Hosea 12:11

Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity. In reference to hypotheticals, Driver remarks, "With an imperfect in protasis. The apodosis may then begin

(a) hath vav con. and the perfect;

(b) with the infinitive (without vav ) ;

(c) with perfect alone (expressing the certainty and suddenness with which the result immediately accomplishes the occurrence of the promise. Hosea 12:12 ( היו in apodesis, 'of the certain future')." The first part of this clause has been variously rendered.

Some take אִם

(a) affirmatively, in the sense of certainly, assuredly; others translate it

(b) interrogatively, as in the Authorized Version, though even thus it would be more accurately rendered: Is Gilead iniquity of Pusey, following the common version, explains it as follows: 'The prophet asks the question in order to answer it more peremptorily. He raises the doubt in order to crush it the more impressively.' Is there iniquity in Gilead? 'Alas I there was nothing else. Surely they are vanity; or, strictly, they have become merely vanity ." There does not appear, however, sufficient reason for departing from the ordinary meaning of the word,

(c) namely, if thus, If Gilead i, iniquity (worthlessness), surely they have become vanity . The clause thus rendered may denote one of two things—either—

( α ) moral worthlessness followed by physical nothingness, that is, moral decay followed by physical—sin succeeded by suffering; or

( β ) progress in moral corruption. To the former exposition corresponds the comment of Kimchi, as follows: "'If Gilead began to work vanity (nothingness),' for they began to do wickedness first, and they have been first carried into captivity. אךְ שׁ can connect itself with what precedes, so that its meaning is about Gilead which he has mentioned, and the sense would be repeated in different words. Or its sense shall be in connection with Gilgal. And although zakeph is on the word היו , all the accents of the inter. prefers do not follow after the accents of the points." Similarly Rashi: "If disaster and oppression come upon them (the Gileadites) they have caused it to themselves, for certainly they are worthlessness, and sacrifies bullocks to idols in Gilgal. The verb הָיוּ is a prophetic perfect implying the certainty of the prediction, as though already an accomplished fact." The exposition of Aben Ezra favors ( β ); thus: "If the Gileadites, before I sent prophets to them, were worthlessness, surely they have become vanity, that is, instead of being morally better, they have become worse." To this exposition we find a parallel in Jeremiah 2:5 , "They have walked after vanity, and are become vain." They sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal. שְׁוָרים for שׁוֹמרים , like חֲוָחִים from חוֹחַ . The inhabitanta of Gilgal on the west were no better than the Gileadites on the east of Jordan; the whole kingdom, in fact, was overrun with idolatry. The sin of the people of Gilgal did not consist in the animals offered, but in the unlawfulness of the place of sacrifice. The punishment of both Gilgal and Gilead is denounced in the following part of the verse. Yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields. Gilead signified" heap of witnesses," and Gilgal "heaping heap. The latter was mentioned in Hosea 4:15 and Hosea 9:15 as a notable center of idol-worship ("all their wickedness is in Gilgal") and retained, as we learn from the present passage, its notoriety for unlawful sacrifices, sacrifices customarily and continually offered (viz. iterative sense of Piel); the former was signalized in Hosea 6:8 as "a city of them that work iniquity," and "polluted with blood." The altars in both places are to be turned into stone-heaps; this is expressed by a play on words so frequent in Hebrew; at Gilead as well as Gilgal they are to become gallim, or heaps of stones, such as husbandmen gather off ploughed and leave in useless heaps for the greater convenience of removal, חֶלֶם (related to toll, a hill, that which is thrown up) is a furrow as formed by casting up or tearing into. The ruinous heaps of the altars implied, not only their destruction, but the desolation of the country. The altars would become dilapidated heaps, and the country depopulated. The Hebrew interpreters, however, connect with the heap-like altars the idea of number and conspicuousness: this they make prominent as indicating the gross idolatry of the people. Thus Rabbi: "Their altars are numerous as heaps in the furrows of the field. תי שי is the furrow of the plougher, called telem ;" Aben Ezra: " כני is by way of figure, because they were numerous and conspicuous." Pococke combines with the idea of number that of ruinous heaps—"rude heaps of stones, in his sight; and such they should become, no one stone being left in order upon another." Kimchi's comment on the verse is the following: "The children of Gilgal were neighbors to the land of Gilead, only the Jordan was between them; they learnt also their ways (doings), and began to serve idols like them, and to practice iniquity and vanity, and sacrificed oxen to strange gods in the place where they had raised an altar to Jehovah the blessed, and where they had set up the tabernacle at the first after they had passed over Jordan: there also they sacrificed oxen to their idols. Not enough that they made an altar in Gilgal to idols, but they also built outside the city altars many and conspicuous, like heaps of stones on the furrows of the field."