Bible Commentaries

CHAPTER 2

Appeal and Punishment for Unfaithfulness The Resumed Relationship

1. The appeal and complaint (Hosea 2:1-5)

2. The punishment for Unfaithfulness (Hosea 2:6-13)

3. The resumed relationship and its great blessing (Hosea 2:14-23)

Hosea 2:1-5. Who is addressed in the first verse of this chapter? Some think the children of the prophet are meant. The godly in Israel, those who obtained mercy, are addressed, for the Lord acknowledges such still as “Ammi”-my people. The godly are to plead with the rest of Israel their mother, but who is disowned by Jehovah as the wife, on account of her adulterous conduct. Then the Lord threatens her with severe punishment because of her unfaithfulness. She is to be stripped naked and be as in the day she was born (see Ezekiel 16:4). Nor would there be mercy for her children because the mother, Israel, continued to go after her lovers.

Hosea 2:6-13. Her way is to be hedged up with thorns; a wall of separation is to be raised and to keep her from her lovers. And if she follow after them and make a sinful alliance with them (symbolical of the idol worship of heathens which Israel practiced) she would not find them. Thus she might return to her first husband, to Jehovah. Israel had received from the Lord corn, wine, oil, silver and gold. Then they attributed it all to Baal and used it in idol worship. In Hosea 2:9-13 the punishment is fully made known. She is to be left alone; the gifts and blessings will be withdrawn; her lewdness is to be uncovered, all mirth will cease and the days of Baalim, spent in licentious worship, would be visited upon her in judgment.

Hosea 2:14-23. Immediately after the announcement of her punishment follows the assurance or future mercy. Israel’s conversion is promised (Hosea 2:14-17) and the great mercies of Jehovah’s covenant are to be renewed (Hosea 2:18-23). The Lord of love will not forever abandon His people and though Israel has played the harlot so long, with no willingness to return unto Him, He Himself in infinite love is going to woo her back. He will allure her, as He brings her into the wilderness, and there speak “to her heart” (the Hebrew meaning). That will be in the coming day when the Lord will remember the remnant of His people during the time of Jacob’s trouble and save them in that day. Then she will get her vineyards, her place of blessing, promised to Israel as His earthly people. The valley of Achor shall be the door of hope. In that valley Achan died, on account of whom all Israel had fallen under the ban Joshua 7:1-26. There judgment had been enacted and after that blessing was restored to Israel and the ban was removed. Achor means “troubling.” When Israel is in that great trouble, the great tribulation, the valley of trouble will become the door of hope, for then the Lord will forgive them their sins, cover them with His grace and redeem them by His power. Then the singing times begin again for Israel. “She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.” Songs of praise on account of accomplished redemption by Jehovah’s power will then burst forth Exodus 15:1-27; Isaiah 12:1-6. She will be fully restored to her former relationship, typified by marriage. “It shall be in that day, saith the Lord, that Thou shalt call Me Ishi (my husband), and shalt call Me no more Baali (my master).” She will be re-married to the Lord, symbolically speaking, and become the earthly wife of Jehovah, while the church, the espoused virgin, becomes in glory the Lamb’s wife Revelation 19:6-21).

But greater blessing will be connected with that coming day of blessing, when Israel is received back Romans 11:15. Verse 18 tells us that creation will then be blest; the time of its deliverance has come. Here the same is indicated as in Isaiah 11:6-7 and Romans 8:21. The end of wars comes then and universal peace blesses the whole earth. This is always the order in the divine forecasts. First, Israel has to be brought back, and after that the blessings for the earth and the nations, including that peace, which the blinded world-church tries to secure without the Lord Jesus Christ. All these promises as to the future of Israel, her restoration and spiritual blessings, are unrealized. “It is infatuation to think that all this was fully accomplished in the return of a remnant from the captivity. The result is that even Christians, misled by this miserable error, are drawn away into the rationalistic impiety of counting God’s Word here mere hyperbole to heighten the effect, as if the Holy Spirit deigned to be a verbal trickster, or a prophet were as vain as a litterateur. No; it is a brighter day, when the power of God will make a complete clearance from the world of disorder, misrule, man’s violence and corruption, as well as reduce to harmless and happy resubjection the entire animal kingdom.”

In that day all the great covenant blessings will return to redeemed Israel. Betrothed again to Jehovah in righteousness, in judgment, in faithfulness and mercies, Israel will know Jehovah. There will be an uninterrupted line of blessing from the heavens down to every earthly blessing. Heavens and earth will be gloriously united, and in answer to the call of His people the heavens will hear and cover all with blessing, for Satan’s power is now gone. Israel is no more Lo-ammi, but they will be “His people” and He will be “their God,” while the redeemed nation itself will be a blessing in the earth.