Hosea continues his warnings to the northern kingdom.
Hosea 9:1-2, Do not rejoice
Do not rejoice, O Israel;
do not be jubilant like the other nations.
For you have been unfaithful to your God;
you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor.
Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people;
the new wine will fail them.
The prostitution metaphor continues -- Israel is like the prostitute at the end-of-harvest parties on the threshing floor but neither that income nor the wine will take care of the people.
Hosea 9:3-6, Returning to Egypt and Assyria
They will not remain in the LORD's land;
Ephraim will return to Egypt
and eat unclean food in Assyria.
They will not pour out wine offerings to the LORD,
nor will their sacrifices please him.
Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners;
all who eat them will be unclean.
This food will be for themselves;
it will not come into the temple of the LORD.
What will you do on the day of your appointed feasts,
on the festival days of the LORD?
Even if they escape from destruction,
Egypt will gather them,
and Memphis will bury them.
Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers,
and thorns will overrun their tents.
On the east and the west, Israel is threatened. It does Israel no good to turn to those countries for alliances.
Hosea 9:7-9, Days of punishment
The days of punishment are coming,
the days of reckoning are at hand.
Let Israel know this.
Because your sins are so many
and your hostility so great,
the prophet is considered a fool,
the inspired man a maniac.
The prophet, along with my God,
is the watchman over Ephraim,
yet snares await him on all his paths,
and hostility in the house of his God.
They have sunk deep into corruption,
as in the days of Gibeah.
God will remember their wickedness
and punish them for their sins.
The prophet and the "inspired man" are ignored by Israel, indeed, the people are hostile to them. (A century later, the prophet Jeremiah was hounded and persecuted and, at one point, described as a "maniac" by a court official in Jeremiah 29:24-27.)
Gibeah is probably Gibeah of Benjamin, the site of the horrors of Judges 19-20.
A future day comes in which the last two lines of verse 9, above, are reversed by the last two lines of Jeremiah 31:34.
Hosea 9:10-14, Empty wombs and dry breasts
"When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert;
when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.
But when they came to Baal Peor,
they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol
and became as vile as the thing they loved.
Ephraim's glory will fly away like a bird--
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.
Even if they rear children,
I will bereave them of every one.
Woe to them when I turn away from them!
I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place.
But Ephraim will bring out their children to the slayer."
Give them, O LORD--
what will you give them?
Give them wombs that miscarry
and breasts that are dry.
God's love for Israel is first described as "finding grapes in the desert", finding juicy fruit in a wilderness. But the idolatry of Baal Peor (Numbers 25:1-3) -- and repeated idolatry over the centuries since -- has turned YHWH away from them. Their glory and pride will leave them as if they had no children, could not conceive, or even had their children killed. (In the culture of the ANE, the future hung on one's ability to have many children, so a womb that miscarries and breasts that are dry represents disaster.)
Hosea 9:15-17, Wanderers among the nations
"Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal,
I hated them there.
Because of their sinful deeds,
I will drive them out of my house.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.
Ephraim is blighted,
their root is withered,
they yield no fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will slay their cherished offspring."
My God will reject them
because they have not obeyed him;
they will be wanderers among the nations.
There seems to be no hope for Israel/Ephraim, as their wickedness has led to God rejecting them.
First published June 16, 2025; updated June 16, 2025
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