Hosea 7:1-11

1 “I want to heal Israel, but its sins are too great. Samaria is filled with liars. Thieves are on the inside and bandits on the outside!

2 Its people don’t realize that I am watching them. Their sinful deeds are all around them, and I see them all.

3 “The people entertain the king with their wickedness, and the princes laugh at their lies.

4 They are all adulterers, always aflame with lust. They are like an oven that is kept hot while the baker is kneading the dough.

5 On royal holidays, the princes get drunk with wine, carousing with those who mock them.

6 Their hearts are like an oven blazing with intrigue. Their plot smolders through the night, and in the morning it breaks out like a raging fire.

7 Burning like an oven, they consume their leaders. They kill their kings one after another, and no one cries to me for help.

8 “The people of Israel mingle with godless foreigners, making themselves as worthless as a half-baked cake!

9 Worshiping foreign gods has sapped their strength, but they don’t even know it. Their hair is gray, but they don’t realize they’re old and weak.

10 Their arrogance testifies against them, yet they don’t return to the LORD their God or even try to find him.

11 “The people of Israel have become like silly, witless doves, first calling to Egypt, then flying to Assyria for help.

Hosea 7:1-11 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 7

This chapter either begins a new sermon, discourse, or prophecy, or it is a continuation of the former; at least it seems to be of the same argument with the latter part of it, only it is directed to Israel alone; and consists of complaints against them because of their manifold sins, and of denunciations of punishment for them. They are charged with ingratitude to God, sinning in a daring manner against mercy, and with falsehood, thefts, and robberies, Ho 7:1; with want of consideration of the omniscience of God, and his notice of their sins, which surrounded them, Ho 7:2; with flattery to their king and princes, Ho 7:3; with adultery, which lust raged in them like a heated oven, Ho 7:4; with drunkenness, aggravated by drawing their king into it, Ho 7:5; with raging lusts, which devoured their judges, made their kings to fall, and brought on such a general corruption, that there were none that called upon the Lord, Ho 7:6,7; with mixing themselves with the nations of the earth, and so learning their ways, and bringing their superstition and idolatry into the worship of God, so that they were nothing in religion, like a half baked cake, Ho 7:8; with stupidity and insensibility of their declining state, Ho 7:9; with pride, impenitence, and stubbornness, Ho 7:10; with folly, in seeking to Egypt and Assyria for help, and not to the Lord; for which they would be taken as birds in a net, and sorely chastised, Ho 7:11,12; with ingratitude, hypocrisy, and deceitfulness; for all which they are threatened with destruction, Ho 7:13-16.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew Ephraim’s, referring to the northern kingdom of Israel; similarly in 7:8, 11 .
• [b]. Hebrew Their baker sleeps.