The Bible

 

Hosea 6

Study

   

1 `Come, and we turn back unto Jehovah, For He hath torn, and He doth heal us, He doth smite, and He bindeth us up.

2 He doth revive us after two days, In the third day He doth raise us up, And we live before Him.

3 And we know -- we pursue to know Jehovah, As the dawn prepared is His going forth, And He cometh in as a shower to us, As gathered rain -- sprinkling earth.'

4 What do I do to thee, O Ephraim? What do I do to thee, O Judah? Your goodness [is] as a cloud of the morning, And as dew rising early -- going.

5 Therefore I have hewed by prophets, I have slain them by sayings of My mouth, And My judgments to the light goeth forth.

6 For kindness I desired, and not sacrifice, And a knowledge of God above burnt-offerings.

7 And they, as Adam, transgressed a covenant, There they dealt treacherously against me.

8 Gilead [is] a city of workers of iniquity, Slippery from blood.

9 And as bands do wait for a man, A company of priests do murder -- the way to Shechem, For wickedness they have done.

10 In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing, There [is] the whoredom of Ephraim -- defiled is Israel.

11 Also, O Judah, appointed is a harvest to thee, In My turning back [to] the captivity of My people!

   

Commentary

 

Man (male)

  
by Claude Lefebvre

The relationship between men and women is deep and nuanced, and one entire book of the Writings -- Conjugial Love -- is devoted to the subject. So we can hardly offer a full explanation here. In a very general sense, though, the Writings say that men are creatures of intellect, driven by the love of growing wise; women, meanwhile are creations of affection, driven by the love of wisdom and the good that wisdom can do. They are formed this way to reflect the Lord's Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and so that they can form marriages that reflect the unity of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. Marking differences between men and women can be a touchy thing, but realistically it's easy to see that men tend to love acquiring knowledge whether it has any practical application or not. Many of them can spout out sports statistics or hold court on the workings of the internal combustion engine, even though it is knowledge they are not likely to ever use. They find such knowledge interesting for its own sake. It follows, then, that when the Bible speaks of men, the men represent facts, ideas, knowledge, truth, intellect and wisdom -- or in the negative sense falsity, twisted logic, and reasoning that is devoid of concern for others.