Hosea 2:5
New International Version
Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

New Living Translation
Their mother is a shameless prostitute and became pregnant in a shameful way. She said, ‘I’ll run after other lovers and sell myself to them for food and water, for clothing of wool and linen, and for olive oil and drinks.’

English Standard Version
For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Berean Standard Bible
For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’

King James Bible
For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

New King James Version
For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has behaved shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink.’

New American Standard Bible
“For their mother has committed prostitution; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

NASB 1995
“For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

NASB 1977
“For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Legacy Standard Bible
For their mother has played the harlot; She who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, Who give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Amplified Bible
“For their mother has played the prostitute; She who conceived them has acted shamefully, For she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers Who give me my food and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my [refreshing] drinks.’

Christian Standard Bible
Yes, their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought, “I will follow my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.”

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Yes, their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought, “I will go after my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.”

American Standard Version
for their mother hath played the harlot; she that conceived them hath done shamefully; for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Because their mother has been a whore and she who gave them birth has been shameful and she said ‘I will go after my lovers, givers of my bread and water and my clothing and my linen and my oil, and everything that I require’

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And their mother went a-whoring: she that bore them disgraced them: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, and my garments, and my linen clothes, my oil and my necessaries.

Contemporary English Version
Your mother was unfaithful. She was disgraceful and said, "I'll run after my lovers. Everything comes from them--my food and drink, my linen and wool, my olive oil and wine."

Douay-Rheims Bible
For their mother hath committed fornication, she that conceived them is covered with shame: for she said: I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread, and my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink.

English Revised Version
for their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Their mother acted like a prostitute. The woman who became pregnant with them did shameful things. She said, 'I'll chase after my lovers. They will give me food and water, wool and linen, olive oil and wine.'

International Standard Version
Indeed, their mother has committed prostitution— the one who has been conceiving them has acted disgracefully— when she said, 'I'm going after my lovers, who provide me food and water, as well as my wool, my flax, my oil, and my wine.'

JPS Tanakh 1917
For their mother hath played the harlot, She that conceived them hath done shamefully; For she said: 'I will go after my lovers, That give me my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.'

Literal Standard Version
For their mother has gone whoring, | Their conceiver has acted shamefully, | For she has said, I go after my lovers, | Those giving my bread and my water, | My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

Majority Standard Bible
For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’

New American Bible
Yes, their mother has prostituted herself; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

NET Bible
For their mother has committed adultery; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, "I will seek out my lovers; they are the ones who give me my bread and my water, my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine.

New Revised Standard Version
For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, “I will go after my lovers; they give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

New Heart English Bible
For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'

Webster's Bible Translation
For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

World English Bible
For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Young's Literal Translation
For gone a-whoring hath their mother, Acted shamefully hath their conceiver, For she hath said, I go after my lovers, Those giving my bread and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Israel's Adultery Rebuked
4I will have no compassion on her children, because they are the children of adultery. 5For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’ 6Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her path with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so she cannot find her way.…

Cross References
Isaiah 1:21
See how the faithful city has become a harlot! She once was full of justice; righteousness resided within her, but now only murderers!

Jeremiah 2:25
You should have kept your feet from going bare and your throat from being thirsty. But you said, 'It is hopeless! For I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.'

Jeremiah 3:1
"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him to marry another, can he ever return to her? Would not such a land be completely defiled? But you have played the harlot with many lovers--and you would return to Me?" declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 3:2
"Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

Jeremiah 44:17
Instead, we will do everything we vowed to do: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and offer drink offerings to her, just as we, our fathers, our kings, and our officials did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and good things, and we saw no disaster.

Jeremiah 44:18
But from the time we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been perishing by sword and famine."

Hosea 1:2
When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, "Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD."


Treasury of Scripture

For their mother has played the harlot: she that conceived them has done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.

their mother.

Hosea 2:2
Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

Hosea 3:1
Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.

Hosea 4:5,12-15
Therefore shalt thou fall in the day, and the prophet also shall fall with thee in the night, and I will destroy thy mother…

hath done.

Hosea 9:10
I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstripe in the fig tree at her first time: but they went to Baalpeor, and separated themselves unto that shame; and their abominations were according as they loved.

Ezra 9:6,7
And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens…

Jeremiah 2:26,27
As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed; they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, …

I will.

Hosea 2:13
And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.

Hosea 8:9
For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.

Isaiah 57:7,8
Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice…

give.

Hosea 2:8,12
For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal…

Judges 16:23
Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand.

Jeremiah 44:17,18
But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil…

drink.

Jump to Previous
Acted A-Whoring Birth Bread Conceived Disgrace Drink Flax Food Harlot Lovers Mother Oil Played Prostitute Shamefully Unfaithful Untrue Water Wool
Jump to Next
Acted A-Whoring Birth Bread Conceived Disgrace Drink Flax Food Harlot Lovers Mother Oil Played Prostitute Shamefully Unfaithful Untrue Water Wool
Hosea 2
1. The idolatry of the people.
6. God's judgments against them.
14. His promises of reconciliation with them.














(5) For their mother hath played . . .--We might render, with Ewald, yea, their mother hath played . . . This would more easily account for the change of person ("your ". . . "their "), which is, however, very frequent in Hebrew prophecy. The next "for" introduces a parenthetical clause--"her lovers"--a word used in a bad sense. The aggravation of her shame is that she seeks them, and not they her. She attributes to these idol-gods all those temporal benefits which theocratic history shows to have been Jehovah's gift, and the consequence of loyalty to Him. The modern analogue of this sin of Israel is the use of "Fortune," "Nature," "Destiny," "Impersonal Law," and even "Humanity," as the giver of all good things, as though it were superstitious or heretical to speak of God as the giver.

Verse 5. - Nor their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath dons shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers. The charge of idolatry under the figure of harlotry, spiritual harlotry, is reiterated. "Mother" is repeated in and emphasized by the parallel words, "she that conceived them." A somewhat similar form of expression is that in Psalm 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." To bosh, to be ashamed, belong the Hiphil forms, hebhish and hobhish (the latter formed from zabhish), properly "to put to shame," but also "to practice shame or do shameful things." The nature of her shameful conduct is more definitely and distinctly expressed in the clauses which follow; and consisted of several particulars. There is the persistent pursuit of her lovers; then the unblushing boldness with which she avows her determination to continue that course; and next come her expectations from them. That give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink (margin, drinks). The original word here rendered "lovers" is the Piel participle, which may have either its usual intensive sense or its occasional causative sense in which it is taken by Rosenmüller, who has "a-mare me facientes," equivalent to "wooers." It matters little which way we understand it. The more important point is to determine who or what are here meant by lovers. Most commentators understand them to be those nations whose friendship Israel set such store by - the Assyrians and the Egyptians. Thus Grotius and Jerome, - the latter explains them of the Assyrians and Egyptians and other nations, with whose idols Israel committed fornication, and from which in distress they vainly hoped for help; so also Kimchi, in the following comment: "By 'friends ' he implies the Assyrians and Egyptians joined in alliance to the Israelites, who delivered them from their enemies, so that they lived safely, in return for the gifts (tribute) which they (the Israelites) were in the habit of giving them. And as they lived in tranquility in virtue of the compact entered into with them, the prophet represents it as if they supplied them with all the necessaries of life. For with their help they tilled their land without fear and in safety traded from country to country." Kimchi quotes at the same time his father's (Joseph Kimchi) interpretation: "But my lord my father of blessed memory explained 'after her lovers' of the sun and moon and stars, which they worshipped; while their intention was that they gave them their food and their sufficiency, as they said, 'But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.'" This exposition of Joseph Kimchi is much nearer the truth than that of his son David; it is, however, too restricted. The "lovers" were the idols on which the people of the northern kingdom so dented, and on which they placed so much dependence. The blessings which they vainly expected from these idols are enumerated: they were - food and raiment and luxuries; the bread and water were the articles of food as it is written elsewhere. "Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure;" the wool and flax were the materials for clothing; while the oil and drinks were, the former for ornament, the latter for refresh-merit, and so included all luxuries; thus in Psalm 23:5, "Thou anointest my head with oil;" and in Psalm 102:9, "And mingled my drink [literally, 'drinks,' the same word, shigguyar] with weeping;" also in Psalm 104:15 we read of "wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengthened man's heart."

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
For
כִּ֤י (kî)
Conjunction
Strong's 3588: A relative conjunction

their mother
אִמָּ֔ם (’im·mām)
Noun - feminine singular construct | third person masculine plural
Strong's 517: A mother, )

has played the harlot
זָֽנְתָה֙ (zā·nə·ṯāh)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person feminine singular
Strong's 2181: To commit adultery, to commit idolatry

and has conceived them
הֽוֹרָתָ֑ם (hō·w·rā·ṯām)
Verb - Qal - Participle - feminine singular construct | third person masculine plural
Strong's 2029: To conceive, become pregnant

in disgrace.
הֹבִ֖ישָׁה (hō·ḇî·šāh)
Verb - Hifil - Perfect - third person feminine singular
Strong's 3001: To be ashamed, confused, disappointed, to dry up, wither

For
כִּ֣י (kî)
Conjunction
Strong's 3588: A relative conjunction

she thought,
אָמְרָ֗ה (’ā·mə·rāh)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person feminine singular
Strong's 559: To utter, say

‘I will go
אֵלְכָ֞ה (’ê·lə·ḵāh)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect Cohortative - first person common singular
Strong's 1980: To go, come, walk

after
אַחֲרֵ֤י (’a·ḥă·rê)
Preposition
Strong's 310: The hind or following part

my lovers,
מְאַהֲבַי֙ (mə·’a·hă·ḇay)
Verb - Piel - Participle - masculine plural construct | first person common singular
Strong's 157: To have affection f

who give me
נֹתְנֵ֤י (nō·ṯə·nê)
Verb - Qal - Participle - masculine plural construct
Strong's 5414: To give, put, set

bread
לַחְמִי֙ (laḥ·mî)
Noun - masculine singular construct | first person common singular
Strong's 3899: Food, bread, grain

and water,
וּמֵימַ֔י (ū·mê·may)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine plural construct | first person common singular
Strong's 4325: Water, juice, urine, semen

wool
צַמְרִ֣י (ṣam·rî)
Noun - masculine singular construct | first person common singular
Strong's 6785: Wool

and linen,
וּפִשְׁתִּ֔י (ū·p̄iš·tî)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - feminine singular construct | first person common singular
Strong's 6593: Flax, linen

oil
שַׁמְנִ֖י (šam·nî)
Noun - masculine singular construct | first person common singular
Strong's 8081: Grease, liquid, richness

and drink.’
וְשִׁקּוּיָֽי׃ (wə·šiq·qū·yāy)
Conjunctive waw | Noun - masculine plural construct | first person common singular
Strong's 8250: A beverage, moisture, refreshment


Links
Hosea 2:5 NIV
Hosea 2:5 NLT
Hosea 2:5 ESV
Hosea 2:5 NASB
Hosea 2:5 KJV

Hosea 2:5 BibleApps.com
Hosea 2:5 Biblia Paralela
Hosea 2:5 Chinese Bible
Hosea 2:5 French Bible
Hosea 2:5 Catholic Bible

OT Prophets: Hosea 2:5 For their mother has played the prostitute (Ho Hs Hos.)
Hosea 2:4
Top of Page
Top of Page