What Does Hosea 2:14 Mean in the King James?
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
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
Hebrew places מִדְבָּר (midbar, “wilderness”) beside וְדִבַּרְתִּי (vedibbarti, “I will speak”): the place that sounds like silence resonates with speech.
THE MEANING
The voice that draws you into the wilderness speaks to your heart there. You are addressed within the place that feels empty; the wilderness does not mean the voice has left.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that entering a wilderness means you have been abandoned; here, intimate speech meets you within it.
THE ROOT
מְפַתֶּיהָ
mephatteha
GROWS FROM
פתה
p-t-h
To be simple or inexperienced; in other forms, to persuade, entice, or deceive.
The word belongs to a family that names both persuasion and the person who may be persuaded. So “allure” carries a live tension: she is drawn into a vulnerable place, and what follows is speech directed to her heart.
ALSO GROWS
peti: A naïve or easily persuaded person.
פֶּתִי
This branch shows the root’s range includes susceptibility as well as the act of persuading.
niftah: To be persuaded or enticed; in some contexts, to be deceived.
נִפְתָּה
This form preserves the ambiguity inside “allure”: the drawing can carry persuasion, with vulnerability close beside it.
וְדִבַּרְתִּי עַל־לִבָּהּ
vedibbarti al-libbāh
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak, utter, or address.
“speak comfortably” in this verse is vedibbarti al-libbāh. The Hebrew idiom pictures speaking “upon her heart,” making the address intimate and inward. Nearby, מִדְבָּר (midbar, “wilderness”) echoes the consonants of דָּבָר (davar, “word”); the line lets the wilderness resonate with speech without requiring that one word derive from the other.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The speaking carries a word or matter into the heart’s hearing.
dibber: To speak or address.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form shares the seed of the verse’s “I will speak,” keeping the focus on direct address.
THE PATTERN
The wilderness can become the place where a voice meets the hearer and opens a way through desolation.
Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.THE THREAD
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.Hosea’s וְדִבַּרְתִּי עַל־לִבָּהּ (vedibbarti al-libbāh, “I will speak to her heart”) and Isaiah’s דַּבְּרוּ עַל־לֵב (dabberu al-lev, “speak to the heart”) use the same construction. The comfort in both verses is directed to the inward self.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us