Predicted alteration of Names _Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be_ However sad the present prospects of Israel may be, a glorious future is in store for him. So our translators mean us to interpret the passage, confounding the province of the translator with that of the expositor. The... [ Continue Reading ]
The parallel lines here seem misleading. _Say ye_ Now that the storm-cloud has rolled away, those names of baleful import Lo-ammi and Lo-ruhamah have ceased to be admissible, and are altered into the direct opposites. The verse is best understood as the _conclusion_of chap. 2, just as -Call his nam... [ Continue Reading ]
_Plead with your mother, plead_ The repetition of the appeal shews its urgency. -Do not murmur against me", Jehovah seems to say, -plead your cause against your own mother: Israel is the author of her own calamities." _for she is not my wife_ A parenthetical explanation of the expression -your moth... [ Continue Reading ]
The prophecy begins with a solemn admonition on the faithless conduct of Israel towards her Divine Bridegroom. The _dramatis personæ_are the same as in chap. 1; only, whereas in chap. 1 the husband, wife, and children, are both historical persons and significant symbols, in chap. 2 they are obviousl... [ Continue Reading ]
_Lest I strip her naked_ So far the punishment of the adulteress agrees with that customary among the Germans (Tac. _Germ._§§ 18, 19). But the punishment of the Hebrew adulteress is not intended to stop here; death was the penalty she had to fear death by strangling, according to the Rabbinical expl... [ Continue Reading ]
_And upon her children_ No bar shall be opposed, Jehovah declares, to the natural consequence of a corrupt and corrupting religion. Israel, as an independent nation, must at least for a time cease to be. It appears then that the appeal in Hosea 2:4 was uttered as a forlorn hope. All but a few of the... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will go after my lovers_ Israel, then, had given up the true Jehovah for -lovers" (i.e. not, as the Targum explains it, and as the phrase often means, especially in Ezekiel, the neighbouring peoples whose favour was courted by the Israelites, but, as Hosea 2:10_; Hosea 2:15_suggest, the Baalim).... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will hedge up thy way with thorns_ Notice how, in the excitement of anger, the person changes from the second to the third. The figure is that of a traveller, who has not indeed lost his way, but finds it shut up by a thorn-hedge planted right across it, and by a wall, which formerly could be sca... [ Continue Reading ]
_not overtake_… _not find them_ Because the sense of the mystic nearness of the Baalim, formerly enjoyed by their worshippers, will have disappeared together with the prosperity which they were imagined to have granted; prayers and sacrifices will have lost their supposed efficacy. _I will go and re... [ Continue Reading ]
_For she did not know that I_ Rather, AND SHE (the recipient of such favours) HATH NOT TAKEN NOTICE THAT IT WAS I WHO GAVE HER THE CORN, AND THE NEW WINE, AND THE FRESH OIL. Corn, new wine, and fresh oil, are the three great material blessings of the land of Canaan (see Deuteronomy 7:13; Deuteronomy... [ Continue Reading ]
The offended Husband describes the compulsion which he will employ towards his faithless wife.... [ Continue Reading ]
And now in order radically to cure the Israelites of this error (viz. that their good things have come from the Baals) the people are for a time to be deprived of these blessings. _return and take away_ Rather, TAKE BACK AGAIN. _my corn_… _my wine_… _my wool_… _my flax_ For though Israel may speak... [ Continue Reading ]
_in the sight of her lovers_ Note here that the prophet _seems_to admit the real existence of the Baalim. _Seems_, but only seems; for in Hosea 4:12 he describes the popular oracles as -stocks," and in Hosea 14:3 he describes it as folly to say -to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods," Hosea's la... [ Continue Reading ]
_her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths_ (The Hebrew has the singular, -her feast-day" &c.) These expressions are remarkable, for Hosea is a prophet of northern Israel. It would appear, then, that the separation of north and south did not involve a discontinuance of the festivals in the nor... [ Continue Reading ]
_her vines and her fig trees_ The Hebrew has -her vine and her fig-tree". It would seem as if here, as in Joel 1:7, Israel personified were represented with a vine and a fig-tree, like any individual Israelite (1 Kings 4:25). But A. V. gives the right sense. _my rewards_ The -hire" or -reward" of a... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will visit upon her the days of Baalim_ To -visit" is to examine or take notice of, whether in a favourable sense or the reverse. -Baalim" should rather be THE BAALIM (the various local Baals). Hosea has referred to the holydays of Jehovah (Hosea 2:11); now he complains of the holydays of the Baa... [ Continue Reading ]
_Therefore_ i.e. because, without Jehovah's help, Israel will never come to herself, and reform (comp. Isaiah 30:18). Her punishment has an educational object; the threat has a tinge of promise. _I will allure her_ The pronoun is expressed in the Hebrew. _I_have not forgotten her, though she has for... [ Continue Reading ]
And now the notes of threatening are dying away; bright and glorious days are announced for both sections of the nation. There shall be a second Exodus; no more idolatry; no more war; no. cloud upon Israel's relation to her God. (Notice in passing the limitations of this stage of religious knowledge... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will give her her vineyards from thence_ So soon as she has left the wilderness (-from thence"), Jehovah will restore to her the vineyards which he had taken away (Hosea 2:12). _the valley of Achor for a door of hope_ Whereas the first Israelites had to call their first encampment after crossing... [ Continue Reading ]
_thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali_ The terms Ishi, -my husband", and Baali, -my lord", are properly speaking synonymous, so that, but for the association of Baal with a false religion, Jehovah as the Bridegroom of Israel might quite innocently be addressed as Baali. The occur... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will take away the names of the Baalim_ Tenacious as the popular memory is, the unholy names shall be expunged from it. -Remembered" should be MENTIONED; comp. Joshua 23:7; Psalms 16:4, and especially the reminiscence of our passage in Zechariah 13:2 (where -the idols" has taken the place of -the... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will make a covenant_ The language reminds us of Zechariah 11:10, where Jehovah -breaks his covenant which he has made with all the peoples", restraining them from injuring the Israelites, and still more of Ezekiel 34:25 (evidently based on this passage). The -covenant" (Heb. _b'rîth_) is in fact... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will betroth thee unto me_ A second marriage-ceremony among the Israelites had to be preceded by a second betrothal. Jehovah promises here that _this_betrothal shall be -for ever", i.e., that no differences shall destroy the mutual harmony between Jehovah and His people, (comp. Jeremiah 31:35-37;... [ Continue Reading ]
_and thou shalt know the Lord_ The -knowledge" of Jehovah is repeatedly insisted upon by Hosea (see Hosea 4:1; Hosea 5:4; Hosea 6:3; Hosea 6:6); not however a merely intellectual one, but that which rests upon spiritual experience, and results in moral practice. Such experience was lacking in Hosea'... [ Continue Reading ]
_I will hear_ Rather, I WILL RESPOND (and similarly throughout). It is a beautiful picture of the harmony between the physical and the spiritual spheres, Jezreel (i.e. Israel, see next verse) asks its plants to germinate; they call upon the earth for its juices; the earth beseeches heaven for rain;... [ Continue Reading ]
_And I will sow her unto me in the earth_ Rather, IN THE LAND. Jehovah declares that Jezreel shall verify her name (_her_name, for Jezreel means restored Israel) by being sown anew in the promised land. (Similarly Jeremiah, see Jeremiah 31:27-28). Thus one of the symbolic names of chap. 1 is not ind... [ Continue Reading ]