Hosea 4:11
in Hosea 4Promiscuity, wine, and new wine take away understanding.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding.
KJV
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
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This verse in Hosea 4
Commentary
7 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart - (Literally, “takes away”). Wine and fleshly sin are pictured as blended in one, to deprive man of his affections and reason and understanding, and to leave him brutish and irrational. In all the relations of life toward God and man, reason and will are guided by the affections. And so, in God’s language, the “heart” stands for the “understanding” as well as the “affections,” because it directs the understanding, and the understanding, bereft of true affections, and under the rule of passion, becomes senseless.
This site's exposition
Whoredom and wine and new wine
on Hosea 4:11-14
Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart, the three named together as what dulls a people's capacity to know God, and the note carries the physical wording (whoredom, harlots) as the text's own idiom for covenant unfaithfulness under the gracious rule, never applied to any living people. The people ask counsel of wooden stocks and staffs, a spirit of whoredoms leading them astray from under their God, sacrificing on the hilltops under shady trees because the shade is pleasant, the older writers noting the appeal of convenience over the temple's harder road. Because the fathers' cultic prostitution corrupted the daughters and wives in turn, the Lord will not single out the young women for punishment, since the whole household shares the same collapse, the people without understanding brought down together.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
"fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart." LXX: "fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart of my people." But it should be read emphatically: Fornication and wine and drunkenness take away the heart. For just as wine and drunkenness make him who drinks thereof incapable of his own mind, so does fornication and pleasure pervert the senses and weaken the spirit; and it turns a rational man into a brute animal, so that he pursues brothels, dens of vice, and places of debauchery.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Whoredom and wine, and new wine, take away the heart.
The sins charged upon the people of Israel, for which God had a controversy with them, and they are, 1. Spiritual whoredom, or idolatry. They have in them a spirit of whoredoms, a strong inclination to that sin; the bent and bias of their hearts are that way; it is their own iniquity; they are carried out towards it with an unaccountable violence, and this causes them to err.
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
A moral truth applicable to all times. The special reference here is to the licentious orgies connected with the Syrian worship, which lured Israel away from the pure worship of God (Isa 28:1, 7; Am 4:1). take away the heart--that is, the understanding; make men blind to their own true good (Ec 7:7).
Whoredom and wine - These debaucheries go generally together. Take away the heart - Darken the understanding, deprave the judgment, pervert the will, debase all the passions, etc.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
take away the heart The harlotry and [old] wine and new wine with which they are involved have captured their hearts away from me.
1 more on this passage, in their own words ▾
takes counsel of his piece of wood Of the idol which he has made of wood.
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. 4 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
5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| זְנ֛וּת | zenut | prostitution | H2184 → | |
| וְיַ֥יִן | veyayin | and wine | H3196 → | 141 times |
| וְתִיר֖וֹשׁ | vetiroosh | and new wine | H8492 → | 38 times |
| יִֽקַּֽח־ | yikach- | it takes away | H3947 → | 966 times |
| לֵֽב׃ | lev | [the] heart | H3820 → | 595 times |
זְנ֛וּתprostitution
zenutH2184 →
וְיַ֥יִןand wine
veyayinH3196 →141 times
וְתִיר֖וֹשׁand new wine
vetirooshH8492 →38 times
יִֽקַּֽח־it takes away
yikach-H3947 →966 times
לֵֽב׃[the] heart
levH3820 →595 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
Luke 21:34But watch yourselves, or your hearts will be weighed down by dissipation, drunkenness, and the worries of life—and that day will spring upon you suddenly like a snare.
it leads to
- Mark 4:19
but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
- Luke 12:40
You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect.”
- 1 Thessalonians 5:2–8
For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
- Luke 12:45–46
But suppose that servant says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and he begins to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk.
- 1 Peter 4:3–7
For you have spent enough time in the past carrying out the same desires as the Gentiles: living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry.
- Mark 4:19
Through
Proverbs 20:1Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
it leads to
- Ephesians 5:18
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
- Isaiah 28:7
These also stagger from wine and stumble from strong drink: Priests and prophets reel from strong drink and are befuddled by wine. They stumble because of strong drink, muddled in their visions and stumbling…
- Proverbs 31:4
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to crave strong drink,
- Ephesians 5:18
Where this verse is studied
On this page
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); Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Hosea 4:10-12; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.