Hosea 7:7

7 All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen; there is none who calls to me amongst them.

Hosea 7:7 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 7:7

They are all hot as an oven
Eager upon their idolatry, or burning in their unclean desires after other men's wives; or rather raging and furious, hot with anger and wrath against their rulers and governors, breathing out slaughter and death unto them: and have devoured their judges;
that stood in the way of their lusts, reproved them for them, and restrained them from them; or were on the side of the king they conspired against, and were determined to depose and slay: all their kings have fallen;
either into sin, the sin of idolatry particularly, as all from Jeroboam the first did, down to Hoshea the last; or they fell into calamities, or by the sword of one another, as did most of them; so Zachariah by Shallum, Shallum by Menahem, Pekahiah by Pekah, and Pekah by Hoshea; see ( 2 Kings 15:1-38 ) . So the Targum,

``all their kings are slain:''

[there is] none among them that calleth unto me;
either among the kings, when their lives were in danger from conspirators; or none among the people, when their land was in distress, either by civil wars among themselves, or by a foreign enemy; such was their stupidity, and to such a height was irreligion come to among them!

Hosea 7:7 In-Context

5 [On] the day of our king, the princes became sick [with] the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with mockers.

6 Because they are kindled like an oven, their heart burns within them; all night their anger {smolders}, [in the] morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

7 All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen; there is none who calls to me amongst them.

8 Ephraim mixes himself with the nations; Ephraim is a bread cake not turned over.

9 Foreigners devour his strength, and he does not know [it]; {mold} is also sprinkled upon him, and he does not know [it].

Footnotes

• [a] Or "they eat"