Hosea 2:2-23 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

Hosea 2:2-23 (Hebrews 2:4-18). In this discourse, which seems to be based upon and imply the narrative in Hosea 1, 3, the prophet sets forth the unfaithfulness of the people and land of Israel to her Divine husband, Yahweh. Israel had played the harlot in going after other lovers (the local Baalim) for gifts (the fertility of land, flocks, etc.); the consequent punishment will end in her return to her first husband. The section sub-divides at Hosea 2:13; the first part (Hosea 2:2-13) predicts severe punishment, and the second (Hosea 2:14-23) contains a promise of restoration following amendment.

Hosea 2:2-13. In urgent tones Yahweh bids the Israelites (her sons) plead with their mother (i.e. the land and people as a whole) on account of her unfaithfulness. She has destroyed the moral relation of wife to her Divine husband, and the children are hers but not His their mother has played the harlot, she has sold herself for gifts, bread and water, wool and flax, oil and drinks. The new generation has grown up ignorant of His true character; they are no longer His people, nor can He compassionate them as His children. His experience with Israel is exactly parallel to the prophet's own bitter experience with his wife. Unless the profligate mother puts away her whoredoms (i.e. the foreign cultus) she shall be put to open shame (stripped naked) and perish as a homeless wanderer in the wilderness (Hosea 2:2-5). She will discover by bitter experience that her lovers (the Baalim) cannot guarantee the material blessings for which she has pursued them; Yahweh will withhold these, and teach her by the discipline of siege, famine, and poverty to return to her first husband (Hosea 2:6-13).

Hosea 2:14-23. In the last calamity of all, exile from the land figured by the wilderness, Yahweh will again woo her as a lover, as He had done in the desert when she was young and innocent. There she will respond, as in the Exodus, and be once more blessed (Hosea 2:14 f.). Heathen worship shall be abolished, and the names of the heathen Baalim shall be banished from remembrance (Hosea 2:16 f.) A new covenant, which will include in its scope all living creatures, shall banish strife from the earth (Hosea 2:18); Israel shall be betrothed to Yahweh a second time in righteousness (Hosea 2:19 f.), and the new era of loyalty shall be marked by rich abundance both in crops and men. Heaven will respond to the longing of earth for fertility; Israel, in accordance with the name Jezreel (whom God soweth, Hosea 2:22 mg.), shall be sown anew in the promised land (cf. Jeremiah 31:27 f.), and the names Lo-ruhamah (uncompassionated) and Lo-ammi (not my people) shall no longer apply to the regenerated people (Hosea 2:21-23).

Hosea 2:2. A brazen, shameless countenance and exposed breasts betoken the harlot (cf. Jeremiah 3:3). The whoredoms of Israel, in Hosea's eyes, mean the cultus, which he regards as not in any sense a real worship of Yahweh, though associated with Yahweh-worship. The heathen elements attaching to it make such service worthless.

Hosea 2:3. It was, apparently, part of the punishment of an adulterous wife in old Israel to be stripped and exposed naked, before being executed (cf. Ezekiel 16:38 ff.). So here Israel (the land) shall be stripped bare (made into a wilderness). Note that the figures of the land and the children of the land interchange.

Hosea 2:5. The old popular religion of Canaan attributed the fertility of the land to the local deities (the Baalim). The Israelites, without ostensibly giving up the worship of their national God, had lapsed into this worship. Hosea regards this mixed cultus as pure heathenism.

Hosea 2:6. Read, her way (LXX), i.e. Israel's false cultus, which Yahweh will impede by rendering it ineffective and impotent. For the figure cf. Job 3:23; Job 19:8; Lamentations 3:7; Lamentations 3:9.

Hosea 2:8. Cf. Deuteronomy 7:13; Deuteronomy 11:14; Deuteronomy 12:17. Read mg.; but this clause is probably a later addition.

Hosea 2:10. and now: render and so (- attâ denoting logical consequence; cf. Hosea 5:7, Hosea 10:3). The Baalim (her lovers) are helpless in sight of her shame.

Hosea 2:11. Note the joyous character of the ancient feasts.

Hosea 2:12. Vines and fig-trees were the choicest products of Canaan.

Hosea 2:13. the days of the Baalim: i.e. the festival days devoted to Baal-worship (the mixed cultus). In Hosea 2:13 b follow mg., but render sacrificed for burned incense.

Hosea 2:14. wilderness: a figure for exile; or it may be meant literally of the Arabian desert through which Israel must again return to the promised land from exile.

Hosea 2:15. Some scholars omit from thence and read, and I will make the valley of Achor, etc. The reference will then be not to blessings in the wilderness, but in Canaan itself, where Israel shall again enjoy abundance. The valley of Achor (troubling), so named because of an unhappy episode at the first entry into the land (Joshua 7:26), shall become a starting-point of hope at the return from exile.

Hosea 2:16. As Wellhausen points out, the title Baali (my husband) was not applied by the Israelites to Yahweh, though He was called the Baal (the owner) of the land. The application of Baal to Yahweh at all was objected to in later times, and proper names containing it were altered (e.g. Ishbaal became Ishbosheth). See Numbers 32:38 *, 1 Samuel 14:47-51 *, 1 Kings 16:32 *. Read, perhaps (cf. LXX). she shall call upon her husband, and shall no longer call upon the Baalim.

Hosea 2:17. Baalim: a generic term for the various local deities, which have their own proper names.

Hosea 2:18. Cf. Job 5:23; Leviticus 26:6. for them: read, for her. them: read. her. break: read perhaps, cause to cease; cf. Ezekiel 34:25.

Hosea 2:19 f. Read the third for the second person throughout. After exile, which dissolves the first betrothal, Yahweh effects a second and eternal one. Render: Yea, I will betroth her unto me with righteousness. with faithfulness and the knowledge of the Lord. These qualities make up the new covenant by which the betrothal is effected, and they are bestowed by Yahweh.

Hosea 2:21 f. answer: i.e. meet with satisfaction, gratify (cf. Ecclesiastes 10:19). In the Messianic time harmony reigns between heaven and earth, man and nature, under the Divine impulse. Jezreel is the name of the new Israel, sown by God (cf. Hosea 2:23, and I will sow her unto me); it is an easy variant of Israel. Note how the prophet brings out the manifold significance of the name, which in the first instance is that of a place where a crime was committed (the massacre of Jezreel), but later becomes the rallying-spot and personification of the new and transformed Israel.

Hosea 2:2-23

2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;

3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

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

6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and makec a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.

8 For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine,d and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal.

9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recovere my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.

10 And now will I discover her lewdnessf in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.

11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

12 And I will destroyg her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD.

14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortablyh unto her.

15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and 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.

16 And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi;i and shalt call me no more Baali.

17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.

21 And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth;

22 And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel.

23 And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.