USB ~ Hosea 9

From Days of Celebration to Days of Punishment

1 Do not rejoice, Israel, do not exult like the nations! For you have prostituted yourself, abandoning your God, loving a prostitute’s fee upon every threshing floor.†

2 Threshing floor and wine press will not nourish them, the new wine will fail them.

3 They will not dwell in the LORD’s land; Ephraim will return to Egypt, and in Assyria they will eat unclean food.

4 They will not pour libations of wine to the LORD, and their sacrifices will not please him. Their bread will be like mourners’ bread,† a that makes unclean all who eat of it; Their food will be for their own appetites; it cannot enter the house of the LORD.

5 What will you do on the festival day, the day of the LORD’s feast?†

6 † When they flee from the devastation, Egypt will gather them, Memphis will bury them. Weeds will overgrow their silver treasures, and thorns, their tents.

7 They have come, the days of punishment! they have come, the days of recompense! Let Israel know it! “The prophet is a fool, b the man of the spirit is mad!” Because your iniquity is great, great, too, is your hostility.

8 † The watchman of Ephraim, the people of my God, is the prophet; c yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways, hostility in the house of his God.

9 They have sunk to the depths of corruption, as in the days of Gibeah;† d God will remember their iniquity and punish their sins.

From Former Glory to a History of Corruption

10 Like grapes in the desert, I found Israel; Like the first fruits of the fig tree, its first to ripen, e I looked on your ancestors. But when they came to Baal-peor† f and consecrated themselves to the Shameful One, they became as abhorrent as the thing they loved.

11 Ephraim is like a bird: their glory flies away— no birth, no pregnancy, no conception. g

12 Even though they bring up their children, I will make them childless, until no one is left. Indeed, woe to them when I turn away from them!

13 Ephraim, as I saw, was a tree planted in a meadow; But now Ephraim will bring out his children to the slaughterer!

14 Give them, LORD! give them what? Give them a miscarrying womb, and dry breasts! h

15 All their misfortune began in Gilgal;† yes, there I rejected them. Because of their wicked deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no longer; all their princes are rebels.

16 † Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up; i they will bear no fruit. j Were they to bear children, I would slay the beloved of their womb.

17 My God will disown them because they have not listened to him; they will be wanderers among the nations. k

Footnotes

†. 9:1 Threshing floor: an allusion to harvest festivals in honor of Baal, to whom the Israelites had attributed the fertility of the land; cf. 2:7.

†. 9:4 Mourners’ bread: bread eaten at funeral rites (Dt 26:14). The presence of a corpse also made all food prepared in that house unclean (Jer 16:5-7).

†. 9:5 The LORD’s feast: probably the important autumn feast of Booths, the most important of the Israelite public celebrations (Lv 23:34).

†. 9:6 Instead of gathering for celebration (v. 5), they will be gathered for death. Memphis: known for the monumental pyramid tombs. Silver treasures: the silver statues of Baal (8:4).

†. 9:8 Prophets, like Hosea himself, are called to be sentinels for Israel, warning Israel of God’s coming wrath (see Ez 3:17; 33:7), but often meet rejection.

†. 9:9 The days of Gibeah: the precise allusion is not clear. Perhaps it is a reference to the outrage committed at Gibeah in the days of the judges (Jgs 19-21), or to questions surrounding Saul’s kingship at Gibeah (1 Sm 10:26; 14:2; 22:6).

†. 9:10 Baal-peor: where the Israelites consecrated themselves for the first time to Baal (Nm 25; see note on Hos 5:1-2). Baal is here called the Shameful One.

†. 9:15 Gilgal: possibly a reference to Saul’s disobedience to Samuel (1 Sm 13:7-14; 15), or to the idolatry practiced in that place (see note on Hos 4:15).

†. 9:16 Wordplay on the Hebrew word for “fruit” (peri) and Ephraim (see note on 8:9). The whole passage (vv. 10-17) presents a reversal of Ephraim’s name (Gn 41:52). He will have no fruit, a condition which will result in extinction.

9:4 Dt 26:14.
9:7 2 Kgs 9:11; Jn 10:20.
9:8 Jer 6:17; Ez 3:17; 33:2, 6, 7.
9:9 Jgs 19-21.
9:10 Is 28:4; Jer 2:2.
9:10 Nm 25.
9:11 Dt 28:18.
9:14 Jb 3:11-12; Lk 23:29.
9:16 Am 2:9.
9:16 Mt 21:19.
9:17 Gn 4:12, 14; Dt 28:64-65.