Hosea 5:12

12 et ego quasi tinea Ephraim et quasi putredo domui Iuda

Hosea 5:12 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 5:12

Therefore [will] I [be] unto Ephraim as a moth
Which eats garments, penetrates into them, feeds on them privately, secretly, without any noise, and gradually and slowly consumes them; but at last utterly, that they are of no use and profit: this may signify the various things which befell the ten tribes in the reigns of Zachariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, and Pekah, which secretly and gradually weakened them; and the utter consumption of them in the times of Hoshea by Shalmaneser: and to the house of Judah as rottenness;
as rottenness in the bones, ( Proverbs 12:4 ) ; which can never be got out or cured; or as a worm that eats into wood, as Jarchi interprets it; and gets into the very heart of a tree, and eats it out: thus the Lord threatens the house of Judah, or the two tribes, with a gradual, yet thorough, ruin and destruction.

Hosea 5:12 In-Context

10 facti sunt principes Iuda quasi adsumentes terminum super eos effundam quasi aquam iram meam

11 calumniam patiens Ephraim fractus iudicio quoniam coepit abire post sordem

12 et ego quasi tinea Ephraim et quasi putredo domui Iuda

13 et vidit Ephraim languorem suum et Iudas vinculum suum et abiit Ephraim ad Assur et misit ad regem ultorem et ipse non poterit sanare vos nec solvere poterit a vobis vinculum

14 quoniam ego quasi leaena Ephraim et quasi catulus leonis domui Iuda ego ego capiam et vadam tollam et non est qui eruat