What Does Hosea 9:16 Mean in the King James?
Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.
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
Genesis links Ephraim’s name to fruitfulness, so the verse’s “no fruit” turns that name into the wound.
THE MEANING
“Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” The verse speaks now through a brutal inversion: the name linked with fruitfulness meets a dried root and no fruit. The Hebrew calls the children the precious ones of the womb, the KJV adds “fruit” here, so their value remains explicit as the verse names their killing.
THE ROOT
אֶפְרַיִם
Efrayim
GROWS FROM
פרה
To bear fruit; to become fruitful.
Genesis 41:52 links Ephraim’s name to הִפְרַנִי (hifrani, “he made me fruitful”), from this root. Here, “they shall bear no fruit” makes fruitlessness fall on the name linked with fruitfulness.
ALSO GROWS
hifrani: He made me fruitful
הִפְרַנִי
Genesis 41:52 uses this verb in the wordplay that explains Ephraim’s name.
peri: Fruit
פְּרִי
This is the Hebrew word for the first “fruit” in Hosea 9:16, making the contrast explicit.
מַחְמַדֵּי
maḥămaddê
GROWS FROM
חמד
To desire; to find desirable or precious.
The KJV says “beloved fruit of their womb,” but the Hebrew’s מַחְמַדֵּי בִטְנָם (maḥmaddê viṭnām, “the precious or desirable ones of their womb”) does not repeat פְּרִי (peri, “fruit”). The verse shifts from crop to offspring while keeping the children’s cherished value in view as it names their killing.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmad: To desire; to take delight in
חָמַד
This root names desire or valuing, showing the preciousness carried by “beloved.”
maḥmād: A desirable or precious thing
מַחְמָד
This singular form shares the stem of maḥmaddê, the word used for the precious ones of the womb.
THE PATTERN
When judgment reaches the source of life, its image extends from barren roots to severed branches and fruit.
Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.THE THREAD
I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.Hosea 9:16 says שָׁרְשָׁם (shorsham, “their root”) is dry; Hosea 14:5 repeats שָׁרָשָׁיו (shorashav, “his roots”), from שׁרש (sh-r-sh, “root; take root”), now casting forth like Lebanon. The pairing makes restoration concrete: the source dried here is pictured sending roots outward under the dew there.
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