This verse is one of the most difficult in Hosea. Particularly the first two lines are subject to debate. Do they link to the last half of 9.7 or are they linked with the last half of this verse? The lack of clarity is further caused by the way the text reflects an argument between Hosea and the Israelites. It is not certain whether any of these words, or all of them, were spoken by the people or by the prophet.
Our interpretation favors the prophet as speaker. It does not seem normal for the writer to record much speech of a prophet’s opponents without clearly identifying the speakers. A literal translation of the Hebrew for this verse is:
A watchman [or, spy] Ephraim
with [or, on] my God a prophet
a trap of a fowler on all his paths
hatred in the house of his God.
Some ways of relating these terms to each other are as follows:
(1) New English Bible places the last words of 9.7 at the beginning of this verse, starting with “With great enmity….” However, nothing is gained by doing this, so we do not recommend it.
(2) One can understand Ephraim (that is, the people of Israel) to be the watchman or “spy,” as does Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (which gives an {A} rating to the Hebrew text, but not necessarily to its translation): “Ephraim acts as a spy on my God.” “A prophet” can then be read at the beginning of the next line, as in King James Version: “but the prophet is a snare of a fowler in all his [Ephraim’s] ways” (similarly New English Bible). But Hebrew Old Testament Text Project‘s translation hardly makes sense in this context.
(3) Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has a rendering based on a somewhat different interpretation: “You people of Ephraim, you turn against my God! You place traps against me, his prophet, where I go and [where I] stand; even in the house of my God I am not safe.” In this interpretation, the prophet is not the fowler’s trap to the people, but he is being trapped by the people. The problem with this interpretation is that the Hebrew preposition for “with [or, on]” is not found elsewhere after the verb meaning “to spy on, lie in ambush for,” and the sense and the Hebrew rhythm favor taking “prophet” with the first half of the verse.
(4) Einheitsübersetzung gets around the problem of the preposition by assuming that Ephraim considers itself as standing “with my God,” and thus has one of the better renderings of the first two lines: “Ephraim, the people of my God, lie in wait for the prophet.” However, none of these renderings seems to fit the context well.
If one understands the prophet as the watchman of Ephraim, or the one who lies in wait against Ephraim, other problems arise. Revised Standard Version replaces the vowel of the Hebrew preposition ʿim meaning “with” or “on,” so that it is ʿam, meaning “people,” thus Revised Standard Version has the people of my God. However, there is no evidence to support this emendation, and it seems best to understand that the prophet is “with my God.” This phrase is still open to different interpretations: is the prophet on the side of God, in his presence, or in the service of God? New International Version tries to adjust the grammatical relationships of the words in the first two Hebrew lines: “The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim.” English Standard Version is similar with “The prophet is the watchman of Ephraim with my God,” and so is New Jerusalem Bible; “The watchman of Ephraim is with my God: it is the prophet.”
The major problem in the last two lines of the verse is determining who is the fowler (that is, hunter of birds), who has hatred, and who is affected by the hatred. If the people were speaking, this would be their complaint against the prophet working in a skillful way to trap them and to stir up hatred. But earlier they had called the prophet a fool and a madman, and therefore they would not now say he had such skills. So it is more likely that the prophet is the speaker. The easiest interpretation and one that fits well in the context is that he is suffering at the hands of the people. Other prophets (for example, Amos and Jeremiah) met opposition from the people such as that which Hosea faced.
Is the house of his God the Temple, or is it the whole land of Yahweh, namely Canaan? In favor of the interpretation “the land of his God” ( NET Bible) is the fact that the Hebrew word usually translated house does seem to mean “land” in 8.1 and 9.15. On the other hand, several factors favor the literal meaning here, “in the house [sanctuary] of his God.” These factors are: (1) that this literal meaning makes a good climax, “wherever I go, and even in the Temple”; (2) the Hebrew expression in 9.15 is different, literally “my house”; and (3) in 9.4 “the house of the LORD” clearly means the Temple. However, it seems that Hosea did not regard the sacrifices of the northern kingdom of Israel as proper, so he may have never even entered the sanctuary there.
Based on the above discussion, we suggest the following revision of the literal translation:
The watcher over Ephraim
is with my God—the prophet!
A fowler’s snare is on all his paths;
there is hatred in the house [or, land] of his God.
In this revision “the prophet” is in an emphatic position at the end of the second line, identifying “The watcher” as the prophet. He is responsible for Ephraim, and he is on the side of God or in his service. Just as he serves as an adversary against the people of Ephraim in his responsibility as watcher for them, so they serve as adversaries against him, first as a trap wherever he goes, and then hating him all over Yahweh’s very own land, or in Yahweh’s very own house.
We turn now to several other details for the translation of this verse.
The image of the prophet as a watchman over God’s people is not uncommon in the Old Testament (see, for example, Isa 56.10; Jer 6.17; Ezek 3.17; 33.1-9). Good News Translation understands the function of the watchman as someone who is “to warn” the people.
As often before, Good News Translation uses “Israel” instead of Ephraim (see comments on 4.17).
The pronoun my refers to Hosea and the pronoun his to the prophet, but since Hosea is the prophet, some languages may prefer to use only first person pronouns (see the model below).
A fowler’s snare refers to a trap set for birds. Here it is an image for the traps the Israelites set for Hosea. Good News Translation makes this clear by rendering a fowler’s snare is on all his ways as “wherever I go, you try to trap me like a bird.”
The literal last line and hatred in the house of his God does not make clear who is hating whom. Good News Translation makes it clear that the Israelites are hating the prophet Hosea: “Even in God’s Temple the people are the prophet’s enemies.”
For the Hebrew phrase rendered the house of his God, we need to look at the chiastic structure of the book of Hosea. At this point, which is section B′-a of our outline, this phrase resembles the Hebrew name Bethel, meaning “house of God.” It seems like this phrase is a play on words for keeping in mind Bethel, the city where the northern kingdom had its temple, or “house of God.” The name “Bethel” occurs in the Hebrew text of 10.15, which is in the corresponding section B′-a′ (10.11-15). An accurate translation of the Hebrew here may resemble the house of his God in order to make the basic meaning clear to the reader. Those translations that use footnotes may want to inform the readers that this expression is a play on words with the name of the city Bethel. To actually use the name “Bethel” in the translation would not be accurate, even though the prophet may have had this city in mind as the background place in which all this happened.
As noted above, the pronoun his in the phrase his God refers to Hosea. Since he is the speaker, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch says “my God.” Many translations omit this pronoun (New Living Translation, Revised English Bible, Bijbel in Gewone Taal).
A translation model for this verse is:
• I, the prophet in the service of my God,
I am the watcher over you, Ephraim.
But in all my ways you try to trap me like a bird.
I encounter hostility in the house of my God.
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 .