Death, Where Are Your Plagues
9 You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. 10 Where is your king now, that he may save you in all your cities? And your judges, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? 11 I have given you a king in my anger, and have taken him away in my wrath. 12 The guilt of Ephraim is stored up. His sin is stored up. 13 The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise son, for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb. 14 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? “Compassion will be hidden from my eyes. 15 Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of Yahweh coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure. 16 Samaria will bear her guilt, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”
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