Worthy.Bible » DARBY » Hosea » Chapter 2 » Verse 14

Hosea 2:14 Darby English Bible (DARBY)

14 Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart.

Cross Reference

Ezekiel 20:35-36 DARBY

and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there will I enter into judgment with you face to face. Like as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I enter into judgment with you, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Micah 7:14-20 DARBY

Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine inheritance, dwelling alone in the forest, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. -- As in the days of thy coming forth out of the land of Egypt, will I shew them marvellous things. -- The nations shall see, and be ashamed for all their might: they shall lay [their] hand upon [their] mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick dust like the serpent; like crawling things of the earth, they shall come trembling forth from their close places. They shall turn with fear to Jehovah our God, and shall be afraid because of thee. Who is a ùGod like unto thee, that forgiveth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in loving-kindness. He will yet again have compassion on us, he will tread under foot our iniquities: and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform truth to Jacob, loving-kindness to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers, from the days of old.

Ezekiel 34:22-31 DARBY

-- I will save my flock, that they may no more be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I Jehovah will be their God, and my servant David a prince in their midst: I Jehovah have spoken [it]. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell in safety in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in its season: there shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase; and they shall be in safety in their land, and shall know that I [am] Jehovah, when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them out of the hand of those that kept them in servitude. And they shall no more be a prey to the nations, neither shall the beast of the earth devour them; but they shall dwell in safety, and none shall make them afraid. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the ignominy of the nations any more. And they shall know that I Jehovah their God [am] with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord Jehovah. And ye, my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men: I [am] your God, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Romans 11:26-27 DARBY

and so all Israel shall be saved. According as it is written, The deliverer shall come out of Zion; he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is the covenant from me to them, when I shall have taken away their sins.

Zechariah 8:19-23 DARBY

Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: The fast of the fourth [month] and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful gatherings. Love ye then truth and peace. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Yet again shall there come peoples, and the inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to supplicate Jehovah, and to seek Jehovah of hosts: I will go also. And many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek Jehovah of hosts in Jerusalem, and to supplicate Jehovah. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: In those days shall ten men take hold, out of all languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you; for we have heard [that] God is with you.

Zechariah 1:12-17 DARBY

And the angel of Jehovah answered and said, Jehovah of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these seventy years? And Jehovah answered the angel that talked with me good words, comforting words. And the angel that talked with me said unto me, Cry, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy, and I am wroth exceedingly with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little wroth, and they helped forward the affliction. Therefore thus saith Jehovah: I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith Jehovah of hosts, and the line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. Cry further, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: My cities shall yet overflow with prosperity, and Jehovah shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.

Zephaniah 3:9-20 DARBY

For then will I turn to the peoples a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of Jehovah, to serve him with one consent. From beyond the rivers of Cush my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine oblation. In that day thou shalt not be ashamed for all thy doings wherein thou hast transgressed against me; for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that exult in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain. And I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of Jehovah. The remnant of Israel shall not work unrighteousness, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: but *they* shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Exult, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; rejoice and be glad with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem: Jehovah hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy; the King of Israel, Jehovah, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not; Zion, let not thy hands be slack. Jehovah thy God is in thy midst, a mighty one that will save: he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love; he will exult over thee with singing. I will gather them that sorrow for the solemn assemblies, who were of thee: the reproach of it was a burden [unto them]. Behold, at that time I will deal with all them that afflict thee; and I will save her that halted, and gather her that was driven out; and I will make them a praise and a name in all the lands where they have been put to shame. At that time will I bring you, yea, at the time that I gather you; for I will make you a name and a praise, among all the peoples of the earth, when I shall turn again your captivity before your eyes, saith Jehovah.

Amos 9:11-15 DARBY

In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations upon whom my name is called, saith Jehovah who doeth this. Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, when the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop new wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will turn again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; and they shall make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith Jehovah thy God.

Ezekiel 39:25-29 DARBY

Therefore, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name: and they shall bear their confusion, and all their unfaithfulness in which they have acted unfaithfully against me, when they shall dwell safely in their land, and none shall make them afraid; when I have brought them again from the peoples, and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations. And they shall know that I [am] Jehovah their God, in that I caused them to be led into captivity among the nations, and have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. And I will not hide my face any more from them, for I shall have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Ezekiel 37:11-28 DARBY

And he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off! Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, O my people, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah, when I have opened your graves, and have caused you to come up out of your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I will place you in your own land: and ye shall know that I Jehovah have spoken, and have done [it], saith Jehovah. And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, And thou, son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel, his companions. And take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions. And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thy hand. And when the children of my people speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not declare unto us what thou meanest by these? say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions, and will put them with this, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in my hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thy hand before their eyes. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, whither they are gone, and will gather them from every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. And they shall not defile themselves any more with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions; and I will save them out of all their dwelling-places wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: and they shall walk in mine ordinances, and keep my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and David my servant shall be their prince for ever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them: it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever. And my tabernacle shall be over them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the nations shall know that I Jehovah do hallow Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for ever.

Ezekiel 36:8-15 DARBY

And ye mountains of Israel shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people Israel: for they are at hand to come. For behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown. And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, the whole of it; and the cities shall be inhabited, and the waste places shall be builded. And I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall increase and bring forth fruit; and I will cause you to be inhabited as [in] your former times, yea, I will make it better than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I [am] Jehovah. And I will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel; and they shall possess thee, and thou shalt be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave them of children. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because they say unto you, Thou devourest men, and hast bereaved thy nation, therefore thou shalt devour men no more, neither bereave thy nation any more, saith the Lord Jehovah; neither will I cause thee to hear the ignominy of the nations any more, and thou shalt not bear the reproach of the peoples any more, neither shalt thou cause thy nation to fall any more, saith the Lord Jehovah.

Jeremiah 33:6-26 DARBY

Behold, I will apply a healing dressing to it and cure, and I will heal them, and will reveal unto them an abundance of peace and truth. And I will turn the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel, and will build them, as at the beginning. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me, and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear of all the good that I do unto them; and they shall fear and tremble for all the good and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it. Thus saith Jehovah: In this place of which ye say, It is waste, without man and without beast! in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man, and without inhabitant, and without beast, there shall again be heard the voice of mirth and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that say, Give ye thanks unto Jehovah of hosts; for Jehovah is good, for his loving-kindness [endureth] for ever, -- of them that bring thanksgiving unto the house of Jehovah. For I will turn the captivity of the land as in the beginning, saith Jehovah. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: In this place which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, there shall again be a habitation of shepherds causing [their] flocks to lie down. In the cities of the hill-country, in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the environs of Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that counteth [them], saith Jehovah. Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will perform the good word which I have spoken unto the house of Israel and unto the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell in safety. And this is the name wherewith she shall be called: Jehovah our Righteousness. For thus saith Jehovah: There shall never fail to David a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall there fail to the priests the Levites a man before me to offer up burnt-offerings, and to burn oblations, and to do sacrifice continually. And the word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah: If ye can break my covenant [in respect] of the day, and my covenant [in respect] of the night, so that there should not be day and night in their season, [then] shall also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers. As the host of the heavens cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured, so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. And the word of Jehovah came to Jeremiah, saying, Hast thou not seen what this people have spoken, saying, The two families that Jehovah had chosen, he hath even cast them off? And they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them. Thus saith Jehovah: If my covenant of day and night [stand] not, if I have not appointed the ordinances of the heavens and the earth, [then] will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David my servant, so as not to take of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will turn their captivity, and will have mercy on them.

Jeremiah 32:36-41 DARBY

And now therefore Jehovah, the God of Israel, saith thus concerning this city, whereof ye say, It hath been given over into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries whither I have driven them, in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me all [their] days, for the good of them, and of their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not draw back from them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their heart, that they may not turn aside from me. And I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land with my whole heart and with my whole soul.

Jeremiah 31:1-37 DARBY

At that time, saith Jehovah, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus saith Jehovah: The people [that were] left of the sword have found grace in the wilderness, [even] Israel, when I go to give him rest. Jehovah hath appeared from afar unto me, [saying,] Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee. I will build thee again, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel! Thou shalt again be adorned with thy tambours, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Thou shalt again plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall eat the fruit. For there shall be a day, when the watchmen upon mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise, and let us go up to Zion, unto Jehovah our God. For thus saith Jehovah: Sing aloud [with] gladness for Jacob, and shout at the head of the nations; publish ye, praise ye, and say, Jehovah, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth; [and] among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great assemblage shall they return hither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them; I will cause them to walk by water-brooks, in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble; for I will be a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of Jehovah, ye nations, and declare [it] to the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd his flock. For Jehovah hath ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than he. And they shall come and sing aloud upon the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of Jehovah, for corn, and for new wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd; and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not languish any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old together; for I will turn their mourning into gladness, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice after their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith Jehovah. Thus saith Jehovah: A voice hath been heard in Ramah, the wail of very bitter weeping, -- Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are not. Thus saith Jehovah: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for there is a reward for thy work, saith Jehovah; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith Jehovah, and thy children shall come again to their own border. I have indeed heard Ephraim bemoaning himself [thus]: Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised as a bullock not trained: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art Jehovah my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after I knew myself, I smote upon [my] thigh. I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, for I bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim a dear son unto me? is he a child of delights? For whilst I have been speaking against him, I do constantly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will certainly have mercy upon him, saith Jehovah. Set up waymarks, make for thyself signposts; set thy heart toward the highway, the way by which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. How long wilt thou wander about, thou backsliding daughter? For Jehovah hath created a new thing on the earth, a woman shall encompass a man. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: They shall again use this speech, in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall turn their captivity: Jehovah bless thee, O habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness! And therein shall dwell Judah, and all the cities thereof together, the husbandmen, and they that go about with flocks. For I have satiated the weary soul, and every languishing soul have I replenished. -- Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me. Behold, days come, saith Jehovah, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah [with] the seed of man and the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to overthrow, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build, and to plant, saith Jehovah. In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge: for every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day of my taking them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, saith Jehovah. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and will write it in their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more. Thus saith Jehovah, who giveth the sun for light by day, the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for light by night, who stirreth up the sea so that the waves thereof roar, -- Jehovah of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith Jehovah, the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. Thus saith Jehovah: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off the whole seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith Jehovah.

Jeremiah 30:18-22 DARBY

Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will turn the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have mercy on his habitations; and the city shall be built upon her own heap; and the palace shall be inhabited after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving, and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be diminished; and I will honour them, and they shall not be small. And their sons shall be as aforetime; and their assembly shall be established before me; and I will punish all that oppress them. And their prince shall be of themselves, and their ruler shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to approach, and he shall draw near unto me. For who is this that engageth his heart to draw near unto me? saith Jehovah. And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Jeremiah 3:12-24 DARBY

Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith Jehovah: I will not make my face dark upon you; for I am merciful, saith Jehovah; I will not keep [anger] for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast turned thy ways hither and thither to the strangers under every green tree; and ye have not hearkened to my voice, saith Jehovah. Return, backsliding children, saith Jehovah; for I am a husband unto you, and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion. And I will give you shepherds according to my heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And it shall come to pass, when ye are multiplied in the land and become fruitful, in those days, saith Jehovah, they shall say no more, Ark of the covenant of Jehovah! neither shall it come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit [it]; neither shall it be done any more. At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of Jehovah; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of Jehovah, to Jerusalem; and they shall no more walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel; and they shall come together out of the land of the north, to the land which I caused your fathers to inherit. And as for me, I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee the pleasant land, the goodly inheritance of the hosts of the nations? And I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from following me. Surely [as] a woman treacherously departeth from her companion, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith Jehovah. A voice is heard upon the heights, the weeping supplications of the children of Israel; for they have perverted their way, they have forgotten Jehovah their God. -- Return, backsliding children; I will heal your backslidings. ... Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art Jehovah our God. Truly in vain [is salvation looked for] from the hills, [and] the multitude of mountains; truly in Jehovah our God is the salvation of Israel. But shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

Isaiah 51:3-23 DARBY

For Jehovah shall comfort Zion, he shall comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah: gladness and joy shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of song. Listen unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will establish my judgment for a light of the peoples. My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the peoples: the isles shall wait for me, and in mine arm shall they trust. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of men, and be not afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah; awake, as in the days of old, [as in] the generations of passed ages. Is it not thou that hath hewn Rahab in pieces, [and] pierced the monster? Is it not thou that dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? So the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come to Zion with singing; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy; sorrow and sighing shall flee away. I, [even] I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou fearest a man that shall die, and the son of man that shall become as grass; and forgettest Jehovah thy Maker, who hath stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and thou art afraid continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepareth to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor? He that is bowed down shall speedily be loosed, and he shall not die in the pit, nor shall his bread fail. And I am Jehovah thy God, who raiseth the sea, so that its waves roar: Jehovah of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and covered thee with the shadow of my hand, to plant the heavens, and to lay the foundations of the earth, and to say unto Zion, Thou art my people. Arouse thyself, arouse thyself, stand up, Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of Jehovah the cup of his fury. Thou hast drunk, hast drained out the goblet-cup of bewilderment: -- there is none to guide her among all the children that she hath brought forth; neither is there any to take her by the hand of all the children that she hath brought up. These two [things] are come unto thee; who will bemoan thee? -- desolation and destruction, and famine and sword: how shall I comfort thee? Thy children have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an oryx in a net: they are full of the fury of Jehovah, the rebuke of thy God. Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine: thus saith thy Lord, Jehovah, and thy God, who pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I take out of thy hand the cup of bewilderment, the goblet-cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: and I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; who have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over; and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went over.

Isaiah 49:13-26 DARBY

Shout, ye heavens; and be joyful, thou earth; and break forth into singing, ye mountains: for Jehovah hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted ones. But Zion said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even these forget, but I will not forget thee. Lo, I have graven thee upon the palms of [my] hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy sons shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that laid thee waste shall go forth from thee. Lift up thine eyes round about and behold: they all gather themselves together, they come to thee. As I live, saith Jehovah, thou shalt indeed clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and bind them on as a bride doth. For [in] thy waste and thy desolate places, and thy destroyed land, thou shalt even now be too straitened by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children of thy bereavement shall yet say in thine ears, The place is too narrow for me: make room for me, that I may dwell. And thou shalt say in thy heart, Who hath borne me these, seeing I had lost my children and was desolate, an exile, and driven about? and who hath brought up these? behold, I was left alone; these, where were they? Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and set up my banner to the peoples; and they shall bring thy sons in [their] bosom, and thy daughters shall be carried upon the shoulder. And kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and their princesses thy nursing-mothers: they shall bow down to thee with the face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I [am] Jehovah; for they shall not be ashamed who wait on me. Shall the prey be taken from the mighty? and shall he that is rightfully captive be delivered? For thus saith Jehovah: Even the captive of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; and I will strive with him that striveth with thee, and I will save thy children. And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with new wine. And all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, [am] thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

Isaiah 40:1-2 DARBY

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her time of suffering is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins.

Isaiah 35:3-4 DARBY

Strengthen the weak hands and confirm the tottering knees. Say to them that are of a timid heart, Be strong, fear not; behold your God: vengeance cometh, the recompense of God! He will come himself, and save you.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Hosea 2

Commentary on Hosea 2 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Verse 1

To confirm the certainty of this most joyful turn of events, the promise closes with the summons in Hosea 2;Hosea 1:1-11 : “ Say ye to your brethren: My people; and to your sisters, Favoured.” The prophet “sees the favoured nation of the Lord (in spirit) before him, and calls upon its members to accost one another joyfully with the new name which had been given to them by God” (Hengstenberg). The promise attaches itself in form to the names of the children of the prophet. As their names of ill omen proclaimed the judgment of rejection, so is the salvation which awaits the nation in the future announced to it here by a simple alteration of the names into their opposite through the omission of the לא .

So far as the fulfilment of this prophecy is concerned, the fact that the patriarchal promise of the innumerable multiplication of Israel is to be realized through the pardon and restoration of Israel, as the nation of the living God, shows clearly enough that we are not to look for this in the return of the ten tribes from captivity to Palestine, their native land. Even apart from the fact, that the historical books of the Bible (Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther) simply mention the return of a portion of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites, under Zerubbabel and Ezra, and that the numbers of the ten tribes, who may have attached themselves to the Judaeans on their return, or who returned to Galilee afterwards as years rolled by, formed but a very small fraction of the number that had been carried away (compare the remarks on 2 Kings 17:24); the attachment of these few to Judah could not properly be called a union of the sons of Israel and of the sons of Judah, and still less was it a fulfilment of the word, “They appoint themselves one head.” As the union of Israel with Judah is to be effected through their gathering together under one head, under Jehovah their God and under David their king, this fulfilment falls within the Messianic times, and hitherto has only been realized in very small beginnings, which furnish a pledge of their complete fulfilment in the last times, when the hardening of Israel will cease, and all Israel be converted to Christ (Romans 11:25-26). It is by no means difficult to bring the application, which is made of our prophecy in 1 Peter 2:10 and Romans 9:25-26, into harmony with this. When Peter quotes the words of this prophecy in his first epistle, which nearly all modern commentators justly suppose to have been written to Gentile Christians, and when Paul quotes the very same words (Hosea 2:1, with Hosea 1:10) as proofs of the calling of the Gentiles to be the children of God in Christ; this is not merely an application to the Gentiles of what is affirmed of Israel, or simply the clothing of their thoughts in Old Testament words, as Huther and Wiesinger suppose, but an argument based upon the fundamental thought of this prophecy. Through its apostasy from God, Israel had become like the Gentiles, and had fallen from the covenant of grace with the Lord. Consequently, the re-adoption of the Israelites as children of God was a practical proof that God had also adopted the Gentile world as His children. “Because God had promised to adopt the children of Israel again, He must adopt the Gentiles also. Otherwise this resolution would rest upon mere caprice, which cannot be thought of in God” (Hengstenberg). Moreover, although membership in the nation of the Old Testament covenant rested primarily upon lineal descent, it was by no means exclusively confined to this; but, from the very first, Gentiles also were received into the citizenship of Israel and the congregation of Jehovah through the rite of circumcision, and could even participate in the covenant mercies, namely, in the passover as a covenant meal (Exodus 12:14). There was in this an indirect practical prophecy of the eventual reception of the whole of the Gentile world into the kingdom of God, when it should attain through Christ to faith in the living God. Even through their adoption into the congregation of Jehovah by means of circumcision, believing Gentiles were exalted into children of Abraham, and received a share in the promises made to the fathers. And accordingly the innumerable multiplication of the children of Israel, predicted in Romans 9:10, is not to be restricted to the actual multiplication of the descendants of the Israelites now banished into exile; but the fulfilment of the promise must also include the incorporation of believing Gentiles into the congregation of the Lord (Isaiah 44:5). This incorporation commenced with the preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles by the apostles; it has continued through all the centuries in which the church has been spreading in the world; and it will receive its final accomplishment when the fulness of the Gentiles shall enter into the kingdom of God. And as the number of the children of Israel is thus continually increased, this multiplication will be complete when the descendants of the children of Israel, who are still hardened in their hearts, shall turn to Jesus Christ as their Messiah and Redeemer (Romans 11:25-26).


Verse 2-3

What the prophet announced in Hosea 1:2-2:1, partly by a symbolical act, and partly also in a direct address, is carried out still further in the section before us. The close connection between the contents of the two sections is formally indicated by the simple fact, that just as the first section closed with a summons to appropriate the predicted salvation, so the section before us commences with a call to conversion. As Rckert aptly says, “The significant pair give place to the thing signified; Israel itself appears as the adulterous woman.” The Lord Himself will set bounds to her adulterous conduct, i.e., to the idolatry of the Israelites. By withdrawing the blessings which they have hitherto enjoyed, and which they fancy that they have received from their idols, He will lead the idolatrous nation to reflection and conversion, and pour the fulness of the blessings of His grace in the most copious measure upon those who have been humbled and improved by the punishment. The threatening and the announcement of punishment extend from Hosea 2:2 to Hosea 2:13; the proclamation of salvation commences with Hosea 2:14, and reaches to the close of Hosea 2:23. The threatening of punishment is divided into two strophes, viz., Hosea 2:2-7 and Hosea 2:8-13. In the first, the condemnation of their sinful conduct is the most prominent; in the second, the punishment is more fully developed.

“Reason with your mother, reason! for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband: that she put away her whoredom from her countenance, and her adultery from between her breasts.” Jehovah is the speaker, and the command to get rid of the whoredom is addressed to the Israelites, who are represented as the children of the adulterous wife. The distinction between mother and children forms part of the figurative drapery of the thought; for, in fact, the mother had no existence apart from the children. The nation or kingdom, regarded as an ideal unity, is called the mother; whereas the several members of the nation are the children of this mother. The summons addressed to the children to contend or reason with this mother, that she may give up her adultery, presupposes that, although the nation regarded as a whole was sunken in idolatry, the individual members of it were not all equally slaves to it, so as to have lost their susceptibility for the divine warning, or the possibility of conversion. Not only had the Lord reserved to Himself seven thousand in Elijah's time who had not bowed their knees to Baal, but at all times there were many individuals in the midst of the corrupt mass, who hearkened to the voice of the Lord and abhorred idolatry. The children had reason to plead, because the mother was no longer the wife of Jehovah, and Jehovah was no longer her husband, i.e., because she had dissolved her marriage with the Lord; and the inward, moral dissolution of the covenant of grace would be inevitably followed by the outward, actual dissolution, viz., by the rejection of the nation. It was therefore the duty of the better-minded of the nation to ward off the coming destruction, and do all they could to bring the adulterous wife to desist from her sins. The object of the pleading is introduced with ותסר . The idolatry is described as whoredom and adultery. Whoredom becomes adultery when it is a wife who commits whoredom. Israel had entered into the covenant with Jehovah its God; and therefore its idolatry became a breach of the fidelity which it owed to its God, an act of apostasy from God, which was more culpable than the idolatry of the heathen. The whoredom is attributed to the face, the adultery to the breasts, because it is in these parts of the body that the want of chastity on the part of a woman is openly manifested, and in order to depict more plainly the boldness and shamelessness with which Israel practised idolatry.

The summons to repent is enforced by a reference to the punishment. Hosea 2:3. “Lest I strip her naked, and put her as in the day of her birth, and set her like the desert, and make her like a barren land, and let her die with thirst.” In the first hemistich the threat of punishment corresponds to the figurative representation of the adulteress; in the second it proceeds from the figure to the fact. In the marriage referred to, the husband had redeemed the wife out of the deepest misery, to unite himself with her. Compare Ezekiel 16:4., where the nation is represented as a naked child covered with filth, which the Lord took to Himself, covering its nakedness with beautiful clothes and costly ornaments, and entering into covenant with it. These gifts, with which the Lord also presented and adorned His wife during the marriage, He would now take away from the apostate wife, and put her once more into a state of nakedness. The day of the wife's birth is the time of Israel's oppression and bondage in Egypt, when it was given up in helplessness to its oppressors. The deliverance out of this bondage was the time of the divine courtship; and the conclusion of the covenant with the nation that had been brought out of Egypt, the time of the marriage. The words, “I set (make) her like the desert,” are to be understood as referring not to the land of Israel, which was to be laid waste, but to the nation itself, which was to become like the desert, i.e., to be brought into a state in which it would be destitute of the food that is indispensable to the maintenance of life. The dry land is a land without water, in which men perish from thirst. There is hardly any need to say that these words to not refer to the sojourn of Israel in the Arabian desert; for there the Lord fed His people with manna from heaven, and gave them water to drink out of the rock.


Verse 4

“And I will not have compassion upon her children, for they are children of whoredom.” This verse is also dependent, so far as the meaning is concerned, upon the pen (lest) in Hosea 2:3; but in form it constitutes an independent sentence. B e nē z e nūnı̄m (sons of whoredoms) refers back to yaldē z e nūnı̄m in Hosea 1:2. The children are the members of the nation, and are called “sons of whoredom,” not merely on account of their origin as begotten in whoredom, but also because they inherit the nature and conduct of their mother. The fact that the children are specially mentioned after and along with the mother, when in reality mother and children are one, serves to give greater keenness to the threat, and guards against that carnal security, in which individuals imagine that, inasmuch as they are free from the sin and guilt of the nation as a whole, they will also be exempted from the threatened punishment.


Verse 5

“For their mother hath committed whoredom; she that bare them hath practised shame: for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give (me) my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” By kı̄ (for) and the suffixes attached to 'immâm ( their mother) and hōrâthâm (that bare them), the first clauses are indeed introduced as though simply explanatory and confirmatory of the last clause of Hosea 2:4; but if we look at the train of thought generally, it is obvious that Hosea 2:5 is not merely intended to explain the expression sons of whoredom, but to explain and vindicate the main thought, viz., that the children of whoredom, i.e., the idolatrous Israelites, will find no mercy. Now, as the mother and children are identical, if we trace back the figurative drapery to its actual basis, the punishment with which the children are threatened applies to the mother also; and the description of the mother's whoredom serves also to explain the reason for the punishment with which the mother is threatened in Hosea 2:3. And this also accounts for the fact that, in the threat which follows in Hosea 2:6, “I hedge up thy way,” the other herself is again directly addressed. The hiphil hōbhı̄sh , which is traceable to yâbhēsh , so far as the form is concerned, but derives its meaning from בּושׁ , is not used here in its ordinary sense of being put to shame, but in the transitive sense of practising shame, analogous to the transitive meaning “to shame,” which we find in 2 Samuel 19:5. To explain this thought, the coquetting with idols is more minutely described in the second hemistich. The delusive idea expressed by the wife ( אמרה , in the perfect , indicates speaking or thinking which stretches from the past into the present), viz., that the idols give her food (bread and water), clothing (wool and flax), and the delicacies of life (oil and drink, i.e., wine and must and strong drink), that is to say, “everything that conduces to luxury and superfluity,” which we also find expressed in Jeremiah 44:17-18, arose from the sight of the heathen nations round about, who were rich and mighty, and attributed this to their gods. It is impossible, however, that such a thought can ever occur, except in cases where the heart is already estranged from the living God. For so long as a man continues in undisturbed vital fellowship with God, “he sees with the eye of faith the hand in the clouds, from which he receives all, by which he is guided, and on which everything, even that which has apparently the most independence and strength, entirely depends” (Hengstenberg).


Verses 6-8

“Therefore (because the woman says this), behold, thus will I hedge up thy way with thorns, and wall up a wall, and she shall not find her paths.” The hedging up of the way, strengthened by the similar figure of the building of a wall to cut off the way, denotes her transportation into a situation in which she could no longer continue her adultery with the idols. The reference is to distress and tribulation (compare Hosea 5:15 with Deuteronomy 4:30; Job 3:23; Job 19:8; Lamentations 3:7), especially the distress and anguish of exile, in which, although Israel was in the midst of idolatrous nations, and therefore had even more outward opportunity to practise idolatry, it learned the worthlessness of all trust in idols, and their utter inability to help, and was thus impelled to reflect and turn to the Lord, who smites and heals (Hosea 6:1).

This thought is carried out still further in Hosea 2:7 : “ And she will pursue her lovers, and not overtake them; and seek them, and not find them: and will say, I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.” Distress at first increases their zeal in idolatry, but it soon brings them to see that the idols afford no help. The failure to reach or find the lovers, who are sought with zeal ( riddēph , piel in an intensive sense, to pursue eagerly), denotes the failure to secure what is sought from them, viz., the anticipated deliverance from the calamity, which the living God has sent as a punishment. This sad experience awakens the desire to return to the faithful covenant God, and the acknowledgment that prosperity and all good things are to be found in vital fellowship with Him.

The thought that God will fill the idolatrous nation with disgust at its coquetry with strange gods, by taking away all its possessions, and thus putting to shame its delusive fancy that the possessions which it enjoyed really came from the idols, is still further expanded in the second strophe, commencing with the eighth verse. Hosea 2:8. “And she knows not that I have given her the corn, and the must, and the oil, and have multiplied silver to her, and gold, which they have used for Baal.” Corn, must, and oil are specified with the definite article as being the fruits of the land, which Israel received from year to year. These possessions were the foundation of the nation's wealth, through which gold and silver were multiplied. Ignorance of the fact that Jehovah was the giver of these blessings, was a sin. That Jehovah had given the land to His people, was impressed upon the minds of the people for all time, together with the recollection of the mighty acts of the Lord, by the manner in which Israel had been put in possession of Canaan; and not only had Moses again and again reminded the Israelites most solemnly that it was He who gave rain to the land, and multiplied and blessed its fruitfulness and its fruits (compare, for example, Deuteronomy 7:13; Deuteronomy 11:14-15), but this was also perpetually called to their remembrance by the law concerning the offering of the first-fruits at the feasts. The words ‛âsū labba‛al are to be taken as a relative clause without 'asher , though not in the sense of “which they have made into Baal,” i.e., out of which they have made Baal-images (Chald., Rabb., Hitzig, Ewald, and others); for even though עשׂה ל occurs in this sense in Isaiah 44:17, the article, which is wanting in Isaiah, and also in Genesis 12:2 and Exodus 32:10, precludes such an explanation here, apart from the fact that habba‛al cannot stand by itself for a statue of Baal. Here עשׂה ל has rather the general meaning “apply to anything,” just as in 2 Chronicles 24:7, where it occurs in a perfectly similar train of thought. This use of the word may be obtained from the meaning “to prepare for anything,” whereas the meaning “to offer,” which Gesenius adopts (“which they have offered to Baal”), is untenable, since עשׂה simply denotes the preparation of the sacrifice for the altar, which is out of the question in the case of silver and gold. They had applied their gold and silver to Baal, however, not merely by using them for the preparation of idols, but by employing them in the maintenance and extension of the worship of Baal, or even by regarding them as gifts of Baal, and thus confirming themselves in the zealous worship of that god. By habba'al we are not simply to understand the Canaanitish or Phoenician Baal in the stricter sense of the word, whose worship Jehu had exterminated from Israel, though not entirely, as is evident from the allusion to an Asherah in Samaria in the reign of Jehoahaz (2 Kings 13:6); but Baal is a general expression for all idols, including the golden calves, which are called other gods in 1 Kings 14:9, and compared to actual idols.


Verse 9

“Therefore will I take back my corn at its time, and my must at its season, and tear away my wool and my flax for the covering of her nakedness.” Because Israel had not regarded the blessings it received as gifts of its God, and used them for His glory, the Lord would take them away from it. אשׁוּב ולקחתּי are to be connected, so that אשׁוּב has the force of an adverb, not however in the sense of simple repetition, as it usually does, but with the idea of return, as in Jeremiah 12:15, viz., to take again = to take back. “My corn,” etc., is the corn, the must, which I have given. “At its time,” i.e., at the time when men expect corn, new wine, etc., viz., at the time of harvest, when men feel quite sure of receiving or possessing it. If God suddenly takes away the gifts then, not only is the loss more painfully felt, but regarded as a punishment far more than when they have been prepared beforehand for a bad harvest by the failure of the crop. Through the manner in which God takes the fruits of the land away from the people, He designs to show them that He, and not Baal, is the giver and the taker also. The words “to cover her nakedness” are not dependent upon הצּלתּי , but belong to צמרי וּפשׁתּי , and are simply a more concise mode of saying, “Such serve, or are meant, to cover her nakedness.” They serve to sharpen the threat, by intimating that if God withdraw His gifts, the nation will be left in utter penury and ignominious nakedness ( ‛ervâh , pudendum ).


Verse 10-11

“And now will I uncover her shame before her lovers, and no one shall tear her out of my hand.” The ἅπ. λεγ. נבלוּה , lit., a withered state, from נבל , to be withered or faded, probably denotes, as Hengstenberg says, corpus multa stupra passum , and is rendered freely in the lxx by ἀκαθαρσία . “Before the eyes of the lovers,” i.e., not so that they shall be obliged to look at it, without being able to avoid it, but so that the woman shall become even to them an object of abhorrence, from which they will turn away (comp. Nahum 3:5; Jeremiah 13:26). In this concrete form the general truth is expressed, that “whoever forsakes God for the world, will be put to shame by God before the world itself; and that all the more, the nearer it stood to Him before” (Hengstenberg). By the addition of the words “no one,” etc., all hope is cut off that the threatened punishment can be averted (cf. Hosea 5:14).

This punishment is more minutely defined in Hosea 2:11-13, in which the figurative drapery is thrown into the background by the actual fact. Hosea 2:11. “And I make all her joy keep holiday (i.e., cease ) , her feast, and her new moon, and her sabbath, and all her festive time.” The feast days and festive times were days of joy, in which Israel was to rejoice before the Lord its God. To bring into prominence this character of the feasts, כּל־משׂושׂהּ , “all her joy,” is placed first, and the different festivals are mentioned afterwards. Châg stands for the three principal festivals of the year, the Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles, which had the character of châg , i.e., of feasts of joy par excellence , as being days of commemoration of the great acts of mercy which the Lord performed on behalf of His people. Then came the day of the new moon every month, and the Sabbath every week. Finally, these feasts are all summed up in כּל־מועדהּ ; for מועד , מועדים is the general expression for all festive seasons and festive days (Leviticus 23:2, Leviticus 23:4). As a parallel, so far as the facts are concerned, comp. Amos 8:10; Jeremiah 7:34, and Lamentations 1:4; Lamentations 5:15.


Verse 12

The Lord will put an end to the festive rejoicing, by taking away the fruits of the land, which rejoice man's heart. Hosea 2:12. “And I lay waste her vine and her fig-tree, of which she said, They are lovers' wages to me, which my lovers gave me; and I make them a forest, and the beasts of the field devour them.” Vine and fig-tree, the choicest productions of the land of Canaan, are mentioned as the representatives of the rich means of sustenance with which the Lord had blessed His people (cf. 1 Kings 5:5; Joel 2:22, etc.). The devastation of both of these denotes the withdrawal of the possessions and enjoyments of life (cf. Jeremiah 5:17; Joel 1:7, Joel 1:12), because Israel regarded them as a present from its idols. עתנה , softened down from אתנן (Hosea 9:1), like שׁריה , in Job 41:18, from שׁרין (1 Kings 22:34; cf. Ewald, §163, h ), signifies the wages of prostitution (Deuteronomy 23:19). The derivation is disputed and uncertain, since the verb תּנה cannot be shown to have been used either in Hebrew or the other Semitic dialects in the sense of dedit , dona porrexit (Ges.), and the word cannot be traced to תּנן , to extend; whilst, on the other hand, the תּנה , התנה (Hosea 8:9-10) is most probably a denominative of אתנה . Consequently, Hengstenberg supposes it to be a bad word formed out of the question put by the prostitute, מה תתּן לי , and the answer given by the man, אתן לך (Genesis 38:16, Genesis 38:18), and used in the language of the brothel in connection with an evil deed. The vineyards and fig-orchards, so carefully hedged about and cultivated, are to be turned into a forest, i.e., to be deprived of their hedges and cultivation, so that the wild beasts may be able to devour them. The suffixes attached to שׂמתּים and אכלתם refer to גּפן וּתאנה (the vine and fig-tree), and not merely to the fruit. Comp. Isaiah 7:23. and Micah 3:12, where a similar figure is used to denote the complete devastation of the land.


Verse 13

In this way will the Lord take away from the people their festivals of joy. Hosea 2:13. “And I visit upon her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, and adorned herself with her ring and her jewels, and went after her lovers; and she hath forgotten me, is the word of Jehovah.” The days of the Baals are the sacred days and festive seasons mentioned in Hosea 2:13, which Israel ought to have sanctified and kept to the Lord its God, but which it celebrated in honour of the Baals, through its fall into idolatry. There is no ground for thinking of special feast-days dedicated to Baal, in addition to the feasts of Jehovah prescribed by the law. Just as Israel had changed Jehovah into Baal, so had it also turned the feast-days of Jehovah into festive days of the Baals, and on those days had burned incense, i.e., offered sacrifice to the Baals (cf. Hosea 4:13; 2 Kings 17:11). In Hosea 2:8 we find only הבעל mentioned, but here בּעלים in the plural, because Baal was worshipped under different modifications, from which B e âlı̄m came to be used in the general sense of the various idols of the Canaanites (cf. Judges 2:11; 1 Kings 18:18, etc.). In the second hemistich this spiritual coquetry with the idols is depicted under the figure of the outward coquetry of a woman, who resorts to all kinds of outward ornaments in order to excite the admiration of her lovers (as in Jeremiah 4:30 and Ezek. 22:40ff.). There is no ground for thinking of the wearing of nose-rings and ornaments in honour of the idols. The antithesis to this adorning of themselves is “forgetting Jehovah,” in which the sin is brought out in its true shape. On נאם יהוה , see Delitzsch on Isaiah 1:24.


Verse 14-15

In Hosea 2:14 the promise is introduced quite as abruptly as in Hosea 2:1, that the Lord will lead back the rebellious nation step by step to conversion and reunion with Himself, the righteous God. In two strophes we have first the promise of their conversion (Hosea 2:14-17), and secondly, the assurance of the renewal of the covenant mercies (Hosea 2:18-23). Hosea 2:14, Hosea 2:15. “ Therefore, behold, I allure her, and lead her into the desert, and speak to her heart. And I give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor (of tribulation) for the door of hope; and she answers thither, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.” לכן , therefore (not utique , profecto , but, nevertheless, which lâkhēn in Hosea 2:6 and Hosea 2:9, and is connected primarily with the last clause of Hosea 2:13. “Because the wife has forgotten God, He calls Himself to her remembrance again, first of all by punishment (Hosea 2:6 and Hosea 2:9); then, when this has answered its purpose, and after she has said, I will go and return (Hosea 2:7), by the manifestations of His love” (Hengstenberg). That the first clause of Hosea 2:14 does not refer to the flight of the people out of Canaan into the desert, for the purpose of escaping from their foes, as Hitzig supposes, is sufficiently obvious to need no special proof. The alluring of the nation into the desert to lead it thence to Canaan, presupposes that rejection from the inheritance given to it by the Lord (viz., Canaan), which Israel had brought upon itself through its apostasy. This rejection is represented as an expulsion from Canaan to Egypt, the land of bondage, out of which Jehovah had redeemed it in the olden time. פּתה , in the piel to persuade, to decoy by words; here sensu bono , to allure by friendly words. The desert into which the Lord will lead His people cannot be any other than the desert of Arabia, through which the road from Egypt to Canaan passes. Leading into this desert is not a punishment, but a redemption out of bondage. The people are not to remain in the desert, but to be enticed and led through it to Canaan, the land of vineyards. The description is typical throughout. What took place in the olden time is to be repeated, in all that is essential, in the time to come. Egypt, the Arabian desert, and Canaan are types. Egypt is a type of the land of captivity, in which Israel had been oppressed in its fathers by the heathen power of the world. The Arabian desert, as the intervening stage between Egypt and Canaan, is introduced here, in accordance with the importance which attached to the march of Israel through this desert under the guidance of Moses, as a period or state of probation and trial, as described in Deuteronomy 8:2-6, in which the Lord humbled His people, training it on the one hand by want and privation to the knowledge of its need of help, and on the other hand by miraculous deliverance in the time of need (e.g., the manna, the stream of water, and the preservation of their clothing) to trust to His omnipotence, that He might awaken within it a heartfelt love to the fulfilment of His commandments and a faithful attachment to Himself. Canaan, the land promised to the fathers as an everlasting possession, with its costly productions, is a type of the inheritance bestowed by the Lord upon His church, and of blessedness in the enjoyment of the gifts of the Lord which refresh both body and soul. דּבּר על לב , to speak to the heart, as applied to loving, comforting words (Genesis 34:3; Genesis 50:21, etc.), is not to be restricted to the comforting addresses of the prophets, but denotes a comforting by action, by manifestations of love, by which her grief is mitigated, and the broken heart is healed. The same love is shown in the renewed gifts of the possessions of which the unfaithful nation had been deprived.

In this way we obtain a close link of connection for Hosea 2:15. By משּׁם ... נתתּי , “I give from thence,” i.e., from the desert onwards, the thought is expressed, that on entering the promised land Israel would be put into immediate possession and enjoyment of its rich blessings. Manger has correctly explained משּׁם as meaning “as soon as it shall have left this desert,” or better still, “as soon as it shall have reached the border.” “Its vineyards” are the vineyards which it formerly possessed, and which rightfully belonged to the faithful wife, though they had been withdrawn from the unfaithful (Hosea 2:12). The valley of Achor , which was situated to the north of Gilgal and Jericho (see at Joshua 7:26), is mentioned by the prophet, not because of its situation on the border of Palestine, nor on account of its fruitfulness, of which nothing is known, but with an evident allusion to the occurrence described in Joshua 7, from which it obtained its name of ‛Akhōr , Troubling . This is obvious from the declaration that this valley shall become a door of hope. Through the sin of Achan, who took some of the spoil of Jericho which had been devoted by the ban to the Lord, Israel had fallen under the ban, so that the Lord withdrew His help, and the army that marched against Ai was defeated. But in answer to the prayer of Joshua and the elders, God showed to Joshua not only the cause of the calamity which had befallen the whole nation, but the means of escaping from the ban and recovering the lost favour of God. Through the name Achor this valley became a memorial, how the Lord restores His favour to the church after the expiation of the guilt by the punishment of the transgressor. And this divine mode of procedure will be repeated in all its essential characteristics. The Lord will make the valley of troubling a door of hope, i.e., He will so expiate the sins of His church, and cover them with His grace, that the covenant of fellowship with Him will no more be rent asunder by them; or He will so display His grace to the sinners, that compassion will manifest itself even in wrath, and through judgment and mercy the pardoned sinners will be more and more firmly and inwardly united to Him. And the church will respond to this movement on the part of the love of God, which reveals itself in justice and mercy. It will answer to the place, whence the Lord comes to meet it with the fulness of His saving blessings. ענה does not mean “to sing,” but “to answer;” and שׁמּה , pointing back to משּׁם , must not be regarded as equivalent to שׁם . As the comforting address of the Lord is a sermo realis , so the answer of the church is a practical response of grateful acknowledgment and acceptance of the manifestations of divine love, just as was the case in the days of the nation's youth, i.e., in the time when it was led up from Egypt to Canaan. Israel then answered the Lord, after its redemption from Egypt, by the song of praise and thanksgiving at the Red Sea (Exodus 15), and by its willingness to conclude the covenant with the Lord at Sinai, and to keep His commandments (Exodus 24).


Verse 16

“And it comes to pass in that day, is the saying of Jehovah, thou wilt call, My husband; and thou wilt no more call to me, My Baal.” The church will then enter once more into the right relation to its God. This thought is expressed thus, that the wife will no more call her husband Baal, but husband. Ba‛al is not to be taken as an appellative in the sense of master, as distinguished from 'ı̄sh , man, i.e., husband, for ba'al does not mean master or lord, but owner, possessor; and whenever it is applied to a husband in an appellative sense, it is used quite promiscuously with 'iish (e.g., 2 Samuel 11:26; Genesis 20:3). Moreover, the context in this instance, especially the B e ‛âlı̄m in Hosea 2:19, decidedly requires that Ba‛al should be taken as a proper name. Calling or naming is a designation of the nature or the true relation of a person or thing. The church calls God her husband, when she stands in the right relation to Him; when she acknowledges, reveres, and loves Him, as He has revealed Himself, i.e., as the only true God. On the other hand, she calls Him Baal, when she places the true God on the level of the Baals, either by worshipping other gods along with Jehovah, or by obliterating the essential distinction between Jehovah and the Baals, confounding together the worship of God and idolatrous worship, the Jehovah-religion and heathenism.


Verse 17

“And I put away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they are no more remembered by their name.” As soon as the nation ceases to call Jehovah Baal, the custom of taking the names of the Baals into its mouth ceases of itself. And when this also is mentioned here as the work of God, the thought is thereby expressed, that the abolition of polytheism and mixed religion is a work of that divine grace which renews the heart, and fills with such abhorrence of the coarser or more refined forms of idolatry, that men no longer dare to take the names of the idols into their lips. This divine promise rests upon the command in Exodus 23:13, “Ye shall make no mention of the names of other gods,” and is repeated almost word for word in Zechariah 13:2.


Verse 18

With the complete abolition of idolatry and false religion, the church of the Lord will attain to the enjoyment of undisturbed peace. Hosea 2:18. “And I make a covenant for them in that day with the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the moving creatures of the earth: and I break in pieces bow, and sword, and battle out of the land, and cause them to dwell securely.” God makes a covenant with the beasts, when He imposes the obligation upon them to hurt men no more. “ For them:” lâhem is a dat. comm. , for the good of the favoured ones. The three classes of beasts that are dangerous to men, are mentioned here, as in Genesis 9:2. “Beasts of the field,” as distinguished from the same domestic animals ( b e hēmâh ), are beasts that live in freedom in the fields, either wild beasts, or game that devours or injures the fruits of the field. By the “fowls of heaven,” we are to understand chiefly the birds of prey. Remes does not mean reptiles, but that which is active, the smaller animals of the land which move about with velocity. The breaking in pieces of the weapons of war and of battle out of the land, is a pregnant expression for the extinction not only of the instruments of war, but also of war itself, and their extermination from the land. Milchâmâh , war, is connected with shâbhar per zeugma . This promise rests upon Leviticus 26:3., and is still further expanded in Ezekiel 34:25. (Compare the parallels in Isaiah 2:4, Isaiah 2:11; Isaiah 35:9, and Zechariah 9:10.)


Verse 19-20

“And I betroth thee to myself for ever; and I betroth thee to myself in righteousness, and judgment, and in grace and pity. Hosea 2:20. And I betroth thee to myself in faithfulness; and thou acknowledgest Jehovah.” ארשׂ לו , to betroth to one's self, to woo, is only applied to the wooing of a maiden, not to the restoration of a wife who has been divorced, and is generally distinguished from the taking of a wife (Deuteronomy 20:7). ארשׂתּיך therefore points, as Calvin observes, to an entirely new marriage. “It was indeed great grace for the unfaithful wife to be taken back again. She might in justice have been put away for ever. The only valid ground for divorce was there, since she had lived for years in adultery. But the grace of God goes further still. The past is not only forgiven, but it is also forgotten” (Hengstenberg). The Lord will now make a new covenant of marriage with His church, such as is made with a spotless virgin. This new and altogether unexpected grace He now directly announces to her: “I betroth thee to myself;” and repeats this promise three times in ever fresh terms, expressive of the indissoluble character of the new relation. This is involved in לעולם , “for ever,” whereas the former covenant had been broken and dissolved by the wife's own guilt. In the clauses which follow, we have a description of the attributes which God would thereby unfold in order to render the covenant indissoluble. These are, (1) righteousness and judgment; (2) grace and compassion; (3) faithfulness. Tsedeq = ts e dâqâh and mishpât are frequently connected. Tsedeq , “being right,” denotes subjective righteousness as an attribute of God or man; and mishpât , objective right, whether in its judicial execution as judgment, or in its existence in actual fact. God betroths His church to Himself in righteousness and judgment, not by doing her justice, and faithfully fulfilling the obligations which He undertook at the conclusion of the covenant (Hengstenberg), but by purifying her, through the medium of just judgment, from all the unholiness and ungodliness that adhere to her still (Isaiah 1:27), that He may wipe out everything that can injure the covenant on the part of the church. But with the existing sinfulness of human nature, justice and judgment will not suffice to secure the lasting continuance of the covenant; and therefore God also promises to show mercy and compassion. But as even the love and compassion of God have their limits, the Lord still further adds, “in faithfulness or constancy,” and thereby gives the promise that He will not more withdraw His mercy from her. בּאמוּנה is also to be understood of the faithfulness of God, as in Psalms 89:25, not of that of man (Hengstenberg). This is required by the parallelism of the sentences. In the faithfulness of God the church has a certain pledge, that the covenant founded upon righteousness and judgment, mercy and compassion, will stand for ever. The consequence of this union is, that the church knows Jehovah. This knowledge is “real.” “He who knows God in this way, cannot fail to love Him, and be faithful to Him” (Hengstenberg); for out of this covenant there flows unconquerable salvation.


Verses 21-23

“And it comes to pass in that day, I will hear, is the word of Jehovah; I will hear heaven, and it hears the earth. And the earth will hear the corn, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will hear Jezreel (God sows).” God will hear all the prayers that ascend to Him from His church (the first אענה is to be taken absolutely; compare the parallel in Isaiah 58:9), and cause all the blessings of heaven and earth to flow down to His favoured people. By a prosopopeia, the prophet represents the heaven as praying to God, to allow it to give to the earth that which is requisite to ensure its fertility; whereupon the heaven fulfils the desires of the earth, and the earth yields its produce to the nation.

(Note: As Umbreit observes, “It is as though we heard the exalted harmonies of the connected powers of creation, sending forth their notes as they are sustained and moved by the eternal key-note of the creative and moulding Spirit.”)

In this way the thought is embodied, that all things in heaven and on earth depend on God; “so that without His bidding not a drop of rain falls from heaven, and the earth produces no germ, and consequently all nature would at length be barren, unless He gave it fertility by His blessing” (Calvin). The promise rests upon Deuteronomy 28:12, and forms the antithesis to the threat in Leviticus 26:19 and Deuteronomy 28:23-24, that God will make the heavens as brass, and the earth as iron, to those who despise His name. In the last clause the prophecy returns to its starting-point with the words, “Hear Jezreel.” The blessing which flows down from heaven to earth flows to Jezreel , the nation which “God sows.” The name Jezreel, which symbolizes the judgment about to burst upon the kingdom of Israel, according to the historical signification of the name in Hosea 1:4, Hosea 1:11, is used here in the primary sense of the word, to denote the nation as pardoned and reunited to its God.

This is evident from the explanation given in Hosea 2:23 : “ And I sow her for myself in the land, and favour Unfavoured, and say to Not-my-people, Thou art my people; and it says to me, My God.” זרע does not mean “to strew,” or scatter (not even in Zechariah 10:9; cf. Koehler on the passage), but simply “to sow.” The feminine suffix to זרעתּיה refers, ad sensum , to the wife whom God has betrothed to Himself for ever, i.e., to the favoured church of Israel, which is now to become a true Jezreel , as a rich sowing on the part of God. With this turn in the guidance of Israel, the ominous names of the other children of the prophet's marriage will also be changed into their opposite, to show that mercy and the restoration of vital fellowship with the Lord will now take the place of judgment, and of the rejection of the idolatrous nation. With regard to the fulfilment of the promise, the remarks made upon this point at Hosea 1:11 and Hosea 2:1 (pp. 33, 34), are applicable here, since this section is simply a further expansion of the preceding one.