Hoseachapter 2
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Key verse
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
It stands in Allured into the wilderness and spoken to tenderly, verses 14 to 17.
The chapter
Chapter summary
A covenant lawsuit against an unfaithful wife, who is Israel. She chased her lovers for bread and wool and flax, 'and she knew not that I gave her the grain and the new wine and the oil': the silver and gold she spent on Baal. So Jehovah hedges her way with thorns and strips her feast days away. Then the turn no lawsuit predicts: 'I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her,' giving the valley of Achor for a door of hope. She will call him Ishi, my husband, not Baali. 'I will betroth thee unto me for ever' (2:19).
Context
Prophecy · Hosea · Hosea overview
The world behind this chapter
Hosea 2The history
The chapter opens with a legal formula. In the ancient Near East a husband ending a marriage declared before witnesses, in words very like these, that she is not my wife and I am not her husband. Hearers recognised the sentence the way we would recognise the wording of a court summons.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The penalty described was also real law, not invention. Documents from Mesopotamia and the surrounding cultures prescribe stripping an adulterous wife and putting her out with nothing, she had brought nothing legally her own into the marriage, so she left with nothing. It was public, deliberate humiliation.
Baal was a rain god, and that is the whole quarrel. In a land with no great river to irrigate from, the harvest depended entirely on rain falling at the right weeks, and Baal was advertised as the one who supplied it. Worship at his shrines involved sexual acts believed to prompt the god to fertilise the land. So the list of what the lovers supposedly gave, grain, new wine, oil, wool, flax, is exactly what a Canaanite farmer thought he was buying.
Two of the promises at the end turn painful place names inside out. The Valley of Achor was where Achan was executed after the failure at Ai, remembered ever after as the valley of trouble; it becomes a door of hope. And the two Hebrew words for husband are set against each other, Israel will call God my husband instead of my master, because the second word is also the name Baal.
What it meant to them
The charge was not that Israel had stopped sacrificing to the LORD. It was that they credited the crops to somebody else while keeping up the appearance of covenant loyalty, and they had never noticed that the grain and the wine and the oil all came from the God they were cheating on.
The ending would have been almost shocking to the first hearers. After the stripping and the wilderness comes a courtship, she is led out and spoken to tenderly, and the covenant is renewed with the animals and the sky as parties to it. Judgment is the road, not the destination.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament: The Minor Prophets
Where the chapter sits
Hosea 2 falls in The marriage and the children (chapters 1–3). Hosea marries Gomer; their three children are named as sermons, Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, Lo-ammi. The marriage enacted is the marriage preached.
After it: The LORD's controversy with Israel, chapters 4–14.
The whole shape of Hosea→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Plead with your mother, for she is not my wife
1. (v. 1)
Hosea 2:1
“Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi - that is, “My people, and to your sisters, Ruhamah,” i. e., “beloved or tenderly pitied.” The words form a climax of the love of God. First, the people scattered , unpitied , and disowned by God , is re-born of God; then it is declared to be in continued relation to God, “My people;” then to be the object of his yearning love.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Hosea 2:1
"Tell your brothers and sisters, my people, that they have attained mercy." LXX: "Say to your brother, my people, and to your sister, having obtained mercy." Because the day of Jezrael is great, on which Judas and Israel will have one prince, and it will not be said of Israel, "you are not my people," but on the contrary they will be called the children of the living God.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 2:1patristic
Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi: The chapter opens by reversing the names chapter 1 closed, brethren addressed as Ammi, my people, and sisters as Ruhamah, pitied, the same names that had sentenced the nation now sent out as a plea to the very people they once condemned. The commentators read the verse as a bridge rather than a fresh oracle, the promise of 1:10 turned into an appeal the remnant is told to make to one another before the lawsuit that fills the rest of the chapter is heard. Judgment and restoration stand beside each other from the first verse, the reversal named before the charge against the mother is even brought.
2. (vv. 2-3)
Hosea 2:2
"Judge your mother, judge her, for she is not my wife and I am not her husband: let her remove her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts: lest perhaps I strip her naked, and make her as on the day of her birth." This is a message directed towards the Israelite people, that is, the ten tribes.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 2:2-3patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 2:2
“Every sinful course, persisted in, is an adulterous departure from God. And here we may see what it is truly to repent of it and turn from it. True penitents will forsake both open sins, will put away not only the whoredoms that lie in sight, but those that lie in secret between their breasts, the sin that is rolled under the tongue as a sweet morsel.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 2:2
“Plead with your mother - People of Judah, accuse your mother, (Jerusalem), who has abandoned my worship, and is become idolatrous, convince her of her folly and wickedness, and let her return to him from whom she has so deeply revolted.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 2:3
“Lest I strip her naked - “There is an outward visible nakedness and an inward, which is invisible. The invisible nakedness is, when the soul within is bared of the glory and the grace of God.” The visible nakedness is the privation of God’s temporal and visible gifts, the goods of this world, or outward distinction. God’s inward gifts the sinful soul or nation despises, while those outward gifts she prizes.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:3
“It is hard to say when this had its accomplishment in the kingdom of the ten tribes; but it principally aims, no doubt, at the bringing in both of Jews and Gentiles into the church by the gospel of Christ; and it is applicable, nay, we have reason to think it was designed that it should be applied, to the conversion of particular souls to God.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Plead with your mother, plead: The Lord opens a legal case against Israel pictured as an unfaithful wife, plead with your mother, plead, using the courtroom language of the covenant lawsuit the prophets bring elsewhere against the nation. She is not my wife, neither am I her husband states a divorce already effectively in force through her own adulteries, and the commentators note this is stated as an accomplished fact rather than as the Lord's initiating action, hers is the desertion. The threat to strip her naked as in the day that she was born and make her as a wilderness anticipates the language Ezekiel later expands at length in chapter 16, the marriage figure common property among the prophets rather than Hosea's invention alone.
3. (vv. 4-5)
Hosea 2:4
“I will not have mercy upon her children - God visits the sins of the parents upon the children, until the entailed curse be cut off by repentance. God enforces His own word “lo-ruhamah, Unpitied,” by repeating it here, “lo-arahem,” “I will not pity.” Reproaches, which fall upon the mother, are ever felt with special keenness.”
Hosea 2:5
“She that conceived them hath done shamefully, literally, hath made shameful - The silence as to “what” she “made shameful” is more emphatic than any words. She “made shameful” everything which she could “make shameful,” her acts, her children, and herself. I will go after my lovers - (:iterally let me go, I would go). The Hebrew word “Meahabim” denotes intense passionate love; the plural form implies that they were sinful loves. Every word aggravates the shamelessness.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:5
“The Chaldee understands it of the nations whose alliance Israel courted and depended upon, who supplied them with what they needed. But it is rather to be understood of the idols they worshipped, to justify their love of which they called them their lovers. See who do shamefully; those that are wilful and resolute in sin, and those that openly profess and own their resolution to go on in it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
I will not have mercy upon her children: The children inherit the mother's charge, called children of whoredoms because they were conceived of it, and the mother's own words are quoted as evidence against her, I will go after my lovers that give me my bread and my water. The commentators point out the everyday domestic language, bread, water, wool, flax, oil, drink, laid over the fertility cult's promise that Baal supplied the harvest, so that idolatry is exposed as thanklessness for ordinary provision rather than merely as false ritual. Her own mouth convicts her, the plea against her built entirely from what she has already said and done.
B. Hedged with thorns; she never knew who gave the grain
1. (vv. 6-7)
Hosea 2:6
“I will hedge up thy way with thorns - I will put it out of your power to escape the judgments I have threatened; and, in spite of all your attachment to your idols, you shall find that they can give you neither bread, nor water, nor wool, nor flax, nor oil, nor drink. And ye shall be brought into such circumstances, that the pursuit of your expensive idolatry shall be impossible. And she shall be led so deep into captivity, as never to find the road back to her own land.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 2:6
“Hedge up - I will compass thee in with wars, and calamities, that tho' thou love thy sinful courses, thou shalt have little pleasure in them. Make a wall - Yea, I will make the calamities of this people as a strong wall, which they cannot break.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 2:6
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 2:7
“So, therefore, understand that there were also many lovers of your soul who have been seduced by its splendor with whom it has been a prostitute. It was also said of these, "I will go after my lovers, who give me my wine and my oil." But the soul has now come to that time that it should say, "I will return to my first husband because it was better for me than now." You have returned, therefore, to your first husband. You have doubtless displeased your lovers with whom you used to commit adultery.”
Origen of Alexandria· written before 253· HOMILIES ON EXODUS 8:4patristic
I will hedge up thy way with thorns: The thorn hedge and the wall are discipline aimed at return rather than destruction for its own sake, blocking the paths to her lovers until she cannot find them and is driven to say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now. The commentators read this as the pattern of gracious frustration running through the whole book, hardship used to recover rather than merely to punish, and note that the wife's own words supply the turning point, a recognition rather than a rescue forced on an unwilling party. The hedge is temporary and purposeful, not the end of the story.
2. (vv. 8-9)
Hosea 2:8
“For she did not know that I gave her corn - How often are the gifts of God’s immediate bounty attributed to fortuitous causes - to any cause but the right one! Which they prepared for Baal - And how often are the gifts of God’s bounty perverted into means of dishonoring him! God gives us wisdom, strength, and property; and we use them to sin against him with the greater skill, power, and effect! Were the goods those of the enemy, in whose service they are employed, the crime would be the less.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:8
“Their land was plenteous. How graciously their plenty was given to them. God gave them not only corn for necessity, but wine for delight, and oil for ornament.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Hosea 2:9
"Therefore, I will return and take my grain in its time, and my wine in its time, and I will free my wool, and my flax, which covered her disgrace." LXX: "Therefore I will return and take my wheat in its time, and my wine in its time, and I will take away my garments, and my coverings, not to cover her nakedness." A heavier punishment is when, in the time of harvest and the expected vintage, the crops are taken and the wine, and in a sense the tried ones are taken from the hands.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 2:9patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 2:9
"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.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 2:9
“Therefore I will return - God is, as it were, absent from men, when He lets them go on in their abuse of His gifts. “His judgments are far above out of their sight.” He returns to them, and His presence is felt in chastisements, as it might have been in mercies. He is not out of sight or out of mind, then. Others render it, “I will turn, i. e.”
For she did not know that I gave her corn: The verdict against her is stated as ignorance of the true giver, she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal, crediting the wrong god with the Lord's own provision. Because the gifts were misattributed the Lord will recover them, take away my corn in the time thereof, language of ownership the commentators note undercuts any claim Baal's worshippers made to the harvest as reward for their devotion. The withdrawal of provision is framed as reclaiming what was always his rather than as a new act of cruelty.
3. (vv. 10-13)
Hosea 2:11
“I will also cause her mirth to cease, her feast days ... - Israel had forsaken the temple of God; despised His priests; received from Jeroboam others whom God had not chosen; altered, at least, one of the festivals; celebrated all, where God had forbidden; and worshiped the Creator under the form of a brute creature (see Introduction).”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:11
“Her feast days - Though apostate, Israel was fallen to idolatry, yet they retained many of the Mosaic rites and ceremonies. Her solemn feasts - The three annual feasts of tabernacles, weeks, and passover, all which ceased when they were carried captive, by Salmaneser.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 2:12
“These are my rewards - They attributed all the blessings of Providence as rewards received from the idols which they worshipped.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 2:13
“I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, or Baals - When men leave the one true God, they make to themselves many idols. They act, as if they could make up a god piece-meal out of the many attributes of the One God, and create their Creator. His power of production becomes one God; His power of destroying, another; His providence, a third; and so on, down to the very least acts.”
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:13
“The days - The sins of those days. Of Baalim - Baal was the great idol of the ten tribes; here it is plural Baalim, to denote the multitude of idols which they worshipped, all called by this one name.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers: The judgment widens from provision to worship itself, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths silenced along with the vines and fig trees she called my rewards that my lovers have given me, the commentators noting the bitter irony of gifts she attributed to Baal now turned into forest for wild beasts to strip. The days of Baalim visited upon her, the burning of incense, the earrings and jewels put on for her lovers, the whole apparatus of the fertility cult is named item by item rather than gestured at generally. The section closes on the charge that names the root of everything listed, and forgat me, saith the Lord, forgetfulness rather than ignorance now the explicit verdict.
C. Allured into the wilderness and spoken to tenderly
1. (vv. 14-15)
Hosea 2:14
"Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope." LXX: "Therefore, behold, I will seduce her, and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart." Because we have said "to open hope," and the Septuagint translated "to open his understanding," Symmachus interpreted it "into the door of hope," that is, "into the gateway of hope," Theodotion "to renew her patience," that is, "to open her expectation."
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 2:14patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 2:14
“I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her - After inflicting many judgments upon her, I will restore her again. I will deal with her as a very affectionate husband would do to an unfaithful wife. Instead of making her a public example, he takes her in private, talks to and reasons with her; puts her on her good behavior; promises to pass by all, and forgive all, if she will now amend her ways.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Hosea 2:14
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Hosea 2:15
“This promise of Israel's singing has its accomplishment in the gospel of Christ, which furnishes us with abundant matter for joy and praise, and wherever it is received in its power enlarges the heart in joy and praise; and this is that land flowing with milk and honey which the valley of Achor opens a door of hope to.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:15
“The valley of Achor, near Jericho, was specially fruitful (Isa 65:10); so "trouble" and "hope" are rightly blended in connection with it. sing . . . as . . . when she came . . . out of . . .”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness: The chapter turns without transition from the harshest judgment to the gentlest courtship, therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her, the Hebrew idiom literally speaking to her heart, the same wilderness that once tested Israel now made the place of renewed wooing. The valley of Achor, trouble, named at Joshua 7 for Achan's sin, is given as a door of hope, the commentators reading the wordplay as deliberate, the very site of ancient judgment reopened as an entrance. She shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt casts the restoration as a new exodus, the first deliverance made the pattern for the second.
2. (vv. 16-17)
Hosea 2:16
“Thou shalt call me Ishi - That is, my man, or my husband; a title of love and affection; and not Baali, my master, a title exciting fear and apprehension; which, howsoever good in itself, was now rendered improper to be applied to Jehovah, having been prostituted to false gods. This intimated that they should scrupulously avoid idolatry; and they had such a full proof of the inefficacy of their idolatrous worship that, after their captivity, they never more served idols.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 2:16
“And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord, I will call my servant, and I will not call him any more Baalim: and I will take away the names of Baalim out of his mouth, and he shall no more remember their names." Similarly the LXX.”
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 2:16-17patristic
Hosea 2:16
“Note, The surest pledge and token of God's favour to any people is his effectual parting between them and their beloved sins. The worship of Baal was the sin that did most easily beset the people of Israel; it was their own iniquity, the sin that had dominion over them; but now that idolatry shall be quite abolished, and there shall not be the least remains of it among them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
thou shalt call me Ishi: The new name marks the new relation, Ishi, my husband, replacing Baali, my lord, a word that also happened to be the name of the god she had served, so that the change of address itself removes the ambiguity the old title carried. The commentators note the deliberate overlap, a wife could rightly call a Hebrew husband either word, but Baali's likeness to the false god's own name made it a title too easily shared, and the Lord will not share it. The names of Baalim are to be taken away out of her mouth entirely, not softened or reinterpreted but removed, so that they shall no more be remembered by their name.
D. Betrothed forever, and Jezreel sown in the land
1. (v. 18)
Hosea 2:18
“Will I make a covenant for them - I will make an agreement between them and the birds, beasts, and reptiles, so that they shall not be injured by those; their flocks shall not be destroyed, nor their crops spoiled. I will also prevent every species of war, that they may no more have the calamities that arise from that source. They shall also be safe from robbers and nightly alarms; for I will make them to lie down in safety.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:18
“It is a full and gracious promise of abundance of peace, safety, and love, through the creation. Safely - This was in some measure made good to the Jews returning out of captivity. But the full accomplishment will be to the church of Christ.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field: The covenant widens past Israel's marriage to creation itself, a peace made with the beasts of the field, the fowls of heaven, and the creeping things of the ground, and the weapons of war, the bow, the sword, and the battle, broken out of the earth entirely. The commentators read the language as reaching toward the same horizon Isaiah's wolf and lamb oracles describe, a restored order in which neither the animal world nor the nations threaten the safety of God's people, positions on how literally or how far off that horizon lies left named rather than settled. Israel is made to lie down safely, the picture of a shepherd's flock replacing the picture of a lawsuit that opened the chapter.
2. (vv. 19-20)
Hosea 2:19
"And I will espouse thee to me forever: and I will espouse thee to me in justice, and judgment, and in mercy, and in compassion. And I will espouse thee to me in faith: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord." Similarly in the Septuagint. Oh, what great mercy of God! The prostitute who has fornicated with many lovers, and was handed over to the beasts because of her crime; after she returns to her husband, though she is not reconciled to him, she is betrothed.
Jerome· written before 420· Commentary on Hosea 2:19patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:19
“And I will betroth her unto Me forever - God does not say here, “I will forgive her;” “I will restore her;” “I will receive her back again;” “I will again shew her love and tenderness.” Much as these would have been, He says here much more. He so blots out, forgets, abolishes all memory of the past, that He speaks only of the future, of the new betrothal, as if it were the first espousal of a virgin.”
Hosea 2:20
“In faithfulness - Thou shalt no more prostitute thyself to idols, but be faithful to him who calls himself thy husband. Thou shalt know the Lord - There shall be no more infidelity on thy part nor divorce on mine; and thou shalt experience me to be the sole, present, and eternal good of thy immortal spirit: and when this conviction is fully rooted then there can be no more idolatry, for it shall be seen that an idol is nothing in the world.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I will betroth thee unto me for ever: The divorce language of verse 2 is answered here point for point with a betrothal, three times repeated, I will betroth thee unto me, each time naming a quality of the union, righteousness and judgment, lovingkindness and mercies, and finally faithfulness, a marriage rebuilt on the very virtues the first one lacked. The commentators note the sequence moves from the legal ground of the covenant to its emotional substance to its permanence, and thou shalt know the Lord closes the list, knowledge in the Hebrew sense of intimate relation rather than mere information. The betrothal is stated as for ever, matching the finality of the earlier divorce with an equal and opposite finality of restoration.
3. (vv. 21-22)
Hosea 2:21
“In that day - In the day of gospel-grace. I will hear - God the first and universal cause will influence the heavens, he will command their dew, and showers.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Hosea 2:21
“I will hear the heavens ... - As all nature is closed, and would refuse her office to those who rebel against her God, so, when He hath withdrawn His curse and is reconciled to man all shall combine together for man’s good, and, by a kind of harmony, all parts thereof join their ministries for the service of those who are at unity with Him. And, as an image of love, all, from lowest to highest, are bound together, each depending on the ministry of that beyond it, and the highest on God.”
Hosea 2:22
“Shall hear the corn, and the wine - When they seem to express a desire to supply the wants of man. And they shall hear Jezreel - The destitute people who are in want of the necessaries of life. This most elegant gradation in the exertion of the influences of nature, for the supply of the wants of man, may be considered thus: - 1. There is a concord, harmony, and mutual influence, which God has established in the parts of created nature, in reference to the support and preservation of the human race.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I will hear, saith the Lord: The chain of hearing runs from heaven down to the ground, the Lord hearing the heavens, the heavens hearing the earth, the earth hearing the corn, wine, and oil, and these hearing Jezreel, a cosmic order of intercession restoring exactly the provision withheld in verses 8 and 9. The commentators note the reversal is total, what was taken away as judgment, corn, wine, oil, is given back through a picture of creation itself interceding for the child whose name once meant scattered and now receives the increase his name always literally carried. Jezreel, God sows, is heard by the very things it will need to grow.
4. (v. 23)
Hosea 2:23
“And I will sow her unto me in the earth,.... That is, Jezreel, or the people of God, the church betrothed; this is another blessing following upon the marriage relation between Christ and his people, both Jews and Gentiles, in the latter day, a multiplication of a spiritual seed and offspring. So Kimchi and Aben Ezra observe, that the words signify that the people of Israel shall increase and be fruitful as the seed of the earth.”
2 more voices on this verse
Hosea 2:23
“And I will sow her unto Me in the earth - She whom God sows, is the Church, of whom God speaks as her, because she is the Mother of the faithful. After the example of her Lord, and by virtue of His Death, every suffering is to increase her. “The blood of Christians was their harvest-seed” . “The Church was not diminished by persecutions, but increased and the field of the Lord was even clothed with the richer harvest, in that the seeds, which fell singly, arose multiplied” .”
Hosea 2:23
“I will sow - I will bless them with a wonderful increase of people, exprest with allusion to seed sown in the earth. So the Jews multiplied after the Babylonish captivity, but much more are the numbers increased since the preaching of the gospel.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Hosea 2:23
- Quoted inRomans 9:25As He says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My People’ who are not My people, and I will call her ‘My Beloved’ who is not My beloved,”
'I will call them my people, which were not my people' ('as he saith also in Osee')
I will sow her unto me in the earth: The chapter ends where chapter 1 turned, mercy given to her that had not obtained mercy, and Lo-ammi's sentence, not my people, reversed word for word, thou art my people, and they shall say, Thou art my God. Paul quotes this verse alongside 1:10 at Romans 9:25-26 as the pattern for God's calling of a people who were not his own, the apostle's own reading of Hosea rather than a horizon the prophet states for the Gentiles by name. Jezreel's own meaning, God sows, is fulfilled in the sowing that closes the verse, the name that opened the book in judgment now bearing its harvest.
This page carries no textual note on Hosea 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets; Edward Bouverie Pusey, The Minor Prophets: A Commentary; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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