to ascend · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
Assyria
אַשּׁ֔וּר'a.Shur
H804
Ashshur · proper noun, a place name
ass
פֶּ֖רֶאPe.re'
H6501
the onager · noun, common masculine singular absolute
alone
בּוֹדֵ֣דbo.Ded
H909
to divide · verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
Ephraim
אֶפְרַ֖יִם'ef.Ra.yim
H669
Ephrajim · proper noun, a man's name
hired
הִתְנ֥וּhit.Nu
H8566
to present (a mercenary inducement) · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person common plural
lovers
אֲהָבִֽים'a.ha.Vim
H158
affection (in a good or a bad sense) · noun, common masculine plural 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 2:24 A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her…
Ezekiel 16:33-34 They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for…
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…
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…
Isaiah 30:6 The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery fl…
Job 39:5-8 Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?
Ezekiel 23:5-9 And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours,
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 8:8–end
It was the honour and happiness of Israel that they had but one God to trust to and he all-sufficient in every strait, and but one God to serve, and he well worthy of all their devotions. But it was their sin, and folly, and shame, that they knew not when they were well off, that they forsook their own mercies for lying vanities; for,
I. They multiplied their alliances (Hos 8:9): They have hired lovers, or (as the margin reads it) they have hired loves. They were at great expense to purchase the friendship of the nations about them, that otherwise had no value nor affection at all for them, nor cared for having any thing to do with them but only upon the Shechemites' principles - Shall not t…
gone . . . to Assyria--referring to Menahem's application for Pul's aid in establishing him on the throne (compare Hos 5:13; Hos 7:11). Menahem's name is read in the inscriptions in the southwest palace of Nimrod, as a tributary to the Assyrian king in his eighth year. The dynasty of Pul, or Phalluka, was supplanted at Nineveh by that of Tiglath-pileser, about 768 (or 760) B.C. Semiramis seems to have been Pul's wife, and to have withdrawn to Babylon in 768; and her son, Nabonassar, succeeding after a period of confusion, originated "the era of Nabonassar," 747 B.C. [G. V. SMITH]. Usually foreigners coming to Israel's land were said to "go up"; here it is the reverse, to intimate Israel's su…
They are gone up to Assyria - For succor.
A wild ass alone by himself - Like that animal, jealous of its liberty, and suffering no rival. If we may credit Pliny and others, one male wild ass will keep a whole flock of females to himself, suffer no other to approach them, and even bite off the genitals of the colts, lest in process of time they should become his rivals. "Mares singuli faeminarum gregibus imperitant; timent libidinis aemulos, et ideo gravidas custodiunt, morsuque natos mares castrant." - Hist. Nat., lib. viii., c. 30. The Israelites, with all this selfishness and love of liberty, took no step that did not necessarily lead to their thraldom and destruction.
Ephraim hath hired l…
The Church Fathers
"For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath given gifts to his lovers, yea, though they have hired among the nations, now will I gather them together, and they shall rest a little from the burden of the king and the princes." LXX: "Because they went up to the Assyrians, Ephraim has flourished within himself: they have loved gifts, therefore they shall be given to the Gentiles: now will I gather them together, and they shall rest a little from the labour of the king and the princes." Israel is devoured," he says, "and has become like a useless vessel, or unclean, from which no shard remains, in which water can be drawn, or a little bit of fire. And because he became an unclean vessel, therefore they went up to the Assyrians, imitating a wild ass alone: they were not fed like lambs by the Lord, but rather abusing their freedom and being led into captivity, of whom the prophet mourns and says, 'Ephraim gave gifts to the Assyrians, and hired lovers with a reward,' of which Ezekiel writes: 'All harlots receive rewards; but thou hast given rewards to thy lovers' (Ezek. 16: 33), and it has become the opposite in you. And when he has given gifts to peoples and nations have been hired to help him, they will gather for battle and will be taken captive together. And because they love to offer gifts to their adversaries, for a short time they will receive benefit, so that they will not pay tribute to the king and princes until they reach the Assyrians, where they will not give either tribute or stipend as free men; but they will be brought into the ultimate bondage. We do not doubt concerning the heretics, that they, according to the error of their minds, going to the Assyrians, will think that they are ascending and not descending. Therefore it is said to them through Isaiah: "What is happening to you now, that you have all gone up on vain roofs?" (Isa. XXII, 1), whose Assyrian prince is a great sense. Therefore, Ephraim grew up in presumption within himself. Whether he became a solitary wild ass, as he penetrated not sown by the Church but by the devil's deserted places. He loved gifts for his own error, promising rewards to himself, or doing all things out of the motive of shameful profit. Or certainly he gave gifts and rewards to his lover demons, and when he did this, he will be handed over to the nations. For just as nations…
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
Ass (Donkey) · 2:24;14:6; — 2:24;14:6;
Ass, The Wild · Described as: Unsocial — Described as: Unsocial
Assyria · As a power, was: Selfish and reserved — As a power, was: Selfish and reserved
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).
For they are gone up to Assyria,.... Or, "though they should go up to Assyria" (g); to the king of Assyria, to gain his friendship, and enter into alliance with him; as, when Pal king of Assyria came against them, Menahem king of Israel went forth to meet him, and gave him a thousand talents of silver to be his confederate, and strengthen his kingdom, 2 Kings 15:19; yet this hindered not but that Israel was at length swallowed up by that people, and scattered by them among the nations; for this is not to be understood of their going captive into the land of Assyria, as the Targum interprets it:
a wild ass alone by himself; which may be applied either to the king of Assyria, and be considere…
Hosea 8:9-10
9. For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.
9. Quia ipsi ascenderunt in Assyriam, onager (asinus sylvestris) solitarius (aliqui tamen generaliter accipiunt pro quavis fera; sylvestris ergo asinus solitarius:) Ephraim conduxit amores (vel, amatores conduxerunt; est quidem verbum pluralis numeri vnth, sed Ephraim est collectivum nomen, ideo nihil est obsurdi. Sequitur)
10. Yea, though they have hired among the nations, now will I gather them, and they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes.
10. Quanivis conducant (vel, conduxerint) inter gentes, nunc congregabo eos et dolebunt (vel, incipient) paululum ab one…
"For they went up to Asshur; wild ass goes alone by itself; Ephraim sued for loves. Hos 8:10. Yea, though they sue among the nations, now will I gather them, and they will begin to diminish on account of the burden of the king of the princes." Going to Assyria is defined still further in the third clause as suing for loves, i.e., for the favour and help of the Assyrians. The folly of this suing is shown in the clause, "wild ass goes by itself alone," the meaning and object of which have been quite mistaken by those who supply a כ simil. For neither by connecting it with the preceding words thus, "Israel went to Asshur, like a stubborn ass going by itself" (Ewald), nor by attaching to it thos…
Like a wild donkey: Hosea compared Israel’s worship of the Canaanite fertility gods to an animal in heat that was desperate to mate (see Jer 2:23-24).
Rashi on Hosea 8:9
a wild donkey secluded to himself He became like a wild donkey that goes alone to itself, sniffing air from place to place to wander.
they paid hire for love Heb. הִתְנוּ. Jonathan interprets it as an expression of a dragon; like this dragon that goes through the deserts. They sniffed the air like the dragon to acquire for themselves lovers, strange paramours. הִתְנוּ, endragonיrיnt in O.F., like the tremors of the nostrils of a dragon, [derived from תַּנִין. According to this derivation we render: dragonlike, they sought lovers.] It may also be explained as an expression of hire.
