What Does Hosea 11:10 Mean?
They shall walk after the LORD. He shall roar like a lion, and when he roars, the sons shall tremble from the sea.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
They shall walk after the LORD: he shall roar like a lion: when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west.THE KEY
Here the lion’s roar is both force and summons: it shakes the distant children into movement after the LORD.
THE MEANING
The call reaches you from beyond your horizon, and you walk after the LORD. His roar stirs even the far-off children into trembling movement toward him.
THE ROOT
שָׁאַג
sha'ag
GROWS FROM
שׁאג
sha'ag
To roar, especially with a lion’s roar.
The Hebrew repeats the roar verb around the lion image, making the sound the verse’s hinge. Its force awakens the distant children into movement, so the roar also acts as a gathering call.
ALSO GROWS
she'agah: A roar; roaring.
שְׁאָגָה
This noun form makes the roar a distinct event, the sound whose force gathers attention.
sha'ag: To roar; he roared.
שָׁאַג
The verb is repeated in the verse, keeping the call active and insistent.
יֶחֶרְדוּ
yeḥerdu
GROWS FROM
חרד
charad
To tremble, quake, or be alarmed.
“tremble” in this verse is yeḥerdu. The verb carries bodily alarm: the children are shaken by the roar. The same verb returns in the next verse as they come like a bird from Egypt and a dove from Assyria, making trembling part of their movement across distance.
ALSO GROWS
charadah: Trembling, alarm, or terror.
חֲרָדָה
The noun keeps the body’s shaken response visible in the word family.
chared: Trembling or alarmed; one who trembles.
חָרֵד
This form describes the person in a state of trembling, echoing the children’s response to the roar.
יֵלֵכוּ
yelēkhu
GROWS FROM
הלך
halakh
To walk or go.
“walk” in this verse is yelēkhu. Halakh is movement along a way; following here has feet in it. The verse places the people’s walking after the LORD beside the distant children’s trembling response, so the call becomes movement.
ALSO GROWS
holekh: Going; one who walks.
הוֹלֵךְ
This form presents walking as ongoing movement, as in the people’s path after the LORD.
halikhah: Walking; a course or way of proceeding.
הֲלִיכָה
This noun carries the sense of a path taken, opening the lived direction within “walk after.”
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s call reaches across distance and gathers people into movement toward him.
They shall tremble like a bird from Egypt, and like a dove from the land of Assyria, and I will settle them upon their houses, declares the LORD.And in that day the great ram's horn will be blown, and those losing the way in the land of Assyria will come, and the driven ones in the land of Egypt, and they will bow down to the LORD on the set-apart mountain in Jerusalem.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
They shall tremble like a bird from Egypt, and like a dove from the land of Assyria, and I will settle them upon their houses, declares the LORD.The Hebrew verb translated “tremble” here repeats in the next verse. There, the trembling ones are pictured as a bird from Egypt and a dove from Assyria, then the LORD places them in their houses: the roar’s tremor is a return from distance.
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