For their mother hath played... — We might render, with Ewald, yea, their mother hath played... This would more easily account for the change of person (“your “... “their “), which is, however, very frequent in Hebrew prophecy. The next “for” introduces a parenthetical clause — “her lovers” — a word used in a bad sense. The aggravation of her shame is that she seeks them, and not they her. She attributes to these idol-gods all those temporal benefits which theocratic history shows to have been Jehovah’s gift, and the consequence of loyalty to Him. The modern analogue of this sin of Israel is the use of “Fortune,” “Nature,” “Destiny,” “Impersonal Law,” and even “Humanity,” as the giver of all good things, as though it were superstitious or heretical to speak of God as the giver.
Related Commentaries of Hosea 2:5
Hosea 2:5
5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: 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.b