Hosea 6:2

This verse contains the germ of the striking allegory of the dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-10), and reminds us also of the prediction of an Israelitish resurrection in Isaiah 26:19. The idea is that, contrary to all human expectation Israel shall quickly emerge from the depths of trouble. What human skill could cure a dangerously wounded man in three days? Yet a wonder as great has happened to the sick man Israel. That the passage has primarily a contemporary reference, and contains a figurative description of a national revival, is admitted by Pococke, who however endeavours to combine with this view a very forced interpretation of pre-critical origin. He thinks the Jews -might say, after two days, &c., because by him whom God would so raise up deliverance should be wrought for them when their case was as desperate as of one that had been so long dead"; or, to put his view of the secondary meaning more clearly, the resurrection of the coming Christ was to the Israelites (though they knew it not) the justification of their hope of a national restoration. The view is ultimately traceable to the paraphrase in the Targum, -he will revive us in the days of consolation which are to come", i.e. at the resurrection (see the Peshito of John 11:25, which shows that -consolation" and -resurrection" are synonymous in Aramaic). Pusey and many old expositors even take the supposed reference to our Lord's resurrection to be primary. But the context certainly does not favour any such reference, whether primary or secondary. Calvin, with his usual fine perception, remarks, -sensus ille videtur mihi nimium argutus."

live in his sight Lit, -before him", i.e., under his protection (comp. Genesis 17:18; Isaiah 53:2; Jeremiah 30:20.