The following is the word of the Lord that was with Hosea son of Be’eri. Some explain that this is Be’era, prince of the tribe of Reuben. Hosea prophesied in the days of Uziya, Yotam, Ahaz, and Yehizkiya, kings of Judah, and correspondingly, in the days of the second King Yorovam son of Yo’ash, who reigned for many years as king of Israel. Several prophets were active during this period, including Isaiah.

This was the initial word of the Lord to Hosea. Alternatively, the verse is saying that the first of the prophets of that period to whom God spoke was Hosea. The Lord said to Hosea: Go, take for yourself a wife of licentiousness, a woman of loose morals whom you will suspect of betrayal, or know for certain that she is unfaithful to you, and she will bear children of licentiousness, offspring whose fathers are unknown. Although they will be treated as the prophet’s children, their paternity will be uncertain. Hosea was commanded to marry this woman, as the land will stray licentiously from following the Lord. This harlot represents the house of Israel, while the prophet stands for God in the parable. Hosea’s personal life will become a living metaphor for the relationship between the nation and its God.

He went and took Gomer daughter of Divlayim, perhaps a symbolic name that alludes to her immoral deeds, and she conceived and bore him a son.

The Lord said to him: Call his name Yizre’el, after the winter capital of the kings of Israel. The name might also be an allusion to the winnowing [zeriya], or scattering, of Israel among the nations. For in a little while I will reckon the blood of Yizre’el upon the house of Yehu, the father of the dynasty to which Yorovam belonged. Yehu was commanded by a prophet to seize the monarchy from the idolatrous house of Omri, and he established his kingdom in a murderous rebellion in Yizre’el. Now, since his dynasty has failed to justify the expectations that were placed on it, and his descendants also continued to worship idols, the blood he spilled will be attributed to them, as though they killed innocent people. And I will bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.

It shall be on that day that I will break the bow of Israel in the Yizre’el Valley. Israel will suffer a complete downfall there.

She conceived again and bore a daughter. He said to him: Call her name Lo Ruhama, a name that means “shown no mercy,” as she represents the Kingdom of Israel, and I will no longer have mercy for the house of Israel, for I will carry them away. Alternatively, this last phrase means that God will certainly carry them into exile.

But in contrast to the house of Israel, I will have mercy for the house of Judah, a far smaller kingdom, and I will save them by the Lord their God, because they are faithful to Me, and I will not save them with bow, with sword, or with war, or with horses or horsemen, but in a miraculous fashion.

She weaned Lo Ruhama, and she conceived and bore a, another, son.

He said: Call his name Lo Ami, which means “not my people,” as you are not My people, and I will not be yours. I will not be your God.

However, at the time of the redemption, the number of the children of Israel will be vast, like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured and cannot be counted; it will come about that instead of it being said of them: You are not My people, in that era it will be said of them: You are the children of the living God.

The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be assembled together, and they will appoint themselves one head, a leader, and they will go up out of the land of their exile. Alternatively, they shall go up out of the Land of Israel to conquer the surrounding region, for great will be the day of Yizre’el. If Hosea’s first son, Yizre’el, symbolizes the scattering of the kingdom in exile, then a great day for Yizre’el will arrive in the future, when the nation will be gathered and sown [yizara] in its land.

At that time, instead of calling them a name that means “not my people,” call your brethren Ami, My people, and your sisters, formerly called by a name meaning “shown no mercy,” you shall call Ruhama, which means “shown mercy.”

All that is for the future, but in the meantime, the Father, God, says to these children: Contend with your mother, contend, as although she, this adulterous woman, who symbolizes the assembly of Israel, is your mother, she is not My wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove her licentiousness from before her and her adulteries from between her breasts. The nation must rid its national institutions and culture of idol worship and all treacherous acts, whether open or concealed,

lest I strip her naked and present her naked, as on the day of her birth. I will make her like a wilderness and render her like an arid, desolate land, and I will kill her with thirst.

I will not have mercy on her children, as they are children of licentiousness. On the one hand, Hosea instructs the children to reprove their mother and warn her of her downfall if she does not mend her ways. On the other hand, he warns the mother that if she fails to improve her behavior, the children themselves will suffer. Individuals must realize that punishment will affect every member of the nation, even those who themselves might be righteous.

For their mother committed licentiousness, she who conceived them acted shamefully, and has brought disgrace upon them through her behavior. For she said: I will follow my lovers, the various idols and gentile kingdoms, for it is they who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, the garments I wear, and my oil and my drink. My lovers provide me with all my necessities; therefore, what need have I of my husband? Israel is convinced that its political and business ties to the neighboring nations are the source of its success and that its salvation lies there.

Therefore, behold, I am hedging your way to your lovers with thorns, and I will erect her fence, and she will not find her paths.

She will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch them; she will seek them, but will not find them, as they will all abandon her and vanish from the scene. And then, when she has been disappointed by them, she will say: I will go and return to my first husband, as it was better for me then, when I was with my husband, than now, as all my lovers have betrayed me and I cannot trust any of them.

She did not know that her food did not come from her lovers, but that it was I who gave her the grain, and the wine, and the oil, and lavished upon her the silver and the gold they used for the Baal. In truth, she received nothing from her lovers. All that she possessed came from Me.

Therefore, I will return and take back all the goodness that I bestowed upon her: My grain at its time, and My wine at its appointed time, and I will salvage from her My wool and My flax which were given to her to cover her nakedness.

Now I will reveal her vileness to the eyes of her paramours, and no man, none of these paramours, will deliver her from My hand, since they are not really interested in what is best for her. She devotes herself to them fully, without considering that she receives nothing from them in return.

I will bring all her times of rejoicing to an end: her festivals, her New Moons, which were festive days, and her Sabbaths, and all her appointed times.

I will render her vines and her fig trees desolate, of which she said: These are my fee that my paramours gave me. She mistakenly thought that the paramours were the ones who gave her the vines and fig trees. In that period, certain Israelites incorporated various faiths and rites into their worship of God. Some believed that the Baal and Ashtoret were in charge of produce and crops, and therefore they felt that whether or not those idols were connected to God, they must still be worshipped in order to ensure a bountiful crop. God therefore declared: I will make them, those fruit trees, into an abandoned forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

I will reckon upon her, remember her deeds, in the days of the Be’alim, to which she burned incense, and donned her earrings and her jewelry, and followed her paramours, but Me she forgot – the utterance of the Lord. Consequently, I will take everything from her, and she will be left desolate and lacking.

Once again the prophet turns from reproof to words of reconciliation: Therefore, behold, I will seduce her and lead her to the wilderness. I will return her to the early days of our relationship. We will renew our youthful encounters of love, in seclusion and with the same dedication as when the nation left Egypt, and in the wilderness I will speak to her heart.

From there I will give her her vineyards, even from the wilderness, and I will change the tainted valley so that it will be an entrance of hope. And she will respond to Me with affection there, like in the days of her youth and like on the day of her coming up from the land of Egypt.

It shall be on that day of the future redemption – the utterance of the Lord – that you shall call Me my spouse [ishi], and you will no longer call Me my husband [ba’li]. These two terms both mean husband; however, the word ba’li will be rejected because of its association with the idol Baal.

I will remove the names of the Be’alim from her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by their name.

I will establish a covenant for them, the children of Israel, on that day, with the beasts of the field, with the birds of the heavens, and with the crawling creatures of the ground. When redemption arrives and peace reigns in the world, even animals will cease to cause harm. Bow, sword, and war will I terminate from the land, and I will have them lie down in security. All will live in a state of tranquility and brotherhood.

And then I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you to Me with righteousness, with justice, with grace, and with mercy.

I will betroth you to Me with faithfulness, in steadfastness, and you will know the Lord.

The spirit of reconciliation will be characterized both by the renewal of the marriage-like covenant between God and His people and by cosmic harmony: It shall be on that day of the redemption that I will respond and fulfill requests – the utterance of the Lord – I will respond to the heavens by fulfilling their wish to actualize their potential, and they will respond to the earth by bringing down rain.

The earth will respond with the grain and the wine and the oil, by sprouting these crops, and they will all, the heavens, the earth, and the produce, respond to Yizre’el, the northern kingdom.

I will once again sow her, the assembly of Israel, for Me in the land, and I will pity Lo Ruhama. I will say to Lo Ami: You are My people; and then he will say: You are My God.

The Lord said to me further: Go love a woman, marry her, even though she is one who is the beloved of another man, or other men, and you know her to be an adulteress, unfaithful to her own husband. The prophet explains the symbolism: This is like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who yet turn to other gods and love goblets of grapes. They love drink and debauchery.

I purchased, betrothed, her, the woman, for me, for fifteen silver shekels, and one ĥomer of barley and one half-ĥomer of barley. A ĥomer is a measure of volume, also called a kor, which is more than 210 L. This was a substantial, respectable dowry.

I said to her the following terms: You shall wait for me many days; you shall not engage in licentiousness, wandering around the streets, and you shall not marry another man. Rather, you must sit alone, and so too, for my part, will I be to you. Although we will not consummate our marriage for now, we will remain faithful to one another.

The prophet explains the symbolic meaning of Hosea’s deeds and words: For the children of Israel will sit many days in the future, and there will be no king and no prince. They will be deprived of suitable leadership, and they will likewise be bereft of religious symbols: no offering, no monument, and no ephod or teraphim. After Israel is exiled from its land, the people will have to live in this deficient state for many years, while nevertheless remaining faithful to God. Only upon the conclusion of this dismal period, during which the marital relationship is defined in a mainly negative manner, will the closeness between God and Israel be renewed and come to fruition.

Then the children of Israel will return, and they will seek the Lord their God and David their king, and they will be moved, trembling with excitement and yearning, to come to the Lord and to His goodness in the End of Days.

Hear the word of the Lord, children of Israel, for the Lord has a quarrel with the inhabitants of the land, as there is no truth, no kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land. Not only are these three fundamental values lacking in the society of Israel, but they have been replaced by many widespread sins:

Cursing, both curses and profane oaths, lying, murder, theft, and adultery have broken out. These sins have become pervasive, and blood touches blood, due to all the murders.

Therefore, the land mourns, and every inhabitant succumbs and is cut off; with the beast of the field and the bird of the heavens, the fish of the sea also perish. Death will be meted out to all of them.

Yet no man argues, and no man rebukes. People neither argue with nor rebuke each other. Everything is done without deliberation. And your people are like those who argue with the priest. When they do choose to quarrel, the ones they take issue with are the priests, their teachers.

You stumble and err by day, and the prophet also stumbles with you by night, as prophets generally experienced dreams or visions at night; and I silence your mother, the assembly of Israel.

My people is destroyed from lack of knowledge, for you, the priests, who were supposed to teach the people God’s Torah, have rejected knowledge, and so I reject you from serving as priests for Me. You have forgotten the law of your God; therefore, I too will forget your children.

As they increased, their numbers proliferating, so they sinned against Me; their honor I will therefore exchange for shame.

They, the priests, eat the sin offering of My people. Apparently, sin offerings were brought to the golden calves in Beit El and Dan, just as in Jerusalem. It can be presumed that the rituals there differed from those performed in the Temple, but the priests of the calves would not relinquish their share in the flesh of the sin offerings. Consequently, and to their iniquity they, those priests, direct his, Israel’s, soul. They wanted the people to sin more, as that would lead to an increase in their portion of meat.

The people are like the priest; both are corrupt and sinful. I will reckon his ways upon him, each and every one of them, and I will repay him his exploits. Each will receive his due punishment.

They will eat but they will not be satisfied. No blessing will rest on their activities; they will not feel sated after their meals and will receive no satisfaction from their deeds, which will produce no positive results. They will engage in licentiousness, but they will not proliferate in number, because they have forsaken to heed the commandments of the Lord.

Licentiousness, wine, and new wine will have captured the heart. Their hearts are attracted solely to drunkenness and decadence.

When the people demean the prophets, they disregard the priests as well. My people consult their wood for answers as though it could actually say something, and their staff relates a message to them in their imagination; they decide which path to follow based on how the staff falls on the ground when they drop it, as the spirit of licentiousness has led them astray, and they have behaved licentiously from beneath their God.

On the mountaintops they slaughter offerings to idols, and on the hills they burn incense, under oak, snowbell, and terebinth, as their shade is good. They worship idols under trees that have been set aside for their rituals. Their propensity for betrayal can be found not only in their relationship with God but also on the personal, familial level: Therefore, your daughters engage in licentiousness, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

I will not reckon with your daughters separately at this stage when they engage in licentiousness, and with your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, as they, the men, including the fathers of these women, are secluded with licentious women, and with prostitutes designated for idolatrous ritual they slaughter. A people that does not understand the proper path will stray, wander, and be trapped.

If you engage in licentiousness, Israel, at least let Judah not become guilty; the evil should not spread to the land of Judah as well. And you, the inhabitants of Judah, do not come to the Gilgal, do not go up to Beit Aven, “House of Iniquity,” a derogatory name for Beit El, which means “House of God,” and do not take an oath while you worship idols, saying: As the Lord lives.

For like an unruly, rebellious, and wild cow, Israel has been unruly; now, since they are disobedient, the Lord will shepherd them like a wandering, solitary sheep in a wide space.

Ephraim, another name for the Kingdom of Israel, is strongly attached to idols; leave him, as there is no remedy for him.

Even when their drunkenness has dissipated, they have engaged in licentiousness; their protectors surely have loved debasement, despicable and shameful matters.

The wind bound it in its wings. It has gathered and lifted the Kingdom of Israel, so that nothing will be left of it. And then they will be shamed by their offerings, which they offered to no effect.

Hear this, priests, listen, heads of the house of Israel, and house of the king, hearken, as judgment is yours. Since you are the leaders, you are responsible for the current situation. You have been a trap to the Mitzpa, the name of a respectable city, a net spread over Tavor to trap its inhabitants. Your behavior caused the residents of the cities to stumble.

With the slaughter of idolatrous offerings, or by slaughtering innocent people, deviants deepened their involvement in sin, straying profoundly from the correct path, and I am a rebuke for all of them. I will punish all those criminals.

I know, am familiar with, Ephraim, the senior tribe of the Kingdom of Israel, which is often referred to as Ephraim, and Israel is not concealed from Me, for now you have engaged in licentiousness, Ephraim, and all Israel is defiled through your influence.

Their exploits will not allow them to return to their God. The evil deeds they have already performed block any possibility of them changing their ways, as the defiling spirit of licentiousness is within them, and therefore, the Lord they do not know.

The pride of Israel, the king, will suffer before him, Israel. Alternatively, the king will surrender before Israel, or he will submit to the spirit of harlotry. And Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity, as their sins will be spiritual and material stumbling blocks, and Judah too will stumble with them, Israel.

With offerings of their flocks and with offerings of their herds they will go to seek the Lord, but they will not find Him, for He has withdrawn and separated Himself from them.

They have betrayed the Lord, for they have begotten foreign children, including children from women who are not their wives; therefore, now for a month they will be devoured with their portions. They will be destroyed by a catastrophe that will last only a month.

Sound a shofar in Giva, a trumpet in Rama, calling the people to battle; sound an alarm at Beit Aven, another name for Beit El (see 4:15 above): The enemy is behind you, Benjamin. These are cries of fright and confusion. The portion of Benjamin bordered Ephraim to the south.

Ephraim will be a desolation on the day of rebuke; among the other tribes of Israel I have made it known unequivocally that their fate will be similar.

The princes of Judah have become like those who move boundaries. By adopting the customs of the Kingdom of Israel, it is as though the residents of Judah have infiltrated the territory of Ephraim. Consequently, upon them I will pour My ire like water; they too will be punished.

Ephraim is exploited by troubles within and without, broken in his suffering brought on by his sentence, because he willingly followed an improper and sinful order, that of Yorovam and the subsequent kings.

Therefore, I will not bring a sudden catastrophe upon Israel, but I am like a moth to Ephraim. Just as a moth destroys a garment in stages, so too, the Kingdom of Israel will gradually crumble away, becoming more and more wretched. And I will be like rot, which spreads through a garment until it is rendered unwearable, to the house of Judah. Although the prophet blames Israel first and foremost, the punishments will also affect their neighbors, who have copied their ways.

At that time, the Arameans were still Israel’s main enemy: When Ephraim saw and realized his illness, and Judah realized his ailment, the Aramean aggression, Ephraim went to Assyria and requested military aid; he sent to the rival king, the king of Assyria, for help fighting Aram. Both Israel and Aram turned to Assyria, the rising power which lay beyond Aram, in attempts to establish diplomatic ties with Assyria and rid itself of the constant threat of the other. But he, Assyria, will be unable to heal you, and he will not remove the ailment, the Aramean aggression, from you.

For I am like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I maul and go; I carry off the prey, and there is no savior to deliver them from My hand. It is I who will bring the troubles upon them, as a punishment. Therefore, your efforts to resolve your problems through diplomatic means will be unsuccessful.

I will go away and return to My place, removing My presence from them until they are punished, meaning that God will return only when they have been punished. And they will seek out My presence and return to Me. In their distress, when they have suffered, only then they will seek Me.

Then they will say: Let us go and return to the Lord, as He mauled us and He will also heal us. It is He who struck us, and yet He Himself will bandage us. Since He is the source of all power, both destructive and constructive, we must return to Him.

He will revive us after two days of harsh afflictions; on the third day He will raise us, and we will live before Him.

We will know God, endeavor to know the Lord. Like dawn, the place of His emergence is certain, clear. We will have definite knowledge of God, just as one can know for certain the light and direction of the emerging dawn. In response, He will come to us like the rain, with kindness and blessing, like the late rain that refreshes the earth.

What shall I do to you, Ephraim? What shall I do to you, Judah? What can be done on your behalf? For your kindness, your positive deeds and your awakening to return to Me, is unstable like a morning cloud, which dissipates when the sun comes out; it is like the dew that departs early and evaporates in the morning hours.

Therefore, due to Israel’s corrupt and fickle lifestyle, I hewed them, afflicted them, with the prophets, and when they failed to listen to the prophets, I even killed them with the statements of My mouth. Consequently, can your judgment, Israel, come to light, that you will be acquitted?

For it is kindness I desire, and not offerings, and the knowledge of God is what is important, more than burnt offerings. Judah and Israel were convinced that if they would only bring enough offerings, they would receive atonement for all their sins, and all their flaws would be wholly remedied.

But they, like with a person, have violated the covenant. They acted as though their covenant had been enacted with men rather than with God, and in the place where they were supposed to remain faithful to Me, there they betrayed Me.

Gilad, a large and important city in the Kingdom of Israel, is nothing but a city of evildoers, criminals, as it is tracked with blood, surrounded with the blood that has been shed there.

Like troops of robbers waylay a man, so a company of priests murders its way to Shekhem, for they have formulated a plot to commit malicious deeds.

In the entire house of Israel I have seen corruption and abomination. There is the licentiousness of Ephraim; Israel has been defiled.

Not only Israel, but Judah too has placed a harvest of affliction for you; it will reap the evil that it has sown. Because of their sins, at the time when I had thought to return the captivity of My people, I will afflict them instead.

When I will heal Israel, when I think of remedying their miserable state, the iniquity of Ephraim and the evildoing of Samaria will be revealed, because they acted falsely; a thief comes in the house, and the troop raids outside. The corruption continually appears everywhere, in open as well as hidden places.

Let them not say to their heart: I have remembered all their evildoing. They will remain unaware that God is judging their actions. Now, their own evildoings have surrounded them, and they, their wicked acts, are revealed before My face.

The people of the kingdom do not complain about the corruption. On the contrary, with their evildoing they gladden a king, and they delight princes with their lies. Deceit, lies, evildoing, and iniquity have become part of accepted conversation in high society. They discuss all these matters in pleasant tones, even with amusement.

All of them are adulterers. Their unabated lust for adultery blazes like an oven ignited by the baker; and if he will cease from arousal, if their passions are calmed, it will only be for a short amount of time, like the time that passes from the kneading of dough until it is leavened, which is not long.

On the day of celebrating our king on the anniversary of his birth or ascension, princes grew ill from the heat of all the wine they drank, and out of drunkenness, he, the king himself, extends his hand to be with buffoons and scoffers.

For in their ambush, they prepared their heart like an oven. Their baker sleeps all night, while the oven’s fire is kept low, but in the morning it burns like a large, blazing fire.

They all grow hot like an oven through their increasing intrigues, and they devour their judges, and as a result, all their kings have fallen. Most of the royal houses of the Kingdom of Israel did not last beyond a second generation. Many of the kings seized the throne by force, with their own heirs being overthrown in turn, and among all of these usurpers, no one among them calls to Me. The monarchs may change, but the behavior remains the same.

Ephraim, he will assimilate among the peoples; Ephraim is like a cake not turned while baking on the coals, and is therefore undercooked on top and burnt on the bottom. Nothing good or useful emerges from the Israelite ovens.

Strangers devoured his strength, and he does not know how much he has become weakened by other nations, nor does he realize the extent to which he has absorbed foreign influences. Gray hair has been cast upon him, and he does not know. The kingdom is declining and collapsing, and is vulnerable to parasites, like an exhausted old man who is unaware of what is happening to him.

Israel’s pride is suffering, and it is recognizable on his face, but they did not return to the Lord their God, and they did not seek Him, despite all this.

Ephraim was like a foolish dove that flies in one direction and then in another without understanding where it is going. They called upon Egypt to somehow forge diplomatic relations, and to Assyria, the Egyptians’ rival, they went, but without a clear strategy.

When they go, I will spread My net upon them to trap them; like the bird of the heavens I will take them down to earth, and they will no longer be able to fly; I will chastise them, and they will be like an adage for their congregation.

Woe to them, as they have wandered from Me; pillage will wait for them, as they rebelled against Me. I would redeem them, but they have spoken lies against Me.

They did not cry out to Me, nor did they pray to Me in their heart. When they would wail on their beds for grain and wine, they would collect to complain, but not about the source of the evil; they denigrate Me. Alternatively, they speak rebelliously against Me.

I chastised them, and I have thereby strengthened their arms, or I have fastened their arms in order to bolster them, and yet they think evil of Me.

When they repent, they repent, but not on high. Their repentance is not toward Heaven, but toward idols. They have become like a bow of deceit, an unstable bow, which does not shoot when it is drawn back, and worse yet, turns around against the shooter himself. Consequently, their princes will fall by the sword from the rage of their tongues, because they inform on one another. This is their derision, they are derided for this, in the land of Egypt. When their diplomats arrive in Egypt, they are mocked for their internal squabbles.

God addresses the prophet: To your mouth, set a shofar, in order to sound a warning of the powerful enemy’s speedy approach. Like a vulture he comes upon the House of the Lord and the house of Israel, because they violated My covenant and rebelled against My law.

To Me, Israel will cry: My God, we know You to be our savior!

However, I will not listen to them, as Israel has forsaken the good path, and therefore, the enemy will pursue him.

They crowned kings, but not from Me or with My permission, or in accordance with My will. The vast majority of the kings of Israel were crowned by their supporters, not by prophetic decree. Likewise, they appointed princes, but I did not know about it, as they did not consult Me. I am unconcerned about the people, because they made their silver and gold into idols for themselves, so that it, their wealth, would go lost.

Your calf has forsaken you, Samaria. The golden calf that you worship has abandoned rather than saved you, as you had hoped. My wrath is enflamed against them, for until when will they be incapable of cleansing? How long will it be until they are able to cleanse themselves from these sins?

For it is from Israel; a human craftsman made it, this golden calf; it was not formed by divine instruction, and it is not a god, as ultimately the calf of Samaria will be splinters. The idolatrous rites of the Kingdom of Israel will be destroyed.

For they sow wind, and they will reap a storm. They provoke Me and so will receive an unexpectedly harsh response. It, the nation of Israel, has no ripe stalk of grain; it is like an emaciated bud that will produce no flour. Even if it perhaps will produce some flour, strangers will swallow it. There is no hope for Israel.

Israel is swallowed up, intermingled and assimilated among the gentiles; now they have become among the nations like an unwanted vessel.

For they, the Israelites, have gone up to establish diplomatic ties with Assyria. However, they acted as a solitary wild ass, which by its very nature cannot keep its word, to him, Assyria. Also, Israel maintained parallel relations with Assyria and Egypt, despite the tension between those two powers. In his treachery, Ephraim has hired lovers by paying a prostitute’s fee, that is, by bribing both Assyria and Egypt.

Even as they pay tribute among the nations, now I will gather them, the nations, up to the Land of Israel, to exile Israel, and they will begin to complain a little from the burden of the king of Egypt and the princes.

For Ephraim has increased for itself altars to sin with idolatry; he indeed had altars to sin. These altars did not serve to atone for sin, but were themselves a sin, and now nothing remains of them.

I could write for him much of My Torah, but what use would such a volume be, as it, My word, is regarded like a strange matter, in which they have no interest.

Those animal sacrifices slaughtered for burning to Me, which are supposed to be burnt whole on the altar and not eaten, they, the Israelites, slaughter for meat, and eat them, and therefore, the Lord does not want them and does not accept these offerings. Now, He will remember their iniquity and reckon their sins; they will also return to Egypt to seek its patronage.

Israel forgot his Maker and built sanctuaries, and the inhabitants of Judah, who did not have much money, sought to build something beneficial and therefore multiplied fortified cities, but the Kingdom of Judah will not escape Israel’s fate, for I will send forth fire in his, Judah’s, cities, and it shall consume his palaces in those cities, rendering all he built utterly useless.

Do not rejoice, Israel; exult not like the other peoples. You cannot lead ordinary lives like the rest of the nations, and you will be unable to ward off the fate that awaits you. You will suffer real afflictions, as you have licentiously strayed from your God; you have loved to receive the prostitute’s fee, the blessings of the land that you attributed to the Baal and that you found upon every threshing floor of grain.

Therefore, the threshing floor and the winepress will not provide grain and wine for them, and the new wine of this land will fail them. Even if you plant vineyards, nothing will grow.

They, the people of the Kingdom of Israel, will not dwell in the Lord’s land, as they will be exiled from it. Some of the descendants of Ephraim will return to Egypt, while others will be taken to Assyria, and in Assyria, an impure country, they will eat impure food.

They will not pour libations of wine to the Lord, and their feast offerings will not be pleasing to Him. They are like the bread of violations to them; all who eat it will be defiled, for their bread is prepared for themselves; it shall not come into the House of the Lord. Since they themselves are impure people, nothing they bring into the House of God will be acceptable to Him.

What will you do on the day of the appointed time for retribution, and on the day of the Lord’s festival, when He will carry out your sentence?

For, behold, when they, the Israelites, have gone into retreat from those plundering them in their own place, Egypt will gather them, and Mof, a major Egyptian city, will bury them. The treasuries of their silver will be ruined, and nettles will sprout therein and take possession of them, and thorns will grow in their tents and cover their estates.

The days of reckoning their deeds have come, the days of receiving their recompense and punishment have come, and Israel will know it. In the meantime, however, Israel seeks to repress this knowledge, and when they hear harsh prophecies such as these, they tend to deride the prophet, saying: The prophet is a fool; the man of the spirit is mad. They thus justify their ignoring him. The prophet responds: You make these statements over the excess of your iniquity, the magnitude of hatred.

Ephraim watches out for my God from afar, seeking to know His plan. Ephraim pretends to be a prophet who is privy to God’s plans, while the true prophets are unable to say anything to him because they meet with too much adversity. For a trap set by his despisers will ensnare a prophet on all his ways, and hatred toward him is in the House of his God.

They, Israel, have deeply corrupted themselves with sin, as in the days of the abuse and murder of the concubine at Giva, in the portion of Benjamin. The people as a whole were aware of this sin and ashamed of it and its consequences; it was etched in the national memory. He, God, will remember their iniquity; He will reckon their sins.

God speaks about His discovery of His people: Like they were grapes in the wilderness, I first found and cherished Israel; like a first fruit on a fig tree in its first season that is eagerly picked, I saw your fathers. But even before arriving in the Land of Israel, they came to Baal Peor and dedicated themselves to shame, a derogatory term for idolatry, and they became repugnant to Me to the same degree that I had previously loved them. The grace of their youth soon passed, to be replaced by revulsion.

As for the people of Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird, and nothing will remain of their glory even in their early stages of existence: From birth, from womb, and from conception. Alternatively, the verse is referring to Ephraim’s punishment: Exile and child mortality, as indicated by the next verse.

Even if they raise their children, I will bereave them of people, as those children will die; indeed, woe to them, because evil will be their portion when I turn from them.

Ephraim was sitting in his place in tranquility, just as I saw Tyre, the prosperous Phoenician city, planted in tranquility at the edge of the sea; but it is decreed upon Ephraim that he will take his children out to the killer.

Give to them, Lord. What bad gift will You give them? Give them a bereaving womb which cannot carry children, and withered breasts unable to feed them.

All their evildoing, of Israel, is rooted in Gilgal, for there I hated them for the evil of their exploits. Gilgal, the former location of the Tabernacle and the place where the first king, Saul, was crowned, had become a center for idolatry. I will banish them from My house, the Land of Israel; I will not love them any longer, as all their princes are wayward.

Ephraim was struck; their root is withered, and therefore they will bear no fruit. Even if they give birth, I will kill the delights of their womb, their dear children.

My God will spurn them because they did not heed Him, and they will be itinerant among the nations. Ephraim will be sent into exile.

Israel, which was initially like a vine producing much-welcomed grapes in the wilderness (9:10), is now a rotted vine, dry and bereft of fruit, and yet it will presume to produce its superior fruit. When its fruit was abundant, it made abundant its altars for idolatry; when its land was bountiful, they, the Israelites, took advantage of their good fortune and enhanced monuments for idolatry.

Their heart has separated from God; now they will be punished. He, the enemy who will come upon them, will demolish their altars, and he will break their monuments.

For now, in the last years of rule in Samaria, probably after the reign of Yorovam, when the kingdom was subject to constant attacks, they will say: We have no king, as we did not fear the Lord, and the king, what can he do for us? In a society where there is no fear of God, each person does as he pleases, and not even kings have much power.

They spoke words that are not good, false oaths, establishing false covenants; judgment, the retribution that will be visited upon them, will sprout like the bitter and poisonous hemlock, spreading in the furrows of the field and damaging the crops.

Due to the calves of Beit Aven, a reference to the golden calves, one of which was in Beit El, referred to here as Beit Aven, the dwellers of Samaria will quail, for the calf will not be left in its place, and its people and its priests who formerly rejoiced over it will mourn over its glory, because they are exiled from it upon the downfall and plunder of the kingdom.

It too, the golden calf, will be carried to Assyria with the rest of the spoils, a gift to the rival king, a reference to the king of Assyria (see 5:13). He will take the shame, the idol, of Ephraim, and, faced with the spoiling of the calf and the destruction of the center of its cult, Israel will be ashamed of its counsel, of their forefathers’ decision and initiative to create the calf.

Samaria is terminated; its king lacks influence and power and is like insubstantial foam upon the water.

The shrines of Aven, meaning the idol worship which is the sin of Israel, will be destroyed. Thorn and thistle will sprout and arise on their altars, and they will say to the mountains in embarrassment, or out of fear that everything might collapse on them and crush them: Cover and protect us, and to the hills they will say: Fall on us so that we will not be seen or be vulnerable.

God tells Israel that He did not just begin to take their sins into account during the time of the kingdom of Samaria: Already since the days of Giva, the rape of the concubine in Giva (see 9:9 above), you have sinned, Israel. There, in that state, they stood, and they have not amended their ways since then. And yet they are tempted to think that in Giva, the war against the iniquitous people will not overtake them.

In My passion I will afflict them, and peoples will gather against them when they are yoked, for the enemy will force them to plow their two furrows, metaphorically, in the field of oppression.

Ephraim is similar to a trained calf that loves to thresh and work. I stroked My hand over the fineness of his fair neck upon which he bore the yoke, as a sign of approval for his good work. I have raised up Ephraim, or set him to plow; Judah has plowed; Jacob has harrowed for him and prepared the field. You have shown yourself to be capable of following the right path and doing good work, and therefore I call upon you:

Sow righteousness for yourselves by spreading righteousness in the world, and then you will reap according to kindness. You will benefit from the fruits of the righteousness that you have sown. Plow yourselves a furrow, and when you do so it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and reveals Himself, and rains righteousness upon you, like a farmer who prepares the field, sows it, and prays for rainfall.

You should have followed the proper path, but you chose otherwise: Rather than sowing righteousness, you plowed wickedness, and therefore instead of reaping kindness, you reaped iniquity in the form of an immoral society; you ate the fruit of deceit because you relied on your way, in the multitude of your mighty ones. You thought that you would be able to withstand all threats through the strength of your state and your army and that you had no need for God’s assistance.

Therefore a tumult of the enemy will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be plundered and destroyed, as Shalman, possibly Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, or some other since-forgotten figure, plundered and meted out harsh judgments upon Beit Arbel on the day of battle, when mother and children were torn apart by his forces, or when mothers and children were torn from their husbands and fathers, who were killed.

So has the calf in Beit El done this great evil to you, due to your great evil. At the dawn of the war, it will be clear that the king of Israel will be vanquished. Alternatively, the expression “at dawn” refers to the suddenness of this revelation.

When Israel was just a lad, I already loved him, and from Egypt I called My son to Me and redeemed him.

However, as they, My emissaries and prophets, called to them, the Israelites, so they, the people, went away from before them, and instead of coming to My prophets, they would sacrifice to the Be’alim and burn incense to the idols.

I accustomed Ephraim to be taken in his arms. I spoiled the people by allowing the prophet to take care of all their needs. Some explain that God taught Ephraim to walk by holding his arms, so to speak. And yet they did not know that I was the One who healed them and cared for all their needs.

Not with ropes used to pull animals, but with softer ropes of man, those with which tender children are taught to walk, I would pull them, and with bonds of love, not of subjugation. I was for them like those who lift the yoke from above their jaws, thereby lightening the load, and I leaned over to them to provide them with food.

I hoped that he would not return to the land of Egypt, and even commanded him not to do so, but he accepted that Assyria is his king, because they refused to repent and return to Me, the God who provides all their needs.

The sword will be found in his cities, and it will destroy his branches, that is, the villages, and it will devour them, because of their schemes and plots.

My people waver about My return. They do not repent wholeheartedly, but wait for Me to initiate by bestowing good upon them. And though they, My people, are called upward by the prophets, they will not be uplifted together. They are uninterested in an act of proud and unequivocal national repentance.

How can I give you up, Ephraim? How could you cause Me to have to deliver you into the hands of your enemies? How can I relinquish you, Israel? How can I render you like Adma and set you like Tzevoyim? These cities of the Jordan plain were overthrown along with Sodom and Gomorrah. My heart was overturned within Me from the turmoil of deciding to punish you; all My compassion for you was aroused.

I will not act upon My enflamed wrath and take complete vengeance against you; I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for I am God, and not an unforgiving man, and also because I am sacred when I am in your midst and not when I rest my presence among another people, and therefore I will not go into a city other than Jerusalem to rest My presence.

They will follow the Lord; He will roar like a lion calling his pride to assemble and follow him. For He will roar, and children will come trembling even from the far west.

They, the children, will come trembling like a frightened bird from Egypt, and like a dove from the land of Assyria. I will settle them in their houses – the utterance of the Lord.

The prophet resumes his reproof of the people: Ephraim, the tribes of the Kingdom of Israel, surrounded Me with falsehood, and the house of Israel surrounded Me with deceit. The prophet adds, parenthetically: But Judah still ruled his kingdom with God and His commandments in mind, and he is faithful with the holy ones.

Ephraim shepherds wind, is engaged in vanities, dreams, and illusions, and he pursues the stormy east wind without catching anything. He lives a life without purpose or hope. All day he propagates lies and robbery, and they, the people of Israel, will establish a covenant with Assyria, and at the same time precious oil or perfume will be brought by the representatives of Ephraim as a diplomatic gesture of friendship to Egypt. The prophet is criticizing the messages of goodwill that the Kingdom of Israel sends to two powers that are hostile to each other. The duplicity is deceptive and unworthy.

The Lord has a quarrel with Judah, and will reckon with the descendants of Jacob according to his ways; according to his exploits He will recompense him.

The prophet recounts some of the events in the life of Jacob the patriarch: Already in the womb, he was at his brother’s heels, attempting to overtake him, and in his strength he strove with God.

He strove with an angel and prevailed, as he, the angel, wept and pleaded with him that Jacob should release him. In the city of Beit El, he, the angel of God, found him, Jacob. Likewise God found us, the prophets who descended from Jacob, and there He will speak with us.

The Lord is the God of hosts; the Lord is His appellation. Jacob cleaved to God, and we prophets strive to do likewise.

And you, return to your God, attend to kindness and justice, and long for your God constantly.

In contrast, in the present, a trader, scales of deceit are in his hand; he loves to exploit.

Ephraim said: Indeed, I became rich through my own efforts, without God’s help; I found power for myself. In all my exertion they will not find in me iniquity that is a sin. I cannot be suspected of having sinful sources of my wealth.

I am the Lord your God since the time you were in the land of Egypt, and just as I protected you and gave you booths to dwell in when you set out into the wilderness, I will yet again settle you in tents, perhaps like that of Jacob, who is depicted as “a guileless man, living in tents,” or I will have you dwell in tents during your return from exile to the Land of Israel just as I did in the appointed days [mo’ed] of your wandering in the wilderness, or as in the days of the Tent of Meeting [Ohel Mo’ed].

I spoke to the prophets and I multiplied their visions; by means of the prophets I am envisaged. The prophets see God, as it were, through images, pictures, and visions, which they must subsequently translate into a verbal prophecy. The Torah states, similarly, that all of the prophets except for Moses see God by means of dreams and obscure visions.

If Gilad, a land of anarchy rife with robbers and thieves, is iniquitous, then even after I increased the number of visions I gave to the prophets, they were but futility, as the people of Gilad remained deceitful. In Gilgal they slaughtered bulls in sacrifice to idols, and their altars are so numerous, they appear as heaps on the furrows of the field.

The prophet continues to link the events of Jacob’s life to the current situation in Israel: Jacob fled from his brother Esau, to the field of Aram. There, in Aram, Israel worked for a wife, Rachel, and for a wife he guarded sheep.

Just as Jacob fled to Aram, where he was put to work, so too the children of Israel descended to exile in Egypt, where they were enslaved. Subsequently, with a prophet, Moses, the Lord took Israel up from Egypt, and with a prophet it, the people, was guarded throughout all the years of wandering in the wilderness.

Ephraim, the Kingdom of Israel, has angered God bitterly, and his blood, the blood he shed, or his retribution, will rest upon him. He is responsible for his actions and for the resulting punishment, and ultimately his master will repay him with his disgrace.

In past times, when Ephraim spoke, there was quaking among his listeners due to his lofty status; then he exalted himself, or, alternatively, he raised his voice, in Israel, but all that is in the past, for he became guilty by sinning through the Baal, and he died.

Now they continue to sin. At first Israel sinned only by worshipping the Baal, but they later created a whole pantheon of idols, and they have made for themselves a cast image from their silver, idols according to their form; its entirety is the work of craftsmen. These idols are nothing more than inanimate materials. To them they say: Only those who slaughter people as sacrifice will be those who merit to kiss the golden calves.

Therefore, they, the sons of Ephraim, who represent the Kingdom of Israel, will be vulnerable like a morning cloud dispersed easily by the rays of the sun, and quickly dissipated like the early morning dew that passes soon after. Ephraim will be like chaff blown and scattered from the threshing floor, and like smoke that emerges and dissipates from a roof vent. Like these, Ephraim marches toward his annihilation.

I am the Lord your God since I brought you out from the land of Egypt, and you shall not know a god other than Me. You may not cleave to any other god, and there is no savior but Me.

I knew you and loved you, and I provided all of your needs when you were in the wilderness, in a parched land and a place of suffering and thirst.

In the wilderness, Israel remained attached to God and in need of His assistance. However, when they settled in the land and were at their grazing, fed from their own land, they were satiated. They were satiated, and their heart became haughty. They became prideful, and therefore they forgot Me. Although Israel also sinned in the wilderness, they did not betray God by straying after idolatry as they did for hundreds of years when they dwelled in the Land of Israel.

I will be lying in wait for them like a lion; like a leopard I will lurk on the way.

I will meet them like I was a bereaved bear, possessed of unusual and extreme bitterness and ensuing cruelty, and I will rend the encasement of their heart, just like a bear can tear out a man’s ribs. I will devour them there like a lion; the beast of the field will rupture them.

Your destruction, Israel, is here, because you were in rebellion against Me, the One who was always your helper.

Where, then, is your king, that he may rescue you in all your cities, and where are your judges, of whom you said: Give me a king and princes? You requested leadership, but it does not have the strength to help you anymore.

I acceded to your request, but grudgingly: I will give you a king in My wrath, and then I will take him in My ire. As mentioned earlier, the Kingdom of Israel suffered many dynastic changes due to the numerous rebellions. Just as a king would arise in an act of God’s anger, so would a king be removed.

All the iniquity of Ephraim is bound; his sin is stored away. Therefore, I will yet punish him for his sins:

Afflictions as difficult as the throes of a woman in childbirth will come to him. He is an unwise son, because at the time this agonizing punishment arrives, he will not have the fortitude to be able to stay on the birthstool for children.

From the netherworld I have redeemed them, and from death I have delivered them, but now I will be your death sentence; I will be your excision in the netherworld; regret will be hidden from My eyes. I will not retract the severe punishment I have decreed upon you.

Though he, Ephraim, had once been fruitful among the fields, now, like an east wind, the wind of the Lord will come and harm him. It ascends from the wilderness to devastate everything, and it will dry out his water source, and his spring will become parched. All of the people’s sources of strength will disappear. It, the wind, will plunder the treasury of all the precious vessels.

Samaria will be guilty, as it defied its God; they will fall by the sword, their infants will be mangled, and their pregnant women will be ruptured.

Return, Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity. Since your sins have led you to a dead end, the only path open to you is to return to God.

Take words with yourselves. Each person should seek the counsel of his neighbor and discuss how to return to the Lord. Say to Him: You can forgive all iniquity and accept that which is good about us, and we will substitute our lips for bulls. Instead of bringing large, expensive offerings, we will offer our confessions, as it is petitioning God that is of the utmost importance.

The people will then come to some realizations from their introspection: Assyria will not save us, and therefore we will not ask them for aid. We will not ride on a horse into battle or continue with our militaristic endeavors, and we will no longer say to the idols, our handiwork: You are our gods, for it is in You, God, that an orphan will find mercy. There is none but You, God, who can assist us in our weakness.

God responds to the people’s repentance: I will heal their illnesses and wounds that they received due to their mischief; I will love them gratuitously and show them kindness and mercy, for My wrath has turned from them, and I will forgive their transgressions.

I will be like the dew to Israel, and then it will blossom like the lily, and it will strike his roots like the deep and pervasive roots of the trees of the Lebanon.

His tender branches will also spread far upward, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, an evergreen whose branches are always full of leaves, and his fragrance will be rich and diverse like the Lebanon.

Those who dwell in his shade, who take refuge in the Kingdom of Israel, will return; they will give life to grain and they will blossom and thrive like the vine, whose branches spread out quickly. His repute will be like the wine of Lebanon, with its unique taste that lingers in the mouth after it has been imbibed.

Ephraim will either say or be told to say: What have I to do with idols anymore? God answers: I have responded to him in his hour of need, and I will gaze upon him and watch over him. Alternatively, God addresses Ephraim rhetorically, asking him why he turns to idols if it is God who answers his prayers and guards him. I am like an ever lush juniper tree, whose leaves do not dry out, and yet I am superior to the barren juniper, as from Me, your fruit is found.

Who is wise and will understand these matters, of troubles, downfalls, victories, and defeats, and their implications? Who is understanding and will know what to make of them? No one can fully comprehend them, and yet one must always trust in God, for the ways of the Lord are straight; the righteous will walk in them and reach a good place, and transgressors will stumble on them, even though they are straight.