Hoseachapter 14
9 verses · Hosea · 755 to 715 BC · The Twelve
Bring your confessions and return to the LORD. Say to Him: “Take away all our iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may present the fruit of our lips.
Introduction
Hosea, The Twelve, Hosea Overview.
Hosea closes his book with this chapter, spoken to the northern kingdom in its last years, about 725 to 722 BC. After thirteen chapters of charges, it is an invitation to come home. In that world a person came before a superior with a gift in hand, and the chapter supplies what the people are to bring. Its hearers had trusted Assyria's power and Egypt's horses, and they had thanked Baal for the rain. Listen for the pictures of plants and trees and what each one promises. Listen also for the closing sentence, which speaks to every reader of the book.
Context
- Who
- Israelites given a script for a return they had not yet made
- What
- A call for Israel to return to the LORD with words of confession, and God's promise to heal their apostasy and make them flourish.
- Where
- The land of Israel pictured as a garden, with the dew, the lily, the olive and the cedars of Lebanon.
- When
- About 725 to 722 BC, in the last days of the northern kingdom; the date is approximate.
- Why
- To close the book with the way home, showing that Israel's life and fruit come from God alone.
Historical context
Take with you words is a striking instruction in a culture where you never approached a superior empty-handed. A petitioner brought a gift; a worshipper brought an animal. Here the prophet writes out the sentences to bring instead, and then says: we will offer the bulls of our lips.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The two things renounced are the two things Israel had actually trusted. Assyria was the great-power alliance, and horses meant Egypt, which was the region's supplier of cavalry and chariot teams. Giving up both meant giving up every military option a small state had.
The promises are a catalogue of the country's best plant life, and each carries its own point. Dew is the moisture that keeps growth going through the rainless summer. The lily blooms fast and beautifully but has no root, so the cedars of Lebanon are added for depth. The olive tree keeps its leaves through drought and lives for centuries. The vine is the crop that means settled peace, and the cypress is evergreen.
The closing line steps outside the sermon and addresses the reader directly: whoever is wise, let him understand these things. That kind of ending belongs to Israel's wisdom writing, and it signals that the book is meant to be studied, not just heard once.
Significance
For a nation whose worship had been a transaction with a rain god, the promise that God would be the dew and that Israel's fruit would come from him settles the argument the whole book has been having. The harvest was never something you bought.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The words put in their mouths matter as much as the promise. Say to him: take away all iniquity, receive us graciously, in you the fatherless finds mercy. Israel is told to come home admitting it is an orphan, which is the one thing a nation that had been so proud of its ancestry would never have said on its own.
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 third verse it carries Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Lech Lecha 31. Under the sixth verse it carries Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Toldot 13.
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 call to return as a word to Judah after the judgment of Samaria: "lest what happens to Samaria happens to you". He gives a parable from the Sifrei of a king who sent a general against a rebel province, and the general warned the next province first (Rashi on Hosea 14:2:1). He then reports a teaching in the name of Rabbi Meir. Israel is to return while God meets them with the attribute of mercy, "before the defense becomes the prosecution", and Rashi names the Pesikta d'Rav Kahana (Rashi on Hosea 14:2:2).
The words the penitents bring he reads three ways. The first is a plea to be taught the good way. The second asks God to take the few good deeds in their hands and judge by them. The third reads the verb as accepting confession (Rashi on Hosea 14:3:2). The bulls they owe are paid "with the placation of the words of our lips" (Rashi on Hosea 14:3:3). They renounce help from abroad: "We no longer seek the aid of man, neither from Assyria nor from Egypt" (Rashi on Hosea 14:4:1).
God's answer at the fifth verse is love beyond desert. "Although they do not deserve the love, I will love them charitably since My wrath has turned away from them" (Rashi on Hosea 14:5:1). The beauty of the olive and the fragrance of Lebanon Rashi reads through the Temple: "the beauty of the menorah of the Temple", and "the fragrance of the incense" (Rashi on Hosea 14:7:1). The wine of Lebanon, after Jonathan, recalls the trumpets blown over the libations "when the Levites would recite the song" (Rashi on Hosea 14:8:2). The last verse asks who is wise enough to "put his heart to all these and return to Me" (Rashi on Hosea 14:10:1).
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 14:1:1 and 14:5:1. The corpus cites Rashi on Hosea 14:6:2 the same way.
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 DeRav Kahana 24:10, Pesikta Rabbati 44:1, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 43:10, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 43:9 and Sifrei Bamidbar 131:1. On the second verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 84:19, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 8:15, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 8:17 and Ein Yaakov, Yoma 8:26. It holds Ein Yaakov, Yoma 8:27 there as well.
On the third verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 18:2, Bamidbar Rabbah 18:21, Bereshit Rabbah 16:5, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Lech Lecha 31 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 8:18. On the fourth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 84:3 and Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 33:1:5. On the fifth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 10:1, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yoma 8:14, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 16:30:17 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 33:1:2. On the sixth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 44:3, Aggadat Bereshit 44:4, Aggadat Bereshit 8:1 and Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Toldot 13.
On the seventh verse it holds Berakhot 43b:4, Ein Yaakov, Berakhot 6:21, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 11:21:13 and Sifrei Devarim 10:2. On the eighth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 8:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 2:4:2, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 18:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 6:4. On the ninth verse it holds Shir HaShirim Rabbah 1:17:2 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 7:8:1. On the tenth verse it holds Bava Batra 89b:7, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Bava Batra 5:36, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Horayot 3:2 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Nazir 4:2. On the sixteenth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Song of Songs 2:2:1. 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 14:2:1 to 14:10:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Hosea 14:1:1 and 14:5:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Rashi, Rashi on Hosea 14:6:2, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/hosea/14.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.
Take words with you and return to the LORD
Hosea 14:1-3
Return, O Israel, to the LORD: D your God" opens the book's closing appeal. Where the Berean has fruit, the King James has calves, animals of the altar, so the phrase offers praise in place of sacrifice. Verse 3 renounces Assyria, horses and idols, "For in You the fatherless find compassion."
Hosea 14:1
“O Israel, return - (now, quite) unto the Lord your God The heavy and scarcely interrupted tide of denunciation is now past. Billow upon billow have rolled over Ephraim and the last wave discharged itself in the overwhelming, indiscriminating destruction of the seat of its strength. As a nation, it was to cease to be. its separate existence was a curse, not a blessing; the offspring of rivalry, matured by apostasy; the parent, in its turn, of jealousy, hatred, and mutual vexation.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 14:1
We are in the last chapter of the book of the Prophet Hosea. Throughout the book there has been thunder— sometimes a low rumbling, as of a distant tempest—sometimes peal on peal, as of a storm immediately overhead. And now the tempest has gathered all its force. Here it culminates. You expect the bolt of Heaven to destroy. Lo, instead thereof, a silver shower of mercy! The gentle drops come down plenteously and you hear them fall upon the tender herb like soft and low music. God does not say, "O Israel, depart accursed!"
Bring your confessions: Gill follows the Targum in reading the words Israel is to bring as confessions: iniquity owned, repentance declared, forgiveness asked. God puts the words of return in Israel's lips. Clarke held that a prayer is offered rightly when it uses words the LORD has given.
Hosea 14:2
“Take with you words, and turn to the Lord,.... Not mere words without the heart, but such as come from it, and express the true sense of it; words of confession, as the Targum; by which sin is acknowledged, and repentance declared, and forgiveness asked.”
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 14:2
“Take with you words - And you may be assured that you pray aright, when you use the words which God himself has put in your mouths. On this very ground there is a potency in the Lord’s Prayer, when offered up believingly, beyond what can be found in any human composition. And it may be presumed that it was this consideration that induced our reformers to introduce it so frequently in the public liturgy. See the order of God’s directions here: - 1. Hearing these merciful invitations, believe them to be true.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 14:2
“Thus the exile, wherein the temple service ceased, prepared the way for the gospel time when the types of the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament being realized in Christ's perfect sacrifice once for all, "the sacrifice of praise to God continually that is the fruit of our lips" (Heb 13:14) takes their place in the New Testament.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the fatherless as Israel itself, lost when it turned from God, its true Father. The horses are Egypt's, forbidden to Israel's kings at Deuteronomy 17:16. Spurgeon called compassion for the fatherless a special mark of the LORD, the true God.
Hosea 14:3
“THE Lord God of Israel, the one only living and true God, has this for a special mark of His Character, that in Him the fatherless finds mercy. "A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation." False gods of the heathen are usually notable for their supposed power or cunning, or even for their wickedness, falsehood, lustfulness and cruelty. But our God, who made the heavens, is the Thrice Holy One. He is the Holy God and He is also full of love.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 14:3
“Three besetting sins of Israel are here renounced, trust in Assyria, application to Egypt for its cavalry (forbidden, De 17:16; compare Ho 7:11; 31:1), and idolatry. fatherless--descriptive of the destitute state of Israel, when severed from God, their true Father.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
I will heal their backsliding and be as the dew to Israel
Hosea 14:4-7
I will heal their apostasy: y; I will freely love them" answers the appeal without one condition attached. The dew, the lily, the cedars of Lebanon, the olive tree, the grain and the vine gather images of quiet growth. Pusey sets the fragrance of Lebanon against the withered fountain of 13:15.
Hosea 14:4
“God's gracious reply to their self-condemning prayer. backsliding--apostasy: not merely occasional backslidings. God can heal the most desperate sinfulness [CALVIN]. freely--with a gratuitous, unmerited, and abundant love (Eze 16:60-63).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 14:4
“I will heal their backsliding - Here is the answer of God to these prayers and resolutions. See its parts: - 1. Ye have backslidden and fallen, and are grievously and mortally wounded by that fall; but I, who am the Author of life, and who redeem from death, will heal all these wounds and spiritual diseases. 2. I will love them freely - נדבה nedabah, after a liberal, princely manner. I will love them so as to do them incessant good. It shall not be a love of affection merely, but shall be a beneficial love.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 14:4
“THIS SENTENCE IS A BODY of divinity in miniature. He who understands its meaning is a theologian, and he who can dive into its fullness is a true Master in divinity. “I will love them freely,” is a condensation of the glorious message of salvation which was delivered to us in Christ Jesus our Redeemer. The sense hinges upon the word “freely.” “I will love them freely.” Here is the glorious, the suitable, the divine way by which love streams from heaven to earth. It is, indeed, the only way in which God can love such as we are.”
I will be like the dew: Barnes sets the dew against 13:15, where Ephraim's spring and fountain dried up. The supply now comes from God himself. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add, after Jerome, that the cedars of Lebanon send roots down as deep as they grow tall, so they stand immovable.
Hosea 14:5
“The common lily is white, consisting of six leaves opening like bells. The royal lily grows to the height of three or four feet; Mt 6:29 alludes to the beauty of its flowers. roots as Lebanon--that is, as the trees of Lebanon (especially the cedars), which cast down their roots as deeply as is their height upwards; so that they are immovable [JEROME], (Isa 10:34).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 14:5
“This is our Faith. Thus did God will that He should be known by all, thus believed the three children, and felt not the fire into the midst whereof they were cast, which destroyed and burnt up unbelievers, whilst it fell harmless as dew upon the faithful, for whom the flames kindled by others became cold, seeing that the torment had justly lost its power in conflict with faith. For with them there was One in the form of an angel, comforting them, to the end that in the number of the Trinity one Supreme Power might be praised.”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · Exposition of the Christian Faith 1:4.33patristic
like the olive tree: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the trees as a sequence: the lily for lovely growth, the cedar for the root, the olive for the fruit. The olive tree also stays green. Gill reads the shoots as the church spreading through the gospel.
Hosea 14:6
“The lily depicts its lovely growth; but as it wants duration and firmness, the deeply rooted cedars of Lebanon are added; these, however, are fruitless, therefore the fruitful, peace-bearing, fragrant, ever green olive is added. smell as Lebanon--which exhaled from it the fragrance of odoriferous trees and flowers.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 14:6
“His branches shall spread,.... As the well rooted cedars in Lebanon; see Num 24:6. This respects the propagation of the church of God, and the interest of Christ in the world, as in the first times of the Gospel, and will be in the latter day; when the Gospel shall be spread everywhere; churches set up in all places; the Jews converted, and the fulness of the Gentiles brought in; and these like spreading branches, and fruitful boughs, abounding in grace and good works.”
the wine of Lebanon: Barnes takes the shade as the shadow of Israel restored, and notes the Jews of old read it as the shadow of the Messiah. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that the wine of Lebanon was prized for its fragrance. The Septuagint renders renown as memorial.
Hosea 14:7
“They that dwell under his shadow shall return,.... Either under the shadow of Lebanon, as Japhet and Jarchi; the shadow of that mountain, or of the trees that grew upon it; or under the shadow of Israel, the church, to which young converts have recourse, and under which they sit with pleasure; or rather under the shadow of the Lord Israel was called to return unto, and now return, Hos 14:1; as the Israelites will in the latter day.”
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 14:7
“They that dwell under his shadow - that is, the shadow of the restored Israel, who had just been described under the image of a magnificent tree uniting in itself all perfections. : “They that are under the shadow of the Church are together under the shadow of Christ the Head thereof, and also of God the Father.” The Jews, of old, explained it , “they shall dwell under the shadow of their Messias.” These, he says, “shall return,” i.”
Hosea 14:7
“Compare Ho 14:6, "His smell as Lebanon"; So 1:3: "Thy name is as ointment poured forth." The Septuagint favors the Margin, "memorial." as the wine of Lebanon--which was most celebrated for its aroma, flavor, and medicinal restorative properties.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 14:7
“God smells a sweet savour from their spiritual sacrifices ( Gen. viii. 21 ), and they are accepted of the multitude of the brethren. Grace is the perfume of the soul, the perfume of the name, makes it like a precious ointment, Eccl. vii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
to do anymore with idols?: The LORD's question about idols answers the guilt through Baal that opened chapter 13. He says, "I am like a flourishing cypress; your fruit comes from Me", the evergreen tree standing over against idols that bear no fruit. Ephraim's fruit now comes from the LORD.
Hosea 14:8
“What have I to do any more with idols? - The conversion of Ephraim is now as complete as if was sincere. God hears and observes this. I am like a green fir tree - Perhaps these words should be joined to the preceding, as Newcome has done, and be a part of God’s speech to Ephraim. “I have heard him; and I have seen him as a flourishing fir tree.” He is become strong and vigorous; and from his present appearance of healthiness, his future increase and prosperity may be safely anticipated.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 14:8
“THE text has a double significance. It may indicate the fruit upon which we feed, or the fruit which we are enabled to produce. If it shall mean the first, there is mach of comfort in it. The Lord has compared himself, in his condescending mercy, to a green fir tree in the sentence which precedes the text. The fir tree in the East yields a most goodly shade. Neither the burning heat of the sun, nor the drops of pouring rain can.pass through the dense foliage, and therefore it affords a welcome shelter to the traveler.”
Who is wise? The ways of the LORD are rightv. 9
ways of the LORD are right: The book's last verse steps outside the prophecy to address the reader, in the manner of the wisdom writers. Then "the ways of the LORD are right" states what the fourteen chapters have shown. The same word is life to the obedient and a stumbling block to the rebellious.
Hosea 14:9
"Who is wise and will understand these things? Who is prudent and will know them? Because the ways of the Lord are straight, and the just shall walk in them; But the transgressors shall fall therein." LXX: "Who is wise and will understand these things, or prudent and will know them? For the ways of the Lord are straight and the just shall walk in them: but the wicked shall fall therein." When he says, "Who is wise and will understand these things?
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 14:10patristic
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 14:9
“Who is wise and he shall understand these things? - The prophet says this, not of the words in which he had spoken, but of the substance. He does not mean that his style was obscure, or that he had delivered the message of God in a way difficult to be understood. This would have been to fail of his object. Nor does he mean that human acuteness is the key to the things of God. He means that those only of a certain character, those “wise,” through God, unto God, will understand the things of God.”
Hosea 14:9
“And the ways wherein God walks towards us, in afflicting or comforting are all righteous and equal. Shall walk in them - Will approve them all, justifying the righteousness of God's displeasure, and confessing he remembereth mercy in the midst of judgment.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 14:9
And to such a degree does the gospel desire that there should be wise people among believers, that for the sake of exercising the understanding of its hearers, it has spoken certain truths in enigmas, others in what are called "dark" sayings, others in parables, and others in problems. And one of the prophets—Hosea—says at the end of his prophecy, "Who is wise, and he will understand these things? Or prudent, and he shall know them?"
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · Against Celsus 3:45patristic
Keep studying
Studies4
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; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1695: “The Orphan's Father” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.