Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.
Parallel Translations
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Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.
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Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.
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(2-11) Therefore will I take back My corn in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and will snatch away My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness.
Cross-references (15)
Passages linked to Hosea 2:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Isaiah 17:10-11 For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the rock of your strength. Therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set out foreign seedlings. In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
- Ezekiel 23:26 They will also strip you of your clothes, and take away your beautiful jewels.
- Hosea 2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
- Haggai 1:6-11 You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.” This is what Yahweh of Armies says: “Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, bring wood, and build the house. I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified,” says Yahweh. “You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says Yahweh of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore for your sake the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground produces, on men, on livestock, and on all the labor of the hands.”
- Malachi 1:4 Whereas Edom says, “We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places;” Yahweh of Armies says, “They shall build, but I will throw down; and men will call them ‘The Wicked Land,’ even the people against whom Yahweh shows wrath forever.”
- Malachi 3:18 Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.
- Isaiah 3:18-26 In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, the headbands, the crescent necklaces, the earrings, the bracelets, the veils, the headdresses, the ankle chains, the sashes, the perfume containers, the charms, the signet rings, the nose rings, the fine robes, the capes, the cloaks, the purses, the hand mirrors, the fine linen garments, the tiaras, and the shawls. It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty. Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war. Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.
- Ezekiel 16:27 See therefore, I have stretched out my hand over you, and have diminished your portion, and delivered you to the will of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your lewd way.
- Ezekiel 16:39 I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places. They will strip you of your clothes, and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare.
- Daniel 11:13 The king of the north will return, and will send out a multitude greater than the former. He will come on at the end of the times, even of years, with a great army and with much substance.
- Hosea 8:7 For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.
- Hosea 9:2 The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her.
- Joel 2:14 Who knows? He may turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meal offering and a drink offering to Yahweh, your God.
- Zephaniah 1:13 Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.
- Haggai 2:16-17 Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty. I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me,’ says Yahweh.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain It now follows Therefore will I return, and take…
It now follows Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in its time, and my new wine in its stated time. Here, again, the Prophet shows that God was, by extreme necessity, constrained to take vengeance on an ungodly and irreclaimable people. He makes known how great was the hardness of the people, and then adds, “What now remains, but to deprive those who have been so ungrateful to me of all their blessings?” It is, indeed, more than base for men to enjoy the gifts of God and to despise the giver; yea, to exalt his creatures to his place, and to reduce, as it were, all his authority to nothing. This the superstitious indeed do, for they thrust God from his pre-eminence, and insult his glory. Will God, in the meantime, so throw away his blessings as to suffer them to be profaned by the ungodly, and himself to be thus mocked with impunity? We now then see the object of the Prophet; for God here shows that there was no other remedy, but to deprive the Israelites of all their gifts: he had indeed enriched them, but they had abused all their abundance. It was therefore necessary to reduce them to extreme want, that they might no longer pollute God’s gifts which ought to be held sacred by us.
And he uses a very suitable word; for נצל natsal means properly, to pluck away, to set free. I will by force take away, he says, my wool and my flax. It seems, indeed, to denote an unjust possession, as when one takes away by force from the hand of a robber what he unjustly possesses, or as when any one rescues wretched men from the power of a tyrant. So God now speaks, ‘I will pluck away my gifts from these men who basely and unjustly pollute them.’
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And he adds, to cover her nakedness ערוה, orue, properly, though not simply, means nakedness: it is the nakedness of the uncomely parts. Moses calls any indecorous part of the body ערוה, orue, and so it means what is uncomely. This word we ought carefully to notice; for God here shows, that except he denudes idolaters, they will ever continue obstinate. How so? Because they use coverings for their baseness. While the ungodly enjoy their triumphs in the world, they regard them as veils drawn over them, so that nothing base or disgraceful can be seen in them. The same is the case with great kings and monarchs; they think that the eyes of all are dazzled by their splendour; and hence it is, that they are so audaciously dissolute. They think their own filth to be fine odour: such is the arrogance of the world. It is even so with the superstitious; when God is indulgent to them, they think that they have coverings. When, therefore, they abandon themselves to any kind of wickedness, they regard it as if it were a holy thing. How so? Because, whatever obscene thing is in them, it is covered by prosperity. When God observes such madness as this in men, can he do otherwise than pluck away his blessings, that such a pollution may not continually prevail? For it is an abuse extremely gross, that when God’s blessings are so many images of his glory, and when his paternal goodness shines forth even towards the ungodly, the world should convert them to a purpose wholly contrary, and make them as coverings for themselves, that they may conceal their own baseness, and more freely sin and carry on war against God himself. Hence he says, “That they may no longer cover their baseness, I will pluck away whatever I have bestowed on them.”
When he says, I will take away the corn and wine in its time, and in its stated time, he alludes, I have no doubt, to the time of harvest and vintage; as though he said, “The harvest will come, the vintage will come: there has been hitherto great fruitfulness; but I will show that the earth and all its fruits are subject to my will. Though, then, the Israelites are now full, and have their storehouses well furnished, they shall know that I rule over the harvest and the vintage, when the stated time shall come.” Now, the Spirit of God denounced this punishment early, that the Israelites, if reclaimable, might return to a right course. But as their blindness was so great that they despised all that had been said to them, no excuse remained for them. It now follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Signifying, that God will take away his benefits when…
Signifying, that God will take away his benefits when man by his ingratitude doth abuse them.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Hos 2:9 Therefore will I return, and take away…
Hos 2:9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax [given] to cover her nakedness.
Ver. 9. Therefore will I return] i.e. I will alter my course, change my stand, change the way of mine administrations, deal otherwise with them than yet I have done: they shall bear their iniquities, and know my breach of promise, as Num 14:34; they shall know the worth of mine abused mercies by the want of them another while. "I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early," Hos 5:15. Finally, I will cut them short of alimony, and hold them to strait allowance; and then I shall be sure to hear them howling upon their beds for grain and wine, Hos 7:14, as dogs do that are tied up, and cannot come at their meat.
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And take away my corn and my wine] Those precious fruits of the earth, as St James calleth them, Jas 5:7, the product of God’s great care, from year’s end to year’s end, Deu 11:12, without which the earth could not yield her increase: neither would there be a vein for the silver, a mine for the gold, iron taken out of the earth, or brass molten out of the stone, Job 28:2. All that we have is his, in true account, and he is the great proprietor who only can say (as he in the Gospel), "May not I do what I will with mine own?" Mat 20:15. And what should he sooner and rather do than take away food from his child that mars it? If fulness breed forgetfulness (as the fed hawk forgets his master, and as the full moon gets farthest off from the sun), so men, when they have all things at the full, forget God, and wickedly depart from him, what can he do less than forget them (that so they may remember themselves), and make fat Jeshurun look with lean cheeks, that they may leave kicking, and learn righteousness? Deu 32:15 Isa 26:9. Neither doth God do this till greatly provoked, till there is a cause for it, therefore I will return. He may well say, as that Roman emperor did, when he was to pronounce sentence of death, Non nisi coactus, I am even compelled to it, there is no other remedy, 2Ch 36:16. As a woman brings not forth but with pain; and as a bee stings not, but provoked: so here, Ille dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox, he afflicteth not willingly, nor grieves the children of men, Lam 3:33. It is sin that maketh him return, as here; that puts him out of his road of mercy into ways of iudgment, that putteth thunderbolts into his hand, and maketh him "do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act," Isa 28:21. What can a prince do less than disarm a rebel? what can God do less than take away his own and be gone from such an impudent adulteress, as is here described? should he allowr her with his grain "to make cakes to the queen of heaven," Jer 7:18, and to pour ou this wine for drink offerings to other gods, that they might provoke him to anger? No: rather than so, he will -
take away the corn in the time thereof, and his wine in the season thereof] He will cut off the meat from their very mouths, Joe 1:16, and pull their morsel from between their teeth. Just at harvest, when their grain is to be harvested, God will blast it, or otherwise blow upon it; when all their old store is spent, and they reckoned upon a good recruit, they shall be defeated and frustrated. "Therefore hath God watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us," saith Daniel, Dan 9:14. Lo, God watcheth his time when to be even with his enemies: and taketh his fittest opportunity for their greater mischief. They that are wicked overmuch shall die before their time, Ecc 7:17. Not before God’s time (for stat sua cuique dies, every man’s time is set, Job 7:1, our bounds are prescribed us, and a pillar pitched up by him, who bears up the heavens, which we are not to trespass), but before their own time that they had propounded and promised to themselves, as that rich fool, Luk 12:19, who talked to himself (as fools use to do), Luk 12:17, saying, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years." But we know what became of him that very night; his many years were quickly up, his glass was run when he thought it had been but new turned. God shot at him with an arrow suddenly, Psa 64:7, he fetched off this bird with a bolt while he was gazing at the bow or pruning himself upon a bough. He chopped into the earth before he was aware as one that walketh in the snow chops into a pit. He died, tempore non suo (as some render that forecited text in Ecclesiastes), not in his own time, but in God’s time; then when it had been better for that fool to have done anything than to have died, because (like Eli’s sons) he died in his sins: and, like Jezebel’s children, he was killed with death, Rev 2:23 This made Austin say, that he would not for the gain of a world be an atheist for one half hour: because he knew not but that God might in that time, call him; and then, "what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained when God taketh away his soul?" Job 27:8. He is troubled, when God taketh away "his corn in the time thereof, and his wine in the season thereof": he is hungry and hardly bestead, and therefore ready "to curse God, and look upward," Isa 8:21, howling against heaven, as the hungry wolf. But first he should consider, that the corn and wine and wool and flax that he hath in keeping is not his, but God’s; and that he reserves the propriety of all in his own hand: neither hath any man aught, in reference to him, the monarch of the world, that he can call his own. The rich fool indeed talked much in this manner, Luk 12:18 : "I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods." All was his own belike: God was not in all this man’s thoughts; for if he had, he would soon have known what to have done: sc. he would have acknowledged God the author and owner of all (as Moses mindeth men, Deu 8:17-18), he would also have fed the hungry with his corn, and clothed the naked with his wool and flax, as Tyre converted did with her merchandise, Isa 23:18, he would have said to God, as David did, "All things come of thee, and of thine own we give thee," 1Ch 29:14. Bernard reports of Pope Eugenius, that meeting with a poor but honest bishop, he secretly gave him certain jewels wherewith he might present him. If God did not first furnish us out of his treasury we should have nothing wherewith either to honour him or to help ourselves or others God’s poor, I mean, whom Solomon calleth owners of our goods, and maketh us but their stewards, Pro 3:27 : withhold not thy goods from the owners thereof. Next, the hunger bitten hypocrite should consider that there is worse hunger yet behind, and a heavy account to be given of the grain, wine, wool, and flax, the creatures that he hath detained in un righteousness, and spent upon his lusts, Jas 4:3. If the husbandman must be ashamed, and howl because the harvest of the field is perished; if the drunkards must wake, weep, and wail because the new wine is cut off from their mouths, Joe 1:5; Joe 1:11; how shall they much more howl in hell, ubi nullus unquam cibus est, nulla consolatio, saith Bernard, where there is no manner of meat, no drop of water to be had for love or money; where they must fast, and find no mercy for ever; where they must hunger and thirst in aeterno Dei, as the schools speak, as long as God is God. The sufferings of this world to the wicked is but as the falling of the leaves in comparison of the trees that will fall upon him hereafter, in that eternity of extremities. If here, "In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits, and every hand of the troublesome shall come upon him. When he is about to fill his belly God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating," as it is threatened, Job 20:22-23, what, think we, will their portion be in hell? Meanwhile God will
recover his wool and his flax] He will snatch it away (as the word signifieth) in great displeasure, as a man doth his stolen goods out of the hands of a thief; he will rescue them, as Abraham did Lot and the captives from Chedorlaomer, Gen 14:16, as David did his wives, goods, and friends from the Amalekitish rovers, 1Sa 30:18-20. The poor creatures, grain, wine, wool, &c., groan heavily under the abuse of graceless persons, Rom 8:22, and God heareth them, as he did the oppressed Israelites in Egypt, "for he is gracious," he hears them, I say, and recovers them; he spoils their possessors of them, as Jacob did Laban of his sheep, as the Israelites did the Egyptians of their jewels: the same word is used there, as here, הצלתי, Gen 31:10; Gen 31:16, and it is a wonderful significant word, saith Mercer. St Paul imitateth it when he saith the creature shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. This God doth when he snateheth away kingdoms from tyrants, wealth from worldlings, strength from roysters, spiritual common gifts from the proud and secure, Zec 11:17. {See Trapp on "Zec 11:17"} When men abuse mercies, they forfeit their right in them: wicked men have not only a civil title but a right before God to the things that they possess; it is their portion, Psa 17:14. And what Ananias had was his own while he had it, Act 5:4. And God gave Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as pay for his pains in taking Tyre. True it is, all was forfeited in Adam; but wicked men have yet a right to all they do enjoy in a lawful way, by divine donation, till the day of execution: as when a traitor hath his life given him, for a time at least, he hath meat and drink also given him to maintain his life for that time. God dealeth not as that cruel Duke D’Alva did, who starved some prisoners after that he had given them quarter, saying, Though I promised you your lives, I promised not to find you meat (Hist. of Netherlands). That which wicked men are charged with, and shall be accountable for, is, not their right to use the creatures, but their not right using them. This makes the creature cry in its kind and long for liberty; even as birds do that thrust a long neck out of the cage (so much the apostle’s word importeth, Rom 8:19, αποκαραδοκια). And God, who heareth the cry of the widow and fatherless, and looseth his prisoners, Psa 146:7, hears and frees the poor creatures groaning under man’s abuse.
Given to cover her nakedness] This is the end of garments, so called quasi gardmentes; they arm and fence our bodies against the injury of wind and weather, against heat of summer, cold of winter; they also cover our nakedness and deformity, those parts especially that are by an antiphrasis called verenda et pudenda (here principally perhaps intended), because they ought never to be laid naked, but kept covered, pudoris gratia, for common honesty’s sake (Vatablus), "that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear," Rev 3:18. Nature teacheth to cover our nakedness; therefore also when a man hath committed a sin he blusheth; the blood, as it were, would cover the sin. But nothing will do that, save only the righteousness of Christ, the fleece of that immaculate lamb of God, whom therefore we must put on, Rom 13:14, in all his offices and efficacies. Our first parents indeed were born with the royal robe of original righteousness on their back; but the devil soon stripped them of it, and from that time on they became sore ashamed of their bodily nakedness (but chiefly of their spiritual), which therefore they sought to hide as they could, their privities especially. Whence some are of the opinion that to look upon the nakedness of another is a sin against nature. The prophet Habakkuk taxeth it in the Chaldees, Hab 2:15, and the Hebrews there say, It was a filthy custom among them, common at their feasts. Clothes are the ensigns of man’s sins and the cover of our shame. To be proud of them is as for a thief to be proud of his halter: to brag of them is as for the lepper to brag of a plaster laid to his filthy sore: the fineness of such is their filthiness; their neatness nastiness, as one speaketh.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Therefore, because I was not acknowledged nor served as…
Therefore, because I was not acknowledged nor served as the giver,
will I return: much after the manner of man doth God speak; he had left large blessings behind him among this people, but their sottish ingratitude provokes him to resolutions of returning and seizing of all.
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Take away; take into my hands, or resume all I give, for all given was mine still; God never gives away his right.
My corn; it was hers while thankfully received and rightly used, but want of these forfeit that right, and the propriety reverts to God. See Hos 2:8.
In the time thereof; either when they should gather it in, as being ripe, or when they need it, and should use it. All they enjoy is mine, but since they so use me as to serve Baal by it, I will either take all away from them, or make all useless to them. When I take away my wool and my flax, she shall appear shamefully naked, not having one rag of her own.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And now will I discover her lewdness in the…
And now will I discover her lewdness in the lovers,.... The people, her lovers, as the Targum; which is by many understood of the Egyptians and Assyrians; but rather means the Romans, whom the Jews courted as their friends: though it seems best to interpret it in a more general way, that the sin and folly of the Jews in rejecting Christ, and adhering to their beloved tenets, should be discovered and made manifest to all in the most public manner by their punishment; by being scattered among the nations, and becoming a taunt, reproach, and a curse everywhere: and none shall deliver her out of my hand; none of her lovers, as Kimchi, nor any other: it denotes the utter, total, and final destruction of the Jews, wrath being come upon them to the uttermost; and which is irrecoverable by human help, has continued for many hundred years, and will until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, or till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, Luk 21:24.
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Hosea 2:11
hos 2:11
hos 2:11
hos 2:11I will also cause all her mirth to cease,.... As it must in course, this being her case, as before described, whether considered in individuals, or as a body politic, or in their church state, as follows:
her feast days; which the Jews understand of the three feasts of tabernacles, passover, and pentecost; typical of Christ's tabernacling in human nature; of his being the passover sacrificed for us; and of the firstfruits of the Spirit; which being come, the shadows are gone and vanished, and these feasts are no more: her new moons, and her sabbaths; the first day of every month, and the seventh day of every week, observed for religious exercises; typical of the light the church receives from Christ, and the rest it has in him; and he, the body and substance of them, being come, these are no more, Col 2:16,
and all her solemn feasts; all others, whether of God's appointment or their own; all are made to cease of right, if not in fact; the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, being abolished by Christ, and the Jews without a priest, sacrifice, and ephod, Eph 2:14.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Take away - I will resume all I gave.…
Take away - I will resume all I gave. In the time thereof - When they should gather it in, as being ripe.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. Therefore will I return, and take away]…
Verse 9. Therefore will I return, and take away] In the course of my providence, I will withhold those benefits which she has prostituted to her idolatrous services. And I will neither give the land rain, nor fruitful seasons.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Therefore I will return - God is, as it…
Therefore I will return - God is, as it were, absent from men, when He lets them go on in their abuse of His gifts. “His judgments are far above out of their sight.” He returns to them, and His presence is felt in chastisements, as it might have been in mercies. He is not out of sight or out of mind, then. Others render it, “I will turn, i. e. I will do other than before; I will turn” from love to displeasure, from pouring out benefits to the infliction of chastisements, from giving abundance of all things to punishing them with the want of all things.
I will take away My corn in the time thereof - God shows us that His gifts come from Him, either by giving them when we almost despair of them, or taking them away, when they are all but our’s. It can seem no chance, when He so doeth. The chastisement is severer also, when the good things, long looked-for, are, at the last, taken out of our very hands, and that, when there is no remedy. If in harvest-time there be dearth, what afterward! “God taketh away all, that they who knew not the Giver through abundance, might know Him through want.”
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And will recover My wool - God “recovers,” and, as it were, “delivers” the works of His Hands from serving the ungodly. While He leaves His creatures in the possession of the wicked, they are holden, as it were, in captivity, being kept back from their proper uses, and made the handmaidens and instruments and tempters to sin. God made His creatures on earth to serve man, that man, on occasion of them, might glorify Him. It is against the order of nature, to use God’s gifts to any other end, short of God’s glory much more, to turn God’s gifts against Himself, and make them serve to pride or luxury or sensual sin. It is a bondage, as it were, to them. Whence of them also Paul saith, “The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly; and, all creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” Rom 8:20, Rom 8:22. Penitents have felt this. They have felt that they deserve no more that the sun should shine on them, or the earth sustain them, or the air support them, or wine refresh them, or food nourish them, since all these are the creatures and servants of the God whom themselves have offended, and they themselves deserve no more to be served by God’s servants, since they have rebelled against their common Master, or to use even rightly what they have abused against the will of their Creator.
My flax - Given “to cover her nakedness, i. e. which God had given to that end. Shame was it, that, covered with the raiment which God had given her to hide her shame, she did deeds of shame. The white linen garments of her priests also were symbols of that purity, which the Great high priest should have and give. Now, withdrawing those gifts, He gave them up to the greatest visible shame, such as insolent conquerors, in leading a people into captivity, often inflicted upon them. Thereby, in act, was figured that loss of the robe of righteousness, heavenly grace, wherewith God beautifies the soul, whereof when it is stripped, it is indeed foul.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Season. When the harvest is ripe, the loss is…
Season. When the harvest is ripe, the loss is more afflicting. God withdraws what proves an occasion of sin. --- Liberty. The creature serves unwillingly, Romans viii. 21.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain my corn . . . my wool . .…
my corn . . . my wool . . . my flax--in contrast to "my bread . . . my wool . . . my flax," (Hos 2:5). Compare also Hos 2:21-23, on God as the great First Cause giving these through secondary instruments in nature. "Return, and take away," is equivalent to, "I will take back again," namely, by sending storms, locusts, Assyrian enemies, &c. "Therefore," that is, because she did not acknowledge Me as the Giver.
in the time thereof--in the harvest-time.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. And now in order radically to cure the…
9. 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.
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my corn … my wine … my wool … my flax] For though Israel may speak, as in Hos_2:7, of ‘my bread and my water,’ these things were really the property of Jehovah, who could withdraw them at any moment, even in the ‘time’ or season of the corn and the new wine, when the husbandman was counting implicitly on the harvest and the vintage.
recover] Or, rescue, viz. from the misuse to which these gifts would be put by the idolaters.
given to cover her nakedness] Thus reminding Israel that in her natural condition she was utterly helpless and destitute. Comp. Eze_16:8, which evidently alludes to this passage.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9) Therefore will I return, and take . .…
(9) Therefore will I return, and take . . .—The Hebrew form of saying, “Therefore I will take back.” Jehovah resumes all that had been misappropriated. The king of Assyria (Tiglath-pileser, 734 B.C.) was the agency whereby this was to be accomplished. (Comp. Isa_10:5.) The raiment (wool and flax) was Jehovah’s gift to cover her nakedness, i.e., to meet the actual necessities of Israel. This He will tear away, and the idol-gods whom she has courted shall see her prostration, and their own helplessness to deliver or relieve.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Therefore will I return, and take away my corn…
Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness. The abuse of the Divine bounties mentioned in the preceding verse fully justifies the series of punishments that follow. God thus vindicates those penal inflictions. Accordingly he threatens them in this ninth verse with the deprivation of the bounties which they had misused as the means of idolatry and sin; in ver. 10 with disgrace; in ver. 11 with the departure of all her merry-makings; in ver. 12 with the destruction of the sources whence the means of idolatrous worship were supplied; and in ver. 13 with days of visitation proportionate to the time of declension and apostasy. The first clause of the verse under consideration is better rendered
(1) according to the common Hebrew idiom, which employs two verbs to express one idea in a modified sense, the first denoting the manner, and so equivalent to an adverb with us, and the second signifying the matter; and it is thus translated by Keil: Therefore will I take back my corn.
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(2) We admit the ray consecutive is opposed to this; and the LXX has epistreqw kai komiounai : and Jerome, "reverter et sumam." The manner of the dispossession intensifies the punishment, just as their abuse of those possessions had augmented their guilt. The food, refreshment, and raiment are to be taken away this certainly would be bad enough by itself, but the suddenness of the stroke adds poignancy to the infliction. The prospect of an indifferent harvest and of a bad vintage for weeks previously might have prepared them in some sort for the disaster. But when the time of harvest has already come and the season of vintage just arrived, by some sudden, unexpected calamity, whether tempest or hostile invasion, the bread-corn perishes and the wine-grapes are destroyed. The food is thus snatched, as it were, from their month, and the cup dashed from their lips; the sadness of the catastrophe is immensely increased by the sudden rudeness of the stroke by which it comes. Nor is this all. In the case of the raiment, or rather the material, the wool and the flax out of which it is formed, its removal reduces the intended wearer to perfect nudity, or, if we understand it as figure, to abject poverty and absolute penury. Aben Ezra attributes this disaster (ver. 9) to hostile invasion: "At its season when I shall bring the enemies, to take away the corn and the wine;" Kimchi, on the other hand, sees in it a misquote: "I will return and take away my corn in its season, and my wine in its appointed time, because I will send a curse upon them in the time of harvest and at the season of vintage, instead of the blessing I used to send upon them. And so on all the work of their hands I shall send a curse, and all their gain shall be put into a bag with holes; and they shall not have bread to eat nor raiment to wear."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Therefore will I return.
Hos_2:9
Therefore will I return.
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Changes in Gods ways with us
Therefore will I return, that is, I will change the way of My administrations toward them; I will go out of My way of mercy, and turn into My way of judgment; I will go back again. I will take away My corn in the time thereof. That is in the very time of harvest and vintage. And will recover My wool. I will snatch it away; I will spoil you of it. I will recover it out of the hands of usurpers. Or those creatures, corn, wine, wool, are now in bondage to you, and I will recover them out of your hands. Observe--
1. Though God gives mercy out of free grace without cause in ourselves, yet He takes not away mercy without cause.
2. Sin causes God to change the way of His administrations towards His people.
3. Abuse of mercy causes the removing of mercy.
4. God keeps the propriety of all that we have.
5. The taking away the good things which we enjoy is a means Of making us return to God.
6. There is an uncertainty in all things in the world; though they promise fair, yet they are ready to fail us when they promise most.
7. God often shows His displeasure to those who provoke Him, when they are at the greatest height of prosperity.
8. When men abuse mercies, they forfeit their right in those mercies.
9. All the time the creature serves wicked men, it is in bondage, and God looks upon it with pity.
10. God gives His blessings to us, not for luxury, but for necessity,
11. When abundance is abused, it is just with God that we should want necessaries. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
And take away My corn.
Blessings unimproved resumed by their owner
Two subjects for reflection; the goodness of God, and the wickedness of man. The Jews were fair specimens of human nature.
I. the source of our mercies. I gave her. Here we do not refer to those blessings which we call spiritual. We speak of temporal good things. He giveth us richly all things to enjoy. Never suffer instruments to keep your thoughts from God.
1. Unconscious instrumentality. This takes in what we call nature.
2. Voluntary instrumentality. Our fellow-creatures may do us good in a thousand ways. They act knowingly and freely in relieving us, and display the noblest principles of their nature. But here God has higher claims; for who placed these friends and benefactors in our way?
3. Personal instrumentality. Few of the good things of life are obtained without some exertions of our own. Indeed, if they were, they would not be half so sweet. But from whom have we derived our natural talents? Whose providence fixed us in a situation favourable to our efforts?
II. Our guilt in the use of our mercies. Here are two charges.
1. Ignorance. God does much more good in the world than is ever known. He has done us all countless acts of kindness of which we have never been aware. There are two kinds of knowledge, speculative and practical. The former is nothing without the latter; it is no better than ignorance.
2. Perversion. Instead of using Gods gifts in the service and for the glory of God, we appropriate them to the use of idols. This is worse than the former, as indifference is exceeded by insult. What would you feel more provoking than for a man to borrow of you, in order to publish a libel upon your character? Is not God perpetually thus affronted and dishonoured?
III. The removal. Take away My corn, etc.
1. We see how precarious everything earthly is.
2. God withdraws our comforts as well as gives them.
3. God does not relinquish His propriety in any of His blessings when He bestows them. Still they are His. When He comes for them He comes but to resume.
4. He often removes our blessings and comforts when they seem most attractive and most necessary, when their loss is least expected, and we are rejoicing to see them flourish.
5. God does not deprive us of our enjoyments without a cause. It is our non-improvement, it is our abuse of our mercies that endangers them.
6. His conduct, in the removal of our joys, looks forward as well as backward. He punishes, not for our destruction but advantage, and the very consequences of sin are made to cure. While this subject leads us to magnify the Lord, it should afford instruction and encouragement to those who are afflicted. No affliction will ever do us good unless it excite in us both fear and hope. The day of trouble is a period peculiarly eventful and important. Salvation or destruction may hinge upon it. (William Jay.)
Forfeited blessings
The goodness of God and the ingratitude of man meet us everywhere, and in our own hearts are as prominent as in the world.
I. Gods mercies. All our blessings come direct from God. Whatever may be the instrument, the gift is of God.
1. There is nature.
2. There is human instrumentality.
3. There is personal exertion. It is the Lord thy God giveth thee power to get wealth.
II. Mans abuse of Gods mercies. Here are two charges.
1. Ignorance.
2. Perversion.
III. The just and inevitable result.
1. God reminds us that our mercies are only lent.
2. God only allots them to us on the condition of using them rightly. (Homilist.)
Gods gifts taken away
God shews us that His gifts come from Him, either by giving them when we almost despair of them, or taking them away, when they are all but ours. It can seem no chance when He so doeth. The chastisement is severer also, when the good things, long looked for, are at the last taken out of our very hands, and that, when there is no remedy. Recover My wool. God recovers and, as it were, delivers the works of His hands from serving the ungodly. While He leaves His creatures in the possession of the wicked, they are holden, as it were, in captivity, being kept back from their proper uses, and made the hand maidens and instruments and tempters to sin. It is against the order of nature to use Gods gifts to any other end short of Gods glory, much more, to turn Gods gifts against Himself, and make them serve to pride, or luxury, or sensual sin. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
Necessaries of life withheld
So full and continual are our mercies that we are prone to forget the Giver in the enjoyment of the gift, until a voice of sternness calls us home. I heard recently of a young student at college, who became so interested in sports and other things that he neglected to write to his parents. The mother became exceedingly anxious and wanted the father to go to the city and learn the cause. But the father found a simpler method. The supply of money was withheld, and very soon a letter came. Even so, God sometimes withholds from us the very necessaries of life until we learn that while He is willing to supply our needs, He earnestly desires our fellowship. As in the case of the prodigal, He permits a mighty famine in the land where we are feeding swine, in order to bring us to the home table, where His bounty is spread. (Good Tidings.)
Gods discipline
Trees, if the roots run too deep into the earth, must be cut shorter; if the branches spread too far, they must be lopped; and if canker or caterpillar once infest, and cleave to them, then they must be blazed and smoked. Thus, the children of God, when they be too much rooted by their affections in the things of this world, and with great and large boughs of their ability, wrong and impoverish their poor neighbour, or let their money like the canker eat into their souls--God will give them many a cutting, lopping, and fumigating; and as they cannot but naturally do tile one, so God, intending to heal them spiritually, will do the other; His care will be still for them, notwithstanding their several failings. (J. Spencer.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:9-13 God’s first judgment (2:6-7) was to restrict the…
2:9-13 God’s first judgment (2:6-7) was to restrict the Israelites; this second judgment would be to remove and destroy what he alone had given them.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.