4 Denounce your mother, denounce
– for she is not my wife,
nor am I her husband.
Let her rid her face of her ornaments
and her breasts of her lewd idols;
5 or I will strip her naked
as on the day of her birth;
I will reduce her to an arid land,
making of her a desert –
I will let her die of thirst.
6 How could I love her children?
They are children of adultery;
7 their mother has played the harlot
they are children of debauchery.
She said, “I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”
10 Yet she would not acknowledge that it was I
who gave her the grain, the wine and the oil,
and the silver and gold
with which this people made their Baals.
11 So I will take back my grain when it ripens
and my new wine when it is ready;
I will take back my wool and my flax
which I gave to cover her nudity.
12 Before her lovers I will lay bare her shame
and no one can rescue her from my power.
13 I will bring an end to all her gladness,
her monthly feasts, sabbaths and celebrations.
14 I will lay waste her vines,
and her fig trees, for she said,
“My lovers gave them to me.”
I will turn them into thickets
to be ravaged by wild beasts.
15 I will punish her for the feast days
when she brought burnt offerings to the Baals,
decked herself with her gaudy jewels,
ran after her lovers and forgot me, says Yahweh.
8 With thorns, therefore, I will block her path,
wall her and not let her find her way out.
9 Pursuing her lovers,
she will not overtake them;
looking for her lovers, she will not find them.
Then she will say, “I will go back to my husband
for I was better off then than now.”
16 So I am going to allure her,
lead her once more into the desert,
where I can speak to her tenderly.
17 Then I will give back her vineyards,
make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will answer me as in her youth,
as when she came out of the land of Egypt.
18 On that day, Yahweh says,
you will call me my husband,
and never again: my Baal.
19 I will take the names of Baals from her lips
and no longer will they be invoked.
20 That day on her behalf I will make a covenant
with beasts of the field and birds of the air,
with creatures creeping upon the ground.
I will wipe out the sword and war in the land;
I will make people rest safe and secure.
21 You will be my spouse forever,
betrothed in justice and integrity;
we will be united in love and tenderness.
22 I will espouse you in faithfulness
and you will come to know Yahweh.
23 This is what Yahweh says of those days,
“I will be at peace with the heavens,
and they will respond to the earth;
24 the earth will respond to the grain, wine and oil,
which will come up to the expectation of Jezreel.
25 I will sow them for myself in the land;
I will show my love to Unloved;
I will say to Not-my-people, “You are my people”;
and they will answer, “You are my God.”
1 Yet the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, that cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” they shall be called “children of the living God.”
2 The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, they will appoint one leader to rule over them, and they will come up out of the land. For there will be a great victory in Jezreel.
3 You will call your brothers My-people, and your sisters My-loved-ones.
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Comments Hosea, Chapter 2
• 2.4 In this discourse we have a merging of Hosea threatening his wife and Yahweh reproaching his people. (2:1-3 after Chapter 3)
In Israel nobody denied Yahweh, the God of their race. Yet even though they accepted him as savior in the national crises, they thought that the fertility of the earth and of cattle depended on other gods, the Baals, and that Yahweh had no power in these matters. So Yahweh threatens to deprive them of all the fruits of the earth and of the land itself in order for them to see that all these riches come from God alone.
In all ages we tend to entrust various areas of existence to various gods. Some have “great faith” in Christ to solve their problems, but they worship sex in a way very similar to that of the devotees of Baal. Others revere God publicly, but establish an oppressive society in which money and strength confer all rights.
So I am going to allure her, lead her once more into the desert, where I can speak to her tenderly. Yahweh is going to deprive Israel of everything so they will again be poor as they were in the desert in the days of Moses. Thus they will know that everything comes from God and will put their trust in him. I was better off then than now (v. 9). This is what the prodigal son will also say in Luke 15:17.
She will no longer call me my Lord. Here Hosea uses the word my Baal. In Hebrew, Baal means Lord. This was the name given to the Canaanite gods, but the Israelites also honored Yahweh with this title. However, Yahweh does not want to be a “Baal” among many, but “The” only husband.
You will be my spouse forever. God is offering his people a new covenant, a new alliance with him: Not a new religion with different commandments, but rather a personal relationship born of a purified and renewed heart (Jer 31:31).
John refers to this union “in enduring love” in Jn 1:17: Jesus is the one who brought it to humankind.
That day on her behalf I will make a covenant with beasts of the field (v. 20). After the trials, Hosea foresees a happy period when Yahweh would give the land back to his renewed people. There will be no more hostile forces from nature, no more wars. I will make people rest safe and secure.