Hosea 2:3
in Hosea 2Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her like the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and turn her into a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
KJV
Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
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This verse in Hosea 2
Commentary
8 notes on this verse"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.
This site's exposition
Plead with your mother, plead
on Hosea 2:2-3
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.
The record, by era
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
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.
): Lest I strip her naked. This comes in here not by way of sentence passed upon her, but by way of warning given to her, that she may prevent it: Let her put away her whoredoms, that I may not strip her naked (so it may be read), intimating that God waits to show mercy to sinners, if they would but qualify themselves for that mercy.
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Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
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.
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
set her as in the day . . . born-- (Eze 16:4; The day of her political "birth" was when God delivered her from the bondage of Egypt, and set up the theocracy. make her as a wilderness-- (Jer 6:8; Translate, "make her as the wilderness," namely, that in which she passed forty years on her way to her goodly possession of Canaan.
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1 more voice on this verse
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
Lest I strip her naked - Lest I expose her to infamy, want, and punishment. The punishment of an adulteress among the ancient Germans was this: “They shaved off her hair, stripped her naked in the presence of her relatives, and in this state drove her from the house of her husband.” See on Isa 3:17 (note); and see also Eze 16:39; Eze 23:26. However reproachful this might be to such delinquents, it had no tendency to promote their moral reformation. And set her like a dry land - The Israelites, if obedient, were promised a land flowing with milk and honey; but, should they be disobedient, the reverse. And this is what God here threatens against disobedient Israel.
The words behind it
13 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| פֶּן־ | pen- | lest | H6435 → | |
| אַפְשִׁיטֶ֣נָּה | ʾafshitenah | I should strip her | H6584 → | |
| עֲרֻמָּ֔ה | ʾarumah | naked | H6174 → | |
| וְהִ֨צַּגְתִּ֔יהָ | vehitzagtiha | and I will exhibit her | H3322 → | |
| כְּי֖וֹם | keyom | like [the] day | H3117 → | 2304 times |
| הִוָּֽלְדָ֑הּ | hivaldah | was born she | H3205 → | 496 times |
| וְשַׂמְתִּ֣יהָ | vesamtiha | and I will make her | H7760 → | 584 times |
| כַמִּדְבָּ֗ר | khamidbar | like <the> wilderness | H4057 → | 270 times |
| וְשַׁתִּ֙הָ֙ | veshatiha | and I will make her | H7896 → | |
| כְּאֶ֣רֶץ | keeretz | like a land | H776 → | 2504 times |
| צִיָּ֔ה | tziyah | dry | H6723 → | |
| וַהֲמִתִּ֖יהָ | vahamitiha | and I should make die her | H4191 → | 839 times |
| בַּצָּמָֽא׃ | batzama' | with <the> thirst | H6772 → |
פֶּן־lest
pen-H6435 →
אַפְשִׁיטֶ֣נָּהI should strip her
ʾafshitenahH6584 →
עֲרֻמָּ֔הnaked
ʾarumahH6174 →
וְהִ֨צַּגְתִּ֔יהָand I will exhibit her
vehitzagtihaH3322 →
כְּי֖וֹםlike [the] day
keyomH3117 →2304 times
הִוָּֽלְדָ֑הּwas born she
hivaldahH3205 →496 times
וְשַׂמְתִּ֣יהָand I will make her
vesamtihaH7760 →584 times
כַמִּדְבָּ֗רlike <the> wilderness
khamidbarH4057 →270 times
וְשַׁתִּ֙הָ֙and I will make her
veshatihaH7896 →
כְּאֶ֣רֶץlike a land
keeretzH776 →2504 times
צִיָּ֔הdry
tziyahH6723 →
וַהֲמִתִּ֖יהָand I should make die her
vahamitihaH4191 →839 times
בַּצָּמָֽא׃with <the> thirst
batzama'H6772 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Jeremiah 13:22And if you ask yourself, “Why has this happened to me?” It is because of the magnitude of your iniquity that your skirts have been stripped off and your body has been exposed.
it leads to
- Nahum 3:5
“Behold, I am against you,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show your nakedness to the nations and your shame to the kingdoms.
- Jeremiah 16:10–11
When you tell these people all these things, they will ask you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is the sin that we have…
- Jeremiah 5:19
And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods…
- Hosea 2:10
And then I will expose her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of My hands.
- Deuteronomy 7:17
You may say in your heart, “These nations are greater than we are; how can we drive them out?”
- Nahum 3:5
Through
Ezekiel 16:22And in all your abominations and acts of prostitution, you did not remember the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your own blood.
it leads to
- Jeremiah 2:2
“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness,…
- Hosea 11:1
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.
- Ezekiel 16:43
Because you did not remember the days of your youth, but enraged Me with all these things, I will surely bring your deeds down upon your own head, declares the Lord GOD. Have you…
- Jeremiah 2:2
Where this verse is studied
On this page
Studies1
About Hosea
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Hosea 2:2-3; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.