Hosea 7: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD says that when he moves to heal Israel, the guilt of Ephraim and the crimes of Samaria are uncovered instead: lying, theft, and a king made glad by their evil. The chapter piles up images of a nation on fire from within, an oven left to burn, an unturned cake, a man going gray without noticing, and a foolish dove flying to Egypt and Assyria. Israel does not return to the LORD or call on him, even though he trained and rescued them. God answers with a net, with punishment, and with the word that their leaders will fall by the sword and be laughed at in Egypt.

Claim by Claim

1. 7:1
   • When God would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is exposed.
   • The evil deeds of Samaria are exposed.
   • They practice falsehood.
   • A thief comes in.
   • A raiding band strips people outside in the street.
2. 7:2
   • They do not say in their hearts that God remembers all their evil.
   • Their own deeds now surround them.
   • Their deeds are in front of God's face.
3. 7:3
   • They make the king glad with their evil.
   • They make the princes glad with their lies.
4. 7:4
   • They are all adulterers.
   • They are like an oven heated by a baker.
   • The baker ceases stirring the fire from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.
5. 7:5
   • On the day of their king, wine brought on sickening heat: it is unclear whether the princes made themselves sick or made the king sick.
   • He stretched out his hand with mockers.
6. 7:6
   • They have made their heart ready like an oven while they lie in wait.
   • Their baker sleeps all night.
   • In the morning it burns like a flaming fire.
7. 7:7
   • They are all hot like an oven.
   • They have devoured their judges.
   • All their kings have fallen.
   • There is no one among them who calls to God.
8. 7:8
   • Ephraim mixes himself among the peoples.
   • Ephraim is a flat cake that has not been turned over.
9. 7:9
   • Strangers have devoured Ephraim's strength.
   • Ephraim does not know it.
   • Gray hair is scattered on him.
   • He does not know it.
10. 7:10
    • The pride of Israel testifies to his face.
    • They do not return to the LORD their God.
    • They do not seek him, despite all this.
11. 7:11
    • Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and without sense.
    • They call to Egypt.
    • They go to Assyria.
12. 7:12
    • When they go, God will spread his net over them.
    • God will bring them down like birds of the sky.
    • God will discipline them in accordance with what has been reported to their assembly.
13. 7:13
    • Woe to them, because they have strayed away from God.
    • Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against God.
    • God would redeem them.
    • They have spoken lies against God.
14. 7:14
    • They have not cried out to God from their heart.
    • They wail upon their beds.
    • They gather themselves for grain and new wine.
    • They turn away from God in rebellion.
15. 7:15
    • God disciplined and trained them.
    • God strengthened their arms.
    • They plot evil against God.
16. 7:16
    • They turn, but not upward, that is, not to the Most High.
    • They are like a bow that misfires.
    • Their princes will fall by the sword because of the rage of their tongue.
    • This will be their object of mockery in the land of Egypt.

Words Worth Explaining

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

7:1

Ephraim, Israel, and Samaria all name the same thing here: the northern kingdom. After Solomon's death the nation split in two, and the northern half kept the name Israel; Ephraim was its largest tribe and stood for the whole; Samaria was its capital city. Hosea preached to this northern kingdom in its last decades, before Assyria destroyed it in 722 BC.

7:3

"Princes" in the King James does not mean the king's sons. It means the officials, nobles and army commanders around the throne, the men who actually ran the country.

7:4

Calling them adulterers works on two levels in Hosea. Literal sexual misconduct is meant, but the book's running comparison is of the bond between the LORD and Israel as a marriage, so that turning to other gods counts as unfaithfulness by a spouse. Both senses are in play whenever the word appears. The oven is a clay or stone dome with a fire built inside it. Once heated, it holds its heat, so between kneading the dough and the dough rising the baker can leave the fire alone and it stays hot on its own.

7:5

"The day of our king" seems to be a fixed royal occasion, most likely the anniversary of his accession or a court festival, though the text does not say which. Reaching out or joining hands was a public gesture sealing an agreement or declaring friendship. The king clasps hands with the very men who are mocking him.

7:6

This verse is one of the hardest in the book. The Hebrew consonants can be read as "their baker sleeps," which the King James follows, or with a small change as "their anger smolders", the two Hebrew words look nearly identical. Either way the picture is the same: something is left burning low overnight and flares up at dawn.

7:7

"They eat up their own rulers" points to real events. In Hosea's lifetime the northern kingdom went through a run of assassinations: four of its last kings were murdered by the men who then took their thrones, in the space of about twenty-five years.

7:8

"Mixes himself in" is the ordinary Hebrew word for stirring flour into oil, which is why the baking image follows straight on. What it describes is the northern kingdom entangling itself with foreign powers by treaty and adopting their ways. Flat bread was baked on a hot stone or griddle and had to be flipped. Left unturned it comes out charred underneath and still raw on top, useless either way.

7:9

Gray hair here is a sign of strength quietly draining away with age. The point of the image is that it happens gradually enough that the man himself does not notice.

7:10

"Speaks against him" is courtroom language: pride stands up as a witness giving evidence against Israel in a trial.

7:11

The dove was proverbial for fluttering about in a panic without direction. The two destinations are the great powers of the day: Egypt to the southwest and Assyria to the northeast. Israel's kings tried to survive by playing one against the other, near the end, King Hoshea was paying tribute to Assyria while secretly sending envoys to Egypt for help.

7:12

Bird catchers spread a large net over a flock feeding on the ground and pulled it shut, taking the whole flock at once. The last clause is obscure in Hebrew. It has been read as "as their assembly has been told" (that is, according to warnings already announced publicly) and also as "when I hear them flocking together," continuing the bird image. The ambiguity is in the original.

7:13

"Set them free" translates a word meaning to buy someone back, paying a price to release a relative from slavery or debt. Used of God and Israel it normally recalls the escape from slavery in Egypt.

7:14

Wailing on beds is the posture of formal mourning or of loud pleading in distress. The next line is another textual crux. The traditional Hebrew reads "they gather themselves"; ancient manuscripts and versions differ, and many read "they gash themselves", cutting one's own skin was a mourning custom and also a way of getting a god's attention in the fertility rites of the region. Grain and new wine, the freshly pressed juice of the harvest, are what such rites were meant to secure.

7:15

Training and strengthening the arms is military language: teaching a man to handle weapons and draw a bow. It sets up the failed bow in the next verse.

7:16

A bow that shoots crooked is one that has warped or gone slack, so the arrow flies wide however carefully it is aimed (the archer cannot rely on it. Hebrew idiom calls it a "bow of deceit," a bow that lets you down. The phrase behind "not to the Most High" is uncertain. It can mean they turn to something other than God, or simply that they turn but not upward) that is, to no purpose at all. Egypt is named because that is where they had gone looking for help; the mockery comes from the very allies they courted.