Hosea Chapter 2
From The Open Bible Project
2:1 "Say to your brothers, [5] 'My people!' [See Hosea Footnotes 5] and to your sisters, [6] 'My loved one!' [See Hosea Footnotes 6]
- (a) Seeing that I have promised you deliverance, it remains that you encourage one another to embrace this promise, considering that you are my people on whom I will have mercy.
2:2 Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
- (b) God shows that the fault was not in him, that he forsook them, but in their Synagogue, and their idolatries; (Isaiah 50:1).
- (c) Meaning that their idolatry was so great, that they were not ashamed, but boasted of it; (Ezekiel 16:25).
2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
- (d) For even though his people were as a harlot for their idolatries, yet he had left them with their dress and dowry and certain signs of his favour, but if they continued still, he would utterly destroy them.
- (e) When I brought her out of Egypt. See Ezekiel 16:4
2:4 Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; for they are children of unfaithfulness;
- (f) That is bastards, and begotten in adultery.
2:5 For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'
- (g) Meaning the idol which they served, and by whom they thought they had wealth and abundance.
2:6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way.
- (h) I will punish you so that you may then test whether your idols can help you, and bring you into such straightness that you will have no lust to play the harlot.
2:7 She will follow after her lovers, but she won't overtake them; and she will seek them, but won't find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.'
- (i) This he speaks of the faithful, who are truly converted, and also shows the use and profit of God’s punishments.
2:8 For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.
- (k) This declares that idolaters defraud God of his honour, when they attribute his benefits to their idols.
2:9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.
- (l) Signifying that God will take away his benefits, when man by his ingratitude abuses them.
2:10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.
- (m) That is, all her service, ceremonies, and inventions by which she worshipped her idols.
2:11 I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.
2:12 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, 'These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,' and the animals of the field shall eat them.
2:13 I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me," says Yahweh.
- (n) I will punish her for her idolatry.
- (o) By showing how harlots trim themselves to please others, he declares how superstitious idolaters set a great part of their religion in adorning themselves on their holy days.
2:14 "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
- (p) By my benefits in offering her grace and mercy, even in that place where she will think herself destitute of all help and comfort.
2:15 I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
- (q) Which was a plentiful valley, and in which they had great comfort when they came out of the wilderness, as in (Joshua 7:26), and is called the door of hope, because it was a departing from death and an entry into life.
- (r) She will then praise God as she did when she was delivered out of Egypt.
2:16 It will be in that day," says Yahweh, "that you will call me 'my husband,' and no longer call me 'my master.'
- (s) That is, my husband, knowing that I am united to you by a covenant which could not be violated.
- (t) That is, my master: which name was applied to their idols.
2:17 For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.
- (u) No idolatry will come into their mouth at all, but they will fear me purely according to my word.
2:18 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie down safely.
- (x) Meaning that he will so bless them that all creatures will favour them.
2:19 I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion.
2:20 I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh.
- (y) With a covenant that will never be broken.
2:21 It will happen in that day, I will respond," says Yahweh, "I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth;
- (z) Then will the heaven desire rain for the earth, which will bring forth things for the use of man.
2:22 and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Jezreel.
2:23 I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, 'You are my people;' and they will say, 'My God!'"
