Hosea 2:21

New Living Translation

"In that day, I will answer," says the Lord . "I will answer the sky as it pleads for clouds. And the sky will answer the earth with rain.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
On that day I will respond—

Hebrew Names Version
It will happen in that day, I will respond," says the LORD, I will respond to the heavens, And they will respond to the eretz;

King James Version
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord , I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

English Standard Version
"And in that day I will answer, declares the Lord , I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth,

New American Standard Bible
"And it will come about on that day that I will respond," declares the LORD. "I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth,

New Century Version
"At that time I will speak to you," says the Lord . "I will speak to the skies, and they will give rain to the earth.

Amplified Bible
"It will come about in that day that I will respond," says the LORD. "I will respond to the heavens [which ask for rain to pour on the earth], and they will respond to the earth [which begs for the rain],

Geneva Bible (1587)
And in that day I wil heare, saith the Lord, I will euen heare the heauens, and they shall heare the earth,

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"It will come about in that day that I will respond," declares the LORD. "I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth,

Legacy Standard Bible
"And it will be in that day, that I will answer," declares Yahweh."I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth,

Berean Standard Bible
"On that day I will respond-" declares the LORD-"I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth.

Contemporary English Version
I will command the sky to send rain on the earth,

Complete Jewish Bible
I will betroth you to me forever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in grace and in compassion;

Darby Translation
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith Jehovah, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

Easy-to-Read Version
And at that time I will answer." This is what the Lord says. "I will speak to the skies, and they will give rain to the earth.

George Lamsa Translation
And it shall come to pass on that day, says the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth;

Good News Translation
At that time I will answer the prayers of my people Israel. I will make rain fall on the earth, and the earth will produce grain and grapes and olives. <

Lexham English Bible
On that day I will answer, declares Yahweh, I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth.

Literal Translation
And it shall be in that day, I will answer, says Jehovah. I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
At the same tyme wil I shewe my self frendly and gracious vnto ye heauens, saieth the LORDE: & the heauens shal helpe the earth,

American Standard Version
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will answer, saith Jehovah, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth;

Bible in Basic English
And it will be, in that day, says the Lord, that I will give an answer to the heavens, and the heavens to the earth;

JPS Old Testament (1917)
And I will betroth thee unto Me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in justice, and in lovingkindness, and in compassion.

King James Version (1611)
And it shall come to passe in that day, I will heare, saith the Lord, I will heare the heauens, and they shall heare the earth,

Bishop's Bible (1568)
At the same tyme wyll I shewe my selfe gratious vnto the heauens saith the Lorde, and the heauens shall helpe the earth:

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, I will hearken to the heaven, and it shall hearken to the earth;

English Revised Version
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will answer, saith the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth;

World English Bible
It will happen in that day, I will respond," says Yahweh, I will respond to the heavens, And they will respond to the earth;

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
And it schal be, in that dai Y schal here, seith the Lord, and Y schal here heuenes, and tho schulen here the erthe;

Update Bible Version
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will answer, says Yahweh, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth;

Webster's Bible Translation
And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

New English Translation
"At that time, I will willingly respond," declares the Lord . "I will respond to the sky, and the sky will respond to the ground;

New King James Version
"It shall come to pass in that day That I will answer," says the LORD; "I will answer the heavens, And they shall answer the earth.

New Life Bible
"In that day" says the Lord, "I will give an answer to the heavens, and they will give an answer to the earth.

New Revised Standard
On that day I will answer, says the Lord , I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth;

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will respond, Declareth Yahweh, I will respond to the heavens, - and, they, shall respond to the earth;

Douay-Rheims Bible
And it shall come to pass in that day: I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth.

Revised Standard Version
"And in that day, says the LORD, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth;

Young's Literal Translation
And it hath come to pass in that day, I answer -- an affirmation of Jehovah, I answer the heavens, and they answer the earth.

THE MESSAGE
"On the very same day, I'll answer"—this is God 's Message— "I'll answer the sky, sky will answer earth, Earth will answer grain and wine and olive oil, and they'll all answer Jezreel. I'll plant her in the good earth. I'll have mercy on No-Mercy. I'll say to Nobody, ‘You're my dear Somebody,' and he'll say ‘You're my God!'"

Contextual Overview

¹⁴ "But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. ¹⁵ I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt. ¹⁶ When that day comes," says the Lord , "you will call me ‘my husband' instead of ‘my master.' ¹⁷ O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips, and you will never mention them again. ¹⁸ On that day I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and the birds of the sky and the animals that scurry along the ground so they will not harm you. I will remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, so you can live unafraid in peace and safety. ¹⁹ I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. ²⁰ I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the Lord . ²¹ "In that day, I will answer," says the Lord . "I will answer the sky as it pleads for clouds. And the sky will answer the earth with rain. ²² Then the earth will answer the thirsty cries of the grain, the grapevines, and the olive trees. And they in turn will answer, ‘Jezreel'—‘God plants!' ²³ At that time I will plant a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself. I will show love to those I called ‘Not loved.' And to those I called ‘Not my people,' I will say, ‘Now you are my people.' And they will reply, ‘You are our God!'"

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

saith: Isaiah 65:24, Zechariah 8:12, Zechariah 13:9, Matthew 6:33, Romans 8:32, 1 Corinthians 3:21-23

Reciprocal: 2 Chronicles 6:27 - send rain Psalms 67:6 - Then Isaiah 2:11 - in that day Isaiah 30:23 - shall he Ezekiel 36:8 - ye shall Ezekiel 36:9 - General Ezekiel 36:29 - call Joel 2:21 - be glad Amos 9:13 - plowman Zechariah 9:17 - corn

Cross-References

Genesis 15:12
As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him.

1 Samuel 26:12
So David took the spear and jug of water that were near Saul's head. Then he and Abishai got away without anyone seeing them or even waking up, because the Lord had put Saul's men into a deep sleep.

Job 4:13
It came to me in a disturbing vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep.

Job 33:15
He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they lie in their beds.

Proverbs 19:15
Lazy people sleep soundly, but idleness leaves them hungry.

Daniel 8:18
While he was speaking, I fainted and lay there with my face to the ground. But Gabriel roused me with a touch and helped me to my feet.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And it shall come to pass in that day,.... When these espousals shall be made, when the marriage of the Lamb will be come, and his bride will be betrothed to him; then the whole creation, the heavens and the earth, shall contribute of their riches and plenty to make a marriage feast for them; or then shall the spouse of Christ, in a very visible and plentiful manner, by virtue of the marriage union between them, partake of all his good things, both temporal and spiritual; and especially the latter, as signified by the former; but yet in the use of means, and as the effect of prayer, as follows:

I will hear, saith the Lord; the petitions of his new married bride, which he cannot deny her :or, "I will answer" a; men oftentimes hear, and answer not; but when the Lord hears his people, he answers them, and grants them their requests; he is a God hearing and answering prayer. So the Targum,

"I will receive your prayer, saith the Lord.''

I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; in these and the following words is an elegant personification, a figure by which inanimate creatures are represented as persons speaking, praying, asking, and being heard and answered; and a beautiful climax, or a chain of second causes linked together, and as depending upon the first cause, the Lord himself; the heavens are represented as desiring the Lord of nature, the Maker and Supporter of them, having been like brass, and shut up, that they might have leave to let down their refreshing dews, and gentle showers of rain, upon the earth; and the earth as being dry and thirsty, as gaping, opening its mouth, and imploring these benign influences of the heavens; and both as answered: for so it may be rendered, "I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth" b; the Lord promises to answer the desires of the heavens, and allow them to drop their dew, and distil their rain; and so they shall answer the cravings of the earth. The spiritual sense may be, according to Schmidt, Christ is he on whom all blessings depend; "heaven" may signify the Holy Spirit Christ gives, who intercedes with him for the saints; the "earth" the ministration of the word and ordinances, by which the Spirit is given, invoked by the ministers of them. Or, as Cocceius, the "heavens" may design the ministers of the church, who govern in it, and who pray and plead for help, assistance, and success; and the "earth" the audience, the common people, who also pray, and are heard and answered, when ministers let down the dew and rain of evangelical doctrine upon them, and water them, and refresh them with it; and such precious seasons as these, as the fruit of prayer, will the saints have in the latter day.

a אענה "respondebo", Calvin, Drusius, Tarnovius, Cocceius. b אענה את שמים "respondebo coelo, et illud respondebit terrae", Cocceius, Drusius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I will hear the heavens ... - As all nature is closed, and would refuse her office to those who rebel against her God, so, when He hath withdrawn His curse and is reconciled to man all shall combine together for man’s good, and, by a kind of harmony, all parts thereof join their ministries for the service of those who are at unity with Him. And, as an image of love, all, from lowest to highest, are bound together, each depending on the ministry of that beyond it, and the highest on God. At each link, the chain might have been broken; but God who knit their services together, and had before withheld the rain, and made the earth barren, and laid waste the trees, now made each to supply the other, and led the thoughts of people through the course of causes and effects up to Himself, whoever causes all which comes to pass.

The immediate desire of His people was the grain, wine and oil; they needed the fruitfulness of the earth; the earth, by its parched surface and gaping clefts, seemed to crave the rain from heaven; the rain could not fall without the will of God. So all are pictured as in a state of expectancy, until God gave the word, and His will ran through the whole course of secondary causes, and accomplished what man prayed Him for. Such is the picture. But, although God’s gifts of nature were gladdening tokens of His restored favor, and now too, under the Gospel, we rightly thank Him for the removal of any of His natural chastisements, and look upon it as an earnest of His favor toward us, the prophet who had just spoken of the highest things, the union of man with God in Christ, does not here speak only of the lowest. What God gives, by virtue of an espousal “forever,” are not gifts in time only. His gifts of nature are, in themselves, pictures of His gifts of grace, and as such the prophets employ them. So then God promiseth, and this in order, a manifold abundance of all spiritual gifts. Of these, “corn and wine,” as they are the visible parts, so are they often, in the Old Testament, the symbols of His highest gift, the holy eucharist; and “oil,” of God’s Holy Spirit, through whom they are sanctified.

God here calls “Israel” by the name of “Jezreel,” repealing, once more in the close of this prophecy, His sentence, conveyed through the names of the three children of the prophet. The name “Jezreel” combines in one, the memory of the former punishment and the future mercy. God did not altogether do away the temporal part of His sentence. he had said, “I will scatter;” and, although some were brought back with Judah, Israel remained scattered in all lands, in Egypt and Greece and Italy, Asia Minor, and the far East and West. But God turned His chastisement into mercy to those who believed in Him. Now he changes the meaning of the word into, “God shall sow.” Israel, in its dispersion, when converted to God, became every where the preacher of Him whom they had persecuted; and in Him - the true Seed. whom God sowed in the earth and it “brought forth much fruit,” converted Israel also bore, “some a hundred-fold; some sixty; some thirty.”

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Hosea 2:21. I will hear, saith the Lord — The sentence is repeated, to show how fully the thing was determined by the Almighty, and how implicitly they might depend on the Divine promise.

I will hear the heavens — The visible heavens, the atmosphere, where vapours are collected. The clouds, when they wish to deposit their fertilizing showers upon the earth.

They shall hear the earth — When it seems to supplicate for rain.