Hosea 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The chapter opens with the people urging one another to return to the LORD, sure that the God who wounded them will heal them and raise them up. God answers that their loyalty fades like a morning mist, and says he wants loyal love and the knowledge of God rather than sacrifices and burnt offerings. He then lists the charges against them: a broken covenant, the bloodstained city of Gilead, priests who murder travelers, and Ephraim's unfaithfulness. The chapter closes with a harvest appointed for Judah as well.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • A call goes out to come and return to the LORD.
   • The LORD has torn.
   • The LORD will heal us.
   • The LORD has struck us.
   • The LORD will bind us up.
2. 6:2
   • After two days the LORD will revive us.
   • On the third day the LORD will raise us up.
   • We shall live in his presence.
3. 6:3
   • A call goes out to know the LORD and to press on to know him; the King James renders this as a condition, that we shall know if we follow on to know the LORD.
   • The LORD's going forth is as certain and established as the dawn.
   • The LORD will come to us like the rain.
   • The rain is described as the latter rain watering the earth; the King James reads the wording as naming both the latter and the former rain.
4. 6:4
   • The LORD asks what he shall do with Ephraim.
   • The LORD asks what he shall do with Judah.
   • Their loyalty is like a morning cloud.
   • Their loyalty is like the early dew that goes away.
5. 6:5
   • Therefore the LORD has hewn them by the prophets.
   • The LORD has slain them by the words of his mouth.
   • Your judgments go forth as light.
6. 6:6
   • The LORD desired steadfast love and not sacrifice.
   • The LORD desired the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
7. 6:7
   • They transgressed the covenant; the comparison is ambiguous, meaning either like Adam, like men generally, or at a place called Adam, and the King James reads it as like men.
   • There they dealt treacherously against the LORD.
8. 6:8
   • Gilead is a city of workers of iniquity.
   • Gilead is tracked with blood.
9. 6:9
   • A band of priests is like raiders lying in wait for a man.
   • They murder on the road toward Shechem; the King James renders the word as meaning they murder by consent.
   • They have committed lewdness.
10. 6:10
    • The LORD has seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel.
    • The whoredom of Ephraim is there.
    • Israel is defiled.
11. 6:11
    • A harvest is appointed for Judah also.
    • This is when the LORD returned the captivity of his people.

Words Worth Explaining

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

6:1

The tearing is the picture of a wild animal mauling prey; in the previous chapter God says he will be like a lion to Ephraim and Judah, carrying them off with no one to rescue them. The same speaker who tears is the one expected to bind up the wound.

6:2

"After two days... on the third day" is a Hebrew poetic pattern that counts a number and then the next number up. It means "very soon, and certainly" rather than marking an exact date on a calendar. Similar step-counting appears elsewhere in the prophets ("for three transgressions, and for four").

6:3

Farming in this land depended on two separate rainy seasons: the early rain in October and November, which softened ground baked hard by summer so it could be plowed and sown, and the late rain in March and April, which filled out the grain just before harvest. Miss either one and the year's food is gone. The King James order, "the latter and former rain," lists them in the reverse of the growing season.

6:4

Ephraim was the largest tribe of the northern kingdom, and its name is used throughout Hosea to mean that whole northern kingdom. Judah is the separate southern kingdom, with its capital at Jerusalem. The two had been one nation under David and Solomon and split apart afterwards. "Loyal love" translates the Hebrew word hesed: the steady, dependable faithfulness owed between two parties bound to each other, loyalty as much as warm feeling. The King James renders it "goodness" here and "mercy" in verse 6, but it is the same word both times.

6:5

The Hebrew reads "your judgments", addressed to the people. The Greek and Syriac copies read "my judgments", and most modern translations follow them.

6:6

Hebrew often states a strong preference as a flat either/or: "not this, but that" can carry the sense "that far more than this." The second half of the verse, with its "more than," shows how the first half is meant. A burnt offering was an animal burned up entirely on the altar, with no portion kept back to be eaten by the worshipers or the priests, unlike most other sacrifices.

6:7

The Hebrew word here, adam, can be read three ways, and translators have to pick one: as the name Adam, as the ordinary word for "human beings" in general (the King James takes it this way: "like men"), or as the place-name Adam, a town by the Jordan mentioned in Joshua 3:16 (which would fit the "right there" of the next line. The ambiguity is in the original.) A covenant was a formal binding agreement, drawn up like a treaty, with named obligations on both sides and stated consequences for breaking it.

6:8

Gilead was the Israelite territory east of the Jordan river, and a town of that name stood in it. The phrase behind "stained with bloody footprints" pictures tracks or heel-prints left in blood, as though violence had been walked all through the place.

6:9

Shechem was a major town in the hill country with an old sanctuary, and one of the designated cities of refuge, a place people traveled to, including worshipers on the road. Priests ambushing travelers on that particular road is the accusation. The Hebrew here is difficult: the same consonants that spell "Shechem" can also be read as "shoulder" or, as the King James took it, as an expression meaning "with one accord, by agreement."

6:10

Throughout Hosea, Israel's turning to other gods is described as a married woman selling herself to other men, the nation is pictured as God's wife, and its worship elsewhere as sexual betrayal. "The house of Israel" means the people of Israel as a family or nation, not a building.

6:11

Harvest is a double-edged image in the prophets: it can mean gathering in a crop, or reaping the consequences of what was sown. Which is meant here is left open. "Restore the fortunes" (King James "returned the captivity") is a fixed Hebrew phrase. It can mean bringing exiles home, but it is also used more broadly for reversing someone's circumstances and giving back what they lost.