1. said to me, “Again. It should be noted that the Masoretic cantillation markings attach “again” to the words introducing God’s speech, “And the LORD said to me again,” and that reading is possible.

a companion. This probably means her husband, but it could conceivably indicate a devoted lover.

And I loved a lusting woman. The Hebrew of the received text looks quite suspect. The literal sense of the last two words is “raisin cakes” (though others think that the meaning is “grape cups”). The Revised English Bible tries to rescue some sense from this by translating “the cakes of the raisin offered to idols.” The present translation adopts the emendation proposed by Tur-Sinai: instead of the Masoretic ohavey ʾashishey ʿanavim, he reads waʾohav ʾeshet ʿagavim.

2. a homer of barley and a letekh of barley. A letekh is half a ḥomer, so the repetition appears to be a way of saying, “a homer and a half of barley.”

3. shall not come to bed. A verb of sexual intimacy is implied in the elliptical Hebrew.

4. the Israelites dwell without king and without commander. This is a prophecy of the loss of national sovereignty and of exile.

without ephod and without teraphim. Both are divinatory devices.

5. David their king. Many scholars conclude that the reference to David was inserted by the Judahite editor, although it is perhaps possible that Hosea as a prophet of the northern kingdom envisaged a utopian future in which the two kingdoms would reunite under the divinely elected Davidic dynasty.