Hosea 9
Big idea: The festival is the target. A harvest religion cannot function without a harvest, and cannot function at all outside the land — so the chapter takes away the threshing floor, the wine press, the wine offerings, and finally the country itself, and asks what they will do on the day of the appointed feast.
The chapter ends with a sentence about wandering among the nations. Chapter 10 goes back to the vine that produced altars in proportion to its prosperity.
9:1–9 — What will you do in the day of the feast?
Hosea tells them not to celebrate like the nations, which is precise: the harvest festivals had been assimilated to Canaanite practice, and the payment imagery — you have loved wages on every threshing floor — treats the whole system as a transaction. The judgement removes the goods first, then the place: they will not stay in Yahweh's land, and food in Assyria will be unclean by definition.
1 Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor. 2 The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her. 3 They won’t dwell in Yahweh’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria. 4 They won’t pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh’s house. 5 What will you do in the day of solemn assembly, and in the day of the feast of Yahweh? 6 For, behold, when they flee destruction, Egypt will gather them up. Memphis will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents. 7 The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your sins, and because your hostility is great. 8 A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his God. 9 They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their sins.
9:10–17 — Like grapes in the wilderness
The memory is affectionate and short: finding grapes in a desert is finding something delightful where nothing should grow, and that is how the relationship started. Then Baal Peor, the incident in Numbers 25 where Israel joined a foreign cult at the border, and Hosea's devastating formulation — they became detestable like the thing they loved. People come to resemble what they worship.
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.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).