Hosea 2:2-13

2 Plead with your mother, plead-- because she [is] not my wife, and I [am] not her husband. Let her put away her whoring {from before her}, and her adultery from between her breasts.
3 Lest I strip her naked and expose her like the day when she was born; I will make her like the desert and turn her into parched land; I will kill her with thirst.
4 And I will not have pity on her children, because [they are] children of whoredom.
5 Because their mother was unfaithful; she who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she said: "I will go after my lovers, the ones who give [me] my bread, my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink."
6 Therefore, Look! I [am] going to hedge her path {with thorns}, and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall [against] her, and she will not find her paths.
7 Then she will pursue {her lovers}, but she will not overtake them; she will seek them and not find [them]; and she will say, "I will go and return to my first husband because [it was] better for me then than now."
8 But she did not know that [it was] I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and who gave her silver in abundance, and gold which they made into a Baal.
9 Therefore I will take again my grain in its time, and my wine in its season; and I will take away my wool and my flax, [which were] to cover her nakedness.
10 And now I will uncover her nakedness before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my hand.
11 And I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals;
12 and I will lay waste to her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, "They [are] my payment for prostitution, which my lovers gave to me." I will make them a forest, and the wild animals of the field will devour them.
13 {I will punish her} [for] the days of the Baals, to whom she burns incense, and she decked herself [with] her ornamental ring and jewelry, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me --a declaration of Yahweh.

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.

Footnotes 13

Scripture quotations marked (LEB) are from the Lexham English Bible. Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software. Lexham is a registered trademark of Logos Bible Software.