Hosea 2:2-12

2 "Haul your mother into court. Accuse her! She's no longer my wife. I'm no longer her husband. Tell her to quit dressing like a whore, displaying her breasts for sale.

3 If she refuses, I'll rip off her clothes and expose her, naked as a newborn. I'll turn her skin into dried-out leather, her body into a badlands landscape, a rack of bones in the desert.

4 I'll have nothing to do with her children, born one and all in a whorehouse.

5 Face it: Your mother's been a whore, bringing bastard children into the world. She said, 'I'm off to see my lovers! They'll wine and dine me, Dress and caress me, perfume and adorn me!'

6 But I'll fix her: I'll dump her in a field of thistles, then lose her in a dead-end alley.

7 She'll go on the hunt for her lovers but not bring down a single one. She'll look high and low but won't find a one. Then she'll say, 'I'm going back to my husband, the one I started out with. That was a better life by far than this one.'

8 She didn't know that it was I all along who wined and dined and adorned her, That I was the one who dressed her up in the big-city fashions and jewelry that she wasted on wild Baal-orgies.

9 I'm about to bring her up short: No more wining and dining! Silk lingerie and gowns are a thing of the past.

10 I'll expose her genitals to the public. All her fly-by-night lovers will be helpless to help her.

11 Party time is over. I'm calling a halt to the whole business, her wild weekends and unholy holidays.

12 I'll wreck her sumptuous gardens and ornamental fountains, of which she bragged, 'Whoring paid for all this!' They will soon be dumping grounds for garbage, feeding grounds for stray dogs and cats.

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Hosea 2:2-12 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.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Hosea 2:2-12

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Hosea 2:2-12 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 2