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Hosea 5:1-7, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Hosea 5:1-7
Priests, People, and Royal House Become a Snare and Cannot Find the LORD
Priest, people, and royal house are summoned together
Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor. The three audiences block any single scapegoat. Leaders have trapped people. Mizpah, Tabor, and the slaughter line in verse 2 are hard to reconstruct; the predation charge does not need a tourist map to stand.
I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me. They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the LORD. Entrenched practice blocks return. That is not an ethnic essence, and it is not a verdict on a depressed person or an abuse survivor who cannot feel God.
Flocks and herds cannot locate a withdrawn face
The pride of Israel doth testify to his face. Israel and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity; Judah also shall fall with them. They shall go with their flocks and their herds to seek the LORD, but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them. They have dealt treacherously; they have begotten strange children; now shall a month devour them with their portions.
Strange children must not stigmatize actual children, adopted people, or mixed families. The month may be a festival or a short span. Either way, sacrifice without changed conduct cannot force a hearing. Ritual is not a shortcut around removing the snare.
How this should shape us
Do not reinstate a leader after a ceremony while traps, findings, and safety controls remain unresolved. Offerings, attendance, and public seeking are not proof that a harmful house has returned.
Teach it back
Explain Hosea 5:1-7 in your own words. Include its place in Hosea's prophetic movement, one material uncertainty, and one use the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Several lines are among Hosea's hardest. The precise acts at Mizpah and Tabor, verse 2, pride, and month remain uncertain; shared leader accountability and failed ritual seeking are secure.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Hosea 5:1-7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew, morphology, syntax, names, wordplay, repetitions, and the base text for translation questions.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Hos.xml, 5:1-7
Supports: Verse-level translation, textual, grammatical, historical, rhetorical, and uncertainty notes.
NET Bible Hosea PDF, printed pp. 1681-1682, translation and notes on 5:1-7
Supports: Whole-book movement, eighth-century setting, literary boundaries, composition, Baal polemic, empire, and verse-level alternatives.
John Day, 'Hosea,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 574-575, discussion of 5:1-7
Supports: Competing scholarly positions on difficult Hebrew, genre, history, religion, knowledge, metaphor, gender, and composition.
Kelle, 'Hosea 4-14 in Twentieth-Century Scholarship,' pp. 318-360; text pp. 318-321, rhetoric pp. 321-324, composition pp. 325-332, history pp. 333-345, theology pp. 346-349, literary and gender analysis pp. 350-360; applied to 5:1-7
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Hosea 5:1-7, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Hosea
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew, morphology, syntax, names, wordplay, repetitions, and the base text for translation questions.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Hos.xml, 5:1-7
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Hosea with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, textual, grammatical, historical, rhetorical, and uncertainty notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Hosea PDF, printed pp. 1681-1682, translation and notes on 5:1-7
Open source ↗scholarly commentary article
Hosea
John Day
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, edited by John Barton and John Muddiman, 2001
Supports: Whole-book movement, eighth-century setting, literary boundaries, composition, Baal polemic, empire, and verse-level alternatives.
Exact location: John Day, 'Hosea,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 574-575, discussion of 5:1-7
Open source ↗peer reviewed research survey
Hosea 4-14 in Twentieth-Century Scholarship
Brad E. Kelle
Currents in Biblical Research 8.3, 2010
Supports: Competing scholarly positions on difficult Hebrew, genre, history, religion, knowledge, metaphor, gender, and composition.
Exact location: Kelle, 'Hosea 4-14 in Twentieth-Century Scholarship,' pp. 318-360; text pp. 318-321, rhetoric pp. 321-324, composition pp. 325-332, history pp. 333-345, theology pp. 346-349, literary and gender analysis pp. 350-360; applied to 5:1-7
Open source ↗