Hosea 9:13-17

Hosea 9:13 (KJB)

Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.

 

Both of the nations of Israel and Tyrus were the focus of aggression by Assyria.  The fact that Israel was grouped with this Tyrus, a pagan nation, is because when Israel decided to forsake the true God and go after the false gods, it lowered their status to be just like one of the other nations.  Their children being brought out to the murderer refers to the fact that Israel may fight against Assyria with her sons but the fact that since their fate was decreed by God, their sons would be fighting a futile battle and would result in their deaths.

 

Hosea 9:14 (KJB)

Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

 

Since the sons of Israel were to be slaughtered by their enemies then the prophet had asked God if there was the possibility that Israel would no longer have any children so they would not face slaughter.  This same type of desire was asked for during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans.  Luke 23:29 (KJV) For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. 

 

Hosea 9:15 (KJB)

All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.

 

Gilgal was the center of much cultic activity but the city in this case is being used as a general term denoting all the evil activity which Israel committed against the LORD in the entire nation.  It was when they started to commit whoredom against God that he began to hate them for their disobedience.  This verse alone teaches that God does hate the sinner and the sin.  He is not just stating he hated their wickedness but he is stating that he hated them as the ones doing it.  The driving out of the house is referring to the fact that God is going to remove them from the land which he gave them when they came out of Egypt.  God will also cease to have any more love for them and will add his hatred of them to their sentence and leave them under the hand of the wicked Assyrians.  Their leaders both religious and civil were idolaters since the time of Jeroboam and this included all the kings in succession because there was not a godly king in the northern kingdom.  The word “revolter” may also be understood as rebellious or stubborn.

 

Hosea 9:16 (KJB)

Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.

 

Hosea begins to bring God’s hatred of Israel because of their sins in the form of a tree.  A tree whose root is dried up will never grow.  In fact if the root is dried up the tree will die.  This will result in the fact that they will bear no fruit.  They shall remain a dead entity standing in the ground as a dead tree.  If they bring forth any fruit, that is, any children then God will also slay them because they will grow up as idolaters as their parents were.  Dead trees do not bring forth living fruit.  They may die by disease or by some enemy who will invade their land or even by the hand of one of their own.

 

Hosea 9:17 (KJB)

My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.

 

Deuteronomy 28:64 (KJV) And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.  Here Hosea speaks in covenant terms.  If Israel had disobeyed God as prophesied in Deuteronomy 28 then one of their punishments was to be scattered among all the nations.  The northern kingdom went into Assyria and were never repatriated back to Israel.  Judah went into captivity with Babylon but were back in the land by 516 B.C. and they too went into serious apostasy even killing the Messiah and they were also removed from the land by the Romans who killed about a million Jews and then took the rest as slaves to Rome.  They too were never repatriated after 70 A.D.  The modern nation of Israel is not a fulfillment of any Bible prophecy.  That thought process is only found in prophecy books.

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