Hosea 10:1-8

God's Annihilating Judgment on the Mixed Cultus. With the land's abounding prosperity Israel has multiplied altars in the service of the mixed cultus; these Yahweh will destroy (Hosea 10:1 f.) Their puppet-kings they shall find utterly impotent (Hosea 10:3), and their idle, lying words, which never result in performance, shall yield a bitter crop of judgment (Hosea 10:4,? a gloss). Samaria (i.e. the northern kingdom) shall find the calves of Beth-Aven (Bethel, cf. Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8 *) a source of terror rather than of help, their glory departed, and the idols themselves ignominiously carried off to Assyria (Hosea 10:5 f.). Samaria's king shall drift helplessly to doom, and the high places of Aven, source of Israel's sin, shall be destroyed, and the deluded people left helpless and despairing (Hosea 10:7 f.).

Hosea 10:1. Read perhaps, whose fruit is (or was) lovely. goodness: read prosperity (mg.).

Hosea 10:2. Marti thinks this a late gloss. divided: i.e. in the cultus. Are they serving Yahweh or the Baal? Or render, their heart is false (the cultus is no true worship of Yahweh at all). be found guilty: LXX reads, be desolated (Heb. yâ shô mmû). he: i.e. Yahweh. shall smite: lit. break the neck of, perhaps with reference to the horned ox-head placed on the corners of altars.

Hosea 10:3. No legitimate king reigns, only a usurper. for. Lord:? a gloss (Marti).

Hosea 10:4. The verse (? a gloss, Marti, Nowack) answers the question, What can he do for us? Render, speak words, swear falsely, make covenants and (emended text) turn justice to gall (Jeremiah 8:14 *). The words in the furrows of the field may be an insertion from Hosea 12:11.

Hosea 10:5. calves: read calf.

Hosea 10:5 b. Read, for him shall they mourn, his people and his priestlings, they shall wail for his glory that it is banished from him.

Hosea 10:6. Render, Yea himself (i.e. the calf) they shall transport, etc. Jareb: cf. Hosea 5:13 *. because. counsel: read, of his idol. The source of Ephraim's shame is not so much false politics as the false cultus.

Hosea 10:7. Render like a chip (cf. mg.) upon the face of the waters.

Hosea 10:8. Read, the high places of Israel (omitting of Aven the sin as a pious gloss on high places).

Hosea 10:8 b. Cf. Luke 23:30; Revelation 6:16.