14. But a father cannot long endure to contemplate the prospect of his child’s ruin.

from the power of the grave … from death] Rather, from the hand of Sheól … from Death. Sheól and Death are used synonymously for the nether world (as in Isaiah 28:15; Psalm 6:5; Psalm 49:14). In Isaiah 5:14 Sheól has an enormous mouth; so here a hand.

O death … destruction] So Gesenius, following the Targum and Vulgate. But, as Dr Pusey remarks, on this view of the construction, we must render ‘I would be thy plagues’, &c., whereas the context requires an absolute declaration. Render therefore, Where are thy plagues, O Sheól? where thy pestilence, O Death? (Comp. Psalm 91:6 Hebr.). ‘The plagues are the mille viœ leti the many kinds of sickness, the most terrible of which is called “the firstborn of Death”, Job 18:13 (Hitzig). Though all the plagues which fill the dark city of Sheól were let loose upon Israel as a nation, they would be incapable of destroying Jehovah’s ‘son.’ St Paul quotes these words (1 Corinthians 15:55) in a translation of his own either as proving the doctrine of the Resurrection, or simply as well expressing his own triumphant feelings. Triumphant the tone of Hosea’s words certainly is, and hence some have thought Jehovah calls for the pestilences as agents in Israel’s threatened destruction, taking the first part of the verse interrogatively, ‘From the hand of Sheól should I ransom them? from Death should I redeem them?’ But this is not the most natural explanation, nor is it required on the above view of the context.

repentance shall be hid] Rather, repentance is hid. Perhaps an assurance of the irrevocable nature of the promise. But as the tone of promise is so transient, it seems better to take this clause in connexion with the threat of judgment in Hosea 13:12 of which indeed it may possibly once have formed the third member. At any rate, we need a resumption of threatening here, to prepare the way for the stern announcement in Hosea 13:15.

Verse 14. - I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. God here promises them deliverance from utter ruin; the grave shall be thus deprived of his victim, and the victim rescued out of the tyrant grasp of death. פָדָה is to redeem by payment of a price; גאל by right of kinship; while שְׁאול, the under world, is derived

(1) by some from ָשאַל, to ask or demand, and is favored by such statements as the following: "There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: the grave," and so on; "Who enlargeth his desire as well, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied." Others

(2) derive it from שאל, equivalent to שעל (by a softening of the ayin into aleph), to be hollow; but this signification of the word is not satisfactorily established. A third

(3) derivation is שׁוּל, to hang down loose or slack, then to be deep, or low, and so the noun comes to signify sinking, depth, abyss. O Death, I will be thy plagues; O Grave, I will be thy destruction. Thus אֶהִי is

(a) incorrectly taken by some for the first person future of היה; it is

(b) more properly taken in the sense of "where," as in ver. 10 of the present chapter. בְבָרֶיך is plural, referred by some to דָבָר, hence δικηῆ, LXX.; it is, however, the plural of

(c) דֶבֶר, pestilence, and קָטָבְך, pestilence, destruction, from קְטֹב, to cut off, akin to חטב. Hitzig says that קְבֹל קְטֹב, and קְטֹן are originally infinitives, and the last two designate instruments or members, and thus give a sort of support to the traditional κέντρον of the LXX. Now, this verse has been understood by some in the sense

(1) of consolation; and by others

(2) in that of combination.

In the latter sense it is understood by the Hebrew commentators, and by not a few Christian interpreters. Thus Rashi: "I am he who redeemed them from the hand of Sheol, and delivered them from death; but now I will set myself to speak against thee words of death." Aben Ezra: "I redeemed thy fathers; now I shall be thy deadly pestilence; I will also be thy destruction." Kimehi is more diffuse, as usual; he explains thus: "I would have redeemed them from the power of Sheol, if they had been wise. But now that he is not wise, but a feel, and denies my goodness, it is not enough that I shall not redeem thee from death, but I shall bring upon thee death by pestilence, and by the sword, and by famine, and by evil beast." The condition supplied by Kimchi is entirely arbitrary and without anything in the context to suggest it. Calvin in like manner interjects a condition; thus: "I will redeem them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death; that is, except they resist, I will become willingly their Redeemer. Some have, therefore, rendered the passage in the subjunctive mood, 'From the hand of the grave I would redeem them, from death I would deliver them.... I will then redeem them, as far as this depends on me;' for a condition is to be introduced, as though God came forth and declared that he was present to fulfill the office of a Redeemer. What, then, does stand in the way? Even the hardness of the people. He afterwards adds, 'I will be thy perdition, O Death; I will be thy excision, O Grave.' By these words the prophet more distinctly sets forth the power of God, and magnificently extols it, lest men should think that there is no way open to him to save, when no hope according to the judgment of the flesh appears. Hence the prophet says, 'Though men are now dead, there is yet nothing to prevent God to quicken them. How so? For he is the ruin of death, and the excision of the grave;' that is, 'Though death should swallow up all men, though the grave should consume them, yet God is superior to both death and the grave, for he can slay death, for he can abolish the grave.' He afterwards proceeds to "answer to that which is said of Paul quoting this passage. The solution is not difficult. The apostles do not avowedly at all times adduce passages which in their whole context apply to the subject they handle; but sometimes they allude to a word only, sometimes they apply a passage to a subject in the way of resemblance, and sometimes they bring forward passages as testimonies. When the apostles use the testimonies of Scripture, then the genuine and real truth must be sought out; but when they glance only at one word, there is no occasion to make any anxious inquiry; and when they quote any passage of Scripture in the way of resemblance, it is a too scrupulous anxiety to seek out how all the parts agree. But it is quite evident that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, has not quoted the testimony of the prophet for the purpose of confirming the doctrine el which he speaks. What then? As the resurrection of the flesh was a truth very difficult to be believed, nay, wholly contrary to the judgment of nature, Paul says that it is no matter of wonder...because it is the peculiar prerogative of God to be the perdition of death and the destruction of the grave.... He is endued with that incomprehensible power by which he can raise us from a state of putrefaction; nay, since he created the world from nothing, he will also raise us up from the grave, for he is the death of death, the grave of the grave, the ruin of ruin, and the destruction of destruction; and the simple object of Paul is to extol by these striking words that incredible power of God, which is beyond the reach of human understanding." Others viewing the subject in the same light, read the clauses interrogatively, and the imperfects in a subjunctive sense; thus -

"From the power of Sheol should I ransom them?
From death deliver them?' The answer being, "Certainly not."

"Where are thy pestilences. O Death?
Where is thy destruction, O Sheol?
Let those pestilences and that destruction
be produced for Ephraim's ruin." Repentance (relenting) shall be hid from mine eyes. This Rashi explains: "I will feel no regret over this calamity." But we greatly prefer the sense of consolation assigned by many Christian interpreters to the passage. No doubt the verse before and that following this fourteenth verse are a threat which probably induced so many, as we have seen, to include this verse in the menace. But the abruptness of the prophet's style sufficiently accounts for a bright Messianic promise to relieve the gloom of the dark predictions among which it is interjected. Redemption from the power of Sheol signifies, not merely deliverance from danger and deliverance from death, but deliverance from the under world by rescuing the living from the region of the dead, or rescuing from the realm of death those already subject to his grim dominion; while the destruction of death is celebrated in words of triumph, as Theodoret says, "He gives command to sing a paean over [literally, 'against'] death." To the Israelites the promise signified the power of the Lord to redeem from death and restore them from destruction to newness of life, just as the dead dry bones of Israel in the valley of Ezekiel's vision are restored to life. The use which Paul makes of this verse when he couples it with the words of Isaiah, "Death is swallowed up in victory," in 1 Corinthians 15:55, is to confirm the full and final annihilation of death at the resurrection. This fuller and deeper meaning, dimly unfolded to Old Testament saints, was clearly brought to light in New Testament Scripture. The absence of repentance denotes the irrevocable accomplishment of the Divine purpose of salvation. Pussy has pertinently remarked upon this verse: "God by his prophets mingles promises of mercy in the midst of his threats of punishment. His mercy overflows the bounds of the occasion upon which he makes it known. He had sentenced Ephraim to temporal destruction. This was unchangeable. He points to that which turns all temporal loss into gain, that eternal redemption. The words are the fullest which could have been chosen. The word rendered 'ransom' signifies rescued them by the payment of a price; the word rendered 'redeem' relates to one who, as the nearest of kin, had the right to acquire anything as his own by paying that price. Both words, in their exactest sense, describe what Jesus did, buying us with a price... and becoming our near kinsman by his incarnation.... The words refuse to be tied down to a temporal deliverance. A little longer continuance in Canaan is not a redemption from the power of the grave; nor was Ephraim so delivered." Hosea 13:14But in order to preserve believers from despair, the Lord announces in Hosea 13:14 that He will nevertheless redeem His people from the power of death. Hosea 13:14. "Out of the hand of hell will I redeem them; from death will I set them free! Where are thy plagues, O death? where thy destruction, O hell! Repentance is hidden from mine eyes." The fact that this verse contains a promise, and not a threat, would hardly have been overlooked by so many commentators, if they had not been led, out of regard to Hosea 13:13, Hosea 13:15, to put force upon the words, and either take the first clauses as interrogative, "Should I ... redeem?" (Calvin and others), or as conditional, "I would redeem them," with "si resipiscerent" (supplied (Kimchi, Sal. b. Mel. Ros., etc.). But apart from the fact that the words supplied are perfectly arbitrary, with nothing at all to indicate them, both of these explanations are precluded by the sentences which follow: for the questions, "Where are thy plagues, O death?" etc., are obviously meant to affirm the conquest or destruction of hell and death. And this argument retains its force even if we take אהי as an optative from היה, without regard to Hosea 13:10, since the thought, "I should like to be thy plague, O death," presupposes that deliverance from the power of death is affirmed in what comes before. But, on account of the style of address, we cannot take אהי even as an interrogative, in the sense of "Should I be," etc. And what would be the object of this gradation of thought, if the redemption from death were only hypothetical, or were represented as altogether questionable? If we take the words as they stand, therefore, it is evident that they affirm something more than deliverance when life is in danger, or preservation from death. To redeem or ransom from the hand (or power) of hell, i.e., of the under world, the realm of death, is equivalent to depriving hell of its prey, not only by not suffering the living to die, but by bringing back to life those who have fallen victims to hell, i.e., to the region of the dead. The cessation or annihilation of death is expressed still more forcibly in the triumphant words: "Where are thy plagues (pestilences), O death? where thy destruction, O hell?" of which Theodoret has aptly observed, παιανίζειν κατὰ θανάτου κελεύει. דּבריך is an intensive plural of debher, plague, pestilence, and is to be explained in accordance with Psalm 91:6, where we also find the synonym קטב in the form קטב, pestilence or destruction. The Apostle Paul has therefore very properly quoted these words in 1 Corinthians 15:55, in combination with the declaration in Isaiah 25:8, "Death is swallowed up in victory," to confirm the truth, that at the resurrection of the last day, death will be annihilated, and that which is corruptible changed into immortality. We must not restrict the substance of this promise, however, to the ultimate issue of the redemption, in which it will receive its complete fulfilment. The suffixes attached to 'ephdēm and 'eg'âlēm point to Israel of the ten tribes, like the verbal suffixes in Isaiah 25:8. Consequently the promised redemption from death must stand in intimate connection with the threatened destruction of the kingdom of Israel. Moreover, the idea of the resurrection of the dead was by no means so clearly comprehended in Israel at that time, as that the prophet could point believers to it as a ground of consolation when the kingdom was destroyed. The only meaning that the promise had for the Israelites of the prophet's day, was that the Lord possessed the power even to redeem from death, and raise Israel from destruction into newness of life; just as Ezekiel (ch. 37) depicts the restoration of Israel as the giving of life to the dry bones that lay scattered about the field. The full and deeper meaning of these words was but gradually unfolded to believers under the Old Testament, and only attained complete and absolute certainty for all believers through the actual resurrection of Christ. But in order to anticipate all doubt as to this exceedingly great promise, the Lord adds, "repentance is hidden from mine eyes," i.e., my purpose of salvation will be irrevocably accomplished. The ̔απ. λεγ. nōcham does not mean "resentment" (Ewald), but, as a derivative of nicham, simply consolation or repentance. The former, which the Septuagint adopts, does not suit the context, which the latter alone does. The words are to be interpreted in accordance with Psalm 89:36 and Psalm 110:4, where the oath of God is still further strengthened by the words ולא ינּחם, "and will not repent;" and לא ינחם corresponds to אם אכזּב in Psalm 89:36 (Marck and Krabbe, Quaestion. de Hos. vatic. spec. p. 47). Compare 1 Samuel 15:29 and Numbers 23:19. Hosea 13:14 Interlinear
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