Texts in Conversation
Hosea describes God giving silver and gold to an unfaithful wife who uses it to worship Baal. Ezekiel echoes the image when Jerusalem takes the gold and silver God gave her and makes idols she prostitutes herself with.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Hosea 2:8
Hebrew Bible
7 Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch them; she will seek them, but she will not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband, because I was better off then than I am now.’ 8 “Yet until now she has refused to acknowledge that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil; and that it was I who lavished on her the silver and gold—that they used in worshiping Baal! 9 Therefore, I will take back my grain during the harvest time and my new wine when it ripens; I will take away my wool and my flax that I had provided in order to clothe her.
Ezekiel 16:17
Hebrew Bible
16 You took some of your clothing and made for yourself decorated high places; you engaged in prostitution on them. You went to him to become his. 17 You also took your beautiful jewelry, made of my gold and my silver I had given to you, and made for yourself male images and engaged in prostitution with them. 18 You took your embroidered clothing and used it to cover them; you offered my olive oil and my incense to them.
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Notes and References
"... Guided by the correlative pair “silver . . . and gold,” a holistic analysis of verse 10b shows that both metals were lavished on her, and both metals were used to make idols: “The silver and gold which I gave her in abundance, they used to make images of Baal.” The reign of Jeroboam II was a time of affluence and both Hosea and Amos find connections between the nation’s wealth and its idolatry. Since verse 10a lists natural products, it is likely that silver and gold are used not to mean money in the narrow sense, but to refer to the husband's gifts. The fundamental parallel elsewhere in prophetic thought is Ezekiel 16:17. ..."
Andersen, Francis I., and David Noel Freedman
Hosea: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(p. 242) Doubleday, 1980
* 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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