properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
LORD’s
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
land
בְּאֶ֣רֶץbe.'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
Ephraim
אֶפְרַ֙יִם֙'ef.Ra.yim
H669
Ephrajim · proper noun, a man's name
return
וְשָׁ֤בve.Shav
H7725
to turn back (hence · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Egypt
מִצְרַ֔יִםmitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · proper noun, a place name
eat
יֹאכֵֽלוּyo.Khe.lu
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
unclean
טָמֵ֥אta.Me'
H2931
foul in a religious sense · adjective, masculine singular absolute
Assyria
וּבְאַשּׁ֖וּרu.ve.'a.Shur
H804
Ashshur · conjunction + preposition + 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
Ezekiel 4:13 And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
Hosea 8:13 They sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; but the LORD accepteth them not; now will he remember their iniquity,…
Leviticus 25:23 The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
Jeremiah 2:7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and…
Hosea 7:11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart: they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.
Deuteronomy 4:26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to…
Deuteronomy 28:63 And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to dest…
Joshua 23:15 Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all good things are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD bring up…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Hosea 9:1-6
Here, I. The people of Israel are charged with spiritual adultery: O Israel! thou hast gone a whoring from thy God, Hos 9:1. Their covenant with God was a marriage-covenant, by which they were joined to him as their God, renouncing all others. But when they set up idols and worshipped them, when they fled to creatures for succour and put a confidence in them, they went a whoring from God as their God, and honoured the pretenders and rivals with the affection, adoration, and confidence, which were due to God only. Other people were idolaters, but that sin was not, in them, going a whoring from God, as it was in Israel that had been married to him. Note, The sins of those who have made a profe…
return to Egypt--(See on Hos 8:13). As in Hos 11:5 it is said, "He shall not return into . . . Egypt." FAIRBAIRN thinks it is not the exact country that is meant, but the bondage state with which, from past experience, Egypt was identified in their minds. Assyria was to be a second Egypt to them. Deu 28:68, though threatening a return to Egypt, speaks (Deu 28:36) of their being brought to a nation which neither they nor their fathers had known, showing that it is not the literal Egypt, but a second Egypt-like bondage that is threatened.
eat unclean things in Assyria--reduced by necessity to eat meats pronounced unclean by the Mosaic law (Eze 4:13). See Kg2 17:6.
Adam Clarke on Hosea 9:3
But Ephraim shall return to Egypt - See on Hos 8:12 (note).
John Gill on Hosea 9:3
They shall not dwell in the Lord's land,.... The land of Israel, or Canaan; which, though all the earth is the Lord's, was peculiarly his; which he had chosen for himself, and for this people; where he had his temple, and caused his Shechinah or divine Majesty to dwell in a very special manner, and where his worship and service were performed. So the Targum calls it the land of the Shechinah or majesty of the Lord. Sometimes it is called Immanuel's land, where the Messiah Immanuel, God with us, was to be born, and dwell, and where he did. Kimchi wrongly interprets this of Jerusalem only; and others of Judea; but it designs the whole land of promise, which God save by promise to the fathers o…
The Church Fathers
"They shall not dwell in the land of the Lord. Ephraim returned to Egypt, and in Assyria he ate polluted food. They shall not offer wine to the Lord, nor shall their sacrifices please him; like the bread of mourners, all who eat it shall be defiled, because their bread does not enter the house of the Lord, which is their soul." LXX: "They did not dwell in the land of the Lord; Ephraim lived in Egypt and ate unclean things among the Assyrians. They did not pour out wine to the Lord, nor did their sacrifices please Him; their bread was like mourning; all who eat of it will be defiled; for their bread of their souls will not enter the house of the Lord." Not only has the threshing floor and the winepress not fed them, and the wine has lied in the land of Israel, when everything had perished for three years and six months, but also the inhabitants themselves will depart from the land of the Lord, and will be led into a foreign land, so that they may not dwell in the holy land which they have defiled with their fornication. "He returned," he said, "to Egypt, and in Assyria he ate defiled things." Of this place, some have added above: "and in Assyria he ate defiled things," which is not in Hebrew, as we have already said. But since they were in Chaldea without a temple and without an altar, they will not pour out wine to the Lord, but to demons, and they will not please those who pour out to alien gods, and those who are held captive and eat idols in Assyria are like mourning bread. For it is not lawful to eat of the food of mourners, and whoever shall eat of it shall be defiled, even what is lawfully offered. The Greeks call the suppers of mourners νεκρόδειπνα, and we may call them "parentalia," from the fact that they are offered to the dead. And not only he that offers, but also he that partakes of such food, shall be unclean; for their bread, that is, the food which they offer, shall not enter into the house of the Lord, which is destroyed, and burnt up with the fire of the Babylonians; let their souls be put to silence. And there is a sense, to its own gluttony, and it provides enjoyment for itself; but I do not like what is polluted. Those who have left the Church and returned to Egypt, and of the Assyrians, that is, they eat sacrifices of demons, will not dwell in the land of the Lord: nor do they drink wine offered to the Lord, in their drunkenness, and…
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
Palestine — Originally denoted only the sea-coast of the land of Canaan inhabited by the Philistines (Ex. 15:14; Isa. 14:29, 31; Joel 3:4), and in this sense exclusively the Hebrew name Pelesheth (rendered…
Assyria · Prophecies of — Prophecies of
Canaan · . — .
Holy Land · Called: The Lord’s land — Called: The Lord’s land
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).
Hosea 9:3
3. They shall not dwell in the Lord's land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria.
3. Non habitabunt in terra Jehovae, et revertetur Ephraim in Aegyptum, et in Assyria immundum comedent.
The Prophet proclaims here a heavier punishment -- that the Lord would drive them into exile. It was indeed a dreadful repudiation, when they were deprived of the land of Canaan, which was the Lord's rest, as it is called in the Psalms, (Psalm 132:14.) While they dwelt in the land of Canaan, they lived as it were in the habitations of God, and could have a sure hope that he would be a father to them: but when they were thence expelled, the Lord testified…
"They will not remain in the land of Jehovah: Ephraim returns to Egypt, and they will eat unclean things in the land of Asshur. Hos 9:4. They will not pour out wine to Jehovah, and their slain-offerings will not please Him: like bread of mourning are they to Him; all who eat it become unclean: for their bread is for themselves, it does not come into the house of Jehovah." Because they have fallen away from Jehovah, He will drive them out of His land. The driving away is described as a return to Egypt, as in Hos 8:13; but Asshur is mentioned immediately afterwards as the actual land of banishment. That this threat is not to be understood as implying that they will be carried away to Egypt as…
God would exile the Israelites to Assyria in 722 BC. There, in an unclean land, they would eat ceremonially unclean food, further separating themselves from their covenant with the Lord.
Rashi on Hosea 9:3
They shall not stay in the land of the Lord Heb. יֵשְׁבוּ, they shall not stay in their land.
