What Does Hosea 13:6 Mean?
According to their pasture, so they were filled; they filled themselves, and their heart rose up; therefore they have forgotten me.
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
According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.THE KEY
The danger is not being filled, but fullness lifting the heart until the source slips from view.
THE MEANING
You can be filled by what sustains you and still have your heart lift until the source slips from view. The verse names the danger in fullness closing attention around the self.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that having enough proves you are self-sustaining: fullness can coexist with forgetting the one who sustains you.
THE ROOT
שָׂבְעוּ
śāḇəʿū
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
ś-b-ʿ
To be sated, satisfied, or full.
“they filled themselves” in this verse is śāḇəʿū. The verse repeats this fullness verb, then turns immediately to the lifted heart: being sated is the hinge, not a condemnation of provision. The repetition makes the fullness palpable before the verse shows what follows when it closes around the self.
ALSO GROWS
śāvēaʿ: Satisfied, full.
שָׂבֵעַ
The related adjective describes the state of having enough, echoing the verse’s repeated fullness.
śōvaʿ: Satiety, fullness.
שֹׂבַע
This noun makes fullness a condition one inhabits, the condition from which the verse traces the heart’s rise.
וַיָּרָם
vayyārom
GROWS FROM
רום
rûm
To rise, be high, or lift up.
“rose up” in this verse is vayyārom. The heart is lifted high immediately before the verse names forgetting. The root reveals the inner elevation accompanying fullness, while the next clause traces its consequence.
ALSO GROWS
rām: High, elevated.
רָם
This adjective shares the root’s sense of height and clarifies the heart’s raised position.
hērîm: Lifted, raised.
הֵרִים
This causative form shows the same root’s action of bringing something upward.
שְׁכֵחוּנִי
šəkhēḥûnî
GROWS FROM
שכח
š-kh-ḥ
To forget, cease to remember.
“forgotten” in this verse is šəkhēḥûnî. The verb follows the lifted heart as its stated result. Here forgetting reads as more than a lapse in memory: it is losing awareness of the one who sustains them.
ALSO GROWS
šāḵaḥ: To forget.
שָׁכַח
This is the root verb in the verse’s closing claim.
nišḵaḥ: To be forgotten.
נִשְׁכַּח
The passive form shows the same root describing what falls out of remembrance.
THE PATTERN
When fullness closes into self-sufficiency, the heart loses sight of the one it depends on.
Then your heart is raised high, and you let the LORD your God slip from you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;Lest I be filled, and deny you, and say, Who is the LORD? Or lest I be emptied, and steal, and seize the name of my God.So is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.THE THREAD
Then your heart is raised high, and you let the LORD your God slip from you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;Hosea 13:6 and Deuteronomy 8:14 place the same two Hebrew roots in the same order: the heart is lifted (rûm) and then forgets (š-kh-ḥ). That shared sequence makes forgetting the consequence of the heart’s elevation, not a separate accident.
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