Hosea 14

Text

Textual witnesses

Verse 1

• "For thou hast fallen by thine iniquity": A reason is here assigned for the preceding invitation; ka-shalta is properly "thou hast stumbled," "made a false step," fallen, with the sense that "recovery was among future possibilities". The same thought may be included in the fact that Jehovah continues to call his erring people by the honored and honorable name of Israel, and to acknowledge himself their God. Kimchi writes, "For thou seest that through thine iniquity thou hast fallen, therefore it behooves thee to return to Jehovah, as nothing besides can raise thee from thy fall but thy return to him" and Aben Ezra states: "There is none can raise thee from thy fall but the Eternal alone."

  Verse 9

• "The ways of the Lord": also called "the 'course' of His providence;" as it is written, "His ways are judgment" in and ; "God, His ways are perfect" in ; "the Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works" in ; "Thy way is in the sea, and Thy paths in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known" in ; "... these are parts of His ways, but how little a portion is heard of Him, and the thunder of His power who can understand?" ; "who hath enjoined Him His way, and who can say, Thou hast wrought iniquity?" in.
• "But the transgressors shall fall therein": the "transgressors of the law of God" according to Kimchi's father will "stumble in them and fall"; or as Jarchi and the Targum state, "they fall into hell, into ruin and destruction, because they walk not in them"; but the sense also seems as Christ himself, his ways and his word, his doctrines and his ordinances, be stumbling blocks to wicked men, at which they stumble, and fall, and perish; see ;.

  Jewish

• Christian