Hosea 9:1-10

Israel Must Not Rejoice At Their Harvest Feast Because Everything Will Shortly Be Taken From Them When They Are Exiled To Egypt/Assyria Because Of What They Have Become And Because Of How They Have Treated YHWH (Hosea 9:1).

The words that follow may well have been spoken by Hosea at the northern version of the Feast of Tabernacles (1 Kings 12:32) which celebrated the end of the season of harvests and sought to encourage the coming of the rains ready for the new harvest. He warns the people not to be so full of rejoicing and exultation because shortly they will be removed from YHWH's land, and will thus have no harvests to enjoy. They will be ‘return to Egypt' and eat unclean food in Assyria. And this will occur because they are at enmity with YHWH, and because they have ‘played the harlot' in their ways, similar to the way in which Israel had sinned at Baal-peor, making a mockery of true YHWH worship.

Analysis.

a Rejoice not, O Israel, do not shout for joy, my people, for you have played the harlot, from your God, you have loved hire on every grain-floor (Hosea 9:1).

b The threshing-floor and the oil-press will not feed them, and the new wine will fail her (Hosea 9:2).

c They will not dwell in YHWH's land, but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria (Hosea 9:3).

d They will not pour out wine-offerings to YHWH, nor will they be pleasing to him, their sacrifices will be to them as the bread of mourners, all who eat of it will be polluted, for their bread will be for their appetite, it will not come into the house of YHWH (Hosea 9:4).

e What will you do in the day of solemn assembly, and in the day of the feast of YHWH?' For, lo, they have gone away from destruction, Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them (Hosea 9:5 a).

f Their pleasant things of silver, nettles will possess them, thorns will be in their tents (Hosea 9:6 b).

e The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come, Israel will know it, the prophet is a fool, the man who has the spirit is mad, for the abundance of your iniquity, and because the enmity is great (Hosea 9:7).

d Is Ephraim a watchman? Is the people of my God a prophet? A fowler's snare is in all his ways, enmity in the house of his God (Hosea 9:8).

c They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah, he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins (Hosea 9:9).

b I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness, I saw your fathers as the first-ripe in the fig-tree at its first season (Hosea 9:10 a).

a They came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like what they loved (Hosea 9:10 b).

Note that in ‘a' Israel are not to rejoice at the harvest feast, because they come as those who have played the harlot, and have lusted after hired women during their rituals, and in the parallel they are compared with Israel at Baal-peor where Israel had previously in a similar way prostituted themselves during a feast and lusted after foreign women. In ‘b' the threshingfloor and winepress will fail them and not provide for their needs, and the new wine will fail, and in the parallel He describes how He had found Israel to be like grapes in the wilderness and first ripe figs in the first season (struggling to grow). In ‘c' they will be expelled from YHWH's land and return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria, and in the parallel it will be because he will remember their iniquities and sins as in the days of Gibeah (when Benjamin was punished with the utmost severity for its sin). In ‘d' they will not come to the house of YHWH, and in the parallel it is because of their enmity in the house of their God. In ‘e' the question is what they will do in ‘the day of solemn assembly' and in ‘the day of the feast of YHWH' because they will have been destroyed and have returned to Egypt for burial, and in the parallel ‘the days of visitation' have come and ‘the days of recompense', something which Israel will know to the full. Centrally in ‘f' all that they once possessed will be lost to them.