Texts in Conversation
The Hebrew version of Hosea has Israel offer the bulls of their lips, but the Greek Septuagint translates it to the fruit of their lips. Hebrews echoes the Greek version, changing animal sacrifice into spoken praise that confesses God’s name.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Hosea 14:3
Septuagint
2 “Return, O Israel, toward the Lord, your God, because you have fallen by your injustices. 3 Take words with yourselves, and return to the Lord, our God. Speak to him, in order that you may not receive injustice and may receive good things. And we will repay the fruit of your lips. 4 Assyria will not save us; we will not mount a horse. Never again will we say, ‘Our gods,’ to the works of our hands. The one who is in you will show mercy to an orphan.
Hebrews 13:15
New Testament
14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, acknowledging his name. 16 And do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.
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Notes and References
... And while the regulations in Leviticus refer to various leavened and unleavened cakes, Hebrews redefines the offering as the fruit of lips that confess the name of Jesus (καρπὸν χειλέων ὁμολογούντων τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ). The expression “fruit of lips” appears in Hosea 14:2 (Septuagint 14:3) where the people are given a liturgy for a prayer for forgiveness, including a promise to “repay” the fruit of their lips, that is, put their words into action by fulfilling their vows of repentance. In Hebrews, as in Hosea, sacrificial language is put to use in terms of speech. A similar phenomenon is encountered at Qumran, where the community (which had withdrawn from the temple) transferred the language of sacrifice to speech in honour of God. ...
Church, Philip
Hebrews and the Temple: Attitudes to the Temple in Second Temple Judaism and in Hebrews
(pp. 366-367) Brill, 2017
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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