Hosea 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter looks back at Ephraim's high standing in Israel and at his guilt through Baal, and then at the silver idols the people keep making. God says he knew them in the wilderness, and that once they were full they grew proud and forgot him, so he will come against them like a lion, a leopard, and a bear robbed of her cubs. He points to the king they demanded, given in anger and taken away in wrath, and speaks of ransoming them from death while saying pity is hidden from his eyes. It closes with an east wind drying up their springs and with Samaria falling by the sword.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling.
   • Ephraim was exalted in Israel.
   • Ephraim became guilty through Baal.
   • Ephraim died.
2. 13:2
   • They now sin more and more.
   • They have made themselves cast metal images from their silver.
   • They have made idols according to their own understanding.
   • All of the idols are the work of craftsmen.
   • People say of the idols that those who sacrifice should kiss the calves.
   • The saying about sacrificers is ambiguous: it can mean men who sacrifice, or those who sacrifice men.
3. 13:3
   • Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud.
   • They shall be like the early dew that passes away.
   • They shall be like chaff driven by a whirlwind from a threshing floor.
   • They shall be like smoke going out of a window.
4. 13:4
   • The LORD is their God from the land of Egypt onward.
   • They shall know no god but the LORD.
   • There is no savior besides the LORD.
5. 13:5
   • The LORD knew them in the wilderness.
   • The wilderness was a land of great drought.
6. 13:6
   • When they had pasture, they were filled.
   • When they were filled, their heart was exalted.
   • Because of this they forgot the LORD.
7. 13:7
   • The LORD will be to them like a lion.
   • The LORD will watch for them like a leopard beside the way.
8. 13:8
   • The LORD will meet them like a bear robbed of her cubs.
   • The LORD will tear open the enclosure of their heart.
   • The LORD will devour them there like a lion.
   • A wild beast shall tear them.
9. 13:9
   • Israel has destroyed itself.
   • Israel's help is in the LORD.
   • The verse is ambiguous between Israel being destroyed by itself and Israel being destroyed because it is against the LORD, its helper.
10. 13:10
    • The LORD asks where any king or savior is in all their cities.
    • The LORD asks where their judges are.
    • They had said, Give me a king and princes.
    • The King James reads that the LORD will be their king.
11. 13:11
    • The LORD gave them a king in his anger.
    • The LORD took the king away in his wrath.
12. 13:12
    • The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up.
    • Ephraim's sin is stored away.
13. 13:13
    • The pains of a woman in labor shall come upon him.
    • He is an unwise son.
    • He does not present himself at the opening of the womb when the time comes.
14. 13:14
    • The LORD will ransom them from the power of Sheol.
    • The LORD will redeem them from death.
    • The LORD addresses death concerning its plagues.
    • The LORD addresses Sheol concerning its destruction.
    • The address to death and Sheol is ambiguous between a summons of the plagues against them and a question asking where their plagues are.
    • Compassion is hidden from the LORD's eyes.
15. 13:15
    • Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind shall come.
    • The wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness.
    • His spring shall become dry.
    • His fountain shall be dried up.
    • The treasury of every precious vessel shall be plundered.
16. 13:16
    • Samaria shall be made desolate.
    • Samaria has rebelled against her God.
    • They shall fall by the sword.
    • Their infants shall be dashed in pieces.
    • Their pregnant women shall be ripped open.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

"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 Hebrew of the first line is ambiguous: it can mean that when Ephraim spoke others trembled in awe, or that Ephraim himself spoke with trembling (that is, with proper reverence) before he turned to Baal. Baal was the Canaanite storm and fertility god, the chief rival to the LORD in Israelite worship. "He died" is said of the tribe or nation, not of an individual.

13:2

Casting images meant melting silver and pouring it into a mold. The "calves" are the young-bull images set up at Bethel and Dan as the official shrines of the northern kingdom; kissing an image was the ordinary gesture of homage to a god, like kissing the hand or foot of a statue. The Hebrew of the last line is unusually compressed and can be read two ways: "those who sacrifice kiss calves," or "those who sacrifice human beings kiss calves."

13:3

A threshing floor was a flat, exposed patch of hard ground where grain was beaten loose and then tossed into the air; the wind carried off the light husks (chaff) and the heavy grain fell back. Chaff is the standard image for something weightless and instantly gone. Houses had no chimneys, smoke escaped through a hole or lattice opening in the wall or roof.

13:4

"Since the land of Egypt" points back to the exodus, when the people were brought out of slavery in Egypt; the phrase can mean either "ever since that time" or "the God who brought you from there." "Rescuer" (KJV "saviour") here means a deliverer from danger (from enemies, famine, captivity), not a religious title.

13:5

"Knew" in Hebrew covers more than having information: to know someone is to acknowledge them, claim them, look after them. Some ancient versions read a similar-looking Hebrew word meaning "I fed" or "I shepherded you," which fits the pasture image in the next verse.

13:6

The picture is of livestock: good grazing, animals eating until they are full, and then no longer needing the shepherd. "Heart" in Hebrew usage means the inner self (mind, will and intention), not the seat of feeling alone.

13:7

A leopard hunts by concealment rather than pursuit, waiting motionless beside a track for something to pass. The point of the image is that the danger is unseen until it is too late.

13:8

The KJV's "caul of their heart" is the membrane or casing around the heart; the phrase means the animal rips open the chest cavity. Bears, lions and leopards were all real hazards in the hill country and along travel routes at this period.

13:9

This verse is one of the hardest lines in the book. The Hebrew as written says something like "he has destroyed you, Israel, for against me, against your helper", with no clear ending. Translators either supply "you have destroyed yourself, but your help is in me" (as the KJV does) or read it as "you are destroyed because you are against me, your helper." Both are attempts to finish a sentence the Hebrew leaves broken.

13:10

The first Hebrew word here is read by the KJV as "I will be [your king]" and by most modern translations as "where is...", the two are nearly identical in Hebrew. The demand "Give me a king" recalls the moment when Israel asked for a monarchy like the surrounding nations instead of being governed by judges (1 Samuel 8). "Judges" were leaders who settled disputes and led in war, the system that preceded kingship.

13:11

In the northern kingdom's last decades, kings were repeatedly installed by force and murdered in short order, four of the last six were assassinated. "Gave" and "took away" describe that whole history of grasped and toppled thrones.

13:12

The image is of a legal document: written, rolled up, tied and sealed, then filed away for safekeeping until it is produced in court. Nothing is lost or overlooked; the record is being kept.

13:13

In childbirth, a baby that fails to move into the birth canal at the right moment endangers both itself and the mother; without surgery this was usually fatal to both. The son is called foolish because the moment of deliverance arrives and he will not take it.

13:14

"Ransom" and "redeem" are commercial words: paying a price to free a captive or a debt-slave, or buying back family land or family members who had been sold. "The grave" translates Sheol, the underworld where the Hebrew Bible pictures all the dead as going, not a place of punishment. The verse is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew and has been read both as a promise (I will rescue them) and as a summons calling Death's plagues down on Israel; the closing line, that pity is hidden from view, is what makes many read it the second way. In the KJV, "repentance" carries its older sense of a change of mind or a relenting, not sorrow for sin.

13:15

The name Ephraim sounds like the Hebrew word for "fruitful," so "though he be fruitful" is a play on the name. The east wind is the sirocco, a scorching desert wind that withers crops in a day; it also stands for the invader coming from that direction, Assyria. "Spring" and "well" are another play on the name, and in a dry country the loss of water is the loss of everything.

13:16

In Hebrew Bibles this verse is numbered as 14:1, the first verse of the next chapter. Samaria was the capital city of the northern kingdom; it fell to Assyria in 722 BC. Killing the children and cutting open pregnant women are named because they were recognized practices when an ancient city was stormed, the point being that the conquered people would have no next generation.