Other short passages of doubtful authenticity will be treated as we come to them; but again it may be emphasised that, in a book of such a style as this, certainty on the subject is impossible.
Finally, there may be given here the only notable addition which the Septuagint makes to the Book of Hosea. It occurs in xiii. 4, after _I am Jehovah thy God_: "That made fast the heavens and founded the earth, whose hands founded all the host of the heaven, and I did not show them to thee that thou shouldest follow after them, and I led thee up"--_from the land of Egypt_.
At first this recalls those apostrophes to Jehovah's power which break forth in the Book of Amos; and the resemblance has been taken to prove that they also are late intrusions. But this both obtrudes itself as they do not, and is manifestly of much lower poetical value. See page 203.
* * * * *
We have now our material clearly before us, and may proceed to the more welcome task of tracing our prophet's life, and expounding his teaching.
[394] See below, pp. 213 f.
[395] _Geschichte_, pp. 93 ff., 214 ff., 439 f.
[396] A list of the more obvious is given by Kuenen, p. 324.
[397] The first chapter in the Hebrew closes with ver. 9.
[398] Cf. this with Amos; above, pp. 192 ff.
[399] König's arguments (_Einleitung_, 309) in favour of the possibility of the genuineness of the verse do not seem to me to be conclusive. He thinks the verse admissible because Judah had sinned less than Israel; the threat in vv. 4-6 is limited to Israel; the phrase _Jehovah their God_ is so peculiar that it is difficult to assign it to a mere expander of the text; and if it was a later hand that put in the verse, why did he not alter the judgments against Judæa, which occur further on in the book?
[400] So Cheyne and others, Kuenen adhering. König agrees that they have been removed from their proper place and the text corrupted.
[401] Rom. ix. 25, 26, which first give the end of Hosea ii. 23 (Heb. 25), and then the end of i. 10 (Heb. ii. 2). See below, p. 249, _n._ 2.