Bible Strands
Hosea 7:6
For they prepare their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Hosea addresses the princes and kings of Israel during a period of political instability and spiritual apostasy. He describes their internal state as they conspire against leadership while publicly maintaining a facade of piety.
The words — The Hebrew phrase קֵרְבּוּ כַתַּנּוּר (qerbu kattanur) literally translates to "they have brought near like an oven." It describes how the people internally heat their hearts into a state of concealed readiness for violence.
The thread — The motif of concealed plotting that erupts publicly appears in Psalms 10:8, where ambushers slay the innocent, and Micah 2:1, which condemns those who devise evil on their beds before acting at dawn.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that internal resentment and secret plotting inevitably manifest as destructive public action. It requires the reader to examine how hidden anger corrupts leadership and severs reliance on God.
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
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.
Cross-references
- Psalms 10:8 He lies in wait near the villages; in ambush he slays the innocent; his eyes watch in stealth for the helpless.
- Micah 2:1 Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.
- 1 Samuel 19:11 Then Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him and kill him in the morning. But David’s wife Michal warned him, “If you do not run for your life tonight, tomorrow you will be dead!”
- 2 Samuel 13:28 Now Absalom had ordered his young men, “Watch Amnon until his heart is merry with wine, and when I order you to strike Amnon down, you are to kill him. Do not be afraid. Have I not commanded you? Be courageous and valiant!”
- Proverbs 4:16 For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.
- Hosea 7:4 They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker who needs not stoke the fire from the kneading to the rising of the dough.
- Hosea 7:7 All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings fall; not one of them calls upon Me.
- Psalms 21:9 You will place them in a fiery furnace at the time of Your appearing. In His wrath the LORD will engulf them, and the fire will consume them.