Osee 9:8
The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: the prophet is become a snare of ruin upon all his ways, madness is in the house of his God.
Open Osee 9:8 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Speculator Ephraim cum Deo meo, propheta laqueus ruinæ factus est super omnes vias ejus ; insania in domo Dei ejus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- σκοπὸς Ἐφράιμ μετὰ θεοῦ· προφήτης, παγὶς σκολιὰ ἐπὶ πάσας τὰς ὁδοὺς αὐτοῦ· μανίαν ἐν οἴκῳ θεοῦ κατέπηξαν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- צֹפֶ֥ה אֶפְרַ֖יִם עִם אֱלֹהָ֑י נָבִ֞יא פַּ֤ח יָקוֹשׁ֙ עַל כָּל דְּרָכָ֔יו מַשְׂטֵמָ֖ה בְּבֵ֥ית אֱלֹהָֽיו
Haydock's commentary
My God. I am such; but the false prophets strive to seduce you. (Calmet)
Jeroboam ought to have restrained the people, and he did the reverse, setting up a calf at Bethel, which proved more ruinous than the crime of Gabaa, (Judges xix.) or the election of Saul. "In ancient records, I cannot find that any have divided the Church but those who were appointed by God, priests and prophets, that is watchmen." (St. Jerome)
Indeed, almost all heresies owe their rise to the pride or lust of some who have been in high stations.
Madness. Hebrew, "and hatred in (marginal note: against) the," &c. (Protestants) (Haydock)
Instead of standing up for the people, he provokes God.
Haydock wrote amid the controversies of his day. The Church teaches that those born into communities separated from her cannot be charged with the sin of separation, and embraces them as brothers (CCC 818).
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 Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, That none should enter on a place of government who practise not in life what they have learnt by study
There are some also who investigate spiritual precepts with cunning care, but what they penetrate with their understanding they trample on in their lives: all at once they teach the things which not by practice but by study they have learnt; and what in words they preach by their manners they impugn. Whence it comes to pass that when the shepherd walks through steep places, the flock follows to the precipice. Hence it is that the Lord through the prophet complains of the contemptible knowledge of shepherds, saying, When ye yourselves had drunk most pure water, ye fouled the residue with your feet; and My sheep fed on that which had been trodden by your feet, and drank that which your feet had fouled ( Ezek. xxxiv. 18, 19 ). For indeed the shepherds drink most pure water, when with a right understanding they imbibe the streams of truth. …