What Does Hosea 7:7 Mean in the King James?
They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto 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
A community’s fire becomes self-consuming when it burns through judgment and rule until no voice remains to call beyond itself.
THE MEANING
The verse shows the present shape of communal collapse: heat consumes judges, kings fall, and no one turns a call toward the LORD. The damage reaches both the structures that order life and the voice that could appeal beyond them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that people in authority can remain untouched while the community’s heat consumes its judges and rulers.
THE ROOT
שֹׁפְטֵיהֶם
shofṭêhem
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, govern, or vindicate.
English names the judges as people; Hebrew places them in a root that also names judgment and justice. Devouring the judges therefore signals the consumption of the very order they administer.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: Judge or governor.
שֹׁפֵט
This is the person whose role is being consumed in the verse.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or ordinance.
מִשְׁפָּט
The same root names the standard and order carried out by the judges.
יֵחַמּוּ
yēḥammû
GROWS FROM
חמם
To become hot or grow warm.
“hot” in this verse is yēḥammû. The verb presents heat as a condition taking hold of the whole group, pictured as an oven’s fire. The verse shows what that heat does: it reaches the judges and rulers until the community’s order itself is consumed.
ALSO GROWS
ḥom: Heat or warmth.
חֹם
This noun carries the same felt condition named by the verb in the verse.
ḥam: Hot or warm.
חַם
This adjective describes the state that the verse pictures spreading through the whole group.
קֹרֵא
qōrēʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call, summon, or proclaim.
“calleth” in this verse is qōrēʾ. The verse names a specific absence: no voice calls toward the LORD. This root can also describe reading aloud or proclaiming, so the missing call belongs to a word-family that carries both appeal and public voice.
ALSO GROWS
qārāʾ: To call, summon, or read aloud.
קָרָא
It is the verb behind the absent call at the end of the verse.
miqrāʾ: A reading, proclamation, or convocation.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows the root extending from an individual call into public proclamation or gathering.
THE PATTERN
When heat takes over a community, it consumes the institutions that should order it and can silence appeal beyond itself.
For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression.And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.THE THREAD
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.Both verses use קרא (q-r-ʾ; qara, call or summon): Hosea names its absence, while Joel names the call as the opening to deliverance. Joel directs that call to the LORD’s name, שֵׁם (shem, name as nature), linking the voice that is missing here to a call turned toward who the LORD is.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us