Proper Rendition of Hosea 13:9?

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py3ak

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AV:O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.

NKJV:O Israel, you are destroyed,
But your help is from Me.

HCSB:I will destroy you, Israel;
you have no help but Me.

ESV:He destroys you, O Israel,
for you are against me, against your helper.

ASV (NASB is essentially the same):
It is thy destruction, O Israel, that thou art against me, against thy help.

NIV:“You are destroyed, Israel,
because you are against me, against your helper.​

While all these renderings convey that idea that Israel and destruction are related, and that God is their help, there is quite a difference between them in matters of detail:

1. Is Israel already destroyed or to be destroyed?
2. Who is destroying Israel (or is this unspecified)?
3. Is the verse teaching that in spite of Israel's situation they can look to God for help? Or is the verse teacing that their situation is (or will be) so bad because they have rejected their help?
(Obviously both of those points could be true, and the HCSB seems to drive a middle way between them.)​

So overall, which is the best rendition of the verse? (Adding a version I don't have listed is quite fine.)
 
Does anyone have an answer more illuminating than Joshua's? I have checked the commentaries I have available and still find myself with the same question.
 
Thomas Scott had this to say:

“One hath destroyed thee, O Israel,” (that is, “Thou art destroyed.”)- Thou shouldest have trusted in me for thy help; but having forsaken me, thou art destroyed. – Israel did not trust in God for help, and Sennacherib triumphed over them: Hezekiah and Judah did trust in God for help, and were delivered from him.- This seems the construction and sense of this verse: and the meaning is nearly the same as in our translation.- “O Israel, one hath destroyed thee, but in me is thy help.”- Israel need not blame others for his ruin; for he had destroyed himself: but he could not save himself, his help was in and from God alone.
 
Josh is actually right this time - without much difficulty, most people can give a more helpful answer than his! Perhaps I should do a poll....
 
From K&D

Hos_13:9 commences a new strophe, in which the prophet once more discloses to the people the reason for their corruption (Hos_13:9-13); and after pointing to the saving omnipotence of the Lord (Hos_13:14), holds up before them utter destruction as the just punishment for their guilt (Hos_13:15 and Hos_14:1). Hos_13:9. “O Israel, it hurls thee into destruction, that thou (art) against me, thy help. Hos_13:10. Where is thy king? that he may help thee in all thy cities: and (where) they judges? of whom thou saidst, Give me king and princes! Hos_13:11. I give thee kings in my anger, and take them away in my wrath.” שִׁחֶתְךָ does not combine together the verbs in Hos_13:8, as Hitzig supposes; nor does Hos_13:9 give the reason for what precedes, but shichethkhâ is explained by Hos_13:10, from which we may see that a new train of thought commences with Hos_13:9. Shichēth does not mean to act corruptly here, as in Deu_32:5; Deu_9:12, and Exo_32:7, but to bring into corruption, to ruin, as in Gen_6:17; Gen_9:15; Num_32:15, etc. The sentence כִּי בִי וגו cannot be explained in any other way than by supplying the pronoun אַתָּה, as a subject taken from the suffix to שִׁחֶתְךָ (Marck, and nearly all the modern commentators). “This throws thee into distress, that thou hast resisted me, who am thy help.” בְעֶזְרֶךָ: as in Deu_33:26, except that ב is used in the sense of against, as in Gen_16:12; 2Sa_24:17, etc. This opposition did not take place, however, when all Israel demanded a king of Samuel (1Sa_8:5). For although this desire is represented there (Hos_13:7) as the rejection of Jehovah, Hosea is speaking here simply of the Israel of the ten tribes. The latter rebelled against Jehovah, when they fell away from the house of David, and made Jeroboam their king, and with contempt of Jehovah put their trust in the might of their kings of their own choosing (1Ki_12:16.). But these kings could not afford them any true help. The question, “Where” ('ehı̄ only occurs here and twice in Hos_13:14, for אי or איה, possibly simply from a dialectical variation - vid. Ewald, §104, c - and is strengthened by אֵפוֹא, as in Job_17:15), “Where is thy king, that he may help thee?” does not presuppose that Israel had no king at all at that time, and that the kingdom was in a state of anarchy, but simply that it had no king who could save it, when the foe, the Assyrian, attacked it in all its cities. Before shōpheteykhâ (thy judges) we must repeat 'ĕhı̄ (where). The shōphetı̄m, as the use of the word sârı̄m (princes) in its stead in the following clause clearly shows, are not simple judges, but royal counsellors and ministers, who managed the affairs of the kingdom along with the king, and superintended the administration of justice. The saying, “Give me a king and princes,” reminds us very forcibly of the demand of the people in the time of Samuel; but they really refer simply to the desire of the ten tribes for a king of their own, which manifested itself in their dissatisfaction with the rule of the house of David, and their consequent secession, and to their persistence in this secession amidst all the subsequent changes of the government. We cannot therefore take the imperfects אֶתֶּן and אֶקַּח in Hos_13:11 as pure preterites, i.e., we cannot understand them as referring simply to the choice of Jeroboam as king, and to his death. The imperfects denote an action that is repeated again and again, for which we should use the present, and refer to all the kings that the kingdom of the ten tribes had received and was receiving still, and to their removal. God in His wrath gives the sinful nation kings and takes them away, in order to punish the nation through its kings. This applies not merely to the kings who followed one another so rapidly through conspiracy and murder, although through these the kingdom was gradually broken up and its dissolution accelerated, but to the rulers of the ten tribes as a whole. God gave the tribes who were discontented with the theocratical government of David and Solomon a king of their own, that He might punish them for their resistance to His government, which came to light in the rebellion against Rehoboam. He suspended the division of the kingdom not only over Solomon, as a punishment for his idolatry, but also over the rebellious ten tribes, who, when they separated themselves from the royal house to which the promise had been given of everlasting duration, were also separated from the divinely appointed worship and altar, and given up into the power of their kings, who hurled one another from the throne; and God took away this government from them to chastise them for their sins, by giving them into the power of the heathen, and by driving them away from His face. It is to this last thought, that what follows is attached. The removal of the king in wrath would occur, because the sin of Ephraim was reserved for punishment.
 
1. Is Israel already destroyed or to be destroyed?
2. Who is destroying Israel (or is this unspecified)?
3. Is the verse teaching that in spite of Israel's situation they can look to God for help? Or is the verse teacing that their situation is (or will be) so bad because they have rejected their help?
(Obviously both of those points could be true, and the HCSB seems to drive a middle way between them.)

1-2 Israel is about to be taken into captivity by Assyria, so the destruction is yet (slightly) future.
3 God is sovereignly working through Assyria. The next verse: "Where now is your king?" is almost a taunt -- Israel alternately puts it's trust in kings, then turned around and assassinated them; made alliances with surrounding nations; or brought in the "power" of idols. So God will work through Assyria to destroy Israel and actually repopulate the land with foreigners. (As was Assyria's common strategy to hold on to conquered areas.)

My pastor recently preached through Hosea and he took chapters 12-13 as a single oratory. Much of my understanding of this text comes from him and from Kidner's commentary on Hosea which I was going through as part of my own study during this sermon series.
 
ESV is the most literal rendition of the MT, though the others are all probably defensible. The Masoretic Text has "he will destroy you"; a slight repointing of the vowels gives "I will destroy you" which fits more smoothly with the surrounding text (hence HCSV). An indefinite 3rd person subject in Hebrew often functions like an English passive, hence NKJV.

The challenge in the second half is the meaning of the preposition b which can bear a wide range of meanings. If it means "against", then it reads "Against me, against your helper [supply a verb: "you are" or "you have rebelled"]. The KJV/NKJV reads the b as "in", hence "in me [is] your help". But it is hard then to explain the additional b on the front of "your help". Septuagint has "[It is] for your destruction; who will help you?" I don't know that there is in the end a great difference between these translations in terms of the meaning of the whole passage.
 
Thank you all, especially Josh.

It seems fair to say, given the relative difficulty of the Hebrew, that the context is going to be the most determinative factor in rendering the verse. The most fascinating outline I've seen so far is that of George Hutcheson, who interprets the verse as the AV does, and views it as the pivotal point of the pericope. Here is a link for those who are curious.

Of course, that still leaves the question of the additional beth.
 
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