In this passionate career the nation resembles a furnace which a baker heats in the evening, and leaves burning all night while the dough is leavening, and then causes to turn with a still brighter flame in the morning, when the dough is ready for baking. בּערה מאפה, burning from the baker, i.e., heated by the baker. בּערה is accentuated as milel, either because the Masoretes took offence at תּנּוּר being construed as a feminine (Ges. Lehrgeb. p. 546; Ewald, Gramm. p. 449, note 1), or because tiphchah could not occupy any other place in the short space between zakeph and athnach (Hitzig). העיר, excitare, here in the sense of stirring. On the use of the participle in the place of the infinitive, with verbs of beginning and ending, see Ewald, §298, b.
Verses 5-7
Both king and princes are addicted to debauchery (Hos 7:5). “The day of our king” is either the king's birthday, or the day when he ascended the throne, on either of which he probably gave a feast to his nobles. יום is taken most simply as an adverbial accus. loci. On this particular day the princes drink to such an extent, that they become ill with the heat of the wine. החלוּ, generally to make ill, here to make one's self ill. Hitzig follows the ancient versions, in deriving it from חלל, and taking it as equivalent to החלּוּ ot , “they begin,” which gives a very insipid meaning. The difficult expression משׁך ידו את־ל, “he draws his hand with the scoffers,” can hardly be understood in any other way than that suggested by Gesenius (Lex.), “the king goes about with scoffers,” i.e., makes himself familiar with them, so that we may compare שׁוּת ידו עם (Exo 23:1). The scoffers are drunkards, just as in Pro 20:1 wine is directly called a scoffer. In Hos 7:6, Hos 7:7, the thought of the fourth verse is carried out still further. כּי introduces the explanation and ground of the simile of the furnace; for Hos 7:5 is subordinate to the main thought, and to be taken as a parenthetical remark. The words from כּי קרבוּ to בּארבּם ot כּי קרבוּ form one sentence. קרב is construed with ב loci, as in Jdg 19:13; Psa 91:10 : they have brought their heart near, brought them into their craftiness. “Like a furnace” (כּתנּוּר) contains an abridged simile. But it is not their heart itself which is here compared to a furnace (their heart = themselves), in the sense of “burning like a flaming furnace with base desires,” as Gesenius supposes; for the idea of bringing a furnace into an ‘ōrebh would be
