Hosea 2:15

And I will give her her vineyards from thence - God’s mercies are not only in word, but in deed. He not only speaks to her heart, but he restores to her what He had taken from her. He promises, not only to reverse His sentence, but that He would make the sorrow itself the source of the joy. He says, I will give her back her vineyards “thence,” i. e., from the wilderness itself; as elsewhere, He says, “The wilderness shall be a fruitful field” Isaiah 32:15. Desolation shall be the means of her restored inheritance and joy in God. Through fire and drought are the new flagons dried and prepared, into which the new wine of the Gospel is poured.

And the valley of Achor for a door of hope - (Literally, “troubling”). As, at the first taking possession of the promised land, Israel learned through the transgression and punishment of Achan, to stand in awe of God, and thenceforth, all went well with them, when they had wholly freed themselves from the accursed thing, so to them shall “sorrow be turned into joy, and hope dawn there, where there had been despair.” “Therefore, only had they to endure chastisements, that through them they might attain blessings.” It was through the punishment of those who “troubled” the true “Israel,” the destruction of Jerusalem, that to the Apostles and the rest who believed, the hope of victory over the whole world was opened.” “Hope.” The word more fully means, a “patient, enduring longing.” To each returning soul, “the valley of trouble,” or the lowliness of repentance, becometh a door of patient longing, not in itself, but because “God giveth” it to be so; a longing which “reacheth on, awaiteth on,” entering within the veil, and bound first to the Throne of God. But then only, when none of the “accursed thing” Joshua 7:11 cleaveth to it, when it has no reserves with God, and retains nothing for itself, which God hath condemned.

And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth - The song is a responsive song, choir answering choir, each stirring up the other to praise, and praise echoing praise, as Israel did after the deliverance at the Red Sea. “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. And Miriam the prophetess the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel, and all the women went out after her. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously” Exodus 15:1, Exodus 15:20. So the Seraphim sing one to another, holy, holy, holy Isaiah 6:3; so Paul exhorts Christians “to admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in their hearts to the Lord” Colossians 3:16; so the Jewish psalmody passed into the Christian Church, and the blessed in heaven, having on the Cross passed the troublesome sea of this world, “sing the new song of Moses and of the Lamb” Revelation 15:3.

She shall sing there - Where? There, where he “allureth” her, where He leadeth her, where He “speaketh to her heart,” where He in worketh in her that hope. There, shall she sing, there, give praise and thanks.

As in the days of her youth - Her “youth” is explained, in what follows, to be “the days when she came up out of the land of Egypt,” when she was first born to the knowledge of her God, when the past idolatries had been forgiven and cut off; and she had all the freshness of new life, and had not yet wasted it by rebellion and sin. Then God first called “Israel, My firstborn son. My son, My firstborn” Exodus 4:22. “She came up” into the land which God chose, out of Egypt, since we “go up” to God and to things above; as, on the other hand, the prophet says, “Woe to those who go down to Egypt” Isaiah 31:1, for the aids of this world; and the man who was wounded, the picture of the human race, was “going down from Jerusalem to Jericho” (Luke 10:30; see the note above at Hosea 1:11).