What Does Hosea 4:13 Mean in the King James?
They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery.
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 same shade called good shelters the offerings and the betrayal that follows, placing worship and sexual rupture under one canopy.
THE MEANING
Here, sacrifices rise on the heights and incense burns beneath trees whose shade is called good; the verse then names your daughters’ whoredom and your spouses’ adultery. Its accusation holds ritual and household betrayal in the same present scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a beautiful setting or sacred ritual guarantees fidelity: the same scene holds sacrifice and sexual betrayal together.
THE ROOT
תִּזְנֶינָה
tiznenah
GROWS FROM
זנה
Commit sexual infidelity; act as a prostitute.
“commit whoredom” in this verse is tiznenah. The root זנה (zanah, commit sexual unfaithfulness) names sexual betrayal directly, yet Hosea also uses it for Israel’s turning from God. That connection deepens the charge without making the women’s adultery a mere metaphor.
ALSO GROWS
zanah: To act with sexual unfaithfulness or as a prostitute.
זָנָה
This verb names the active charge made against the daughters in the verse.
zonah: A woman who engages in prostitution.
זוֹנָה
The noun carries the same ז־נ־ה consonants, showing the root naming a person as well as an act.
יְקַטֵּרוּ
yeqatteru
GROWS FROM
קטר
Cause to smoke; make sacrificial smoke rise.
“burn incense” in this verse is yeqatteru. The root קטר (qatar, make sacrificial smoke rise) describes an enacted offering, not just a pleasant scent. The verse sets this rising smoke beside the sexual unfaithfulness it names, holding ritual devotion and household rupture in one scene.
ALSO GROWS
qetoret: Incense burned as an offering.
קְטֹרֶת
This noun names what rises as smoke in the verse’s ritual scene.
maqtir: One who offers incense or causes an offering to smoke.
מַקְטִיר
This form names the agent of the same offering action described by the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture exposes divided worship by placing sexual unfaithfulness beside offerings to other gods.
The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.THE THREAD
My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.Hosea 4:12 uses the same root זנה (zanah, commit sexual unfaithfulness) in “whoredoms” and “gone a whoring,” binding sexual betrayal to turning from God. Beside it, 4:13’s household charge belongs to a wider accusation about worship and fidelity.
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