Hosea 11:9

"“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused."

Key Reflection

In Hosea 11:9, God expresses His deep-seated love and unwavering commitment to Israel despite their repeated rebellions. The prophet uses vivid imagery by referencing Admah and Zeboiim, two cities destroyed in the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative (Genesis 19), to emphasize the severity of the judgments that were averted due to God’s compassion. For the original audience, this verse would have been a stark reminder of God's past deliverance from such catastrophic destruction, highlighting His ongoing desire for their repentance and restoration over punishment.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger -It is the voice of “mercy, rejoicing over judgment.” mercy prevails in God over the rigor of His justice, that though He will not suffer them to go utterly unpunished, yet He will abate of it, and not utterly consume them. I will not return to destroy Ephraim -God saith that He will not, as it were, glean Ephraim, going over it again, as man doth, in order to leave nothing over. As it is in Jeremiah, “They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel, as a vine.

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