“Marry a Promiscuous Woman” (Hos. 1:2) and “Your Wife Again” (Hos. 3:1) -- By: Douglas K. Stuart

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 171:682 (Apr 2014)
Article: “Marry a Promiscuous Woman” (Hos. 1:2) and “Your Wife Again” (Hos. 3:1)
Author: Douglas K. Stuart


“Marry a Promiscuous Woman” (Hos. 1:2) and “Your Wife Again” (Hos. 3:1)*

Douglas K. Stuart

* This is the second article in the four-part series “My Favorite Mistranslations,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas Lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, February 5-8, 2013.

Douglas K. Stuart is Professor of Old Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

In the New International Version Hosea 1:2 reads, “When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.” I propose this translation: “When Yahweh began to speak through Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, ‘Marry a woman of ‘prostitution’ and have children of ‘prostitution’ because the land is completely involved in ‘prostitution,’ away from Yahweh.’ “1

If the New International Version is correct, God told Hosea to marry someone who was sexually promiscuous and adulterous, and their eventual children are not specifically characterized. If the proposed translation is correct, Hosea’s wife, children, and country are all described as tainted by idolatry, as indicated by the use of “prostitution” (זנה) to describe each of them.

Please note that I like the New International Version. I preach from the 1984 NIV twice every Sunday. I participated in one of its

translation teams back in 1971 when the first draft of the Old Testament was underway. I have endorsed it in print, have contributed to study-Bible notes based on it, have served as a consultant to revisions of it, and regularly recommend it to church groups and individual believers. So it grieves me to say that I think that the new (2011) NIV’s translation of Hosea 1:2 is among the most misleading renderings of a biblical verse that I know of in any English Bible version.

Problems With Hosea 1:2
In The New New International Version

First, the new New International Version uses three different English terms (“promiscuous,” “adulterous,” “guilty of unfaithfulness”) to render a single Hebrew root (זנה) that appears four times in the same verse in modifying Hosea’s wife, children, and land in the same way. The new New International Version gives the misimpression that the original text characterize...

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