Hosea 11:6

And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them, because of their own counsels.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) The rendering of the English version is here incorrect. Render, Then shall the sword be brandished amid his cities, and utterly destroy his princes. The word for “princes” is, literally, bars, the heroes, leaders, or defenders of the state being aptly called barriers, or bulwarks. Analogous metaphors frequently occur in the Old Testament; such is the interpretation of the Targum.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:1-7 When Israel were weak and helpless as children, foolish and froward as children, then God loved them; he bore them as the nurse does the sucking child, nourished them, and suffered their manners. All who are grown up, ought often to reflect upon the goodness of God to them in their childhood. He took care of them, took pains with them, not only as a father, or a tutor, but as a mother, or nurse. When they were in the wilderness, God showed them the way in which they should go, and bore them up, taking them by the arms. He taught them the way of his commandments by the ceremonial law given by Moses. He took them by the arms, to guide them, that they might not stray, and to hold them up, that they might not stumble and fall. God's spiritual Israel are all thus supported. It is God's work to draw poor souls to himself; and none can come to him except he draw them. With bands of love; this word signifies stronger cords than the former. He eased them of the burdens they had long groaned under. Israel is very ungrateful to God. God's counsels would have saved them, but their own counsels ruined them. They backslide; there is no hold of them, no stedfastness in them. They backslide from me, from God, the chief good. They are bent to backslide; they are ready to sin; they are forward to close with every temptation. Their hearts are fully set in them to do evil. Those only are truly happy, whom the Lord teaches by his Spirit, upholds by his power, and causes to walk in his ways. By his grace he takes away the love and dominion of sin, and creates a desire for the blessed feast of the gospel, that they may feed thereon, and live for ever.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And the sword shall abide on his cities - Literally, "shall light, shall whirl" down upon. It shall come with violence upon them as a thing whirled with force, and then it shall alight and abide, to their destruction; as Jeremiah says, "a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, a grievous whirlwind; it shall fall grievously (literally, whirl down) on the head of the wicked" Jeremiah 23:19. As God said to David, after the murder of Uriah, "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house" 2 Samuel 12:10, so as to Israel, whose kings were inaugurated by bloodshed. By God's appointment, "blood will have blood." Their own sword first came down and rested upon them; then the sword of the Assyrian. So after they "had killed the Holy One and the Just," the sword of the Zealots came down and rested upon them, before the destruction by the Romans.

And shall consume his branches - that is, his mighty men. It is all one, whether the mighty men are so called, by metaphor, from the "branches of" a tree, or from the "bars" of a city, made out of those branches. Their mighty men, so far from escaping for their might, should be the first to perish.

And devour them, because of their own counsels - Their counsels, wise after this world's wisdom, were without God, against the counsels of God. Their destruction then should come from their own wisdom, as it is said, "Let them fall by their own counsels" Psalm 5:10, and Job saith, "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong" Job 5:13, i. e., it is the clean contrary of what they intend or plan; they purpose, as they think, warily; an unseen power whirls their scheme on and precipitates it. "And his own counsel shall cast him down" Job 18:7; and above; "Israel shall be ashamed through his own counsels" Job 10:6. Hoshea's conspiracy with So, which was to have been his support against Assyria, brought Assyria against him, and his people into captivity.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. abide—or, "fall upon" [Calvin].

branches—that is, his villages, which are the branches or dependencies of the cities [Calvin]. Grotius translates, "his bars" (so La 2:9), that is, the warriors who were the bulwarks of the state. Compare Ho 4:18, "rulers" (Margin), "shields" (Ps 47:9).

because of their own counsels—in worshipping idols, and relying on Egypt (compare Ho 10:6).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The sword; either intestine or foreign wars, or both. Shall abide; shall be long, not be as a sudden incursion which doth much mischief to surprised and unfortified places, but it shall be a lasting war; three years Samaria was besieged, so the sword did abide.

On his cities; all the cities of Ephraim, the enemy should have courage and leisure to attend the siege of every one of them.

Shall consume; shall prevail to take, sack, burn, and ruin the branches.

His branches; lesser towns and villages.

Devour them; swallow them up with speed and ease, without remedy. Because of their own counsels; which they first took, 1 Kings 12:28, and ever since irreclaimably have followed, in opposition to all the good counsels the prophets gave them from time to time, to all which they have turned a deaf ear; they have sued for Egypt and Asshur’s favour, and slighted mine.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the sword shall abide on the cities,.... Or "shall fall" (y), and continue; meaning the sword of the Assyrians, whereby Ephraim should be brought into subjection to them, and the king of Assyria become king over them; his sword should be drawn, and rest upon them, not only on their chief city Samaria, besieged three years by him, but upon all their other cities, which would fall into his hands, with the inhabitants of them:

and shall consume his branches, and devour them; that is, the towns and villages adjoining to the cities; which were to them as branches are to a tree, sprung from them, and were supported by them; and, being near them, prospered or suffered as they did: some render it, "his bars" (z), as the word is sometimes used, and interpret it of the great men and nobles of the land. So the Targum,

"and it shall slay his mighty men, and destroy his princes;''

with which Jarchi agrees;

because of their own counsels; which they took and pursued, contrary to the counsel of God, the revelation of his mind and will; particularly in setting up idolatrous worship, and continuing in it, notwithstanding all the admonitions, exhortations, counsels, and threatenings of God by his prophets; or else because of their counsels with the Egyptians, and their covenants with them, for help against the Assyrian, whose yoke they were for casting off, and refused to pay tribute to; which provoked him to draw his sword upon them, which made the havoc it did in their cities, and the inhabitants of them.

(y) "cedet", Calvin; "incidet", Schmidt; "irruet", Zanchius, Drusius, Liveleus. (z) "vectes ejus", Schmidt. So some in Drusius.

Geneva Study Bible

And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them, because of their own counsels.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. And the sword, &c.] Rather, And the sword shall whirl about in his cities, and shall make an end of his defences (lit. his bars; comp. Jeremiah 51:30). The sword is personified as the symbol of war, as Ezekiel 14:17.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them. A more accurate rendering would be, and the sword shall sweep round in its cities, and destroy its bolts and devour. Nay, they could not free themselves from invasion and attack. The sword of war would whirl down upon their cities and consume the branches, that is, the villages, or the city bars, or the strong warriors set for defense. Some understand the word so variously interpreted in the sense of "liars," and refer it to the prophets, priests, and politicians who spake falsehood and. acted deceitfully. The word הלח is rendered

(1) "the sword," as the principal weapon in ancient warfare and the symbol of war's destructive power shall sweep round in, circulate, or make the round of the cities of Israel; but

(2) others," whirl down," "light on ;" thus both Rashi and Kimchi. Again, בַדּים is, as already intimated, variously rendered. The most appropriate translation

(a) is (literally, "poles for carrying the ark," Exodus 25:13) "bolts or bars" for securing gates, the root being בדד, to separate.

(b) Some explain it as a figure for "mighty men;" so Jerome and the Targum, as also Rashi: "It destroys his heroes and consumes them." this is the meaning of the word preferred by Gesenius.

(c) Ewald understands it in the sense of "fortresses," especially on the frontier, by which a land is shut against or opened to the enemy.

(d) Aben Ezra and Kimchi take it to mean "branches," i.e. villages, and are followed by the Authorized Version. "The explanation of בי," says Kimchi, "is ' branches,' and it is a figure for villages, for he had already mentioned his cities; and villages are related to cities as branches to a tree; in like manner they are called ' daughters,' being related to a city as daughters to a mother."

(e) The LXX. render it by ἐν ταῖς χερσὶν αὐτοῦ, having read בְיָדָיו, as also the Syriac. Because of their own counsels. The cause of all their calamitous invasions, which city gates barred and bolted could not shut out, was their evil counsels in departing from the Lord, as Kimchi correctly explains: "All this comes upon them in consequence of their evil counsel, because they have forsaken my service to serve other gods." Rashi draws attention to the peculiarity of the accentuation - tasha and sellug - to separate it from the preceding word. The Septuagint here again blunders, obviously reading וְאָכְלוּ, and translating, "And shall eat (the fruit) of their evil counsel." Hosea 11:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

By despising this love, Israel brings severe punishment upon itself. Hosea 11:5. "It will not return into the land of Egypt; but Asshur, he is its king, because they refused to return. Hosea 11:6. And the sword will sweep round in its cities, and destroy its bolts, and devour, because of their counsels. Hosea 11:7. My people is bent upon apostasy from me: and if men call it upwards, it does not raise itself at all." The apparent contradiction between the words, "It will not return into the land of Egypt," and the threat contained in Hosea 8:13; Hosea 9:3, that Israel should return to Egypt, ought not to lead us to resort to alterations of the text, or to take לא in the sense of לו, and connect it with the previous verse, as is done by the lxx, Mang., and others, or to make an arbitrary paraphrase of the words, either by taking לא in the sense of הלא, and rendering it as a question, "Should it not return?" equivalent to "it will certainly return" (Maurer, Ewald, etc.); or by understanding the return to Egypt as signifying the longing of the people for help from Egypt (Rosenmller). The emphatic הוּא of the second clause is at variance with all these explanations, since they not only fail to explain it, but it points unmistakeably to an antithesis: "Israel will not return to Egypt; but Asshur, it shall be its king," i.e., it shall come under the dominion of Assyria. The supposed contradiction is removed as soon as we observe that in Hosea 8:13; Hosea 9:3, Hosea 9:6, Egypt is a type of the land of bondage; whereas here the typical interpretation is precluded partly by the contrast to Asshur, and still more by the correspondence in which the words stand to Hosea 11:1. Into the land from which Jehovah called His people, Israel shall not return, lest it should appear as though the object, for which it had been brought out of Egypt and conducted miraculously through the desert, had been frustrated by the impenitence of the people. But it is to be brought into another bondage. ואשּׁוּר is appended adversatively. Asshur shall rule over it as king, because they refuse to return, sc. to Jehovah. The Assyrians will wage war against the land, and conquer it. The sword (used as a principal weapon, to denote the destructive power of war) will circulate in the cities of Israel, make the round of the cities as it were, and destroy its bolts, i.e., the bolts of the gates of the fortifications of Ephraim. Baddı̄m, poles (Exodus 25:13.), cross-poles or cross-beams, with which the gates were fastened, hence bolts in the literal sense, as in Job 17:16, and not tropically for "princes" (Ges.), electi (Jer., Chald., etc.). "On account of their counsels:" this is more fully defined in Hosea 11:7. נעמּי, and my people ( equals since my people) are harnessed to apostasy from me (meshūbhâthı̄, with an objective suffix). תּלוּאים, lit., suspended on apostasy, i.e., not "swaying about in consequence of apostasy or in constant danger of falling away" (Chald., Syr., Hengst.), since this would express too little in the present context and would not suit the second half of the verse, but impaled or fastened upon apostasy as upon a stake, so that it cannot get loose. Hence the constructing of תּלה with ל instead of על or ב (2 Samuel 18:10), may be accounted for from the use of the verb in a figurative sense. על־על, upwards (על as in Hosea 7:16), do they (the prophets: see Hosea 11:2) call them; but it does not rise, sc. to return to God, or seek help from on high. רומם pilel, with the meaning of the kal intensified, to make a rising, i.e., to rise up. This explanation appears simpler than supplying an object, say "the soul" (Psalm 25:1), or "the eyes" (Ezekiel 33:25).