[650] Cf. xi. 8, 9.
[651] Since preparing the above for the press there has come into my hands Professor Cheyne's "Introduction" to the new edition of Robertson Smith's The Prophets of Israel, in which (p. xix.) he reaches with regard to Hosea xiv. 2-10 conclusions entirely opposite to those reached above. Professor Cheyne denies the passage to Hosea on the grounds that it is akin in language and imagery and ideas to writings of the age which begins with Jeremiah, and which among other works includes the Song of Songs. But, as has been shown above, the "language, imagery and ideas" are all akin to what Professor Cheyne admits to be genuine prophecies of Hosea; and the likeness to them of, e.g., Jer. xxxi. 10-20 may be explained on the same ground as so much else in Jeremiah, by the influence of Hosea. The allusion in ver. 3 suits Hosea's own day more than Jeremiah's. Nor can I understand what Professor Cheyne means by this: "The spirituality of the tone of vers. 1-3 is indeed surprising (contrast the picture in Hos. v. 6)." Spirituality surprising in the book that contains "I will have love and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings"! The verse, v. 6, he would contrast with xiv. 1-3 is actually one in which Hosea says that when they go "with flocks and herds" Israel shall not find God! He says that "to understand Hosea aright we must omit it" (i.e. the whole epilogue). But after the argument I have given above it will be plain that if we "understand Hosea aright" we have every reason not "to omit it." His last contention, that "to have added anything to the stern warning in xiii. 16 would have robbed it of half its force," is fully met by the considerations stated above on p. [310].
[652] By Lebanon in the fourteenth chapter and almost always in the Old Testament we must understand not the western range now called Lebanon, for that makes no impression on the Holy Land, its bulk lying too far to the north, but Hermon, the southmost and highest summits of Anti-Lebanon. See Hist. Geog., pp. 417 f.
[653] Full sixty miles off, in the Jebel Druze, the ancient Greek amphitheatres were so arranged that Hermon might fill the horizon of the spectators.
[654] Isa. lx. 13.
[655] Revelation of St. John xxi. 22.
[656] On all this exhortation see below, p. [343].
[657] LXX. fruit, פרי for פרים; the whole verse is obscure.
[658] So Guthe; some other plant Wellhausen, who for ויך reads וילכו.
[659] Ver. 8 obviously needs emendation. The Hebrew text contains at least one questionable construction, and gives no sense: "They that dwell in his shadow shall turn, and revive corn and flourish like the vine, and his fame," etc. To cultivate corn and be themselves like a vine is somewhat mixed. The LXX. reads: ἐπιστρέψουσιν καὶ καθιοῦνται ὑπὸ τὴν σκέπην αὐτοῦ, ζήσονται καὶ μεθυσθήσονται σίτῳ· καὶ ἐξανθήσει ἄμπελος μνημόσυνην αὐτοῦ ὡς οῖνος Διβάνου. It removes the grammatical difficulty from clause 1, which then reads בְצִלּוֹ יָשֻׁבוּ ויָשְׁבוּ; the supplied vau may easily have dropped after the final vau of the previous word. In the 2nd clause the LXX. takes יהיו as an intransitive, which is better suited to the other verbs, and adds καὶ μεθυσθήσονται, ורויו (a form that may have easily slipped from the Hebrew text, through its likeness to the preceding ויהיו). And they shall be well-watered. After this it is probable that דגן should read כַגַּן. In the 3rd clause the Hebrew text may stand. In the 4th זכר may not, as many propose, be taken for זכרם and translated their perfume; but the parallelism makes it now probable that we have a verb here; and if זכר in the Hiph. has the sense to make a perfume (cf. Isa. lxvi. 3), there is no reason against the Kal being used in the intransitive sense here. In the LXX. for μεθυσθήσονται Qa reads στηριχθήσονται.