The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea - or IN Hosea (Pusey). [Bª-] God first revealed Himself in Hosea, and then to others by Hosea. So in Paul's case (Galatians 1:16; Galatians 1:23).
Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms - not externally acted, but internally and in vision, as a pictorial illustration of Israel's unfaithfulness (Hengstenberg). Compare Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 16:15, etc. Besides the loathsomeness of such a marriage, if an external act, it would require years for the birth of three children, which would weaken the symbol (cf. Ezekiel 4:4, etc., notes). Henderson objects that there is no hint of the transaction being fictitious: Gomer fell into lewdness after her union with Hosea, not before; for thus only she was a fit symbol of Israel, who lapsed into spiritual whoredom after the marriage-contract with God on Sinai, and made even before at the call of the patriarchs of Israel.
Gomer is called "a wife of whoredoms" anticipatively. But it is plain that in the text she is supposed to have been an adulteress before the prophet takes her, whence she is called "a wife of whoredoms" - i:e., one entirely given up to whoredom-as "man of bloods" means a bloody man. Irenaeus and Augustine make her to have been unchaste before her marriage to Hosea, which marks the grace shown to her by him who so freely ignored the past, and joined her to him in holy wedlock; just as God, in electing love, chooses sinners to be joined in holy union to Him; and so joined Israel to Him, notwithstanding Israel's idolatry before her call in Egypt, and in Ur of the Chaldees (Joshua 24:14). 'Not only in visions seen and in words preached, but acts also was He (Christ) seen by the prophets. For which cause Hosea took a wife of whoredoms, prophesying by his act that the earth shall commit whoredoms, departing from the Lord, and that of such men God will be pleased to take to Himself a Church, to be sanctified by the communication of His Son, as she, too, was sanctified by the communion of the prophet. Wherefore Paul also saith, "The unbelieving woman is sanctified by her believing husband"' (Irenoeus, 4: 20, 12). Still I prefer the view which, as in the case of Ezekiel's lying on his side 390 days, regards the act as performed in internal vision, and not externally. An act revolting to a pure mind would hardly be ordained by God except in vision, which serves all the purposes of the prophecy. Herein he typified the Saviour uniting to himself what was unholy, in order to make it holy.
Children of whoredoms. The kingdom collectively is viewed as a mother; the individual subjects of it are spoken of as her children. "Take" being applied to both, implies that they refer to the same thing viewed under different aspects. The "children" were not the prophet's own, but born of adultery, and presented to him as his (Kitto, 'Biblical Cyclopaedia'). Rather, "children of whoredoms" means that the children, like their mother, fell spiritual fornication. Compare Hosea 1:3, "bare him a son" (see Hosea 2:4-5). Being children of a spiritual whore, they naturally fell into her whorish ways.
For land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord - literally, from after х mee'achªreey (H310)] the Lord. Our calling is to follow hard after the Lord (Psalms 63:8), "forgetting the things behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before" (Philippians 3:13). To turn aside from following after our Divine Husband and Lord is spiritual adultery.