Discovery BoxHosea 4:19 
Context4:19 A whirlwind has wrapped them in its wings;
they will be brought to shame because of their idolatrous worship. 1
Hosea 8:12
Context8:12 I spelled out my law for him in great detail,
but they regard it as something totally unknown 2 to them!
Hosea 9:17
Context9:17 My God will reject them,
for they have not obeyed him;
so they will be fugitives among the nations.
Hosea 11:7
Context11:7 My people are obsessed 3 with turning away from me; 4
they call to Baal, 5 but he will never exalt them!
Hosea 13:7
Context13:7 So 6 I will pounce on them like a lion; 7
like a leopard I will lurk by the path.
1 tn Heb “their altars” (so NAB, NRSV) or “their sacrifices” (so KJV, NASB, NIV). Here זִבְחוֹתָם (zivkhotam, “altars; sacrifices”) is a metonymy of association for Israel’s apostate idolatrous Baal worship.
2 tn Heb “foreign” or “alien”; NASB, NRSV “as a strange thing.”
3 tn The term תְלוּאִים (tÿlu’im, Qal passive participle masculine plural from תָּלָא, tala’, “to hang”) literally means “[My people] are hung up” (BDB 1067 s.v. תָּלָא). The verb תָּלָא//תָּלָה (“to hang”) is often used in a concrete sense to describe hanging an item on a peg (Ps 137:2; Song 4:4; Isa 22:24; Ezek 15:3; 27:10) or the impaling of the body of an executed criminal (Gen 40:19, 22; 41:13; Deut 21:22, 23; Josh 8:29; 10:26; 2 Sam 21:12; Esth 2:23; 5:14; 6:4; 7:9, 10; 8:7; 9:13, 14, 25). It is used figuratively here to describe Israel’s moral inability to detach itself from apostasy. Several English versions capture the sense well: “My people are bent on turning away from me” (RSV, NASB), “My people are determined to turn from me” (NIV), “My people are determined to reject me” (CEV; NLT “desert me”), “My people persist in its defection from me” (NJPS), and “they insist on turning away from me” (TEV).
4 tn The 1st person common singular suffix on the noun מְשׁוּבָתִי (mÿshuvati; literally, “turning of me”) functions as an objective genitive: “turning away from me.”
5 tc The meaning and syntax of the MT is enigmatic: וְאֶל־עַל יִקְרָאֻהוּ (vÿ’el-’al yiqra’uhu, “they call upwards to him”). Many English versions including KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT take the referent of “him” as the “most High.” The BHS editors suggest reading וְאֶל־בַּעַל יִקְרָא וְהוּא (vÿ’el-ba’al yiqra’ vehu’, “they call to Baal, but he…”), connecting the 3rd person masculine singular independent personal pronoun וְהוּא (vÿhu’, “but he…”) with the following clause. The early Greek recensions (Aquila and Symmachus), as well as the Aramaic Targum and the Vulgate, vocalized עֹל (’ol) as “yoke” (as in 11:4): “they cry out because of [their] yoke” (a reading followed by TEV).
6 tn The vav consecutive + preterite form וָאֱהִי (va’ehi) introduces a consequential or result clause; cf. NAB “Therefore”; NCV “That is why.”
7 tn Heb “So I will be like a lion to them” (so NASB); NIV “I will come upon them like a lion.”
