For behold, they are going to Assyria: Revised Standard Version follows an emended text here. The Hebrew text reads “For [or Even if], behold, they are going from destruction” (similarly New Revised Standard Version). Good News Translation follows the Hebrew with “When the disaster comes and the people are scattered.” The disaster, of course, is the defeat of the Israelites and the destruction of their cities. Revised Standard Version‘s emendation is not supported by any ancient version and is not necessary to achieve good sense. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project gives full support to the Hebrew text (an {A} decision). Since Egypt is paralleled by Memphis, the emendation is also not necessary.

The Hebrew word ki rendered For is better translated “Even if” (New International Version, New Living Translation), since it introduces a concession here. The Hebrew word hinneh translated behold draws attention to the final picture of disaster in this section. It introduces a new element of judgment. In this verse the Hebrew refers to Israel in the third person (they, them, their), and this continues through the first three lines of 9.7. Translators should be consistent with their earlier decision about the pronouns used to refer to Israel (see comments on 9.2 and 9.5). NET Bible provides a helpful model for this line: “Look! Even if they flee from the destruction.”

Egypt shall gather them, Memphis shall bury them: The Israelites will return to Egypt and will be buried there. The Hebrew text personifies Egypt and Memphis by making them actors, but this can be misunderstood in some languages. If so, Good News Translation can serve as a model: “the Egyptians will gather them up—gather them for burial there at Memphis!” Memphis was the northern capital of ancient Egypt, and near this city in the western desert was one of the largest cemeteries of the ancient world. The Hebrew verb for gather sometimes refers to the Israelites’ joyful gathering to celebrate a festival (see, for example, 2 Chr 15.9-10), so its use here is probably intended as irony, that their next gathering will be for burial in exile! De Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling expresses some irony here by rendering the third line as “plenty of graves there in Memphis.”

Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver; thorns shall be in their tents: After they go into exile, thorny weeds will overgrow the Israelites’ abandoned silver treasures and houses. These two lines render three short phrases in the Hebrew. Wolff represents them well as follows:

Precious is their silver—
weeds shall inherit them,
thorns (shall grow) in their tents.

The Hebrew word order, as shown by Wolff, is chiastic: things affected (silver), affecters (weeds); affecters (thorns), things affected (tents). Revised Standard Version uses the following order: affecters (Nettles), things affected (silver); affecters (thorns), things affected (tents). Good News Translation, however, uses prose and brings together the two things affected (“silver” and “home”) and the two affecters (“weeds” and “thorn bushes”).

The Hebrew words for Nettles and thorns refer to two different kinds of thorny weeds. Revised Standard Version‘s Nettles is better than Good News Translation‘s “weeds,” because this plant has spines.

Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver personifies Nettles. For languages that have difficulty with this personification, a possible model is “Your silver treasures will be lost among thorny weeds” (similarly Contemporary English Version).

Instead of their precious things of silver, New English Bible emends the Hebrew text to read “the sands of Syrtes shall wreck them,” but this reading is not supported by any ancient version, and Syrtes, consisting of sand bars off the coast of modern Libya, is so far away as to be unlikely.

The Hebrew word for tents, which is its most common meaning, probably means “homes” (Good News Translation) in this context, since the Israelite houses were usually built out of stone. By referring to their solid homes as tents, this probably reminded the Israelites of their wandering in the wilderness, or the life of many of them as shepherds. Here the word is used in a poetic context, so translators will need to decide whether their readers will understand it correctly. Good News Translation renders their tents as “the places where their homes once stood,” but a better model is “your ruined homes” (New Living Translation).

A translation model for this verse is:

• Look! Even if you run away from destruction,
Egypt will gather you,
in enough graves at Memphis!
Nettles will grow over your precious silver,
thorns will overgrow your homes.

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 .