Paragraph 9:14

This paragraph gives Hosea’s prayer.

9:14

Give them, O LORD—what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!: This verse is a prayer of Hosea. There are two main ways to interpret the intent of the prayer:

(1) This is a prayer directed against the people. Hosea asks the LORD to fulfill the punishment of 9:13b in this way. For example:

Lord, give them what they deserve. Make the women miscarry, or else make them unable to nurse their babies. (God’s Word)

(Good News Translation, God’s Word, New Century Version, Revised English Bible)

(2) This is a prayer on behalf of the people. Hosea asks the LORD to make the punishment of 9:13b less severe in this way. If fewer children are born, then fewer children will be slaughtered later. For example:

O Lord, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don’t give birth and breasts that give no milk. (New Living Translation (2004))

(Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation (2004))

In many versions, the intent of this prayer is left implied. In those versions, either of the interpretations above could apply. In some languages, it may be preferable to make the intent of the prayer explicit. If that is true in your language, it is recommended that you follow interpretation (1). There are at least two reasons:

(a) This verse matches the pattern used elsewhere in the OT of a rhetorical question followed by a curse.

(b) Hosea 9:16 has similar expressions, and that verse is clearly directed against the people.

9:14a

Give them, O LORD—what will You give?: Here the sentence that begins with the request, Give them is interrupted by a rhetorical question. The object of the phrase, Give them is not stated until the phrase is repeated in 9:14b. This interrupted sentence structure is a poetic literary device. The purpose of the device may be to create suspense.

In some languages, this poetic structure may be confusing and unnatural.

If that is true in your language, here are some other ways to translate this verse part:

• Supply an object of Give them that describes the curse in 14b in a general way. For example:

Lord, give them what they should have. What will you give them? (New Century Version)

• Do not include the first phrase, Give them. Instead, start the sentence with the rhetorical question. For example:

What shall I ask you to do to these people? (Good News Translation)

what will You give?: This is a rhetorical question. This is not a request for information. Its function is probably to state, “I know what you should give.” Some versions express this as a statement instead of a question. For example:

Our Lord, do just one thing for your people— (Contemporary English Version)

9:14b–c

Notice the parallel parts that are similar in meaning:

14b Give them wombs that miscarry

14c and breasts that dry up !

Together these lines are a curse. They are the opposite of a traditional blessing for many healthy, nursing children (see Genesis 49:25).

Give them: The pronoun them is masculine here. It indicates that the curse is against the men and women of the nation, not the women only.

There is an ellipsis of the words Give them in 9:14c. In some languages, this phrase may need to be supplied from 9:14b. For example:

Give them wombs that miscarry and ⌊give them ⌋ breasts that are dry.

wombs that miscarry: There are two ways to interpret the form of the Hebrew word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as miscarry :

(1) The phrase means wombs that miscarry. It refers to women whose babies die in the womb. The babies are born dead. For example:

Make the women miscarry (God’s Word)

(2) The phrase means “womb that is barren.” It refers to a woman who is unable to have children. For example:

Make their women barren! (Good News Translation)

It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1) along with most versions and all lexicons.

breasts that dry up!: This phrase indicates that women have no breast milk to nurse a child.

In some languages, it may be more natural to speak of wombs and breasts in other ways. For example, it may be more natural to refer specifically to women or to refer only to the functions of giving birth and nursing. Here are some other ways to translate this verse part:

Make the wombs of their women miscarry and make their breasts dry.
-or-
make their children die before they are born and make them unable to nurse their babies.

© 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.