Hosea 2
Israel's Adultery and Coming Punishment 2–13
God Promises Restoration and Renewal 14–23
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Hosea 2
Verse 1
Ammi… Ruhamah — The names of 1:6 and 1:9 with the ‘Lo’ (‘not’) taken away: ‘my people’ and ‘having obtained mercy’. The command is plural, ‘Say ye’, and the same root gives ‘I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy’ in v.23. Peter cites the change as the church’s: ‘which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God’ (1 Pet 2:10).
Verse 2
Plead with your mother — Riv, to contend in a lawsuit, as the LORD ‘hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land’ (4:1). The words ‘she is not my wife’ belong with divorce: ‘Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement’ (Isa 50:1); ‘I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce’ (Jer 3:8). ‘Adulteries’ (naaphupim) occurs only here.
Verse 3
as in the day that she was born — The picture is Israel’s beginning, ‘when thou wast naked and bare’ (Ezek 16:22). The ‘wilderness’ and ‘dry land’ are what the LORD’s people crossed, and ‘thirst’ (tsama) is what they feared there: ‘to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst’ (Ex 17:3). The punishment returns her to the want from which he brought her.
Verse 5
I will go after my lovers — ‘After’ is achar, the word of 1:2, ‘departing from’ (literally from after) the LORD. She credits ‘my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink’ to the lovers, though v.8 says she did not know who gave them. The people in Jer 44:17 reason the same way about the queen of heaven: ‘then had we plenty of victuals, and were well’.
Verse 6
I will hedge up thy way with thorns — Suk, ‘hedge’, is the verb of the protecting hedge in Job 1:10, ‘Hast not thou made an hedge about him’; here the hedge of thorns and the wall block the road. ‘Find’ (matsa) recurs in v.7, ‘shall not find them’. Proverbs says ‘The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns’ (Prov 15:19).
Verse 7
she shall not overtake them — Radaph, ‘follow’, and nasag, ‘overtake’, are the pair in the enemy’s boast at the sea, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake’ (Ex 15:9). Here she pursues her lovers and cannot catch them. ‘I will go and return’ (shuv) is the word of repentance, as in the far country: ‘I will arise and go to my father’ (Luke 15:18). Jer 2:2 recalls ‘the love of thine espousals’.
Verse 8
she did not know that I gave her corn — Corn, wine and oil are the gifts of Deut 7:13, ‘thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil’. ‘Know’ (yada) is what Israel lacks in Isa 1:3, ‘Israel doth not know’. The silver and gold given to her went into Baal’s service, as 8:4 says: ‘of their silver and their gold have they made them idols’.
Verse 11
her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths — The list is the calendar of the law, including the ‘beginnings of your months’ offered to the LORD (Num 28:11). ‘Solemn feasts’ is moed, ‘appointed times’. The LORD says through Isaiah, ‘Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth’ (Isa 1:14), and v.13 names ‘the days of Baalim’ that had taken their place.
Verse 13
I will visit upon her the days of Baalim — Paqad, ‘visit’, is the verb of ‘avenge’ in 1:4. Baalim is the plural of Baal, the lords Israel served: ‘forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim’ (Judg 3:7). The earrings (nezem) and jewels were the LORD’s own gifts: ‘I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears’ (Ezek 16:12). ‘Forgat’ is the sin of Deut 8:11.
Verse 14
I will allure her — Patah, to entice, the verb of Ex 22:16, ‘if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed’, and of Jeremiah’s ‘thou hast deceived me’ (Jer 20:7). The LORD leads her ‘into the wilderness’ where, he says, ‘I did know thee’ (13:5), and where she once ‘wentest after me’ (Jer 2:2). ‘Speak comfortably’ is the word of Isa 40:2, ‘Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem’.
Verse 15
the valley of Achor for a door of hope — Achor means ‘trouble’. The valley received its name from Achan’s punishment, ‘the valley of Achor, unto this day’ (Josh 7:26). It becomes ‘a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me’ (Isa 65:10). Israel ‘came up out of the land of Egypt’ with song, and the LORD ‘called my son out of Egypt’ (11:1).
Verse 16
thou shalt call me Ishi — Ishi, ‘my man’ or husband. Baali means ‘my master’, and could be said of the LORD, but it is also the name of the false god, whose ‘names’ v.17 removes from her mouth. ‘Thy Maker is thine husband’ (Isa 54:5) uses the verb behind baal, while the name chosen here is ish, the plain word for a husband.
Verse 18
I will break the bow and the sword and the battle — This answers 1:5, ‘I will break the bow of Israel’. The covenant with ‘the beasts of the field’ fulfils Lev 26:6, ‘I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land’, and Ezek 34:25, ‘a covenant of peace’. ‘Lie down safely’ is also Lev 26:6: ‘ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid’.
Verse 19
I will betroth thee unto me for ever — ‘Betroth’ (aras) stands three times in vv.19–20. The gifts are ‘in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies’; ‘mercies’ (rachamim) is from the root of Ruhamah (1:6). Paul says ‘I have espoused you to one husband’ (2 Cor 11:2), and John sees the city ‘prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’ (Rev 21:2).
Verse 21
I will hear the heavens — Anah, ‘answer’, links a chain through vv.21–22: the LORD answers the heavens, the heavens the earth, the earth the corn, wine and oil, and these answer ‘Jezreel’, ‘God sows’ (v.22). Zechariah pictures the same order: ‘the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew’ (Zech 8:12).
Verse 23
I will sow her unto me in the earth — Zara, ‘sow’, is the verb in the name Jezreel, ‘God will sow’ (1:4); the name that spoke of scattering now speaks of planting. ‘Not obtained mercy’ and ‘not my people’ (1:6, 9) are both reversed. Paul cites the verse in Rom 9:25–26 and Peter in 1 Pet 2:9–10. Zech 13:9 ends in the same words: ‘It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God’.