[612] xi. 7.
[613] This is especially true of vv. 11 and 12.
[614] Even in the most detachable portion, vv. 8-10, where the און of ver. 9 seems to refer to the באונו of ver. 4.
[615] Viz. in vv. 3 and 15.
[616] Beer indeed, at the close of a very ingenious analysis of the chapter (_Z.A.T.W._, 1893, pp. 281 ff.), claims to have proved that it contains "eine wohlgegliederte Rede des Propheten" (p. 292). But he reaches this conclusion only by several forced and precarious arguments. Especially unsound do his pleas appear that in 8_b_ לעשק is a play upon the root-meaning of כנען, "lowly"; that כנען, in analogy to the בבטן of ver. 4, is the crude original, the raw material, of the Ephraim of ver. 9; and that מועד כימי is "the determined time" of the coming judgment on Israel.
[617] Something is written about Judah (remember what was said above about Hosea's treble parallels), but the text is too obscure for translation. The theory that it has been altered by a later Judæan writer in favour of his own people is probably correct: the Authorised Version translates in favour of Judah; so too Guthe in Kautzsch's _Bibel_. But an adverse statement is required by the parallel clauses, and the Hebrew text allows this: _Judah is still wayward with God, and with the Holy One who is faithful_. So virtually Ewald, Hitzig, Wünsche, Nowack and Cheyne. But Cornill and Wellhausen read the second half of the clause as נצמד עם־קדשים, _profanes himself with Qedeshim_ (_Z.A.T.W._, 1887, pp. 286 ff.).
[618] Why should not Hosea, the master of many forced phrases, have also uttered this one? This in answer to Wellhausen.
[619] So LXX., reading שוא for שד.
[620] Isa. xxx. 6.
[621] Heb. _Judah_, but surely Israel is required by the next verse, which is a play upon the two names Israel and Jacob.
[622] _Supplanted_ is 'aqab, the presumable root of Ja'aqab (Jacob). _Wrestled with God_ is Sarah eth Elohim, the presumable origin of Yisra'el (Israel).
[623] Heb. _us_, LXX. _them_.
[624] Ver. 6--_And Jehovah God of Hosts, Jehovah is His memorial_, _i.e._ name--is probably an insertion for the reasons mentioned above, pp. 204 f.
[625] This, the most natural rendering of the Hebrew phrase, has been curiously omitted by Beer, who says that באלהיך can only mean _to thy God_. Hitzig: "durch deinen Gott."
[626] Some take these words as addressed by Jehovah at Bethel to the Patriarch.
[627] So nearly all interpreters. Hitzig aptly quotes Polybius, _De Virtute_, L. ix.: διὰ τὴν ἔμφυτον Φοίνιξι πλεονεξίαν, κ.τ.λ.. One might also refer to the Romans' idea of the "Punica fides."
[628] Or, full man's strength: ct. ver. 4.
[629] But the LXX. reads: _All his gains shalt not be found of him because of the iniquity which he has sinned_; and Wellhausen emends this to: _All his gain sufficeth not for the guilt which it has incurred_.
[630] Others _to demons_.
[631] Field, but here in sense of territory. See _Hist. Geog._, pp. 79 f.
[632] Uncertain.
[633] נשיא for נשא.
[634] Read with Ewald כתבנתם. LXX. read כתמות.
[635] Here the LXX. makes the insertion noted on pp. 203, 226.
[636] So LXX., רעיתיך.
[637] Read וֶאֱהִי.
[638] אשׁור, usually taken as first fut. of שור, to lurk. But there is a root of common use in Arabic, sar, to spring up suddenly, of wine into the head or of a lion on its prey; sawâr, "the springer," is one of the Arabic names for lion.
[639] We shall treat this passage later in connection with Hosea's doctrine of the knowledge of God: see pp. 330 f.
[640] After the LXX.
[641] Read with Houtsma וישפטוך שריך וכל.
[642] Literally a _son not wise_, perhaps a name given to children whose birth was difficult.