Hosea 6 KJV
A Call to Repentance
Hosea Chapter 6: A Call to Repentance
The 'third day' resurrection motif in verse 2, where God revives and raises up after two days, was linked by early Christian interpreters to Christ's resurrection, providing a typological bridge between Hosea's call to repentance and New Testament soteriology.
1ome, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
3 Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.
4 O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.
5 Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth.
6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
7 But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me.
8 Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood.
9 And as troops of robbers wait for a man, so the company of priests murder in the way by consent: for they commit lewdness.
10 I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.
11 Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people.
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Did You Know?
The 'third day' resurrection motif in verse 2, where God revives and raises up after two days, was linked by early Christian interpreters to Christ's resurrection, providing a typological bridge between Hosea's call to repentance and New Testament soteriology.
Verse 6's declaration that God desires mercy and knowledge of God rather than sacrifice is quoted verbatim by Jesus in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7, reframing the prophetic critique as a direct indictment of first-century Pharisaic priorities.
The phrase 'they like men have transgressed the covenant' in verse 7 renders the Hebrew 'like Adam,' deliberately evoking the primal covenant breach in Eden and positioning Israel's infidelity as a recapitulation of humanity's original rebellion.
Verses 8-9 locate treachery and murder specifically in Gilead and Shechem, priestly and covenantal centers, thereby exposing the religious elite themselves as agents of violence and inverting the expected role of sanctuaries as places of refuge.
The fleeting dew and morning cloud imagery of verse 4 is drawn from Canaanite fertility motifs, subverted here to depict Israel's superficial repentance as no more lasting than the dew that evaporates under Baal's supposed domain, reinforcing Hosea's polemic against syncretism.