Osee 9:10
I found Israel like grapes in the desert, I saw their fathers like the firstfruits of the fig tree in the top thereof: but they went in to Beelphegor, and alienated themselves to that confusion, and became abominable, as those things were, which they loved.
Open Osee 9:10 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quasi uvas in deserto inveni Israël, quasi prima poma ficulneæ in cacumine ejus vidi patres eorum : ipsi autem intraverunt ad Beelphegor, et abalienati sunt in confusionem, et facti sunt abominabiles sicut ea quæ dilexerunt.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὡς σταφυλὴν ἐν ἐρήμῳ εὗρον τὸν Ἰσραήλ, καὶ ὡς σκοπὸν ἐν συκῇ πρόιμον εἶδον πατέρας αὐτῶν· αὐτοὶ εἰσῆλθον πρὸς τὸν Βεελφεγώρ, καὶ ἀπηλλοτριώθησαν εἰς αἰσχύνην, καὶ ἐγένοντο οἱ ἐβδελυγμένοι ὡς οἱ ἠγαπημένοι.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כַּעֲנָבִ֣ים בַּמִּדְבָּ֗ר מָצָ֨אתִי֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל כְּבִכּוּרָ֤ה בִתְאֵנָה֙ בְּרֵ֣אשִׁיתָ֔הּ רָאִ֖יתִי אֲבֽוֹתֵיכֶ֑ם הֵ֜מָּה בָּ֣אוּ בַֽעַל פְּע֗וֹר וַיִּנָּֽזְרוּ֙ לַבֹּ֔שֶׁת וַיִּהְי֥וּ שִׁקּוּצִ֖ים כְּאָהֳבָֽם
Haydock's commentary
Top. These are the best. (Haydock)
The patriarchs were pleasing to God. He chose the Hebrews; but they began to worship Beelphegor or Adonis, even before the death of Moses. This worship was most shameful. What will not passion do when the gods shew the example!
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Irenaeus Fragments from the Lost Writings of, LV
And that their virtue was thus accepted by God, as the first-fruits of the produce, hear what He has Himself declared: “As a grape,” He says, “I have found Israel in the wilderness, and as first-ripe figs your fathers.” Call not therefore the faith of Abraham merely blessed because he believed. Do you wish to look upon Abraham with admiration? Then behold how that one man alone professed piety when in the world six hundred had been contaminated with error. Dost thou wish Daniel to carry thee away to amazement? Behold that [city] Babylon, haughty in the flower and pride of impiousness, and its inhabitants completely given over to sin of every description. But he, emerging from the depth, spat out the brine of sins, and rejoiced to plunge into the sweet waters of piety. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch, Homily XIX
8. But I am ready to shew to-day, not the destruction of one, two, or three houses in consequence of oaths, but that of a whole city and of a people beloved of God; of a nation that had always enjoyed much of the divine care; and of a race that had escaped many dangers. For Jerusalem herself, the city of God, which had the holy ark, and all that divine service; where there were once prophets, and the grace of the Spirit, and the ark; and the tables of the covenant, and the golden pot; where angels were frequent visitors; this city, I say, when a multitude of wars took place, and many foreign nations made attacks upon it, as if girt by a wall of adamant, ever laughed them all to scorn, and whilst the land was utterly destroyed, sustained no injury! And not only is this to be wondered at, but that frequently in driving out its enemies, it inflicted upon them a heavy blow, and enjoyed so mu …
St Gregory Nazianzen The Last Farewell in the Presence of the One Hundred and Fifty Bishops
4. To return to my original startingpoint. This was my field, when it was small and poor, unworthy not only of God, Who has been, and is cultivating the whole world with the fair seeds and doctrines of piety, but, apparently, even of any poor and needy man of slender means. Nay it did not deserve to be called a field, requiring neither barn nor threshing-floor, and not even worthy of the sickle; with neither heap nor sheaves, or small and untimely sheaves, like those on the housetop, which do not fill the hand of the reaper, nor call forth a blessing from them which go by. …