What Does Hosea 6:10 Mean in the King James?
I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled.
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
Ephraim’s whoredom is followed by Israel’s defilement: the verse shows unfaithfulness marking the whole house, not staying with one part.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks of a rupture that is seen and named: Ephraim’s whoredom reaches into Israel’s shared life, and the whole people bear the condition of defilement. Its language holds sexual unfaithfulness and covenant betrayal together without softening either.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that private disloyalty leaves the wider community untouched is undone here: the verse names Israel as defiled.
THE ROOT
זְנוּת
zenut
GROWS FROM
זנה
zanah
To commit sexual unfaithfulness; to act as a prostitute.
The root can name both prostitution and the unfaithfulness Hosea uses to describe divided covenant loyalty. English can make “whoredom” sound like a single act, while the Hebrew keeps the wider pattern of unfaithfulness in view.
ALSO GROWS
zonah: A prostitute.
זוֹנָה
The related word keeps the person and the pattern of unfaithfulness within the same root family.
zenunim: Acts of unfaithfulness; whoredoms.
זְנוּנִים
This plural form shows how the root can describe an ongoing pattern, illuminating the charge against Ephraim.
נִטְמָא
nitma
GROWS FROM
טמא
tame
To be unclean or become defiled.
“defiled” in this verse is nitma. The Hebrew presents Israel as having entered a state of defilement, carrying the consequence beyond Ephraim’s named whoredom. The verse moves from the act to the condition of the whole people.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean; defiled.
טָמֵא
This adjective names the condition Israel is in.
tum’ah: Uncleanness; defilement.
טֻמְאָה
This noun makes the same root’s condition explicit, showing that defilement is more than a passing act.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats sexual unfaithfulness as an act whose defilement reaches the body or the shared land and community.
Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.THE THREAD
I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me: for now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled.Hosea 5:3 repeats the same roots for whoredom and defilement, pairing them as Hosea 6:10 does. Its words “not hid from me” open this verse further: what is called horrible is seen, and Israel’s condition is laid bare.
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