Hosea 7:4
in Hosea 7They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
They are all adulterers; they are as an oven heated by the baker; he ceaseth to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough, until it be leavened.
KJV
They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.
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This verse in Hosea 7
Commentary
11 notes on this verseAs 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.
This site's exposition
as an oven heated by the baker
on Hosea 7:4-7
The nation's appetite for evil is pictured as a baker's oven, banked low through the night so that it needs no fresh stoking before it blazes at dawn, wickedness so habitual it feeds itself. Verse five briefly leaves the figure for a court scene, the day of our king, princes made sick with wine and the king himself joining hands with scorners, before the oven returns in verse six to devour judges and topple king after king. The bench connects the rapid turnover of thrones here to Israel's last chaotic decades, several kings removed by conspiracy and the sword within a single generation, and the unit closes on its own refrain, there is none among them that calleth unto me.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers3 voices
But where shall I find an approach to the divine Scripture that teaches me what "an oven" is? I must call upon Jesus my Lord, that he may make me the seeker find and may open to the one knocking, that I may find in Scriptures "the oven" where I can rightly bake my sacrifice that God may accept it. Indeed, I think I have found it in Hosea the prophet, where he says, "All adulterers are as an oven ignited for burning." And again he says, "Their hearts glowed as an oven." The human heart therefore is "an oven." But this heart, if vices ignite it or the devil inflames it, will not bake, but it will burn up. But if that one who said, "I came to send fire into the earth" should ignite it, the loaves of the divine Scriptures and of the words of God which I receive in my heart, I do not burn up for destruction, but I bake for sacrifice.
Although you might marry and in the face of the authority of all the Scriptures never commit adultery, why do you not with God's grace accept what is lawful? Instead you dare to offend God and commit what is unlawful. I would like to know …
"All adulterers are like an oven heated by the baker: the city rested for a little while from the mixture of the ferment, until it had fermented all. " LXX: "All adulterers are like a burning oven for baking bread, heated by the fire of mixed bread, until it has fermented all."
The Medieval Church1 voice
A commentator
BonaventureCollations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 19 · Written in the 13th century.
proposed
Those who bent their knee to drink are those who inclined themselves totally to philosophy: and the same are inclined to an infinite number of errors, and that is how the leaven of error is warmed. As Osee writes, "the city rested a little from …
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
, 7 , and the charge of drunkenness comes in in the midst of this article; for wine is oil to the fire of lust, Prov. xxiii. Those that are inflamed with fleshly lusts, that are adulterers (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
4 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
As an oven - This vice is grown raging hot among them, as the fire in an oven, when the baker having called up those that make the bread, to prepare all things ready, doth by continued supply of fuel, heat the oven, 'till the heat need be raised no higher.
They are all adulterers,.... King, princes, priests, and people, both in a spiritual and corporeal sense; they were all idolaters, given to idols try, eager of it, and constant in it, as the following metaphors show; and they were addicted to corporeal adultery; this was a prevailing vice among all ranks and degrees of men.
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
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].
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
They are all adulterers - The prophet continues to picture the corruption of all kinds and degrees of people. “All of them,” king, princes, people; all were given to adultery, both spiritual, in departing from God, and actual, (for both sorts of sins went together,) in defiling themselves and others. “All of them” were, (so the word means,) habitual “adulterers.” One only pause there was in their sin, the preparation to complete it. He likens their hearts, inflamed with lawless lusts, to the heat of “an oven” which “the baker” had already “heated.” The unusual construction “burning from the baker” instead of “heated “by” the baker” may have been chosen, in order to express, how the fire continued to burn of itself, as it were, (although at first kindled by the baker,) and was ever-ready to burn whatever was brought to it, and even now was all red-hot, burning on continually; and Satan, who had stirred it, gave it just this respite, “from the time when he had kneaded the dough” , until the leaven, which he had put into it, had fully worked, and the whole was ready for the operation of the fire. The world is full of such people now, ever on fire, and pausing only from sin, until the flatteries, whereby they seduce the unstable, have worked and penetrated the whole mind, and victim after victim is gradually leavened and prepared for sin.
The words behind it
12 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| כֻּלָּם֙ | kulam | all of them | H3605 → | 5413 times |
| מְנָ֣אֲפִ֔ים | menaafim | [are] adulterers | H5003 → | 31 times |
| כְּמ֣וֹ | kemo | like | H3644 → | 143 times |
| תַנּ֔וּר | tanur | an oven | H8574 → | 15 times |
| בֹּעֵ֖רָה | boerah | burning | H1197 → | |
| מֵֽאֹפֶ֑ה | meopeh | from a baker | H644 → | |
| יִשְׁבּ֣וֹת | yishbot | [who] he ceases | H7673 → | 71 times |
| מֵעִ֔יר | meir | stirring up | H5782 → | |
| מִלּ֥וּשׁ | milush | from kneading | H3888 → | |
| בָּצֵ֖ק | batzek | [the] dough | H1217 → | |
| עַד־ | ʾad- | until | H5704 → | 1261 times |
| חֻמְצָתֽוֹ׃ | chumtzato | is leavened it | H2556 → |
כֻּלָּם֙all of them
kulamH3605 →5413 times
מְנָ֣אֲפִ֔ים[are] adulterers
menaafimH5003 →31 times
כְּמ֣וֹlike
kemoH3644 →143 times
תַנּ֔וּרan oven
tanurH8574 →15 times
בֹּעֵ֖רָהburning
boerahH1197 →
מֵֽאֹפֶ֑הfrom a baker
meopehH644 →
יִשְׁבּ֣וֹת[who] he ceases
yishbotH7673 →71 times
מֵעִ֔ירstirring up
meirH5782 →
מִלּ֥וּשׁfrom kneading
milushH3888 →
בָּצֵ֖ק[the] dough
batzekH1217 →
עַד־until
ʾad-H5704 →1261 times
חֻמְצָתֽוֹ׃is leavened it
chumtzatoH2556 →
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
James 4:4You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.
it leads to
- 1 John 2:15–16
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- Romans 8:7
because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
- John 15:19
If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
- Matthew 6:24
No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and…
- Galatians 1:10
Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
- 1 John 2:15–16
Through
Hosea 4:12My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 2:27
say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces, yet in the time of trouble…
- Jeremiah 2:27
Through
Jeremiah 9:2If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 5:7–8
“Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.
- Jeremiah 5:7–8
Through
Hosea 4:2Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.
it leads to
- Hosea 6:9
Like raiders who lie in ambush, so does a band of priests; they murder on the way to Shechem; surely they have committed atrocities.
- Hosea 6:9
About Hosea
This page draws on 12 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 19; Caesarius of Arles, SERMON 43; 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; Jerome, Commentary on Hosea 7:4; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Origen of Alexandria, HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 5:2.