Hoseachapter 13
16 verses · KJVHosea book hub →
Key verse
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
It stands in O death, where are your plagues? Samaria bears her guilt, verses 12 to 16.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Ephraim once spoke and men trembled; he offended in Baal and died. Now they sin more and more, casting molten images by their own skill and kissing calves. So they shall be as the morning cloud, as the early dew, as chaff whirled from the threshing-floor, as smoke out of the chimney. 'Besides me there is no saviour.' Fed in the wilderness, they were filled; being filled, they forgot him. So he comes as a lion, a leopard by the way, a bear bereaved. 'It is thy destruction, O Israel, that thou art against me, against thy help.' Then a taunt Paul remakes into gospel: 'O death, where are thy plagues?' (1 Corinthians 15:55).
Context
Prophecy · Hosea · Hosea overview
The world behind this chapter
Hosea 13The history
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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
Where the chapter sits
Hosea 13 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. Exalted once, then dead through Baal: gone like morning mistvv. 1-3
Ephraim spake trembling: Ephraim once carried real weight in Israel, a tribe whose word made men tremble, and the chapter opens by naming that lost standing before it names the cause: he offended in Baal, and he died. The molten images and the idols shaped by craftsmen follow, with the strange detail that the worshippers kiss the calves they made with their own hands, a picture the commentators read as devotion turned upside down, the maker bowing to the made. The four similes of verse 3, morning cloud, early dew, wind-driven chaff, and smoke from a chimney, pile up to say the same thing four ways: whatever Ephraim has built will not last the day.
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
“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).”
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 13:2
“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
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.”
B. They were filled and forgot me; I will meet them like a bear
1. (vv. 4-6)
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
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
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
no saviour beside me: Against the calves stands the Lord's own claim, unbroken since Egypt: I am the Lord thy God, and thou shalt know no god but me, for there is no saviour beside me. Verse 5 recalls the wilderness years in the land of great drought, where the Lord alone kept Israel alive, and verse 6 gives the turn the whole book keeps returning to, according to their pasture, so were they filled, and being filled they forgot the one who fed them. Clarke and Wesley both read the sequence as Deuteronomy's own warning fulfilled, the full belly that forgets the hand that filled it (Deut 8:11 to 14).
2. (vv. 7-8)
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
2 more voices on this verse
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
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.”
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
as a leopard by the way: The shepherd language the book uses elsewhere reverses without warning: I will be unto them as a lion, as a leopard by the way will I observe them, then a bear robbed of her whelps tearing the caul of their heart. The commentators note that these are the fiercest predator images in the prophets, chosen because a bereaved bear is proverbially the most dangerous animal a traveler could meet, and the point is that the God who fed Israel in the wilderness is the same God whose patience has run out. Keil reads the pileup of three beasts as deliberate escalation rather than repetition, each image sharper than the last.
C. I gave you a king in my anger and took him away in wrathvv. 9-11
thou hast destroyed thyself: O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help, turns the chapter's accusation into an offer even as it stands. Verses 10 and 11 then reach back to the founding of the monarchy, where is any other that may save thee, and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes, a plain echo of Israel's demand at 1 Samuel 8 and the warning Samuel gave them there. I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath reads to most of the bench as covering both Saul's removal and the northern kingdom's long parade of usurper kings, none of them set up by the Lord (Hos 8:4).
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
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
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
D. O death, where are your plagues? Samaria bears her guilt
1. (vv. 12-13)
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
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.”
1 more voice on this verse
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
his sin is hid: The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is hid, pictures guilt kept safe like a document sealed away, ready to be produced when the reckoning comes rather than forgotten. Verse 13 turns to birth imagery used nowhere else in the book quite this way, the sorrows of a travailing woman coming upon Ephraim, and then the sharp reversal, he is an unwise son, for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children. Gill and Wesley both read the image as a labor that stalls at the point of delivery, the nation offered a way out of judgment and refusing to come to it.
2. (v. 14)
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
3 more voices on this verse
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
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.”
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?'
I will ransom them from the power of the grave: , I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues, O grave, I will be thy destruction, repentance shall be hid from mine eyes, is read two ways by the bench with no verdict given here. The older writers, Henry and Calvin among them, read the four opening clauses as a standing promise of resurrection, which is why Paul takes the taunt against death straight into 1 Corinthians 15:55, verified there word for word. Others in the critical tradition read the same Hebrew as rhetorical questions, shall I ransom them, shall I redeem them, continuing the judgment of the surrounding verses rather than breaking it, with repentance hidden from the Lord's eyes as the verse's actual close.
3. (vv. 15-16)
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
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
an east wind shall come: Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord out of the wilderness, drying Ephraim's spring and fountain and spoiling every treasure he owns, a picture the commentators read against the sirocco winds that could ruin a season's growth in a single day, here made the Lord's own instrument through Assyria. Samaria shall become desolate, for she hath rebelled against her God names the coming siege plainly, and the closing line of the chapter, infants dashed in pieces and women with child ripped up, records the ordinary brutality of ancient conquest without softening it, the same atrocity 2 Kings 15:16 already records at Tiphsah under Menahem. The text states the horror; it does not glory in it.
This page carries no textual note on Hosea 13. 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 Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.