Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Hosea · About this commentary
Death, Where Are Your Plagues
Hosea 13:9-16
9 You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. · WEB
The monarchy is named as something God gave in anger, and a promise of ransom stands in the same verse as a withdrawal of pity.
Verse 9 states the self-destruction plainly: you are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. The last word is the point — the opponent was the help.
Verses 10 and 11 turn on the monarchy, and the sentence is severe about its origin. Give me a king and princes was the demand; and I have given you a king in my anger, and have taken him away in my wrath. The institution is described as a concession made in displeasure, which reaches back to the day Israel asked for one.
Verse 13 gives an obstetric image of a failure to be born: he is an unwise son, for when it is time, he doesn't come to the opening of the womb. Labor arrives and the child will not present. The book has used barrenness as judgment Hosea 9:14; here the problem is a delivery that stalls.
Then verse 14, and it is the most contested verse in Hosea. I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Sheol, where is your destruction? — followed immediately by compassion will be hidden from my eyes.
The two halves pull opposite ways in one verse, and the book does not resolve them. Read as promise, the taunt is a victory over the grave; read as question, it is a summons for death to do its work. The Hebrew permits both, and the closing clause about hidden compassion is what makes the second reading available.
What is not ambiguous is what the New Testament did with the taunt. It is taken up as a shout over a defeated grave 1 Corinthians 15:55 — and Hosea's own book ends in healing rather than in Sheol Hosea 14:4.
held with reason What this mark means