And I will put an end to all her mirth …: The Hebrew verb for put an end to means “cause to cease.” The same verb is used in 1.4. The repeated use of the pronoun her in this verse emphatically implies that the festivals in view here are not in honor of Yahweh. He clearly dissociates himself from these celebrations. He views them as Israel’s own doing. They are used for pagan worship. This is confirmed by 2.13. Apparently the feast days were used to worship Baal. Her mirth refers to the rejoicing or exulting that Israel did at the festivals mentioned in the following lines. This phrase may be rendered “her festivities” (Good News Translation), “her merrymaking” (New English Bible), “her celebrations” (New International Version), or “her rejoicing” (Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible en français courant, Bible de Jérusalem).
Her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths refers to the annual, monthly and weekly festivals of Israel, followed by the summary and all her appointed feasts. The Hebrew uses singular nouns to name these festivals, but they have a collective sense here and are properly rendered in the plural form in most languages. The feasts or “annual festivals” (New Living Translation) included the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Harvest Festival, and the Festival of Shelters (Exo 23.14-17; 2 Chr 8.13). The new moons were the “monthly festivals” (Good News Translation) at the beginning of every month, which always began with the new moon (Num 10.10; 28.11-15). The sabbaths were the weekly days of rest, with special sacrifices and sacrificial meals. The Hebrew term for sabbaths comes from a verb meaning “to rest” or “to abandon work.” It is similar to the word for “seven,” and it was on the seventh day that Yahweh rested, following the work of creation (Gen 2.2-3). The Hebrew word for appointed feasts is a general term covering all the festival days mentioned here. It is not entirely clear what will stop these festivities. Some commentators think that the festivities will be impossible because the animals and vegetables for sacrifices and for food are not available. However, others note that such disasters stimulated rituals in order to overcome the problems. It may therefore point at the total disintegration of society in which such rituals do not play a role anymore.
Modern translations express the feasts in various ways. Andersen and Freedman say “her annual, monthly, and weekly celebrations—all her assemblies.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch (1982) combines mirth and appointed feasts as summary terms, rendering this verse as “I will make an end to all her joyous festivals, the new moon and sabbath celebrations and the great annual festivals.”
A translation model for this verse is:
• I will make an end to all her joy
—her annual festivals, her monthly feasts, her sabbaths—
to all her celebrations.
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 .