What Does Hosea 13:3 Mean in the King James?
Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.
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 dew does not merely vanish: its Hebrew description says it is “going,” using the same root that names a person’s walk.
THE MEANING
The verse presents a people as exposed to disappearance: cloud, dew, chaff, and smoke are visible, yet none can hold its shape. Its force is not only that life is brief, but that what seems present can be carried off by forces it cannot command.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that visibility guarantees security: every image is seen, and every image is already on its way out of sight.
THE ROOT
הֹלֵךְ
holekh
GROWS FROM
הלך
to go, walk; move along
“passeth away” in this verse is holekh. The dew is described with הֹלֵךְ (holekh, “going/walking”), from הלך (halakh, “to go/walk”). English renders its movement as passing away, while the same root names a person’s walking and a journey: the disappearance is expressed as a going, a movement from presence out of sight.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: To go or walk
הָלַךְ
The root behind the dew’s passing away also names ordinary movement along a path.
halikhah: Walking; a journey
הֲלִיכָה
This noun from the same root makes the verse’s vanishing image a form of movement, not merely a state of absence.
THE PATTERN
A presence can be real and visible while remaining temporary and easily swept away.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.THE THREAD
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.The Hebrew root הָלַךְ (halakh, “to go/walk”) lies beneath Hosea’s “passeth away” and the psalm’s “walketh.” The dew goes out of sight, while a person walks a path; one root connects both movements.
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