[516] See _Isaiah I.-XXXIX._ (Expositor's Bible), pp. 242 ff. [517] Cheyne indeed (Introduction to Robertson Smith's _Prophets of Israel_) takes the prayer to be genuine, but an intrusion. His reasons do not persuade me. But at least it is clear that there is a want of connection between the prayer and what follows it, unless the prayer be understood in the sense explained above. [518] Isaiah ix. 10. [519] Cf. Isaiah xviii. 4. [520] _Saying_: so the LXX. adds and thereby connects chap. v. with chap. vi. [521] Read ויִךְ. [522] Literally _hunt_, _pursue_. It is the same word as is used of the unfaithful Israel's pursuit of the Ba'alim, chap. ii. 9. [523] So by a rearrangement of consonants (נמצאהו כשחרנו) and the help of the LXX. (εὑρήσομεν αὐτόν) Giesebrecht (_Beiträge_, p. 208) proposes to read the clause, which in the traditional text runs, _like the morn His going forth shall be certain_. [524] Read יֵצֵא כָאוֹר מִשְׁפָּטִי. [525] Or _like Adam_, or (Guthe) _like the heathen_. [526] The verb means to prove false to any contract, but especially marriage. [527] Read מחכי. [528] In several passages of the Old Testament the word means unchastity. [529] Here the LXX. close chap. vi., taking 11 _b_ along with chap. vii. Some think the whole of ver. 11 to be a Judæan gloss. [530] Cf. Joel ii. 9, and the New Testament phrase _to come as a thief_. [531] v. 4. [532] The text is unsound. Heb.: "like an oven kindled by the baker, the stirrer (stoker or kneader?) resteth from kneading the dough until it be leavened." LXX.: ὡς κλίβανος καιόμενος εἰς πέψιν κατακαύματος ἀπὸ τῆς φλογός ἀπὸ φυράσεως στέατος ἑῶς τοῦ ξυμωθῆναι αὐτό--_i.e._ for ישבת they read לחבת אש. Oort emends Heb. to אפהו הם בוער, which gets rid of the difficulty of a feminine participle with תנור. Wellhausen omits whole clause as a gloss on ver. 6. But if there be a gloss it properly commences with ישבת. [533] LXX. μετατοιμῶν?? [534] LXX. _kindled_, בָּעְרַוּ. So Vollers, _Z.A.T.W._, III. 250. [535] Lit. _lurking_. [536] Massoretic Text with different vowels reads _their baker_. LXX. Εφραιμ! CHAPTER XVII _A PEOPLE IN DECAY: II. POLITICALLY_ HOSEA vii. 8-x.