The unfaithfulness of the nation Israel
2
📚“Say to your brethren, ‘Ammi’, and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah’,2 📚“Bring charges against 📖 your mother 📖,
bring charges;
for she is not my wife 📖,
nor am I her husband.
But let her put away 📖 her prostitution
from her sight,
and her adulteries from between her breasts,
3 📚so that I do not strip her naked,
and expose her as on the day
she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
and make her like a dry land,
and slay her with thirst.
4 📚And I will not have mercy on her children,
for they are children
of prostitution.
5 📚For their mother has behaved
like a prostitute;
she who conceived them has acted
shamefully. For she said,
‘I will go 📖 after my lovers
who give me my food
and my water,
my wool and my flax,
my oil and my drink.’
2:4-5 Hos 1:6. The people of the kingdom of Israel, spiritually speaking, were not the children of God. Israel had turned to idols and the people were “children” of false gods. Morally, ethically and spiritually they were the result of the union of Israel with idolatry.⚜
6 📚Therefore, see, I will block your
way with thorns,
and make a wall so that
she cannot find her paths.
2:6 God would make it very difficult for Israel to continue in its idolatrous practices.⚜
7 📚And she will follow her lovers,
but she will not catch up with them;
and she will seek them,
but not find them.
Then she will say, ‘I will go
and return to my first husband,
for then it was better for me
than now.’
2:7 This suggests that Israel would experience great disappointments with the idols and gods it went after, and eventually return to the one true God. Compare Lev 26:40-45.⚜
8 📚For she did not know that
it was I who gave
her grain and wine,
and oil, and multiplied her
silver and gold,
which they used for Baal 📖.
2:8 Verse 5. The people thought God’s good gifts came from the false gods they worshiped.⚜
9 📚“Therefore I will return,
and take away my grain 📖 at its time,
and my wine in its season,
and will take back my wool and
my flax given to cover
her nakedness.
10 📚And now I will uncover her lewdness
in the sight of her lovers,
and no one will deliver her
from my hand 📖.
11 📚I will also put a stop to all her
rejoicing, her feast days,
her new moons, and her Sabbaths,
all her appointed feasts.
2:11 Their religious feasts had become a mockery. God had appointed them (Leviticus chapter 23), but they had no heart for God when they observed them. Compare Isa 1:12-17. So for a time He would make it impossible to them to observe them.⚜
12 📚And I will destroy her vines and
her fig trees, of which she has said,
‘These are my rewards that
my lovers have given me.’
And I will make them a forest,
and the beasts of the field
will eat them.
13 📚And I will punish her for the days
of the Baals,
when she burned incense to them,
and adorned herself with her
earrings and her jewels,
and went after her lovers,
and forgot me 📖, says the LORD.
2:13 God declares repeatedly in His Word that He will punish idolatry – Deut 13:1-8; 27:15; Rev 21:8.⚜
2:9-13 God had made Israel prosperous, and He would ruin their prosperity because of their idolatry and many sins.⚜
The promise that Israel would be restored to their former state of well-being
14 📚“Therefore, see, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak to her heart 📖.
2:14 God is saying He will take the nation Israel again as His “wife”. That time will be like a new “betrothal” (vs 19,20).⚜
15 📚And there I will give her 📖 vineyards
back to her and the valley of Achor 📖
as a door of hope.
And she will sing 📖 there,
as in the days of her youth 📖,
and as on the day when she came up
out of the land of Egypt 📖.
16 📚“And it shall be on that day,
says the LORD,
that you will call me Ishi 📖,
and will no longer call me Baali 📖.
17 📚For I will take away the names
of the Baals from her mouth,
and they will no more be remembered
by their name.
18 📚And on that day I will make a covenant
for them with the beasts of the field,
and with the birds of the sky,
and with the creeping things
of the ground.
And I will break the bow and
the sword and abolish war 📖
from the earth,
and will cause them to
lie down in safety.
2:18 In other words, wild beasts will not harm them as they did in the time of their punishment (v 12). Compare Isa 11:6-9.⚜
19 📚And I will betroth you
to me forever;
yes, I will betroth you to me
in righteousness 📖,
and in justice, and in loving kindness,
and in mercies.
20 📚I will betroth you to me
in faithfulness;
and you will know 📖 the LORD.
2:19-20 The LORD (Jehovah – Ex 3:14-15) will again take Israel as His “bride”. From then on the five qualities He lists in these verses will prevail. Compare Isa 1:27; 54:8.⚜
21 📚“And it will happen on that day
that I will answer,
says the LORD,
I will answer the heavens,
and they will answer the earth,
22 📚And the earth will answer the grain
and the wine and the oil,
and they will answer Jezreel.
2:21-22 When Israel turns back to God He will make the land and the people fruitful and prosperous again.⚜
23 📚And I will sow her for myself
in the earth 📖.
And I will have mercy on her
who had not obtained mercy,
and I will say to those who were
not my people,
‘You are my people 📖’, and they will say,
‘You are my God 📖.’ ”