Bible Strands
Hosea 8:1
Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the LORD, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet issues a divine warning to the northern kingdom of Israel, commanding them to sound a military alarm as an invading force approaches.
The words — The command to lift the shofar (שֹׁפָר, a ram’s horn) and the description of the nesher (נֶשֶׁר, an eagle) frame the imagery of sudden, overwhelming judgment.
The thread — This eagle motif echoes Deuteronomy 28:49’s warning of a distant nation swooping down, while the covenant breach parallels the unfaithfulness described in Hosea 6:7.
Why it lands — It demands recognition that political collapse follows directly from breaking a sworn agreement with God, leaving the reader to assess their own loyalty to divine law.
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
Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.
Cross-references
- Hosea 6:7 But they, like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; there they were unfaithful to Me.
- Deuteronomy 28:49 The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand,
- Jeremiah 4:13 Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!
- Hosea 5:8 Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah, the trumpet in Ramah; raise the battle cry in Beth-aven: Lead on, O Benjamin!
- Habakkuk 1:8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour.
- Hebrews 8:8 But God found fault with the people and said: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
- 2 Kings 18:27 But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
- Isaiah 18:3 All you people of the world and dwellers of the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it; when a ram’s horn sounds, you will hear it.
- Isaiah 24:5 The earth is defiled by its people; they have transgressed the laws; they have overstepped the decrees and broken the everlasting covenant.
- Isaiah 58:1 “Cry aloud, do not hold back! Raise your voice like a ram’s horn. Declare to My people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sins.