Jerome : "who placed his heart in the oven as he dined with them. He slept throughout the entire night cooking them, and in the morning he burned like a flame of fire." LXX: "because their hearts were burning like an oven, when they were rushing down all night. Ephraim is filled with sleep: in the morning it happened: he is inflamed like the flame of fire." Those deceivers, when their king was plotting against them, and was trying to draw them away from their God, gave their heart as a furnace to him, so that he might kindle them and cause them to burn with the flames of idolatry. Therefore, because all of them were turned in mind to error, the people agreed. And what follows: "He slept all night, baking them; in the morning he himself was kindled as a flame of fire," means this: after he had sent fire into their heart as a furnace and had seen them go mad and there being no one to resist his will, he slept all night, that is, he was secure; walking in darkness while they were being cooked and made into the bread of impiety. Therefore, in the morning he rose up, and showed openly the flame of his wickedness, so that they might not pass over into the ceremonies of idols by treachery, but shamelessly. And when he says: "Ephraim is filled in sleep throughout the entire night," he shows that heretics who are sleeping cannot see the light of the sun of righteousness. For those who sleep, sleep at night: because their senses are oppressed. And of them we read in the Psalms: "They slept their sleep, and found nothing" (Ps. LXXV, 6). Their hearts are heated by various disturbances: anger, love, avarice. — Commentary on Hosea 7:5-7 Origen of Alexandria : But where shall I find an approach to the divine Scripture that teaches me what "an oven" is? I must call upon Jesus my Lord, that he may make me the seeker find and may open to the one knocking, that I may find in Scriptures "the oven" where I can rightly bake my sacrifice that God may accept it. Indeed, I think I have found it in Hosea the prophet, where he says, "All adulterers are as an oven ignited for burning." And again he says, "Their hearts glowed as an oven." The human heart therefore is "an oven." But this heart, if vices ignite it or the devil inflames it, will not bake, but it will burn up. But if that one who said, "I came to send fire into the earth" should ignite it, the loaves of the divine Scriptures and of the words of God which I receive in my heart, I do not burn up for destruction, but I bake for sacrifice. — HOMILIES ON Leviticus 5:2