hosea 8 through 10

Read Hosea 8 through 10 at Bible Gateway.

The Hebrew paragraph divisions:

Hos 7:13-8:14 {p} He gave Israel Himself + His Law but they rejected both Him and it; therefore He will remember their iniquity
Hos 9:1-9 {s} The days of punishment + recompense have come upon Ephraim/ they shall be dispersed to Egypt + Assyria
Hos 9:10-17 {s} Ephraim’s glory + prosperity gone, his children dried up/ they shall be wanderers among the nations
Hos 10:1-8 {p} Ephraim’s heart was divided, therefore they embellished their altars, but their idolatry will be broken down forever

The chiastic structure of the strong paragraph from Hos 10:1-8:

1a) Hos 10:1, Israel was a fruitful vine, as his fruit + land increased, so increased the altars + sacred pillars;

1b) Hos 10:2, Their heart is divided – they are guilty/ He will break down their altars +sacred pillars;

1c) Hos 10:3, “We have no king, because we did not fear YHVH. As for a king, what would he do for us?”

1d) Hos 10:4, They have sworn falsely in covenant, therefore their judgment is like hemlock in the furrows;

central axis) Hos 10:5-6a, Samaria in dread + mourning for the calves of Beth Aven/ its glory departed + carried to Assyria;

2d) Hos 10:6b, Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel;

2c) Hos 10:7, As for Samaria, her king is cut off like foam on the water;

2b) Hos 10:8a, Also the high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed;

2a) Hos 10:8b {p} Thorn + thistle shall grow on their altars: they say to the mountains + hills, “Cover, fall on us!”

The sense is, that whereas formerly the fruitfulness and abundance of Israel embellished his altars and sacred pillars, now it is thorns and thistles that will grow on them instead. Interestingly enough, in the Hebrew it is not the people of Israel who say to the mountains and hills, Cover us! Fall on us! It is altars and sacred pillars. Of course, this puts me in mind of:

And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” Rev 6:15-17

In Hosea, it is the idols, the tools of idolatry, that cry out for the mountains to fall on them; in Revelation it is the idolaters who make the same cry. For the kings and men of the earth, in Revelation, are those whose citizenship is with the world instead of in the kingdom of heaven. In my understanding of Revelation, Rev 6:15-17 happened at the fall of paganism from 312 to 361 ad under the ascendancy and rule of Constantine the Great (Julian the Apostate not being able to restore it). The prophecies are saying to me, that when the time comes for idolatry to be banished forever, not only the idolaters, but the idols themselves will see their utter foolishness and cry out to be so far buried, that it will never be seen again.