[700] See above, pp. [97] f. On the other doubtful phrase, viii. 12—literally I write multitudes of My Torah, as a stranger they have reckoned it—no argument can be built; for even if we take the first clause as conditional and render, Though I wrote multitudes of My Torôth, yet as those of a stranger they would regard them, that would not necessarily mean that no Torôth of Jehovah were yet written, but, on the contrary, might equally well imply that some at least had been written.
[701] Or was overcome.
[702] xii. 4-6. See above, p. [302]. LXX. reads they supplicated Me ... they found Me ... He spoke with them. Many propose to read the last clause with him. The passage is obscure. Note the order of the events—the wrestling at Peniel, the revelation at Bethel, then in the subsequent passage the flight to Aram. This however does not prove that in Hosea's information the last happened after the two first.
[703] שׂדה, field, here used in its political sense: cf. Hist. Geog., p. 79. Our word country, now meaning territory and now the rural as opposed to the urban districts, is strictly analogous to the Hebrew field.
[704] xii. 13, 14.
[705] A youth.
[706] LXX., followed by many critics, his sons. But My son is a better parallel to young in the preceding clause. Or trans.: to be My son.
[708] So rightly LXX.
[709] xi. 1-3.