Devotional Commentary on Hosea 9
Hosea started with God complaining
about the wayward Remnant of Israel (verse 1). "Rejoice not Israel exult
not like peoples, for you have fornicated away from your God. You loved a
reward upon all the floors of corn." In this verse, nearly all the versions
are strictly following the consonantal text of the Masoretic text. There is a
connection between the Targum and the Syriac in the addition of a copulative
"and" here and there but mostly it is still the consonantal text of
the Masoretic tradition. The Syriac reader dropped out the last word by error
which we call "haplography" or writing it only once instead of twice.
Three words in Syriac and Aramaic has nearly the same form in the shape of the
characters and the similarity between the second and third word made the Syriac
reader's eyes jump from the second one to the third one without writing the
second one thinking that he did. Let us look at the process of the
error with the Aramaic form of the Targum (although the Targumist did not make
any error). If these letters were written
continuously in scriptio continua then the eyes can easily jump one word. Even if there is a slight space
between these words, such a jump can also occur. The Syriac reader knew his text very
well and knew the form of the letters in the beginning of his text very well.
Unfotunately for him the letters of the last word in 9:1 and the first word in
9:2 were the same in the last section of the word and thus the word was dropped
out by human error. The error could have originated in the
Hebrew as well since these letters also show some form of similarity so that
the Hebrew Vorlage that the Syriac was using in this verse could have left out
the last word. Comparing the two possibilities of the
Aramaic and the Hebrew, the likelihood that it was the Hebrew that was misread
is greater than the likelihood that it was the Aramaic. Our decision is that it
was a Hebrew manuscript probably very close to the consonantal text of the
Masoretic tradition that was misread by the Syriac and not an Aramaic
manuscript as the first example shows. Similar to H. Mager in 1916 with his
studies in Die Peshi?tho zum Buche Josua (but not following him) we conclude
here that this misreading could only have occurred if the text was written in
scriptio continua. If there was a proper verse divider the misreading would not
have occurred since the problem spans over two verses. Israel are not to share with the kind
of joy that other nations are rejoicing for. There were certain harvest cultic
practices that the surrounding nations participated in and these foreign
workers living in Israel would participate in that and the Israelites followed
and joined in. In verse 2 God is saying that they
will not be fed but deceived (verse 2). "The floor and the winepress shall
not feed them and the new wine shall deceive in her." The Septuagint misread one letter /r/
for a /d/ in the word yr(m "he shall know". This kind of mistake is
very common in translations. In the original these two letters are very
similar. The connection between the Syriac and
the Targum is undoubtedly in this verse as the variants demonstrate. However,
there are still differences. We suggest that they consulted the same Hebrew
Vorlage with some points in the verse that were illegible giving rise to two
different readings of the same word. What also could have happened is that one
of them was using a copy of that same Vorlage giving rise to more variants
between the two of them. In our opinion it seems that the misreading or error
in the Syriac came from a bad Aramaic translation. Let's look at the case: Consonantal Text of the Masoretic
Tradition. In my understanding the Syriac
consulted an illegible Aramaic Vorlage and was mistakenly thinking it is
reading a Hebrew manuscript which resulted in the word "and the oil"
as we found in the Syriac. In the alternative, it is probably not
impossible that in the copy process of the Hebrew manuscripts a scribe could
copy so badly that in the course of transmission the letters seemed to the
Syriac reader to be "and the oil". This is really a fifty-fity situation
and we will keep the options open but should further evidence swing one way or
the other it is possible to do it in this verse with the Syriac. There shall be a time when there will
be corn lacking and wine. God said that in Egypt they will eat
unclean things (verse 3). "They do not dwell in the land of the Lord and
Ephraim returned Egypt and in Assyria they shall eat unclean things." In
the private Greek translation of Symmachus in 170 CE he translated "they
shall eat unclean things." The later Coptic read: "and hath eaten
unclean things among the Assyrians." There is a remarkable phenomenon in
the translation of Jerome in this verse. We do not have the manuscript s dating
from the same century to control check the previous chapter where there is a
doublet of the same phrase in Hosea 8:14 reading "they shall send back
Egypt" corresponding to the reading here
in this verse "and Ephraim returned Egypt". For some reason
Jerome kept to the literal consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition in this
verse 100% with no preposition addition "in" but in Hosea 8:14 he was
not so careful (if the Weber edition was done carefully enough?) and added the
preposition "in Egypt" to the reading. It is almost our contention
that another collation of the s manuscript of the Vulgate will not contain
"in" here in Hosea 8:14? If it does it demonstrates how translators
consult more than one Hebrew Vorlage and other available translations during
the process of translation. Five late manuscripts of the Vulgate, AΛMφ and c
all included "in" in Hosea 9:3. We do not advise anyone to follow
these readings. What we said about the Syriac and the
Targum in Hosea 9:2 now applies to the Targum and the Greek translation of the
fifth century CE. There is strong correspondences between the area of the
variant and the kind of variant that we find. It is undoubtedly the same Hebrew
Vorlage that they have consulted each with their own errors though. It could be
that the one is using a Hebrew Vorlage and that the other one is using a copy
of the same Vorlage. It will account for the differences between the two. That
is why the errors are similar but not exactly identical. They do not stay in Israel and Ephraim
returned Egypt. The reader should note that there is no preposition
"to" or "unto" or "in" used with Egypt here. The
reason is because the diplomats that were asked to come as see the king for
help against the Syrian onslaught could not do anything since their ruler Sheshonk
V died soon after their arrival in Israel and they were "returned" by
Ephraim. It was probably in the years after 731-730 BCE that Ephraim went to
Egypt to asked for help from the king there but he was in his last year of
reign. They will also go to Assyria (for sure after 723 BCE) when they will be
deported and they will eat unclean things. Unclean things in biblical
perspective are things like: pigs, dogs, fishes like sharks and those with no
fins, seafood in the molusca phyllum, octopusses, turtles, rabbits, mice, all
those mentioned according to the rules in Leviticus 11. It is known at least
one hundred years before Hosea that the people of Assyria ate pigs, birds,
doormice, onions, garlic, and fish (K. van Wyk, "Archaeology and Diet"
in Archaeology in the Bible and Text in the Tel [Berrien Center, Michigan:
Louis Hester Publications, 1996], 323-325). Some of these things are not
prohibited in Leviticus 11 but pigs and doormice definitely are. The text is an
hemerological text from Nimrud dating to 883-859 BCE corresponding to the time
of Omri and Ahab of Israel giving us some idea of the Assyrian diet habits. When the wayward Remnant heart is not
right with God, He has no interest in their offerings, whether they are
presented in a right way or not (verse 4). "Not shall they offer to the
Lord wine, and not shall their offerings be pleasing to him. Like the bread of
mourners to them. All that eat of it shall be unclean. For their bread is to
their souls. Not shall come the house of the Lord." Symmachus in his
private Greek translation in 170 CE said: "for their bread oppose their
souls, it shall not enter into the house of the Lord." The Jewish Targum was homiletical
about the verse: "They shall not offer from before the Lord of the wine
and not shall they be acceptable to please. Their presents of their sacrifices
are like bread from afar to them. All that eat it shall be defiled because
their presents upon their souls are not atoning to them in the house of the
sanctuary of the Lord." One common feature that binds all
these versions together is the addition of a preposition at the end. It seems
as if there is some kind of connection between the Vorlage of the Greek of the
fifth century CE and the Syriac. It is amazing that all of them has an addition
at the same area. One can argue that the Hebrew Vorlage of the Syriac and the
Greek of the fifth century CE was actually the same here. One thing is clear:
there was a consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition that read no
preposition which we consider to be the original of Hosea; another Hebrew
Vorlage that read the preposition /l/ "to" and still another Hebrew
Vorlage that read the preposition /b/ "in". Except for minor
differences they were all remarkably close to the consonantal text of the
Masoretic tradition. Are we going to suggest exegetical translation technique
here for the origin of these minor variants? Did the versions all share some
form of liberation policy in this zone of translation supported by each other?
The original gave them problems so they felt it necessary to introduce some
extra linguistic particles? It is possible to translate the last part as:
"It shall not enter the house of the Lord". It seems to us that Symmachus in 170
CE misread the similarity of the Hebrew characters in this verse at one point
and thus introduced a similar extra word "oppose" that was not in the
original, not even the one he was using. It happened in the following way:
namely, a character misreading + metathesis Result: A double reading of a word
that was not there. It means that he read it correctly the first time but
introduced a new word due to the character misreading and metathesis. It is
really a ghostword that originated in the eye of the beholder due to the
similarity of the forms of the words and letters of the words. When I was
driving during my student years home on the long road in Africa I would come to
the point that I was so tired that the blinkers appeared as oncoming cars to me
in the night. It could be that Symmachus was very tired at this point in
translation. During the time that they will be
transported to Assyria they will offer wine and other offerings but it will not
be pleasing to the Lord. Everyone participating in it shall be unclean. The
bread is for their soul. The house of the Lord shall not come. This is a very
interesting concept. It supports the idea that the Holiness of God is not
static but dynamic. His presence is not situated in one spot all the time. It
seems to indicate that the presence of God come and go. It is mobile. God is
omnipresent but in His great mercy He has chosen to shrunk Himself in order to
make space for the evil. The doctrine of the Tsimtsum namely that God has
spiral into Himself to make space for creation is applicable here. The house of
the Lord is not a static building or human structure how magnificent it may
appear to any human eye or mind. The house of the Lord is the presence of God
and that can be anywhere. When God meets the sinner and they are talking, that
is the house of God. When the sinner's worship is pleasing to God, that is the
house of God. That is the main problem. God is
looking for a contrite heart and that is what they lack. God said that they do
not sincere and therefore not shall come the house of the Lord. This in essence
means that when an ancient Israelite said he is going to the Temple to worship,
then the house of the Lord is going with him (if God is pleased with his
worship and there is a relation between them). The original does not use any
preposition to explain a movement to the house of the Lord. It is the house of
the Lord that is moving. This means that Hosea also believed that the temple is
mobile following God's presence. Even today there are pastors and priests and
synagogue leaders who thinks that God is only in the spatial dimensions that humans
has built for Him. Some think that he is only in the Temple area in Jerusalem
and that prayers at the Wall is touching His presence. They kiss the wall as if
they are kissing God. If Hosea is correct in his concept of a mobile house of
the Lord, then there is no difference between an orthodox Jew kissing the
Herodian stones on the western wall of the temple in Jerusalem and a buddhist
priest kissing the sleeping Buddha in his Temple. If the human's worship is
pleasing to God, God is there and the house of the Lord is there, anywhere, in
the sky, on the earth, even under the waters. This is the principle. This
occupation of humans with spaces of holiness or structures of holiness also can
be found in the direction of prayers in Islam religions. They have to pray
towards Mecca. The holiness of God is captivated by humans and then
encarcerated in a gold plated shrine and is only there where the authorities in
that religion decides it to be. All religions have this phenomenon in common:
Christianity in all its shades, Jewish religions in all its factions, Muslim
religions of all kinds, Buddhism of all kinds, Shintoism, Taoism, ancient as
well as modern. Hosea's view stands in contrast to all these and his concept of
God is mobile, dynamic, active coming and going. Even in Christian churches the
holiness of the pulpit area is maintained, for it is high with people looking
up as if God's presence is only there close to the ceiling. The voice is
quivering as if the person is in the presence of a God who is so awesome. They
pray for the coming of His presence when He is already there. Instead of
realizing His presence they pray anew for the arrival of it, not knowing or
experiencing that He already arrived with the arrival of the first worshipper
that morning. It is better to open the senses and notice the working of the
Lord in the spiritual experiences and communication of the worshippers around
yourself. The power of God manifests itself not necessarily in strange
phenomena of shaking or whatever but in the witness of a sinner who gives his
or her life anew to God. It seems as if Hosea is saying to Israel: what you
see, is not what you see. If our analysis of Hosea's message is correct, we
have a philospher in Hosea that is very deep long before the birth of Socrates
or Plato or Aristoteles. Since the alternative is also possible
namely to translate it as "It shall not enter the house of the Lord"
all these versions could have a point. They could be correct. This is a
fifty-fifty situation in which it can be taken either way. The implications are
different though. According to the versions, the bread shall not enter the
house of the Lord. Let's analyse their meaning. They do not offer wine to the
Lord and they do not please him. They do offer and that offer is considered to
be bread of mourners. Their offerings are bread for their souls. These
offerings shall not enter the house of the Lord. Now what does this mean? They
are offering sacrifices presumably in the Temple but it is not pleasing to God
and neither shall it enter His house. How can you be in the Temple of the Lord
offering sacrifices and at the same time not be in the house of the Lord?
Either way you look at it, one will not be able to escape the mobility of the
concept of the house of the Lord or presence of God. It seems as if the Temple
is not the house of the Lord. They are two separate entities. Then God poses a question to the
wayward Remnant about their keeping of appointed times and festivals of the
Lord: "What will you do for the day of the appointed time, and for the day
of the festival of the Lord?" (verse 5). Aquila in his private Greek
translation in 130 CE read it: "What will you do in the day of the time
and in the day of the feast of the Lord?" Jerome and the Greek text of the fifth
century CE used the same Hebrew Vorlage for this verse. They share thus the
variant. The Syriac and the Targum read the consonantal text of the Masoretic
tradition in this verse. It is a riddle why Jerome who complains against the
reading of the Greek of the fifth century and wanted to be more literal than
they was in so doing to rectify their mistakes, is using the same variants in
this verse. He did not know that the Hebrew manuscript that he was using is in
fact not the original form. We can only conclude that none of the manuscripts
that Jerome were consulting had a sticker reading: THIS IS THE ORIGINAL. As
such the translator was continuously searching for the best and our task is to
discover the rules or the modus operandi for decision making under these circumstances. We do find Jerome commenting on
Aquila's translation of this verse in the following way: "For in the solemn day Aquila is
interpreting time." "Pro die sollemni [we corrected
here Field's reading solemni] Aq. interpretatus est tempus." (Jerome's Commentary
HoseareconORIGENES-HEXAPLA=FIELD1875:954) No doubt Jerome was using in his day
the Hexapla of Origenes. This may also be the key why Jerome incorporated here
the same variant as the Greek. He was consulting the Hexapla of Origenes and
was somehow impressed by the socalled LXX or Septuagint in this verse. It is
exactly at this point that scholars derailed in their arguments regarding the
Septuagint. Between the date of 230 CE of Origenes' Hexapla and its Septuagint
and the origin of the real Septuagint are five hundred years. We do not claim
in any way that their is the sligthest connection between the two. In fact the
evidence cause us to hesitate making any connection due to several reasons: the
incompatibility of the Greek quotations in the New Testament with that of the
Septuagint added to complaints by various church fathers (preceding Origen in
230 CE) that the manuscripts had been tampered with. See for instance Justin
the Martyr. We have made reference to him in our introduction to this commentary
in the Textcritical section supra. With all due respect to Jerome we have
to disagree with his conclusion that Aquila "interpreted" the variant
reading. He did not interpret the variant reading, it was an acoustic error. He
heard a Hebrew form that sounds the same but looked differently. It means that
he was listening to his Hebrew reader who read ???? but Aquila heard ??? which
is a common word used in this form in the book of Daniel 12:11 translated as
"from the time". It is not the way it is found in the Greek text of
the fifth century CE considered by the church as the "Septuagint" but
it is translated that way by the translation of Theodotion into Greek of Daniel
ca. 190 CE (see Ralphs edition of the Septuagint). Making a mistake by hearing
wrongly is not the same as making an interpretation of the same form of the
Hebrew word. Yes, both cases involve interpretation, but in Jerome's case it
was an interpretation of what he saw. In our analysis it is an interpretation
of what he thought he heard. Jerome's answer is thus too superficial here. The question is asked what they will
do on the day of their feasting or the festival of the Lord. If they are in
Assyria, how will they carry out those functions? Like the Psalmist sings:
"How shall we sing the Lord song in a strange land?" After the destruction by punishment
they shall be gathered by Egypt (verse 6): "For see, they are gone from
destruction. Egypt shall gather them. Moph shall bury them. The pleasant places
for their silver. Nettles shall possess them. Thorns in their tents." In
the Greek translations Moph is Memphis and so also in the Targum, Syriac and
Coptic. It is not that crucial but the Greek
translation of the fifth century CE translated an extra copulative
"and" before Egypt and Moph "and Egypt shall gather them and
Moph shall bury them". It could very well be that Codex
Vaticanus of the fifth century CE got its inclusion of the "it" or
"themselves" from the translation of Theodotion in ca. 190 CE who
also included it (see Field 954). We have said elsewhere that we think that it
was the modus operandi of the editors of the Codex Vaticanus and Codex
Alexandrinus to be eclectic and all-inclusive, protective and
all-incorporative. It is almost as if they wanted to make sure they included everything
that could guard against a schism in the church. This inclusion of the Codex
Vaticanus is a rectification of the Greek text until that century or around
that century in line with the Hebrew original. However, this was not the prime
objective of these editors and differences are bountiful. It would seem as if Symmachus in 170
CE already contained some of the problems that the later official Greek
Septuagint had abundantly more of. If we have to make a comparison between
Symmachus' Greek translation, the Codex Vaticanus and the Middle Age Greek
editions or translations then there are less problems or deviations the older
the text seems to be. The Middle Age Greek translations deviate the most with
the Hebrew original followed by the Codex Vaticanus and the least is Symmachus'
translation. When Jerome (403 CE) commented on this
verse he said: "As far as it reads in the LXX he
shall bury them Machmas, in Hebrew it is not, but mamad, which expects
desireable." "Quod autem in LXX dicit,
sepeliet eos Machmas, in Hebraeo non habetur, sed mamad, quod appellatur
desiderable."
(Jerome's Commentary HoseareconORIGENES-HEXAPLA=FIELD1875:954) Why did Symmachus in 170 CE read mamad
but Origen in 230 CE and Codex Vaticanus in 450 CE and the Middle Age Greek
texts read machmas? We can only maintain that these three
groups of translators or editors used a similar Hebrew Vorlage that was very
illegible at some places that strengthened their conviction that they were
right even though they were off the mark. Like some Qumran manuscripts this
manuscript was probably a functional biblical text and not a formal biblical
text but the translators could not distinguish the difference between the two.
It is the same as modern scholars on Qumran who cannot distinguish between a
biblical and para-biblical text in the manuscripts from Qumran. From the perspective of Augustine's
fierce comments against Jerome for the "audacity" to deviate from the
ecclesiastical Greek edition of the Septuagint and the winds of church
disciplinary actions that blew Jerome's way, one can understand why mistakes
were reduplicated by those who regard their full stomachs more important than
the correctness of the Word of God. And even today in our age, it has not
changed a bit. Scholars know the right but they prefer to cling to the ways of
their forefathers or "giants" in their science or school just for job
security. It is sometimes hilarious to see but also pathetic. During the invasion of Tiglath-Pilezer
III of Israel in the days of Menahem in 755 BCE - 745 BCE Menahem had to pay a
lot of silver to him. He asked from the rich people of Israel to contribute to
these funds. We are mentioning 745 only because it seems that way on our
calculation but with the sliding, slipping and limping calculations of a lunar
calendar, synchronization is not that problematic. They have asked help in 730
BCE from Egypt and probably some went there to settle there. That is why it is
said that Memphis will bury them. Memphis was the setting for the Apis bull and
in the time of this Egyptian king, Sheshonk V, two Apis bulls died. The
reference to tents are a nomadic setting that they will live in again in
future. God says through Hosea that there will
be days of punishment and Israel need to know why it came: "The days of
visitation came, the days of punishment came, Israel know. A fool is the
prophet, mad is the man of the spirit, upon the multitude of your iniquity and
the great hatred." (verse 7). The Syriac reads it as follows: "The
days of seeking came, drawn near are the days of repayments. Know Israel
foolish is the lying prophet, the man that clothed on him the spirit of
madness, from the multitude of your iniquity, arose your playfullness."
Older than the Syriac translation of 380 CE is the Old Latin of 190 CE reading it
as: "The days of visitation came, the days of repaying came. know Israel,
that the prophet was foolish, the spiritual man was insane, on account of the
multitude of your iniquity, is your madness." The Septuagint is attempting to
harmonize again in this verse as it is common elsewhere in the Greek
translation. It wants to read "your iniquity and the muliplication of
[your] hatred". This second "your" is not in the original and
should not be placed in. Not everyone in Israel is part of the iniquity but everyone
is suffering pain and therefore "the great hatred". The Septuagint in
this verse is doing the opposite than in verse 2, it is reading a /d/ for an
/r/ namely instead of yd(w it is reading yr(w. Mistakes in reading are not to
be followed. The Syriac translator was translating
very freely in this verse. In fact, he was substituting the semantics for
certain words very wide, although still possible but questionable. The rule
that we have followed in this commentary on the retroversions is not to retrovert
ad hoc without careful weighing the possibilities of misreading of the correct
characters in the consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition. With the two
words in the beginning of the verse, this was not the case. Usually one can see
a relation between the form and meaning between the Targum and the Syriac
although not as a fixed rule. In this case they are worlds apart. It is almost
to us as if the Syriac translators switched at this point and from this verse
another Syriac translator was translating than the one before this verse? The
Syriac translator probably read the consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition
but then switch manuscripts in an attempt to make sense of the second half
introducing some words that is not in the original (probably for sense reasons)
and then switched to the same Hebrew Vorlage that the Greek of the fifth
century CE had with many problems in it at the last part of the verse. The
Greek Vorlage is very problematic in this verse. It is not a case of
translation method since the exact omissions and substitutions can also be
found in the Syriac translation especially at the end of the verse. Would the
Syriac translator be so curious to understand the difficult part of the verse
by switching to another manuscript (a position that we do hold) and then at the
end of the verse just slavishly follow the Greek translation of the fifth
century CE? We do not follow this line of thinking. It was a Vorlage that both
the Greek and the Syriac shared that had these problems. The other differences
in variants are due to the method of translating and consulting by the Syriac
translator who was surrounded by four to five different Hebrew manuscripts. It seems to us again that Symmachus in
170 CE misread the similarity of the Hebrew characters in this verse at one
point and thus introduced a similar extra word "to them" that was not
in the original, not even the one he was using. It happened in the following
way: double reading of letters. Result: A double reading of a word that was not
there. It means that he read it correctly the first time but introduced a new
word due to a double reading of the same letters. It is again (like Hosea 9:4
supra) a ghostword that originated in the eye of the beholder due to the
similarity of the forms of the words and letters of the words. We have said
that we think Symmachus was very tired during this translation at this point
and that he was hallucinating. A second error that Symmachus made was that he
did not see the aleph before the word that would render it "man" and
he thought that he saw the word "there is" = ??. For any scholar who
disagree with our point here, we refer him/her to the Syriac translation of
Symmachus here as: "there is" (Greek of Symmachus in
SYRO-HEXAPLA=PAUL 616 reconstructed from ORIGENES-HEXAPLA= FIELD 1875: 954) Symmachus used a Hebrew text very
similar to the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition but due to the fact
that he was too tired in this section and the letters were very illegible and
reading in continual format, he created "ghost words" that did not
exist in the original. Hosea warned them that the days of
visitation came and also the day for punishment. He refers to the fact that
people are thinking that the prophet is a fool and the man of the spirit is mad
due to the selfish occupation they had with the social and economic lifestyles
of their day. Again as we have stated above at Hosea
9:5 regarding the variant of Aquila in that verse, the same applies here,
namely that his variant is not due to an interpretation of the consonantal text
of the Masoretic tradition, but due to a mishearing of phonics that gave him
the idea that he heard one word instead of another word. The /s/ sound and the
last sound in the word were confused in his ears and his interpretation created
a word similar to what he actually heard. We do not get the impression that
Aquila (130 CE) and Symmachus (170 CE) had different Vorlages than our
consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition. It again appears that someone was
reading the Hebrew to Aquila and he was translating while listening to the
reading. Concerning the Greek translations as a
whole: private and official ecclessiastical texts - it seems as if they get
worse as centuries progressed. With "worse" we mean that they
deviated from the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition considerably. It
may be just a suggestion but it seems as if the two periods of Cave discoveries
of manuscripts during the third century (213 CE) and the ninth century (806 CE)
could have been the two pivotal points of the origin of major variants in the Greek
and other editions. It is remarkable how great variants get after these two
periods. Jerome commented again on this verse
and about the translation of Aquila he said: "For madness Aquila altered it
hostility, something for us actually passion, actually a memorial suffering, we
can say in Latin."
(Jerome's Commentary Hosea reconstructed from ORIGENES-HEXAPLA= FIELD
1875: 954) I disagree with Jerome here that
Aquila "altered" (= vertit) the reading. It reads the same in the
Hebrew original. He just selected another Greek word semantically similar to
what we found later in the Middle Ages, in Codex Vaticanus of the century of
Jerome or in the Hexapla of Origenes one hundred years later. Someone who was a watchman of Ephraim
was a believer in God and had a relationship with Him just like the prophet
Hosea, but he set a trap for himself upon all his ways and the endresult is
that there is hatred in the house of God (verse 8). The verse was translated
with various nuances by other old translations: The Jewish Targum read "He
that watch the house of Israel that endure to them worshipping the idol. To
their prophets that are traps spread upon all their ways, multiplying the
weight in the house of the sanctuary of their God." It appears from the translations of the
private Greek translations of Aquila and Symmachus in this verse that they read
exactly the same in the Hebrew and in the Greek. Aquila dropped out one word in
the beginning namely the word "God". Differing in choice of
vocabulary as Symmachus is all the way in the previous verses between verses
3-7 it is now remarkable that he agrees exactly with Aquila in Greek and Hebrew
forms! We suggest that on the basis of the fact that he was tired as we could
see previously, Symmachus in 170 CE decided to just copy Aquila (130 CE) in
this verse with the understanding that everything looked normal for him in both
Greek and Hebrew. Why did Aquila drop the word "God" from his
translation? We suggest again that it was a
mishearing on the part of Aquila or an acoustic error. It happened in the
following way: guttural mem guttural mem similarity of sounds Result: Due to the fact that the
sounds in the ending of the word "Ephraim" and the word "with
us" is the same therefore Aquila did not hear the two separate words. He
heard only "Ephraim". Because the word for "God" is not
read here with the /m/ at the end, therefore Aquila thought he heard "unto
me". It means that the reader read perfectly well but that in the ear of
Aquila the similar sounds merged into only one word with the omission of the
preposition. His Hebrew reader did read the word for "God" in the
original but Aquila again heard wrongly and thought he heard "unto
me". It is impossible that Symmachus had
also a Hebrew reader and that he also heard wrongly and that he translated by
chance the same as Aquila. It is better to see this error in Symmachus due to
cross-mutation or consultation of Aquila's translation of 130 CE. In superficial evaluation it appears
as if both Aquila and Symmachus dropped the word "God" but in actual
fact it was in their Vorlage. The preposition that was also in Aquila's Vorlage
was "swallowed up" by the similarity of the sounds. It is the
preposition that was omitted. Somebody from Ephraim with a bad
spirit and attitude was working with the prophet in the house of God. That is
why he is "with the God of the prophet". However, he was an
undercover agent that set traps for the prophet upon all his actions there. He
caused a lot of suspicion and mistrust to go around in the house of God. There
was thus a lot of hatred in the house of God. This watchman is supposedly also
worshipping the same God as the prophet but he was cunning and used all
political traps to catch the prophet. The translation of Jerome is the other
way around since he voweled the consonantal text differently than we did. It is
also grammatically correct to read it according to the translation of Jerome.
In Jerome's Latin translation the watchman and Hosea are in the same camp as
opposed to a bad prophet that goes around setting traps. In our translation the
watchman is in the same religion as the prophet but his spiritual life is
lacking and he cause a lot of problems in the house of the Lord. The Targum
also read it like Jerome namely that it is the prophets who are bad. The Greek
of the fifth century CE read it the same way as we did in our translation and
opposed to the Vulgate and the Targum. The consonantal text of the Hebrew are
the same but their word divisions and voweling are different giving rise to
these problems. The letters of the Hebrew manuscript was definitely written in
scriptio continua since the Greek translator of the fifth century CE misread a
character but pulled the first word of verse 9 into the translation of the last
word of verse 8. Scholars are posing the problem that the supposedly earlier
manuscripts of Qumran does not read scriptio continua and they are right. This
brings us to the uncomfortable position that the textcritical evidence point to
the opposite direction. We are reminded, much to the dismay of Birnbaum
Albright and others, of the Middle Age Hebrew scholar Solomon Zeitlin's
position that the Qumran scrolls should be dated to the Middle Ages. The Syriac
also interpreted the prophet as the bad one in the house of the Lord. On the
basis of the previous verse and this verse A. Weiser do not want to see Hosea
as part of the prophets (contra Sellin, Eissfeldt and Rost). We do think that
he was part of the prophets. Weiser was probably led by translations like the
Syriac, Targum and Vulgate for his opinion here. Since Hosea is very positive
about the function of a prophet in Hosea 12:10 therefore we cannot accept the
position of Jerome, the Syriac, Targum, and that of A. Weiser. People have corrupted the watchman of
Ephraim. God shall remember their iniquity and He shall visit their sins (verse
9). "They have made deep his
corruption like the days of Gibeah. He shall remember their iniquity. He shall
visit their sins." God looked at the remnant and He found
spiritual Israel like grapes in a desert originally however they went to
separate themselves from God unto shame and abominations (verse 10). "Like
grapes in the desert I have found Israel. Like the first fruit of a figtree in
its beginning, I saw your fathers. They, they went Baal-Peor and separated
themselves to shame. And abominations were like their love." The Syriac text is leaving out the
word "in its beginning". The editors of the BHS in the lower register
suggest that we should delete it, but this is not necessary. The Syriac
translation has its own set of problems as we have indicated above. A method
that is running after every variant in the process of penetrating to the
original is not worth looking at. What we mean by this is that scholars who find
variants in the versions and now suddenly wants to readjust the consonantal
text of the Masoretic tradition to that variant that they have found are not
reliable in their methodology. It is like a "reed in the wind". The interesting situation here in the
original is that there is no preposition "to" or "unto"
after "they went". It simply reads "they went Baal-Peor".
Another option will be to translate "Baal" as a combination of two
prepositions "in" + "upon" and then to render the verse:
"they went in upon Peor". Jerome seemed to understand the verse as
"in...to". He translated "they went in to Beel-Peor".
Following strictly the original consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition
here, we cannot accept Jerome here at all. If we look at the translation of Jerome
it appears as if he translated ??? "Baal" not as "Baal" but
as "Beel". This is peculiar in Jerome's reading since in Hosea 2:10
he translated a similar form as "Baal". We can only conclude that he
read ??? which is a combination of two prepositions "in" +
"unto". In his translation both these prepositions can be found see
intraverunt ad Beelphegor. It also seems as if Jerome not only misread the one
letter in the original but also translated double so that "in" + "ad"
= "Beel". The same situation of a double translation can also be
found in the Greek translation of the fifth century CE linking Jerome and that
Greek translation undoubtedly in a faulty Hebrew manuscript of a Qumran kind
that both consulted in this verse. Similar to Jerome the Greek translation of
the fifth century CE read in Hosea 2:10 "Baal" but in Hosea 9:10 they
both read "into...to Beel". The consonantal text of the Masoretic
tradition read it the same form in the Hebrew for both verses and each time
only single. In the lower register of the BHS there is no reference at all to
this important variant. What should the reader do when versions go against the
consonantal reading of the Masoretic tradition? Change the Masoretic tradition?
Not at all. The versions have all their own problems and idiosyncracies and are
at times quite inconsistent also in their transmission history. Qumran has
shown at least that some manuscripts are 100% if not 99% exactly the
consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition. This evidence of reliability
counteracts any attempt to ad hoc change the consonantal text of the Masoretic
tradition. God is describing here how He found
Israel in His first meeting. It was a pleasant experience, but their ancestors
went to the Phoenician god and separated themselves from God. Their love was
for another god and their abominations was the same. "Ephraim: like a bird
she flew back and forth their glory. From the birth and from the womb and from
the conception" (verse 11). The Targum translated the last part of the verse
as: "and upon that which is withholding their steps from not to be visible
in the house of my sanctuary." Ephraim was like a bird doing trading
back and forth in Sidon and Tyre. Their own creations and inventions were sold
on the markets of other countries, especially the Phoenicians. This was
Ephraim's habit and their ancestors habit from birth, no from the womb no from
conception. Here the thought is penetrating to the origin of the sin. It is not
only since birth but earlier. In the stages of Ephraim or Israel's conception
already there was sin. Here we have a description of the
origin of human sin. It goes further than only birth. It is since conception.
There is a human depravity that everyone inherits, no matter how beautiful and
cute the baby. But one should not misunderstand the concept of sinful babies or
babies sinning because that is why other denominations other than Adventists
developed the infant baptism, namely, to "trick" God with miraculous
water cleansing the baby from the original sin of Augustine theories so that
the baby will not go to hell before he/she is an adult if the baby should die.
Depravity means degenerative genes and mortality. Sin enters the picture case
by case when a person becomes choice accountable. Mortality started with Adam and even
the good dies and sometimes even before they had the choice of accountability
for sin (verse 12). "For if they shall bring up their sons, also I bereave
them. From Adam. For also woe unto them in my departing from them." My translation is here unique in
rendering "from Adam". This is not unusual for the book of Hosea
since he has talked about Adam before in Hosea 6:7. It is strange why Jerome
did not keep consistent to his own rendering since in that verse he also
translated it as Adam. Here he translated it as "from a man". The
Septuagint did the same as Jerome and translated it as "out of a
man". The wages of sin is death and that is
the point in this verse and the previous one. Even if the babies are born and
brought up, they all must die one day. This is the way from Adam. Due to Adam's
sin all men die. Added to this natural death is the woe when God is departing
from them. That will be eternal death. When God looks at Ephraim, it is
shocking that they are also beautiful like Tyre is a pleasant place in a good
planted environment but Ephraim is involved in idolatry (verse 13).
"Ephraim: like when I saw unto Tyre planted in a pleasant place and
Ephraim, in order to lead out unto slaughter his sons." The Septuagint had problems with this
verse. The difficulty of the Hebrew made them see other similar letters. For
the Masoretic text lswr stwlh bnwh the Greek probably read lsyd stw lhm bnyh.
There is a /m/ that is added, the /w/ matres lectiones is changed to /y/ and
the /r/ is changed to /d/, a problem that was already prevalent in verse 2
above. The Septuagint could not make sense out of the verse so they invented
there own way out. This was not done by Jerome in his translation and surely is
also not necessary here. As we have explained, this is the format of a geronti
and thus perfectly acceptable under that condition. "Slaughter" and
"Tyre" stands into a synonymous relation here. The repetition is here
that of an old man. He thinks of Ephraim, say it and then make a fluctuation to
a beautiful city Tyre (as a footnote) and then take up the first thinking again
with "and Ephraim" in comparison will lead out his sons to slaughter.
It is known that Menahem ripped open the bellies of pregnant women (2 Kings
15:16) in 754 BCE. Shocked, Hosea is praying that their
punishment shall be death and no children (verse 14). "Give them O Lord.
What will you give? Give to them wombs that are bereaving and breasts that are
dry." The punishment that Eve got for her
sin was that she will give birth in pain. The punishment that is thought of
here is that no children should be born. The editors of the Hebrew text in the
lower register of the BHS thought that this verse should be deleted and ask the
question whether this whole verse was not added later? This higher-critical
approach is out of place here. God hates their wickedness and on
account of this wickedness He will punish them by driving them out of His house
(verse 15). "All their wickedness in Gilgal for there I hated them. Upon
the wickedness of their actions, I will drive them from my house. Not shall I
gather their love. All their princes are revolters." Gilgal was a school for the prophets
where Elisha use to teach the prophets, see 2 Kings 4:38. This was shortly
after the Battle at Qarqar against Shalmanezer III in 853 BCE. Something must
have happened there in Gilgal for it is there that God hated them. It seems as
if the theological school lost its divine dignity. The price of syncretism with
other religions was too high. God said that He will drive them from His house.
He will not collect their love for Him. Their princes are revolters. It is
known that Jehu of Israel was a revolter before the time of Hosea. Menahem of
Israel was a revolter who killed Shallum and made himself king during the days
of Hosea. In fact, when Amaziah of Judah was killed the people crowned his son
Uzziah at the age of 16. He came to power by revolution too in the young days
of Hosea. Pekah came to power due to the assassination of Pekahiah in 743 BCE.
Hoshea killed Pekah. Hosea was by now approximately 53 years old. It could be
that this last date is the one that cause Hosea to make the statement. Indeed all the rulers of Israel during
the period of the Syro-Ephraimite war 731-729 BCE were revolters or assasins. And then the punishment came: smitten
and dried out (verse 16). "Smitten is Ephraim. Dried up is their root.
Fruit they shall not make. For also they shall bare and I slay those whom they
love of their wombs." Here is again a case of a
Phoenicianism in the use of the negative particle bly. There is a
nun-paragogicum attached to the verbal suffix. Ephraim is smitten. The past tense
indicates that the action of destruction took place. The fall of Samaria was in
721 BCE. It could be that in this verse Hosea is looking back to the
destruction and captivity of the Israelites. That is why they are
"smitten". They are like a dry plant pulled out and cast away. Even
though they might bare children, they will also die. If this is the day when
Menahem carried out his killings of the pregnant women of Tappuah, then that
would be in 754 BCE. It is as if there is telescoping here: the action is
already carried out and the simile is that they are like a plant. But the
question is: what if they bare children again, will the plant not grow again?
The answer is that those will (future) also be slain. Hosea is very concerned because he
says that God will cast them away for they did not listen to Him and
migrationism is awaiting them (verse 17). Hosea is talking here and saying that
God will cast them away for they did not listen to Him. Their punishment is
that the will be wanderers among the nations. In 721 BCE with the fall of
Samaria, they became wanderers to Assyria. Those who fled to safety in Egypt
became also wanderers.
Dear God Migrationism is everywhere today and
is one of the signs of the end-times in Isaiah 25. But, people do not listen to
God and fair enough that is also true around the globe. Grant that we will keep
listening to Your word and not also caught-up with spiritual deafness. Amen.