Hosea 2:1-8

1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

2 Contend with your mother, contend: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore remove her whoredoms 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 make her as a wilderness and set her like a dry land and slay her with thirst.

4 Neither will I have mercy upon her sons, for they are the sons of whoredoms.

5 For their mother has played the harlot; she that conceived them has been shamed; 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 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find her paths.

7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them; then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.

8 For she did not recognize that I gave her the wheat and the wine and the oil and multiplied unto them the silver and the gold, with which they made Baal.

Hosea 2:1-8 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.