Grapes in the Wilderness
10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved. 11 As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird. There will be no birth, no one with child, and no conception. 12 Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them! 13 I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer. 14 Give them—Yahweh what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. 15 “All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds, I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels. 16 Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.” 17 My God will cast them away, because they didn’t listen to him; and they will be wanderers among the nations.
God remembers finding Israel with delight, and the sentence that follows is the harshest in the book — a prayer for barrenness.
Verse 10 opens with affection and it is the language of a man finding fruit where he did not expect it: I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season. The first ripe figs were the ones eaten on the spot.
And the sentence turns in the middle. But they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved.
The last clause is the book's theory of idolatry in nine words. Worship is formative — a person becomes like what he loves — and the book says the transformation had already happened.
What follows is the most difficult passage in Hosea, and it should not be softened. The fertility the shrines existed to secure is withdrawn item by item: no birth, no one with child, and no conception Hosea 9:11. Then bereavement of children already born.
And verse 14 is a prophet's prayer: give them — Yahweh what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. The book records its own prophet breaking off mid-sentence, unable to complete the petition, and then completing it with the worst thing he can name.
This is a man whose own children were named for judgment Hosea 1:6 Hosea 1:9. What he asks for is that a nation which built its religion on fertility should get the opposite from it — the sentence fitted exactly to the sin.
Verse 15 is God's answer in four words that stand against the whole book: I will love them no more. Chapter 11 will not let that be the last word Hosea 11:8, and it is allowed to stand here.
held with reason What this mark means