Hosea 2

Ho 2:1-23.

APPLICATION OF THE

SYMBOLS IN THE

FIRST

CHAPTER.

Israel's spiritual fornication, and her threatened punishment: yet a

promise of God's restored favor, when chastisements have produced their

designed effect.

1. Say . . . unto . . . brethren, Ammi,

&c.--that is, When the prediction

(Ho 1:11)

shall be accomplished, then ye will call one another, as

brothers and sisters in the family of God, Ammi and

Ruhamah.

2. Plead--expostulate.

mother--that is, the nation collectively. The address is

to "her children," that is, to the individual citizens of the

state (compare

Isa 50:1).

for she is not my wife--She has deprived herself of her high privilege

out of her sight--rather, "from her face." Her very countenance

unblushingly betrayed her lust, as did also her exposed "breasts."

3. set her as in the day . . . born--

(Eze 16:4; 23:25, 26, 28, 29).

The day of her political "birth" was when God delivered her from the

bondage of Egypt, and set up the theocracy.

make her as a wilderness--

(Jer 6:8;

Zep 2:13).

Translate, "make her as the wilderness," namely, that in which she

passed forty years on her way to her goodly possession of Canaan. With

this agrees the mention of "thirst" (compare

Jer 2:6).

4. her children--Not even her individual members shall escape

the doom of the nation collectively, for they are individually guilty.

5. I will go after--The Hebrew expresses a

settled determination.

lovers--the idols which Israel fancied to be the givers of all their

goods, whereas God gave all these goods

(Ho 2:8-13;

compare

Jer 44:17-19).

bread and . . . water--the necessaries of life in food.

wool . . . flax--clothing.

oil . . . drink--perfumed unguents and palatable drinks: the

luxuries of Hebrew life.

6, 7. thorns . . . wall--

(Job 19:8;

La 3:7, 9).

The hindrances which the captivity interposed between Israel and her

idols. As she attributes all her temporal blessings to idols, I will

reduce her to straits in which, when she in vain has sought help from

false gods, she will at last seek Me as her only God and Husband, as at

the first

(Isa 54:5;

Jer 3:14;

Eze 16:8).

then--before Israel's apostasy, under Jeroboam. The way of duty

is hedged about with thorns; it is the way of sin that is hedged

up with thorns. Crosses in an evil course are God's hedges to

turn us from it. Restraining grace and restraining providences (even

sicknesses and trials) are great blessings when they stop us in a

course of sin. Compare

Lu 15:14-18,

"I will arise, and go to my father." So here, "I will go, and return,"

&c.; crosses in the both cases being sanctified to produce this

effect.

8. she did not know that I--not the idols, as she thought: the "lovers"

alluded to in

Ho 2:5.

which they prepared for Baal--that is, of which they made images of

Baal, or at least the plate covering of them

(Ho 8:4).

Baal was the Phœnician sun-god: answering to the female Astarte,

the moon-goddess. The name of the idol is found in the Phœnician

Hannibal, Hasdrubal. Israel borrowed it from the Tyrians.

9. my corn . . . my wool . . . my flax--in

contrast to "my bread . . . my wool

. . . my flax,"

(Ho 2:5).

Compare also

Ho 2:21-23,

on God as the great First Cause giving these through secondary

instruments in nature. "Return, and take away," is equivalent to, "I

will take back again," namely, by sending storms, locusts, Assyrian

enemies, &c. "Therefore," that is, because she did not acknowledge Me

as the Giver.

in the time thereof--in the harvest-time.

10. lewdness--rather, "the shame of her nakedness"; laying aside the

figure, "I will expose her in her state, bereft of every necessary, before her lovers," that is, the idols (personified, as if they could

see), who, nevertheless, can give her no help. "Discover" is appropriate

to stripping off the self-flatteries of her hypocrisy.

11. her feast days--of Jeroboam's appointment, distinct from the Mosaic

(1Ki 12:32).

However, most of the Mosaic feasts, "new-moons" and "sabbaths" to

Jehovah, remained, but to degenerate Israel worship was a weariness;

they cared only for the carnal indulgence on them

(Am 8:5).

12. my rewards--my hire as a harlot

(Isa 23:17, 18).

lovers--idols.

destroy . . . vines . . . make . . . forest--

(Isa 5:6; 7:23, 24).

Fulfilled in the overthrow of Israel by Assyria

(Ho 9:4, 5).

13. days of Baalim--the days consecrated to the Baals, or various

images of Baal in different cities, whence the names

Baal-gad, Baal-hermon, &c.

decked herself with . . . earrings--rather, "nose-rings"

(Isa 3:21;

Eze 16:12,

Margin), with which harlots decked themselves to attract

admirers: answering to the ornaments in which the Israelites decked

themselves on the idols' feasts.

forgat me--worse than the nations which had never known God. Israel

wilfully apostatized from Jehovah, whom she had known.

14. Therefore--rather, "Nevertheless" [HENDERSON]. English Version gives a more lovely

idea of God. That which would provoke all others to unappeasable wrath,

Israel's perversity and consequent punishment, is made a reason why God

should at last have mercy on her. As the "therefore"

(Ho 2:9)

expresses Israel's punishment as the consequence of Israel's

guilt, so "therefore" here, as in

Ho 2:6,

expresses, that when that punishment has effected its designed end, the

hedging up her way with thorns so that she returns to God, her first

love, the consequence in God's wondrous grace is, He "speaks

comfortably" (literally, "speaks to her heart"; compare

Jud 19:8;

Ru 2:13).

So obstinate is she that God has to "allure her," that is, so to temper

judgment with unlooked-for grace as to win her to His ways. For

this purpose it was necessary to "bring her into the wilderness" (that

is, into temporal want and trials) first, to make her sin hateful to

her by its bitter fruits, and God's subsequent grace the more precious

to her by the contrast of the "wilderness." JEROME

makes the "bringing into the wilderness" to be rather a deliverance

from her enemies, just as ancient Israel was brought into the

wilderness from the bondage of Egypt; to this the phrase here alludes

(compare

Ho 2:15).

The wilderness sojourn, however, is not literal, but moral: while still

in the land of their enemies locally, by the discipline of the

trial rendering the word of God sweet to them, they are to be brought

morally into the wilderness state, that is, into a state of

preparedness for returning to their temporal and spiritual privileges

in their own land; just as the literal wilderness prepared their

fathers for Canaan: thus the bringing of them into the wilderness

state is virtually a deliverance from their enemies.

15. from thence--returning from the wilderness. God gives Israel

a fresh grant of Canaan, which she had forfeited; so of her vineyards,

&c.

(Ho 2:9, 12).

Achor--that is, "trouble." As formerly Israel, after their tedious

journey through the wilderness, met with the trouble resulting from

Achan's crime in this valley, on the very threshold of Canaan, and yet

that trouble was presently turned into joy at the great victory

at Ai, which threw all Canaan into their hands

(Jos 7:1-8:28);

so the very trouble of Israel's wilderness state will be the "door of

hope" opening to better days. The valley of Achor, near Jericho, was

specially fruitful

(Isa 65:10);

so "trouble" and "hope" are rightly blended in connection with it.

sing . . . as . . . when she came . . . out of . . . Egypt--It shall

be a second exodus song, such as Israel sang after the deliverance at

the Red Sea

(Ex 15:1-21;

compare

Isa 11:15, 16);

and "the song of Moses"

(Re 15:2, 3)

sung by those who through the Lamb overcome the beast, and so stand on

the sea of glass mingled with fire, emblems of fiery trial, such as

that of Israel at the Red Sea.

16. Ishi . . . no more Baali--"my Husband

. . . no more my Lord." Affection is the

prominent idea in "Husband"; rule, in "Lord." The chief reason

for the substitution of Husband for Lord appears in

Ho 2:17;

namely, Baali, the Hebrew for my Lord, had been

perverted to express the images of Baal, whose name ought not to be

taken on their lips

(Ex 23:13;

Zec 13:2).

17. Baalim--plural, expressing the various images of Baal, which,

according to the places of their erection, received various names,

Baal-gad, Baal-ammon, &c.

18. for them--for their benefit.

covenant . . . with the beasts--not to hurt them

(Job 5:23).

They shall fulfil the original law of their creation by becoming subject

to man, when man fulfils the law of his being by being subject to God.

To be realized fully in millennial times

(Isa 11:6-9).

break the bow . . . out of the earth--rather, "out of the land";

that is, I will break and remove war out of the earth

(Ps 46:9);

and "out of the land" of Israel first

(Isa 2:4;

Eze 39:9, 10;

Zec 9:9, 10).

lie down--A reclining posture is the usual one with Orientals when

not in action.

safely--

(Jer 23:6).

19, 20. "Betroth" is thrice repeated, implying the intense love

of God to His people; and perhaps, also, the three Persons of the

Triune God, severally engaging to make good the betrothal. The

marriage covenant will be as it were renewed from the beginning, on a

different footing; not for a time only, as before, through the apostasy

of the people, but "forever" through the grace of God writing the law on

their hearts by the Spirit of Messiah

(Jer 31:31-37).

righteousness . . . judgment--in rectitude and truth.

loving-kindness, &c.--Hereby God assures Israel, who might doubt the

possibility of their restoration to His favor; low, sunk, and unworthy

as thou art. I will restore thee from a regard to My own

"loving-kindness," not thy merits.

20. faithfulness--to My new covenant of grace with thee

(1Th 5:24;

Heb 10:23).

21. in that day--of grace to Israel.

heavens . . . hear the earth--personification. However

many be the intermediate instruments, God is the Great First Cause of

all nature's phenomena. God had threatened

(Ho 2:9)

He would take back His corn, His wine, &c. Here, on the

contrary, God promises to hearken to the skies, as it were,

supplicating Him to fill them with rain to pour on the earth; and that

the skies again would hearken to the earth begging for a supply of the

rain it requires; and again, that the earth would hearken to the corn,

wine, and oil, begging it to bring them forth; and these again would

hear Jezreel, that is, would fulfil Israel's prayers for a supply of

them. Israel is now no longer "Jezreel" in the sense, "God will

SCATTER"

(Ho 1:4),

but in the sense, "God will PLANT"

(Ho 1:11).

23. I will sow her--referring to the meaning of Jezreel

(Ho 2:22).