Hosea 6:11

6:11 I have appointed a time to reap judgment ¹  for you also, O Judah!

If Israel Would Repent of Sin, God Would Relent of Judgment

Whenever I want to restore the fortunes of my people, ² 

Hosea 2:23

2:23 Then I will plant her as my own ³  in the land.

I will have pity on ‘No Pity’ (Lo-Ruhamah).

I will say to ‘Not My People’ (Lo-Ammi), ‘You are my people!’

And he ⁴  will say, ‘You are ⁵  my God!’”

Hosea 3:5

3:5 Afterward, the Israelites will turn and seek the Lord their God and their Davidic king. ⁶  Then they will submit to the Lord in fear and receive his blessings ⁷  in the future. ⁸ 

Hosea 13:16

13:16 (14:1) ⁹  Samaria will be held guilty, ¹⁰ 

because she rebelled against her God.

They will fall by the sword,

their infants will be dashed to the ground –

their ¹¹  pregnant women will be ripped open.

Hosea 1:2

Symbols of Sin and Judgment: The Prostitute and Her Children

1:2 When the Lord first spoke ¹²  through ¹³  Hosea, he ¹⁴  said to him, ¹⁵  “Go marry ¹⁶  a prostitute ¹⁷  who will bear illegitimate children conceived through prostitution, ¹⁸  because the nation ¹⁹  continually commits spiritual prostitution ²⁰  by turning away from ²¹  the Lord.”

Hosea 2:13

2:13 “I will punish her for the festival days

when she burned incense to the Baal idols; ²² 

she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry,

and went after her lovers,

but ²³  she forgot me!” ²⁴  says the Lord.

[6:11]  ¹ tn Heb “a harvest is appointed for you also, O Judah” (similar ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[6:11]  ² tc In the verse divisions of the MT (Leningrad Codex and Aleppo Codex), this is the last line of 6:11. However, the BHK and BHS editors suggest that it belongs with the beginning of 7:1. The ancient versions (Greek, Syriac, Latin) all reflect textual traditions that connect it with 6:11. The English versions are divided: some connect it with 6:11 (KJV, NASB, NLT), while others connect it with 7:1 (RSV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NJPS). The parallelism between this line and 7:1a favors connecting it with 7:1.

[2:23]  ³ tn Heb “for myself.”

[2:23]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text, carrying out the reference to the son born in 1:8-9, uses the third person masculine singular pronoun here; some English translations use third person plural (“they,” so KJV, NASB, NIV, CEV) in keeping with the immediate context, which refers to reestablished Israel.

[2:23]  ⁵ tn The words “You are” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are implied. It is necessary to supply the phrase in the translation to prevent the reader from understanding the predicate “my God” as an exclamation (cf. NAB).

[3:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “David their king”; cf. NCV “the king from David’s family”; TEV “a descendant of David their king”; NLT “David’s descendant, their king.”

[3:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “his goodness”; NLT “his good gifts.”

[3:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the end of the days.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NLT “in the last days.”

[13:16]  ⁷ sn Beginning with 13:16, the verse numbers through 14:9 in the English Bible differ by one from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 13:16 ET = 14:1 HT, 14:1 ET = 14:2 HT, etc., through 14:9 ET = 14:10 HT. Thus ch. 14 in the Hebrew Bible has 10 verses.

[13:16]  ⁸ tn Or “must bear its guilt” (NIV similar); NLT “must bear the consequences of their guilt”; CEV “will be punished.”

[13:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “his.” This is a collective singular, as recognized by almost all English versions.

[1:2]  ⁹ tn The construct noun תְּחִלַּת (tékhillat, “beginning of”) displays a wider use of the construct state here, preceding a perfect verb דִּבֶּר (dibber, “he spoke”; Piel perfect 3rd person masculine singular) rather than a genitive noun. This is an unusual temporal construction (GKC 422 §130.d). It may be rendered, “When he (= the Lord) began to speak” (cf. ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, and most other modern English versions, all of which are similar). This time-determinative was not correctly understood by the LXX or by the KJV: “The beginning of the word of the Lord.”

[1:2]  ¹⁰ tn The preposition בְּ (bet) on בְּהוֹשֵׁעַ (bÿhoshea’) is an instrumental use of the preposition (BDB 89 s.v. בְּ III.2.b): “by, with, through Hosea” rather than a directional “to Hosea.” This focuses on the entire prophetic revelation through Hosea to Israel.

[1:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” This is redundant in English, so the pronoun has been used in the translation (cf. TEV, NLT).

[1:2]  ¹² tn Heb “to Hosea.” The proper name is replaced by the pronoun here to avoid redundancy in English (cf. NIV, NCV, NLT).

[1:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “Go, take for yourself” (so NRSV; NASB, NIV “to yourself”). In conjunction with the following phrase this means “marry.”

[1:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a wife of harlotries.” The noun זְנוּנִים (zÿnunim) means “prostitute; harlot” (HALOT 275-76 s.v. זְנוּנִים). The term does not refer to mere adultery (cf. NIV; also NCV, TEV, CEV “unfaithful”) which is expressed by the root נַאַף (na’af, “adultery”; HALOT 658 s.v. נאף). The plural noun זְנוּנִים (zénunim, literally, “harlotries”) is an example of the plural of character or plural of repeated behavior. The phrase “wife of harlotries” (אֵשֶׁת זְנוּנִים, ’eshet zénunim) probably refers to a prostitute, possibly a temple prostitute serving at a Baal temple.

[1:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and children of harlotries.” However, TEV takes the phrase to mean the children will behave like their mother (“your children will be just like her”).

[1:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the land.” The term “the land” is frequently used as a synecdoche of container (the land of Israel) for the contained (the people of Israel).

[1:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “prostitution.” The adjective “spiritual” is supplied in the translation to clarify that apostasy is meant here. The construction זָנֹה תִזְנֶה (zanoh tizneh, infinitive absolute + imperfect of the same root) repeats the root זָנַה (zanah, “harlotry”) for rhetorical emphasis. Israel was guilty of gross spiritual prostitution by apostatizing from Yahweh. The verb זָנַה is used in a concrete sense to refer to a spouse being unfaithful in a marriage relationship (HALOT 275 s.v. זנה 1), and figuratively meaning “to be unfaithful” in a relationship with God by prostituting oneself with other gods and worshiping idols (Exod 34:15; Lev 17:7; 20:5, 6; Deut 31:16; Judg 8:27, 33; 21:17; 1 Chr 5:25; Ezek 6:9; 20:30; 23:30; Hos 4:15; Ps 106:39; see HALOT 275 s.v. 2).

[1:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “from after.”

[2:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the days of the Baals, to whom she burned incense.” The word “festival” is supplied to clarify the referent of “days,” and the word “idols” is supplied in light of the plural “Baals” (cf. NLT “her images of Baal”).

[2:13]  ¹² tn The vav prefixed to a nonverb (וְאֹתִי, vé’oti) introduces a disjunctive contrastive clause, which is rhetorically powerful.

[2:13]  ¹³ tn The accusative direct object pronoun וְאֹתִי (vé’oti, “me”) is emphatic in the word order of this clause (cf. NIV “but me she forgot”), emphasizing the heinous inappropriateness of Israel’s departure from the Lord.