Thus it will be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. When the day dawns, the king of Israel will be utterly cut off.
Parallel translations
- WEB So Bethel will do to you because of your great wickedness. At daybreak the king of Israel will be destroyed.
- KJV So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.
- NKJV Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, Because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel Shall be cut off utterly.
- NASB So it will be done to you at Bethel because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
- NLT You will share that fate, Bethel, because of your great wickedness. When the day of judgment dawns, the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.
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
Because of Israel's great wickedness, especially its corrupt worship at Bethel, its king will be cut off at daybreak. It shows that idolatry brings swift and certain downfall.
Overview
Bethel, once a place of patriarchal encounter with God, had become a center of calf-worship and is here singled out as the source of judgment. The sudden destruction of the king "at daybreak" emphasizes how quickly and decisively God's judgment can fall. Israel's chosen leadership cannot save them when they have abandoned the Lord.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Hos 10:5The people of Samaria will fear for the calf of Beth-aven. Indeed, its people will mourn with its idolatrous priests—those who rejoiced in its glory—for it has been taken from them into exile.
- Rom 7:13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Certainly not! But in order that sin might be exposed as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
- Amos 7:9–17The high places of Isaac will be deserted, and the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with My sword.”
- Hos 10:7Samaria will be carried off with her king like a twig on the surface of the water.
- Hos 10:3Surely now they will say, “We have no king, for we do not revere the LORD. What can a king do for us?”
- Isa 16:14And now the LORD says, “In three years, as a hired worker counts the years, Moab’s splendor will become an object of contempt, with all her many people. And those who are left will be few and feeble.”
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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 10:15 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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