Hosea 14:1
in Hosea 14Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled by your iniquity.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
O Israel, return unto Jehovah thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
KJV
O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
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This verse in Hosea 14
Commentary
9 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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.
This site's exposition
return unto the Lord thy God
on Hosea 14:1-3
O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity, opens the book's closing appeal, and verse 2 gives Israel the very words to bring, take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, so will we render the calves of our lips. Henry and Gill both read that last phrase as praise offered in place of animal sacrifice, the lips doing what the altar once did, an idea the writer of Hebrews later takes up as the fruit of our lips (Heb 13:15). Verse 3 renounces the three false securities named across the book in one breath, Assyria's army, Egypt's horses, and the idols called our gods, closing with the plain reason, for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
"Turn back, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord; say to him, 'Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; and we will say no more, 'Our God,' to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.'" LXX: "Convert, O Israel, to the Lord your God, because you have been weakened by your iniquities: Take with you words, and return to the Lord, say to him, 'Take away all iniquity, and receive what is good, and we will render the calves of our lips. Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more: you are our gods; for the fatherless finds mercy in you.'" As Samaria was perishing. "And men, women, and children having been killed, slaughtered, and torn apart, Israel as a whole is provoked to repentance so that he who is sick or has fallen in his iniquities may return to the doctor and receive health, or he who has fallen may begin to stand up again; and it is taught how one should do penance. 'Take with you words,' that is to say, prayers and confession of sins, and turn to the Lord both in words and in works; and say to Him: 'Take away all iniquity,' leave nothing of our weakness and former ruin, lest again the evil seed bring forth live plants. And He says, 'Accept the good': For if You do not take away our evils, we cannot have anything good to offer You, according to what is written elsewhere: 'Turn away from evil and do good, and we will offer You the calves of our lips.'" (Psalm 36:27) For the calves which in Hebrew are called Pharim, the Septuagint translated "fruit" as Pheri, by a similarity of false speech. But the calves of our lips are praises to God and thanksgiving: "For a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God" (Ps. L, 19). […]
"Let Samaria be destroyed, for she has provoked her God to bitterness. Let them perish by the sword. May their infants be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women be ripped open." LXX: "Samaria will be destroyed because she has resisted her God; they will fall by the sword, and their suckling infants will be dashed to the rock, and their women with child will be ripped open." We have often said that the ten tribes are called Samaria, whose capital is now called Augusta, that is, Sebaste, from the name of Augustus.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God,....
Note, Our prayers for pardon and acceptance with God should be always accompanied with sincere purposes and vows of new obedience. Two things they are to promise and vow:-- (1.) Thanksgiving. "Pardon our sins, and accept of us, so will we render the calves of our lips. " The fruit of our lips (so the LXX.), a word they used for burnt-offerings, and so it agrees with the Hebrew.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
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!"
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
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!" But instead thereof, in dulcet tones He cries, "O Israel, return unto the Lord your God." In the midst of wrath He remembers mercy— "When God's right arm is bared for war, And thunders clothe His cloudy car," even then He stays His uplifted hand, reins in the steeds of vengeance, and holds communion with Grace—"for His mercy endures forever," and, "judgment is His strange work." To use another figure—the whole book of Hosea is like a great trial wherein witnesses have appeared against the accused and the arguments and excuses of the guilty have been answered and baffled. All has been heard for them and much, very much, against them—and the convicted stand at the bar to hear their sentence. Behold the Judge, instead of putting on the black cap to pronounce doom of death, stretches out His hands to the condemned and, in tones of pity, cries, "O Israel, return"! This is a wonderful chapter to be at the end of such a book.
O Israel, return unto the Lord - These words may be considered as addressed to the people now in captivity; suffering much, but having still much more to suffer if they did not repent. But it seems all these evils might yet be prevented, though so positively predicted, if the people would repent and return; and the very exhortation to this repentance shows that they still had power to repent, and that God was ready to save them and avert all these evils. All this is easily accounted for on the doctrine of the contingency of events, i.e., the poising a multitude of events on the possibility of being and not being, and leaving the will of man to turn the scale; and that God will not foreknow a thing as absolutely certain, which his will has determined to make contingent. A doctrine against which some solemn men have blasphemed, and philosophic infidels declaimed; but without which fate and dire necessity must be the universal governors, prayer be a useless meddling, and Providence nothing but the ineluctable adamantine chain of unchangeable events; all virtue is vice, and vice virtue, or there is no distinction between them, each being eternally determined and unalterably fixed by a sovereign and uncontrollable will and unvarying necessity, from the operation of which no soul of man can escape, and no occurrence in the universe be otherwise than it is. From such blasphemy, and from the monthly publications which avouch it, good Lord, deliver us!
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
Samaria shall be accounted guilty From now on, her guilt will be revealed.
1 more on this passage, in their own words ▾
Return, O Israel You, who are in the land of Judah, lest what happens to Samaria happens to you. Therefore, the topics are juxtaposed. This can be compared to a king against whom a province rebelled. The king sent a general and commanded him to destroy it.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 3 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
8 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| שׁ֚וּבָה | shuvah | return ! | H7725 → | 1056 times |
| יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל | yisrael | O Israel | H3478 → | 2507 times |
| עַ֖ד | ʾad | to | H5704 → | 1261 times |
| יְהוָ֣ה | yahweh | Yahweh | H3068 → | 6520 times |
| אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָ | ʾeloheikha | God your | H430 → | 2601 times |
| כִּ֥י | ki | for | H3588 → | 4482 times |
| כָשַׁ֖לְתָּ | khashalta | you have stumbled | H3782 → | 62 times |
| בַּעֲוֹנֶֽךָ׃ | baavonekha | on iniquity your | H5771 → | 233 times |
שׁ֚וּבָהreturn !
shuvahH7725 →1056 times
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לO Israel
yisraelH3478 →2507 times
עַ֖דto
ʾadH5704 →1261 times
יְהוָ֣הYahweh
yahwehH3068 →6520 times
אֱלֹהֶ֑יךָGod your
ʾeloheikhaH430 →2601 times
כִּ֥יfor
kiH3588 →4482 times
כָשַׁ֖לְתָּyou have stumbled
khashaltaH3782 →62 times
בַּעֲוֹנֶֽךָ׃on iniquity your
baavonekhaH5771 →233 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Hosea 6:1Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.
it leads to
- Job 5:18
For He wounds, but He also binds; He strikes, but His hands also heal.
- Deuteronomy 32:39
See now that I am He; there is no God besides Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My…
- 1 Samuel 2:6
The LORD brings death and gives life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
- Lamentations 3:40–41
Let us examine and test our ways, and turn back to the LORD.
- Hosea 14:4
I will heal their apostasy; I will freely love them, for My anger has turned away from them.
- Job 5:18
Through
Hosea 12:6But you must return to your God, maintaining love and justice, and always waiting on your God.
it leads to
- Micah 6:8
He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
- Lamentations 3:25–26
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.
- Micah 7:7
But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.
- Micah 6:8
About Hosea
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2192: “The Joyous Return” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition); Jerome, Commentary on Hosea 14:2-4; Jerome, Commentary on Hosea 14:1; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.