Passage

Hosea 3.4

Book: Hosea · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

2. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley; 3. and I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be any man's wife: so will I also be toward thee.

4. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or teraphim:

afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king, and shall come with fear unto Jehovah and to his goodness in the latter days. (Hosea 3:2-5, ASV)

WEB

2. So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. 3. I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.”

4. For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.

Afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to his blessings in the last days. (Hosea 3:2-5, WEB)

KJV

2. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley: ^{half: Heb. lethech} 3. And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.

4. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: ^{image: Heb. a standing, or, statue, or, pillar}

Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days. (Hosea 3:2-5, KJV)

YLT

2. And I buy her to me for fifteen silverlings, and a homer and a letech of barley; 3. and I say unto her, 'Many days thou dost remain for Me, thou dost not go a-whoring, nor become any one's; and I also [am] for thee.'

4. For many days remain do the sons of Israel without a king, and there is no prince, and there is no sacrifice, and there is no standing pillar, and there is no ephod and teraphim.

Afterwards turned back have the sons of Israel, and sought Jehovah their God, and David their king, and have hastened unto Jehovah, and unto His goodness, in the latter end of the days. (Hosea 3:2-5, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Hosea, narrating in the first person and then reporting the sign's meaning
Audience: the northern kingdom of Israel, repeatedly called Ephraim after its dominant tribe
Location: the northern kingdom
Time period: c. 750-722 BC, from the last years of Jeroboam II through the dynastic chaos that followed to the eve of Samaria's fall to Assyria

Theological reading

The list pairs legitimate institutions with illegitimate ones and strips both at once: king and prince (political order), sacrifice and ephod (authorized worship), pillar and teraphim (the standing stone and household idols that the law condemns). The deprivation is deliberately even-handed. Israel loses the false supports and the true ones together.

This enacts verse 3, where the woman is to live for a long period neither with another man nor fully with her husband. Exile is therefore described not as annihilation but as an enforced fast from everything Israel had used to mediate access to God, including the means that were legitimate. What survives the fast is the relationship itself, which is what verse 5 goes on to describe.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

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Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Blood Atonement Not Required Objection Defeater

Notes

Your annotations.

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.