Hosea 12:9

And I Rather, For I. It is explanatory of the vague hint of an inexorable doom.

thy God from the land of Egypt Who is therefore ever ready to help you (Isaiah 46:3), but who will also, if necessary, punish you as He did of old (comp. Numbers 14:26-30).

will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles Rather, will again make thee to dwell in tents. The analogy of a parallel passage (Hosea 2:14) at once suggests the idea that this prediction is a threat and not (as St Jerome, Kimchi, and Calvin would have it) a promise. Not indeed a threat without a tinge of promise (see on Hosea 2:14), but the unrelieved worldliness of the speech in Hosea 12:9 calls forth a declaration of God's purpose as uncompromising in its earnestness. -Again" alludes to the journey through the wilderness. On the rendering yet, see further note in Introduction, part v.

as in the days of the solemn feast Better, of the festal season. The word used is mô-çd(lit. appointed time), which is used rather more widely than khag-festival." Here however the prophet does mean one of the three ancient festivals, viz. the so-called Feast of Tabernacles (or rather, Booths). This was the most popular of all the feasts (see on Hosea 9:1): it was originally a time of rejoicing for the -ingathering" (whence its name in Exodus 23:16) of the latest crops of the year, and the -booths" or -tents" (as they are here, for once, called) were simply designed (as at the analogous festivals of other nations) to promote the enjoyment of the simple-minded rural merrymakers. Another object is indeed ascribed to the festival in the Book of Leviticus, viz. to remind the Israelites of the tent-life of their fathers in the wilderness, but this, as Mr Clark and others have well shown (see Speaker's Commentaryon Leviticus 23:43), can only have been an after-thought, as the nomad Israelites are never said to have dwelt in -booths" or -huts", but always in -tents" (of skin or cloth). Hosea's reference to the Feast of Booths points a striking contrast. The predominant tone of the Israelites is now one of exuberant joyousness (Hosea 9:1), culminating in the merry, out-of-door life of the local autumn-festivals, but soon they shall dwell in tents again, not for amusement, but by bitter compulsion.