So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.
Ver. 3. So he went] He said not, "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" John 6:60. Dura mihi praecipit, et paene terret. He doth not reason but run, dispute but despatch. God must be obeyed, though we see no sense for it.
And took Gomer] which signifieth both consummation and consumption, to show that she was consummata meretrix, a complete whore, had all the tricks of a whore; and brings her paramours to final consumption, utter extermination.
The daughter of Diblaim] Not quasi de Belaim, a place so called, as Hugo dreameth: though there was a wilderness of this name, whereto some think the prophet here alludeth, to show the Church's wretched beginning in its own nature: as Son 3:6 Ezekiel 16:7. But Diblaim is by some taken for Gomer's father: by more, for her mother, which is also held to be a harlot, according to that, Ezekiel 16:44, "As is the mother, so is the daughter." Diblaim signifieth bunches of dried figs, that were the delicacies of those times. Gluttony is the gallery that lechery walketh through. Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus. Concupiscence (as Plato saith) hath the lowest places, and is alligata ventri, as one would tie a horse or an ass to the manger. Jer 5:8 not unfitly compareth sensualists to fed horses, neighing after their neighbours' wives. Saturity breeds security, which is the sure forerunner of destruction. Est ergo hic gnome, saith a Lapide, i.e. Here we have, then, an elegant sentence, Gomer is the daughter of Diblaim, that is, rottenness of sensuality: for as the worm that grows in the fruit, devoureth it; so doth grief, the pleasure of sin. This observation we have from the Cabalists.