Comments on Hosea 2 This chapter continues the theme from the last one and emphasizes it by repetition. v1 of this chapter is better included along with the previous chapter. It changes the names of the sons and daughters of Israel from "Lo-ammi" to "Ammi" and "Lo-ruhama" to "Ruhama". v2-23 forms a clean parallelism with the final portion, the F's, presenting the chastening and ultimate reconciliation of Israel and the Lord. The last set of F's are repeated three times, forming a superlative. Also note the last two F's put the fulfilment "in that day", or in the last days as did Micah, cf. Micah 4-5. The text can be arranged as follows (JPS): A - 2 Rebuke your mother, rebuke her For she is not My wife And I am not her husband And let her put away her harlotry from her face And her adultery from between her breasts. B - 3 Else will I strip her naked And leave her as on the day she was born: And I will make her like a wilderness, Render her like desert land, And let her die of thirst. C - 4 I will also disown her children; For they are now a harlot's brood, 5 In that their mother has played the harlot, She that conceived them has acted shamelessly D - Because she thought, "I will go after my lovers, Who supply my bread and my water, My wool and my linen, My oil and my drink." E - 6 Assuredly, I will hedge up her roads with thorns And raise walls against her, And she shall not find her paths. F - 7 Pursue her lovers as she will, She shall not overtake them; And seek them as she may, She shall never find them. Then she will say, "I will go and return To my first husband, For then I fared better than now." A - 8 And she did not consider this: It was I who bestowed on her The new grain and wine and oil; I who lavished silver on her And gold which they used for Baal. B - 9 Assuredly, I will take back My new grain in its time And My new wine in its season, And I will snatch away My wool and My linen That serve to cover her nakedness. C - 10 Now will I uncover her shame In the very sight of her lovers, And none shall save her from Me. D - 11 And I will end all her rejoicing: Her festivals, new moons, and sabbaths All her festive seasons. 12 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, Which she thinks are a fee She received from her lovers; I will turn them into brushwood, And beasts of the field shall devour them. E - 13 Thus will I punish her For the days of the Baalim, On which she brought them offerings; When, decked with earrings and jewels, She would go after her lovers, Forgetting Me declares the Lord. F - 14 Assuredly, I will speak coaxingly to her And lead her through the wilderness And speak to her tenderly. 15 I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a plowland of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth, When she came up from the land of Egypt. 16 And in that day declares the Lord You will call [Me] Ishi, And no more will you call Me Baali. 17 For I will remove the names of the Baalim from her mouth, And they shall nevermore be mentioned by name. F - 18 In that day, I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; I will also banish bow, sword, and war from the land. Thus I will let them lie down in safety. 19 And I will espouse you forever: I will espouse you with righteousness and justice, And with goodness and mercy, 20 And I will espouse you with faithfulness; Then you shall be devoted to the Lord. F - 21 In that day, I will respond declares the Lord I will respond to the sky, And it shall respond to the earth; 22 And the earth shall respond With new grain and wine and oil, And they shall respond to Jezreel. 23 I will sow her in the land as My own; And take Lo-ruhamah back in favor; And I will say to Lo-ammi, "You are My people," And he will respond, "[You are] my God." v2 Israel's "adultery" has violated the "marriage", or in other words Israel has abandoned the Lord. In the first line the Lord is telling someone, presumably Hosea and other prophets, to call Israel to repentance. v3 As the marriage covenant has been violated by her, the husband is no longer under obligation to support her. So, He will leave her barren and destitute. This also reflects the various covenant curses of Lev. 26 and Deut. 28 per the Sinaitic Covenant. v4 The insinuation here is the children borne are illegitimate, so the husband she has committed adultery on is under no obligation to support them. v5 As indicated by v. 8, it is the Lord who has prospered Israel, but Israel has failed to recognize His subtle hand of influence over her. So, she thinks she can obtain more of the same by going after and becoming like the nations that surround her. v6-7 As a result of her abandoning Him, he will become an adversary to her such that she will not achieve her worldly goals. This will cause her to suffer, repent, and return to Him. This is a distillation of the repetitive cycle found in Lev. 26:14-39 where the curses are laid upon Israel over and over again until she repents. v8 Israel has been using the bounty given them by the Lord to sacrifice to idols. She does not recognize the true source of her prosperity. v9 The Lord revokes the covenant blessing and stops blessing them with material prosperity. Consider the numerous times in the OT and BofM that the relative wealth, comfort, and ease of the people lead to apostasy. v10-13 The Lord heaps covenant curses on Israel to humiliate her in the eyes of the nations. None can deliver the one whom the Lord curses (v. 10). All of her big parties and feasts will be ended (v. 11), her fertile lands will be turned into nonproductive forests (v. 12), all because she abandoned the Lord for Baal (v. 13). v11 "feast days...new moons...sabbaths", Passover, Tabernacles, and Weeks are all feasts and therefore sabbaths, and they occur on the new moon. These feasts have become an abomination to the Lord because of hypocricy, cp. Isa. 1:10-15. v14-23 After the punishment of v. 6, 13 and her repentance in v. 7, the Lord will lovingly and tenderly take her back and restore all of her fortunes. Note the "at/in that day" appearing in v. 16, 18, 21. This phrase is used to push the context into a "last days" , or eschatological, setting. Compare Micah 4:6. Thus, the gathering of Israel and her reuniting with the Lord is a last days event. v15 "the valley of Achor for a door of hope", the JPS renders this "the Valley of Achor as a plowland of hope". Regarding the Valley of Achor the JPS footnote says, "A desolate region; cf. Isa. 65:10; see futher Josh. 7:26-26". Regarding "door of hope" the JPS footnote says "Connecting pethah with pittah 'to plow' (see Isa. 28:25). Meaning of Hebrew uncertain; others "door of hope". The idea is the same as that of Isa. 29:17, Isa. 51:3, namely that when the Lord redeems Israel they will be righteous and therefore all of the curses of desolation and barreness will be reversed to fruitfulness and fertility. v18 Compare Micah 4:1-5 for a similar statement. v21 The Sinai covenant is invoked in the reference to the heavens and earth (cf. Deut. 4:26, Deut. 30:19, Deut. 32:1). The context is the renewal and fulfilment of that covenant in the redemption of Israel. v22 The name Jezreel is turned from a curse in 1:4-5 to a blessing. The Hebrew "jezreel" translates to "God sows", hence the grain, wine, and oil supplied to Israel where it was formerly taken from her in v. 8-9. "corn", archaic English for the contemporary "grain". v23 The antithesis of 1:9 and the synthesis of 2:1. Copyright © 2002 by S. Kurt Neumiller . All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form or by any means for commercial gain without the express written consent of the author. Digital or printed copies may be freely made and distributed for personal and public non-commercial use.