15:55: Where, O death, is your
victory? Where, O death, is your sting?
1. Hosea 13:14 according to the
base text: “Where are your plagues דְּבָרֶיךָ,
O death? Where is your destruction קָטָבְךָ
(say qoṭobekha, from קֹטֶב), O Sheol?” — Septuagint: ποῦ ἡ δίκη
(right) σου θάνατε; ποῦ τὸ κέντρον σου ᾅδη; — targum: “Now I myself מֵימְרִי (literally: ‘my word’) will be killing לִקְטוֹל among them and my word destruction לְחֲבָלָא; since they have transgressed my Torah, I will remove my
Shekinah from them.” (The last sentence renders the base text’s clause:
“Remorse will hide from my eyes.”)
2. Hosea 13:14 in rabbinic
literature.
Babylonian Talmud Pesaḥim 87B: R.
Eleazar (ca. 270) said, “God exiled Israel to Babylon only because the latter
is as deep as Sheol; as it says, ‘From the power of Sheol I will free them;
from death I will redeem them …’ (Hos 13:14).” ‖ Babylonian Talmud Yebamot 17A:
What does Harpania mean? (The name of a city in Babylonia that was disreputable
due to its many intermarriages.) R. Zera (= Zeira, ca. 300) said, “Mountain, to
which they will all turn (from their illegitimate origin).” In a baraita it has
been taught: Whoever does not know his family and his stock will turn there.
Raba († 352) said, “And it (the city Harpania) is deeper than Sheol; for it
says, ‘From the power of Sheol I will free them …’ (Hos 13:14; thus, there is a
restoration from Sheol); but for its (Harpania’s) illegitimate ones, there will
be no restoration.” (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, A
Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash, ed. Jacob N.
Cerone, 4 vols. [trans. Andrew Bowden and Joseph Longarino; Bellingham, Wash.:
Lexham Press, 2021], 55-59)
