Hosea 2:1-6

1 [a] Call[b] your brothers: My People and your sisters: Compassion.

Israel's Adultery Rebuked

2 Rebuke your mother; rebuke [her]. For she is not My wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face and her adultery from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her as she was on the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and like a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst.
4 I will have no compassion on her children because they are the children of promiscuity.
5 For their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought: I will go after my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.
6 Therefore, this is what I will do: I will block her[c] way with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so that she cannot find her paths.

Hosea 2:1-6 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 2

This chapter is an explanation of the former, proceeding upon the same argument in more express words. The godly Israelites are here called upon to lay before the body of the people their idolatry, ingratitude, obstinacy, and ignorance of the God of their mercies; and to exhort them to repentance, lest they should be stripped of all their good things, and be brought into great distress and difficulties; all their joy and comfort cease, and be exposed to shame and contempt, Ho 2:1-13, yet, notwithstanding, many gracious promises are made unto them, of their having the alluring and comfortable word of the Gospel; of a door of hope; of salvation being opened to them; of faith in the Lord, and affection to him as their husband; of the removal of all idolatry from them; of safety from all enemies; of their open espousal to Christ; of his hearing of their prayers, and giving them plenty of all good things; and of their multiplication, conversion, and covenant relation to God, Ho 2:14-23.

Footnotes 3

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