Hosea 5:13

5:13 When Ephraim saw ¹  his sickness

and Judah saw his wound,

then Ephraim turned ²  to Assyria,

and begged ³  its great king ⁴  for help.

But he will not be able to heal you!

He cannot cure your wound! ⁵ 

Hosea 7:11

Israel Turns to Assyria and Egypt for Help

7:11 Ephraim has been like a dove,

easily deceived and lacking discernment.

They called to Egypt for help;

they turned to Assyria for protection.

Hosea 7:2

7:2 They do not realize ⁶ 

that I remember all of their wicked deeds.

Their evil deeds have now surrounded them;

their sinful deeds are always before me. ⁷ 

Hosea 1:1

Superscription

1:1 ⁸ This is the word of the Lord which was revealed to Hosea ⁹  son of Beeri during the time when ¹⁰  Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah ruled Judah, ¹¹  and during the time when Jeroboam son of Joash ¹²  ruled Israel. ¹³ 

Ezekiel 23:5-9

23:5 “Oholah engaged in prostitution while she was mine. ¹⁴  She lusted after her lovers, the Assyrians ¹⁵  – warriors ¹⁶  23:6 clothed in blue, governors and officials, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. 23:7 She bestowed her sexual favors on them; all of them were the choicest young men of Assyria. She defiled herself with all whom she desired ¹⁷  – with all their idols. 23:8 She did not abandon the prostitution she had practiced in Egypt; for in her youth men had sex with her, fondled her virgin breasts, and ravished her. ¹⁸  23:9 Therefore I handed her over to her lovers, the Assyrians ¹⁹  for whom she lusted.

¹ tn Hosea employs three preterites (vayyiqtol forms) in verse 13a-b to describe a past-time situation.

² tn Heb “went to” (so NAB, NRSV, TEV); CEV “asked help from.”

³ tn Heb “sent to” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).

⁴ tc The MT reads מֶלֶךְ יָרֵב (melekh yarev, “a contentious king”). This is translated as a proper name (“king Jareb”) by KJV, ASV, NASB. However, the stative adjective יָרֵב (“contentious”) is somewhat awkward. The words should be redivided as an archaic genitive-construct מַלְכִּי רָב (malki rav, “great king”; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) which preserves the old genitive hireq yod ending. This is the equivalent of the Assyrian royal epithet sarru rabbu (“the great king”). See also the tc note on the same phrase in 10:6.

⁵ tn Heb “your wound will not depart from you.”

⁶ tn Heb “and they do not say in their heart”; TEV “It never enters their heads.”

⁷ tn Heb “they [the sinful deeds] are before my face” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NCV “they are right in front of me.”

⁸ tc The textual problems in Hosea are virtually unparalleled in the OT. The Masoretic Text (MT), represented by the Leningrad Codex (c. a.d. 1008), which served as the basis for both BHK and BHS, and the Aleppo Codex (c. a.d. 952), are textually corrupt by all accounts and have a multitude of scribal errors. Many medieval Masoretic mss preserve textual variants that differ from the Leningrad and Aleppo Codices. The Qumran materials (4QXII^c,d,g) contain numerous textual variants that differ from the MT; unfortunately, these texts are quite fragmentary (frequently in the very place that an important textual problem appears). The textual tradition and translation quality of the LXX and the early Greek recensions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) is mixed; in some places they are inferior to the MT but in other places they preserve a better reading. The textual apparatus of BHK and BHS contains many proposed emendations based on the ancient versions (Greek, Syriac, Latin, Aramaic) that often appear to be superior readings than what is preserved in the MT. In numerous cases, the MT readings are so difficult morphologically, syntactically, and contextually that conservative conjectural emendations are necessary to make sense of the text. Most major English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, RSV, NEB, NAB, NASB, NIV, TEV, NKJV, NJPS, NJB, NRSV, REB, NCV, CEV, NLT) adopt (either occasionally or frequently) textual variants reflected in the versions and occasionally adopt conservative conjectural emendations proposed in BHK and/or BHS. However, many of the textual problems in Hosea are so difficult that the English versions frequently are split among themselves. With this in mind, the present translation of Hosea must necessarily be viewed as only preliminary. Further work on the text and translation of Hosea is needed, not only in terms of the NET Bible but in Hosea studies in general. The text of Hosea should be better clarified when the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project completes work on the book of Hosea. For further study of textual problems in Hosea, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:228-71.

⁹ tn Heb “The word of the Lord which was to Hosea.” The words “This is” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹⁰ tn Heb “in the days of” (again later in this verse). Cf. NASB “during the days of”; NIV “during the reigns of”; NLT “during the years when.”

¹¹ tn Heb “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

¹² sn Joash is a variation of the name Jehoash. Some English versions use “Jehoash” here (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT).

¹³ tn Heb “Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “while she was under me.” The expression indicates that Oholah is viewed as the Lord’s wife. See Num 5:19-20, 29.

¹⁵ tn Heb “Assyria.”

¹⁶ tn The term apparently refers to Assyrian military officers; it is better construed with the description that follows. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:738.

¹⁷ tn Heb “lusted after.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “and poured out their harlotry on her.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “I gave her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the sons of Assyria.”