Hosea 9:1-10

1 Don't rejoice, Isra'el! Don't enjoy yourselves as other peoples do; for you have gone whoring away from your God, you love being hired as a whore on every grain-floor.

2 Threshing-floor and winepress won't feed them, and new wine will disappoint her.

3 They won't remain in the land of ADONAI; instead, Efrayim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Ashur.

4 They will not pour out wine offerings to ADONAI; they will not be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be for them like mourners' food everyone eating it will be polluted. For their food will be merely to satisfy their appetite; it will not come into the house of ADONAI.

5 What will you do at a designated time, on a day which is a festival for ADONAI?

6 For suppose they escape the destruction - Egypt will round them up, Memphis will bury them. And their precious treasures of silver? Nettles will possess them, thorns will be in their tents.

7 The days of punishment have come, the days of retribution are here, and Isra'el knows it. [Yet they cry,] "The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit has gone crazy!" Because your iniquity is so great, the hostility [against you] is great.

8 The watchman of Efrayim is with my God, but a prophet has a fowler's snare set on all his paths and hostility even in the house of his God.

9 They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Giv'ah. He will remember their guilt, and he will punish their sins.

10 "When I found Isra'el, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your ancestors, it was like seeing a fig tree's first figs in its first season. But as soon as they came to Ba'al-P'or, they dedicated themselves to something shameful; they became as loathsome as the thing they loved.

Hosea 9:1-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 9

This chapter is an address to Israel or the ten tribes, and contains either a new sermon, or is a very considerable part of the former upon the same subject, the sins and punishment of that people. It begins with an instruction to them, not to rejoice in their prosperity, as others did; since it would soon be at an end, because of their idolatry, which was everywhere committed, and for which they expected a reward of temporal good things, Ho 9:1; but, on the contrary, they are threatened with famine, with want both of corn and wine, Ho 9:2; and with an ejection out of their land into foreign countries; where they should be obliged to eat things unclean by their law, Ho 9:3; and where their sacrifices and solemnities should be no more attended to, Ho 9:4,5; yea, where their carcasses should fall and be buried, while their own country and houses lay waste and desolate, Ho 9:6; for, whatsoever their foolish and mad prophets said to the contrary, who pretended to be with God, and know his will, and were a snare to them that gave heed unto them, and brought hatred on them, the time of their punishment would certainly come, Ho 9:7,8; and their iniquities would be remembered and visited; seeing their corruptions were deep, like those that appeared in Gibeah, in the days of old, Ho 9:9; they acting the same ungrateful part their fathers had done, of whom they were a degenerate offspring, Ho 9:10; wherefore for these, and other offences mentioned, they are threatened with being bereaved of their children, and drove out of their land, to wander among the nations, Ho 9:11-17.