Hosea 13:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Hosea 13:14
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
to sever · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
power
מִיַּ֤דmi.Yad
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · preposition + noun, common both genders singular construct
grave
שְׁאוֹל֙she.'Ol
H7585
Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean re… · noun, common both genders singular absolute
redeem
אֶגְאָלֵ֑ם'eg.'a.Lem
H1350
to be the next of kin (and as such to buy back a relati… · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
death
מִמָּ֖וֶתmi.Ma.vet
H4194
death (natural or violent) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
death
מָ֗וֶתMa.vet
H4194
death (natural or violent) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
will
אֱהִ֨י'e.Hi
H165
where · interrogative particle
plagues
דְבָרֶיךָ֜de.va.rei.Kha
H1698
a pestilence · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
grave
שְׁא֔וֹלshe.'ol
H7585
Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean re… · noun, common both genders singular absolute
will
אֱהִ֤י'e.Hi
H165
where · interrogative particle
destruction
קָֽטָבְךָ֙ka.ta.ve.Cha
H6987
extermination · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
repentance
נֹ֖חַםNo.cham
H5164
ruefulness · noun, common masculine singular absolute
hid
יִסָּתֵ֥רyi.sa.Ter
H5641
to hide (by covering) · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
eyes
מֵעֵינָֽיme.'ei.Nai
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix
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
Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take aw…
1 Corinthians 15:52-57 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we…
Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any…
Isaiah 26:19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of he…
Psalms 49:15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah.
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shado…
1 Corinthians 15:21-22 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
Psalms 30:3 O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 13:9–end
The first of these verses is the summary, or contents, of all the rest (Hos 13:9), where we have, 1. All the blame of Israel's ruin laid upon themselves: O Israel! thy perdition is thence; it is of and from thyself; or, "It has destroyed thee, O Israel! that is, all that sin and folly of thine which thou art before charged with. As thy own wickedness has many a time corrected thee, so that has now at length destroyed thee." Note, Wilful sinners are self-destroyers. Obstinate impenitence is the grossest self-murder. Those that are destroyed of the destroyer have their blood upon their own head; they have destroyed themselves. 2. All the glory of Israel's relief ascribed to God: But in me is t…
Applying primarily to God's restoration of Israel from Assyria partially, and, in times yet future, fully from all the lands of their present long-continued dispersion, and political death (compare Hos 6:2; Isa 25:8; Isa 26:19; Eze 37:12). God's power and grace are magnified in quickening what to the eye of flesh seems dead and hopeless (Rom 4:17, Rom 4:19). As Israel's history, past and future, has a representative character in relation to the Church, this verse is expressed in language alluding to Messiah's (who is the ideal Israel) grand victory over the grave and death, the first-fruits of His own resurrection, the full harvest to come at the general resurrection; hence the similarity be…
I will ransom them from the power of the grave - In their captivity they are represented as dead and buried, which is a similar view to that taken of the Jews in the Babylonish captivity by Ezekiel in his vision of the valley of dry bones. They are now lost as to the purpose for which they were made, for which God had wrought so many miracles for them and for their ancestors; but the gracious purpose of God shall not be utterly defeated. He will bring them out of that grave, and ransom them from that death; for as they have deserved that death and disgraceful burial, they must be redeemed and ransomed from it, or still lie under it. And who can do this but God himself? And he will do it. In…
The Church Fathers
Yet again the same prophet says: From the power of the grave will I ransom them. Where is thy victory, O death! Where is thy sting, O grave!—a passage which the Apostle has used concerning the resurrection.
No one could know Wisdom; for no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Therefore, He Himself revealed to John with whom Wisdom was; and for this reason, he said, not as his own, but what Wisdom had infused in him: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Wisdom does not know destruction, it does not know wickedness. For destruction could not hold it, who said: Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?
But that brazen serpent was hung up as a remedy for the biting serpents, not as a type of him that suffered for us but as a contrast. And [the brazen serpent] saved those that looked upon it, not because they believed it to live but because it was killed, and killed with it were the powers that were subject to it, being destroyed as it deserved. And what is the fitting epitaph for it from us? "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" You are overthrown by the cross; you are slain by him who is the giver of life; you are without breath, dead, without motion, even though you keep the form of a serpent lifted up on a pole.
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
Hades — That which is out of sight, a Greek word used to denote the state or place of the dead. All the dead alike go into this place. To be buried, to go down to the grave, to descend into hades, are…
Apostrophe · To — To
Death, Natural · Shall finally be destroyed by Christ — Shall finally be destroyed by Christ
Grave · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Hell · “Sheol” is translated “grave” in A. V. in — “Sheol” is translated “grave” in A. V. in
Resurrection · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Resurrection, The · A doctrine of the Old Testament — A doctrine of the Old Testament
Warfare Of Saints · Victory in, is: Over death and the grave — Victory in, is: Over death and the grave
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).
I will ransom them from the power of the grave,.... That is, "when" or "at which time" before spoken of, and here understood, as the above interpreter rightly connects the words, "I will" do this and what follows:
I will redeem them from death; these are the words, not of Jehovah the Father, as in Hosea 1:7; but of the Son, who redeemed Israel out of Egypt, which was a typical redemption, Hosea 13:4; in whom is the help of his people laid and found, Hosea 13:9; the Word of the Lord, as the Targum; who is the true God, the mighty God, and so equal to this work of redemption and who is also the near kinsman of the redeemed as one of the words here used implies, and so to him belonged the righ…
Hosea 13:14
14. I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
14. E manu sepulchri redimam eos, a morte redimam (est quidem aliud verbum, sed utrumque significat redimere:) ero perditio tua, [96] mors: ero excisio tua (vel, interitus tuus) sepulchrum (vel, inferne:) consolatio (vel, poenitentia) abscondita est ab oculis meis.
The Prophet, I doubt not, continues here the same subject, namely, that the Israelites could not bear the mercy offered to them by God, though he speaks here more fully. God seems to promise redemption, but he does this conditi…
But in order to preserve believers from despair, the Lord announces in Hos 13:14 that He will nevertheless redeem His people from the power of death. Hos 13:14. "Out of the hand of hell will I redeem them; from death will I set them free! Where are thy plagues, O death? where thy destruction, O hell! Repentance is hidden from mine eyes." The fact that this verse contains a promise, and not a threat, would hardly have been overlooked by so many commentators, if they had not been led, out of regard to Hos 13:13, Hos 13:15, to put force upon the words, and either take the first clauses as interrogative, "Should I ... redeem?" (Calvin and others), or as conditional, "I would redeem them," with "…
The term here translated the grave (Hebrew Sheol) refers to the realm of the dead (see Job 3:11-19; see also study note on Job 7:9). The Lord is sovereign even over Sheol, and he could redeem Israel if he chose to. But he will not take pity on the Israelites, and he calls upon death to punish them.
Rashi on Hosea 13:14
From the clutches of the grave I would ransom them I am He Who would ransom them from the clutches of the grave and redeem them from death, but now... I will be your words of death Heb. אֱהִי דְבָרֶיךָ. I will place Myself to speak of you words of death.
I will decree...upon you Heb. קָטָבְךָ. I will decree upon you the decree of the grave.
Remorse shall be hidden from My eyes Heb. נֹחַם. I will not regret this evil. נֹחֵם is an expression of regret (נִחוּם), and the “mem” is a radical like the “mem” of נֹעַם, pleasantness, for the accent is on the first syllable, and the “heth” is vowelized with a “pattah.” Were it an expression of resting (נָח), with the “mem” serving as a suffix denotin…
