O Death, Where Are Your Plagues?

Hosea 13 shows the downward path of a nation. When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. He exalted himself in Israel, but when he became guilty through Baal, he died. Now they sin more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver. Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the dew that passes away early, like the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind.

God reminded them: Yet I am Yahweh your God from the land of Egypt; and you shall acknowledge no god but me, and besides me there is no savior. I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. Then: they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me. Pride followed plenty. God's judgment is pictured as wild animals. You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper.

Yet in the middle comes a great promise: I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Sheol, where is your destruction? In the New Testament, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:55: Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory? Christians read this as hope that God defeats death itself.