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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Hosea 2:5 - 2:5
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“For their mother hath committed whoredom; she that bare them hath practised shame: 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.” By kı̄ (for) and the suffixes attached to 'immâm (their mother) and hōrâthâm (that bare them), the first clauses are indeed introduced as though simply explanatory and confirmatory of the last clause of Hos 2:4; but if we look at the train of thought generally, it is obvious that Hos 2:5 is not merely intended to explain the expression sons of whoredom, but to explain and vindicate the main thought, viz., that the children of whoredom, i.e., the idolatrous Israelites, will find no mercy. Now, as the mother and children are identical, if we trace back the figurative drapery to its actual basis, the punishment with which the children are threatened applies to the mother also; and the description of the mother's whoredom serves also to explain the reason for the punishment with which the mother is threatened in Hos 2:3. And this also accounts for the fact that, in the threat which follows in Hos 2:6, “I hedge up thy way,” the other herself is again directly addressed. The hiphil hōbhı̄sh, which is traceable to yâbhēsh, so far as the form is concerned, but derives its meaning from בֹּושׁ, is not used here in its ordinary sense of being put to shame, but in the transitive sense of practising shame, analogous to the transitive meaning “to shame,” which we find in 2Sa 19:5. To explain this thought, the coquetting with idols is more minutely described in the second hemistich. The delusive idea expressed by the wife (אָמְרָה, in the perfect, indicates speaking or thinking which stretches from the past into the present), viz., that the idols give her food (bread and water), clothing (wool and flax), and the delicacies of life (oil and drink, i.e., wine and must and strong drink), that is to say, “everything that conduces to luxury and superfluity,” which we also find expressed in Jer 44:17-18, arose from the sight of the heathen nations round about, who were rich and mighty, and attributed this to their gods. It is impossible, however, that such a thought can ever occur, except in cases where the heart is already estranged from the living God. For so long as a man continues in undisturbed vital fellowship with God, “he sees with the eye of faith the hand in the clouds, from which he receives all, by which he is guided, and on which everything, even that which has apparently the most independence and strength, entirely depends” (Hengstenberg).