Israel is a luxuriant vine that produces his fruit. According to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars. As their land has prospered, they have adorned their sacred stones.
Parallel translations
- KJV Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.
- BSB Israel was a luxuriant vine, yielding fruit for himself. The more his fruit increased, the more he increased the altars. The better his land produced, the better he made the sacred pillars.
- NKJV Israel empties his vine; He brings forth fruit for himself. According to the multitude of his fruit He has increased the altars; According to the bounty of his land They have embellished his sacred pillars.
- NASB Israel is a luxuriant vine; He produces fruit for himself. The more his fruit, The more altars he made; The richer his land, The better he made the memorial stones.
- NLT How prosperous Israel is— a luxuriant vine loaded with fruit. But the richer the people get, the more pagan altars they build. The more bountiful their harvests, the more beautiful their sacred pillars.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Israel is a lush vine, but as his fruit and prosperity increased, he multiplied altars and adorned idolatrous pillars.
Overview
God blessed Israel with abundance like a flourishing vine, yet the people used their increasing wealth to build more pagan altars and shrines. Prosperity, rather than producing gratitude, fueled deeper idolatry. This warns that God's gifts can become occasions for sin when hearts are unfaithful, and calls for fruit that honors the Giver, as Christ seeks fruit from His vine.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Hos 8:11Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they became for him altars for sinning.
- Isa 5:1–7Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.
- Phil 2:21For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.
- Hos 12:11If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field.
- Lev 26:1“‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up an engraved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.
- Jer 2:28“But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble: for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.
- 1 Kgs 14:23For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.
- Rom 14:7–8For none of us lives to himself, and none dies to himself.
- Ezek 15:1–5Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
- John 15:1–6“I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
- 2 Cor 5:16Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.
- Hos 13:6According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me.
- Hos 13:2Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, ‘They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves.’
- Zech 7:5–6“Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me?
- Hos 12:8Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich, I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is sin.”
- Nah 2:2For Yahweh restores the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the destroyers have destroyed them, and ruined their vine branches.
- Hos 2:8For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.
- Hos 8:4They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off.
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Christ at the center
God's relentless love for an unfaithful bride dramatizes the gospel: 'Out of Egypt I called my son' is fulfilled in Jesus, who redeems an adulterous people at his own cost.
How Hosea 10:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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