Lectionary Calendar
Thursday, May 15th, 2025
the Fourth Week after Easter
Attention!
For 10¢ a day you can enjoy StudyLight.org ads
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!

Read the Bible

English Revised Version

Hosea 4:17

Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Alliances;   Company;   Ephraim;   Holy Spirit;   Idolatry;   Impenitence;   Self-Delusion;   Wicked (People);   Thompson Chain Reference - Reprobates;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Idolatry;   Judgments;   Self-Delusion;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Poetry of the Hebrews;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Ephraim;   Hosea;   Jeroboam;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Providence of God;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Dan (1);   Israel;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Hosea;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Hosea ;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Hoshea;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Monotheism;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Ephraim is attached to idols;leave him alone!
Hebrew Names Version
Efrayim is joined to idols. Leave him alone!
King James Version
Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.
English Standard Version
Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone.
New American Standard Bible
Ephraim is allied with idols; Leave him alone.
New Century Version
The Israelites have chosen to worship idols, so leave them alone.
Amplified Bible
Ephraim is joined to idols, So let him alone [to suffer the consequences].
Geneva Bible (1587)
Ephraim is ioyned to idoles: let him alone.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Ephraim is joined to idols; Let him alone.
Legacy Standard Bible
Ephraim is joined to idols;Let him alone.
Berean Standard Bible
Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone!
Contemporary English Version
You people of Israel are charmed by idols. Leave them alone!
Complete Jewish Bible
Efrayim is joined to idols; let him alone!
Darby Translation
—Ephraim is joined to idols: leave him alone.
Easy-to-Read Version
"Ephraim has joined his idols, so leave him alone.
George Lamsa Translation
Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.
Good News Translation
The people of Israel are under the spell of idols. Let them go their own way.
Lexham English Bible
Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.
Literal Translation
Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone.
American Standard Version
Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.
Bible in Basic English
Ephraim is joined to false gods; let him be.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.
King James Version (1611)
Ephraim is ioyned to idoles: let him alone.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Ephraim [is become] partaker of idols, let hym alone.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Ephraim, joined with idols, has laid stumbling-blocks in his own way.
World English Bible
Ephraim is joined to idols. Leave him alone!
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Effraym is the partener of idols, leeue thou him;
Update Bible Version
Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.
Webster's Bible Translation
Ephraim [is] joined to idols: let him alone.
New English Translation
Ephraim has attached himself to idols; Do not go near him!
New King James Version
"Ephraim is joined to idols, Let him alone.
New Living Translation
Leave Israel alone, because she is married to idolatry.
New Life Bible
Ephraim is joined to false gods. Let him alone.
New Revised Standard
Ephraim is joined to idols— let him alone.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Mated with idols, is Ephraim, let him alone.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Ephraim is a partaker with idols, let him alone.
Revised Standard Version
E'phraim is joined to idols, let him alone.
Young's Literal Translation
Joined to idols [is] Ephraim, let him alone.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
And where as Ephraim is become partaker of Idols, wel, let him go.

Contextual Overview

12 My people ask counsel at their stock, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredom hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God. 13 They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters commit whoredom, and your brides commit adultery. 14 I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for they themselves go apart with whores, and they sacrifice with the harlots: and the people that doth not understand shall be overthrown. 15 Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-aven, nor swear, As the LORD liveth. 16 For Israel hath behaved himself stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer: now will the LORD feed them as a lamb in a large place. 17 Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone. 18 Their drink is become sour: they commit whoredom continually; her rulers dearly love shame. 19 The wind hath wrapped her up in its wings; and they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Ephraim: Hosea 11:2, Hosea 12:1, Hosea 13:2

let: Hosea 4:4, Psalms 81:12, Matthew 15:14, Revelation 22:11

Reciprocal: Exodus 14:12 - Let us alone 1 Kings 11:33 - they have forsaken Ezekiel 3:26 - and shalt Ezekiel 20:39 - Go ye Hosea 4:14 - punish Hosea 5:3 - thou Hosea 6:10 - there Hosea 7:1 - the iniquity Matthew 16:4 - And he Mark 8:13 - General Acts 7:42 - and gave Acts 14:16 - suffered Romans 1:24 - God 1 Corinthians 14:38 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 4:4
And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
Genesis 4:11
And now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;
Genesis 5:18
And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and begat Enoch:
Genesis 5:22
and Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
Genesis 11:4
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
2 Samuel 18:18
Now Absalom in his life time had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king’s dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance: and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is called Absalom’s monument, unto this day.
Psalms 49:11
Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.
Daniel 4:30
The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Ephraim is joined to idols,.... That is, the ten tribes of Israel, frequently so called after their separation from the rest, because that Jeroboam, by whom the revolt was made, was of that tribe; and because that tribe was the principal of them, and Samaria, the metropolis of their kingdom, was in it: and so the Targum here renders it,

"the house of Israel are joined to idols;''

to the calves at Dan and Bethel; to Baal, and other idols, they worshipped: the phrase expresses their strong affection for them, their constant worship of them, and their obstinate persisting therein, and the difficulty there was of bringing them off of it; they cleaved to their idols, were glued, and as it were wedded unto them, and there was no separating of them; as men are, who are addicted to the lusts of the flesh, to the mammon of unrighteousness, or to their own self-righteousness, or to any idol they set up in their hearts as such: hence it follows,

let them alone: which are either the words of the Lord to the prophet, enjoining him to prophesy no more to them; to reprove them no more for their sins, since it was all to no purpose, there was no reclaiming them, so Jarchi and Kimchi; and therefore let them alone, let them go on in their sins, and in their errors, and in their superstition and idolatry; see Ezekiel 3:26. God was determined to let them alone himself, and therefore bids his prophet to do so likewise: and sad is the case with men when he lets them alone, and will not disturb their consciences any more by jogs and convictions, but gives them up to a seared conscience, to hardness of heart, and to their own lusts; when he will not hedge up their way with thorns, or distress them with afflictive providences, and hinder them from going on in a course of sin and wickedness; nor give them restraining grace, but suffer them to go on in the broad road, till they drop into hell; and says of them,

let him that is filthy be filthy still, Revelation 22:11 or else they are the words of the prophet to the men of Judah, to have nothing to do with Israel, since they were such backsliders and idolaters; to have no communion and conversation with them, but let them be alone, and worship alone for them; since what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness, light with darkness, Christ with Belial, a believer with an infidel, or the temple of the living God with idols and idolaters? 2 Corinthians 6:14, some take them to be the words of the prophet to God concerning Israel, approving of his righteous judgments, in threatening to feed them as a lamb in a large place; dismiss him thither, suffer and leave him to feed there. The Targum interprets it of their sin, and not their punishment,

"they have left their worship;''

the service of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Ephraim is joined to idols - that is, banded, bound up with them, “associated,” as the word means, with them so as to cleave to them, willing neither to part with nor to be parted from, them. The idols are called by a name, denoting toils; with toil they were fashioned, and, when fashioned, they were a toil and grief.

Let him alone - Literally, give him rest, i. e., from all further expostulations, which he will not hear. It is an abandonment of Israel for the time, as in the prophet Ezekiel, “As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, go ye, serve ye every one his idols” Ezekiel 20:39. Sinners often long not to be tormented by conscience or by God’s warnings. To be left so, is to be abandoned by God, as one whose case is desperate. God will not, while there is hope, leave a man to sleep in sin; for so the numbness of the soul increases, until, like those who fall asleep amid extreme cold of the body, it never awakes.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Hosea 4:17. Ephraim — The ten tribes.

Is joined to idols — Is become incorporated with false gods.

Let him alone. — They are irreclaimable, leave them to the consequences of their vicious conduct.


 
adsfree-icon
Ads FreeProfile