Hosea 2:2-13

2 "Plead with your mother, plead-- for ¹she is not my wife, and I am not her husband-- that she put away ²her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;

3 lest ³I strip her naked and make her as ⁴in the day she was born, and ⁵make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.

4 ⁶Upon her children also I will have no mercy, ⁷because they are children of whoredom.

5 For ⁸their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For ⁹she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who ¹⁰give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'

6 Therefore ¹¹I will hedge up her^[a] way with thorns, and ¹²I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths.

7 She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. ¹³Then she shall say, 'I will go and return to ¹⁴my first husband, ¹⁵for it was better for me then than now.'

8 And ¹⁶she did not know that it was ¹⁷I who gave her ¹⁸the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on ¹⁹her silver and gold, ²⁰which they used for Baal.

9 Therefore ²¹I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and ²²I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.

10 Now ²³I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.

11 ²⁴And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her ²⁵new moons, her ²⁶Sabbaths, and all her ²⁷appointed feasts.

12 And ²⁸I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, ²⁹of which she said, 'These are ³⁰my wages, which my lovers have given me.' I will make them a forest, ³¹and the beasts of the field shall devour them.

13 And ³²I will punish her for ³³the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and ³⁴adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the LORD.

Hosea 2:2-13 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.

Cross References

• 1. [Isaiah 50:1]
• 2. [Hosea 4:12; Ezekiel 16:25]
• 3. [Ezekiel 16:39]
• 4. [Ezekiel 16:4]
• 5. [ver. 9; Ezekiel 19:13]
• 6. Hosea 1:6
• 7. Hosea 1:2
• 8. [Hosea 1:2]
• 9. [ver. 12, 13]
• 10. [ver. 8, 9; Jeremiah 44:17]
• 11. Job 3:23
• 12. [Job 19:8; Lamentations 3:7, 9]
• 13. [Luke 15:17, 18]
• 14. [Isaiah 54:5, 6]
• 15. [Luke 15:17, 18]
• 16. [ver. 20; Isaiah 1:3]
• 17. [Ezekiel 16:19]
• 18. Deuteronomy 7:13
• 19. Hosea 13:2
• 20. [Ezekiel 16:17, 18]
• 21. [ver. 3; Joel 1:10]
• 22. [ver. 3; Joel 1:10]
• 23. Lamentations 1:8; Ezekiel 16:37; Ezekiel 23:29
• 24. [Jeremiah 7:34; Amos 8:10]
• 25. [Amos 8:5]
• 26. [Amos 8:5]
• 27. [Hosea 9:5; Isaiah 1:13, 14]
• 28. [Isaiah 5:5]
• 29. [ver. 5]
• 30. [Micah 1:7]
• 31. [Hosea 13:8]
• 32. [Hosea 4:9]
• 33. [Hosea 11:2; Hosea 13:1, 2]
• 34. Ezekiel 23:40; [Isaiah 61:10]

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew your