Hosea 8:7

Context

Hosea was a prophet who ministered in the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the eighth century BC. Chapter 8 of Hosea is an oracle (a prophecy proclaimed as the word of God) indicting Israel for breaking the covenant it had made with God. In the text, Israel is also called "Ephraim." The chapter unfolds as follows:

• Verse 1: It opens with an alarm, a command to set the trumpet to the mouth.
• Verse 4: It rebukes the people for setting up kings apart from God's will.
• Verses 5–6: It denounces the calf idol of Samaria.
• Verse 9: It rebukes the nation's reliance on Assyria in its foreign affairs.

In the midst of this indictment, verse 7 declares the consequences through an agricultural image: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up" (Hosea 8:7, KJV). The "wind" the people have sown signifies what is empty and without substance, and in return they will reap a fiercer "whirlwind" (a violent storm). The grain will not grow properly, and even if it should yield a crop, strangers will devour it. The following verse, verse 8, says that Israel itself has been swallowed up among the nations. The Hebrew text is known to contain a wordplay on the similar-sounding words tsemach (sprout, ear of grain) and qemach (meal, flour).

Interpretation

• Historical reading: Many commentators read this verse as a warning anticipating the Assyrian invasion and the fall of the Northern Kingdom (c. 722 BC; 2 Kings 17). They connect the phrase "the strangers shall swallow it up" with the reality of a harvest seized by foreign powers.
• Covenantal reading: This reading views idolatry and dependence on great powers as a breach of the covenant. It holds that the covenant curse of Deuteronomy 28, in which a nation the people do not know eats the fruit of their labor, is fulfilled in this verse.
• Reading as a principle: In the preaching tradition, this verse is read as expressing the principle that one reaps what one sows. Particular attention is given to the way the consequence far exceeds the cause, as the wind becomes a whirlwind, and the verse is often treated together with the teaching on sowing and reaping in Galatians 6.

Questions Concerning Application

There is no significant interpretive dispute among denominations. Nevertheless, several cautions have been raised about how the verse is applied.

• Some hold that care should be taken in transferring what was originally a covenantal judgment on a national community to a mechanical scheme of individual retribution.
• Others warn against using the verse to condemn those who suffer by claiming they have "reaped what they sowed." They appeal to Job and John 9:1–3 in support.
• Still others argue that, since the Book of Hosea ends with the promise of restoration in chapter 14, the pronouncement of judgment should not be read in isolation but together with the call to repentance.

In the Korean Church

The expression "sow the wind and reap the whirlwind" is frequently quoted in sermons that warn of the consequences of sin and call for repentance. Outside the church as well, it is used as a proverb meaning that wrong choices bring even greater calamity.

Related Passages

• Hosea 10:12–13
• Galatians 6:7–8
• Proverbs 22:8
• Job 4:8
• Deuteronomy 28:33