Hosea 12:1

We are grateful indeed to find a wonderful evaluation of the endless and contradictory emendations (corrections!) that scholars have presumed to make in this chapter. The following quotation from James Ward expresses exactly how this writer feels concerning the text of the Holy Bible. We shall take the liberty of quoting somewhat at length from him:

Nowhere is the text of Hosea more obscure than in Hosea 12 ... One impulse that comes over the commentator as he works over these lines is to re-arrange them. Few have resisted the impulse. I have pondered them all and played with new combinations of my own. In the end, I have found them all failures ... The only genuine alternative to this counsel of despair is to make sense boldly of the text as it comes to us. (We say, Amen) ... Perhaps I have stared at the received text (the Masoretic text) of Hosea 12 too long and have finally seen order where none exists. Nevertheless I do see order there, in the poetic structure of the larger components if not in every line or phrase. This order becomes clearer to the reader of the Hebrew text as he finds it resisting his effort to refashion it into some other form.[1]

We have stressed this remarkable insight of Ward's, because this is a concise statement of our attitude toward all of the countless changes which modern critical scholars attempt to make in nearly any passage of the Holy Bible. None of them, nor all of them put together, affords any genuine improvement, serving only to obscure and confuse what the sacred writers wrote. It is our conviction that the duty of a faithful commentator on the Word of God is that of interpreting the text as we have received it, instead of guessing what the prophet should have written, or intended to write! The Bible makes sense as it is written, and the speculative guesses of uninspired men, who in not a few instances are evil men, afford a very poor substitute for the passages of Scriptures they presume to displace. If, as Ward stated, this chapter of Hosea (admittedly one of the most obscure in the Bible) makes sense when studied and understood, how much more is it true of the whole Bible?

Hosea 12:1

"Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he continually multiplieth lies and desolation: and they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried into Egypt."

Feedeth on wind ... east wind ..." This is a similar metaphor to the one used earlier (Hosea 8:7), "Sowing to the wind, reaping the whirlwind." What is clearly meant is the vanity and fruitlessness of Ephraim's self-directed efforts to secure his safety and prosperity while pursuing a rebellious course contrary to the will of God.

"Multiplieth lies and desolation ..." This is more adequately explained in the next line, where the courting of both their mortal enemies at the same time is mentioned. Ephraim, in order to provide against the eventuality of an Assyrian invasion, made a covenant with Assyria, but at the same time he was trying to buy the friendship of Egypt with gifts of oil. Ward's rendition of this verse is:

"Ephraim herds a wind, chases an east wind all day.

He compounds lies with violence,

They make a covenant with Asshur, and oil is carried to Egypt."

This conduct on the part of Ephraim was reprehensible because, "Rather than seeking the Lord and keeping the Covenant, they were playing the game of international politics and perhaps intrigue."[2] "The outcome of Ephraim's activity, according to the figure, is something void and empty."[3]