It was I who knew you is literally “I, I knew you in the wilderness.” “I” is repeated for emphasis in Hebrew, occurring first as an independent pronoun and then as an affix on the verb. Revised Standard Version expresses this emphasis well by saying It was I who.

Knew renders the same Hebrew verb as in the previous verse (see comments there). Here it refers to deep and intimate knowledge. As in the previous verse, it also provides a link with the story of Hosea and Gomer, since it can refer to sexual relations.

Instead of It was I who knew you, the Septuagint and the Peshitta have “I shepherded you” or “I fed you,” a reading that fits well in this context. Some scholars assume that these ancient versions are based on a slightly different earlier Hebrew text. Many modern translations are based on this emended text (so New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling). The Hebrew Old Testament Text Project committee did not cover this textual problem. We prefer the emended text.

In the wilderness, in the land of drought refers to the desert that the Israelites wandered in for forty years after they escaped from Egypt. Wilderness and land of drought form a typical Hebrew parallel in which the first term is the general description of the land, and the second term gives further information about the first term. The Hebrew word for wilderness can include places where some plants and wild animals may live (see comments on 2.3). But the phrase land of drought shows that there could not be vegetation in this place since there was no rain. Good News Translation‘s “in a dry, desert land” combines the two phrases into a single expression, thereby diminishing the poetic flavor of the original text.

A translation model for this verse is:

• I fed you in the desert,
in the land of drought.

Quoted with permission from Dorn, Louis & van Steenbergen, Gerrit. A Handbook on Hosea. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2020. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .