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Selected Verse: Hosea 13:14 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Ho 13:14 |
King James |
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
Applying primarily to God's restoration of Israel from Assyria partially, and, in times yet future, fully from all the lands of their present long-continued dispersion, and political death (compare Hos 6:2; Isa 25:8; Isa 26:19; Eze 37:12). God's power and grace are magnified in quickening what to the eye of flesh seems dead and hopeless (Rom 4:17, Rom 4:19). As Israel's history, past and future, has a representative character in relation to the Church, this verse is expressed in language alluding to Messiah's (who is the ideal Israel) grand victory over the grave and death, the first-fruits of His own resurrection, the full harvest to come at the general resurrection; hence the similarity between this verse and Paul's language as to the latter (Co1 15:55). That similarity becomes more obvious by translating as the Septuagint, from which Paul plainly quotes; and as the same Hebrew word is translated in Hos 13:10, "O death, where are thy plagues (paraphrased by the Septuagint, 'thy victory')? O grave, where is thy destruction (rendered by the Septuagint, 'thy sting')?" The question is that of one triumphing over a foe, once a cruel tyrant, but now robbed of all power to hurt.
repentance shall be hid from mine eyes--that is, I will not change My purpose of fulfilling My promise by delivering Israel, on the condition of their return to Me (compare Hos 14:2-8; Num 23:19; Rom 11:29). |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
I will ransom them from the power of the grave - Literally, "from the hand," i. e., the "grasp of the grave," or "of hell." God, by His prophets, mingles promises of mercy in the midst of His threats of punishment. His mercy overflows the bounds of the occasion upon which He makes it known. He had sentenced Ephraim to temporal destruction. This was unchangeable. He points to that which turns all temporal less into gain, their eternal redemption. The words are the fullest which could have been chosen. The word rendered "ransom," signifies, rescued them by the payment of a price, the word rendered "redeem," relates to one, who, as the nearest of kin, had the right to acquire anything as his own, by paying that price. Both words, in their exactest sense, describe what Jesus did, buying us "with a price," a full and dear price, "not of corruptible things, as of silver and gold, but with His precious blood" Pe1 1:18-19; and that, becoming our near kinsman, by His Incarnation, "for which cause He is not ashamed to call us brethren Heb 2:11, and "little children" Joh 13:33.
This was never done by God at any other time, than when, out of love for our lost world, "He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" Joh 3:16; and He "came to give His life a ransom for many" (Mat 20:28, add Ti1 2:6). Then only was man really delivered from the "grasp" of the "grave;" so that "the first death" should only be a freedom from corruption, an earnest, and, to fallen man, a necessary condition of immortality; man "the second death" should "have no power over" them Rev 20:6. : Thenceforward "death, the parent of sorrow, ministers to joy; death, our dishonor, is employed to our glory; the "gate of hell" is the portal to the kingdom of heaven; the "pit of destruction" is the entrance to salvation; and that to man, a sinner." At no other time , "were men freed from death and the grave, so as to make any distinction between them and others subject to mortality." The words refuse to be tied down to a temporal deliverance. A little longer continuance in Canaan is not a redemption from the power of the grave; nor was Ephraim so delivered. Words of God , "cannot mean so little, while they express so much." Then and then alone were they, in their literal meaning, fulfilled when God the Son "took" our flesh, "that, through death, He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage" Heb 2:14-15.
The Jews have a tradition wrapped up in their way, that this was to be accomplished in Christ. : "I went with the angel Kippod, and Messiah son of David went with me, until I came to the gates of hell. When the prisoners of hell saw the light of the Messiah, they wished to receive him, saying, this is he who will bring us out of this darkness, as it is written, 'I will redeem them from the hand of hell. '"
: "Not without reason is the vouchsafed mercy thus once and again outspoken to us, "I will ranson them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death." It is said in regard to that twofold death whereby we all died in Adam, of the body and of the soul." "O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction." So full is God's word, that the sense remains the same, amid much difference of rendering. Christ was the death of death, when He became subject to it; the destruction of the grave when He lay in the tomb. Yet to render it in the form of a question is most agreeable to the language. "O death, where are thy plagues? O grave, where is thy destruction?" It is a burst of triumph at the promised redemption, then fulfilled to us in earnest and in hope, when "Christ," being "risen from the dead, became the First-fruits of them that slept" Co1 15:20, and we rose in Him. But the Apostle teaches us, that then it shall be altogether fulfilled, when, at the Last Day, "this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality" Co1 15:54. "Then shall death and hell deliver up the dead which shall be in them, and themselves be cast into the lake of fire" Rev 20:13-14. "Then shall there be no sting of death; sorrow and sighing shall flee away; fear and anxiety shall depart; tears shall be no more, and in place thereof shall be boundless pleasure, everlasting joy, praise of the glory of God in most sweet harmony." But now too, through death, the good man "ceases to die, and begins to live;" he "dies wholly to the world, that he may live perfectly with God; the soul returns to the Author of its being, and is hidden in the hidden presence of God" .
Death and hell had no power to resist, and God says that He will not alter His sentence; "Repentance shall be hid from Mine eyes;" as the Apostle says, "the gifts and calling of God are with out repentance" Rom 11:29. |
The Scofield Bible Commentary, by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, [1917] |
redeem
Hebrew, "goel," Redemption (Kinsman type).
(See Scofield) - (Isa 59:20).
death
(Co1 15:55).
O grave
Hebrew, "Sheol," also in preceding clause.
(See Scofield) - (Hab 2:5).
|
Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
But in order to preserve believers from despair, the Lord announces in Hos 13:14 that He will nevertheless redeem His people from the power of death. Hos 13:14. "Out of the hand of hell will I redeem them; from death will I set them free! Where are thy plagues, O death? where thy destruction, O hell! Repentance is hidden from mine eyes." The fact that this verse contains a promise, and not a threat, would hardly have been overlooked by so many commentators, if they had not been led, out of regard to Hos 13:13, Hos 13:15, to put force upon the words, and either take the first clauses as interrogative, "Should I ... redeem?" (Calvin and others), or as conditional, "I would redeem them," with "si resipiscerent" (supplied (Kimchi, Sal. b. Mel. Ros., etc.). But apart from the fact that the words supplied are perfectly arbitrary, with nothing at all to indicate them, both of these explanations are precluded by the sentences which follow: for the questions, "Where are thy plagues, O death?" etc., are obviously meant to affirm the conquest or destruction of hell and death. And this argument retains its force even if we take אהי as an optative from היה, without regard to Hos 13:10, since the thought, "I should like to be thy plague, O death," presupposes that deliverance from the power of death is affirmed in what comes before. But, on account of the style of address, we cannot take אהי even as an interrogative, in the sense of "Should I be," etc. And what would be the object of this gradation of thought, if the redemption from death were only hypothetical, or were represented as altogether questionable? If we take the words as they stand, therefore, it is evident that they affirm something more than deliverance when life is in danger, or preservation from death. To redeem or ransom from the hand (or power) of hell, i.e., of the under world, the realm of death, is equivalent to depriving hell of its prey, not only by not suffering the living to die, but by bringing back to life those who have fallen victims to hell, i.e., to the region of the dead. The cessation or annihilation of death is expressed still more forcibly in the triumphant words: "Where are thy plagues (pestilences), O death? where thy destruction, O hell?" of which Theodoret has aptly observed, παιανίζειν κατὰ θανάτου κελεύει. דּבריך is an intensive plural of debher, plague, pestilence, and is to be explained in accordance with Psa 91:6, where we also find the synonym קטב in the form קטב, pestilence or destruction. The Apostle Paul has therefore very properly quoted these words in Co1 15:55, in combination with the declaration in Isa 25:8, "Death is swallowed up in victory," to confirm the truth, that at the resurrection of the last day, death will be annihilated, and that which is corruptible changed into immortality. We must not restrict the substance of this promise, however, to the ultimate issue of the redemption, in which it will receive its complete fulfilment. The suffixes attached to 'ephdēm and 'eg'âlēm point to Israel of the ten tribes, like the verbal suffixes in Isa 25:8. Consequently the promised redemption from death must stand in intimate connection with the threatened destruction of the kingdom of Israel. Moreover, the idea of the resurrection of the dead was by no means so clearly comprehended in Israel at that time, as that the prophet could point believers to it as a ground of consolation when the kingdom was destroyed. The only meaning that the promise had for the Israelites of the prophet's day, was that the Lord possessed the power even to redeem from death, and raise Israel from destruction into newness of life; just as Ezekiel (ch. 37) depicts the restoration of Israel as the giving of life to the dry bones that lay scattered about the field. The full and deeper meaning of these words was but gradually unfolded to believers under the Old Testament, and only attained complete and absolute certainty for all believers through the actual resurrection of Christ. But in order to anticipate all doubt as to this exceedingly great promise, the Lord adds, "repentance is hidden from mine eyes," i.e., my purpose of salvation will be irrevocably accomplished. The ̔απ. λεγ. nōcham does not mean "resentment" (Ewald), but, as a derivative of nicham, simply consolation or repentance. The former, which the Septuagint adopts, does not suit the context, which the latter alone does. The words are to be interpreted in accordance with Psa 89:36 and Psa 110:4, where the oath of God is still further strengthened by the words ולא ינּחם, "and will not repent;" and לא ינחם corresponds to אם אכזּב in Psa 89:36 (Marck and Krabbe, Quaestion. de Hos. vatic. spec. p. 47). Compare Sa1 15:29 and Num 23:19. |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
Ransom - By power and purchase, by the blood of the lamb of God, and by the power of his Godhead. Them - That repent and believe. From the grave - He conquered the grave, and will at the great day of the resurrection open those prison - doors, and bring us out in glory. From death - From the curse of the first death, and from the second death, which shall have no power over us. Thy plagues - Thus I will destroy death. I will pull down those prison - walls, and bring out all that are confined therein, the bad of whom I will remove into other prisons, the good I will restore to glorious liberty. Repentance shall be hid - I will never, as a man that repenteths, change my word and purpose, saith the Lord. What a glorious promise is this, which is interposed in the midst of all these judgments! |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
I will ransom them from the power of the grave - In their captivity they are represented as dead and buried, which is a similar view to that taken of the Jews in the Babylonish captivity by Ezekiel in his vision of the valley of dry bones. They are now lost as to the purpose for which they were made, for which God had wrought so many miracles for them and for their ancestors; but the gracious purpose of God shall not be utterly defeated. He will bring them out of that grave, and ransom them from that death; for as they have deserved that death and disgraceful burial, they must be redeemed and ransomed from it, or still lie under it. And who can do this but God himself? And he will do it. In the prospect of this the prophet exclaims, in the person of the universal Redeemer, "O death, I will be thy plagues;" I will bring into thy reign the principle of its destruction. The Prince of life shall lie for a time under thy power, that he may destroy that power.
O grave, I will be thy destruction - I will put an end to thy dreary domination by rising from the dead, and bringing life and immortality to life by my Gospel, and by finally raising from the death the whole human race in the day of the general resurrection.
שאול sheol, which we translate grave, is the state of the dead. מות maveth, which we translate death, is the principle of corruption that renders the body unfit to be longer the tenement of the soul, and finally decomposes it. Sheol shall be destroyed, for it must deliver up all its dead. Maveth shall be annihilated, for the body shall be raised incorruptible. See the use which the apostle makes of this passage, Co1 15:54, Co1 15:55; but he does not quote from the Hebrew, nor from any of the ancient versions. He had to apply the subject anew; and the Spirit, which had originally given the words, chose to adapt them to the subject then in hand, which was the resurrection of the dead in the last day. Instead of דבריך debareycha, thy plagues, one of my oldest MSS., ninety-six of Kennicott's and thirty-two of De Rossi's, have דברך debarcha, thy plague, that which shall carry thee off, as the plague does them who are affected by it. To carry off, carry away, is one of the regular meanings of the verb דבר dabar.
Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes - On these points I will not change my purpose; this is the signification of repentance when attributed to God. |
29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
2 Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.
3 Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.
4 I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.
5 I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
6 His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.
7 They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.
8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found.
10 I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb:
17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.
2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
15 And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you.
11 For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,
18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
5 Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people:
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
20 And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD.
19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.
36 His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.
4 The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
36 His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.
8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.
8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
10 I will be thy king: where is any other that may save thee in all thy cities? and thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?
15 Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
13 The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.
14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.