What Does Hosea 5:12 Mean in the King James?
Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness.
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 verse pictures divine judgment as slow consumption: moth at the covering, rot at the core.
THE MEANING
God is named here as a moth to Ephraim and rot to Judah: judgment reaches both the covering and the substance, working quietly through what seems intact. For the reader now, the image names ruin that advances without one visible blow.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that only sudden, visible collapse counts as judgment gives way to the verse’s image of quiet erosion.
THE ROOT
רָקָב
rāqāb
GROWS FROM
רקב
r-q-b
to decay, rot
The noun רָקָב (rāqāb, rottenness) comes from רָקַב (rāqab, to decay): the root holds both the condition and the process. Set beside עָשׁ (ʿāsh, moth), it pictures consumption reaching the substance as well as the covering.
ALSO GROWS
rāqab: to decay, rot
רָקַב
The verb names the ongoing process that the verse presents as rottenness.
rāqāb: rot, rottenness
רָקָב
The noun names the condition produced by that process, showing how quiet decay can become what a thing is.
THE PATTERN
What appears protected can be consumed by gradual forces working beneath the surface.
And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.THE THREAD
And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.Job sets the same Hebrew images beside each other: רָקָב (rāqāb, rottenness) and עָשׁ (ʿāsh, moth). The paired images reveal a breakdown that reaches both what seems solid and what seems to cover it.
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