Chapter 14 of Hoshea opens as a direct continuation of the end of the previous chapter, and from that point onward it becomes the familiar chapter read on Shabbat Shuvah - the Haftarah of "Shuvah Yisrael." In the previous chapter, we heard from the Holy One, blessed be He: "Shall I ransom them from the power of the grave? Shall I redeem them from death? Where are your plagues, O death? Where is your destruction, O grave? Regret shall be hidden from My eyes" - meaning, there is no relenting, no revocation of the decree; disaster will surely come. The decree is sealed and fixed without change. And from here on, the Malbim explains, the prophet turns to the people and attempts to salvage whatever can still be saved.
תֶּאְשַׁם שֹׁמְרוֹן כִּי מָרְתָה בֵּאלֹהֶיהָ, בַּחֶרֶב יִפֹּלוּ עֹלְלֵיהֶם יְרֻטָּשׁוּ וְהָרִיּוֹתָיו יְבֻקָּעוּ - Samaria shall bear her guilt, for she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women shall be ripped open.
The Malbim explains: when the prophet hears explicitly from Hashem, "Regret shall be hidden from My eyes," meaning that God will not relent regarding the disaster - he directs his words toward the people with a completely different argument. The heart of the sin, the rebellion, and the treachery belonged to Samaria. Samaria was the royal capital of the Ten Tribes, the domain of Ahab, and not a single righteous king ever reigned there. This began as far back as Jeroboam son of Nebat who made the golden calves, and continued all the way until the exile. They were the ones who upheld the calf worship and caused all of Israel to stumble, as the kings dragged the populace after them into evil.
Thus, argues the prophet, the broader nation of Israel has a defense, a point of merit: "This did not originate with me; the kings led me astray, the kings brought this upon me." And if so, why should Israel perish together with Samaria? It is fitting that only "Samaria shall bear guilt" - she should bear the blame, for she is the one who "rebelled against her God" with willful rebellion, defiance, and betrayal. Upon her shall the punishment fall: "they shall fall by the sword, their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women shall be ripped open" - "her pregnant ones" referring to the expectant mothers. Strict justice demands this of them. Samaria will be desolate, but the rest of the nation, who were merely misled by them, do not deserve such punishment. This entire plea is made only after the prophet hears that the decree will not be reversed: if the disaster must come, let it fall solely upon the wicked, and not upon those who were led astray by their hands.
שׁוּבָה יִשְׂרָאֵל עַד ה' אֱלֹהֶיךָ כִּי כָשַׁלְתָּ בַּעֲוֺנֶךָ - Return, O Israel, to Hashem your God, for you have stumbled in your iniquity.
From here to the end of the chapter is the Haftarah of "Shuvah Yisrael." According to the Malbim, the address here is directed toward Israel - the general populace, excluding Samaria. To Samaria the prophet says: You will pay the ultimate price, for Hashem will not relent. But to you, the rest of Israel, he says: You can return in repentance, "for you have stumbled in your iniquity." And this is the very defense: you did not sin out of defiance, rebellion, or spite; rather, you "stumbled" - you were tripped up. The kings of Samaria caused you to stumble, and you are to be judged as having acted unwittingly and under duress. Therefore, there is hope and rectification for you.
And what is meant by "Return unto Hashem" (ad Hashem)? The word "unto" indicates that, as it were, Hashem is far off, and you must journey all the way to where He is: to abandon iniquities, to regret having erred inadvertently and under coercion, and to seek the path to return all the way back to Hashem Himself.
Rashi interprets differently: according to him, these words are directed toward Judah. "Samaria" here represents the entire Ten Tribes, and after their judgment was sealed, the prophet turns to Judah: "Return, O Israel," so that what befell Samaria does not happen to you. That is why these passages are juxtaposed. Rashi brings a parable: A king faced a rebellion in one of his provinces. The king dispatched a polemarch (a general) and commanded him to destroy it. That polemarch was experienced, calm, and levelheaded, not hot-tempered. He said to them: "Take some time and examine your ways, for if not, I will do to you just as I did to such-and-such province and its counterparts, and to such-and-such district and its counterparts." In other words: "I have entire provinces on my record that I wiped out; you had better think carefully, for you are next in line." So too here: "Samaria shall bear guilt" - they have already been dealt with and punished as they deserved; therefore, "Return, O Israel" - look at what became of them and how their iniquities brought about their downfall, and do not persist in your sins as well.
Why does it say "unto the Lord your God" (ad Hashem Elokecha) and not merely "unto the Lord" or "unto your God"? The Tetragrammaton (Hashem) represents the attribute of mercy, while the name Elokim represents the attribute of strict justice. It is taught in the name of Rabbi Meir: "Return, O Israel, unto the Lord" - before He becomes "your God." Repent while Hashem is still acting in the attribute of mercy and opening a door for you; do not wait until the attribute of strict justice is revealed, for then you will no longer be able to repent and the decree will have already been sealed. This is also the phrasing of the Targum: "Before the defender becomes the prosecutor."
A wonderful explanation is brought in the Yalkut Shimoni in the name of "Apiryon." Our Sages ask: "Avon" (iniquity) implies an intentional sin (meizid), so how can it be described as "you have stumbled" (kashalta)? Stumbling implies walking along and tripping by accident - an unintentional sin (shegagah). Avon, on the other hand, is a distortion of the intellect, where a person willfully commits a sin. If so, the verse should have said, "you acted willfully in your iniquity," not "you stumbled."
He explains based on the Alshich: often, a person stumbles unintentionally and immediately tells himself, "Nothing happened; I had no bad intention, I didn't want to do it, I just slipped up." Consequently, he feels he needs no rectification or atonement at all - "who can discern his errors?" a person is prone to mistakes. But this is an error and a distortion. For all sin-offerings are brought specifically for unintentional sins, whereas for an intentional sin, a sacrifice does not help at all! When a person turns on a light on Shabbat unintentionally, he is told: on Sunday, take off work, go buy an animal, travel with it up to the Beit HaMikdash (and in those days the journey itself could take days), stand there, place your hands on the animal's head, and confess. An entire process of remorse and confession - and all for a single, unintentional mistake without bad intent. If this is so for an unintentional sin, what can be said of an intentional one? An intentional sin requires an entirely different atonement, for a sacrifice cannot help; it requires teshuvah, remorse, and more. Thus, the entire argument of "excuse me, a mistake, what's the big deal?" is deeply flawed - a great deal happened! There are people who inadvertently pushed a button and obliterated an entire region. In America, they once pressed a button by mistake and wiped out two hundred Afghans or Iraqis. There are very costly mistakes.
The Alshich adds: a person should not say, "What could I do? It was unintentional." To whom do unintentional sins happen? To a person whose soul is blemished by prior intentional sins.
Two people were on a ship that was wrecked at sea. Each grabbed onto a piece of wood and was eventually cast ashore. Their paths diverged, they did not see one another, and both survived. One of them arrived in Spain, where someone took him in and revived him in a state of absolute pikuach nefesh. Before eating, the host saw him washing his hands. He asked him, "Why are you washing your hands?" He replied, "I am a Jew." The host said to him, "I am also a Jew, one of the Anousim of Spain, and know that everything here is completely kosher" - and he showed him that they had a kosher slaughterhouse downstairs, all according to Halachah. The second survivor also ended up somewhere in Spain and was taken in by someone, but in his case, he ate non-kosher meat at the home of a gentile.
In time, both returned to their hometown, met, and recounted their experiences. The one who had stayed with the gentile felt heartbroken: "Why was my friend protected from Heaven while I was not?" Both went to the rabbi and asked. The rabbi turned to the one who had stumbled with forbidden foods and asked: "Tell me, did you ever in your life willfully eat forbidden food?" He replied: "Yes. Once, when I was a youth, I saw a gentile neighbor holding a sandwich with non-kosher pork sausage. It tempted me greatly, and when he asked who wanted it, I said I did - and I ate it. Afterward I regretted it, but I did do it that once." The rabbi said to him: "If so, that is the answer. A person who intentionally committed a sin is prone to unintentional stumbling and will fall into it. But a person who has never sinned intentionally is protected even from unintentional errors."
From here we see that when a person realizes he has stumbled unintentionally, he should begin to reflect: what did I once do intentionally? For if the Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring a stumbling block even through the animals of the righteous, how could He cause a stumbling block through me? Apparently, I am not so righteous, and apparently I had failures in the past. This is what the verse means by "Return, O Israel, unto the Lord your God, for you have stumbled" - even your stumbling, which was unintentional, is ultimately "in your iniquity": there was an intentional sin you committed initially, and were it not for that, Hashem would not have brought about a stumbling block in something you never intended to violate.
Through this, the words of the prophet in Yeshayahu 1:4 are also clarified: "Ah, sinful nation, a people heavy with iniquity." "Chet" (sin) denotes an unintentional error - how did you become a nation full of unintentional sins? Because you were "a people heavy with iniquity." You bore heavy, intentional sins, and that drags unintentional errors in its wake.
This also explains what we say in the Yom Kippur Vidui: "For the sin we committed before You knowingly and unknowingly." The commentators ask: does not the Gemara in Yoma 36b explain that one confesses first to the lighter offense and only then to the graver one? A person never says, "I both robbed a bank and parked in a red-and-white zone," because then the minor offense is dwarfed. Rather, one says: "I did this, and I transgressed even more than this, and I even committed a very severe offense." If so, how can we place "knowingly" - which is very severe - before the lighter "unknowingly"? Rather, based on what we have explained, the meaning is: for the sin we committed before You knowingly, and because we once sinned knowingly, we subsequently came to sin unknowingly as well. Sinning intentionally that once caused unintentional sins to follow in its wake.
Furthermore, we have elaborated in the past on this point: unwitting sins do not happen to a person regarding something about which he is deeply fearful and vigilant. A person sleeping in bed does not find himself on the floor - why? Because even in his sleep, he senses and knows what falling means, and therefore he is careful. An electrician normally does not get electrocuted; those who get electrocuted are ordinary laypeople. The electrician knows what electricity is and takes proper precautions, whereas a layperson does not know, thinking he can handle electricity while wet and barefoot - and then tragedies occur. When a matter truly burns within a person, he does not stumble in it.
קְחוּ עִמָּכֶם דְּבָרִים וְשׁוּבוּ אֶל ה', אִמְרוּ אֵלָיו כָּל תִּשָּׂא עָוֺן וְקַח טוֹב וּנְשַׁלְּמָה פָרִים שְׂפָתֵינוּ - Take words with you and return to Hashem; say to Him: "Forgive all iniquity and accept what is good, and let our lips substitute for bulls."
Before continuing with the explanation of the verses in our usual manner, there is a beautiful explanation cited in the name of the Tzavarei Shalal and in the name of the author of Shechat HaLeket: In Vayikra Rabbah, chapter 10, there is a dispute - does repentance achieve half and prayer achieve everything, or does prayer achieve half and repentance achieve everything? (Once a man came to a rabbi and said, "May the rabbi bless me and pray for me." The rabbi asked him, "Did you pray?" He replied, "No." The man said to him, "What can I do, prayer achieves half." The rabbi replied, "True; pray once more, and you will have the whole thing.")
It emerges that if a person performed only repentance or only prayer, he would always remain in doubt: perhaps I have achieved only half. When can he be confident? When he has done both. According to the view that prayer achieves half - I have also repented; and according to the view that repentance achieves half - I have also prayed; so either way, I have attained everything. This is what the verse means by: "Take words with you" - words refer to speech, to prayer; "and return to Hashem" - this is repentance. And once both repentance and prayer are present, the verse naturally continues: "Say to Him: Forgive all iniquity" - Master of the Universe, now forgive all the sins, for we have done both, and here there is complete rectification.
The Malbim explains: After saying, "Return, O Israel, unto Hashem your God" - until you actually reach Him - the prophet adds: After you reach Hashem and are already close to Him, improve your deeds even further and repent out of love. Until now, it was repentance out of fear; now advance another level, and then those very deeds will advocate merit on your behalf. This is the meaning of "Take words with you" - those "words," the mitzvot and good deeds performed through repentance out of love, will speak in your favor. This also explains the repetition of "and return to Hashem" - for did he not already say, "Return, O Israel"? Rather, the first was out of fear, and the second is out of love.
What is the practical difference? When a person repents out of fear, intentional sins are transformed for him into unintentional ones: someone who would have been judged as a deliberate sinner is now judged as an unwitting one. But when a person repents out of love, intentional sins are transformed into merits, and each transgression is considered like a mitzvah. Then it is not merely forgiveness in the sense that Hashem regards the act as an error or an accident, but forgiveness in the sense that Hashem credits it as a merit: what until now was a transgression is now counted as a merit.
According to this, "Forgive all iniquity" is explained: with repentance out of fear, Hashem did not lift away the entire iniquity, but only part of it. You had an intentional sin and Hashem reduced it to an unintentional one - thus He removed some of the burden, but not all of it. If you had a burden of a hundred kilograms, He removed eighty and you remained with twenty; an unwitting sin still remains. But with repentance out of love, we ask, "Forgive all iniquity" - that He lift away the entire iniquity completely, since everything has been turned into merits.
Consequently, "and let our lips substitute for bulls" is also understood: for an unintentional sin, the law requires bringing a sacrifice; therefore, after repentance out of fear, a rectification still remains to be completed. But when one attains repentance out of love, the Holy One, blessed be He, removes even the unwitting sin and considers it a merit. Then there is no need to sacrifice a bull - the words we utter with our lips are themselves the rectification. It is completely erased, "Forgive all iniquity," and confession alone suffices without any need for a sacrifice.
אַשּׁוּר לֹא יוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ עַל סוּס לֹא נִרְכָּב, וְלֹא נֹאמַר עוֹד אֱלֹהֵינוּ לְמַעֲשֵׂה יָדֵינוּ, אֲשֶׁר בְּךָ יְרֻחַם יָתוֹם - Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses, and we will no longer say to the work of our hands, "You are our gods," for in You the orphan finds mercy.
The Malbim explains: This is the formula of confession that we shall utter with our lips - that we no longer rely on Assyria, nor on any nation other than Hashem. When the kings of Israel faced troubles, they would send to Assyria to save them; from now on, "Assyria shall not save us." "We will not ride upon horses" - they used to trust in Egypt, which was the source of horses and chariotry, but from now on, no more. "Nor will we say any more 'our god' to the work of our hands" - until now, we fashioned idols for ourselves with our own hands, called them our gods, and angered You; from now on, we shall place our trust solely in You.
And why? "For in You the orphan finds mercy" - one who has no helper, supporter, or savior, You have compassion upon him out of Your boundless mercy. And since we are like orphans - having neither Assyria, nor Egypt, nor gods made by our own hands - who can save us? Only You. And when a person says to Hashem, "Only You will save me and no one else," Hashem is, as it were, compelled to save him, because he takes refuge solely in His shadow. But when a person seeks refuge in another power, the Chovot HaLevavot explains, Hashem says to him: "Let them arise and help you, let them be your shelter" - go to him, let him help you and save you.
The Radak explains "Take words with you" as follows: The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them - I do not ask of you silver, nor gold, nor burnt offerings, but words, speech. Confess the evil deeds you have committed. Yet do not stop at that - "and return to Hashem," let it be a genuine repentance and not mere lip service. After all, we say in the Vidui, "For the sin we committed before You with confession of the mouth" - we even confess over our very confession, which, God forbid, is often merely superficial. Therefore: confess, but let it be followed by complete repentance.
"Forgive all iniquity" - according to one interpretation, as we mentioned, forgive all the iniquity completely. The Radak brings an additional explanation: "Forgive all iniquity" means "forgive iniquity for all" - the plea is for the community: Master of the Universe, pardon the iniquity of all of Israel. "And accept what is good" - accept a good thing, or a good heart: our good deeds or our pure intentions. "And let our lips substitute for bulls" - instead of sacrificial bulls, we will render payment through the confession of our lips.
The Radak adds: In truth, Hashem desires confession far more than bulls. What is the value of a person who sacrifices a bull but does not confess, feels no remorse, and continues in his corrupt ways? Indeed, this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Shaul: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, to listen than the fat of rams," and likewise: "Why do I need the abundance of your sacrifices? says Hashem." We see that sacrifices are not an end in themselves, but a vehicle toward the ultimate purpose - which is confession, remorse, abandoning sin, and resolving for the future. Proof of this can be seen in the scapegoat (Se'ir HaMishtale'ach): there was only a verbal confession, nothing was sacrificed upon the Altar, and yet it atoned for all the sins of the Children of Israel. You see, then, that the essential point is not the ascent onto the Altar, but the confession. Therefore, the prophet tells them: the main thing is that you confess properly and fittingly, out of genuine remorse.
The chapter opens with the prophet, having heard that the decree will not be rescinded, pleading that the punishment fall upon Samaria alone - upon those who rebelled willfully and caused the nation to stumble - and not upon all of Israel, who were merely led astray by their kings. From there, he calls out, "Return, O Israel, to Hashem your God": return while the attribute of mercy is still open, before the defender turns into the prosecutor. And "for you have stumbled in your iniquity" teaches us a major principle: unintentional sins do not occur on their own; rather, they are the fruit of prior deliberate transgressions - and whoever sees himself stumble must search where he acted willfully. Then comes the process of rectification: "Take words with you and return to Hashem" - both prayer and repentance, and not merely repentance out of fear, but repentance out of love, wherein deliberate sins are transformed into merits and Hashem pardons all iniquity completely. And instead of bulls - "and let our lips substitute for bulls": genuine confession, born of remorse and abandonment of sin, is what the Holy One, blessed be He, desires more than all sacrifices.