Hosea 10:5

shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven The statement is keenly ironical. So far from being able to help their worshippers, the -calves of Beth-aven" shall occasion the greatest anxiety to their worshippers. Probably however we should make a slight emendation, and render, shall bemoan the calves (yânûdûfor yâgûrû); comp. the parallel clause. -Beth-aven" is a contemptuous name for Bethel (see on Hosea 4:15); the -calves", or more literally -she-calves", may indicate what we should not otherwise have known, that Jeroboam's -calf" (or small bull) was only the chief of several of these idolatrous symbols. It should be added however that the Sept. and the Pesh. have the masc. sing. form, so that the text is not beyond dispute, especially as Hosea immediately afterwards employs pronominal suffixes of the 3rd pers. sing. masc. The feminine form in the received reading is perhaps to be explained as expressing contempt (Ἀχαιΐδες οὐκ ἔτʼ Ἀχαιοί, Il.11. 235, has been compared); it is used nowhere else of the steer-gods.

for the people thereof, &c. Rather, yea, his people shall mourn for it, and his priests shall tremble for it, for their glory, because it is gone into exile from them. Again keenly ironical. -His people" means the steer-god's people; Jehovah's people they are no more: -Call his name Not-my-people" (Hosea 1:9). The -priests" of the idol, too, are not dignified by the title kôhǎnîm: the word used (k'mârîm, as in 2 Kings 23:5; Zephaniah 1:4) comes, directly or indirectly, from the Assyrian kamâru-to throw down"; it describes the priests as those who prostrate themselves in worship (Fred. Delitzsch, Assyrian and Hebrew, pp. 41, 42). Comp. below, on Hosea 11:8. -Their glory", i.e. the steer-god; comp. Psalms 106:20. Literally, however, it is -his glory", which might of course mean the splendid appurtenances of the worship of the steer. -Shall tremble"; yâgîlûborrows the sense of yâkhîlu; it seems preferred for the sake of the assonance with gâlâh(-it is gone into exile"). Or there may be a scribe's error in the case.