Hosea 5: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

God calls the priests, the people of Israel, and the king's household to hear a charge against them. He says he knows Ephraim's unfaithfulness, that Israel's pride testifies against him, and that Judah falls along with Israel and Ephraim; they will go looking for the LORD with their flocks and not find him. War horns sound in the towns of Benjamin, and God says he will be like a moth, like rot, and like a lion that tears and carries off, while the king of Assyria cannot heal their wound. The chapter ends with God saying he will return to his own place until they admit their guilt and seek him in their trouble.

Claim by Claim

1. 5:1
   • The priests are commanded to hear this.
   • The house of Israel is commanded to pay attention.
   • The house of the king is commanded to give ear.
   • The judgment is directed against those addressed.
   • Those addressed have been a snare at Mizpah.
   • Those addressed have been a net spread out on Tabor.
2. 5:2
   • The rebels have gone deep in slaughter.
   • The speaker is a chastisement to all of them.
3. 5:3
   • The speaker knows Ephraim.
   • Israel is not hidden from the speaker.
   • Ephraim has now committed prostitution.
   • Israel is defiled.
4. 5:4
   • Their deeds do not allow them to return to their God.
   • A spirit of prostitution is within them.
   • They have not known the LORD.
5. 5:5
   • The pride of Israel testifies to his face.
   • Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity.
   • Judah also will stumble along with them.
6. 5:6
   • They will go with their flocks and their herds to seek the LORD.
   • They will not find him.
   • He has withdrawn himself from them.
7. 5:7
   • They have dealt treacherously against the LORD.
   • They have fathered foreign children.
   • A new moon will now devour them together with their portions.
8. 5:8
   • The command is given to blow the ram's horn in Gibeah.
   • The command is given to blow the trumpet in Ramah.
   • The command is given to raise a shout at Beth-aven.
   • The cry is: after you, Benjamin.
9. 5:9
   • Ephraim will become a desolation in the day of rebuke.
   • The speaker has made known among the tribes of Israel what is certain.
10. 5:10
    • The princes of Judah are like those who move a boundary marker.
    • The speaker will pour out his wrath upon them like water.
11. 5:11
    • Ephraim is oppressed.
    • Ephraim is crushed in judgment.
    • Ephraim willingly went after a command, the term being ambiguous between a human decree and a worthless thing to follow.
12. 5:12
    • The speaker will be to Ephraim like a moth.
    • The speaker will be to the house of Judah like rot.
13. 5:13
    • Ephraim saw his sickness.
    • Judah saw his wound.
    • Ephraim went to Assyria.
    • Ephraim sent to a king called Jareb, the name being ambiguous between a proper name and a description of a contending or great king.
    • That king was not able to heal you.
    • That king could not cure your wound.
14. 5:14
    • The speaker will be to Ephraim like a lion.
    • The speaker will be to the house of Judah like a young lion.
    • The speaker himself will tear and go away.
    • The speaker will carry off.
    • No one will rescue.
15. 5:15
    • The speaker will go and return to his place.
    • The speaker will stay away until they acknowledge their guilt.
    • The speaker will stay away until they seek his face.
    • In their distress they will seek him earnestly.

Words Worth Explaining

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

5:1

Mizpah and Tabor were well-known high places, hilltop shrines where people came to worship. "Snare" and "net" are bird-catcher's equipment: the charge is that the nation's leaders lay in wait for people at the very places pilgrims traveled to. "House of the king" means the royal court and family, not a building.

5:2

The Hebrew of this line is damaged or obscure, and translators differ widely; some read it as "the rebels have gone deep in slaughter," others as a reference to a place called Shittim, or to a pit dug deep as a trap. The sense of the second half: that God rebukes or disciplines them all, is clear.

5:3

Ephraim was the largest tribe of the northern kingdom, and its name is used throughout Hosea as another word for that whole kingdom; "Israel" here means the same northern kingdom, not the twelve tribes together. Hosea repeatedly describes the nation's worship of other gods as a wife's unfaithfulness, the book's governing image. "Defiled" is a ritual word: made unclean, and so unfit to approach God.

5:4

"To know the LORD" in Hebrew is not about holding information. It means to acknowledge him, to be in ongoing relationship with him, the way one knows a person rather than a fact.

5:5

Judah is the separate southern kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital; Israel and Ephraim are the northern kingdom. Hosea preached in the north but repeatedly warns that the south is on the same road.

5:6

Bringing flocks and herds means bringing animals to be sacrificed. The picture is of people arriving at the sanctuary with the full, correct offerings and finding no one there.

5:7

"Strange children" in the King James means children who do not belong, either children born of the nation's unfaithfulness, or children who are no longer recognized as belonging to the LORD. The "new moon" was the monthly festival marking the start of a new month; the Hebrew can mean either that the festival itself will devour them, or simply that within a month they will be devoured. Translators split on which.

5:8

The ram's horn was the standard alarm and battle signal. Gibeah, Ramah and Beth-aven are towns in Benjamin's territory, strung along the border between the northern and southern kingdoms, the warning moves southward, town by town, as an invader would. "Beth-aven" means "house of wickedness" and is a deliberate twisting of Beth-el, "house of God," the northern kingdom's chief sanctuary. "After you, Benjamin" appears to be an old war cry, calling the tribe of Benjamin to lead the charge.

5:9

"Desolate" means emptied out and ruined, with no one left living there. The "day of rebuke" is the day God punishes them.

5:10

Boundary stones marked the edges of a family's inherited field. Quietly shifting one stole land from a neighbor and was hard to prove; the law singles it out for a curse (Deuteronomy 19:14, 27:17). The comparison is to a thief who steals by moving the rules rather than by force.

5:11

The Hebrew word behind "the commandment" is uncertain and heavily disputed. It may mean a human command or decree that Ephraim chose to obey, or, with different vowels, filth, vanity, or worthless idols. Translations divide sharply, and the ambiguity is in the text itself, not in the English.

5:12

A moth destroys cloth invisibly from the inside, and rot eats away wood or bone over time. Both images are of slow, quiet ruin rather than sudden disaster. The second word can also mean festering or maggots.

5:13

Assyria was the dominant empire of the region in Hosea's day, and northern kings paid it tribute for protection. "Jareb" is probably not a personal name: the Hebrew suggests something like "the great king" or "the king who contends," a title or a mocking nickname for the Assyrian ruler.

5:14

A "young lion" in Hebrew is not a cub but a lion at full strength, in its prime as a hunter. The two words together simply intensify the threat rather than describing a mother and her offspring.

5:15

"Seeking someone's face" is court language: presenting yourself before a ruler to ask a favor or be received back. The King James "seek me early" translates a Hebrew verb that means to search out earnestly or diligently; the connection with dawn is a secondary sense of the word and not the point here.