Hosea 5:13 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Hosea 5:13
When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.
to see · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
sickness
חָלְי֗וֹchal.Yo
H2483
malady · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Judah
וִֽיהוּדָה֙vi.hu.Dah
H3063
Jehudah (or Judah) · conjunction + proper noun, a place name
wound
מְזֹר֔וֹme.zo.Ro
H4205
a bandage · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
went
יָלַךְyâlak
H3212
to walk (literally or figuratively)
Ephraim
אֶפְרַ֙יִם֙'ef.Ra.yim
H669
Ephrajim · proper noun, a man's name
Assyrian
אַשּׁ֔וּר'a.Shur
H804
Ashshur · proper noun, a place name
sent
וַיִּשְׁלַ֖חvai.yish.Lach
H7971
to send away · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
king
מֶ֣לֶךְMe.lekh
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Jareb
יָרֵ֑בya.Rev
H3377
Jareb · proper noun, a man's name
could
יוּכַל֙yu.Khal
H3201
to be able · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
heal
לִרְפֹּ֣אlir.Po'
H7495
properly · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
cure
יִגְהֶ֥הyig.Heh
H1455
to remove (a bandage from a wound · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
wound
מָזֽוֹרma.Zor
H4205
a bandage · noun, common masculine singular absolute
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 30:12 For thus saith the LORD, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous.
Hosea 7:11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.
2 Kings 15:19 And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to con…
Hosea 10:6 It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own couns…
Hosea 12:1 Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the As…
Jeremiah 30:14-15 All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel…
Hosea 8:9 For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.
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…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 5:8–end
Here is, I. A loud alarm sounded, giving notice of judgments coming (Hos 5:8): Blow you the cornet in Gibeah and in Ramah, two cities near together in the confines of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, Gibeah a frontier-town of the kingdom of Judah, Ramah of Israel; so that the warning is hereby sent into both kingdoms. "Cry aloud at Beth-aven, or Bethel, which place seems to be already seized upon by the enemy, and therefore the trumpet is not sounded there, but you hear the outcries of those that shout for mastery, mixed with theirs that are overcome." Let them cry aloud, "After thee, O Benjamin! comes the enemy. The tribe of Ephraim is already vanquished, and the enemy will be upon thy…
wound--literally, "bandage"; hence a bandaged wound (Isa 1:6; Jer 30:12). "Saw," that is, felt its weakened state politically, and the dangers that threatened it. It aggravates their perversity, that, though aware of their unsound and calamitous state, they did not inquire into the cause or seek a right remedy.
went . . . to the Assyrian--First, Menahem (Kg2 15:19) applied to Pul; again, Hoshea to Shalmaneser (Kg2 17:3).
sent to King Jareb--Understand Judah as the nominative to "sent." Thus, as "Ephraim saw his sickness" (the first clause) answers in the parallelism to "Ephraim went to the Assyrian" (the third clause), so "Judah saw his wound" (the second clause) answers to (Judah) "sent…
When Ephraim saw his sickness - When both Israel and Judah felt their own weakness to resist their enemies, instead of calling upon and trusting in me, they sought sinful alliances, and trusted in their idols.
King Jareb - This name occurs nowhere in Scripture but here and in Hos 10:6. The Vulgate and Targum render ירב yareb, an avenger, a person whom they thought able to save them from their enemies. It is well known that Menahem, king of Israel, sought alliance with Pul and Tiglath-pileser, kings of Assyria, and Ahaz, king of Judah. These were the protectors that Ephraim sought after. See 2 Kings 15 and 16. But far from healing them by making them tributary, the Assyrians made their wound…
The Church Fathers
"And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his band: and Ephraim went to the Assyrian, and sent to the avenging king: and he shall not be able to heal you, neither shall he be able to take off the band from you." LXX: "And Ephraim saw his weakness, and Judah his pain, and Ephraim went to the Assyrians, and sent ambassadors to king Jareb, and he will not be able to free you, nor will he make an end of your pain." Embassies are not held in Hebrew. And where the Septuagint place "Jarib," we translate it as "avenger" according to Symmachus; for Aquila and Theodotion translated it as "judge." And this name "Jarib," signifying "avenger" and "judge," is shown by the name of Gideon who, when the worshippers of Baal sought him for punishment, because he had overthrown the grove of Baal and its altars, answered his father, "Let Baal therefore plead against him" or "avenge" himself, and he was afterward called "Jerubbaal," that is to say, "Let Baal plead against him." Therefore, understanding their own weakness, Ephraim sought not aid from Him who could loose them, but from the King of the Assyrians, to whom they were in sinfulness bound together with the ten tribes. We read that under King Manahen, who ruled over ten tribes (IV Kings XV), Israel sent gifts to the Assyrians; and Judah under King Ahaz, sought aid from Tiglath-pileser king of the Assyrians, who was unable to deliver them from those who opposed God, nor could he loosen the bonds of captivity. We can refer to those bonds, for which it is written in Hebrew as Mezur, and which Aquila interpreted as ἐπίδεσιν or συνδεσμὸν, that is, "binding" or "conspiracy," and to that time when Rezin and Pekah son of Remaliah devastated many thousands of men from the tribe of Judah (Ibid. XVI), and Judah pleaded in vain for help against not two, but the aid of the kings of Assyria. Some people, according to the trope of Ephraim and Judah, refer both to heretics and to men of the church, because both they and Judas, the sinners, are bound with the chains of sins, according to what is written: "With the cords of his sins every one is bound" (Prov. 5:22). They have sent to Assyria and to the avenging king, that is, to the devil, of whom we read: "That thou mayst destroy the enemy and the avenger" (Ps. 8:3). And because they did not beseech the true helper or judge; therefore He has made them abide in the pain of sickness and the…
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
Jareb — (adversary) is to be explained either as the proper name of a country or person, as a noun in apposition, or as a verb from a root, rub, “to contend plead.” All these senses are represented in the…
Assyria · Alliances with, — Alliances with,
Confidence · FALSE — FALSE
False Confidence · 17:5; — 17:5;
Jareb · King of Asshur — King of Asshur
Sick, The · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
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).
When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound,.... That their civil state were in a sickly condition, very languid, weak, feeble, and tottering, just upon the brink of ruin; see Isaiah 1:6;
then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb; that is, the ten tribes, or the king of them, went and met the Assyrian king; and Judah the two tribes, or the king of them, sent ambassadors to King Jareb; which sense the order of the words, in connection with the preceding clause, seems to require: by the Assyrian and King Jareb we are to understand one and the same, as appears from the following words, "yet could he not heal &c.", whereas, if they were different, it would have been e…
Hosea 5:13
13. When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.
13. Et vidit Ephraim dolorem suum (morbum suum potius,) et Jehudah vulnus suum: profectus wst Ephraim ad Assur, et misit ad regem Jareb: ipse tamen non potuit mederi vobis, et non sanabit a vobis vulnus (dicunt Hebraei, sanare ab aliquo vulnus pro auferre vulnus: potius Latine dicendum est, non sanabit vos a plaga.)
Here the Lord complains that he had in vain chastised the Israelites by the usual means, for they thought that they had remedies ready for themselves, and turned their minds to vain hopes. This…
The two kingdoms could not defend themselves against this chastisement by the help of any earthly power. Hos 5:13. "And Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his abscess; and Ephraim went to Asshur, and sent to king Jareb (striver): but he cannot cure you, nor drive the abscess away from you." By the imperfects, with Vav rel., ויּלך, ויּרא, the attempts of Ephraim and Judah to save themselves from destruction are represented as the consequence of the coming of God to punish, referred to in Hos 5:12. Inasmuch as this is to be seen, so far as the historical fulfilment is concerned, not in the present, but in the past and future, the attempts to obtain a cure for the injuries also belong to the p…
In a final effort to avoid complete destruction, the Israelites overthrew King Pekah and placed a new king, Hoshea, on the throne. Hoshea then appealed to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser for peace (2 Kgs 15:29-30; 17:3), but these diplomatic maneuvers could neither help nor cure Israel—they would soon be destroyed by Assyria.
Rashi on Hosea 5:13
his pain Heb. מְזֹרוֹ, an expression of illness.
and Ephraim went to Assyria This is Hosea son of Elah, who was his vassal and then rebelled against him (II Kings 17:4).
and he sent i.e., Judah sent.
to the king of Yarev This refers to Ahaz, who gave a bribe to Tiglath-pileser to assist him against Rezin the king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah (II Kings 16:8).
but he will not be able to heal you from the many bands of Philistines and Arabs that attacked Ahaz, as is related in Chronicles (II 28:21): “For Ahaz divided the house of the Lord etc. and he gave it to the king of Assyria, but he did not help him.”
and he will not remove the pain from you Heb. וְלֹא יִגְהֶה מִכֶּם מָזוֹר. And…
