Hosea 9:14

King James Version

Give them, O Lord : what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Give them, Lord—What should you give?Give them a womb that miscarriesand breasts that are dry!

Hebrew Names Version
Give them -- LORD what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

English Standard Version
Give them, O Lord — what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

New American Standard Bible
Give to them, LORD—what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dried-up breasts.

New Century Version
Lord , give them what they should have. What will you give them? Make their women unable to have children; give them dried-up breasts that cannot feed their babies.

Amplified Bible
Give them [the punishment they deserve], O LORD! What will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Geneva Bible (1587)
O Lorde, giue them: what wilt thou giue them? giue them a baren wombe and drie breasts.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Give them, O LORD—what will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Legacy Standard Bible
Give them, O Yahweh—what will You give?Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Berean Standard Bible
Give them, O LORD-what will You give? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that dry up!

Contemporary English Version
Our Lord , do just one thing for your people— make their women unable to have children or to nurse their babies.

Complete Jewish Bible
Adonai , give them — what will you give? Give them wombs that miscarry and dried-up breasts!

Darby Translation
Give them, Jehovah—what wilt thou give?—give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Easy-to-Read Version
Lord , give them what you will. Give them a womb that loses babies and breasts that cannot give milk.

George Lamsa Translation
Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Good News Translation
What shall I ask you to do to these people? Make their women barren! Make them unable to nurse their babies!

Lexham English Bible
Give them, O Yahweh— what will you give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Literal Translation
O Jehovah, give them. What will you give them? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

American Standard Version
Give them, O Jehovah—what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Bible in Basic English
O Lord, what will you give them? Give them bodies which may not give birth and breasts without milk.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Give them, O LORD, whatsoever Thou wilt give; give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

King James Version (1611)
Giue them, O Lord: what wilt thou giue? giue them a miscarying wombe, and drie breasts.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
O Lorde geue them: what shalt thou geue them? Geue them an vnfruitfull wombe, and drye breastes.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give them? a miscarrying womb, and dry breasts.

English Revised Version
Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

World English Bible
Give them -- Yahweh what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Lord, yyue thou to hem; what schalt thou yyue to hem? yyue thou to hem a wombe with out children, and drie tetis.

Update Bible Version
Give them, O Yahweh-what will you give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Webster's Bible Translation
Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

New English Translation
Give them, O Lord — what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry, and breasts that cannot nurse!

New King James Version
Give them, O LORD-- What will You give? Give them a miscarrying womb And dry breasts!

New Living Translation
O Lord , what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk.

New Life Bible
O Lord, what will You give them? Give them children who die before they are born, and make them not able to nurse their babies.

New Revised Standard
Give them, O Lord — what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Give them, O Yahweh - what wilt thou give? Give them, a miscarrying womb, and breasts dried up.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Give them, O Lord. What wilt thou give them? Give them a womb without children, and dry breasts.

Revised Standard Version
Give them, O LORD--what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Young's Literal Translation
Give to them, Jehovah -- what dost Thou give? Give to them miscarrying womb, and dry breasts.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
O LORDE thou shalt geue them: what shalt thou geue them? geue them an vnfrutefull wombe and drye brestes.

THE MESSAGE
Give it to them, God ! But what? Give them a dried-up womb and shriveled breasts.

Contextual Overview

¹¹ As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. ¹² Though they bring up their children, yet will I bereave them, that there shall not be a man left: yea, woe also to them when I depart from them! ¹³ Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. ¹⁴ Give them, O Lord : what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. ¹⁵ All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters. ¹⁶ Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. ¹⁷ My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him: and they shall be wanderers among the nations.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

what: Hosea 9:13, Hosea 9:16, Matthew 24:19, Mark 13:17, Luke 21:23, Luke 23:29, 1 Corinthians 7:26

a miscarrying womb: Heb. a womb that casteth the fruit, Job 21:10

Reciprocal: 2 Kings 2:19 - barren Esther 5:11 - the multitude Job 3:11 - died I Job 27:14 - children Hosea 9:11 - from the womb

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give them?.... The prophet foreseeing the butchery and destruction of their children, his heart ached for them; and, to show his tender affection for this people, was desirous of putting up a supplication for them; but was at a loss what to ask, their sins were so many, and so aggravated, and the decree gone forth for their destruction: or, "give them what thou wilt give them" l; so Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abarbinel, what thou hast threatened before to give them, Hosea 9:11; do not give them to be butchered and murdered before the eyes of their parents by their enemies; but rather let them die in the womb, or as soon as born; so it follows:

give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts; the latter being a sign of the former, as physicians observe; or the words may be rendered disjunctively, give them one, or the other; that is, to the wives of the people of Israel, if they conceive, let them miscarry, prove abortive, rather than bring forth children to be destroyed in such a cruel manner by murderers; or if they bear them to the birth, and bring them forth, let their breasts be dried up, and afford no milk for their nourishment; and so die for lack of it, rather than fall into the hands of their merciless enemies: thus, of two evils, the prophet chooses and prays for the least. Some interpret this as a prediction of what would be, or an imprecation of it; but it rather seems a pathetic wish, flowing from the tender affection of the prophet, judging such a case to be preferable to the former; see Luke 23:29; though the other sense seems best to agree with what follows, and which is favoured by the Targum,

"give thou, O Lord, the recompence of their works; give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.''

l תן להם מה תתן "da eis quod daturus es", Junius Tremellius, Vatablus, Grotius "da illis id quod dabis", Schmidt.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Give them a miscarrying womb - The prophet prays for Israel, and debates with himself what he can ask for, amid this their determined wickedness, and God’s judgments. Since “Ephraim” was “to bring forth children to the murderer,” then it was mercy to ask for them, that they might have no children. Since such are the evils which await their children, grant them, O Lord, as a blessing, the sorrows of barrenness. What God had before pronounced as a punishment, should, as compared to other evils, be a mercy, and an object of prayer. So our Lord pronounces as to the destruction of Jerusalem. “Behold the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck” Luke 23:29. “O unhappy fruitfulness and fruitful unhappiness, compared with which, barrenness, which among them was accounted a curse, became blessedness.”

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Hosea 9:14. Give them, O Lord: what wilt thou give? — There is an uncommon beauty in these words. The prophet, seeing the evils that were likely to fall upon his countrymen, begins to make intercession for them; but when he had formed the first part of his petition, "Give them, O Lord!" the prophetic light discovered to him that the petition would not be answered and that God was about to give them something widely different. Then changing his petition, which the Divine Spirit had interrupted, by signifying that he must not proceed in his request, he asks the question, then, "What wilt thou give them?" and the answer is, "Give them a miscarrying womb, and dry breasts." And this he is commanded to announce. It is probable that the Israelites had prided themselves in the fruitfulness of their families, and the numerous population of their country. God now tells them that this shall be no more; their wives shall be barren, and their land cursed.