Hosea 1:9
Call his name Lo-ammi - Lo - ammi , "Not my people;" for which the reason is immediately given:
Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God - The word God is not added here by any of the ancient versions or MSS.; and yet the construction absolutely requires it, as Houbigant properly observes, who thinks the present reading lo eheyeh lachem , "I will not be to you," a corruption of the word eloheychem , "your God." It is strange that no various reading occurs on this verse in any MS. yet discovered. In two of the oldest of mine there is a blank of half a line left after the last word; and so it is in the Masoretic Bibles, though the sense is not complete; for it is evidently continued in the following verse. Probably God refers to the words, Exodus 3:14 : I am that I am. I am, eheyeh , - I shall be, hath sent me unto you. I will not be your eheyeh , i.e., I will not be your God.
