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Ho 2:1-23.

APPLICATION OF THE SYMBOLS IN THE FIRST CHAPTER.

Israel's spiritual fornication, and her threatened punishment: yet a promise of God's restored favor, when chastisements have produced their designed effect.

1. Say . . . unto . . . brethren, Ammi, &c.--that is, When the prediction

(Ho 1:11)

shall be accomplished, then ye will call one another, as brothers and sisters in the family of God, Ammi and Ruhamah.

2. Plead--expostulate.

mother--that is, the nation collectively. The address is to "her children," that is, to the individual citizens of the state (compare

Isa 50:1).

for she is not my wife--She has deprived herself of her high privilege by spiritual adultery.

out of her sight--rather, "from her face." Her very countenance unblushingly betrayed her lust, as did also her exposed "breasts."

3. set her as in the day . . . born--

(Eze 16:4; 23:25, 26, 28, 29).

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; Zep 2:13).

Translate, "make her as the wilderness," namely, that in which she passed forty years on her way to her goodly possession of Canaan. With this agrees the mention of "thirst" (compare

Jer 2:6).

4. her children--Not even her individual members shall escape the doom of the nation collectively, for they are individually guilty.

5. I will go after--The Hebrew expresses a settled determination.

lovers--the idols which Israel fancied to be the givers of all their goods, whereas God gave all these goods

(Ho 2:8-13;

compare

Jer 44:17-19).

bread and . . . water--the necessaries of life in food.

wool . . . flax--clothing.

oil . . . drink--perfumed unguents and palatable drinks: the luxuries of Hebrew life.

6, 7. thorns . . . wall--

(Job 19:8; La 3:7, 9).

The hindrances which the captivity interposed between Israel and her idols. As she attributes all her temporal blessings to idols, I will reduce her to straits in which, when she in vain has sought help from false gods, she will at last seek Me as her only God and Husband, as at the first

(Isa 54:5; Jer 3:14; Eze 16:8).

then--before Israel's apostasy, under Jeroboam. 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. Compare

Lu 15:14-18,

"I will arise, and go to my father." So here, "I will go, and return," &c.; crosses in the both cases being sanctified to produce this effect.

8. she did not know that I--not the idols, as she thought: the "lovers" alluded to in

Ho 2:5.

which they prepared for Baal--that is, of which they made images of Baal, or at least the plate covering of them

(Ho 8:4).

Baal was the Phœnician sun-god: answering to the female Astarte, the moon-goddess. The name of the idol is found in the Phœnician Hannibal, Hasdrubal. Israel borrowed it from the Tyrians.

9. my corn . . . my wool . . . my flax--in contrast to "my bread . . . my wool . . . my flax,"

(Ho 2:5).

Compare also

Ho 2:21-23,

on God as the great First Cause giving these through secondary instruments in nature. "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.