⁴ sn See the note on the place name Beth Aven in 4:15.

¹ sn See the note on the place name Beth Aven in 4:15.

² tc The MT reads בָּמוֹת אָוֶן (bamot ʾaven, “high places of Aven”); however, several Hebrew mss read בָּמוֹת בֵּית אָוֶן (bamot bet ʾaven, “high places of Beth Aven”). In Hos 4:15 the name בֵּית אָוֶן (“Beth Aven”; Heb “house of wickedness”) is a wordplay on “Bethel” (Heb “house of God”). It is possible that בָּמוֹת בֵּית אָוֶן (“high places of Beth Aven”) was original: בֵּית (bet, “house”) could have dropped out as an unintentional scribal error by haplography due to presence of the consonants בת in the preceding word במות (bamot, “high places”).

¹ sn Beth Aven means “house of wickedness” in Hebrew; it is a polemic reference to “Bethel,” which means “house of God” (cf. CEV “at sinful Bethel”).

³ tn R. D. Patterson takes תַּחַת אֲוֶן (takhat ʾaven) in the first line as a place name, “Tahath-Aven.” (Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah [WEC], 237.) In this case one may translate the verse as a tricolon: “I look at Tahath-Aven. The tents of Cushan are shaking, the tent curtains of the land of Midian.”

¹ tn Alternately, “Aven” (KJV, NAB, NRSV, NLT) for the city name “Beth Aven.” The term “Beth” (house) does not appear in the Hebrew text here but is implied (e.g., Hos 4:15). It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “valley of wickedness.” Though many English versions take the Hebrew phrase בִקְעַת־אָוֶן (biqʿat ʾaven) as a literal geographical place name (“Valley of Aven” in NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), it appears to be a derogatory epithet for Damascus and the kingdom of Aram.

¹ tn The antecedent of the third person masculine singular direct-object pronoun אוֹתוֹ (ʾoto, “it”) is probably the calf idol of Beth Aven mentioned in 10:5a. This has been specified in the translation for clarity (cf. TEV, NLT).