Hoseachapter 7
16 verses · Hosea · 755 to 715 BC · The Twelve
So Ephraim has become like a silly, senseless dove—calling out to Egypt, then turning to Assyria.
Introduction
Hosea, The Twelve, Hosea Overview.
Hosea spoke this chapter in the years when Samaria's kings were murdered one after another, about 735 to 725 BC. Four of the six kings who followed Jeroboam II died at the hands of the men who replaced them. The chapter looks into the palace and then out to the roads that ran to Egypt and to Assyria. Its pictures come from a village kitchen and a bird trap, things every hearer had seen. Listen for the oven and the bread, and for what each one says about the men at court. Listen also for the one thing the chapter says the whole nation left undone.
Context
- Who
- Israelites living under kings who kept being murdered
- What
- A picture of a court consumed by conspiracy and a nation that turns to Egypt and Assyria, while no one calls on the LORD.
- Where
- The royal court at Samaria, and the roads of diplomacy running from it toward Egypt and Assyria.
- When
- About 735 to 725 BC, in the years of palace coups in Samaria; the date is approximate.
- Why
- To show that Israel's coups and shifting alliances came from a people who had stopped seeking God.
Historical context
The oven picture is drawn from a village kitchen. A baker banked the fire in a clay oven at night, left the dough to rise, and slept; in the morning he stirred the coals and the whole oven was suddenly roaring. Hosea says the conspirators worked that way, hot inside all night, smouldering, and flaring at dawn when the king was drunk.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
This was not a metaphor reaching for effect. After Jeroboam II died, the northern kingdom went through six kings in roughly thirty years, and four of them were assassinated by the men who replaced them. Zechariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, and Pekah all died that way. The state was eating itself.
The cake not turned is flat bread cooked on a hot stone or in the ashes. Leave it and it is charred black on the underside and raw dough on top, useless either way, and a fair description of a country burnt on one side by Assyria and half-baked on the other.
The silly dove is a diplomatic cartoon. Israel's foreign policy in these years genuinely did flutter between Egypt and Assyria, sending gifts to one while paying tribute to the other. Assyrian records name Israelite kings paying up; the Bible records the approaches to Egypt. Both patrons ended up hunting the bird.
Significance
The saddest line is that grey hairs are sprinkled on him and he does not know it. A nation was ageing out of its strength and could not see it, because the palace was busy and the trade was good.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For hearers, the charge was that in all this scheming and travelling, nobody called on the LORD. Israel was doing everything a small state under pressure does, except the one thing the covenant asked of it.
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, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the third verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor 15:1. Under the fourth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Bo 8:1.
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 oven of the fourth verse as desire. As an oven is heated by the baker, "so does their lust burn within them" (Rashi on Hosea 7:4:1). On the next words he sets Jonathan's rendering aside with an open statement of difficulty, "I cannot reconcile it with the wording of the verse", and gives the plain sense instead (Rashi on Hosea 7:4:2). The day of our king is "The day we crown our king" (Rashi on Hosea 7:5:1).
At the seventh verse the judges who are devoured are the Sanhedrin: "They slew their Sanhedrin because they protested against them". Rashi then reports the Jerusalem Talmud, Avodah Zarah 1:1. On the day Jeroboam was crowned the princes asked him to make idols. He told them to return in the morning, and then said he feared their Sanhedrin, and they answered, "We will kill them." (Rashi on Hosea 7:7:1).
The next note tells how the king dealt with a righteous man. He seated two scorners beside him, who asked which generation was the most beloved. The righteous man answered, "The generation of the desert", and they asked whether that generation had not worshipped idols. He replied, "Since they were beloved, they were not punished." They said to him, "Quiet! The king wants to do that." (Rashi on Hosea 7:7:2).
At the tenth verse Rashi reads the verb as a past tense. "They have already been diminished and humbled, and, despite this, they did not return to the Lord" (Rashi on Hosea 7:10:1). At the ninth he names the history behind it, the kings of Aram who consumed Israel in the days of Jehoahaz, whose son Jeroboam "did not repent of his father’s evil" (Rashi on Hosea 7:9:1). The return of the last verse is a return to Egypt, which did them no good (Rashi on Hosea 7:16:1).
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 7:1:1, 7:2:1 and 7:3:1.
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 Eikhah Rabbah 2:3, Megillah 13b:13, Midrash Lekach Tov on Esther 3:1:1 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4:5:1. It holds Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version I 1:6 there as well. On the third verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Emor 15:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Emor 11:1, Pesikta DeRav Kahana 9:7, Vayikra Rabbah 27:8 and Vayikra Rabbah 36:3.
On the fourth verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Pischa 13:28, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 12:34:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 12:36:5 and Midrash Tanchuma, Bo 8:1. It holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 209:2 there as well. On the fifth verse it holds Avodah Zarah 18b:14, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Avodah Zarah 1:26, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:80 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 7:36. It holds Ein Yaakov, Sotah 7:41 there as well. On the seventh verse it holds Devarim Rabbah 2:19, Devarim Rabbah 5:9 and Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:1:12.
On the ninth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Behar 3:1 and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 52:4. On the tenth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 25:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 261:22. On the eleventh verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah 1:45, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 19:4, Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Vayehi Beshalach 3:26 and Midrash Tanchuma, Shmini 11:1. On the thirteenth verse it holds Avodah Zarah 4a:9, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 2, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 32:5:7 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 15:4. On the fifteenth verse it holds Avodah Zarah 4a:10.
On the sixteenth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 16:8, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Sh'lach 8:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 5:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 742:9. 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 7:4:1 to 7:16:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Hosea 7:1:1, 7:2:1 and 7:3:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/hosea/7.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion and no Haftarah for this chapter and no festival reading for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Hearts hot as an oven the baker need not stir
Hosea 7:1-3
When I heal Israel: l, the iniquity of Ephraim will be exposed", with "thieves break in" within the walls. They "fail to consider in their hearts that I remember all their evil". The throne is drawn in, for "They delight the king with their evil, and the princes with their lies."
Hosea 7:1
“When I wanted to heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim was revealed, and the malice of Samaria: for they have wrought falsehood, and a thief is come in to spoil, a robber without. The Septuagint likewise. Often has Israel received wounds of idolatry, and especially that one, when in the desert they fashioned a calf's head, and said: 'These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt' (Exod. XXXII, 4).”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:1patristic
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 7:1
“Political, as well as moral, healing is meant. When I would have healed Israel in its calamitous state, then their iniquity was discovered to be so great as to preclude hope of recovery. Then he enumerates their wickedness: "The thief cometh in (indoors stealthily), and the troop of robbers spoileth without" (out-of-doors with open violence).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
I remember all their evil: Henry called it the sinner's atheism to think God fails to remember evil. A God who forgets is no judge. Their evil deeds are around them, in plain view of the God they forget.
Hosea 7:2
"And lest perhaps they should say in their hearts: all their wickedness (all wickedness Vulg.) I have remembered, they have encompassed me in the inventions of their own thoughts, before my face they are made." LXX: "That they may sing as it were a new song in their hearts, all their wickedness I have remembered." "Now their own devices have encompassed them about, they have been executed in my sight."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:2patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 7:2
“This is the sinner's atheism; as good say that there is no God as say that he is either ignorant or forgetful, that there is none that judges in the earth as that he remembers not the things he is to give judgment upon.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
delight the king with their evil: Jerome named the king Jeroboam and the princes as the men who led under him. Barnes saw king and people delight in each other's evil, each pleased by the other's lies. Even a king needs others to sustain him in evil.
Hosea 7:3
"In their malice, they made the king rejoice, and in their lies, the princes." LXX: "In their wickedness, the kings rejoiced, and in their lies, the princes." It explains what they did before Him: In their wickedness, they made King Jeroboam rejoice, and in their lies, the princes who led the people under Jeroboam. Heretics also rejoiced the devil as their king in the wickedness of their deeds, and the princes of perverse doctrines in their lies, without a doubt, of this world, whose false wisdom God destroys.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:3patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 7:3
“They make the king glad with their wickedness - Wicked sovereigns and a wicked people are a curse to each other, each encouraging the other in sin. Their king, being wicked, had pleasure in their wickedness; and they, seeing him to be pleased by it, set themselves the more, to do what was evil, and to amuse him with accounts of their sins. Sin is in itself so shameful, that even the great cannot, by themselves, sustain themselves in it, without others to flatter them. A good and serious man is a reproach to them.”
Hosea 7:4-7
an oven heated by a baker: They are "like an oven heated by a baker", so "all night their anger smolders". Verse 5 turns to the court, where "The princes are inflamed with wine". The heat devours the rulers, "All their kings fall", and "not one of them calls upon Me."
Hosea 7:4
“Their adulterous and idolatrous lust is inflamed as the oven of a baker who has it at such a heat that he ceaseth from heating it only from the time that he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened; he only needs to omit feeding it during the short period of the fermentation of the bread. Compare 2Pe 2:14, "that cannot cease from sin" [HENDERSON].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 7:4
“As an oven heated by the baker - Calmet’s paraphrase on this and the following verses expresses pretty nearly the sense: Hosea makes a twofold comparison of the Israelites; to an oven, and to dough. Jeroboam set fire to his own oven - his kingdom - and put the leaven in his dough; and afterwards went to rest, that the fire might have time to heat his oven, and the leaven to raise his dough, that the false principles which he introduced might infect the whole population.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
on the day of our king: Barnes took the day of the king to be a civil feast, such as his birthday or crowning. The prophet still owns him as king. He faults the wine that inflamed the princes, and the day itself he lets stand.
Hosea 7:5
"The day of our king: the princes began to rage from wine: he stretched out his hand with the mockers." LXX: "The days of your kings. The princes began to rave from wine: he stretched out his hand with pestilences." A dark place and in need of the attentive reader's sense, so that we may first understand the history.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:5-7patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 7:5
“In the day of our king, the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine - (Or, “with heat from wine.”) Their holydays, like those of so many Englishmen now, were days of excess. “The day of their king” was probably some civil festival; his birthday, or his coronation-day. The prophet owns the king, in that he calls him “our king;” he does not blame them for keeping the day, but for the way in which they kept it.”
prepare their heart like an oven: Horsley, cited by Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, read the oven as a plot. The heart hides its fire all night like a banked oven, while the conspirators wait for their chance. In the morning the plot blazes out.
Hosea 7:6
“As it conceals the lighted fire all night while the baker sleeps but in the morning burns as a flaming fire, so they brood mischief in their hearts while conscience is lulled asleep, and their wicked designs wait only for a fair occasion to break forth [HORSLEY]. Their heart is the oven, their baker the ringleader of the plot.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
they devour their rulers: Wesley read the oven as plotters hot as fire who devour their rulers, and counted four kings who fell this way after Jeroboam the second. Barnes saw the evil return on the kings, who had first led the people into sin. The fire they lit consumed them.
Hosea 7:7
“They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges - Plans of sin, sooner or later, through God’s overruling providence, bound back upon their authors. The wisdom of God’s justice and of His government shows itself the more, in that, without any apparent agency of His own, the sin is guided by Him through all the intricate mazes of human passion, malice, and cunning, back to the sinner’s bosom. Jeroboam, and the kings who followed him, had corrupted the people, in order to establish their own kingdom.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 7:7
“Devoured - As a fire destroys, so have these conspirators, destroyed their rulers. Their kings - All that have been since Jeroboam the second's reign, to the delivery of this prophecy, namely, Zechariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, Pekah, fell by the conspiracy of such hot princes. That telleth - Not one of all these either feared, trusted, or worshipped God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
A cake not turned, and gray hairs he never noticed
Hosea 7:8-10
Ephraim is an unturned cake: "Ephraim mixes with the nations", looking outward for safety, and so "Ephraim is an unturned cake", burned on one side and raw on the other. "Foreigners consume his strength, but he does not notice". "Israel’s arrogance testifies against them", and still "they do not return to the LORD their God".
Hosea 7:8
"Ephraim mingled himself with the people. Ephraim is become as bread baked under the ashes, that is not turned." LXX: "Ephraim was mingled with his own people: Ephraim is become as ashes, which is not returned." The kingdom of ten tribes has been made, like all nations, because they have departed from the Lord: and like ashes of bread, which does not return, that is, does not do penance.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:8-10patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 7:8
“Ephraim - The kingdom of Israel. Mixed himself - With the Heathens by leagues and commerce and by imitation of their manners. Not turned - Burnt on one side, and dough on the other, and so good for nothing on either: always in one extreme or the other.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 7:8
“A cake not turned - In the East having heated the hearth, they sweep one corner, put the cake upon it, and cover it with embers; in a short time they turn it, cover it again, and continue this several times, till they find it sufficiently baked. All travelers into Asiatic countries have noted this.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
his hair is streaked with gray: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown name the foreigners as the Syrians and the Assyrians (2 Kings 13:7; 17:3-6). The gray hair marks a nation near its end. Barnes compared Israel to Samson, who lost his strength and did not know the LORD had left him.
Hosea 7:9
“Strangers--foreigners: the Syrians and Assyrians (2Ki 13:7; 17:3-6). gray hairs--that is, symptoms of approaching national dissolution. are here and there upon--literally, "are sprinkled on" him. yet he knoweth not--Though old age ought to bring with it wisdom, he neither knows of his senile decay, nor has the true knowledge which leads to reformation.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 7:9
“Their regardlessness of these warnings: He knows it not; he is not aware of the hand of God gone out against him; it is lifted up, but he will not see, Isa. xxvi. He does not know how near his ruin is, and takes no care to prevent it. Note, Stupidity under less judgments is a presage of greater coming.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 7:9
“Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not - Like Samson, when, for sensual pleasure, he had betrayed the source of his strength and God had departed from him, lsrael knew not how or wherein his alliancs with the pagan had impaired his strength. He thought his losses at the hand of the enemy, passing wounds, which time would heal; he thought not of them, as tokens of God’s separation from him, that his time of trial was coming to its close, his strength decaying, his end at hand.”
arrogance testifies against them: Barnes read Israel's arrogance as the witness against Israel. Each blow from God only drew the arrogance further out. That arrogance kept Israel from confessing its sins and seeking the LORD.
Hosea 7:10
"And the pride of Israel shall be humbled before his face: and they have not returned to the Lord their God, nor have they sought him in all these." LXX: "And the pride of Israel shall be humbled before his face: and they have not returned to the Lord their God, nor have they sought him in all these."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:8-10patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 7:10
“And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face - His pride convicted him. All the afflictions of God humbled him not; yea, they but brought out his pride, which “kept him from acknowledging and repenting of the sins which had brought those evils upon him, and from “turning to God and seeking to Him” for remedy” .”
A silly dove flying to Egypt and to Assyria
Hosea 7:11-12
Ephraim is "like a silly, senseless dove", flying to Egypt and then to Assyria for help. "I will spread My net over them; I will bring them down like birds of the air", so the flight becomes the trap.
Hosea 7:11
“Ephraim is - (become) like a silly dove “There is nothing more simple than a dove,” says the Eastern proverb. Simplicity is good or bad, not in itself, but according to some other qualities of the soul, good or evil, with which it is united, to which it opens the mind, and which lead it to good or mislead it to evil.”
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 7:11
“Ephraim also is like a silly dove, without heart,.... Or understanding; which comes and picks up the corns of grain, which lie scattered about, and does not know that the net is spread for it; and when its young are taken away, it is unconcerned, and continues its nest in the same place still; and, when frightened, flees not to its dove house, where it would be safe, but flies about here and there, and so becomes a prey to others.”
Hosea 7:11
“As this prophecy was written in the reign of Hoshea, the allusion is probably to the alliance with So or Sabacho II (of which a record has been found on the clay cylindrical seals in Koyunjik), which ended in the overthrow of Hoshea and the deportation of Israel (2Ki 17:3-6).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
spread My net over them: The dove of verse 11 flies to Egypt and Assyria, and the LORD sets His net across its path. Clarke read the net as the nations themselves, so Israel would be taken by the powers it trusted. Gill named it the Assyrian army.
Hosea 7:12
“When they shall go - To those nations for help: - I will spread my net upon them - I will cause them to be taken by those in whom they trusted. I will bring them down - They shall no sooner set off to seek this foreign help, than my net shall bring them down to the earth. The allusion to the dove, and to the mode of taking the fowls of heaven, is still carried on.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 7:13-14
Woe to them: A double woe falls on a people who "have strayed from Me" and "Though I would redeem them, they speak lies against Me". They "wail upon their beds" and do not "cry out to Me", and they "slash themselves for grain", a mourning rite of Baal worship.
Hosea 7:13
“Note, The woes of God's word have real effects; destruction makes them good. The judgments of his hand shall verify the judgments of his mouth. Those whom he curses, and pronounces woeful, they are cursed, they are woeful indeed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 7:13
“Pretending to be My worshippers, when they all the while worshipped idols (Ho 7:14; Ho 12:1); also defrauding Me of the glory of their deliverance, and ascribing it and their other blessings to idols [CALVIN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
wail upon their beds: Jerome compared the slashing for grain and new wine to the prophets of Baal who cut themselves in the presence of Elijah. Clarke heard the wailing on their beds as forced, with no cry from the heart. They called on false gods for grain.
Hosea 7:14
"They muttered about wheat and wine: they separated themselves from me." LXX: "Over wheat and wine they were being cut to pieces." On account of the abundance, they said, they have fallen because of their own foolishness. Which Ezekiel also mentions was done in Sodom and Gomorrah (Ezek. XIX), that they chewed on nothing other than food and lust: for which reason the Seventy translated, "they were sliced over grain and wine," as an example of the prophets of Baal, who, with Elijah present, prayed for rain by cutting off the members (III Kings. XVIII).
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:14-16patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 7:14
“They have not cried unto me with their heart - They say they have sought me, but could not find me; that they have cried unto me, but I did not answer. I know they have cried, yea, howled; but could I hear them when all was forced and hypocritical, not one sigh coming from their heart? They assemble themselves for corn and wine - In dearth and famine they call and howl: but they assemble themselves, not to seek Me, but to invoke their false gods for corn and wine.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 7:14
“To pray is to lift up the soul to God, this is the essence of prayer. If this be not done, words, though ever so well chosen, are but wind; but, if it be, it is an acceptable prayer, though the groanings cannot be uttered.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 7:15-16
I trained and strengthened their arms: "Although I trained and strengthened their arms, they plot evil against Me". "They turn, but not to the Most High", and "they are like a faulty bow" whose arrow flies wide. Their leaders fall "by the sword for the cursing of their tongue", ridiculed "in the land of Egypt".
Hosea 7:15
“Though I have bound - Rather, (as in the E. M) “And I have chastened, I have strenghened their arms, and they imagine mischief against Me.” God had tried all ways with them, but it was all one. He chastened them in love, and in love He strengthened them; He brought the enemy upon them, (as aforetime in the days of the Judges,) and He gave them strength to repel the enemy; as He raised up judges of old, and lately had fulfilled His promise which He had made to Joash through Elisha. But it was all in vain.”
they are like a faulty bow: Clarke explained the faulty bow from Eastern bows, which rest in a curve and must be bent the other way to be strung. A faulty one springs back and turns away. Henry read the cursing of their tongue as the leaders quarrelling with God.
Hosea 7:16
"They turned back, so as to be without a yoke: they became as a deceitful bow: their princes shall fall by the sword, by the rage of their tongue: this their derision in the land of Egypt." LXX: "they were turned into nothing, they became like a tense bow, their rulers shall fall by the sword because of their lack of understanding; this is their derision in the land of Egypt."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 7:14-16patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 7:16
“They return, but not to the Most High - They go to their idols. They are like a deceitful bow - Which, when it is reflexed, in order to be strung, suddenly springs back into its quiescent curve; for the eastern bows stand in their quiescent state in a curve; and in order to be strung must be beaded back in the opposite direction.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 7:16
“Such were their essays towards repentance and reformation. (2.) The sin of the princes of Israel. That which is charged upon them is the rage of their tongue, quarrelling with God and his providence and with all about them when they are crossed.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Keep studying
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, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; 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; Jerome; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.