What Does Hosea 5:7 Mean?
They have dealt treacherously against the LORD, for they have borne children of strangers; now a new moon will devour them with their portions.
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 have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions.THE KEY
The month itself becomes the eater: betrayal’s offspring and the share assigned to them are consumed together.
THE MEANING
The verse names treachery against the LORD as a breach that brings forth children described as foreign to the bond. The coming month devours them along with their allotted share, so the consequence reaches both their offspring and what was apportioned to them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that betrayal can produce a future while leaving its share secure.
THE ROOT
יֹאכְלֵם
yōḵəlēm
GROWS FROM
אכל
To eat, consume.
“devour” in this verse is yōḵəlēm. The Hebrew verb is the ordinary word for eating: the month is grammatically the eater, and the people and their portions are what it eats. The image makes the loss concrete, their allotted share goes down with them.
ALSO GROWS
ʾokhel: Food.
אֹכֶל
This noun from the same root makes the verse’s eating image tangible: what is consumed becomes food.
maʾakhal: Food; something to eat.
מַאֲכָל
This related word also names what can be consumed, underscoring that their share is included in the month’s devouring.
חֹדֶשׁ
chodesh
GROWS FROM
חדש
To be new; to renew.
“a new moon” in this verse is chodesh. Chodesh means month and is tied to the new moon; its root carries the sense of newness and renewal. Here the month is more than a date on the calendar: it is the agent that arrives and consumes.
ALSO GROWS
chadash: New.
חָדָשׁ
This adjective from the same root reveals the newness inside the word for month.
chiddesh: Renew; make new.
חִדֵּשׁ
This verb carries the root’s renewal sense, which gives the coming month’s arrival added force in the verse.
חֶלְקֵיהֶם
ḥelqêhem
GROWS FROM
חלק
To divide or apportion; a share set apart.
The word for their portions comes from a root of dividing and apportioning. The verse says the month consumes what has been assigned as theirs, carrying the loss into their share itself.
ALSO GROWS
chalaq: To divide; apportion.
חָלַק
The verb shows the action behind a portion: something divided out or assigned.
chelqah: A plot or parcel of land.
חֶלְקָה
This related noun names a specific allotted piece, making the idea of an assigned share concrete.
THE PATTERN
What is brought forth through unfaithfulness grows into a consequence that consumes the share attached to it.
For they sow breath, and they will reap the whirlwind. It has no stalk. The sprout will yield no meal. If it yields, strangers will swallow it up.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.THE THREAD
The fruit of your ground, and all your toil, shall a nation you have never known devour. And you shall be only pressed and crushed all the days.The same root אכל (akal, “eat; consume”) drives Hosea’s “devour” and Deuteronomy’s “eat up.” Deuteronomy names a nation as the eater and the land’s fruit and labor as its food, sharpening Hosea’s image of the allotted share being consumed.
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