Hoseachapter 9
17 verses · Hosea · 755 to 715 BC · The Twelve
Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.
Introduction
Hosea, The Twelve, Hosea Overview.
Hosea spoke this chapter at a harvest festival in the last years before Samaria fell, about 730 to 725 BC. The feast was held on the threshing floor, with food, wine and dancing that ran for days, and the prophet spoke into the middle of it. His hearers were celebrating a good year at the shrines. The chapter speaks of exile in terms of food and worship, of meals that would make a worshipper unclean. Listen for the two old memories, Gibeah and Baal-peor, that Hosea sets beside the present. Listen also for how the crowd answered the prophet, since the chapter records that as well.
Context
- Who
- Israelites celebrating a good year at the shrines
- What
- A warning spoken into a harvest festival that Israel will be carried into exile, lose its offerings and its children, and wander among the nations.
- Where
- The threshing floors and shrines of the northern kingdom, with Egypt, Memphis and Assyria named as the places of exile.
- When
- About 730 to 725 BC, at a harvest festival in the final years before Samaria's fall; the date is approximate.
- Why
- To tell a nation celebrating a good year that its unfaithfulness had brought the days of punishment.
Historical context
The scene is a real party. After the grain was threshed and winnowed, the harvest festival was held at the threshing floor itself, a flat, hard-packed circle on a windy ridge, with food, wine, music, and dancing that ran for days. Hosea walks into it and says: do not rejoice.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Exile is described in terms of food, and the detail is precise. In Assyria they would eat unclean food, and their sacrifices would be like the bread of mourners, food in a house where someone had died was ritually defiled, and anyone eating it was unfit to enter the sanctuary. Deportation did not just move people. It made ordinary obedience impossible.
Assyrian deportation policy is well documented in their own inscriptions and reliefs. Populations were marched hundreds of miles and resettled among strangers, deliberately mixing groups so no exiled people could organise. Hosea's mention of Egypt as a second destination reflects the other direction refugees ran.
Two memories are dragged up as precedent. Baal-peor was where Israel joined in Moabite worship on the way into the land and thousands died in the plague that followed. Gibeah was the town whose crime in the days of the judges nearly destroyed the tribe of Benjamin. Hosea says the nation has been like this from the beginning.
Significance
The hardest sentence is that God found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, a delighted, surprised discovery, and that they went to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to shame. The complaint is not disappointment in a bad people. It is grief over a people who had once been a delight.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For hearers at a festival, the announcement that the days of punishment had come and the prophet was called a fool and a madman told them exactly how the message was landing while it was being delivered.
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 eleventh verse it carries Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Bereshit 14. Under the fourteenth verse it carries Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 30.
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 opening charge as a comparison with the nations. Israel is not to rejoice as they do, "for they did not receive a Torah, and they did not come to My lot" (Rashi on Hosea 9:1:1). The feast of the fifth verse he reads as a slaughter, "the killing which I have in you" (Rashi on Hosea 9:5:2).
At the ninth verse Rashi records two readings of Gibeah. "Some say that this is Gibeah of Benjamin in the case of the concubine", and some say it is Gibeah of Saul, where the people asked for a king (Rashi on Hosea 9:9:1). The grapes in the desert of the tenth verse are a picture of first love: "Like grapes, which are precious in the desert, so did I love Israel" (Rashi on Hosea 9:10:1).
The prophet's prayer at the fourteenth verse Rashi reads with its grief in full. The prophet asks that they die young, "for the mourning for a child is not as bad as the mourning for an adult", and Rashi names Pesikta Rabbathi 45:3 (Rashi on Hosea 9:14:1). Gilgal is where the evil gathered, because the tabernacle stood there first, and "the prophets of Baal would tell them that was a choice site" (Rashi on Hosea 9:15:1). The rejection of the last verse Rashi reads as a report of what will happen: "He is destined to reject them" (Rashi on Hosea 9:17:1).
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 Metzudat David on Hosea 9:2:1. The corpus cites Radak on Hosea 9:2:1 the same way. The corpus cites Ibn Ezra on Hosea 9:3:1 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 Bereshit Rabbah 57:4, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Gittin 1:3, Ein Yaakov, Gittin 1:4, Gittin 7a:8 and Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 3:2:6. On the fourth verse it holds Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 17:7. On the fifth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 32:5:3. On the eighth verse it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 31:49:2 and Tractate Soferim 4:9. On the ninth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 20:2:14.
On the tenth verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 10:8, Bamidbar Rabbah 16:24, Bamidbar Rabbah 2:6, Berakhot 56b:10 and Bereshit Rabbah 1:4. On the eleventh verse it holds Bamidbar Rabbah 20:20, Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Bereshit 14, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Balak 22:3, Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 14:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 768:6. On the twelfth verse it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 23:4. On the thirteenth verse it holds Shemot Rabbah 20:11. On the fourteenth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 30, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 49:25:6, Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 33:1:2 and Sifrei Devarim 342:2. It holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 949:6 there as well.
On the fifteenth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 19:9, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 26, Eikhah Rabbah, Petichta 4, Midrash Aggadah, Numbers 30:15:8 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 15:1. On the sixteenth verse it holds Midrash Aggadah, Deuteronomy 3:23:2, Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 2:4:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 33:1:2 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Shemot 26:1. On the seventeenth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov on Lamentations 1:8:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bechukotai 2:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Bechukotai 2:1 and Shir HaShirim Rabbah 8:9:3. 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 9:1:1 to 9:17:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Hosea 9:2:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Hosea 9:2:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Hosea 9:3:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/hosea/9.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.
No joy at the threshing floor; Egypt will bury them
Hosea 9:1-2
Do not rejoice, O Israel: The chapter forbids the harvest gladness, "Do not rejoice, O Israel," because Israel has "made love for hire on every threshing floor", crediting Baal. The threshing floor and winepress, the places of that false thanksgiving, are the places that "will not feed them".
Hosea 9:1
“Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people - Literally, “rejoice not to exultation,” so as to bound and leap for joy (as in Job 3:22). The prophet seems to come across the people in the midst of their festivity and mirth, and arrests them abruptly stopping it, telling them, that had no cause for joy.”
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 9:1
“Other people were idolaters, but that sin was not, in them, going a whoring from God, as it was in Israel that had been married to him. Note, The sins of those who have made a profession of religion and relation to God are more provoking to him than the sins of others.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 9:1
“Though he may not openly put forth his hand, though he may not pursue us, we ought yet to anticipate his wrath; for it is the proper office of faith, not only to find out from present punishment that God is angry, but also to fear, on account of any prevailing vices, the punishment that is far distant.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Hosea 9:1
“As other people - With feastings, triumphs, and sacrifices of thanksgiving. A reward - Such as is given by adulterers to lewd women; thou hast loved to see thy floor full, and hast said thy idols gave thee this plenty.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the new wine will fail them: Barnes connected the failed harvest to verse 1. Israel loved the reward and despised the Giver, so the reward itself would be taken. God withheld the grain and wine to show that He alone had given them.
Hosea 9:2
“The floor and winepress shall not feed them - God turneth away wholly from the adulterous people, and telleth others, how justly they shall be dealt with first for this. “Because she loved My reward, and despised Myself, the reward itself shall be taken away from her.” When the blessings of God have been abused to sin, He, in mercy and judgment, takes them away. He cut them off, in order to show that He alone, who now withheld them, had before given them.”
Hosea 9:3-4
the land of the LORD: "They will not remain in the land of the LORD" reverses the promise at the root of Israel's identity. Worship and diet were bound together under the law, so eating "unclean food in Assyria" makes exile itself a defilement. Offerings in exile will be "like the bread of mourners".
Hosea 9:3
“They shall not dwell in the Lord's land,.... The land of Israel, or Canaan; which, though all the earth is the Lord's, was peculiarly his; which he had chosen for himself, and for this people; where he had his temple, and caused his Shechinah or divine Majesty to dwell in a very special manner, and where his worship and service were performed. So the Targum calls it the land of the Shechinah or majesty of the Lord. Sometimes it is called Immanuel's land, where the Messiah Immanuel, God with us, was to be born, and dwell, and where he did.”
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 9:3
“They shall not dwell in the Lord’s land. The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof - Yet He had chosen the land of Canaan, there to place His people; there, above others, to work His miracles; there to reveal Himself; there to send His Son to take our flesh. He had put Israel in possession of it, to hold it under Him on condition of obedience.”
Hosea 9:3
“It was a great sin and folly to rebel against God, and go a whoring from him, in such a land as this, to deal unjustly in a land of uprightness, Isa. xxvi. And it was a sad and sore judgment to be driven out from such a land as this; it was like driving our first parents out of the garden of Eden, and almost amounted to an exclusion out of the heavenly Canaan.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
like the bread of mourners: A house with a dead body in it and everyone who touched the body were unclean, and whatever they touched was defiled (Numbers 19:11, 13-14). Adam Clarke read the bread of mourners that way. In exile no firstfruits reach the temple to sanctify the bread.
Hosea 9:4
“Having collected the fruit of the vine into the wine-vats, they offered the firstlings as a libation to the demons, and not to the God who gave them. They also offered loaves of bread as firstfruits of the harvest—except that the sacrifice will become for them defiled and impure, he says, and the offerings will be considered as mourning breads (that is, disgusting, impure and odious). For what reason? For the law considered unclean anyone who approached a dead body either by blood relationship or rather by the very touching of the body.”
Cyril of Alexandria · written before 444 · Commentary on Hosea 4:96patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 9:4
“As the bread of mourners - By the law, a dead body, and every thing that related to it, the house where it lay, and the persons who touched it, were all polluted and unclean, and whatever they touched was considered as defiled. See Deu 26:14; Num 19:11, Num 19:13, Num 19:14. For their bread for their soul - The bread for the common support of life shall not be sanctified to them by having the first-fruits presented at the temple.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 9:4
“Wine-offerings - These were appointed to be offered with the morning and evening sacrifice, the sacrifice representing Christ, and pardon by him; the wine-offering, the spirit of grace: the sacrifice repeated, daily continued their peace and pardon.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 9:5-6
on the appointed day: "What will you do on the appointed day, on the day of the LORD’s feast?" has no answer, since exile will strip Israel of the land, temple and calendar the feasts depended on. Verse 6 gives the fate of the fugitives: "Egypt will gather them and Memphis will bury them".
Hosea 9:5
“What will ye do in the solemn day? - Man is content to remain far from God, so that God do not show him, that He has withdrawn Himself from him. Man would fain have the power of drawing near to God in time of calamity, or when he himself likes. He would fain have God at his command, as it were, not be at the command of God. God cuts off this hope altogether. he singles out the great festivals, which commemorated His great doings for His people, as though they had no more share in those mercies.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 9:5
“Golgotha in Syriac is the same with Gilgal in Hebrew, and therefore he thinks this may have reference to the putting of Christ to death at Golgotha, which was the greatest sin of the Jewish nation, and of which it might truly be said, All their wickedness was summed up in that. And no wonder that the people did wickedly, both in worship and conversation, when 4.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Memphis will bury them: Adam Clarke says many fled to Egypt to escape the destruction and found only graves there. He took the precious silver as the fine estates bought with their money, left empty until thorns covered them. He called it the fullest mark of desolation.
Hosea 9:6
“For, lo, they are gone - Many of them fled to Egypt to avoid the destruction; but they went there only to die. Memphis - Now Cairo, or Kahira, found them graves. The pleasant places for their silver - The fine estates or villas which they had purchased by their money, being now neglected and uninhabited, are covered with nettles; and even in their tabernacles, thorns and brambles of different kinds grow. These are the fullest marks of utter desolation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The prophet is a fool, they say, in the day of visitation
Hosea 9:7-9
The days of punishment have come: e", and the people answer by calling the prophet "the inspired man insane". Verse 8 turns the charge on the nation, since "the snare of the fowler lies on all his paths". Their corruption is measured against Gibeah, the outrage of Judges 19.
Hosea 9:7
"The days of visitation have come, the days of retribution have come: know, O Israel, a foolish prophet, a spiritual madman because of the multitude of your iniquity, and the multitude of your madness." LXX: "The days of vengeance have come, the days of your retribution have come, and Israel shall be afflicted as a raving prophet, a man who had the Spirit, because" "the multitude of your iniquities, your madness has multiplied."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 9:7patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 9:7
“The days of visitation are come - The false prophets had continually hood-winked the people, promising them that those days would never come. “They had put far away the evil day” Amo 6:3. Now it was not at hand only. In God’s purpose, those “days” were “come,” irresistible, inevitable, inextricable; days in which God would visit, what in His long-suffering, He seemed to overlook, and would “recompense each according to his works.” Israel shall know it - Israel would not know by believing it; now it should “know,” by feeling it.”
Hosea 9:7
“The day of God's judgments is both a day of visitation, in which men's sins are enquired into and brought to light, and a day of recompence, in which men's doom will be passed, and a reward given to every man according to his work; the strict visitation is in order to a just retribution.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the snare of the fowler: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the watchman as the true prophet, set against the false prophet who became a snare leading Israel into idolatry. Matthew Henry cited the Latin proverb corruptio optimi pessima. The best thing corrupted becomes the worst.
Hosea 9:8
"Ephraim the spy with my God: the prophet is a snare of ruin" "above all his ways: insanity in the house of his God, deeply they have sinned: as in the days of Gabaa, their iniquities will be remembered, and their sins will be visited." LXX: "Ephraim the spy with God the prophet: a twisted snare over all his ways, insanity" "they have fabricated in the house of God: they have been corrupted according to the days of the hill: " "their iniquities will be remembered, and they will be avenged for their sins."
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 9:8-9patristic
as in the days of Gibeah: Barnes took the Hebrew literally: they have gone deep. Gibeah recalls Judges 19 and 20, when Benjamin took the part of the evil men of Gibeah. Henry saw every tribe now as corrupted as Benjamin was then, and in line for the same punishment.
Hosea 9:9
“They have deeply corrupted themselves - Literally, “they have gone deep, they are corrupted.” They have deeply immersed themselves in wickedness; have gone to the greatest depth they could, in it; they are sunk in it, so that they could hardly be extricated from it; and this, of their own deliberate intent; they contrived it deeply, hiding themselves, as they hoped, from God. As in, the days of Gibeah - When Benjamin espoused the cause of “the children of Belial” who had worked such horrible brutishness in Gibeah toward the concubine of the Levite.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 9:9
“Every tribe is now as bad as the tribe of Benjamin then was, and therefore may expect to be brought as low as that tribe then was. They shall therefore be reckoned with for their fathers' sins: He will remember their iniquity and visit their sins, the iniquity they have by kind and by entail, the sin that runs in the blood; the sin of the father shall now be visited upon the children.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Grapes in the wilderness, then Baal-peor
I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness: s" recalls the exodus generation as a find precious to God. The turn is immediate: "they went to Baal-peor", the event of Numbers 25. A people who loved a shameful thing "became as detestable as the thing they loved."
Hosea 9:10
“I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness - While they were faithful, they were as acceptable to me as ripe grapes would be to a thirsty traveler in the desert. I saw your fathers - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, etc. As the first ripe - Those grapes, whose bud having come first, and being exposed most to the sun, have been the first ripe upon the tree; which tree was now in the vigor of youth, and bore fruit for the first time. A metaphor of the rising prosperity of the Jewish state.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 9:11-14
Ephraim’s glory will fly away: Ephraim's glory flies away "like a bird, with no birth, no pregnancy, and no conception", a judgment reaching back before life begins. Children raised past infancy give no security, "I will bereave them of each one". The prophet's prayer ends with "wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!"
Hosea 9:11
“As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away, like a bird - Ephraim had parted with God, his true Glory. In turn, God would quickly take from him all created glory, all which he counted glory, or in which he gloried. When man parts with the substance, his true honor, God takes away the shadow, lest he should content himself therewith, and not see his shame, and, boasting himself to be something, abide in his nothingness and poverty and shame to which he had reduced himself. “Fruitfulness,” and consequent strength, had been God’s special promise to Ephraim.”
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 9:11
“Their glory - Their children or posterity, which was the glory of Israel. Shall fly - It is proverbial, and speaks a sudden loss of children. From the birth - As soon as born.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 9:11
“Ephraim is as strong and rich as ever Tyre was, and as proud and secure. The Chaldee paraphrase gives this sense of it, The congregation of Israel, while they observed the law, was like to Tyrus in prosperity and security.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
when I turn away from them!: Verse 11 took away birth, and this verse takes away the children already raised. Wesley saw the misery completed when God Himself departs from them. Losing children is sad, he wrote, and losing God is sadder.
Hosea 9:12
“Not a man left - There shall be a total extirpation of them. When I depart - To compleat their misery, I will depart from them. It is sad to lose our children, but sadder to lose our God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
like Tyre, planted in a meadow: Barnes saw Ephraim as a tree planted by hand in a meadow, like Tyre in its riches and pride. The likeness held to the end, since Tyre also fell. Henry saw here the grief of parents who raise children for the murderer.
Hosea 9:13
“Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place - Or (better) “as I saw (her) toward Tyre,” or “as I saw as to Tyre.” Ephraim stretched out, in her dependent tribes, “toward” or “to” Tyre itself. Like to Tyrus she was, “in her riches, her glory, her pleasantness, her strength, her pride,” and in the end, her fall. The picture is that of a fair tree, not chance-sown, but “planted” carefully by hand in a pleasant place. Beauty and strength were blended in her.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 9:13
“Note, It is a great alloy to the comfort parents have in their children that they know not what they have brought them forth and brought them up for, perhaps for the murderer, or, which is worse, to be themselves the plagues of their generation.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Give them wombs that miscarry: Clarke heard the prophet begin to intercede, give them, O LORD, and then break off when he saw what the LORD would give. Henry read wombs that miscarry as mercy on children born to slaughter. Jesus said the same in Luke 23.
Hosea 9:14
“Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give? - There is an uncommon beauty in these words. The prophet, seeing the evils that were likely to fall upon his countrymen, begins to make intercession for them; but when he had formed the first part of his petition, “Give them, O Lord!” the prophetic light discovered to him that the petition would not be answered and that God was about to give them something widely different.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 9:14
“Rather let them have no children than have them to be made miserable; for the same reason, when a total ruin was coming on the Jewish nation, Christ said, Blessed is the womb that never bore and the paps that never gave suck, Luke xxiii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Cast away, wanderers among the nations
Hosea 9:15-17
All their evil appears at Gilgal: l," the place where Saul was made king. "I will no longer love them" answers the name of Hosea's daughter Lo-ruhamah in chapter 1. The chapter closes with Ephraim's root withered and the sentence "they shall be wanderers among the nations".
Hosea 9:15
"All their wickedness is at Gilgal: for there I hated them." LXX similarly. In Gilgal, Saul was anointed as king, with Samuel announcing God's anger to the people. (1 Kings 10) "There," he said, "I had them skinned, and they asked for a human king, and withdrew from my authority. Whether it was because Galgala is a place of idolatry, where they committed all kinds of sin.
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Hosea 9:15patristic
3 more voices on this verse
Hosea 9:15
“In Gilgal, where all their wickedness is, there I hated them. There, where the abominations of sin are committed, there God abominates the sinners. In Gilgal he had bestowed many tokens of his favour upon their ancestors, but now that is the place where he hates them for their base ingratitude.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 9:15
“All their wickedness is in Gilgal - “Gilgal,” having been the scene of so many of God’s mercies, had been, on that very ground, chosen as a popular scene for idol-worship (see the note above at Hos 4:15).”
Hosea 9:15
“Or, as "love" is mentioned immediately after, the reference may be to the Hebrew mode of divorce, the husband (God) putting the wife (Israel) out of the house. princes . . . revolters--"Sarim . . . Sorerim" (Hebrew), a play on similar sounds.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
their root is withered: Ephraim sounds like the Hebrew for fruit, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that root and fruit play on the name. Ephraim will bear no fruit. Clarke read struck down as a thing so settled it is spoken as done.
Hosea 9:16
“The figures "root," "fruit," are suggested by the word "Ephraim," that is, fruitful (see on Ho 9:11, 12). "Smitten," namely, with a blight (Ps 102:4).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 9:16
“Ephraim is smitten - The thing being determined, it is considered as already done. Their root is dried up - They shall never more be a kingdom. And they never had any political form from their captivity by the Assyrians to the present day. Yea, though they bring forth - See the note on Hos 9:11-12 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
My God will reject them: Barnes noticed that the prophet calls God his own, the God of the man who obeyed Him. Israel had turned away from Him first. Henry found comfort in it for the faithful when a nation rejects God.
Hosea 9:17
“My God will cast them away,.... With loathsomeness and contempt, having sinned against him, and done such abominable things; cast them out of their own land, as men not fit to live in it; cast them out of his sight, as not able to endure them; cast them away, as unprofitable and good for nothing; reject them from being his people; no more own them in the relation they had stood in to him; nor show them any more favour, at least until the conversion of them in the times of the Messiah.”
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 9:17
“My God hath cast them away - “My God” (he saith) as if God were his God only who clave to him, not their’s who had, by their disobedience, departed from Him. “My God.” “He had then authority from Him,” whom he owned and who owned “him,” and who bade him so Speak, as though God were “his” God, and no longer their’s.”
Hosea 9:17
“Note, When others disown God, and are disowned by him, it is a very great satisfaction to good people that they can call God their God, can cheerfully own him and see themselves owned by him--all revolters, all ruined, yet God is my God. The fruit of this displeasure, in the cutting off and abandoning of their posterity, which is the judgment here threatened again and again.”
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; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.