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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Hosea 2:1 - 2:13
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
v. 1. Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi ("My people"); and to your sisters, Ruhamah ("having obtained mercy"). The original names of the children were thus changed to indicate their changed relationship toward God and their Savior. No matter how far a person has fallen away from the truth of God's Word, there is always mercy for Him through the redemption of Christ, if he but returns in true sorrow over his sins and accepts the offered deliverance.
A Threat of Punishment
v. 2. Plead with your mother, the members of Israel, as the children of an adulterous wife, being addressed, plead; for she is not My wife, she was no longer Jehovah's bride, neither am I her Husband, for He had been obliged to reject her on account of her adultery; let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, namely, the shameless idolatry which was practiced throughout Israel at the time, and her adulteries from between her breasts, for Israel, in her shamelessness, was like a public harlot, who displays her profession in her bared breasts,
v. 3. lest I strip her naked, as a punishment for her shameless exposure of herself in the practice of her spiritual wantonness, and set her as in the day that she was born, Cf Exo_16:4, when she was without covering, and make her as a wilderness and set her like a dry land, altogether desert in every way, and slay her with thirst, thus depriving her of all the wonderful blessings which He had given her in the past, for the Lord had had mercy on His people in Egypt, He had led them out of the house of bondage, and He had made a covenant with them. The desert is a picture of the various tribulations and sufferings of the exile.
v. 4. And I will not have mercy upon her children, all the members of the nation being included in His punishment; for they be the children of whoredoms, all of them being guilty of the same shameless idolatry.
v. 5. For their mother hath played the harlot, the whole nation, as the various prophets show, being guilty of the same idolatrous behavior; she that conceived them hath done shamefully, openly committing her shameless acts, making no attempt to hide her bold practices; for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink, food, clothing, and the enjoyments of life; for Israel's commercial enterprise was stimulated by the riches and power of the nations round about, and it was with the idea of getting and holding their friendship that the Israelites began to practice idolatry.
v. 6. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, setting insurmountable obstacles to keep Israel away from the heathen nations with their allurements and temptations, and make a wall that she shall not find her paths, namely, to the temples and altars of the idols. The Lord undoubtedly refers to the oppression and affliction of the exile, which opened the eyes of the children of Israel to the vanity and helplessness of the idols.
v. 7. And she shall follow after her lovers, determined, at first, to cling to the false gods whom she had accepted, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them, for she would be reduced to such straits as would show her how vain was her hope in these idols and their assistance. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first Husband, having learned, by bitter experience, that He is the only true God, for then, at the time when Israel followed Him alone, was it better with me than now.
v. 8. For she did not know, she did not realize at that time, that I gave her corn and wine and oil and multiplied her silver and gold, giving her all these temporal blessings in rich measure, which they prepared for Baal, using it for his cult and worship, in open idolatry. Many a person serves a false god, not knowing that the very gifts which he brings are the blessings of God's goodness upon him.
v. 9. Therefore will I return and take away My corn in the time thereof, namely, at the very time of the harvest, when men would expect a full supply, and My wine in the season thereof and will recover My wool and My flax, all these being gifts of His bounty, and therefore rightly belonging to Him, given to cover her nakedness. If God takes the gifts suddenly and at the very time of the harvest, the punishment would be more severe than if He had taken them after the outlook already was poor.
v. 10. And now will I discover her lewdness, uncover her nakedness and shame to her disgrace, in the sight of her lovers, Cf Eze_16:37, and none shall deliver her out of Mine hand. Cf Jer_13:26; Nah_3:5. While the nations round about were looking on, partly in helpless idleness and partly in malicious joy, Israel was delivered to her punishment.
v. 11. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, the hypocritical evidence of a joy which was no longer real among the people, her feast-days, especially the three highest festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts, whatever days were observed in the course of the year.
v. 12. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, representative of the wealth of the country in farm products. whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me, thus blasphemously taking the honor from the Lord; and I will make them, the fine orchards and vineyards, a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. Cf Isa_7:23 ff. ; Mic_3:12.
v. 13. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, punishing her for devoting the great festival days of the Jewish church-year to the service of heathen idols, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, decorating herself for the purpose of making an impression upon those whom she had permitted to seduce her, and she went after her lovers and forgat Me, saith the Lord. That is the outstanding, reprehensible feature of unbelief and idolatry: the rejection of the true God, for He wants no other gods beside Himself.