Hosea Chapter 11 verse 4 Holy Bible

Hosea 11 : 4 Bible Verse Songs

• Blest Be the Tie That Binds by Fountainview Academy

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. This verse contains a further representation of Jehovah's fatherly guidance of Israel. The cords of a man are such as parents use in leading weak or young children. Bands of lore qualify more closely the preceding expression, "cords of a man," and are the opposite of those which men employ in taming or breaking wild and unmanageable animals. The explanation of Rashi is similar: "I have always led them with tender cords such as these with which a man leads his child, as if he said with loving guidance." Aben Ezra and Kimchi, in their explanations, carry out more fully the same idea. The former says, "The bands of love are not like the bands which are fastened on the neck of a plowing heifer;" the latter, "Because he compared Ephraim to a heifer, and people lead a heifer with cords, he says, 'I have led Israel by the cords of a man, and not the cords of a heifer which one drags along with resistance, but as a man draws his fellow-man without compelling him to go with resistance: even so I have led them after a gentle method;' and therefore he afterward calls them (cords of a man) bands of love." The LXX., taking חֶבֶל from חָבַל, in the sense of" injure," "destroy," have the mistaken rendering ἐν διαφθορᾶ ἀνθρώτων... ἐξέτεινα αὐτοὺς, "When men were destroyed I drew them." The other Greek versions have the correct rendering. And I was to them as they that take off the yoke. The word herim does not mean "to lift up on" and so "impose a yoke," as some think, nor "to take away the yoke," but "to lift it up." The figure is that of a humane and compassionate husbandman raising upwards or pushing backwards the yoke over the cheeks or dewlaps of the ox, that it may not press too heavily upon him or hinder him while eating. The reference is, according to Kimchi, to "taking the yoke off the neck, and letting it hang on the jaw, that it may not pull but rest from labor one or more hours of the day." The fact thus figuratively expressed is, not the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, but the loving-kindness of Jehovah in lightening the fulfillment of the Law to Israel. (2) The LXX. omit the word עֹל, yoke, and strangely translates the clause, "I will be to them as a man smiting (another) on the cheeks." And I laid meat unto them. The older and many modern interpreters, (1) taking וְאַט as the first person future apoc., Hiph., from נטח, translate, "And I reached them food to eat," namely, the manna in the wilderness. This would require וָאַט, which some substitute for the present reading. (2) Ewald, Keil, and others take אט as an adverb in the sense of" gradually," "gently," translating, "And gently towards him did I give him feral," or "I gently fed him." Some, again, as Kimchi, take . . .

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) Cords of a man.--In contrast with the cords with which unmanageable beasts are held in check. Israel is led with "bands of love," not of compulsion. Render the last clause, And gently towards them gave I food to eat, expressing the tenderness, delicacy, and condescension of his personal regard.