[595] See above, p. 253.
[596] St. John's Gospel, i. 12, 13.
[597] Or occasionally for the king as the nation's representative.
[598] See below, pp. 321-3.
[599] 1 John iii.
[600] So rightly the LXX.
[601] LXX., rightly separating מִפְּנֵיהֶם into מִפָּנָי and הֵם, which latter is the nominative to the next clause.
[602] So again rightly the LXX.
[603] The reading is uncertain. The לֹא of the following verse (6) must be read as the Greek reads it, as לֹו, and taken with ver. 5.
[604] x. 11.
[605] Or lifted forward from the neck to the jaws.
[606] Isa. lxiii. 13, 14.
[607] Ver. 6 has an obviously corrupt text, and, weakening as it does the climax of ver. 5, may be an insertion.
[608] _Are hung_ or _swung towards turning away from Me_.
[609] This verse is also uncertain.
[610] For בעיר, which makes nonsense, read לבעור, _to consume_, or with Wellhausen amend further לבער אובה לא, _I am not willing to consume_.
[611] _They will follow Jehovah; like a lion He will roar, and they shall hurry trembling from the west. Like birds shall they hurry trembling from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will bring them to their homes--'tis the oracle of Jehovah._ Not only does this verse contain expressions which are unusual to Hosea, and a very strange metaphor, but it is not connected either historically or logically with the previous verse. The latter deals with the people before God has scattered them--offers them one more chance before exile comes on them. But in this verse they are already scattered, and just about to be brought back. It is such a promise as both in language and metaphor was common among the prophets of the Exile. In the LXX. the verse is taken from chap. xi. and put with chap. xii.