H0866 H0866
hire of harlotry (payment received for sexual services, metaphor for Israel's idolatry)
Hosea employs this term in his extended metaphor of Israel as unfaithful wife, describing her misattribution of agricultural blessings as payments from Baal-lovers. The prophet will strip away these "wages" she thought came from false gods, revealing that Yahweh alone provided her sustenance. The metaphor equates covenant infidelity with prostitution for hire.
Senses
1. sense 1 — Term denoting a harlot's wages in Hosea 2:12, used metaphorically for Israel's relationship with Baal. The prophet depicts Israel attributing her agricultural prosperity to Baal as payment for cultic prostitution, when actually Yahweh gave these gifts. The rare feminine form (versus the more common ethnah) may reflect poetic variation in Hosea's sustained adultery metaphor. 1×
AR["أُجرَةٌ"]·ben["পুরস্কার-"]·DE["[אתנה]"]·EN["wages"]·FR["salaire"]·heb["אתנה"]·HI["भेंट"]·ID["Upah"]·IT["[אתנה]"]·jav["upah"]·KO["값"]·PT["Pagamento"]·RU["плата"]·ES["Paga"]·SW["ujira"]·TR["ücret"]·urd["اجرت"]
Related Senses
H5414 1. give, bestow (1855×)H3947 1. take, seize, grasp (Qal) (940×)G2192 1. possess / have (680×)G1325 1. give, bestow (336×)H5159 1. inherited land or property (170×)G2983 1. receive, obtain (134×)H3423 1. Qal: take possession of land (130×)G2983 2. take, take up (113×)G2398 1. one's own, belonging to oneself (91×)G3860 1. hand over, deliver to custody (78×)H7998 1. spoil, plunder, booty (74×)G1325 2. be given, be granted (70×)H5414 2. put, place, set (68×)H7999a 1. pay, repay, recompense (63×)H7069 1. Buy, purchase (59×)H1892 1. vanity, futility, absurdity (58×)H5159 2. heritage as covenant portion (52×)H6299 1. redeem or ransom (Qal active) (49×)H4376 1. Sell (Qal active) (47×)H1350a 1. Redeem, buy back (46×)
BDB / Lexicon Reference
† אֶתְנָה n.f. hire of a harlot;—א׳ abs., Ho 2:14 (in fig. of Israel as adulteress);—on אֶתְנַן (which We Now Marti read here also) v. II. תנן.