Bible Strands
Hosea 2:12
I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Israel, personified as an unfaithful wife, immediately after declaring the end of her religious feasts and just before detailing punishment for her Baal worship.
The words — וַ/הֲשִׁמֹּתִ֗י (va./ha.shi.mo.Ti) means "and I will devastate," and אֶתְנָ֥ה ('et.Nah) translates literally to "wages."
The thread — The motif of cultivated land becoming overgrown appears in Isaiah 7:23, where a thousand-vine place yields only briers and thorns, while Isaiah 5:5 describes a vineyard's hedge removed so the land is consumed and trampled.
Why it lands — It demands recognition that attributing agricultural provision to false gods is a delusion that invites divine reversal, leaving what was cultivated to ruin.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 5:5 Now I will tell you what I am about to do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled.
- Isaiah 7:23 And on that day, in every place that had a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels of silver, only briers and thorns will be found.
- Hosea 2:5 For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’
- Hosea 13:8 Like a bear robbed of her cubs I will attack them, and I will tear open their chests. There I will devour them like a lion, like a wild beast tearing them apart.
- Psalms 80:12 Why have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass by pick its fruit?
- Isaiah 29:17 In a very short time, will not Lebanon become an orchard, and the orchard seem like a forest?
- Isaiah 32:13 and for the land of my people, overgrown with thorns and briers—even for every house of merriment in this city of revelry.
- Jeremiah 8:13 I will take away their harvest, declares the LORD. There will be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the tree, and even the leaf will wither. Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.”
- Jeremiah 26:18 “Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and told all the people of Judah that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.’
- Hosea 9:1 Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.