Later text
Hosea 4:13BSB
They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is pleasant. And so your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-in-law to adultery.
Intertextuality Pair
Hosea 4:13 → Deuteronomy 12:2
Allusion
Earlier text
Destroy completely all the places where the nations you are dispossessing have served their gods—atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
Significance
Hosea 4:13 describes Israel sacrificing "on the mountaintops" and burning offerings "on the hills, under oak, poplar, and terebinth," which directly mirrors the Canaanite high places that Deuteronomy 12:2 commanded Israel to destroy: "atop the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree." The shared topographical vocabulary — mountains, hills, green trees — is unmistakable. Deuteronomy ordered the demolition of these worship sites as a prerequisite for entering the land; Hosea indicts Israel for adopting the very practices they were commanded to eradicate. The tragic irony is that Israel has become indistinguishable from the nations whose worship sites Moses commanded them to destroy.
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Allusion
- Connection Method(s)
- Contrast — the shared topography (mountains, hills, shading trees) is deployed in opposite directions: Deuteronomy commands Israel to destroy the nations' tree-shaded high places, while Hosea indicts Israel for sacrificing at them — the covenant people having become what they were charged to eradicate
Linked Mentions 1