oil ... drink--perfumed unguents and palatable drinks: the luxuries of Hebrew life.
6-7. thorns ... wall--([Job 19:8]; [La 3:7], ). The hindrances which the captivity interposed between Israel and her idols. As she attributes all her temporal blessings to idols, I will reduce her to straits in which, when she in vain has sought help from false gods, she will at last seek Me as her only God and Husband, as at the first ([Is 54:5]; [Jr 3:14]; [Eze 16:8]).
then--before Israel's apostasy, under Jeroboam. The way of duty is hedged about with thorns; it is the way of sin that is hedged up with thorns. Crosses in an evil course are God's hedges to turn us from it. Restraining grace and restraining providences (even sicknesses and trials) are great blessings when they stop us in a course of sin. Compare [Lu 15:14-18], "I will arise, and go to my father." So here, "I will go, and return," &c.; crosses in the both cases being sanctified to produce this effect.
8. she did not know that I--not the idols, as she thought: the "lovers" alluded to in [Ho 2:5].
which they prepared for Baal--that is, of which they made images of Baal, or at least the plate covering of them ([Ho 8:4]). Baal was the Phoenician sun-god: answering to the female Astarte, the moon-goddess. The name of the idol is found in the Phoenician Hannibal, Hasdrubal. Israel borrowed it from the Tyrians.
9. my corn ... my wool ... my flax--in contrast to "my bread ... my wool ... my flax," ([Ho 2:5]). Compare also [Ho 2:21-23], on God as the great First Cause giving these through secondary instruments in nature. "Return, and take away," is equivalent to, "I will take back again," namely, by sending storms, locusts, Assyrian enemies, &c. "Therefore," that is, because she did not acknowledge Me as the Giver.
in the time thereof--in the harvest-time.
10. lewdness--rather, "the shame of her nakedness"; laying aside the figure, "I will expose her in her state, bereft of every necessary, before her lovers," that is, the idols (personified, as if they could see), who, nevertheless, can give her no help. "Discover" is appropriate to stripping off the self-flatteries of her hypocrisy.
11. her feast days--of Jeroboam's appointment, distinct from the Mosaic ([1Ki 12:32]). However, most of the Mosaic feasts, "new-moons" and "sabbaths" to Jehovah, remained, but to degenerate Israel worship was a weariness; they cared only for the carnal indulgence on them ([Am 8:5]).
12. my rewards--my hire as a harlot ([Is 23:17], ).
lovers--idols.
destroy ... vines ... make ... forest--([Is 5:6]; , ). Fulfilled in the overthrow of Israel by Assyria ([Ho 9:4], ).
13. days of Baalim--the days consecrated to the Baals, or various images of Baal in different cities, whence the names Baal-gad, Baal-hermon, &c.
decked herself with ... earrings--rather, "nose-rings" ([Is 3:21]; [Eze 16:12], Margin), with which harlots decked themselves to attract admirers: answering to the ornaments in which the Israelites decked themselves on the idols' feasts.
forgat me--worse than the nations which had never known God. Israel wilfully apostatized from Jehovah, whom she had known.
14. Therefore--rather, "Nevertheless" [Henderson]. English Version gives a more lovely idea of God. That which would provoke all others to unappeasable wrath, Israel's perversity and consequent punishment, is made a reason why God should at last have mercy on her. As the "therefore" ([Ho 2:9]) expresses Israel's punishment as the consequence of Israel's guilt, so "therefore" here, as in [Ho 2:6], expresses, that when that punishment has effected its designed end, the hedging up her way with thorns so that she returns to God, her first love, the consequence in God's wondrous grace is, He "speaks comfortably" (literally, "speaks to her heart"; compare [Jud 19:8]; [Ru 2:13]). So obstinate is she that God has to "allure her," that is, so to temper judgment with unlooked-for grace as to win her to His ways. For this purpose it was necessary to "bring her into the wilderness" (that is, into temporal want and trials) first, to make her sin hateful to her by its bitter fruits, and God's subsequent grace the more precious to her by the contrast of the "wilderness." Jerome makes the "bringing into the wilderness" to be rather a deliverance from her enemies, just as ancient Israel was brought into the wilderness from the bondage of Egypt; to this the phrase here alludes (compare [Ho 2:15]). The wilderness sojourn, however, is not literal, but moral: while still in the land of their enemies locally, by the discipline of the trial rendering the word of God sweet to them, they are to be brought morally into the wilderness state, that is, into a state of preparedness for returning to their temporal and spiritual privileges in their own land; just as the literal wilderness prepared their fathers for Canaan: thus the bringing of them into the wilderness state is virtually a deliverance from their enemies.
15. from thence--returning from the wilderness. God gives Israel a fresh grant of Canaan, which she had forfeited; so of her vineyards, &c. ([Ho 2:9], ).
Achor--that is, "trouble." As formerly Israel, after their tedious journey through the wilderness, met with the trouble resulting from Achan's crime in this valley, on the very threshold of Canaan, and yet that trouble was presently turned into joy at the great victory at Ai, which threw all Canaan into their hands ([Jos 7:1-8:28]); so the very trouble of Israel's wilderness state will be the "door of hope" opening to better days. The valley of Achor, near Jericho, was specially fruitful ([Is 65:10]); so "trouble" and "hope" are rightly blended in connection with it.
sing ... as ... when she came ... out of ... Egypt--It shall be a second exodus song, such as Israel sang after the deliverance at the Red Sea ([Ex 15:1-21]; compare [Is 11:15], ); and "the song of Moses" ([Re 15:2], ) sung by those who through the Lamb overcome the beast, and so stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire, emblems of fiery trial, such as that of Israel at the Red Sea.
16. Ishi ... no more Baali--"my Husband ... no more my Lord." Affection is the prominent idea in "Husband"; rule, in "Lord." The chief reason for the substitution of Husband for Lord appears in [Ho 2:17]; namely, Baali, the Hebrew for my Lord, had been perverted to express the images of Baal, whose name ought not to be taken on their lips ([Ex 23:13]; [Zec 13:2]).
17. Baalim--plural, expressing the various images of Baal, which, according to the places of their erection, received various names, Baal-gad, Baal-ammon, &c.
18. for them--for their benefit.
covenant ... with the beasts--not to hurt them ([Job 5:23]). They shall fulfil the original law of their creation by becoming subject to man, when man fulfils the law of his being by being subject to God. To be realized fully in millennial times ([Is 11:6-9]).
break the bow ... out of the earth--rather, "out of the land"; that is, I will break and remove war out of the earth ([Psa 46:9]); and "out of the land" of Israel first ([Is 2:4]; [Eze 39:9], ; [Zec 9:9], ).
lie down--A reclining posture is the usual one with Orientals when not in action.
safely--([Jr 23:6]).
19-20. "Betroth" is thrice repeated, implying the intense love of God to His people; and perhaps, also, the three Persons of the Triune God, severally engaging to make good the betrothal. The marriage covenant will be as it were renewed from the beginning, on a different footing; not for a time only, as before, through the apostasy of the people, but "forever" through the grace of God writing the law on their hearts by the Spirit of Messiah ([Jr 31:31-37]).
righteousness ... judgment--in rectitude and truth.
loving-kindness, &c.--Hereby God assures Israel, who might doubt the possibility of their restoration to His favor; low, sunk, and unworthy as thou art. I will restore thee from a regard to My own "loving-kindness," not thy merits.
21. in that day--of grace to Israel.
heavens ... hear the earth--personification. However many be the intermediate instruments, God is the Great First Cause of all nature's phenomena. God had threatened ([Ho 2:9]) He would take back His corn, His wine, &c. Here, on the contrary, God promises to hearken to the skies, as it were, supplicating Him to fill them with rain to pour on the earth; and that the skies again would hearken to the earth begging for a supply of the rain it requires; and again, that the earth would hearken to the corn, wine, and oil, begging it to bring them forth; and these again would hear Jezreel, that is, would fulfil Israel's prayers for a supply of them. Israel is now no longer "Jezreel" in the sense, "God will SCATTER" ([Ho 1:4]), but in the sense, "God will PLANT" ([Ho 1:11]).
23. I will sow her--referring to the meaning of Jezreel ([Ho 2:22]).
Chapter 3
Ho 3:1-5. Israel's Condition in Their Present Dispersion, Subsequent to Their Return from Babylon, Symbolized
The prophet is to take back his wife, though unfaithful, as foretold in [Ho 1:2]. He purchases her from her paramour, stipulating she should wait for a long period before she should be restored to her conjugal rights. So Israel is to live for a long period without her ancient rites of religion, and yet be free from idolatry; then at last she shall acknowledge Messiah, and know Jehovah's goodness restored to her.
1. Go yet--"Go again," referring to [Ho 1:2] [Henderson].
a woman--purposely indefinite, for thy wife, to express the separation in which Hosea had lived from Gomer for her unfaithfulness.
beloved of her friend--used for "her husband," on account of the estrangement between them. She was still beloved of her husband, though an adulteress; just as God still loved Israel, though idolatrous ([Jr 3:20]). Hosea is told, not as in [Ho 1:2], "take a wife," but "love" her, that is, renew thy conjugal kindness to her.
who look to other gods--that is, have done so heretofore, but henceforth (from the return from Babylon) shall do so no more ([Ho 3:4]).
flagons of wine--rather, pressed cakes of dried grapes, such as were offered to idols ([Jr 7:18]) [Maurer].
2. I bought her--The price paid is too small to be a probable dowry wherewith to buy a wife from her parents; but it is just half the price of a female slave, in money, the rest of the price being made up in grain ([Ex 21:32]). Hosea pays this for the redemption of his wife, who has become the slave of her paramour. The price being half grain was because the latter was the allowance of food for the slave, and of the coarsest kind, not wheat, but barley. Israel, as committing sin, was the slave of sin ([Joh 8:34]; [Ro 6:16-20]; [2Pe 2:19]). The low price expresses Israel's worthlessness.
3. abide for me--separate from intercourse with any other man, and remaining for me who have redeemed thee (compare [De 21:13]).
so will I also be for thee--remain for thee, not taking any other consort. As Israel should long remain without serving other gods, yet separate from Jehovah; so Jehovah on His part, in this long period of estrangement, would form no marriage covenant with any other people (compare [Ho 3:4]). He would not immediately receive her to marriage privileges, but would test her repentance and discipline her by the long probation; still the marriage covenant would hold good, she was to be kept separated for but a time, not divorced ([Is 50:1]); in God's good time she shall be restored.
4. The long period here foretold was to be one in which Israel should have no civil polity, king, or prince, no sacrifice to Jehovah, and yet no idol, or false god, no ephod, or teraphim. Exactly describing their state for the last nineteen centuries, separate from idols, yet without any legal sacrifice to Jehovah, whom they profess to worship, and without being acknowledged by Him as His Church. So Kimchi, a Jew, explains it. The ephod was worn by the high priest above the tunic and robe. It consisted of two finely wrought pieces which hung down, the one in front over the breast, the other on the back, to the middle of the thigh; joined on the shoulders by golden clasps set in onyx stones with the names of the twelve tribes, and fastened round the waist by a girdle ([Ex 28:6-12]). The common ephod worn by the lower priests, Levites, and any person performing sacred rites, was of linen ([2Sa 6:14]; [1Ch 15:27]). In the breast were the Urim and Thummim by which God gave responses to the Hebrews. The latter was one of the five things which the second temple lacked, and which the first had. It, as representing the divinely constituted priesthood, is opposed to the idolatrous "teraphim," as "sacrifice" (to Jehovah) is to "an (idolatrous) image." "Abide" answers to "thou shalt abide for me" ([Ho 3:3]). Abide in solitary isolation, as a separated wife. The teraphim were tutelary household gods, in the shape of human busts, cut off at the waist (as the root of the Hebrew word implies) [Maurer], ([Ge 31:19], ). They were supposed to give responses to consulters ([2Ki 23:24]; [Eze 21:21], Margin; [Zec 10:2]). Saul's daughter, Michal, putting one in a bed, as if it were David, proves the shape to have been that of a man.
5. Afterward--after the long period ("many days," [Ho 3:4]) has elapsed.