What Does Hosea 7:5 Mean?
On the day of our king, the princes sicken him with flasks of wine. He draws his hand in with the scorners.
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
In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.THE KEY
Proverbs calls wine itself a “mocker,” so the king reaches toward the same scorn that surrounds his wine-filled feast.
THE MEANING
The verse shows intoxication making the king sick as his hand reaches toward scorners. His condition and his company belong to the same scene: excess reaches beyond the body and into the way power gathers around itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a ruler’s feast is merely celebration: here, wine brings sickness and draws the king into scorn.
THE ROOT
לֹצְצִים
lōṣəṣîm
GROWS FROM
לוץ
l-w-ṣ
to mock or deride
“scorners” in this verse is lōṣəṣîm. The word for the king’s companions shares its root with the word Proverbs uses when it calls wine a mocker. That echo lets the verse link the wine and the company around the king through the language of scorn.
ALSO GROWS
lēṣ: scorner, mocker
לֵץ
This is the word for “mocker” in Proverbs 20:1, where wine itself is called a לֵץ.
lāṣôn: scoffing, scorn
לָצוֹן
This related form names the posture of mockery, showing how the root can describe both the scorner and the scornful atmosphere.
הֶחֱלוּ
heḥĕlû
GROWS FROM
חלה
ḥ-l-h
to be weak or sick; in this causative form, to make sick
“sicken him” in this verse is heḥĕlû. The verb says more than that wine surrounds the king: the princes make him sick. The root’s language of illness keeps the bodily cost in view as the scene turns toward scorn.
ALSO GROWS
ḥolî: illness, sickness
חֹלִי
This noun from the same root makes the verse’s sickness part of a wider vocabulary of bodily affliction.
maḥălāh: illness, disease
מַחֲלָה
This branch also names illness, underscoring that the princes’ action registers as bodily harm.
THE PATTERN
When wine overwhelms discernment, those entrusted with public judgment become part of the disorder.
And these also stagger in wine, and reel in strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel in strong drink; they are swallowed by wine; they reel from the drink; they stagger in seeing; they stumble in judgment.It is not for kings, Lemuel; it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink. Lest they drink and forget the statute, and twist the judgment of all who are bowed.And do not become drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the breath.THE THREAD
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is roaring, and whoever reels in it is not wise.The Hebrew word translated “scorners” in Hosea shares its root with “mocker” in Proverbs. Proverbs names wine itself as a mocker, sharpening the scene: the king’s wine and the company he reaches toward meet in the language of scorn.
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