wisdom was; and for this reason, he said, not as his own, but what Wisdom had infused in him: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Wisdom does not know destruction, it does not know wickedness. For destruction could not hold it, who said: Where, O death, is your victory?”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · The Prayer of Job and David 1:9.31patristic
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 13:14
“I will ransom them from the power of the grave - In their captivity they are represented as dead and buried, which is a similar view to that taken of the Jews in the Babylonish captivity by Ezekiel in his vision of the valley of dry bones. They are now lost as to the purpose for which they were made, for which God had wrought so many miracles for them and for their ancestors; but the gracious purpose of God shall not be utterly defeated.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 13:14
“I will pull down those prison- walls, and bring out all that are confined therein, the bad of whom I will remove into other prisons, the good I will restore to glorious liberty. Repentance shall be hid - I will never, as a man that repenteths, change my word and purpose, saith the Lord. What a glorious promise is this, which is interposed in the midst of all these judgments!”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 13:14
“This verse stands in the midst of a long line of threats. Like a rock of mercy, it rises in the midst of a sea of wrath. Hence many critics have felt bound to see in it a continuation of threat. I am quite content to accept the united authority of the Authorized and the Revised Versions, and to believe that the mind of the Holy Spirit is fairly expressed in the grand old Bible of our fathers. I regard our text as a promise overflowing with delight.”
Cross references
Hosea 13:14
- Quoted in1 Corinthians 15:55“Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?”
'O death, where is thy sting?'
Hosea 13:15-16
"Although he flourishes among his brothers, an east wind will come", a wind from the LORD that dries Ephraim's fountain and spring. Verse 16 names Samaria's fall plainly and records the ordinary brutality of ancient conquest, the same atrocity 2 Kings 15:16 records at Tiphsah under Menahem.
Hosea 13:15
"The Lord shall bring upon him a burning wind, and shall wither all his veins: and shall make his sources desolate, and he shall pull down all his fences: because he hath done wickedly." LXX: "The Lord will bring a scorching wind from the desert upon them, and he will dry up their springs. Their fountains shall be desolate, the land will be parched, and all that is in it will be ruined."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 13:15patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 13:15
“Though - (literally, “when”) he (shall) be fruitful among his brethren Fruitfulness was God’s promise to Ephraim, and was expressed in his name. It was fulfilled, abused, and, in the height of its fulfillment, was taken away. Ephraim is pictured as a fair and fruitful tree.”
Hosea 13:15
“He is fruitful in respect of the plentiful products of his country and the great numbers of its inhabitants; it was both a rich and a populous tribe, as was foretold concerning it; but sin turns this fruitful tribe into barrenness. Joseph was a fruitful bough, but for sin it was blasted.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Samaria will bear her guilt: In the Hebrew Bible this verse opens chapter 14, and Gill kept it with chapter 13. He read it as the plain sense of the east wind of verse 15. Clarke saw here the sack of Samaria, Israel's capital, by Assyria.
Hosea 13:16
“Samaria shall become desolate,.... With this verse the fourteenth chapter begins in the Hebrew copies, and in the Targum, and in many versions; but seems better to conclude the present chapter; since it is in close connection with Hos 13:15, and explains the figurative expressions there used.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 13:16
“Samaria shall become desolate - This was the capital of the Israelitish kingdom. What follows is a simple prophetic declaration of the cruelties which should be exercised upon this hapless people by the Assyrians in the sackage of the city.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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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; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book 25:34; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Hosea 13:3; John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.