Hosea 11:12

The Septuagint, and after it the English Version, mistook the blame of the second half of this verse for praise, and hence attached the verse to chap. 11. Properly, however, it belongs to chap. 12, of which it is the first verse in the Hebrew Bible. Jehovah is the speaker. Israel's sins of treason and deceit are so numerous that his God is as it were surrounded by them, and can see nothing else; nor has Judah shown any more deference to the repeated warnings of the prophet.

but Judah yet ruleth, &c. Rather, and Judah is yet wayward towards God, and towards the faithful Holy One. -Yet", because Hosea's earlier prophecies record the long continuance of Judah's backsliding (Hosea 5:10; Hosea 6:4; Hosea 6:11; Hosea 8:14). The word rendered -wayward" has the root-meaning of roving unrestrained, as when an animal has broken loose. Hence Jeremiah 2:31, -Wherefore say my people, We rove at large; we will come no more unto thee." -The Holy One" has in the Hebrew the plural termination, as in Proverbs 9:10; it seems formed on the model of Elohim, -(the) divinity", lit. -(the) divinities." We might express the force of the plural by rendering -the All-Holy One", or (as margin) -the Most Holy." The Septuagint (partly followed by the Peshito) renders, νῦν ἔγνω αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς, καὶ ὁ λαὸς ἅγιος κεκλήσεται θεοῦ. But dubious as our Hebrew text may be, it gives a more suitable sense than that of the Septuagint.