to decay · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
help
בְעֶזְרֶֽךָve.'ez.Re.kha
H5828
aid · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
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
Jeremiah 2:17 Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way?
Jeremiah 2:19 Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter…
Deuteronomy 33:26 There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.
Deuteronomy 33:29 Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency!…
Psalms 121:1-2 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
Psalms 146:5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:
Proverbs 6:32 But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul.
Isaiah 3:11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.
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…
thou . . . in me--in contrast.
hast destroyed thyself--that is, thy destruction is of thyself (Pro 6:32; Pro 8:36).
in me is thine help--literally, "in thine help" (compare Deu 33:26). Hadst thou rested thy hope in Me, I would have been always ready at hand for thy help [GROTIUS].
Adam Clarke on Hosea 13:9
O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself - These evils come not by my immediate infliction; they are the consequences of thy own crimes. In the above terrifying figures of the ferocious beasts, the prophet only shows what they would meet with from the hand of the Assyrians in the war, the famine, and the captivity; God being represented as doing what he only permits to be done.
But in me is thine help - "Though thou hast destroyed thyself, yet in me alone can thy help be found" - Newcome. And others read, And who will help thee? reading מי mi, who, for בי bi, in me. Though this is countenanced by the Syriac, yet there is no evidence of it in any of the MSS. yet collated, nor do I think it to be…
O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself,.... Though the Lord was a lion, a leopard, and a bear to them, yet their destruction was not owing to him, but to themselves; he was not chargeable with it, but they only; the fault and blame was theirs; their own sins brought it on them, and provoked him to such righteous wrath and vengeance before expressed: this is said to clear the Lord from any imputation of this kind, and to lay it where it should be It may be rendered, "it hath destroyed thee" (k); either the calf, as Kimchi, and the worshipping of that, their idolatry; or their king, as others, taking it from the following verse by way of anticipation; or rather it may refer to all their sins be…
The Church Fathers
"Your destruction, Israel, only your help is with me. Where is your king? May he save you now in all your cities; and your judges, of whom you said: Give me a king and princes: I will give you a king in my fury, and take away in my indignation." LXX: "Who will help you in your corruption, O Israel? Where is your king? May he save you in all your cities and judge you as you said: 'Give me a king and prince.' I gave you a king and prince in my anger and took away in my fury." Because the seventy interpreted it as "I have had," everyone translated "I took away." Unhappy is Israel and worthy of eternal curse, who has descended into such profound impiety that he can be saved only by the mercy of God. Yet this may be read in Hebrew and understood in this sense: "May you perish, Israel, because there is nothing left for you except that you be preserved by my mercy alone." But the meaning in the LXX is different: "To your corruption, Israel, who will give assistance?" that is, who will be able to provide help for your captivity and ultimate servitude, those whom you esteemed as your princes? Where is your king, whom you said to Samuel: 'Establish a king over us, to judge us, just as the other nations have'? (2 Kings 8:5). And when he objected, you replied: 'No, but we will have a king, and we will be like all the other nations, and our king will judge us, and he will go out before us and fight for us.' Therefore, where is the promise you made that he would wage your wars, that now he may come to your aid in this time of need, and liberate all your cities from servitude? Where are your judges? Where are your kings? For you have said: "Give me a king and princes"; therefore I gave you Saul as king in my anger, so much so that in the days of the harvest I brought rain contrary to the nature of the province of Judah. "I have removed," he says, "the king in my indignation," that is to say, Zedekiah, "whom I gave in anger, and whom I took away in indignation." Others believe that Jeroboam the son of Nabat was given as king in anger, and the last king of the ten tribes, Hoshea, was taken away in indignation. What we have explained, I gave you a king and took away a king in my indignation, the Hebrews report for future times. At that time, when you said, "Give me a king and princes," I would respond to you through Samuel that I would give it to you in my fury and take it…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Hosea 13:9-11
9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.
9. Perdidit te Israel; quia in me auxilium tuum. [95]
10 I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?
10 Ero: Rex tuus ubi, ut servet te in cunctis urbibus tuis, et judices tui, de quibus dixisti, Da mihi regem et principes?
11 I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.
11 Dabo tibi (hoc est), Dedi tibi regem in ira mea, et sustuli in furore meo.
In the first place, God upbraids the Israelites for having in their perverseness rejected whatever was offered for their safety: but he proceeds…
Hos 13:9 commences a new strophe, in which the prophet once more discloses to the people the reason for their corruption (Hos 13:9-13); and after pointing to the saving omnipotence of the Lord (Hos 13:14), holds up before them utter destruction as the just punishment for their guilt (Hos 13:15 and Hos 14:1). Hos 13:9. "O Israel, it hurls thee into destruction, that thou (art) against me, thy help. Hos 13:10. Where is thy king? that he may help thee in all thy cities: and (where) they judges? of whom thou saidst, Give me king and princes! Hos 13:11. I give thee kings in my anger, and take them away in my wrath." שׁחתך does not combine together the verbs in Hos 13:8, as Hitzig supposes; nor do…
me, your only helper: See Pss 70:5; 115:9; 121:2; 124:8. Israel’s sin had turned their helper into their destroyer.
Rashi on Hosea 13:9
You have destroyed yourself, O Israel Heb. שִּׁחֶתְךָ.
for against Me you have rebelled: you have rebelled against your help. This is an ellipsis, but [to] one who understands the language of the Scriptures, it makes sense. For against Me was the rebellion which you rebelled, and if you ask, “What does it mean to You?” Against your help you rebelled when you rebelled against Me.
