a day (as the warm hours) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
break
וְשָֽׁבַרְתִּי֙ve.sha.var.Ti
H7665
to burst (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
bow
קֶ֣שֶׁתKe.shet
H7198
a bow · noun, common feminine singular construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
valley
בְּעֵ֖מֶקbe.'E.mek
H6010
a vale (i.e. broad depression) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Jezreel
יִזְרְעֶֽאלyiz.re.'El
H3157
Jizreel · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Joshua 17:16 And the children of Joseph said, The hill is not enough for us: and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of…
Judges 6:33 Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the children of the east were gathered together, and went over, and pitched in the valley of…
Psalms 37:15 Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
Jeremiah 51:56 Because the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken: for the LORD God o…
2 Kings 15:29 In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and…
Psalms 46:9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
Jeremiah 49:34-35 The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying,
Hosea 2:18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 1:2-7
These words, The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea, may refer either, 1. To that glorious set of prophets which was raised up about this time. About this time there lived and prophesied Joel, Amos, Micah, Jonah, Obadiah, and Isaiah; but Hosea was the first of them that foretold the destruction of Israel; the beginning of this word of the Lord was by him. We read in the history of this Jeroboam here named (Kg2 14:27) that the Lord had not yet said he would blot out the name of Israel, but soon after he said he would, and Hosea was the man that began to say it, which made it so much the harder task to him, to be the first that should carry an unpleasing message and some time before an…
bow--the prowess (Jer 49:35; compare Gen 49:24).
valley of Jezreel--afterwards called Esdraelon, extending ten miles in breadth, and in length from Jordan to the Mediterranean near Mount Carmel, the great battlefield of Palestine (Jdg 6:33; Sa1 29:1).
John Gill on Hosea 1:5
And it shall come to pass at that day,.... When the Lord shall take vengeance on the family of Jehu, and deprive them of the kingdom of Israel, and shall punish the idolatrous kings that succeed:
that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel; of which valley see Joshua 17:16. It is now called the plain of Esdraelon; as it is in the Apocrypha:
"And to those among the nations that were of Carmel, and Galaad, and the higher Galilee, and the great plain of Esdrelom,'' (Judith 1:8)
the great plain of Esdraelon; according to Adrichomius, (o) it is two miles broad, and ten miles long; its soil exceeding rich and fruitful, and abounding with grain, wine, and oil; all travellers agr…
Hosea 1:5
5. And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.
5. Et erit in die illa et conteram arcum (vel-- confringum) Israel in valle Jizreel.
This verse was intentionally added; for the Israelites were so inflated with their present good fortune, that they laughed at the judgement denounced. They indeed knew that they were well furnished with arms, and men, and money; in short, they thought themselves in every way unassailable. Hence the Prophet declares, that all this could not prevent God from punishing them. "Ye are," he says, "inflated with pride; ye set up your valour against God, thinking yourselves strong in arms and in power…
The Church Fathers
"And in that day I will break the bow of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel." LXX likewise. When I avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and I will destroy the kingdom of Israel, with the Assyrians prevailing, then in that day, and at that time, I will break all the power of the army of Israel in the Valley of Jezreel. Above we have said that Jezreel, which is now near Maximianopolis, was the metropolis of the kingdom of Samaria, near which are the widest fields, and the valley of vast emptiness, which extends for more than ten thousand paces. In this conflict undertaken, Israel, that is, the ten tribes, which on account of Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim, who caused the first schism among the people, were called Ephraim, was slain by the Assyrians. Sometimes, on account of Joseph, the father of Ephraim, it is called Joseph; sometimes, Samaria, which itself also was the metropolis of the ten tribes, which later was called Augusta by Augustus Caesar, that is, Σεβαστὴ, in which the bones of John the Baptist were buried. After the division therefore of the two and ten tribes, the ancient name of Israel remained in the ten tribes, owing to the great part of the multitude which followed Jeroboam. And on account of the tribe of Judah, which reigned in Jerusalem, the others that were called tribes, Judas. And at the same time the types explain the truth. For just as on account of the blood of Naboth, which was shed in Jezreel, the house of Ahab was destroyed, that Elijah's prophecy might be fulfilled: so on account of the blood of the true Jezreel, that is, of the seed of God, the kingdom of the Jews was destroyed. In all the prophets, but especially in Hosea, the ten tribes are referred to as heretics, whose multitude is greatest. However, the two tribes called Judah possess the person of the Church, which was under the rule of the Davidic dynasty (who "are ruling"). Therefore, the bow of the heretics, of which it is written, "The sons of Ephraim, being armed and shooting with the bow, turned back in the day of battle" (Ps. 77:9), will be broken in the valley of the seed of God, which is humbled and sensed earthly things.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Archer — A shooter with the bow (1 Chr. 10:3). This art was of high antiquity (Gen. 21:20; 27:3). Saul was wounded by the Philistine archers (1 Sam. 31:3). The phrase “breaking the bow” (Hos. 1:5; Jer. 49:35)…
Jezreel — God scatters. (1.) A town of Issachar (Josh. 19:18), where the kings of Israel often resided (1 Kings 18:45; 21:1; 2 Kings 9:30). Here Elijah met Ahab, Jehu, and Bidkar; and here Jehu executed his…
Jezreel, Day of — The time predicted for the execution of vengeance for the deeds of blood committed there (Hos. 1:5).
Jezreel, Valley of — Lying on the northern side of the city, between the ridges of Gilboa and Moreh, an offshoot of Esdraelon, running east to the Jordan (Josh. 17:16; Judg. 6:33; Hos. 1:5). It was the scene of the…
Valley — (1.) Heb. bik’ah, a “cleft” of the mountains (Deut. 8:7; 11:11; Ps. 104:8; Isa. 41:18); also a low plain bounded by mountains, as the plain of Lebanon at the foot of Hermon around the sources of the…
Bow · 3:12; — 3:12;
Bow, The · Illustrative: (When broken,) of the overthrow of power — Illustrative: (When broken,) of the overthrow of power
Prophets · Frequently in their actions, &c were made signs to the people — Frequently in their actions, &c were made signs to the people
Valleys · Mentioned in scripture: Jezreel — Mentioned in scripture: Jezreel
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
"And it cometh to pass in that day, that I break in pieces the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." The indication of time, "in that day," refers not to the overthrow of the house of Jehu, but to the breaking up of the kingdom of Israel, by which it was followed. The bow of Israel, i.e., its might (for the bow, as the principal weapon employed in war, is a synecdochical epithet, used to denote the whole of the military force upon which the continued existence of the kingdom depended (Jer 49:35), and is also a symbol of strength generally; vid., Gen 49:24; Sa1 2:4), is to be broken to pieces in the valley of Jezreel. The paronomasia between Israel and Jezreel is here unmistakeable. And he…
King Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria fulfilled this prophecy in 733 BC when he defeated Israelite forces and captured the Valley of Jezreel.
Rashi on Hosea 1:4
Name him Jezreel Jonathan renders: Call their name the scattered ones. I.e. prophesy over them that they will be exiled, and they will be sown among the peoples.
the blood of Jezreel To be understood according to its Aramaic translation: the blood of the house of Ahab, whom Jehu slew in Jezreel because they worshipped Baal, and he and his sons went afterwards and worshipped pagan deities; therefore, I account for them the blood of the house of Ahab as innocent blood.
upon the house of Jehu Jeroboam the son of Joash was of the sons of Jehu, and his son Zechariah was assassinated.
