Hosea 2:1-5

Israel’s Unfaithfulness Punished

1 ^[a] Say to your brothers, ¹“You are my people, ” ^[b] and to your sisters, ²“You have received mercy. ” ^[c]

2 “Plead with your mother, plead—for ³she is not my wife, and I am not her husband—that she put away ⁴her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;

3 lest ⁵I strip her naked and make her as ⁶in the day she was born, and ⁷make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.

4 ⁸Upon her children also I will have no mercy, ⁹because they are children of whoredom.

5 For ¹⁰their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For ¹¹she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who ¹²give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink. ’

Hosea 2:1-5 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. 2:1 [ch. 1:9]
• 2. 2:1 [ch. 1:6]
• 3. 2:2 [Isa. 50:1]
• 4. 2:2 [ch. 4:12; Ezek. 16:25]
• 5. 2:3 [Ezek. 16:39]
• 6. 2:3 [Ezek. 16:4]
• 7. 2:3 [ver. 9; Ezek. 19:13]
• 8. 2:4 ch. 1:6
• 9. 2:4 ch. 1:2
• 10. 2:5 [ch. 1:2]
• 11. 2:5 [ver. 12, 13]
• 12. 2:5 [ver. 8, 9; Jer. 44:17]

Footnotes

• [a] 2:1 Ch 2:3 in Hebrew
• [b] 2:1 Hebrew 'ammi', which means 'my people'
• [c] 2:1 Hebrew 'ruhama', which means 'she has received mercy'