Hosea 1:3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

So he went and took Gomer, &c. The word Gomer signifies failing, or consuming, (see Psalms 12:1,) so that the very name of the harlot, whom Hosea took, was symbolical, signifying that the kingdom of Israel would experience a great failing, consumption, or decrease of its people; which indeed it did, through the Assyrian kings' carrying away vast numbers of them, from time to time, into captivity. The daughter of Diblaim Diblaim signifies heaps of figs; this name, therefore, may be considered as expressing symbolically, that, as some figs are good, others bad, (see Jeremiah 24.,) so there were some good people, although the major part were bad, among the Israelites. Which conceived, and bare him a son This, it seems, was a legitimate son born to the prophet.