Devotional
Commentary on Hosea 5 This chapter
begins with God speaking. Now the way He is speaking is very interesting since
it is not Him alone. In fact in this chapter God and Hosea is speaking
together. There is information that God has in his speaking that Hosea does not
have in his. God is almost serving as a factual corrector to Hosea in His
sentences. When Hosea says that something will happen in future God correct him
in the same sentence telling him that evidence shows (since this is a court
case of an investigative judgment) that events are already factual as well as
actual. This dual performance is a very common genre in television broadcasting
in Japan. Two young performers will appear together on stage side by side and
then one will say a sentence which the other will complete. They are
"tuned in" to one another by dealing with the same topic but every
now and then the second sentence comes as a surprise since it is contrasting or
correcting the optimism of the other sentence of the partner. This is what we
have in this chapter. The following analysis of the times Hosea speaks and the
times God speaks can be made: Hosea speaks
in 5:1; 5:2a; 5:3c; 5:4; 5:5b; 5:6; 5:7; 5:9a; 5:10a; 5:11; and 5:13. God speaks
in 5:2b; 5:3a-b; 5:5a; 5:5c; 5:8; 5:9b; 5:10b; 5:12; 5:14; 5:15. Hosea speaks
eleven times and God speaks ten times. One wonders if a puppet show could best
account for this kind of duet. Hosea taking on the personality of God in order
to do the part of God speaking. There is a puppeteer in Japan who is using
dolls and then his lips hardly move imitating the voices of the other
characters in his hands or on his lap. This would probably be the setting of
the presentation that we have here in this chapter. So far it is apparent that
the book of Hosea is like a theatrical play with short sentences loaded with
all the elements that can be found in a drama. The two main characters of the
drama performance are God and Hosea and throughout the performance we get insight
into their personalities and emotion. We had cases where Hosea wanted to kill
his wife but God's personality was just the opposite in Hosea 3 where He wanted
to meet again like a lover. One can imagine them using big winged lions on a
stage performance to symbolize God as the lion and Assyria and Syria as the
instruments in the hand of God for executing the investigative judgment's
results. It is an
investigative judgment in type opening in Hosea 5:1. "Hear this priests,
and pay attention house of Israel, and house of the king, give ear, for unto
you is the judgment. For an opening you are unto Mizpah and a net spread out
upon Tabor." Jerome's
translation or the reconstruction that we are using, indicates here that he
read somewhat differently. He read lmzph as "speculationi". He also
translated the word hyytm as "laqueus facti estis". He is very
literal in his translation and our method is very close to his in this verse.
Also the Septuagint or what we have available of that is showing that the reading
for lmzph is different, namely, "unto Skopia". This equation of lmzph
with Skopia is interesting and needs further elucidation. Calvin correctly
argue that the translation cannot be "ye have been a snare instead of a
beacon" [for an opening you are unto Mizpah (ours)], since the mountains
of Mizpah and Tabor are well known. Calvin felt that this net was the net of
the hunters who hunted wild on these mountains. We are interpreting it as a
political metaphor of the expansion of the Assyrian power. The last
noun in the Hebrew text was misread by Theodotion from an Aramaic text very
similar to that of the Targum Walton 1654.
The way this happened is that the letters were written continious and
Theodotion's reader or himself read it wrong in the following way: Aramaic
Targum reading of the name Theodotion
190 CE reading Hosea begin
in this chapter asking the priests, house of Israel and the royal palace to
listen to the results of God's investigative judgment. As was done a number of
times in Hosea so far presenting a court case drama (compare Hosea 4:1) he
wants them to listen to the results of the investigation so far. The timing is
before the exile since the king is also asked to listen and the kingship for
the northern tribes only seized to exist after 721 B.C. In the year 727 BC
Tiglath-Pilezer III came and took cities in the area of Zebulon and Gilead and
Galilee and one can say that an "Assyrian net" was spread over mount
Tabor (2 Kings 15:29). Tiglath-Pilezer III recorded that he went to Gaza at
that time and replaced gods of Gaza with great imperial gods and also put a
golden image of his majesty in the palace of Gaza (H. Spieckermann, Juda unter
Assur in der Sargonidenzeit [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1982], 326).
Mizpah of course is a short distance north of Jerusalem towards Ephraim. Calvin
commented that some wants to make this judgment just some form of inner
direction that they are asked to employ in order to get themselves shaped up,
but that is not the case. Calvin showed that this judgment is "God's
tribunal". In verse 2
God outlined the accusation against them: "And a pit of Shittim they have
made deep. And I will discipline unto them all." In the case
of Jerome he did not translate the preposition /l/ added to lklm. He also did
not read "Shittim" here but some form of adjective "declinastis
in profundum". The RSV is
here probably the best option and we have consulted it since the text is
reading difficult here which is similar to our own and which is also the way
Martin Luther understood this phrase in the original in his 1534 translation of
Hosea "und eine tiefe Grube zu Schittim". The infinitive translation
in the KJV as "to make slaugter" for h(myqw cannot be accepted. This
is a hiphil which means that it is a causing to become deeper/to make deeper.
At least in the RSV option there is some form of continuity with the previous
verses. There is no agreement on the reading of this verse amongst the
translations. In 5:2a it
is Hosea speaking but in 2b it is God speaking. It seems in the interpretation
of Calvin that he is believing in the executive judgment of God as an ongoing
process day in and day out, year in and year out. Every calamity is probably
then connected for the Christian to "God's judgment"? He said
"let us then learn not to belie, by our own notions, the judgment of
God". In his prayer Calvin said "but suffer thee to heal our
diseases, so that we may truly repent, and be so wholly given to obey thee, as
never to attempt any thing beyond the rule of thy word." In verse 3
God is addressing the His spiritual remnant: "I, I know Ephraim and Israel
is not hidden from me. For now Ephraim, you have fornicated, unclean is
Israel." Jerome's
Latin Vulgate translation is very literal here and ours compare very well with
his except with one case and that is the repetition of the first person in the
beginning. The German translation of Martin Luther includes the word
"gut" which is not in the original or in any version except if one
stretch the Jewish Aramaic Targum a bit. He translated: Ich kenne Ephraim gut
und Israel ist vor mir nicht verborgen; Ephraim ist nun eine Hure und Israel
unrein. Luther did
not translate in verse 3c the causal particle ky י="for" or "because" =
"denn". Furthermore, the hiphil active verb he read as a noun
"Hure". Concerning
the reformers like Luther and others we have to say that harsh criticism is
easy for someone who is sitting in his airconditioned room on a swivel chair
under bright neon lights in a peaceful country with no enemies breathing down
his neck. The reformers lived in difficult times and we have to respect that.
Jerome in his cave had it easier than Luther in his days. The idiom goes:
"You cannot judge a book by its cover nor a lover by his looks." In 5:3a-b it
is God speaking but in 5:3c-d it is Hosea speaking. Somehow there is something
that Ephraim of all the tribes did in their area that offended God very much.
Unless the borders were shifted, Ephraim can be found over the area of Shiloh
and Beth-el. Calvin thought that Ephraim was important since the first Jeroboam
came from here. But God is not impressed by honored kings or men, like we are
so this idea should probably not be promoted. There is
here again a repetition of the first person: as an independent particle and as
a pronominal-suffix added to the verb. God emphasized that it is He who has
knowledge of the situation. He is emphasizing that the knowledge is not just
coming from a human, or priest whom they criticized in those days. The
knowledge is from no-one but God Himself. When we think no-one sees us, God
does. And when God does not punish us immediately for our wrong, we fool
ourselves that He does not see us. The timing could be after 734 BC when Ahaz
was deeply involved in temple worship on the mountains and hills and Ephraim
was probably the hunting ground for this. Because of these and other actions
Israel is unclean. "Unclean" is really a spiritual word here
indicating a contaminated relationship and especially a relationship with the
Almighty. The problem
is a spiritual problem as God outlined with Hosea in verse 4: "Not will
they give their deeds to return unto their God for a spirit of fornication is
in their innermost and the Lord they do not know." The later
Jewish Targum elaborated and paraphrased it in this way: "They will not
set their works to return to the worship of their God, for the spirit of
deception is in their innermost, and the teachings from before the Lord they
did not desire." My
translation and that of Jerome is almost exactly the same. Martin Luther
started the verse probably very well saying that "their evil deeds does
not permit them". This is the way in which the RSV has translated it. This
is a very good translation. The Darby also rendered it fairly close to this.
Martin Luther saw in the word bqrbm of verse 4c the meaning "in their
hearts" = in ihrem Herzen. This is not in the original since the word for
heart is used in the previous chapter in 4:11. Calvin was closer to the
original here by translating "because a spirit of wantonness is in the
midst of them". In this
verse it is Hosea speaking. After 734 BC they did not convert from their deeds
and neither did Ahaz the king of Judah. They did not know the Lord and the
relionship was destroyed. Israel of course made an alliance with the Aramaeans
against Judah in 731 BC and they were proud of that relationship. However that
relationship also demanded that their military and other civil life patterns
adopted ceremonies and superstitions foreign to God. That is why they could not
give up their deeds since the whole fabric of society was conveniently tied in
with "soft" vices. The spirit of fornications that is in their
innermost is not the physical relationships that we are thinking of today. This
is spiritual "fornication" or bridging gaps with other gods, other
than the only God of heaven and earth. The issue of God is not the physical
lifestyle pertaining to sex but their relation with foreign gods. In this verse
it is Hosea speaking and typical to his language throughout the book so far he
uses this word to describe the strongest connection possibly imagined. Calvin
summed this verse and chapter 4 also for that matter very nicely up in the
following words: "As they had been redeemed by God's hand, as the teaching
of the law had continued among them, as they had been preserved to that day
through God's constant kindness, it was truly an evidence of monstrous
ignorance, that they could in an instant adopt ungodly forms of worship, and
embrace those corruptions which they knew were condemned in the law." One of the
best ways to illustrate the problems inherent in an adopted and imported
religion, is to look at the role of Buddhism in Asia. It demonstrates how
self-deception can lead them to no understanding in the consequences of their
imported religion. All asians are praying to their ancestors at some times of
the year. They visit their grave sites and bring flowers and pray to them. Some
also pray to Buddha. Many Japanese are Buddhists and if one asks them the
question if Buddha will not be angry if they pray to the ancestors and not to
him, the answer can be different case by case but mostly they think that it
does not matter since all the ancestors are in the Buddha heaven. At least that
is what they thought since childhood and maybe their parents also. However, it
is exactly at this point that the problem is vexing for them, especially if one
points out to them the following facts: Buddhism came to Japan in 538 CE, to
Korea in 333 CE and in China ca. 140 CE. It was around 450 BCE that Buddha received
his mission and the origin of the "Buddha heaven" could only be from
450 BCE for Indians, 140 CE for Chinese, 333 CE for Koreans and 538 CE for
Buddhists. In Japan they pray to the ancestors between 15th September and the
23rd of September. They all think that they are praying to all their ancestors
but here is the problem: taking into account the above information, there was
no "Buddha-heaven" for Japanese before 538 CE. They have never
thought of this situation before. It simply means that there are two sets of
ancestors: one set who adhere to Buddhism and who would be in their thinking
automatically be found in the Buddha-heaven and another set who are not. This
idea or concept confronted them for the first time in their lives. They had no
answer for this. Asking them which ancestor they want to join one day, the one
in the Buddha heaven or the other ancestor without a Buddha heaven, was a
shocking choice for them. I have not asked my students yet, but there are times
in the year when they bring some food to the ancestors. To bring the ancestors
Japanese sushi is definitely going to be a problem since Buddha is an Indian
and they are probably eating curry and rice? What if no-one in
"Buddha-heaven" eat any Japanese food? These are
problems that one can find in a modern inherited religion of which the
adherents just accepted the words of others without self-investigation, without
analysis by themselves, blindly just following the customs and habits of their
parents without really knowing the full reasons for everything. Many
Israelites who participated in Baal religion went through the same process.
They never thought of all the implications pertaining to their concepts in
their religion. God then
provided the punishment forseen in verse 5: "And answer the pride of
Israel in his face: and Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in their iniquity.
Judah also stumbled with them." Jerome did
translate the future tense as such in this verse namely "shall
stumble" = ruent. My reading is such here since we are trying to keep to
the tenses whenever there is a fluctuation. In our interpretation this is
crucial since there is a fluctuation of personalities speaking at this point so
that this information in the future is not God but Hosea speaking. It is better
to keep the future. It seems as if Martin Luther is translating with an
idiomatic translation method since he use the equavalence for "in his
face" as "against" = wider Israel. The object of the sentence
"his pride" in the original is changed in Luther's dynamic
translation to "his pride". The danger in our perspective with this
kind of translation is that some aspects may be introduced in the translation
that was not intended in the original or some aspects that were supposed to be
understood in the original do not reach the target reader. For that sake we
strive to be painfully literal and leave it to the reader to make his/her own
conclusions. As far as the tenses are concerned verse 5b and 5c are not the
same in the original. Verse 5b is using the future tense but 5c is using the
past. Luther translated both 5b and 5c as the future tense. I begin to suspect
that there is some reason to this fluctuation and that we should rather honor
it than try to use the old grammatical rules of "one for the
other".Since we are dealing here with legal matters and a court scene is
not to be ruled out, evidence is of the utmost importance in a courtcase, as
well as the aspects of timing. It makes a heap of difference whether something
is found to be factual or whether something is assumed to will happen/result. I
am following the rule that past tense indicates factuality and future tense
indicates probability when it is dealing with humans but also factuality when
it is dealing with the divine. Calvin translated the first part in 5a with a
future tense: "testify then shall the pride of Israel in his face". I
have not done that in our translation. Later when Calvin continued on this
verse he suggested that the other meaning for the word 'nh is "to be
humbled" so that the sentence can read "the pride of Israel shall
then be humbled before his face". He argues that it is the conviction of
God in His judgment that will humble them. Some scholars became so confused in
the interchange of tenses in this verse that they suggested that 5c should be
considered a gloss that dropped into the Bible and that it is better to delete
it again. Nothing can be further from the truth. God said to Hosea the prophet:
"answer the pride of Israel in his face". God is instructing in verse
5a the prophet to speak. In 5b the prophet spoke by saying in future tenses:
"and Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in their iniquity". In verse 5c
God is speaking directly informing or correcting the misunderstanding of the
prophet by saying that they are already stumbling and that Judah now also
stumbled with them. In verse 3 it is God speaking of a fact in the past
"now". The investigative judgment found in verse 4 that this
condition is not likely to change and in verse 5 God instructed the prophet to
speak to Israel in his face. The prophet spoke using future tenses but God's
words follow reiterating the past tense. In the next verse the prophet
continues his speech in the future tense holding out the probability that they
might seek the Lord but also the fact (past tense) that He has withdrawn from
them. Judah stumbled during the time of Ahaz in 731 BC and also Ephraim
stumbled during that time. As Ephraim and Israel will increase their sins they
would also stumble in 727 BC and then majorly again in 721 BC. Calvin raises an
important issue here that is worth elaborating on. He said that in the previous
chapters there are promises that Judah shall be saved by his God, not by the
sword, nor by the bow. How is it then that here Judah is said to be part of the
scheme of punishment? Calvin's answer is that the previous chapters did not
speak of those who degenerate but only those "who worshipped God
aright". I agree that it is not an ethnic issue, it is a spiritual one. The
Lord will then withdrew from them as Hosea pointed out in verse 6: "With
their flocks and with their herds they shall go to seek the Lord and not will
they find Him. He has withdrawn from them." Jerome's
translation and ours are remarkably the same here. It is very clear that this
old Christian was a very good translator keeping faithfully to the original as
far as possible in Hosea. Luther introduces adverbial particles here that is
not in the original, namely, "als" = "when". He also
introduces a causal particle "denn" = "because" where there
is none in the original for the last sentence since he wants to connect all the
sentences relationally. In this
verse it is Hosea speaking. The men of Judah who will lose their wives to
Samaria in 731 BC would be going around with their flocks and herds since that
is the only way they could follow their wives. In desperation for these
circumstances they would seek the Lord and they would not be able to find Him.
God has withdrawn from them. This is the inevitable result when God withdrawn
from man. Man collapsed. Nothing works out and nothing will. Conversion is the
only way to get recharged and activated again. Calvin gave a very interesting
explanation here: the people use to bring their flocks to the temple for
sacrifices in order to approach God. But God will not be there this time when
they bring it. Calvin said that "every one who separates the outward
sacrifice from its design, brings nothing but what is profane". Their
spiritual fall in relationship with God led to behavioral problems and it is outlined
by God to them in Hosea 7: "In the Lord they have mistrusted for sons of
foreigners they carry. Now New moons shall eat them, their portions." The Old
Latin translated that what shall eat them is rust: "now shall rust devour
them" = nunc devorabit eos rubigo (Pierre Sabbathier 1743: 897 for the
original). This was in 190 CE but then in 389 CE Jerome translated it more
literally: "now shall a month devour them". This is the form of the
Vulgate from later manuscripts A M S O C Φ Σ L Λ all dating between 750-960 CE as
reconstructed by Weber in his modern edition of the Vulgate. The later
Jewish Targum rendered a paraphrase expressing their understanding: "Now
there are over them nations month upon month and they devour the fruit of their
land". Jerome's
translation differ only in one respect from ours in that he read only
"moons" = mensis and not "New moons". Here is an
interesting situation with Luther. Whereas he can be found very often
introducing all kinds of adverbial and causal particles that is not in the
original or changing a copulative to an adverbial or causal particle, we now
find him translating a causal particle ky = "for" as a copulative
"and" = und. Calvin complained about reading "new moon". He
rather opted for the translation of "a month", namely a short and
fixed time. The Targum
is reading a double translation of a single entry of the word for month and
fruits since the same word is used in the original for both meanings. Hosea is
speaking in this verse. It is not that to bear a foreigner they are mistrusting
the Lord. This is definitely not the meaning of the verse. It must be seen in
context. The Lord is not saying that it is wrong for an Israelite to carry the
son of another foreign nation and if there is such a marriage then the person
is mistrusting the Lord. It is not an ethnic issue but a religious and
spiritual one. They have already fornicated around in their relationship with
other gods and already mistrusted the Lord for the evidence of that is the fact
that they are carrying the sons of foreigners strongly connected to these pagan
religions. And strongly connected it really is since the next part of the verse
states that the New Moon ritual of the foreign religion will expect them to pay
large portions of their harvests and income for their temples. Let it be very
clear on this point. It is possible to misunderstood the verse as an ethnic
super-race prooftext. But misunderstanding it definitely is. It is not only the
physical aspects of fornication that is under the hammer here. Again it must be
emphasized that it is the relationship between them and God that is in jeopardy
that is the cause of the problem. This attendance at other religions and cultic
practices is what Hosea means under "fornicating around". Not everybody
carrying a foreigner was mistrusting the Lord. Only those that were strongly
connected to these cultic practices. Calvin did not like the interpretation
that they had taken wives from heathen nations. He rather saw it as a
similarity to an alienated person from God's relationship. The sons were now
also alienated in his view. In our view it could be very true that they were
carrying foreigners' children but that in itself is not the issue, it is only
evidence of a spiritual alienation that precedes it. With the women and
children in Samaria transported in 731 BC it was inevitable that all kinds of
relations would result. Thus they were carrying the children of foreigners
since to Samaria also Aramaeans were transported. These were forced attempts of
cultural integration. They came as punishment for the spiritual depravity of
the king of Judah and the people of Israel. The Lord
wants a shofar or trumpet sound in Gibeah, the horn in Ramah and shouting in
Beth-Aven (verse 8). The Targum
ran away with this text in a long elaboration of biblical exegesis: "The
prophets, I lift them up. Your voice is like the shofar. They prophecy of their
coming over them a small nation upon that reign of Saul which is in Gabaa just
as with the trumpet. they said that they will come over their king with their
ministry over that which they did not receive, to the words of Samuel that is
of Rama announcing over them loudly the slaves of the war who are deceiving in
my words and they turn to follow after from what is firm of my worship and not
do they serve before me in the sanctuary that is in the land of the tribe of
Benjamin." Jerome of
course translated šwpr = bucina and ḥssrh
= tuba. Other than that my translation corresponds to his. Luther added some
exclamations "ja" in his translation that is not in the original.
Calvin mixed the verbal actions in this verse as follows: "shout with the
trumpet in Gibeah, blow the hornet in Ramah and sound the horn in
Beth-aven". We notice in his translation that there is a shift in the
actions at the end of the verse to the front. "Shout" at the end
moved to the front of the verse. Other changes also occurred. This is a very
unusual reading in Calvin. With Luther one can expect these translations to
occur but not with Calvin. God is
commanding the blowing of the shofar as He did back in history. Beth-Aven was
just behind Benjamin's territory in the territory of Ephraim. It was Beth-el.
Gibeah is of course in the territory of Benjamin. The blowing of the horn or
shofar has many meanings. During the fall of Jericho event in 1410 BC the seven
priests that marched around the city had seven shofars. It is employed in the
execution of punishment in a judgment scene like that of Jericho. In that event
they had to shout after the blowing of the shofar (Joshua 6:20). Benjamin is to
shout "Beth-Aven" which is behind Benjamin. It is definitely a day of
reckoning that is in mind here in similar pattern as that which was on the day
of reckoning for Jericho in 1410 BC. Itis
possible that the vision here is beyond the earthly trouble to come in the
prophet's day and includes the final Hell event after the millennium:
"Ephraim shall be unto waste on the day of reckoning. In the tribes of
Israel I made known what faith is." (verse 9). My
translation corresponds remarkably again with that of Jerome and there is no
intention originally to do that. Jerome translated the word of God with utmost
care. Luther translated here again with extra particles to serve a dependent
clause "denn" = "for" and an adverbial particle of time
"wenn" = "when" and a causal particle "davor" =
"therefore". This is not in the original and it is better not to
translate this way. It creates simulations of sets of information that are
sometimes better kept apart. The last part of the verse he translated:
"Therefore I have faithfully warned the tribes of Israel". In 5:9a it
is Hosea speaking and in 5:9b it is God speaking. This interpretation is
contrary to the one favored by Calvin. This suggestion was extant in the days
of Calvin and he mentioned it in his commentary on Hosea at this verse. He
understood the word "I made known what faith is" as "this is the
last denunciation which shall be fixed and unalterable". He said that
Hosea claims that he has done his job and that it is now not his fault if they
reject God. We are translating the word n)mnh here with the same meaning as
b)mwntw in Habakkuk 2:4 "and the righteous shall live in his faith".
Verse 9a is seen by us as the words of the prophet but verse 9b is seen as that
of God. The prophet expects terrible punishments to follow, or God is talking
about the absolute finality of punishment of evil at the time of the Hell event
in the eschaton. God recalls all His revelations to Israel and how He has given
them the plan of salvation in the sanctuary message. All the people of Israel
know what faith unto salvation is. God is
thinking of an executive judgment in wide terms here (verse 10). "Princes
of Judah have become like those who remove a border. On them I will pour like
water My wrath." Without any original
consultation my final translation corresponds remarkably with that of Jerome.
Martin Luther read the second sentence in connection with the first one and
translated the second sentence as a dependent clause of reason
"therefore" = darum. Hosea is
speaking in 5:10a and in 5:10b God is speaking. In God's investigative judgment
He has found that the princes of Judah has become loose in their border
concepts so that they now also freely join with Israel in their sins. God is
using the future tense to indicate that a future punishment is also install for
them. The judgment includes many princes and the exile is really a local
judgment just punishing the end of the evil assembly-line, not all who are
really involved in the evil. It may be that God is actually thinking of the
executive judgment event after the future millennium in the eschaton which will
involve many princes and kings, in fact, all evil over the wide spectrum. In verse 11
God indicated that judgment is crushed in Ephraim "for he intends to go
after the command". They just want military excursions and violence
related to that. Jerome's
translation ranks first of all translations so far in this chapter. Martin
Luther translated sw as "Nichtigen" = "the nobodies"
instead of my translation "command". What is read
as deception by the Targum Walton 1654 is read as slippery by the Syriac Leiden
Gelston 1980. Two letters are transposed in order in these two translations
namely sharaq (Syriac) shaqar (Targum). The word means actually dirty or filthy
and Jerome's rendering is correct here. The Syriac read the word shwy' as the
result of a wrong division of the verse. The Targum translator read it as shw'
which in both cases illustrates a mishearing of the Hebrew by the copyist of
that Hebrew that underlies the Targum and the Syriac. Hosea is
speaking in this verse. It seems as if the allies commanded Ephraim to go
forward in a military operation against an enemy that is definitely not Assyria
(see 5:13). It is probable that the command to resist came from Assyria and
that the enemies were the Syro-Aramaeans. J. A. Soggin suggested that from
verse 12 there are the results of the Syro-Ephraemitic war described (J. A.
Soggin, "Hosea und die Aussenpolitik Israels," BZAW 150 Fs. George
Fohrer [1980]: 131-1369).The evidence that I have from that war do give some
understanding as to what is described in the next verses. In verse 12
the Lord says that He is like a moth and rotteness to them (verse 12).
"And I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like rottenness to the house of
Judah." Here Martin
Luther is very literal in his translation. This year is the memorial year of
Luther and his Reformation push-drive. What an irony that while some are
thinking of celebrating him, others are thinking of moving back to the Catholic
Church he ran from! God is
speaking in this verse. It is very understandable that the period between
731-727 BC would be a period of disaster. Without the women at home the Judaean
houses would be like rottenness. If there is not a woman in the house, the
storeplaces for food is filled with moths. 200 000 women and children were
transferred to Samaria. The character of a moth is that it is attracted to
light. Ephraim is the candle that attracted all the squatters and refugees and
separated love ones from their husbands in Judah on their way to Samaria. The
result is that all the food in storage in the coolers of Judah will rotten. Is it
possible that the faithful are punished now in history for corrective
discipline but the evil will be reserved for the eschaton? God permits them to
be destroyed like a moth a cloth or rottenness in food (verse 12). God says
that Ephraim shall see his sickness and they will go to Assyria to sent to king
Jareb who is not able to cure them or heal them (verse 13). Instead of
translating the name of the king in this verse, Jerome translated "unto
the king of the utmost" = ad regem ultorem. Jerome's text was not divided
into separate words so that the division had to be made by him. He divided the
letters here differently than the Masoretic text but still read the letters of
the Masoretic text. Martin Luther connected all these sentences and employed
causal particles = als = "when" and the adversative = aber =
"but" for the copulatives = "and" in the original. He translated
that "when Ephraim felt...then they....But he cannot". This form of
connection are syntactically not original and is on a second level
interpretative. Hosea is
speaking in this verse giving the information as God gave it to him. As a
result of some blow in a military operation, Ephraim and Judah will seek help
from Assyria in future. This means that the crushing action of 5:11 is not the
exile by the Assyrians. You do not seek help from the enemy. In the history of
Israel and Judah in this period such help was seeked by Ahaz the king of Judah
from Tiglath-Pilezer III in 727 BC. The wound was probably the blow he got and
after-effects of it he suffered of the Aramaean war of 731 BC. Ephraim became
involved when thousands of daughters of Judah were settled in Samaria at that
time.This is especially a relational wound that would built ties where there
were none before and create emotional pain where there was none. The king Jareb
is an interesting reading and it may be that Tiglath-Pilezer III or some of his
high-officials were also called locally by that name. It could even be an
abbreviation for some king in the Umwelt at that time. The closest I can think
of is the name of a later Assyrian king with the name of Sennacherib in which
the phonics of the last section of the name "cherub" and
"Jareb" shows resemblance. Unless the prophet attempts to predicts
here two sets of seeking help from Assyria: the first one with Tiglath-Pilezer
III in 727 BC "shall turn to Assyria"; and the second one later with
king Sennacherib (after 707 and 705 BC) "sent to king Jareb". There
is still another possibility, substantiated by Hosea 7:11c-d. Sheshonk V of Egypt was the ruler during this
time and he reigned until 730 BC. His throne name was '3-ḫpr-R(.
It is possible that in the cross-cultural exchange of phonics, the local people
of Palestine interchanged some of the consonants so that the /r/ and /p/ were
interchanged. That would lead to a form similar to "Jareb". A
gutteral is followed by an interchanged /r/ and then a voiceless
bilabial-plosive /p/ for the voiced bilabial-plosive /b/ in Egyptian phonics.
In modern cross-cultural phenomena this kind of event was very possible. It
would mean that Ahaz suffered in 731 BC from the Aramaean onslaught and then
called for help from Assyria and the "king Jareb" which is a local
kakophonia of the throne name for Sheshonk V. This explanation seems to be the
most plausible under these circumstances. The role of acoustic creativity in
the creation of new word forms is very clear to me during my years of English
teaching in South Korea. I would say the word "circle" and the
student at the New Start English Institute in Taerung, spelled it as
"circil". I would say "umbrella" and a boy in the Middle
School in Seoul wrote "umblella" due to the fact that the /r/ and /l/
are interchanged very often both in writing and phonics of their own language.
In a number of loanwords from English into Korean, the population say what they
hear, canonized that verbalization and create a spelling that fit that phonics
and then go one step further and canonize that spelling. Dictionary entrances
indicate that "restaurant" became "resut'orang";
"liberalism" became "riborollijum"; "love letter"
became "robu ret'o". In Japanese adoption of English words the same
happened: "tower" became "tawa"; "helicopter"
became "herikoputa"; "coffee" became "kohi";
"robot" became "robotto"; "elevator" became
"erebeta" (this is a case of /l/ = /r/ and /v/ = /b/ interchange in
Japanese); "Christmas" became "kurisumasu"; "butter"
became "bata"; "sauce" became "sosu";
"milk" became "miruku". Personal names of English
foreigners underwent the same spelling changes in Japanese: "Bell"
became "Beru"; "John" became "Jon";
"Mary" became "Meari"; "Steve" became
"Sutibu". It is possible that the gutteral preceding the /p/ in the
name of Sheshonk V was very close acoustically to an /r/ sound so that it could
have caused the interchange of the consonants /p/ and /r/ in order in the
Semitic equavalent in Palestine. It may be objected by someone that the rest of
the verse does not speak about a plural "they" but a singular
"he" but then again the verse does not say that he turned to the king
of Assyria and the king Jareb. Only one king is mentioned. At any rate neither
Egypt or Assyria came to the rescue. We have
reason to believe that the metathesis in letters happened for the same reason
as it happened later in the history of Israel when the Jewish readers read the
name of Tirhaka differently than the Egyptian readers. The letters for the name
of Tirhaka is written in four letters on his belt. Two letters are at the top
and two are at the bottom. Reading it from right to left in a horizontal
direction resulted in the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition reading.
Reading it from right to left in a vertical direction resulted in the Egyptian
scarab form and reading (see K. van Wyk, "Black Presence in Israel in the
days of Isaiah: Tirhaka the Ethiopian" in Archaeology in the Bible and
Text in the Tel [Berrien Center, Michigan: Louis Hester Publications, 1996],
292-293). Our understanding is that the same thing happened with the name of
Sheshonk V in that the consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition is the
Hebrew reading of the Egyptian name in a horizontal order while the Egyptian
way was in a vertical order resulting in the position of the /r/ and /p/
differently. '3-ḫpr-Rc ▼ The name of
Tirhaka written on his belt R
T Q
H ____________________________________________________________________________ r t q h ____________________________________________________________________ Direction of
the reading in Egyptian: 3 1 r t 4 2 q h Direction of
the reading in Semitic: 2 1 r t 4 3 q h The forms of
the above Egyptian letters of the bottom line is written in the reverse
position. In 2 Kings
19:9 it was read by the Hebrews as Tirhaka. However, the Septuagint is spelling
the name as Θαρακα which in essence means that the /h/ preceded the /r/ in
Greek but follows it in Hebrew. In the above examples it shows that the Hebrews
read the letters of the belt in the Semitic direction and the Greek translators
read it in the Egyptian direction. Of course Egyptian direction of reading can
be any direction horizontal or vertical. The Hebrew reader thus read it Tirhaka
instead of Taharka the way it was read in the scarabs. It probably also demonstrates
that the Hebrew of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition is more
reliable than the Greek translation of the Middle Ages represented in Rahlfs
1935. The Hebrew authors had an actual view of the belt which caused the
misreading which the Greek translators did not have later. The Greek
translators could rely only on the scarab information. Let me
assume that the letters on the belt of the Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonk V were
also represented by Egyptian phonics with ḫpr
represented not with the scarab-sign but spelled out alphabetically with
signs: h P R in the full form as: A h P R @ = '3-ḫpr-Rc Let us
further assume that these letters were arranged almost the same as that of king
Tirhaka in 710-664 BCE on his belt in the following way: The name of
Sheshonk V supposedly written on his belt ____________________________________________________________________________ R h
A @ P ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________ r h
a r p ____________________________________________________________________ Direction of
the reading in Egyptian: 4 2
1 r h a 5 3 r p Result of
the reading the Egyptian way: '3-ḫpr-Rc Direction of
the reading in Semitic: 3 2
1 r h a 5 4 r p Result of
the reading the Semitic way: Jereb or
Yereb. In verse14
God is like a lion unto Ephraim the same as Christ will be in the Executive
Judgment resulting in the Hell event in the eschaton after the millennium.
"For I am like a lion to Ephraim and like a great lion to the house of
Judah. I, I, I will tear them and I will go, I will carry and no one to
save" The difference here is that in the executive judgment the punishment
only affects the evil in finality. His remnant is correctively disciplined.