e Sabbath opens the series of the [Hebrew: mvediM]. In a
wider sense, the new-moons also belonged to the [Hebrew: mvediM]
although they are not enumerated among them in Lev. xxiii. on account
of their subordinate character. In Num. x. 10, Is. i. 14, Ezra iii. 5,
the new-moons are mentioned along with the [Hebrew: mvediM] only as
the species by the side of the genus. But we are at liberty to think
only of the feasts appointed by God; for, otherwise, there would be no
room for the application of the _lex talionis_:--God takes from the
Israelites only what they had taken from Him. The days of the Baalim
are afterwards specially mentioned in ver. 15. The days of God are
taken from them; for the days of the Baalim they are punished. This
much, however, appears from the passage before us--and it is placed
beyond any doubt by several other passages in Hosea as well as in
Amos--that, outwardly, the worship, as regulated by the prescriptions
of the Pentateuch, had all along continued. (For the arguments in proof
of this assertion, the author's _Dissertations on the Genuineness of
the Pentateuch_, vol. i., are to be compared.)

Ver. 14. "_And I make desolate her vine and fig-tree, whereof she said,
They are the wages of whoredom to me, that my lovers have given me; and
I make them a forest, and the beasts of the field eat them._"

The vine and fig-tree, as the two noblest productions of
Palestine--_Ispahan_, in the "_Excerpta ex vita Saladini_," p. 10,
calls them "_ambos Francorum oculos_"--are here also connected with
each other, as is commonly done in threatenings and promises, as the
representatives of the rich gifts of God, wherewith He has blessed this
country.--[Hebrew: awr] is often placed before an entire sentence, to
mark it out as being relative in general. [Pg 249] It is the looser,
instead of the closer connection, = "of which."--[Hebrew: atnh] "wages
of prostitution," instead of which, in ix. 1 and other passages, the
form [Hebrew: atnN] occurs, requires a renewed investigation. It is
commonly derived from [Hebrew: tnh], to which the signification
"_largiter donavit, dona distribuit_," is ascribed. But opposed to
this, there is the fact that the root [Hebrew: tnh] is, neither in
Hebrew, nor in any of the dialects, found with this signification. It
has in Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac, the signification "to laud," "to
praise," "to recount." But besides this [Hebrew: tnh], there occurs
another [Hebrew: tnh], not with the