2:10 Soon 5 I will expose her lewd nakedness 6 in front of her lovers,
and no one will be able to rescue her from me! 7
2:11 I will put an end to all her celebration:
her annual religious festivals,
monthly new moon celebrations,
and weekly Sabbath festivities –
all her appointed festivals.
2:17 For 8 I will remove the names of the Baal idols 9 from your lips, 10
so that you will never again utter their names!” 11
5:3 I know Ephraim all too well; 12
the evil of 13 Israel is not hidden from me.
For you have engaged in prostitution, O Ephraim;
Israel has defiled itself. 14
5:9 Ephraim will be ruined in the day of judgment! 15
What I am declaring 16 to the tribes of Israel will certainly take place! 17
5:10 The princes of Judah are like those who move boundary markers.
I will pour out my rage on them like a torrential flood! 18
5:15 Then I will return again to my lair
until they have suffered their punishment. 19
Then they will seek me; 20
in their distress they will earnestly seek me.
7:2 They do not realize 21
that I remember all of their wicked deeds.
Their evil deeds have now surrounded them;
their sinful deeds are always before me. 22
11:2 But the more I summoned 23 them,
the farther they departed from me. 24
They sacrificed to the Baal idols
and burned incense to images.
11:11 They will return in fear and trembling 25
like birds from Egypt,
like doves from Assyria,
and I will settle them in their homes,” declares the Lord.
13:4 But I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of Egypt.
Therefore, you must not acknowledge any God but me;
except me there is no Savior.
14:5 I will be like the dew to Israel;
he will blossom like a lily,
he will send down his roots like a cedar of 26 Lebanon.
1 tn Heb “Then he said”; the referent (the
2 tn The independent personal pronoun אַתֶּם (’attem, “you”) is a plural form, referring to the people of Israel as a whole. To make this clear TEV translates this as third person: “the people of Israel are not my people” (cf. CEV, NLT).
3 tn The pronominal suffix on the preposition לָכֶם (lakhem, “your”) is a plural form, referring to the people of Israel as a whole.
4 tc The MT reads לֹא־אֶהְיֶה לָכֶם (lo’-’ehyeh lakhem, “I will not be yours”). The editors of BHS suggest emending the text to לֹא־אֱלֹהֵיכֶם (lo’-’elohekhem, “I will not be your God”). The emendation creates a tighter parallel with the preceding אַתֶּם לֹא עַמִּי (’attem lo’ ’ammi, “you are not my people”). Because of a lack of external evidence, however, the reading of the MT should be retained.
tn Heb “I am not yours.” The divine name “God” is supplied in the translation for clarity even though the reading of the MT is followed (see previous tc note). Almost all English versions (including KJV, ASV, NASB) supply “God” here.
sn This is an allusion to Yahweh’s promise to Moses אֶהְיֶה עִמָּךְ (’ehyeh ’immakh, “I will be with you”; Exod 3:12, 14). In effect, it is a negation of Exod 3:12, 14 and a cancellation of Israel’s status as vassal of Yahweh in the conditional Mosaic covenant.
5 tn The particle עַתָּה (’attah) often refers to the imminent or the impending future: “very soon” (BDB 774 s.v. עַתָּה 1.b). In Hosea it normally introduces imminent judgment (Hos 2:12; 4:16; 5:7; 8:8, 13; 10:2).
6 tn Heb “her lewdness” (so KJV, NIV); NAB, NRSV “her shame.”
7 tn Heb “out of my hand” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV); TEV “save her from my power.”
8 tn The vav consecutive prefixed to וַהֲסִרֹתִי (vahasiroti) “I will remove” (vav consecutive + Hiphil perfect 1st person common singular) introduces an explanatory clause.
9 tn Heb “the Baals.” The singular term בַּעַל (ba’al) refers to the Canaanite god Baal himself, while the plural form הַבְּעָלִים (habbé’alim) refers to the manifestations of the god (i.e., idols; BDB 127 s.v. בָּעַל II.1).
10 tn Heb “from her mouth.” In the translation this is rendered as second person for consistency.
11 tn Heb “they will no longer be mentioned by their name.”
12 tn The phrase “all too well” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity and stylistic reasons.
13 tn The phrase “the evil of” does not appear in the Hebrew text here, but is implied by the metonymical (cause-effect) use of the term “Israel.” It is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity. Cf. NCV “what they have done is not hidden from me.”
14 tn Or “Israel has become corrupt”; NCV “has made itself unclean”; TEV “are unfit to worship me.”
15 tn Heb “day of rebuke” (so KJV, NASB); NCV, NRSV, TEV, NLT “day of punishment.”
16 tn The verb הוֹדַעְתִּי (hoda’ti, Hiphil perfect 1st person common singular from יָדַע, yada’; Qal “to know,” Hiphil “to make known, declare”) here functions as (1) an instantaneous perfect, representing an action being performed at the same instant that the speaker utters the statement (e.g., Gen 14:22; Deut 8:19; 26:3; 2 Sam 17:11; 19:30; Ps 143:6); or (2) an epistolary perfect, representing a situation in past time from the viewpoint of the recipient of the message but in present time from the viewpoint of the writer (e.g., 1 Kgs 15:19; 2 Chr 2:12). For functions of the perfect tense (suffix-conjugation), see IBHS 486-90 §30.5.1.
17 tn The substantival use of the Niphal participle נֶאֱמָנָה (ne’emanah, “that which is sure”) refers to an event that will occur in the future (BDB 52 s.v. אָמַן 2).
18 tn Heb “like water” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NLT “like a waterfall.” The term מַיִם (mayim, “water”) often refers to literal flood waters (Gen 7:7, 10; 8:3, 7-9; Isa 54:9) and figuratively describes the
19 tn The verb יֶאְשְׁמוּ (ye’shÿmu, Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural from אָשַׁם, ’asham, “to be guilty”) means “to bear their punishment” (Ps 34:22-23; Prov 30:10; Isa 24:6; Jer 2:3; Hos 5:15; 10:2; 14:1; Zech 11:5; Ezek 6:6; BDB 79 s.v. אָשַׁם 3). Many English versions translate this as “admit their guilt” (NIV, NLT) or “acknowledge their guilt” (NASB, NRSV), but cf. NAB “pay for their guilt” and TEV “have suffered enough for their sins.”
20 tn Heb “seek my face” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “seek my presence.”
21 tn Heb “and they do not say in their heart”; TEV “It never enters their heads.”
22 tn Heb “they [the sinful deeds] are before my face” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NCV “they are right in front of me.”
23 tc The MT reads קָרְאוּ (qar’u, “they called”; Qal perfect 3rd person common plural from קָרַא, qara’, “to call”), cf. KJV, NASB; however, the LXX and Syriac reflect כְּקָרְאִי (kÿqar’i, “as I called”; preposition כְּ (kaf) + Qal infinitive construct from קָרַא + 1st person common singular suffix). The presence of the resumptive adverb כֵּן (ken, “even so”) in the following clause supports the alternate textual tradition reflected in the LXX and Syriac (cf. NAB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV, NLT).
24 tc The MT reads מִפְּנֵיהֶם (mippÿnehem, “from them”; preposition + masculine plural noun + 3rd person masculine plural suffix), so KJV, ASV, NASB; however, the LXX and Syriac reflect an alternate Hebrew textual tradition of מִפָּנַי הֵם (mippanay hem, “they [went away] from me”; preposition + masculine plural noun + 1st person common singular suffix, followed by 3rd person masculine plural independent personal pronoun); cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV. The textual variant was caused simply by faulty word division.
25 tn For the meaning of חָרַד (harad, “to tremble”) with prepositions of direction, see 11:10 above.
26 tn Heb “like Lebanon” (so KJV; also in the following verse). The phrase “a cedar of” does not appear in the Hebrew text; it is supplied in translation for clarity. Cf. TEV “the trees of Lebanon”; NRSV “the forests of Lebanon.”