Hosea 2:12,13

She decked herself with her ornaments and her Jewels.

The prosperity of the wicked

The wicked--

I. As prospering in the world. Vines and fig-trees stand for prosperity. Wicked men are allowed to prosper on this earth: they are often more successful in worldly enterprises than the righteous. They live for the world and to the world, and they have their reward.

II. As ascribing their prosperity to wrong causes. Israel ascribes to its idols or lovers. The wicked ascribe to fortune, chance, their own industry, their own scheming. The true source is God.

III. Devoting their prosperity to wrong objects. Israel is here accused of burning incense to Baalim, these Deii minores. Wicked men devote their wealth to their own selfish and superstitious ends.

IV. As deprived of their prosperity by the great God. The threatening here is, that God will not only destroy all their prosperity, but punish them for their idolatry. “The tinsel glare upon a sinner is too apt to offend the weak eyes of a saint.” (Homilist.)

And forgat Me, saith the Lord.

Forgetting God

Such is the character of all engrossing passion, such is the course of sin, to which the soul gives way, in avarice, ambition, worldliness, sensual sin, godless science. The soul, at last, does not rebel against God, it forgets Him; it is taken up with other things, with itself, with the subjects of its thoughts, the objects of its affections, and it has no time for God. So God complains of Judah by Jeremiah, “Their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal.” (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)