EasyEnglish Bible 2018
Hosea 12:7
7Your traders love to cheat people. They use false weights and measures.
Hosea 12:7 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.
- New International Version (NIV)The merchant uses dishonest scales and loves to defraud.
- English Standard Version (ESV)A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress.
- New King James Version (NKJV)“A cunning Canaanite! Deceitful scales are in his hand; He loves to oppress.
Context of Hosea 12:7
5This was the Lord God Almighty! We know him as the Lord, his special name. 6So now, you must return to your God. You must show faithful love for each other. You must judge people in a fair way. You must be patient. Trust God to come and help you. Your traders love to cheat people. They use false weights and measures. 8Ephraim's people proudly say, ‘We are rich! We have become very rich! In all the ways that we have found riches, nobody can accuse us. We have not really done anything that is a sin!’ 9God says, ‘Remember that I am the Lord your God! I brought you out of Egypt, where you were slaves. Now I will make you live in tents again, as you did before, in the wilderness.
Read all of Hosea 12Hosea 12:7 word by word
כְּנַ֗עַן בְּיָד֛וֹ מֹאזְנֵ֥י מִרְמָ֖ה לַעֲשֹׁ֥ק אָהֵֽב׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Hosea 12:7
- Ezekiel 16:3Say to them, “This is what the Almighty Lord says to Jerusalem's people: You were born in the land of Canaan. That is where you came from. Your father was an Amorite and your mother was a Hittite.
- Zechariah 14:21Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be for the Lord Almighty. All the people who come to offer animals to the Lord will cook in those pots. On that day, nobody who sells things will come into the house of the Lord Almighty.
- John 2:16He said to the people who sold birds, ‘Take them out of here! Do not make my Father's house into a market!’
- Leviticus 19:35They must be fair when they measure length or weight or size.
- Proverbs 11:1The Lord hates traders who do not use true weights. He is happy when they are honest and they use true weights.
- Proverbs 16:11The Lord wants people to use true weights and measures. He knows all the weights that a trader uses.
- Amos 8:5You say to yourselves, ‘We want the new moon festival to finish so that we can sell food again. We want our Sabbath day of rest to finish so that we can sell grain.’ But when you sell things, you cheat the people who buy from you. You deceive them with false weights, and you make the price too high.
- Micah 6:10‘You bad people still hide valuable things that you have taken from other people. I will not forget this. You bad people use false weights to measure the food that you sell. I hate that.
- 1 Timothy 6:9But some people want to have lots of money. This causes them to do wrong things. They cannot get free from their bad ways, like an animal in a trap. They want many things for themselves. Their foolish thoughts hurt them and finally destroy their lives.
- Isaiah 3:5People will be cruel to each other. Men will argue against one another and neighbours will fight each other. Young people will insult older people. And useless people will speak against people that they should respect.
- Ezekiel 22:29The people in the land make people give them money. They rob people. They are cruel to poor people and to weak people. They cheat foreign people who live among them. They do not allow them to have justice.
- Amos 2:7They are not kind to poor people and they do not help them. A father and his son have sex with the same woman. They do not respect the holy way that I want them to live.
- Amos 3:9Tell this message now in Ashdod city. Go to the strong cities in Egypt and speak the message there. Say this: ‘Come to the mountains in Samaria. Look at the cruel things that people are doing in Samaria. Many people are afraid.’
- Amos 4:1Listen to this message, you women who live on the hill in Samaria. You are like fat cows that do not work hard for food. You are like the cows in Bashan. They eat on very good land by the Jordan river. You do not give to weak people what they need. You are not fair to poor people. Then you sit down and you say to your husbands, ‘Bring us more to drink.’
- Amos 5:11You cheat poor people so that they pay too much tax. You take away their food for yourselves. Because of that, you will not live in the beautiful houses that you have built for yourselves. You will not drink wine from the vines that you have planted.
- Micah 2:1Micah continues: People who prepare to do bad things should be afraid. God will do bad things to them! While they lie in bed, they think about bad things to do. Then, when the morning comes, they do those bad things. They have the authority to do whatever they want to do.
Commentaries on Hosea 12:7
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 7He is a merchant - Or a Canaanite; referring to the Phoenicians, famous for their traffic. Ephraim is as corrupt as those heathenish traffickers were. He kept, as many in all ages have done, a weight and a weight; a heavy one to buy with and a light one to sell by.Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 7He is a merchant - Or, indignantly, “a merchant in whose hands are the balances of deceit!” How could they love “mercy and justice,” whose trade was “deceit,” who weighed out deceit with their goods? False in their dealings, in their weights and measures, and, by taking advantage of the necessities of others, oppressive also. Deceit is the sin of weakness oppression is the abuse of power. Wealth does not give the power to use naked violence but wealthy…Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 7-14Verses 7-14 Ephraim became a merchant: the word also signifies a Canaanite. They carried on trade upon Canaanitish principles, covetously and with fraud and deceit. Thus they became rich, and falsely supposed that Providence favoured them. But shameful sins shall have shameful punishments. Let them remember, not only what a mighty prince Jacob was with God, but what a servant he was to Laban. The benefits we have had from the word of God, make our sin and…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 7-8During the reign of Jeroboam II (793–753 BC), Israelite merchants became very wealthy. They often used deceitful business practices like dishonest scales (see Amos 8:5–6). The Hebrew term for merchants is kena‘an (“Canaan”). Canaanite traders were known in the ancient world for their crafty dealings. The Israelites imitated their pagan neighbors in both religion and commerce.Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 77. merchant--a play on the double sense of the Hebrew, "Canaan," that is, a Canaanite and a "merchant" Eze 16:3: "Thy birth is ... of Canaan." They who naturally were descendants of pious Jacob had become virtually Canaanites, who were proverbial as cheating merchants (compare Is 23:11, Margin), the greatest reproach to Israel, who despised Canaan. The Phoenicians called themselves Canaanites or merchants (Is 23:8). oppress--open violence: as the…Read the comment
Topics related to Hosea 12:7
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Hosea 12
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Calvin’s Commentaries
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
EasyEnglish Bible 2018 — Copyright © MissionAssist 2018
Commentaries