Hosea 2:4

4 And I will not have mercy on her children. for they are the children of fornications.

Hosea 2:4 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 2:4

And I will not have mercy upon her children
The posterity of the Jews in succeeding ages, until the time of their conversion comes; they persisting in the sins of their forefathers, filling up the measure of their iniquities; remaining in their obstinate rejection of the Messiah, and in the same impenitence and unbelief, and having his blood imprecated upon them: for they be the children of whoredoms;
begotten and born in whoredom, spurious and illegitimate; or that commit whoredoms; imitate their parents; are guilty of the same vices; a generation of vipers. So the Targum,

``for they are children that commit idolatry;''

retain the traditions of the elders; go about to establish their own righteousness, and reject the Messiah.

Hosea 2:4 In-Context

2 Judge your mother, judge her: because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her fornications from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts.

3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born: and I will make her as a wilderness, and will set her as a land that none can pass through and will kill her with drought.

4 And I will not have mercy on her children. for they are the children of fornications.

5 For their mother hath committed fornication, she that conceived them is covered with shame: for she said: I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread, and my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink.

6 Wherefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and I will stop it up with a wall, and she shall not find her paths.