What Does Hosea 7:13 Mean in the King James?
Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against me.
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 holds redemption and rebellion together: being redeemed does not make the continuing break or its false speech vanish.
THE MEANING
The reader is addressed inside a relationship where redemption is real and the rupture is still active: flight and rebellion lead toward destruction, while lies are still spoken against God. The verse refuses to let either side cancel the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that redemption means the relationship is automatically restored: the verse places deliverance beside ongoing flight, rebellion, and lies.
THE ROOT
פָּשְׁעוּ
pashʿu
GROWS FROM
פשע
To rebel, revolt, or break away.
The root holds revolt and breakaway, so “transgressed” carries the force of severing allegiance, not merely missing a rule. Hosea sets that rupture beside lies spoken against God, making the distance both relational and verbal.
ALSO GROWS
peshaʿ: Rebellion, revolt.
פֶּשַׁע
The noun shares the root’s consonants and names the rupture behind the verb in this verse.
posheaʿ: A rebel; one who rebels.
פֹּשֵׁעַ
This form shares the same root and makes the person acting in rebellion visible.
שֹׁד
shod
GROWS FROM
שדד
To lay waste, plunder, or devastate.
“destruction” in this verse is shod. שֹׁד names devastation, while its שדד family names the act of ravaging or plundering. The verse gives the rupture a force that tears down.
ALSO GROWS
shadad: To devastate or plunder.
שָׁדַד
It shares the root’s consonants and names the destructive action associated with שֹׁד.
shoded: A devastator or plunderer.
שֹׁדֵד
It shares the root’s consonants and names the agent who brings devastation.
כְּזָבִים
kezavim
GROWS FROM
כזב
To lie, be false, or prove false.
The root carries both falsehood and the act of being false. Here the lies are spoken against God, so the break is sustained by speech as well as by departure.
ALSO GROWS
kazav: A lie or falsehood.
כָּזָב
It shares the root’s consonants and names the falsehood spoken in this verse.
kazav: To lie or prove false.
כָּזַב
It shares the root’s consonants and shows the action behind the plural “lies.”
THE PATTERN
Relational rupture becomes visible in both departure from God and speech that falsifies the bond.
Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues.In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:THE THREAD
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.Isaiah uses the same root פשע for “rebelled,” making Hosea’s “transgressed” an active break in allegiance. The shared root reveals that the rupture is more than distance: it is rebellion within a relationship.
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