1. spoke in trembling. The context suggests that it is trembling before God, when Ephraim was still God-fearing.

but he was guilty with Baal and died. Although this sounds like a flat statement, it must mean that Ephraim’s pagan ways caused many of the people to perish.

2. in their form. The Masoretic Text reads ketevunam, “according to their discernment” (?), but the Septuagint ketavnitam makes much better sense. Tavnit is a term often used for the form or image of an idol.

To them they say. Perhaps these are denouncers of the idolatrous people of Ephraim, though this is not entirely clear.

sacrifices of man. This is another opaque phrase. It could possibly mean “human sacrifices,” but there are no indications elsewhere that Ephraim practiced human sacrifice.

calves to be kissed. These are the icons that figured in the cult of YHWH in the northern kingdom.

6. grew proud. Literally, “their heart was high.”

8. like a lion. Here the poem uses another of the five biblical terms for “lion,” not the same word as in verse 7.

9. for who. The Masoretic Text has “me,” bi, but two ancient versions show “who,” mi.

10. Where is. The received text has ʾehi, “I will be,” but this is generally corrected to ʾayeh (a simple reversal of consonants).

Give me a king and nobles. As before, Hosea follows the line of the prophet Samuel in viewing the popular demand for a king as a presumptuous mistake.

12. bundled up, / hidden. These words may anticipate the birth imagery of the following lines.

13. and the child is not wise. This formulation may suggest that the child born is defective.

now. The Hebrew ʿet usually means “time,” but here it appears to be the equivalent of a related word ʿatah.

he shall not last. Literally, “he shall not stand”—that is, “he shall not survive.”

14. From Sheol shall I ransom them, / from death shall I redeem them? Some interpreters construe this as a positive declaration by God, that He will ransom Ephraim from death. But this makes no sense in light of the language of utter devastation deployed in the next verse, so it is best to understand it as a rhetorical question with the implied answer “no.”

Where are your words, O Death. Some critics revocalize devareyka, “your words,” as devrekha, “your pestilence,” yielding a neater parallelism with the second verset. As in verse 10, ʾehi at the beginning of each of the two versets here is emended to ʾayeh. If, as this translation assumes, the preceding line of poetry comprises two rhetorical questions, then the meaning of the two questions here is: where is your scourge, Death?—bring it to bear on these miscreants.

15. It shall ravage treasure. The antecedent of “it” is probably the devastating east wind rising from the desert. The alternative would be that the image of the wind is now dropped and that the pronoun, which could also mean “he,” refers to the invader.