Literal Commentary on Hosea

A Literal Commentary on Hosea the Prophet With divine help I begin to write a commentary on the book of the Twelve Prophets, before the literal commentary on Hosea the prophet. For I have already composed a literal commentary on the Twelve Prophets, and after that a spiritual one on the Minor Prophets. Now, then, pray for Dionysius Barsalibi. And at the beginning I shall interpret the book of Hosea. He preceded Isaiah by one month, or Isaiah came after him. For all the prophets who lived after David were of the same kind as those who revealed the mysteries of the prophecy of David concerning the captivity, the return, and the incarnation of the Word in the flesh. And because the time of the captivity by the Assyrians was near, the grace of God went out to the prophets, that they might turn and bring back to God those of whom David had previously spoken. But because they did not turn, other punishments came upon them. Yet they thought that either by chance or by the might of the Assyrians they were captured. But it was their own sins that were the cause of their evils. And concerning this, Hosea also began after Isaiah, or in the time of Isaiah, and it was revealed that the ten tribes would be mixed with the Assyrians and the rest of the nations. The first word of the Lord is the work of the Lord; the second is the revelation of the Lord. The word of the Lord and that which Isaiah saw are the same. And the words of Jeremiah, those writings, they said, are the same as those of the prophets. When, then, they said, "I saw the Lord," and "the word came upon me," the prophets wrote what they saw. Moreover, the vision, the word, the hand, the speech, and the hearing are one and the same meaning for all of them. A vision is a revelation of a mystery that is apprehended.

ntary on the Pentateuch, and now I proceed to the Twelve. The word "Hosea" is interpreted as "savior." The beginning of the prophecy is: "The word of the Lord that came to Hosea." The first vision that was revealed to him was that of a harlot. It does not say "a harlot" but "a woman who plays the harlot," that is, one who is a harlot in body and spirit, among men and among idols, playing the harlot with those who worship them. And how did the people know that what he recalled of her form Hosea performed by taking a harlot, while the vision of lewdness was still present? He did not say to the people. And they said in this that they knew that she was a virgin. And her time passed, and after that he took a harlot. And not by her will, but by the will of those who play the harlot and of those who cause harlotry, when she had not given birth. But he said that by means of that which gives birth to them, they play the harlot who worship idols like her, by means of harlotry for the shame of the ten tribes, which was that which worshipped idols at the time of Jeroboam. And by means of the schism to the house of Judah, they openly swore by the Lord and secretly worshipped the calves. Finally, the daughter of Diblaim, by means of the prophet, the vanity of God over them he exposes. This one finally was skilled in harlotry. And she conceived and gave birth to a son for the prophet.

m is the city of Jezreel, where Jehu was translated, and where Jezebel was killed, and where the house of Ahab was destroyed, and where he set up a temple to Baal. He pursued the house of Jehu by others, just as Jehu pursued the house of Ahab, who was wicked like him. And again she conceived and bore a house, generation after generation, like two she-bears. But the prophet joined one to another according to the custom of Scripture. And he saved, showing how he saved Judah. Not at the end, but by that which the angel destroyed in one night the armies of the Assyrians, he hints. And it was in that place for God a power that mixed here with these of the interpretation. For it was a time when they changed according to the deeds of the nations. And in that land which was considered not with me. By my sons you will be called in the time of the interpretation. One head was Zerubbabel, and they went up with Babylon. Because the day was great and glorious, on which he saved the son with all the meaning, he went out to Jezreel with a hundred over all the land. He set. He said, "Call your brothers with me." In that time the hundreds of deeds are known to you, that not yet with me, nor is it right that mercy be named. "Dwell with you" means he wished to cover you, mother and sons, to his wife and to his father, the prophet calls "Dwell with me," and they were ashamed like the children of your own with your mother, and they saw and knew that in everything she was like you. And she said, "Go after." And all that is required of me is in this, for they are like the Israelites to me. For all this they were hiding from the idols.

just as they also incited one another to go and hunt them down, as if they were their own foundations and the gifts that had been given to them from the earth, they considered them as demons that were not their own, they considered them as their own relatives. When they were the slain of the house of Jehu, she displayed her fornication openly, she prostituted herself before the demons, her lovers, by means of captivity and revelation, for the sake of all the sin that was committed, which they left behind in her, and they worshipped idols. And he commanded a consuming sword of captives against her. The reward of those days, when she was being adorned at the festival time, was set as a perfume for Baal and for Gilgal, and for them she was a worshipper in their place. And she took her sacred ones, she was being adorned with ornaments, and she went to the festival of idols, like the wealthy women who are adorned and come to church. And she filled her heart with afflictions, and also mixed in lamentation, according to the custom of the mourner. She filled her mourning by means of the mourners who were present, and she was crying out at the delight of these former ones. From there she separated herself, from there, from that place where they received fear and obligation in the battle with the Assyrians, and it was opened. Now, the thought that was placed and understood, because of her sin, she was taken captive. For the waters that from there truly began to enter their land, from there they truly began to be taken captive. For the measure of depth over all their land was small. And there she was humbled like the boastful one, for when she was humbled in Egypt in servitude, she boasted to me, and now also her neck is humbled in the servitude of the Assyrians, and she learns that which she gave as a beginning to their captivity and not to the idols.

And it was on that day that he showed the signs of what was to come: "You will be called men." The days came when the name "Baal" was completely forgotten. Also this: a wife who was called by her husband "my Baal." He did not give permission for her to call him that, because he did not want her to be far from the fear of those idols that were called Baal. And he wrote to me forever: "I will not write to you in the household of my own." He commanded the heavens to the earth: "Let the rain fall at its time upon the earth." The heavens call to the earth. And the earth, when it receives from the rain, brings forth fruits for satiety. And the earth, from the fruits of the earth, there was wine, grain, and oil. This one, he said, "She will be fruitful for me; she is my wife, and she will sow for me." He increased and multiplied for them. For it was sown throughout the land of the kingdom. He read to her. And he said to me, "My Lord placed two revelations: 'Go, love a foreign woman.' For through a foreign woman, concerning the shame of the Jews, he reveals what was suspected, that she worshipped God and secretly worshipped idols." It seemed and was suspected to me that before Hosea took a wife, he brought her out with him, and she remained with him for a short time. The shame of the prostitutes: he calls the prostitutes "shame" because of the small ones who were making idols; he calls them "prostitutes," just as also the prostitutes and the dry branches that were those called "cursed ones." She sold to me her shame: she hid five hundred and fifteen coins, or rather dinars. And in your brothel, they are shorn: forty-five sheaves of hair. For you, half a measure. A measure of thirty sheaves.

It is understood that this woman was a free woman; concerning her, in many ways it was commanded that she be sold, for the whole of that decree and the selling of the woman to another man. For many days would follow from this, it being known that few days remained with the other man. And when they did not even have sons for him, he called the ephod that the priest used to wear when he served and received revelations, the four of them heard the word of the Lord, and he performed his word and his covering openly. Because it is fitting for the Lord, and the world that is with them, concerning blood: blood mingled, the blood of the first mingled with the blood of the last; by this he signified the multitude of the slain. The land would follow in mourning when it was being laid waste, and he also called the trees to the groves. And with you, as a priest, he is delayed; the Hebrew says, "And with you, as a priest, he is delayed in the likeness of a priest, because of the cause of his disgrace he is thrust from his honor and diminished in captivity." Upon the faces of those who delayed against God and the prophets, and she was weighed down; you are weighed down and fall into the snare openly, as in the day, and the prophet was weighed down, the prophet who revealed in distress and in the darkness of night, of captivity, instead of being weighed down in the day. He repeated the days; the Jew says, "As their end, there is no acknowledgment; they did not repay for their multitude, they did not release and increase their sins by the coal of their multitude." And their honor was honor and return, for they were firm in his place in curse and in diminishment; they were in him in the time of captivity. And for no diminishment and vileness is it interpreted.

the sin of the people consumed them by captivity and the sword, and they cast their yoke upon those who were pleasing to them and surrendered themselves to the yoke of the idols and served them servilely. And this was like the people in that, when they were taken captive, they did not distinguish between the captives or honour the priests along with the people, but equally they all perished. They were few and not many, nor was there any extension of their number, as is previously stated concerning the fewness of the idols. The people, by their intention, were like this people, old and suitable for idols. And their rod showed itself, and their guide, Jeroboam, showed himself as the cause of the error of the idols. And the people who did not understand, the people who were blind in their discernment and did not understand where God was, who dwells and abides within them. They loved the worship of idols, and without shame they hastened to the calves. For they were spread out in the fewness of demons. Israel was instructed: "Do not again go to Judah to the house of idols to worship them and be guilty. And do not go to the house of On or to sacrifice to the idols and worship them. Or to that other idol." Therefore, the land of On or the land of God, in spiritual lands, by captivity they became errant and scattered in the likeness of a lost ewe in a spacious wilderness, seeking its mother. Leave him, leave her, for the fruits of her partnership with the idols have produced the sword and captivity. This is what the prophet said to God: "You will be scattered, you will be carried off like a whirlwind, and you will be cast out from your land into the void. Like the flight of a bird that does not alight on its wings or its feathers, but rises to the height in its flight.

of them, they heard this in their rebellion, being stirred up against kings and priests, and with the people they went after the open sin that was before them. For they heard and obeyed one another in their folly. They were snares that covered them, so that they did not grieve that many of the prophets were like doves to the people. They destroyed them with their divisions, like a hunter who catches wild beasts that have no fear. But the breaking of the mountain that was with their land, because now Ephraim has sinned, not now has he sinned from the time I left him, but from the days of Jeroboam he has completed this. They sounded the trumpets, so they heard the sound of trumpets and calls in the places where they were serving idols over the evils that came upon you. Cry out in the house of the owl, the owl says to her who seeks prey for one another to be appointed for the prey of the idol. After that, concerning those of the house of Judah, he says, and he placed his vengeance, the owl of the Babylonians. In that same place, he reminds them when from the time of the reign of the two tribes he says, Ephraim is oppressed, oppressed and distressed and driven out in exile by the captivity of the Assyrians and by the sword of the Chaldeans. These things were with him, that which is worn out from him, and it is fitting for her to be called, and she is the vengeance of many. And like the cub of a lion, he seeks a father for the house of Judah. A Greek instead of a cub, a pard or a panther, he says, in the likeness of a lion that breaks, thus a father breaks them by the hand of the Babylonians. With the king of Egypt, who is the Egyptian, and he was not able to cover you from the heat of the Assyrians.

of them, they heard this in their rebellion, being stirred up against kings and priests, and with the people they went after the open sin that was before them. For they heard and obeyed one another in their folly. They went and came to the place of God, saying, "This that happened, when did it happen to me? And woe to me in the place of the land of the Philistines, for my honor, when I no longer remain, when did it happen to me?" like this people. Until they loved their trust and sought faces. Of six, they said, "Go and come to God, as if in captivity, despising him in the mouth." And he spent many days as a stranger, and on the third day, thus he easily broke the power of his army, and the coming to completion of these things. For if he commanded over them, on the third day before his face he set them up in Jerusalem and turned their former priesthood. Like the beauty of the dawn that is pure and clean, bringing out its sun when there are no clouds. And like the spring, the first rain. "What shall I do to you?" these things, as if the divine person said, "Who will pity you?" He said, "I also wish to have mercy on you. Your sins do not cease so that your goodness may be fulfilled. But in the likeness of clouds and dew that in the morning time are seen and scattered before the rising of the sun, thus your follies are abolished before my grace that is upon you." For this reason the prophets ceased, but he did not cease the prophets, but in this he was angry and sent them so that they would be troubled. He took upon himself the cause of their killing, that which ceased, killed them little by little by means of that which I sent upon you. When I well knew that you had killed them, and in this, as if I had killed them. And there they deceived me. For that deception is not about virtue, he said, but about deeds like these that were seen, that they were water. For that deception, his brother showed the way.

their strength and their pride were like that of a man of war. Their strength and their pride were that sin. Thus also you, through the tyranny of Ptolemy, were strengthened in your sins. The priests participated in that which was with the sons of Shechem, with the hearing and the Levite remembering that with the face of these they went to the priests of Gilead, because of the corruptions of the law, they committed murder and killing. Here, if there is a union of soul and body, there is no one to pursue and a head for the Gileadites. In the house of Israel, how many great men committed abominations and were not pursued by anyone. Judah did to you that he trampled the fortress, he said concerning that which when the fruit was plucked, the fortress was the headship and the kingdom, and the king stood for Zerubbabel, that in their wickedness they rejoiced over the kings, because the evil kings were standing. In their wickedness was the cause of the victory of the foreign kings over them, and they rejoiced in their plunder. When they conquered them, all their rulers were stripped, inflamed, and burned. Like a fire that burns in the valleys, they burned in pride and union, like a fire that rages against the thorns. And with the cities, their cities were destroyed as if there were no inhabitant in them. Until it fermented. With the haste of captivity that befell them. The day of their kings was the worship of idols, when with Jeroboam, in the manner of a leaven, he began, and for all the rest, in the manner of a boundary, something changed to the error of the calf. The day of their kings began.

the great ones, who in the days of the Maccabees were kings and were equipped with the drink of custom, were thirsting for the blood of the slaughter of the Seleucids and the Maccabees. They were angry. And they were drunk with wine. Their anger became such that it is said that with anger and wrath they filled their hearts. Neither the hour of rest nor joy could appease it. And in the morning it burned, and in the morning it burned like a fire. For because it burned with anger all night, they did not cease until they had accomplished their desire. All of them saw that not even the hands that had done the deed were spared. But with the bitterness of their wrath they sought to devour each other. The prophet first spoke concerning Israel, and afterwards concerning both of them, and afterwards he placed a parable in the middle. Ephraim mingled with the peoples; he was commanded not to take foreign wives, but he transgressed the commandment and mingled with the peoples and took foreign wives. And he became like them in his deeds. There was a hyena, like the sight of a hyena in the time of famine, until the thousandth year, and it is in the fire, and it goes out to seek food for itself, and while it is still not satisfied, it snatches food for itself and eats. Thus also for you, a ravenous wolf of Assyria devoured you in captivity because of the weakness of your name, the hyena, and not the locust. Like a dove, a young one, in the form of a dove, when its wings were taken, it remains in places for a long time because it is young and does not know how to flee with the wise. Thus also the Ephraimites did not wish to accept the perception of their destruction, but they remained in their wickedness on the hope of help from demons and from Egyptians that would be for them.

And like a bird, a bird of prey, when it is in the height of the air, strikes down its prey with its talons, so also I, with swiftness, was a dead one to the Assyrian like a fire. And from the setting of Ephraim, he strikes him and sets him in the earth. And I drove them like a rumor, like a good thing of their testimony that testified in them by the prophets, so I sought them. And woe to them that they knew what I did, that they were oppressed by me. By woe I bound all their afflictions. They spoke about the captivity that stood before God, I like those who were saying in the desert. And they did not turn to me when these evil things rained upon them. From all their heart, from the deception of one another, they were deceived like before one from the idols. On account of the grain that passed over grain and wine and good things, they were striking themselves before demons like in the days of the night. They were striking themselves with swords. And they rebelled against me in this, that they considered the idols as givers of their good things; they rebelled against me. And I was pursuing, I went out with the books of the law and I taught them with instruction. And I strengthened their arm, their power, in the days of Jesus son of Nun, that same one from the water. They turned upon nothing, that they did not turn against the idols that are nothing. Even they turned in the placing of the head and were as if they were not. Their circumcision, their nakedness, that this is a circumcision and a twisting, and they forgot me, the truth, that your mouth is like a gourd, you are to the prophet crying like a trumpet, and examine the swiftness of the sword that overtakes them and the temple and the city like the swiftness of fire.

They called me and said, "He is not in the stature of a man," but rather, "He is with the Assyrian." The Jews called and said, "He is not," when he said concerning the Assyrian, "The signs that are prepared to happen." Israel forgot the good that I did for it, and because it forgot, the Assyrian enemy also pursued it. They forgot your calf, O Samaria; they forgot the calf for which you set up a sanctuary. Until when will this one bear with you? They are not able. And is it not God who is not able to conquer in wars against the enemy, because Israel is the foundation of the trust of the Assyrian? Just as the idol on which they relied, with Israel is the lightness of the idol, and it was established by the hands of the craftsman and the mason. And how can the hands of the craftsman conquer Israel? Because they sowed wind, they reaped nothing, and the whirlwind is the harvest. The whirlwind of the Assyrian that struck them. And the graves call out to the tomb of the one who made a path. And not even the path is the sins of those who made flour for the baking. And if they had had what would come, the Assyrian would have eaten it. Ephraim is the gift of the Assyrian, the poor man who loves the bribe that was given to him. And as he sought, he sold the judgment of the poor. He went up to Assyria like a solitary frog, because a solitary frog, when it has no helper, is secretly crushed. And they were also delivered up, and when this one of the mouth mixed, among the peoples, the Moabites and the Assyrians and the rest of the peoples around them, but nevertheless, he darkened them. And he also brought them to their land.

And they revealed a little of the servitude and the tribute that was being demanded from the peoples, concerning the little time that was after the captivity until they were subjected under the hands of the Greek kings in the days of the Maccabees. He went on concerning the things that in the time of the captivity, which the kings could not and did not offer to him, the sacrifices were taken away; he wrote to him the majority of the law, which he considered as a prayer of supplication. And as it was done to him, the offering was not brought to him and he was not pleased with it. The sacrifices of the chosen ones were not from their own altars. But when money was collected from others, again he sought something that was fitting and offered to me. Again, they collected chosen animals and offered them to the idols, and he commanded and sought the form, the letter, and the love of gifts. He said concerning the first ones who were offering to demons in idolatry, like that bread to them. He said concerning the first ones who were offering to demons in idolatry, like that bread to them. He said that this thing that they offer to me is as if from compulsion and force they offer to me. Because just as the foods are pressed upon the stomachs of the covenanters, so also God is pressed by their sacrifices. They are not sanctified by the sacrifices, they are not pressed. That bread to them is theirs, and it does not enter the house of the Lord, and he does not receive it. What will you do for the day, the feast of the Lord, for the lamentation that came with the Assyrian, he calls. Because the feast is fulfilled with lamentation, and one God is in the lamentation of the enemies who came upon them. And as the feast is fulfilled with lamentation, and one God is in the lamentation of the enemies who came upon them.

And as if the day of their destruction was considered a festival for them, they went out to plunder and were unable to be restrained. And Egypt was covered by the fugitives who had fled to it. And Memphis was buried, and even there they were buried, because the Assyrian pursued them every time they were, and together they fled from city to city to hide, and in those cities they died of hunger, having placed all their hope in the city of Qarqa. And the Carians are called Assyrians. And the Chaldeans in their dwellings, in their tents that were destroyed, tents and a fortress, the land and the Chaldeans were swallowed up by the fire of men. The foolish, stupid, and mad prophet on that day of captivity made known Israel's madness, stupidity, and the errors it loved. For he fell into the trap of placing a harsh yoke that would bear and arrange it in the form of a false prophet who revealed what was with him, a madman who went out with his madness. Ephraim, look with my God, with God Ephraim was established, that he might see the truth and examine the reality. And like a true prophet, he also was with God, teaching others, while he, on the contrary, in the form of a false prophet, stood against others with the truth. They stood and destroyed; they stood in their thought to seek a likeness of the blood that their fathers found in the desert when they made the calf and worshipped it. While Moses was on the mountain, the days of the high place are named for it. He seeks to say that they committed a deep destruction as they did at Mount Sinai. He calls destruction the error of the idols. Ephraim, as you saw for the form.

their children to the slaughter. This wrath filled the Egyptians against them, and they were uprooted from their houses like Tyre from its foundations, and all of them were scattered. He gave them a scattered dwelling place, as the prophet said to God: "Give them the dwellings of the Assyrians," because they were very worthy of them. All their evils were there, in the Gilgal, all their idols. He struck Ephraim when the evils he did were uprooted in captivity and he was uprooted from his land like a tree that is uprooted from its root and dries up from its moisture and is stripped of its fruits. The vine of forgiveness is in the likeness of a vine that was not glorious in its branches and was contemptible in its many clusters; they also were and were spread out in thorns. And like the abundance of its fruits, in the multitude of their number they spread out their wickedness in the worship of idols; their heart was divided, for not all of them served one idol, but some went to this one and some to another. They were condemned in the treasury of the sanctuary, they were condemned and perished. The words of the causes are the misleading words of Jeroboam, who said to the people: "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem." And they brought offerings to the king of Jeroboam, the king of Jeroboam calls to the king of Egypt. When they are distressed and broken, the idol is given because it is weak gold, and they bring offerings from it to the Assyrians, and after they rebel against the Assyrians, they bring from it to the king of Egypt, as if they were enslaved to him. Like a wave that passes over the surface of the water that cannot stand, or he calls to the idol. The portions are the laws that the idols desire.

How many days of the high places? This is the word of the prophet, and how one high place signifies all of them. When they left the temple of God and went up to the mountains and high places, they sacrificed to the idols. Then that sacrifice began to sin. And still you are in that wickedness. There they were taken captive. And they did not know God, and he did not come to their aid because neither the idols nor the Egyptians, nor any of those who trusted in them, were able to save them from the hands of the enemy. The war of the high places came upon them like that of the Assyrians, and the iniquity which they practiced upon the high places pursued them. Broken and shattered pits are called idols. And did not the Lord pass through by means of the Assyrians? Did he not pass over rebellious Tyre? He mounted Ephraim upon his hard neck and humbled his bestiality. And Judah knew, Judah remembered beneath me in the form of paths in a wagon. Stretch out your arm, O king, over excellence. After he decreed judgment upon you, kindle yourselves, stretch out your arm, righteousness. Your conduct, sin, will come to the seeds of your actions. This conduct of yours, your plowing, is like that of those who, upon the hope of rain, sow the land and guide it with oxen. For it is said that your plowing is those things that are full of iniquity and sin, because of which you are destined to reap the fruits of captivity. Your fortresses will be plundered, for after the Assyrian plunders your fortresses, he will also destroy you like the plunder of Shalman. It will show how he destroyed them, like what Hazael did to them, who anointed Elisha, because of the word of love that was between them and Bar Hadad.

They surrounded the help of the son of Hadar, like a complete plunder that was plundered on the day of the battle that Hazael fought with you. When the mother entered her houses, she broke and scattered the rest. Others cast down the voice of a daughter like, and they wrote in the plunder of peace on the day of the feast of the idols in Beth-El, completing you. War will befall you, and as in peace, all of you were taken captive and killed. The prophet says: In the morning, they returned, for the sacrifice that was offered for salvation was for the feast that was completed for the idols in Beth-El, in which the Assyrian war overtook them. And as in the morning, with lightness, he passed by with his honor, like a morning that was cast off lightly, because also the morning, when it appears after the night, when it is long, two hours pass. As they called you Moses and the rest of the prophets, thus they went to their secret place. He said this to the one who, like a foolish man who approaches him, and he withdraws further. And the father of Ephraim is with Egypt. And you received that they snatch and receive fathers for sons. In the pains of the wicked, the Jew. Pains, he said, like the pains of a woman in labor. Syriac: pains like fetters, like the rope with which a father binds his son in a noose when he errs. Also the father, in a small rebellion, bound you. And pains, when you were placed in harsh fetters of error and captivity, like a daughter in pains, by my power I bound and brought you out from there. And with chains, and also with chains, I bound you with my love and I embraced you with my mercy, and I bent you to do my service, and they ate the good things of the land of the kingdom.

They did not wish to turn them from their sins by means of repentance. The sword was drawn and they were destroyed in the battle, and they were not able to hold the sword, and from the fear that overtook them, it fell and was lost from their hands. And they consumed from their pastures, and they repaid the fruits of their evil thoughts. And my people were hung up to be written, while they were in the captivity of Assyria; they were hung up and it was fitting for them to return and to be reconciled to the land of the kingdom. The enemies who had taken them did not leave them, saying, "Where is your God?" But you, Ephraim, where is your God who commanded that I should help you and save you like blood? But rather, like the charcoal of your sins, the flood covered you, so that you might be swallowed up in the earth, as the little ones desire for you. My heart was turned, but because of the Messiah who is to be born from you, my compassion was revealed. And because of the distress in which you are placed, my heart was turned from anger to compassion for you, and I will not turn, I will not turn, nor will I seize to destroy you as is fitting. The holy one said, "For as the rampart and the wall of the entire city of Samaria, so also the dwelling and the turning within the temple and the city." After the Lord, he showed us thus: he commanded and established, and he went at their head, God, and he helped them, and like a lion that gives, he showed his strength against the enemies. He who was confounded among the Assyrians and Babylonians, and he moved among the houses, what is it to us that the enemies were broken and their authority was taken from the people and from the kingdom? The Jews who are among the houses are moved with the enemies, and they return to their land. And he moved among the houses, he prepared the enemies. The Jew said thus.

and they flew like a bird, they flew to be caught in lightness to the land of the kingdom. 90. Again, "Ephraim surrounds me with deceit." For it is prepared that you will be deceived by the world that is praised. And the Lord of my surroundings, concerning them, was not able to endure his patience. And Judah walked with me in a complete and crafty manner, not simply. Until they fell, until they fell into captivity in Babylon. They were not set right with all of them. And also their cause was praised, the holy and faithful men, Daniel and his companions. John interprets differently: that until they fell into captivity, they were immediately with the people before. For in the spring, all of his brothers cover them with the coal of the head of their father. Jacob with the spring and before he was born, he showed the whole thing that was prepared in him to take his birthright. And with the knowledge of the father, also moisture. And in his distress, he became strong and powerful and endured the afflictions that befell him with his companions until by the power of God he grew and became high with all his enemies. The measure of the whole in the hand of the priest, he calls Ephraim "priest" because of the likeness of his actions. The priests were to be named in this more than the priests loved iniquity and injustice. And he says, "Ephraim." That he became rich when he was pursued by the knowledge of his injustice, it is understood that that wealth which he gained with the plunder of the merchants, pains and not rest were found with him. I brought you up from the land, he mixed these of the answer, he placed that with every one who has you, I will bring you up.

Again, "I will set you in the pastures of the land of the kingdom." Again, "I will set you in the land of the kingdom," as if it gave you all good things, like the days of the festivals which you commanded through Moses to celebrate in Gilad. The altars, are they not withered and cut off? And your altars, when they dry up, the streams are scattered and die. So also your altars, when you are desolated, they become dry and remain without sacrifices. Gilad is twofold: there are those that dwell in water and those on dry land, like frogs and lizards. And the beaver likewise is a hedgehog. And Jacob fled from before him, receiving a covering so that he would not take a wife from the same family. And he guarded his face and was cautious in the desire of his heart. And in the reeds he went up, the likeness of Jacob, in two camps he went up with a sword. So also for these who are with him, he was careful and went up with them by the hand of Moses and Aaron, according to the covenant which he made with their fathers. 93. When he was speaking, he was ruling, so that there would be a placing of the head in place of his blasphemy, and his evil speech, not when God was speaking on Mount Sinai. He was trembling from his fear. "Where is your king?" he said concerning Sheol. Hence he does not stand, he is not able to stand before the rebellion that came upon him, that is, the son. With the hand of the demon, he brought forth Assyria, which swallowed them like Sheol swallows the dead. He calls the demon and death the king of Assyria. "A covenant" is hidden, like the one who mingles himself with them. He calls "covenant" the departure of these covenants of the servants. This is why God made a covenant with you in the sanctuary.

The hour hides, it conceals and does not see its sign. Because the house of life was separated, the Assyrian sign came and separated the tribes one from another. It hinted at the excommunication by which the Assyrians were provoked against him. For they placed him in separate places so that they would not be mixed together. The sign of the east makes known concerning the placing of a head that came upon the Assyrians. It says that a camp of Babylonians came upon the Assyrians like a spirit of return that comes from the desert. 90. "Ephraim called them to repentance." Ephraim now turns, for he was driven away, like those white ones, the turning of righteousness. "Take your words, you were erring, you words of praise and thanksgiving that you offer to God instead of the blasphemies that you previously uttered against him." The Assyrians did not spare, they did not leave you, because they were armed with God. And they repaid like a vine, like a vine that bore many children. Like wine that intoxicates, it became sweet and beloved, its memory entering every man, like the scent and taste of the wine of Mount Lebanon. "I humbled her, I did not humble her in the yoke of captivity, and I made her glorious now." Because I saw her repentance. Like a thick walnut tree, it became for you a nut tree, to give fruit in the abundance of goods, in the form of a walnut tree that is thick and dense with leaves and fruits. The end of the discourse of the prophet Hosea.