What Does Hosea 6:4 Mean in the King James?
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.
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 calls your “goodness” faithful love, then measures it by whether it stays past sunrise.
THE MEANING
When your care appears and then disappears, this verse names the gap between tenderness in a moment and faithful love that endures. The morning cloud and dew are real, visible, and gone quickly. The question addresses you now in that instability.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sincere burst of affection is not the same as enduring love. The image shows that tenderness can be real and still fail to remain.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
chesed
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ד
Faithful love; loyal, sustaining kindness.
English “goodness” can sound like a quality or a pleasant gesture, but chesed carries the sense of faithful love that holds steady. The verse sets that enduring word beside morning cloud and dew to show how care can appear warmly and still evaporate.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: Faithful love, loyal kindness.
חֶסֶד
Hosea 6:6 uses this same word for the love God desires, bringing the contrast between fleeting and enduring love into focus.
chasid: A faithful or devoted one.
חָסִיד
This related form describes a person by the quality of chesed, linking faithful love to a way of being that lasts.
אֶפְרַיִם
Efrayim
GROWS FROM
פ־ר־ה
Bear fruit; become fruitful.
Ephraim’s name is explained through fruitfulness. The verse addresses this name alongside Judah’s, then says their faithful love fades: fruitfulness in a name does not itself make love endure.
ALSO GROWS
parah: To bear fruit, become fruitful.
פָּרָה
This is the word associated with Ephraim’s name in Genesis 41:52, so the address carries the nature of fruitfulness.
hifrah: Caused to bear fruit.
הִפְרָה
This form of the same root links Ephraim’s name with fruitfulness brought forth, sharpening the contrast with love that quickly disappears.
יְהוּדָה
Yehudah
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ה
Praise, give thanks, acknowledge.
Judah’s name carries the nature of praise. Here, even the name associated with praise stands alongside Ephraim as the verse describes love that does not remain.
ALSO GROWS
yadah: To praise, give thanks, or acknowledge.
יָדָה
This root is linked to Judah’s name through Leah’s words, “Now will I praise the LORD” in Genesis 29:35.
todah: Thanksgiving, praise.
תּוֹדָה
This related word makes the root’s movement from acknowledging to expressing praise audible within Judah’s name.
THE PATTERN
What depends on a passing moment fades, while faithful love is known by its endurance.
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.THE THREAD
For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.The Hebrew word translated “mercy” here is the same chesed used for “goodness” in Hosea 6:4. One verse says that love fades like dew; the next names that same faithful love as what is desired.
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