Hoseachapter 8
14 verses · BSBHosea book hub →
Speaks with:Deuteronomy 4×2Hosea 9×2Hosea 6×1Deuteronomy 28×1Jeremiah 4×1Matthew 7×1
Summary
Chapter summary
'Set the trumpet to thy mouth': the alarm chapter. Israel has set up kings without God's counsel and made a calf of its own silver: the workman made it, and it is no God. The harvest law follows: 'they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind' (8:7), stalks with no ear, and if any ear, strangers eat it. Israel is already swallowed among the nations, 'a vessel wherein none delighteth,' hiring lovers among the empires. Ephraim multiplied altars. And they became altars for sinning. God wrote for him the ten thousand things of his law, 'they are counted as a strange thing.'
Context
Prophecy · Hosea — Hosea overview
- A. 1–6 The calf of Samaria — a workman made it, it is no god
- B. 7–10 They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind
- C. 11–14 Many altars for sinning; Israel forgot his Maker
The outline
A.The calf of Samaria — a workman made it, it is no godvv. 1 to 6
Read vv. 1 to 6 →B.They sow the wind and reap the whirlwindvv. 7 to 10
Read vv. 7 to 10 →C.Many altars for sinning; Israel forgot his Makervv. 11 to 14
Read vv. 11 to 14 →
The world behind this chapter
Hosea 8The history
The horn at the start is a ram's horn used as an air-raid siren. A watchman on a city wall or a hilltop blew it when troops were sighted, and every farmer in the valley knew to run for the walls. Opening a message with that sound told hearers what kind of message it was before a word was spoken.
The calf of Samaria is the state religion. Two centuries earlier the first Jeroboam had set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan so that northerners would not travel to Jerusalem to worship, and the shrines had operated ever since. Hosea's line — a craftsman made it, and it is not God — attacks the one institution that held the kingdom's identity together.
Hiring lovers among the nations describes literal payments. The Bible records Menahem of Israel handing Assyria a thousand talents of silver, raised by a levy on every wealthy man in the land, and Assyrian royal inscriptions independently list Menahem of Samaria among the kings who paid tribute. Israel really was buying friends by the ton.
The wild donkey wandering alone is a picture of the opposite policy — going off by itself, unowned and unprotected. Hosea uses both images because Israel kept trying both, and neither was covenant loyalty.
What it meant to them
They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind became proverb because it names something farmers understood instantly: what you put in the ground decides what comes out of it, and the harvest is always bigger than the sowing.
The most cutting charge is that Israel had multiplied altars for sinning. Religious activity was up. Building was up. And God says he wrote them the great things of his law and they were regarded as a strange thing — the book was there, and nobody read it.
Sources cited
- The Annals of Tiglath-Pileser III (royal inscriptions of Assyria)
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Hosea 8. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.