The Divine Father's Love for Israel. In Israel's youth Yahweh loved him, and called him from Egypt to be His son, but he proved disloyal, sacrificing to the Baalim (Hosea 11:1 f.). Yet it was Yahweh who guided and protected him as a father, and healed him in sickness (Hosea 11:3). The figure now changes (but see notes). Yahweh has treated Israel as a humane master who gently leads and eases the yoke for the tired team of oxen (Hosea 11:4). The ungrateful son must return to Egypt be exiled; his cities shall be given up to the sword, because of incurable idolatry (Hosea 11:6 f.). Here the prophet movingly expresses Yahweh's love for His people: How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How devote Israel, loved from youth, to destruction? And yet must not the annihilating judgment take its course? Does not Yahweh's holiness inexorably demand it? (Hosea 11:8 f.). But there shall be a return from exile (Hosea 11:10 f., post-exilic).
Hosea 11:1. Render called (him) to be my son or (reading lô b- nî) called to him, my Son: LXX called his sons (and since Egypt I have been calling his sons, Marti). Israel's sonship dates from the Exodus (cf. Exodus 4:22).
Hosea 11:2 a. Read (LXX), But the more I have called to them, so much the more have they departed from me.
Hosea 11:2 b. Render sacrifice, burn (present tenses).
Hosea 11:3 b. Marti and Nowack read, But they knew not that I carried them, that I healed them from sickness. Yahweh is the good physician (cf. Exodus 15:26).
Hosea 11:4 a. man: perhaps kindness (hesed) should be read (parallel to love).
Hosea 11:4 b. The text is uncertain (the yoke is not placed on the jaws, but on the neck). Read (cf. LXX), And then I became to him as a man-smiter; I turned against him (-â lâ w) and overcame him (so Marti).
Hosea 11:5. Omit not (lô transferred to end of Hosea 11:4). As places of exile Assyria and Egypt are employed indifferently in Hosea.
Hosea 11:6. Text corrupt. Read probably, And the sword shall consume in his cities, and devour in his fastnesses.
Hosea 11:7. Very corrupt. No satisfactory emendation has been proposed.
Hosea 11:8. Admah and Zeboim play the same rô le in Hosea as Sodom and Gomorrah in Amos and Isaiah (cf. Amos 4:11; Isaiah 1:7-10). According to tradition they belonged to the five cities of the plain (cf. Genesis 10:19; Genesis 14:2; Genesis 14:8; Deuteronomy 29:23).
Hosea 11:9. Render, Shall I not execute? Shall I not return? etc. and I. city: (mg. is impossible) read probably, and shall I not extirpate (Heb. w e lô - abhâ-'ç r)? [If construed absolutely (I will not execute, etc.), the verse is a promise of mercy. But this hardly suits the clause about God's holiness; holiness demands severe purgation.]
Hosea 11:10 depicts the return from exile; it is doubtless a post-exilio gloss. make them to dwell in: read, bring them back to.