Hosea 12

Ephraim feeds on wind and chases the east wind all day long. Day after day he piles up more lies and more violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria, and olive oil is shipped off to Egypt.

1Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt.

Note"Ephraim" was the largest tribe of the northern kingdom, and prophets often use the name for that whole kingdom (also called Israel), as distinct from Judah in the south. (The east wind blew off the desert: scorching, dry, and destructive to crops. To "feed on wind" and "chase the east wind" is to live on nothing and pursue what harms you.) Assyria and Egypt were the two great powers of the day; a small kingdom between them survived by paying one and courting the other. Olive oil was a valuable export used as tribute or as a gift to secure an alliance.

2The LORD also brings a charge against Judah. He will punish Jacob for the way he has lived, and pay him back for what he has done.

2The LORD hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him.

Note"Brings a charge" is courtroom language: the LORD is laying out a legal case, as a plaintiff would. "Jacob" is the ancestor of the nation, and his name also stands for the nation descended from him. Through this chapter the prophet moves back and forth between the man and the people, so that things said of one apply to the other.

3In their mother's womb, Jacob grabbed his brother's heel, and when he was grown and strong he wrestled with God.

3He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God:

NoteTwo episodes from Jacob's life. At birth he came out gripping the heel of his twin, Esau (Genesis 25:26); the name Jacob sounds like the Hebrew for "heel" and for one who supplants or cheats another. Later, on his way home, he wrestled all night with a mysterious figure and was renamed Israel (Genesis 32:22-32).

4Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won. He wept and begged him for kindness. He found God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us,

4Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;

Note"Angel" translates a word meaning messenger; in Genesis 32 the figure Jacob wrestles is described both as a man and as God. (Bethel, meaning "house of God," is where Jacob dreamed of a stairway to heaven and where God later spoke to him again (Genesis 28 and 35). By Hosea's time Bethel was also a major shrine of the northern kingdom.) The Hebrew here reads "spoke with us," bringing the prophet's own hearers into the scene; some ancient copies and translations read "spoke with him," meaning Jacob. The rendering keeps the harder "us."

5that is, the LORD, the God of armies. The LORD is the name by which he is remembered.

5Even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial.

Note"The LORD" in small capitals stands for the personal name of God in Hebrew, four consonants often written Yahweh, which Jewish readers traditionally do not pronounce aloud. "God of armies" (older English: "LORD of hosts") pictures God as commander of vast heavenly forces. The Hebrew word behind "the name by which he is remembered" refers to how a name is invoked and called to mind in worship.

6So you must turn back to your God. Hold on to love and justice, and keep waiting for your God, always.

6Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.

NoteThe two words paired here are the standard summary of what Israel owed: steady, loyal kindness within the community (Hebrew *hesed*, often "mercy" or "steadfast love"), and just dealing, especially in court and in trade.

7He is a trader who holds crooked scales in his hand. He loves to cheat people.

7He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

NoteThe Hebrew word for "trader" is also the word "Canaanite" (Canaanite merchants were proverbial traders), so the line doubles as an insult: Israel has become just another Canaanite. Goods and silver were weighed on balance scales against stone weights. Carrying a second, lighter set of weights was the classic way to cheat a customer, and the law forbade it (Deuteronomy 25:13-16).

8Ephraim says, "Look how rich I am. I have made a fortune for myself. In everything I have earned, no one can find any wrong in me that counts as sin."

8And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.

9But I am the LORD your God, and I have been since the land of Egypt. I will make you live in tents again, as you did in the days of the appointed feast.

9And I that am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast.

NoteIsraelites lived in temporary leafy shelters for one week each autumn during the harvest festival (the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles), remembering the years of homelessness after leaving Egypt. The line can be heard two ways at once: a promise of that joyful festival returning, and a threat of being put back in tents: that is, driven out of their houses into homelessness again.

10I also spoke through the prophets. I gave them vision after vision, and through the prophets I taught in word pictures.

10I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets.

Note"Word pictures" renders a Hebrew word for comparisons, parables, and symbolic acts, the kind of thing Hosea himself does when he acts out a message rather than simply stating it.

11Is there evil in Gilead? They are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls, and their altars are like piles of stone in a plowed field.

11Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields.

NoteGilead was the Israelite territory east of the Jordan River; Gilgal was a shrine west of the Jordan, near Jericho. Both were places of worship the prophets condemned. Farmers cleared stones from their fields and dumped them in heaps at the edges. The image is of the altars reduced to nothing but rubble piles sitting in a plowed field.

12Jacob fled to the land of Aram. Israel worked to earn a wife, and to earn a wife he tended sheep.

12And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep.

NoteJacob fled from his brother Esau to Aram, the region of his mother's family in what is now northern Syria and southeastern Turkey. There he worked seven years herding his uncle Laban's sheep to earn a wife, was tricked into marrying the elder sister first, and worked another seven years (Genesis 29). "Israel" is the second name Jacob was given, used here for the same man, and, as elsewhere in the chapter, for the nation.

13But it was by a prophet that the LORD brought Israel up out of Egypt, and by a prophet Israel was kept safe.

13And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.

NoteThe prophet meant is Moses, who is called a prophet in Deuteronomy 18:15 and 34:10. The contrast is deliberate: Jacob served a foreign master to earn a wife, but God's own prophet did the work of bringing the nation out of Egypt and keeping it alive.

14Ephraim has stirred up bitter anger. So his Lord will leave the guilt of the blood he has shed on him, and pay him back for his contempt.

14Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his LORD return unto him.

Note"The guilt of the blood he has shed" translates a legal idea: when someone was killed unlawfully, responsibility for that death attached to the killer until it was dealt with. To leave it on him means it will not be canceled (he will answer for it.) "His Lord" here carries the ordinary sense of master or owner, the one to whom he belongs.