Bibelkommentare

The prophet exhorts his people to speak and to act as became those who obtained mercy of God; and to remonstrate strongly against the conduct of their mother, (Samaria), whose captivity is threatened on account of her forsaking God, and ascribing her prosperity to idols, Hosea 2:1-5. As an amplification of this threatening, the prophet enumerates a series of afflictions which were to befall her to bring her to a sense of her duty to God; and of her folly in seeking after idols, and falsely ascribing to them the blessings of Providence, Hosea 2:6-13. After these corrections, however, God promises to conduct Israel safely to their own land; perhaps alluding to their restoration from the Babylonish captivity, for this prophecy is supposed to have been delivered about two hundred and fifty years prior to this event, Hosea 2:14, Hosea 2:15. He farther engages to deal with them as a tender husband, and not as a severe master, as were the idols which they served, Hosea 2:16, Hosea 2:17. The rest of the chapter promises the people of God, the true Israel, security from every evil, with the possession of every blessing, under a new covenant; and that in terms full of beauty, energy, and consolation. Heaven and earth, and whatever they contain; all nature, and the God of nature, are represented as uniting to make the people of God happy; so that if they only breathe a wish, one part of nature, animate or inanimate, echoes it to another, and all join in sweet harmony to transmit it to the ear of the Almighty. "I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel."

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi - I prefer the interpretation of these proper names. Say ye unto your brethren, My People; and, to your sisters, who have Obtained Mercy.

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.

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 Isaiah 3:17 (note); and see also Ezekiel 16:39; Ezekiel 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.

They be the children of whoredoms - They are all idolaters; and have been consecrated to idols, whose marks they bear.

That give me my bread - See the note on Jeremiah 44:17-18 (note), where nearly the same words are found and illustrated.

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. And this is the fact; for those who were carried away into Assyria have been lost among the nations, few of them having ever returned to Judea. And, if in being, where they are now is utterly unknown.

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. But the crime is deeply engrained, when God's property is made the instrument to dishonor himself.