What Does Hosea 12:7 Mean in the King James?
He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The hand that cheats in trade and the hand that oppresses share one movement: pressing another into less room.
THE MEANING
When the measure is bent, exchange becomes a way of shrinking someone else’s room to live. The verse exposes the desire behind the deceitful balance: oppression is not an accident of the transaction but something the merchant loves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that an exchange is fair simply because both sides take part in it.
THE ROOT
לַעֲשֹׁק
la'ashoq
GROWS FROM
עשק
to press upon, defraud, or oppress
The verse’s “loves to oppress” is not separate from the deceitful scales: the root holds exploitation and pressure together. The same root names the oppressor’s act and the oppressed person’s condition, showing how hidden fraud narrows another’s life.
ALSO GROWS
osheq: oppression, extortion
עֹשֶׁק
The deceitful measure produces the very oppression named by this related word.
ashuq: one who is oppressed or defrauded
עָשׁוּק
This branch makes visible the person pressed down by the merchant’s practice.
מִרְמָה
mirmāh
GROWS FROM
רמה
to deceive or act treacherously
Deceit here is built into the means of weighing, so distortion is part of the exchange itself. The root’s branches connect deception with treacherous dealing, exposing how a false measure can hide the pressure being put on another.
ALSO GROWS
ramah: to deceive or betray
רָמָה
This verb names the treacherous act concealed inside the merchant’s balance.
remiyyah: deceit, fraud
רְמִיָּה
This related word shows deceit as a practice that can shape an entire exchange.
THE PATTERN
When the measure or payment is rigged, exchange becomes a tool for pressing another person.
A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.Hosea’s לַעֲשֹׁק (la’ashoq, “to oppress”) and Exodus’s עֹשֶׁק (osheq, “oppression”) and עֹשְׁקִים (osheqim, “oppress”) share the root עשק. The same root reveals that a rigged balance and the oppressor’s power enact the same pressure.
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