Yahweh said to me, “Go again, love a woman loved by another, and an adulteress, even as Yahweh loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods, and love cakes of raisins.”
So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.”
For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–4 The substance of this chapter is, that it was…
The substance of this chapter is, that it was God’s purpose to keep in firm hope the minds of the faithful during the exile, lest being overwhelmed with despair they should wholly faint. The Prophet had before spoken of God’s reconciliation with his people; and he magnificently extolled that favor when he said, ‘Ye shall be as in the valley of Achor, I will restore to you the abundance of all blessings; in a word, ye shall be in all respects happy.’ But, in the meantime, the daily misery of the people continued. God had indeed determined to remove them into Babylon. They might, therefore, have despaired under that calamity, as though every hope of deliverance were wholly taken from them. Hence the Prophet now shows that God would so restore the people to favor, as not immediately to blot out every remembrance of his wrath, but that his purpose was to continue for a time some measure of his severity.
We hence see that this prediction occupies a middle place between the denunciation the Prophet previously pronounced and the promise of pardon. It was a dreadful thing, that God should divorce his people and cast away the Israelites as spurious children: but a consolation was afterwards added. But lest the Israelites should think that God would immediately, as on the first day, be so propitious to them as to visit them with no chastisement, it was the Prophet’s design expressly to correct this mistake, as though he said, ‘God will indeed receive you again, but in the meantime a chastisement is prepared for you, which by its intenseness would break down your spirits were it not that this comfort will ease you, and that is, that God, though he punishes you for your sins, yet continues to provide for your salvation, and to be as it were your husband.’ We now perceive the intention of the Prophet. But I shall first run over the words, and then return to the subject
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Jehovah said to me, Go yet and love a woman. There is no doubt but that God describes here the favor he promises to the Israelites in a type or vision: for they are too gross in their notions, who think that the Prophet married a woman who had been a harlot. It was then only a vision, as though God had set a picture before the eyes of the people, in which they might see their own conduct. And when he says, “yet”, he refers to the vision, mentioned in the first chapter. But he bids a woman to be loved before he took her to be the partner of his conjugal bed; which ought to be noticed: for God intends here to make a distinction between the people’s restoration and his hidden favor. God then before he restored the people from exile, loved them as it were in their widowhood. We now understand why the Prophet does not say, ‘Take to thee a wife,’ but, ‘love a woman.’ The meaning is this: God intimates, that though exile would be sad and bitter, yet the people, whom he treated with sharpness and severity, were still dear to him. Hence, Love a woman, who had been loved by a husband
The word רע, ro, is here to be taken for a husband, as it is in the second chapter of Jeremiah, [Jeremiah 3:20] where it is said, ‘Perfidiously have the children of Israel dealt with me, as though a woman had departed from her husband, מרעה, meroe,’, or, ‘from her partner.’ And there is an aggravation of the crime implied in this word: for women, when they prostitute themselves, often complain that they have done so through too much severity, because they were not treated with sufficient kindness by their husbands; but when a husband behaves kindly towards his wife, and performs his duty as a husband, there is then less excuse for a wife, in case she fixes her affections on others. To increase then the sin of the people, this circumstance is stated that the woman had been loved by her friend or partner, and yet that this kindness of her husband had not preserved her mind in chastity.
He afterwards says, According to the love of Jehovah towards the children of Israel; that is, As God loved the people of Israel, who yet ceased not to look to other gods. This metaphor occurs often in Scripture, that is, when the verb פנה“panah”, which means in Hebrew, to look to, is used to express hope or desire: so that when men’s minds are intent on any thing, or their affections fixed on it, they are said to look to that. Since then the Israelites boiled with insane ardor for their superstitions, they are said to look to other gods.
It then follows, And they love flagons of grapes. The Prophet, I doubt not, compares this rage to drunkenness: and he mentions flagons of grapes rather than of wine, because idolaters are like drunkards, who sometimes so gorge themselves, that they have no longer a taste for wine; yea, the very smell of wine offends them, and produces nausea through excessive drinking; but they try new arts by which they may regain their fondness for wine. And such is the desire of novelty that prevails in the superstitious. At one time they go after this, at another time after that, and their minds are continually tossed to and fro, because they cannot acquiesce in the only true God. We now then perceive what this metaphor means, when the Prophet reproaches the Israelites, because they loved flagons of grapes.
I now return to what the Prophet, or rather God, had in view. God here comforts the hearts of the faithful, that they might surely conclude that they were loved, even when they were chastised. It was indeed necessary that this difference should have been well impressed on the Israelites, that they might in exile entertain hope and patiently bear God’s chastisement, and rise that this hope might mitigate the bitterness of sorrow. God therefore says that though he shows not himself as yet reconciled to them, but appears as yet severe, at the same time he is not without love. And hence we learn how useful this doctrine is, and how widely it opens; for it affords a consolation of which we all in common have need. When God humbles us by adversities, when he shows to us some tokens of severity or wrath, we cannot but instantly fail, were not this thought to occur to us, that God loves us, even when he is severe towards us, and that though he seems to cast us away, we are not yet altogether aliens, for he retains some affection even in the midst of his wrath; so that he is to us as a husband, though he admits us not immediately into conjugal honor, nor restores us to our former rank. We now then see how the doctrine is to be applied to ourselves.
We must at the same time notice the reproachful conduct of which I have spoken, — That though the woman was loved yet she could not be preserved in chastity, and that she was loved, though an adulteress. Here is pointed out the most shameful ingratitude of the people, and contrasted with it is God’s infinite mercy and goodness. It was the summit of wickedness in the people to forsake their God, when he had treated them with so much benignity and kindness. But wonderful was the patience of God, when he ceased not to love a people, whom he had found to be so perverse, that they could not be turned by any acts of kindness nor retained by any favors.
With regard to the flagons of grapes we may observe, that this strange disposition is ever dominant in the superstitious, and that is, that they wander here and there after their own devices, and have nothing fixed in them. Lest, then, such charms deceive us, let us learn to cleave firmly and constantly to the word of the Lord. Indeed the Papists of this day boast of their ancientness, when they would create an ill-will towards us; as though the religion we follow were new and lately invented: but we see how modern their superstitions are; for a passion for them bubbles up continually and they have nothing that remains constant: and no wonder, because the eternal truth of God is regarded by them as of no value. If, then, we desire to restrain this depraved lust, which the Prophet condemns in the Israelites, let us so adhere to the word of the Lord, that no novelty may captivate us and lead us astray. 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 On vv1–4 That is, gave themselves wholly to pleasure, and could…
That is, gave themselves wholly to pleasure, and could not take up, as they that are given to drunkenness.
Herein the Prophet representeth the person of God, which loved his Church before he called her, and did not withdraw the same when she gave herself to idols.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Hos 3:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Go…
Hos 3:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of [her] friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
Ver. 1. Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, &c.] This yet is emphatic: and it is as if he had said, Go over the same subject again in shorter discourse, and lay before them the same truths, but in more lively colours, that the obstinate may be left without excuse, and the penitent may not be left without comfort. Iterun abi, Go to them once more, and be instant with them, or stand over them, as St Paul saith, 2Ti 4:2 (επιστηθι), and as St Paul doth, in crying down the Jews’ conceit of being justified by the works of the law, and in disgracing the sin of fornication so common at Corinth. Chrysostom at Antioch having preached sundry sermons agaist swearing, was at length asked when he would preach upon another subject? He answered, when you leave swearing I will leave preaching against swearing. Austin (De Doct. Christian.) would have a preacher so long to pursue and press the same point, until, by the gesture and countenance of the hearers, he perceive that they understand it, and will practise it. This is to whet the word of God upon people (as Moses’ phrase is) by going oft over the same thing, as the knife doth the whetstone. {Deu 6:7, Shanan et Shanah repetere sicut in acuendo} A like type to the former is here first propounded, secondly expounded, that at length it might fasten. A preacher must not desist, though at first he prevail not (as some from this second injunction collect, that this prophet would have done), but he must turn himself into all manner of shapes and fashions both of speech and of spirit to win people to God, with all longsuffering and doctrine, 2Ti 4:2. And this the Lord here teacheth Hosea to do by his own example of patience and tolerance, notably set forth in this ensuing type.
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Love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress] This was a harder task than to take her, Hos 1:2, in hope she would prove honest. But now that she hath played the adulteress and so deserved to be discarded, yet to love her, yea, and that when she is habituated and hardened in her lewd practices (as the Hebrew word signifieth), Durus est sic sermo, who can bear it? ( Non tam actum quam habitum significat. Rivet.) If none else can, yet God both can and will, as appeareth by this whole parable, wherein the prophet is commanded to represent God, as in the former type, Hos 1:4-5; Hos 1:9-11, and by loving that wife which he had taken before, though she had played false with him, to show what was the love of God toward Israel. She forsaketh me, saith he, who give her all the good she either hath or hopeth for, and followeth after those that put bottles of wine to her mouth, she loves those flagons, &c. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, &c.: howbeit I will not relinquish her, but will love her freely as if she had never offended me. O matchless mercy! O cocnio plena consolationis! O most comfortable sermon! God so loved the world, the mundus immundus, dirty world, that he gave his only begotten Son. This was a sic so, without a sicut, like, there being nothing in nature that can possibly parallel it. See Rom 5:8. God loveth apostates, idolaters, adulterers, yet not as such, but as he intendeth and respecteth their conversion to himself; which nothing will sooner effect than the sense of such an undeserved love. I am not ignorant that another sense is set upon these words, as thus; Go, yet love a woman not married, as yet but espoused unto thee, who may hereafter be thy wife, but is for her adultery rejected for a long season: so God loved the Israelites as an adulterous spouse, and therefore for a long while neglected, but yet at length to be taken by him to wife, according to Hos 2:15; Hos 2:19.
Beloved of her friend] sc. of some paramour, as Jer 3:1, "thou hast played the harlot with many lovers." These the Greeks called εταιρους, fellow friends; the whore was called εταιρα: so they flattered their own vices, putting gilded names on them, as our blades name drunkenness good fellowship, harlots, she sinners, &c. The Septuagint render it a woman that loveth naughty things or naughty packs. But I like the former interpretation better, and it is agreeable to the Chaldee Paraphrast.
Who look to other gods] Look and lust, ut vidi! ut perii! The mind lodgeth in the eye, and looketh out at that window of wickedness. "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand," &c., Job 31:26-27, alludeth to the practice of those old idolaters, which was to kiss their idols, if they could reach them, as 1Ki 19:18. (Cicero tells of the image of Hercules cuius mentum osculis adorantium attritum fuit who chin he will kiss and rub, and the Papists so kiss their pictures, that hard marble is worn with it, saith Sir Edwin Sands an eyewitness.) But when they could not come at the idol to kiss it, they looked up and kissed their hand, in token of homage; and this was called adoration ( quasi applicatio manus ad os). This looking to other gods, imports a turning towards them. See Deu 31:18; Deu 31:20, a loving them, a longing after them, and an expectation of some good from them. No wonder, therefore, that such whorish hankerings and honings were offensive to the jealous and just God: "but the unjust knoweth no shame," Zep 3:5; men are forbidden so much as to lift up their eyes to their idols, Eze 23:27. And shall I lift up mine eyes unto the hills (saith David, as some read that text), as if from thence came my help? Psa 121:1. Absit. God forbid. Christ’s spouse hath a dove’s chaste eye, Son 4:1; and he would have her like that Persian lady, who being at Cyrus’s wedding, and asked how she liked the bridegroom? How? saith she, I know not. I saw nobody there but my husband.
And love flagons of wine] Luxury is the ordinary companion of idolatry, as Exo 32:6 1Co 10:7 Rev 18:13-14. See Jdg 9:27 Amo 2:8. O monachi vestri stomachi, &c. Oh king of your belly. At Paris and Louvain the best wine is called vinum theologicum, the divinity wine; it is also called vinum cos, wine of the consul, i.e. caloris, odoris, saporis optimi. the best warmth, fragrance and taste. Those clergy locusts lick up all; those abbey lubbers are good for nothing but to devour grain, like vermin; those wine bibbers and flesh mongers (as Solomon calleth them) are no better than the excrements of human society, gelulim, belly gods, and fit servants of those dung hill gods, as idols are called, Hab 2:18-19 cf. Jer 10:3-5. And a scavenger, whose living is to empty privies, is far to be preferred before such a one, as, looking to other gods, and making his gut his god, lives but to fill privies. For a flagon of wine, or a meal’s meat, any god may soon have the hearts and the services of such as have (Poliphemus-like) no supreme deity but their belly.
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 On vv1–4 Then, or And, Heb. or Furthermore.
Then, or And, Heb. or Furthermore.
Said the Lord; commanded. Unto me; Hosea. Go yet; again, or once more; so it implieth he had once already been commanded and done some such-like thing.
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Love a woman: in the former he was commanded to marry, in this he is commanded to love, (the reason of which will appear in the application of the parable,) a woman, though described by her character, yet not named; and though her character would suit well enough to Gomer, yet it was not she, for this woman was to abide for him, Hos 3:3, but Gomer was presently married to him, or at least so represented; this was brought, Gomer was not.
Beloved of her friend; her husband, though some think it may be some other person or lover.
An adulteress; either already tainted, or that certainly will be tainted with that vice; a divorced woman, separate from her husband because of her falseness to him.
According to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel; let this be the emblem of my love to the children of Israel: by this I intend, saith God, to let Israel know how I have loved, and how she hath loved: how greatly, dearly, constantly on my part; how slightly, inconstantly, falsely on her part.
Who look to other gods: when I adopted them to be a peculiar people to me, to take me for their God, and required they shall have none other, (which relation is well expressed by that of husband and wife,) they have looked, liked, loved other gods, and depended on them, and their hearts have been estranged from me, they have turned downright idolaters. Love flagons of wine; loved the feasts of their idols, where they drank wine to excess, by too great measures, which, without dispute, was usual in the idol feasts, Amo 2:8; 1Co 10:21; or else these flagons of wine speak their loose, drunken, and riotous living.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Some think that this chapter refers to Judah, the…
Some think that this chapter refers to Judah, the two tribes, as the adulteress the prophet married (Hos 1:3) represented the ten tribes; for this was not to be divorced, as the ten tribes were, but to be left desolate for a long time, and then to return, as the two tribes did. But these are called the children of Israel, which was the ten tribes, and therefore it is more probable that of them this parable, as well as that before, is to be understood. Go, and repeat it, says God to the prophet; Go yet again. Note, For the conviction and reduction of sinners it is necessary that precept be upon precept, and line upon line. If they will not believe one sign, try another, Exo 4:8, Exo 4:9. Now,
I. In this parable we may observe,
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1. God's goodness and Israel's badness strangely serving for a foil to each other, Hos 3:1. Israel is as a woman beloved of her friend, either of him that has married her or of him that only courts her, and yet an adulteress; such is the case between God and Israel. We say of those whose affection is mutual that there is no love lost between them; but here we find a great deal of the love even of God himself lost and thrown away upon an unworthy ungrateful people. The God of Israel retains a very great love for the children of Israel, and yet they are an evil and adulterous generation. Be astonished, O heavens! at this, and wonder, O earth! (1.) That God's goodness has not put an end to their badness; the Lord loves them, has a kindness for them, and is continually showing kindness to them; they know it, they cannot but own it, that he has been as a friend and Father to them; and yet they look to other gods, gods that they can see, and to the love of which they are drawn by the eye; they look to them with an eye of adoration (they offer up all their services to them) and with an eye of dependence (they expect all their comforts from them); if they were restrained from bowing the knee to idols, yet they gave them an amorous glance, and had eyes full of that spiritual adultery. And they loved flagons of wine; they joined with idolaters because they lived merrily and drank hard; they had a kindness for other gods for the sake of the plenty of good wine with which they had been sometimes treated in their temples. Idolatry and sensuality commonly go together; those that make a god of their belly, as drunkards do, will easily be brought to make a god of any thing else. God's priests were to drink no wine when they went in to minister, and his Nazarites none at all. But the worshippers of other gods drank wine in bowls; nay, no less than flagons of wine would content them. (2.) That their badness had not stopped the current of his favours to them. This is a wonder of mercy indeed, that she is thus beloved of her friend, though an adulteress; such is the love of the Lord towards the children of Israel. "Go," says God, "love such a woman; see if thou canst find in thy heart to do it. No, thou canst not, the breast of no man would admit such a love; yet such is my love to the children of Israel; it is love to the loveless, to the unlovely, to those that have a thousand times forfeited it." Note, In God's goodwill to poor sinners his thoughts and ways are infinitely above ours, and his love is more condescending and compassionate than ours is, or can be; in this, as much as any thing, he is God, and not man, Hos 11:9.
2. The method found for the bringing of a God so very good and a people so very bad together again; this is the thing aimed at, and what God aims at he will accomplish. To our great surprise, we find a breach thus wide as the sea effectually healed; miracles cease not so long as divine mercy does not cease. Observe here, (1.) The course God takes to humble them and make them know themselves (Hos 3:2): I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer and a half of barley, that is, I courted her to be reconciled, to leave her ill courses, and return to her first husband, as Hos 2:14. I allured her, and spoke comfortably to her; as the Levite who went after his concubine that had played the harlot from him, and had run away with another man, spoke friendly to her, Jdg 19:3. But here the present which the prophet brought her for the purchasing of her favour is observed to be a very small one; but it was all that was intended for her separate maintenance, and in it she is reduced to a short allowance, and, to punish her for her pride, is made to look very mean. When Samson went to be reconciled to his wife that had disobliged him he visited her with a kid (Jdg 15:1), which was a genteel entertainment. But the prophet here visited his wife with fifteen pieces of silver, a small sum, which yet she must be content to live upon a great while, so long as till her husband thought fit to restore her to her first estate. She shall also have a homer and a half of barley, for bread-corn, and that is all she must expect till she be sufficiently humbled, and, by a competent time of trial, satisfactory proof given that she is indeed reformed. Let her be made sensible that it is not for her own merit that her husband makes court to her; it is but a lame price that he values her at. The price of a servant was thirty shekels, Exo 21:32. This was but half so much; yet let her know that it is more than she is worth. God had given Egypt for Israel's ransom once, so precious were they then in his sight, and so honourable, Isa 43:3, Isa 43:4. But now that they have gone a whoring from him he will give but fifteen pieces of silver for them, so much have they lost in their value by their iniquity. Note, Those whom God designs honour and comfort for he first makes sensible of their own worthlessness, and brings them to acknowledge, with the prodigal, I am no more worthy to be called thy son. Time was when Israel was fed with the finest of the wheat, but they grew wanton, and loved flagons of wine, and therefore, in order to the humbling and reducing of them, they must be brought in the land of their captivity to eat barley-bread, and be thankful they can get it, and to eat that too by weight and measure, whereas they did not use to be stinted. Note, Poverty and disgrace sometimes prove a happy means of making great sinners true penitents. (2.) The new terms upon which God is willing to come with them (Hos 3:3): Thou shalt abide for me many days, and shalt not be for another, so will I be for thee. He might justly have given them a bill of divorce, and have resolved to have no more to do with them; but he is willing to show them kindness, and that the matter should be compromised; he deals not with them in strict justice, according to the rigour of the law, but according to the multitude of his mercies; and it represents God's gracious dealings with the apostate race of mankind, that had gone a whoring from him; he bought them indeed with an inestimable price, not for their honour, but for the honour of his own justice; and now this is the proposal he makes to them, the covenant of grace he is willing to enter into with them - they must be to him a people, and he will be to them a God, the same with the proposal here made to Israel. [1.] They must take to themselves the shame of their apostasy from him, must submit to, and accept of, the punishment of their iniquity: Thou shalt abide for me many days in solitude and silence, as a widow that is desolate and in sorrow; they must lay aside their ornaments, and wait with patience and submission to know what God will do with them, and whether he will please to admit such unworthy wretches into his favour again, as they did Exo 33:4, Exo 33:5. Their father, their husband, has spit in their face (as God said concerning Miriam), has put them under the marks of his displeasure, and therefore, like her, they must be ashamed seven days, and be shut out of the camp (Num 12:14), till their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, Lev 26:41. Let them sit alone and keep silence, waiting for the salvation of the Lord, and in the mean time let them bear the yoke, Lam 3:26-28. Let them not expect that God should speedily return in mercy to them,; no, let them want it, let them wait for it many days, during all the days of their captivity, and reckon it a miracle of mercy, and well worth waiting for, it if come at last. Note, Those whom God designs mercy for he will first bring to abase themselves and to put a high value upon his favours. [2.] They must never return to folly again; that is the condition upon which God will speak peace to his people and to his saints (Psa 85:8), and no other. "Thou shalt not play the harlot, shalt not worship idols in the land of thy captivity, while thou art there set apart for the uncleanness." Note, It is not enough to take shame to ourselves for the sins we have committed, and to justify God in correcting us for them, but we must resolve, in the strength of God's grace, that we will not offend any more, that we will not again go a whoring from God, after the world and the flesh. Blessed be God, though it is the law of the covenant, it is not the condition of it that we shall never in any thing do amiss: "But thou shalt not play the harlot; thou shalt not serve other gods, shalt not be for another man." In the land of their captivity they would be courted to worship the idols of the country; that would be a trial for them, a long trial, many days: "But if thou keep thy ground, and hold fast thy integrity, if, when all this comes upon thee, thou dost not stretch out thy hand to a strange god, thou wilt be qualified for the returns of God's favour." Note, It is a certain sign that our afflictions are means of much good to us, and earnests of more, when we are kept by the grace of God from being overcome by the temptations of an afflicted state. [3.] Upon these terms their Maker will again be their husband: So will I also be for thee. This is the covenant between God and returning sinners, that, if they will be for him to serve him, he will be for them to save them. Let them renounce and abjure all rivals with God for the throne in the heart, and devote themselves entirely to him and him only, and he will be to them a God all-sufficient. If we be faithful and constant to God in a way of duty, and will never leave nor forsake him, he will be so to us in a way of mercy, and will never leave nor forsake us. And a fairer proposal could not be made.
II. In the last two verses we have the interpretation of the parable and the application of it to Israel.
1. They must long sit like a widow, stripped of all their joys and honours, Lam 4:1, Lam 4:2. They shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince; and a nation in this condition may well be called a widow. They want the blessing, (1.) Of civil government: They shall abide without a king, and without a prince, of their own. There were kings and princes over them to oppress them and rule them with rigour, but they had no king nor prince to protect them, to fight their battles for them, to administer justice to them, and to take care of their common safety and welfare. Note, Magistracy is a very great blessing to a people, and it is a sad and sore judgment to want it. (2.) Of public worship: They shall abide without a sacrifice, and without an image (or a statue, or pillar; the word is used concerning the pillars Jacob erected, Gen 28:18; Gen 31:45; Gen 35:20), and without an ephod and teraphim. The teraphim being here closely joined to the ephod, some thing the urim and thummim were meant by it in the breast-plate of the high priest. The meaning is that in their captivity they should not only have no face of a nation upon them, but no face of a church; they should not have (as a learned expositor speaks) liberty of any public profession or exercise of religion, either true or false, according to their choice. They shall have no sacrifice or altar (so the Septuagint), and therefore no sacrifice because no altar. They shall have no ephod, nor teraphim, no legal priesthood, no means of knowing God's mind, no oracle to consult in doubtful cases, but shall be all in the dark. Note, The case of those is very melancholy that are deprived of all opportunities to worship God in public. This was the case of the Jews in their captivity; and it is so far the case of the scattered Jews at this day that, though they have their synagogues, they have no temple-service. Desolate indeed is their condition that are shut out from communion with God, that have no opportunity of directing their addresses to God by sacrifice and altar, and of receiving instruction from him by ephod and teraphim.
2. They shall at length be received again as a wife (Hos 3:5): Afterwards, in process of time, when they have gone through this discipline, they shall return, that is, they shall repent of their idolatries and forsake them, they shall apply themselves to God and adhere to him, and herein they shall be accepted of him. Two things are here promised as instances of their return, and steps towards their acceptance with God in their return: - (1.) The enquiries they shall make after God: They shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king. Note, Those that would find God, and find favour with him, must seek him, must ask after him, covet acquaintance with him, desire to be reconciled to him, set their love on him, and labour in this that they may be accepted of him. Their seeking him implies that they had lost him, that they were lamenting their loss, and that they were solicitous to retrieve what they had lost. They shall seek him as their God; for should not a people seek unto their God? And they shall seek David their King, who can be no other than the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the root and offspring of David, whom David himself called Lord (Psa 110:1), and to whom God gave the throne of his father David, Luk 1:32. The Chaldee reads it, They shall seek the service of the Lord their God, and shall obey Messiah, the Son of David their king. Compare this with Jer 30:9; Eze 34:23; Eze 37:25. Note, Those that would seek the Lord so as to find him must apply to Jesus Christ, and must seek to him as their King, and become his willing people, and take an oath of fealty and allegiance to him. (2.) The reverence they shall have of God: They shall fear the Lord and his goodness. Some by his goodness here understand the temple, towards which they shall look, in worshipping God. The Jews say, There were three things which Israel cast off in the days of Rehoboam - the kingdom of heaven, the family of David, and the house of the sanctuary; and it will never be well with them till they return, and seek them all three, which is here promised. They shall seek the kingdom of heaven in the Lord their God, the royal family in David their King, and the temple in the goodness of the Lord. Others by his goodness understand Christ, the same with David their King. But it is rather to be taken for that attribute of God which he showed as his glory, and by which he proclaimed his name. Note, It is not only the Lord and his greatness that we are to fear, but the Lord and his goodness, not only his majesty, but his mercy. They shall flee for fear to the Lord and his goodness (so some take it), shall flee to it as their city of refuge. We must fear God's goodness, that is, we must admire it, and stand amazed at it, must adore it, and worship as Moses did at the proclaiming of this name, Exo 34:6. We must be afraid of offending his goodness, of making any ungrateful returns for it, and so forfeiting it. There is forgiveness with God, that he may be feared, Psa 130:4. We must rejoice with trembling in the goodness of God, must not be high-minded, but fear. Now this promise had its accomplishment when by the gospel of Christ great multitudes both of Jews and Gentiles were brought home to God, and incorporated in the New Testament church, served God in Christ, with a filial fear of divine grace, and were accepted of God as his Israel. And some think it is to be yet further accomplished in the conversion of those Jews to the faith of Christ who shall remain in unbelief, when they shall seek their Messiah as David their King, and by him all Israel shall be saved, when the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in. Time was when they sought him to put him to death, saying, We have no king but Caesar; but the day is coming when they shall seek him to appoint him their head, and to lay their necks under his yoke. He that has here promised that they shall do it will enable them to do it, and bring about this great work in his own way and time, in the latter days of the last times, the times of the Messiah: but, alas! who shall live when God does this? How far we are to expect a general conversion of that nation I cannot say; but I am sure we ought to pray that the Jews may be converted.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Then said the Lord unto me,.... Or, as the…
Then said the Lord unto me,.... Or, as the Targum,
"the Lord said unto me again'';
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for the word yet or again is to be joined to this, and not the following clause; and shows that this is a new vision, prophecy, or parable, though respecting the same persons and things:
go, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress; not the prophet's wife, not Gomer, but some other feigned person; beloved either of her own husband, as the Targum and Jarchi, notwithstanding her unchastity and unfaithfulness to him; or of another man, as Aben Ezra, who had a very great respect for her, courted her, and perhaps had betrothed her, but had not yet consummated the marriage; and, though a harlot, loved her dearly, and could not get off his affections from her, but hankered after her; or of the prophet, as Kimchi, who paraphrases it,
"thou shall love her, and be to her a friend;''
to protect and defend her, as harlots used to have one in particular they called their friend, by whose name they were called, and was a cover to them. The sense is, that the prophet was to go to the people of Israel, and deliver this parable to them, setting forth their state and condition, and their behaviour towards God, and his great love to them, notwithstanding all their baseness and ingratitude; it was as if a woman that was either married or betrothed, or that either had a husband or a suitor that so dearly loved her, that though she was guilty of uncleanness, and continued in it, yet would not leave her; and which is thus expressed by the Targum,
"go, deliver a prophecy against the house of Israel, who are like a woman dear to her husband; and though she commits fornication against him, yet he so loves her that he will not put her away:''
according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel; or such is the love of the Lord to them; for though they were guilty of idolatry, intemperance, and other immoralities, yet still he loved them, and formed designs of grace and goodness for them. And thus, though God does not love sinners as such; yet he loves them, though they are sinners, and when and while they are such; as appears by his choice of them, and covenant with them, by Christ's dying for them while sinners, and by his quickening them when dead in trespasses and sins:
who look to other gods; or "though they look to other gods" (c); look to them and worship them, pray unto them, put their trust in them, and expect good things from them:
and love flagons of wine, or "tubs of grapes" (d); or of wine made of them; or lumps of raisins, cakes or junkets made of them and other things, as the Septuagint; and may respect either the drunkenness and intemperance of the ten tribes; see Isa 28:1, they loved, as Kimchi says, the delights of the world, and not the law and commandments of God; or the feasts that were made in the temples of their idols they loved good eating and drinking, and that made them like idolatry the better for the sake of those things; see Exo 32:6, for the Heathens used to eat and drink to excess at their sacrifices: hence Diogenes (e) the philosopher was very angry with those who sacrificed to the gods for their health, yet in their sacrifices feasted to the prejudice of their health.
(c) "quamvis respiciant", Piscator. (d) "dolia uvarum", Pagninus, Montanus, Zanchius; "soa", some in Drusius. (e) Laertius in Vit. Diogenis, p. 382.
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 On vv1–4 Another type of the spiritual whoredom of Israel, ver.…
Another type of the spiritual whoredom of Israel, ver. 1-3. The punishment of it, ver. 4. Their reformation, ver. 5.
Of her friend - Her husband. An adulteress - Either already tainted, or that certainly will be tainted with that vice. According to the love - Let this be the emblem of my love to the children of Israel. And love - Love the feasts of their idols, where they drink wine to excess.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–4 By the prophet's taking back his wife, for whom…
CHAPTER III
By the prophet's taking back his wife, for whom he (her friend
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or husband) still retained has affection, though she had proved
unfaithful; by his entering into a new contract with her; and
by his giving her hopes of reconciliation, after she should for
some time prove, as in a state of widowhood, the sincerity of
her repentance; is represented the gracious manner in which God
will restore the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, 1-4.
It is also very strongly intimated that the whole house of
Israel will be added to the Church of Christ in the latter
days, 5.
NOTES ON CHAP. III
Verse 1. Go yet, love a woman] This is a different command from that mentioned in the first chapter. That denoted the infidelity of the kingdom of Israel, and God's divorce of them. He gave them up to their enemies, and caused them to be carried into captivity. The woman mentioned here represents one who was a lawful wife joining herself to a paramour; then divorced by her husband; afterwards repenting, and desirous to be joined to her spouse; ceasing from her adulterous commerce, but not yet reconciled to him. This was the state and disposition of the Jews under the Babylonish captivity. Though separated from their own idols, they continued separated from their God. He is still represented as having affectionate feelings towards them; awaiting their full repentance and contrition, in order to renew the marriage covenant. These things are pointed out by the symbolical actions of the prophet.
Beloved of her friend] Or, a lover of evil; or, loving another: for the Hebrew words אהבת רע mean one who loves evil or a friend: because רע signifies a friend, or evil, according as it is pointed. The former seems to be its best sense here; רע rea is a friend; רע ra is evil.
According to the love of the Lord] This woman, who had proved false to her husband, was still beloved by him, though he could not acknowledge her; as the Israelites were beloved by the Lord, while they were looking after other gods. The flagons of wine were probably such as were used for libations, or drunk in idol feasts. Others think that the words should be translated cakes of dried grapes, sweet cakes, consecrated wafers.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Hos 3:1. Then said the Lord unto me, Go…
Hos 3:1. Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman — This is the literal meaning of the Hebrew עוד לךְ אהב אשׁה, and is the sense in which It is understood by the LXX., who read, ετι πορευθητι, και αγαπησον γυναικα; and by the Vulgate, which renders it, Adhuc vade et dilige mulierem. A different woman from the person whom he had espoused before seems evidently to be intended. Thus St. Jerome and St. Cyril of Alexandria understand the words, considering the connection here spoken of as a new one, formed after the dismission of Gomer; in which opinion they are followed by Estius, Menochius, Tirinus, and many other expositors. The injunction, Archbishop Newcome supposes, was given after the death of Hosea’s former wife. But if not, it was undoubtedly given after she was divorced, for her unfaithfulness to her husband; in consequence of which, according to the law, he could not take her back again. Beloved of her friend — That is, her husband. But the LXX. render the words, αγαπωσαν πονηρα, loving evil things; a reading which accords with that of the Arabic and Syriac, and is approved both by Archbishop Newcome and Bishop Horsley; the former of whom renders the clause, A lover of evil, and the latter, addicted to wickedness, observing, “I adopt the rendering of the LXX. and Syriac, which nothing opposes but the Masoretic pointing.” And an adulteress — That is, who had been such, and that not only in the spiritual sense, of forsaking God, but according to the carnal meaning of the term. According to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel — After the manner of Jehovah’s love for the children of Israel, who look to other gods, or, although they look to other gods, and are addicted to goblets of wine. So Bishop Horsley, who observes, that “children of Israel, and house of Israel, are two distinct expressions, to be differently understood. The house of Israel, and sometimes Israel by itself, is a particular appellation of the ten tribes, a distinct kingdom from Judah. But the children of Israel, is a general appellation for the whole race of the Israelites, comprehending both kingdoms. Indeed it was the only general appellation, before the captivity of the ten tribes; afterward, the kingdom of Judah only remaining, Jews came into use as the name of the whole race, which before had been the appropriate name of the kingdom of Judah. It occurs, for the first time 2 Kings 16., in the history of Ahaz. It is true, we read in Hos 1:11, of the children of Judah, and the children of Israel; but this is only an honourable mention of Judah, as the principal tribe, not as a distinct kingdom. And the true exposition of the expression is, ‘the children of Judah, and all the rest of the children of Israel.’ We find Judah thus particularly mentioned, as a principal part of the people, before the kingdoms were separated: see 2Sa 24:1; 1Ki 4:20; 1Ki 4:25. And yet, at that time, Israel was the general name, 1Ki 4:1.” The expression, And love flagons of wine, implies, that they loved to drink wine in the temples of their idols. They were wont to pour out wine to their false gods, and, it is probable, drank the remainder even to excess. The festivity, or rather dissoluteness, which was used by the heathen in the worship of their gods, seems to have been one principal thing that made the Israelites so fond of their rites of worship. Some think that the words, rendered here flagons, or goblets, of wine, should be translated cakes of dried grapes. The expression, according to the love of the Lord, &c., means, Let this be an emblem of my love to the children of Israel; or, By this I intend to let Israel know how I have loved them, and what returns they have made for my love. How great and constant my love has been to them, and how inconstant and insincere theirs has been to me. The words seem, in general, to express their leaving the service of the true God, and imitating the idolaters, in following after false gods, bodily delights and pleasures, as gluttony, drunkenness, and the like, which the service of idols did not only permit, but require.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Go yet, love a woman, beloved of her friend,…
Go yet, love a woman, beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress - This woman is the same Gomer, whom the prophet had before been bidden to take, and whom, (it appears from this verse) had forsaken him, and was living in adultery with another man. The “friend” is the husband himself, the prophet. The word “friend” expresses, that the husband of Gomer treated her, not harshly, but mildly and tenderly so that her faithlessness was the more aggravated sin. “Friend or neighbor” too is the word chosen by our Lord to express His own love, the love of the good Samaritan, who, not being akin, became “neighbor to Him who fell among thieves,” and had mercy upon him. Gomer is called “a woman,” in order to describe the state of separation, in which she was living. Yet God bids the prophet to “love her,” i. e., show active love to her, not, as before, to “take” her, for she was already and still his with, although unfaithful. He is now bidden to buy her back, with the price and allowance of food, as of a worthless slave, and so to keep her apart, on coarse food, abstaining from her former sins, but without the privileges of marriage, yet with the hope of being, in the end, restored to be altogether his wife. This prophecy is a sequel to the former, and so relates to Israel, after the coming of Christ, in which the former prophecy ends.
According to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel - The prophet is directed to frame his life, so as to depict at once the ingratitude of Israel or the sinful soul, and the abiding, persevering, love of God. The woman, whom God commands him to love, he had loved before her fall; he was now to love her after her fall, and amid her fall, in order to rescue her from abiding in it. His love was to outlive her’s, that he might win her at last to him. Such, God says, “is the love of the Lord for Israel.” He loved her, before she fell, for the woman was “beloved of her friend, and yet an adulteress.” He loved her after she fell, and while persevering in her adultery. For God explains His command to the prophet still to love her, by the words, “according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, while they look to other gods, literally, and they are looking.” The words express a contemporary circumstance. God was loving them and looking upon them; and they, all the while, were looking to other gods.
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Love flagons of wine - Literally, “of grapes,” or perhaps, more probably, “cakes of grapes,” i. e., dried raisins. Cakes were used in idolatry Jer 7:18; Jer 44:19. The “wine” would betoken the excess common in idolatry, and the bereavement of understanding: the cakes denote the sweetness and lusciousness, yet still the dryness, of any gratification out of God, which is preferred to Him. Israel despised and rejected the true Vine, Jesus Christ, the source of all the works of grace and righteousness, and “loved the dried cakes,” the observances of the law, which, apart from Him, were dry and worthless.
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 On vv1–4 Woman. This second woman denotes the penitent Israel, yet…
Woman. This second woman denotes the penitent Israel, yet not quite reconciled. The people in captivity are separated both from her idols and from God, though the latter still retains an affection for them. Osee does not marry this woman, but gives his word. We must not urge the parable too far. He acts as a figure of the Lord, who had received an outrage. (Calmet) --- Grace is still offered to sinners, whose persons are never hated by God. (Worthington) --- Husks. Septuagint, &c., "cakes made with grapes," for idols. (Theodoret; St. Jerome)
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).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Hosea 3
Hosea 3
The Love which Jehovah preserves towards the “Adulterous” People, and the Chastening in Love which He undertakes for their Conversion, again symbolically represented.
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1 Then said the Lord [And Jehovah said] unto me, Go yet,1 love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord [Jehovah] toward the children of Israel, who look [and they turn] to other gods, and love flagons of wine2 [raisin-cakes]. 2So I bought her3 to me for a homer of barley and a half-homer of barley. 3And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide [remain quiet] for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee. 4For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. 5Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord [Jehovah] their God, and David their king, and shall fear4 the Lord and his goodness in the latter days [shall tremble towards Jehovah and towards his goodness at the end of the days ].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Chapter 3 narrates a second symbolical action, in which the prophet has again to represent by his relations to a women the relation of God to Israel. But as regards this relation, that which is to be presented to the senses is essentially different from that which the symbolical action of chap. 1 was to present. There the sin of Israel was to be symbolized, with the judgment which Jehovah would inflict upon Israel for their idolatry. Here there is no distinct reference to these. It might be assumed of itself that a simple repetition of the comparison would be inadmissible. We must rather expect an advance. This is found when we consider that we are no longer at the beginning as in chap. i, but that the whole exposition, from Hos_2:1 onwards, lies between, and especially the section Hos_2:4 ff., where it is clearly stated that Israel will be deservedly punished, but only because of God’s love in order that they may by chastisement be led to return and secure his favor. This announcement is presupposed in our chapter, which naturally stands in close relation to chap. 1. But as the latter chapter forms a beginning, so also does it form a conclusion. For here we have not to do with the judgment, as such, which Israel has to suffer, the judgment of rejection, but with the symbolical declaration, that God loves Israel, must chasten them, but does so only out of love, only because He will not cast them off. The symbolizing of this love of God is shown expressly in Hos_3:1, to be the main object of this purely symbolical transaction, and the emphasis is therefore placed upon the command, to “love,” laid upon the prophet, which is inserted designedly. The sequel shows of what kind this love is, and what is its aim. Hos_3:1-3 describe the symbolical action. Hos_3:4-5 afford its explanation and inform us of its object.
Hos_3:1. And Jehovah said to me: go once more, etc. The reference to Hos_1:2 is clear even by the collocation of עוֹד and לֵךְּאֱהַב is essential, as already hinted, and therefore cannot be modified into a mere קח (Hos_1:2) [=take], on account of the עֹד לֵךְ, which expresses the repetition of the former action. It is only the הָלַךְ that needs to be repeated, in relation to the woman. But what the prophet is to do this time in respect to the woman is אהב. This must express not merely a disposition to love (for a command, and especially the command לֵךְ, would not agree with this, expressing as it does an outward act), but an attestation or effectuation of love. Yet this presupposes an inclination to love; in so far it is demanded of the prophet. For he is to represent the conduct of God, and in that his displays of love spring from a loving mind. The prophet is to love a woman who is not in the least worthy of love—to love whom one feels and can feel no desire. אשָׁה אהֻבת רֵעַ וּמנָאֶפֶת. Looking to the second epithet the sense is clear: committing adultery. Thus the prophet must marry an adulterous woman. This can scarcely be a woman who has been unfaithful to her marriage with another. It might be supposed, indeed, that she had been separated from her husband, and it would be difficult to love such a woman, as she gives no guarantee of her fidelity. But nothing is said of any such separation from another, and the tertium comparationis is just the fact that the prophet acts after the analogy of God, and therefore must love a woman who is unfaithful to her marriage with himself. But the difficulty lies in the indefiniteness of the time indicated by the part. מנאפת. Keil takes it to be future = who will become adulterous: naturally, if the woman is one who is first married to the prophet. But the difficulties which attend the explanation as future are less patent with Keil, for he regards קַח=אֱהַב, which, however, is arbitrary. If we take אֱהַב as אֱהַב, it is felt immediately that it cannot be simply a future adultery that is here meant. It is meant that love coexists with adultery at present existing, by which love is not destroyed, but rather is displayed to the adulteress as that which she had trifled with by her infidelity. Hence love is here rather something that is to follow. Only so is it the representative of the attitude of God which is here depicted. For God has indeed loved Israel, though He knew they would afterwards be unfaithful to Him. But it is not that which happened once that is to be exhibited by the prophet, but that which is now transpiring, the present conduct of God towards Israel (as in chap. 1 the present conduct of Israel towards God, as Keil there correctly remarks; see above). It is this, that God does not withdraw his love from a spouse who has been and still is unfaithful. Besides, the supposition of a future adultery on the part of a wife whom the prophet is to take, is not admissible according to what follows. For the prophet in fulfilling the command makes this impossible for her (Hos_3:3). And to suppose that she commits adultery in spite of this prohibition in Hos_3:3 is against Hos_3:4; for there a condition of Israel is described in which there is no longer adultery (idolatry). Finally, we may ask more generally, how we can call a woman who is to commit adultery at some future time, ?אּשָׁה מְנָאֶפֶת Therefore מנאפת is to be taken as a preterite or as a present = a woman who has been or is unfaithful to thee. And the conclusion is a necessary one, that a woman is supposed with whom the Prophet was already united. It would then be surprising, if it were quite forgotten in chap. 3 that a marriage of the prophet had already been described, and a new one were introduced. Such a broken, atomizing method of representation can hardly be imputed to a prophetic writer, especially as there is absolute necessity for understanding a reference to chap. 1 in the very matter in question. No, as our chapter presupposes the preceding in a general way, it presupposes chap. 1 specially; yet it naturally is not a repetition of the image, but an extension of it. There the prophet was commanded to marry a lewd woman (and to beget children by her). When such a woman is married she is no longer a whore, but an adulteress. For a woman, once characterized as אֵשֶׁת זְנוּנים, naturally retains that character, and when married will be אִשָׁה מְנָאֶפֶת. It is thus that she appears in chap. 3. And as first the prophet was to marry a whorish woman, so now he is to love the whorish woman as married, i.e., an adulterous wife. Compared with the other this is something higher, something new. The former was to exhibit a disturbed actual condition of things,—the existing inversion of the normal relations between God and Israel (and in the children the deserved punishment); the latter a comforting truth, the desired restitution of those relations. (We might add: As the unpropitious names of the children have been changed into their opposites, the same thing happens in a certain sense in the unpropitious marriage. There it was said: Thou must take a wife just because she is a whore, and so testify against Israel’s sin and of their rejection, and now: Thou must love her although she is an adulteress, and so testify of Israel’s hope). And as something essentially different is to be symbolized by this relation of the prophet to his wife, it is not to be wondered at—which cannot be denied,—that the form of the discourse is such that something altogether new appears to begin, or that it appears as though the prophet were now for the first time being brought into relations with this woman. We have here again an indication that we have not to do with real, actual events. A narrative of an actual marriage of the prophet is not given; he is only conceived of as standing in that relation, and since it is only a feigned condition of things, it can very well be viewed first from one side, and then, without any preparation, from another. The woman is naturally called אִשָּׁה, not חָאִשָּׁה. For the emphasis lies upon the predicates; his wife appears here as an adulterous woman = love (in thy wife) an adulterous woman. The absence of the article can therefore not be urged against the identity of this woman with the former. This identity is, in fact, only presupposed in the command of our chapter. The main point is that the Prophet may be thought of (1) as being already married, (2) as experiencing his wife’s adultery. No importance is attached to the person of the woman, for no actual event is described. If this were the case, a woman, living in wedlock with the Prophet, could not be spoken of as this one is here described. From this it is evident that we have here only the symbolizing of religious truth; as soon as this is accomplished the person of the woman possesses no further interest.
The suffix in אֶכּרֶהָ (Hos_3:2), also appears to allude to a well known woman, and this cannot be disposed of by Keil’s remark that the suffix refers simply to the woman mentioned in Hos_3:1. For according to Keil’s view a woman is only described in Hos_3:1; it is only said what kind of woman she is. This mere predicate of a woman whose person is as yet undefined cannot afterwards be supplied by a personal pronoun but only by: such a woman, or, since that expression is unknown to the Hebrew, by repeating the whole predicate: a woman beloved, etc., if her name were not to be given. The pers. pron. would presuppose that the person named in Hos_3:1 was already well defined, and not simply a person of the kind described. But this woman is further described as אֲהֻבַת רֵעַ, and that before the other predicate. The sense has been taken differently: (1) = beloved by a paramour, and therefore parallel with מנאפת, or the latter would express its consequence: beloved by a paramour, and so committing adultery. (2) “Since רֵע in Jer_3:20 denotes a husband but never an adulterous paramour,” the phrase is supposed = beloved by a husband and yet practicing adultery. But it is certainly incorrect to say that רע can be understood only of a husband and not of a paramour. It means paramour in Jer_3:1, at all events. It means simply: one with whom one has intercourse, a companion, and specially in the relations of love: one beloved (see the lexicons). The word does not determine whether the intercourse be lawful or not. Therefore the notion of the marriage relation must not be imported into the word, and we must remain by the sense: beloved one (friend, companion). If the marriage relation is indicated, רֵעַ is abstracted from this relation as such, and only its inner side, so to speak, the love that is felt in the married state, is brought into view. Now it is just this disposition of love that is to be emphasized in this connection, and therefore רֵעַ is chosen designedly. The word would thus be just as suitable used of illicit as of conjugal love. But it is especially in favor of the latter that, so far as the conduct of the woman is brought before us, she appears as the (guilty) subject of a love directed towards another, and is therefore to be represented actively, not passively, as the object of a love displayed by another; hence the passive expression: אֲהֻבַת רֵעַ, would give an unsuitable sense if it should mean: beloved by a paramour. Israel is essentially one who turns to paramours, runs after them unremittingly, while, on the other hand, Israel is the object of the Husband’s love from the beginning, and is here represented as receiving it. Therefore in the figurative presentation also the love is regarded as coming from, and being bestowed by the husband upon the wife. (It would be otherwise if we had a different punctation: אֹהֶבֶת). Hence the sense is: Love a woman, who, although beloved by her friend, has yet become an adulteress. Her sin is thus sharply stigmatized, that the love enjoined may appear in greater contrast to it and as something unmerited. This view of אִַהֻבַת רֵעַ shows all the more the untenableness of any reference to a woman whom the Prophet must now marry. For that phrase would then allude to some person who now appears for the first time. But what meaning would there be in the command: love a woman who will or is to be beloved by her husband, i.e., by thee? The notion would be more tolerable only if אהב be (with Keil) modified into קַח which is, however, certainly inadmissible. The words: as Jehovah loves the children of Israel, etc., indicate expressly that what the prophet is to do has a symbolical meaning, and declares also what that meaning is. For they are plainly not merely to be connected (Keil) with אהבת רע ומנאפת = (love) a woman who, although beloved by her husband, commits adultery, and who acts as does Israel, who was loved by God and yet, etc. It is more natural to refer them to the command which the prophet received. This command of God, in itself so surprising and exacting, receives by them its symbolical explanation. It is laid upon him only that he may thus exhibit the love of God, who loves his people and manifests that love, in spite of their unfaithfulness, and by the love enjoined upon him he is to represent and assure to the people this love of God. כְּאַחְבַת does not merely indicate the reason why the prophet is to love this woman, but it declares also how he is to do so: he must not merely “love” in the general, but must love after that definite manner in which Jehovah loves the children of Israel (which is shown immediately thereafter). And love raisin-cakes. These must have been connected in some way with idolatrous worship: they probably belonged to the offerings presented to the idols, and eaten at the idol-festivals. Hence we are to understand first an image of idol-worship, whose enticing dainties are contrasted with the hard and healthy fare of the serious religion of Jehovah. But this special feature of the worship is chosen in order to show the service to be something agreeing with the flesh, satisfying the sensual nature; which explains the more easily Israel’s apostasy, and at the same time includes a bitter reproach: “They forget their God for the sake of dainties.”
Hos_3:2-3. Then I purchased her for myself for fifteen silverlings, etc. In Hos_3:2 we necessarily find the fulfillment of the command of Hos_3:1, the אהב there enjoined. This is a guide to the exposition. With כֶּסֶף we must supply שֶׁכֶל:fifteen shekels of silver. Homer is the name of a dry measure = a cor, or ten baths or ten ephahs (see Eze_45:11), לֶתֶךְ = a half homer. Together = a homer and a half or fifteen ephahs. The money value of this quantity of barley cannot be determined; for it is arbitrary to suppose, because fifteen ephahs are mentioned along with fifteen shekels of silver, that therefore they are of equal value, and that an ephah of barley was worth an ephah of silver. An agreement of the numbers would then have been avoided; nothing would have been said of the fifteen ephahs, and an altogether different measure would have been given. Nothing is to be concluded from 2Ki_7:1-18, nor from Exo_21:32, if, indeed, the latter can be at all connected with this verse. It is supposed that the passage in Exodus affords the key to the understanding of our passage, and the thirty pieces of silver are sought here the more earnestly. Thirty pieces of silver are there stated to be the price of a slave, and it is supposed that the Prophet paid the same sum for the woman in order to symbolize the state of bondage from which God redeemed Israel. But Kurtz rightly rejects this explanation of the passage and its application to our verse, on the ground that there it is not the price of a slave that is alluded to, but the compensation allowed for a slave killed on account of the carelessness of another. In the latter case it was just as allowable and fitting to fix one and the same price without respect to age, sex, and constitution, as it would have been wrong and foolish to fix the market price under the same conditions. For in the former case (of killing) the responsibility was just the same no matter who the slave might be, a strong man, or a woman, or a decrepit or aged person. Zec_11:12 might better be compared. But this passage does not speak of the price of a slave, and besides, it is an arbitrary assumption that our passage speaks of thirty shekels’ worth. So we are shut up to an explanation of our passage from itself alone, and we have no sure ground for believing that a redemption from bondage is alluded to. On the other hand, we are not justified in assuming a purchase of the woman from her parents with the pieces of silver, etc., for “it cannot be shown that it was a custom with the Israelites to purchase the bride from her parents” (Keil). Keil therefore holds that the fifteen silverlings, etc., are something given to the woman. Of course it cannot be meant that the pieces of silver, etc., were given to the present paramour of the woman. Such an offering would be itself surprising: but we must also remember that the woman is not conceived of as being adulterously connected with a paramour. What now does וָאֶכְּרֶהָ mean? It is clear that the meaning “dig” is unsuitable here, for the explanation of Hengstenberg, from Exo_21:6; Deu_15:17, is strange and awkward. In Gen_50:5; Deu_2:6; Job_6:27; Job 40:30, it has the meaning: purchase, make a bargain; in the last two passages with עַל of the person or thing for or about which the bargain was made: in the first two with an accusative = to purchase, buy; in the first with לְ, of the person who is bought: in the second with בְּ, of the price paid. So also here: I purchased her to me for, etc. This certainly appears not to agree with our explanation of chap. 3, which we hold is concerned with a woman with whom the prophet is already married; but this contradiction is only apparent. For, though the woman is married to the prophet, she is yet an adulterous wife, and has therefore renounced her husband (compare Israel’s attitude towards God). If he “loves” her still, and would prove to her his enduring love, he must act towards her as one who weds a wife, he must purchase her, like a stranger, with a bridal gift. If this points to the guilt, the extreme estrangement of the woman, it shows also directly the endurance of the husband’s love that he should act thus, that he should treat as a bride a degraded, adulterous wife, from whom it would he most natural to cut himself entirely loose, that he should even give her a bridal present in opposition to all natural inclinations! Yet this is not a blind love, but it corresponds to the circumstances of the case (compare God’s attitude towards Israel), a love which involves a beneficial chastening. This is indicated in our verse. It is assuredly not without design that a production of nature forms part of the gift. It shows that it was intended for the support of life. It is probably indicated that the woman is not yet taken into the husband’s house; for such a gift would then have no meaning. Further, the bridal gift is such a one as the wife had the least right to claim or expect: a token that her husband loves her still and will not cut himself off wholly from her. And if this cannot be maintained with certainty, it is still probable (barley was among the ancients a food but little esteemed) that this whole present was not at all a rich one, but only barely sufficient, especially if we can assume that it was to last “many days.” Hos_3:3 gives additional information as to the action of the prophet described in Hos_3:2, יָמים רַבִּים, an indefinite period of long duration: the end will depend upon the conduct of the wife. תֵּשְׁבִי לִי. יָשַׁב=to sit, i.e., “to keep quiet. The לִי shows that such conduct was to be observed with reference to the husband, that he so disposes of her from love to her, in order to improve her and educate her to become his faithful wife.” יָשַׁב לִי therefore does not mean: dwell with me. What was remarked in Hos_3:2 proves this already, and the meaning of ver 4, especially, would not suit such a sense, for a relation of communion with God is here denied. The difficult words וְגַם אֲני אֵלַיךְ, are probably to be explained in a corresponding manner with the recent expositors: and I will be so towards thee, namely, observe the same conduct towards thee, i.e., have no conjugal intercourse with thee. Another explanation is: and I also will hold myself ready for thee, wait for thee, i.e., not take any other wife. This is possible in itself, but not suitable to Hos_3:4, which contains the explanation of Hos_3:3. For this verse contains only a negative thought (see on Hos_3:4). Therefore the sense of the whole is: The Prophet displays unmerited love towards his adulterous wife, according to the command אֱהַב for, like a bridegroom he again acquires her with a bridal gift. But this love has also for its object the improvement of the wife, and he therefore manifests his love in such a manner as to secure that end. He cares for her support, but limits her allowance that she may learn salutary humility. He naturally interdicts her adulterous habits, but does not at once resume his conjugal intercourse with her. This is therefore a manifestation of love of a disciplinary character, but still essentially of love,—just as is that of God toward Israel.
Hos_3:4. For many days will the children of Israel sit, etc. Hos_3:4 is the explanation (כִּי=for) of Hos_3:3. Three pairs of objects are named of which the children of Israel shall be deprived. King and prince—holders of the civil government, which will therefore cease in Israel. Also the worship will cease with it. This is represented by the two following, זֶבַח, sacrifice, and מַצֵּבָה, statues, defining the sense more closely. Besides these, two objects used as oracles are mentioned: the ephod, which was strictly the High-priest’s shoulder-garment, with the Urim and Thummim, which was put on or brought out when oracles were given. It is brought into view here evidently not in relation to the High-priest, but on account of its connection with oracles in general, as its use was imitated even by idolaters in worship (Jdg_17:5; Jdg_18:14; Jdg_18:17-18; Jdg_18:20). The תְּרָפִים were also used for the same purpose. They are equivalent to Penates (comp. Zech. 19:2; Eze_21:26), and in the passage cited from Judges are mentioned along with the ephod. Whether the sense is that Israel will have neither the worship of Jehovah nor idolatry, remains doubtful. For, according to what has been said, the ephod does not directly imply the worship of Jehovah; still less does זֶבַח. Probably the distinction between the two is not implied, but worship simply indicated. The condition of things is described as one of the deprivation of that which had been Israel’s support (king and prince) and joy and consolation (sacrifice, etc.); and the important fact is that idolatry should cease. This should be effected against Israel’s desire, would be a punishment like the cessation of their own government, civil independence; but the punishment is a chastening in love, a token that God had not forgotten Israel. It is true that this positive truth, of a manifestation of love, lies in the background in our verse, which wears a negative aspect. But this love was declared in Hos_3:1 to be the main thought, and in Hos_3:5 (whose purport, moreover, transcends the symbol) it appears quite clearly by the issue to be the object in view.
Hos_3:5. Afterwards will the children of Israel return:a post hoc which includes, however, clearly a propter hoc, i.e., the situation described in Hos_3:4 is an essential coöperating factor. Will seek Jehovah their God and David their king. “Seeking Jehovah their God is connected with seeking David their king. For as the apostasy of the ten tribes from the kingdom of David was only the consequence and result of its inner apostasy from Jehovah, so the true return to God could not take place without a return to their king David, since God had promised the kingdom to David forever in his seed (2Sa_7:13; 2Sa_7:16); thus David is the only true king of Israel—their king” (Keil). The family of David is probably primarily meant, and more strictly, a king of that family. The conclusion, “at the end of the days,” alludes to the Messianic period, according to prophetic usage elsewhere; hence we are justified in assuming the Messiah to be also meant here. Will tremble towards Jehovah.פָּחַד, to tremble; with אֶל it forms a pregnant expression: tremble hastening towards. It is a stronger expression for the preceding בִּקִּשׁ = seek with anxiety, since the needed help is found in the One sought; therefore sought with solicitude, although He assuredly will be found, because He is the seeker’s only dependence. This is thus the direct contrast to the former abandonment of Jehovah and seeking help in idols. What is sought in God is his goodness, especially in his gifts, of which they had been deprived (comp. Jer_31:12; Zec_9:17). On the end of the days see the preceding remarks. This is therefore the end of the “many days,” or the fuller explanation of אַחַר.
[The discussion given above of this chapter is so full and able, both as to its general purport and as to its special features, that no additions are necessary from any writer holding the identity of the woman here described with that of chap. 1. The force of some of the arguments employed is over-estimated, and others, as is readily perceived, are too largely based on mere speculation, yet the general results go to show the strong probability of the correctness of this hypothesis and of its consequences, where they affect the interpretation of individual passages. The recent English commentators agree with the majority of the moderns in holding this view. Newcome adopts the old opinion that the Prophet’s former wife (Gomer) had died in the interval. Noyes thinks that it is immaterial whether the women are identical or not. The fullness of the discussion of the several minor features of this short chapter precludes the necessity of additions from the remarks of Anglo-American expositors, which are, moreover, usually of a comparatively general nature. On some points, as, for example, the object of the “purchase” of the woman, and its symbolical meaning, the difficulties cannot be said to be yet satisfactorily solved.—M.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On the love of Jehovah to Israel, which endures in spite of all unfaithfulness, but does not forget to chasten, see the Introduction, and especially No. 1 in the Doctrinal and Ethical section attached to chap. 2.
2. A condition of things, such as that threatened in Hos_3:4, characterized the kingdom of the ten tribes when they were led away into exile by Assyria; and in this we can see a fulfillment, although nothing is said of any captivity, and in fact nothing of the manner in which the kingdom and worship should cease. It is very doubtful, to say the least, whether we can claim for the threatening a wider range, and make it apply also to the kingdom of Judah. Nothing can be adduced from the resemblance to the threatening which the Prophet Azariah uttered against Judah in the days of Asa (2Ch_15:2; 2Ch_15:4). For Hos_3:5 of our chapter points too clearly to the kingdom of the ten tribes, and no judgments are pronounced against Judah until the later chapters, which belong to a later period. The threatening goes hand in hand with the promise. The latter holds out, first of all, a return, which, according to the words: shall seek Jehovah their God, is to be taken as a contrast to the resort made to other gods (Hos_3:1). According to the promise they will also seek David their king. [See the passage quoted from Keil in the exegetical section.] The house of David is naturally the primary object of the reference. For in returning thither they acknowledge the divine right of David to the kingdom. This promise is shown here indubitably to be Messianic by the expression: “at the end of the days,” which “does not denote the future in general, but always the coming consummation of the kingdom of God, which begins with the advent of the Messiah.” (Keil.) We cannot, therefore, find the fulfillment in that which happened in the return from the Babylonian exile, apart from the consideration that that event affected mainly the kingdom of Judah, while here the kingdom of Israel is the subject of discourse; thus the promise was not then fulfilled. Hence the question is suggested here also: Since this promise was not fulfilled to Israel even with the coming of the Messiah, has it fallen to the ground, or is the fulfillment yet to be expected? According to what has been remarked under chap. 1, both questions are to be answered in the negative, and the answer rather is: The fulfillment has already begun in Him, in whom all the promises of God are Yea and Amen, but in another and far higher sense than the Prophet imagined, who saw the people of God in Israel alone. Separating the kernel from the husk, we must, upon the ground of the New Covenant, see the fulfillment in the gathering of a people of God around a descendant of David who was greater than David’s son,—around Christ. And so, though this is not the literal meaning of the promise, “King David” that one of David’s family who was to be sought after, is the Messiah. In this Son of David it is fulfilled, though not yet completely. The promise is still in course of fulfillment, and to its perfect fulfillment is specially necessary the universal conversion of Israel to Christ, but, as is natural, not merely the people of the ten tribes, here literally indicated.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Hos_3:1. Luther: Let us cease to fear the wrath and judgment of God on account of our sins, and believe what the Prophet says, that God is like a husband who, although he has been deserted by an adulterous wife and is angry thereat, is yet more impelled by mercy, than urged by the sin of the adulteress, and wins her back to hislove. And truly has the Prophet in two respects set forth great things. For, in the first place, he could not describe sin as being more dreadful than he here pictures it in the sin of the adulteress. And, again, he extols highly the love of God by this image, when he says that He is animated by love towards the adulteress.
[Pusey: His love was to outlive hers, that He might win her at last to Himself. Such, God says, is the love of the Lord for Israel.—M.]
[Hos_3:2. Matthew Henry: Those whom God designs honor and comfort for He first makes sensible of their own worthlessness, and brings them to acknowledge with the prodigal: “I am no more worthy to be called thy son.” Poverty and disgrace sometimes prove a happy means of making great sinners penitent. Comp. the Exegetical remarks.—M.]
Hos_3:4. Although it is a great punishment of God, that a government should be cast down, it is yet a much greater punishment that liberty should be taken away to serve God and teach his Word.
Luther: Hos_3:5. These are glorious words of the Prophet who thus combines God and Christ in worship, so that, when we call upon God, we should do so through Christ; when we hope in the mercy of God we hope through Christ that God would have mercy on us.
[Pusey: So God’s goodness overflows with beneficence and condescension, and graciousness and mercy and forgiving love, and joy in imparting Himself, and complacence in the creatures which He has reformed, and refound, redeemed, and sanctified for his glory. Well may his creatures tremble towards it with admiring wonder that all this can be made theirs!—M.]
Footnotes:
[1]Hos_3:1.—עוֹד might, especially to gain a relation to תְּחִלַּת (Hos_1:2), be connected with וַיּאֹמֶר. But there is no sufficient ground for a change in the accentuation. The reference to Hos_1:2 is clear by the connection with לֵךְ.
[2][Hos_3:1.—The translation of the last two words of Hos_3:1, in E. V.: “flagons of wine,” which is that of Junius, Tremellius, and others, and the various other renderings, have not been due to different readings, but to misconceptions of the meaning of אַשִׁישֵׁי. The only variation of reading seems to have been that held by Aquila, who translates: παλαιὰ, having read יְשִׁישֵׁי.—M.]
[3][Hos_3:2.—וָאֶכְּרֶהָ has here daghesh-forte separative. See Green, Gr., § 24 b; Ewald, § 90 c (b); Böttcher, § 229, 3; 399 b (1). Note the repetition of שְׂעֹרִים as characteristic of the Hebrew. It might be better to avoid the like construction in English, as many have done, by rendering: a homer-and-a-half of barley. See the exposition.—M.]
[4]Hos_3:5.—פחדו וג is a pregnant construction: tremble (and come) toward Jehovah and toward his goodness.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–4 I bought her--The price paid is too small to…
I bought her--The price paid is too small to be a probable dowry wherewith to buy a wife from her parents; but it is just half the price of a female slave, in money, the rest of the price being made up in grain (Exo 21:32). Hosea pays this for the redemption of his wife, who has become the slave of her paramour. The price being half grain was because the latter was the allowance of food for the slave, and of the coarsest kind, not wheat, but barley. Israel, as committing sin, was the slave of sin (Joh 8:34; Rom 6:16-20; Pe2 2:19). The low price expresses Israel's worthlessness.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–3 RESTORATION OF THE OUTCAST WIFE AND OF THE OUTCAST…
RESTORATION OF THE OUTCAST WIFE AND OF THE OUTCAST PEOPLE, Hos_3:1-5.
In the introductory remarks to Hos_2:2-23, it was stated that chapter iii is the natural continuation of Hos_1:1-9; it is so, however, not in the sense that the events recorded in Hos_3:1 ff., followed immediately upon the birth of Lo-ammi (Hos_1:9), for in chapter 1 nothing is said about the departure of Gomer from the house of Hosea, which is presupposed in Hos_3:1. The connecting link is easily supplied. Gomer is thought to have fled from her husband’s home, evidently to devote herself more freely to her shameful practices; Hos_3:2 seems to imply that she had become the slave concubine of another. Impelled by love and a divine impulse the prophet proceeds to buy her back.
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1. Go yet [“again”] — Connects this command with the one in Hos_1:2 (Zec_1:17; Zec_11:15).
Love — As Hos_3:2 shows, practically equivalent to take a wife (Hos_1:2); the verb is selected because the emphasis throughout is upon the love of Jehovah, and to indicate the character of the new union. By his love the prophet is to overcome the evil tendencies.
A woman — The symbolism, the form of expression, and every other consideration make it certain that this woman is Gomer. Were it another the symbolic act would suggest that Jehovah was about to select another spouse in the place of Israel, which is contrary to the thought of Hosea.
Beloved of her friend — Or simply, of another. Though she is fickle, and readily accepts the love of another, the prophet is to take her back. LXX. reads the active participle “loving,” which gives good sense; but evil for a friend is no improvement.
Adulteress — Such she had become by allowing others to bestow their love upon her. The task imposed upon the prophet was indeed great. According to the love of Jehovah toward [“even as Jehovah loveth”] the children of Israel — The prophet forgave his faithless wife because Jehovah forgave his faithless spouse, Israel; the attitude of Jehovah taught the prophet his own duty in the matter. It is undoubtedly equally true that his own domestic experience enabled Hosea to understand more completely the attitude of Jehovah to his people, an attitude of intense love, though they look to other gods — That is, the Baalim (Hos_2:5; Hos_2:13).
Flagons of wine — More correctly, R.V., “cakes of raisins”; literally, of (dried) grapes. These are loved not by the gods, but by the Israelites. The reference is to cakes used in connection with the sacrifices (Jer_7:18), partly as offerings to the deity and partly in the feasts accompanying some of the sacrifices. Of this luxury the Israelites were fond; this fondness is used here as illustrating their love for things connected with the worship of the Baalim.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 1. Go yet, love] Rather, Once more go love,…
1. Go yet, love] Rather, Once more go love, indicating that the narrative dropped at Hos_1:9 is now resumed. (Notice also in this connexion the change of the third person into the first in chap. 3) It is the same woman who is meant; otherwise a different form of expression would have been used (like that in Hos_1:2), besides which the allegory would have been spoiled had there been two women concerned. Gomer is throughout the symbol of faithless but not forsaken Israel. The narrative is told in a condensed allusive style, which makes some demand on the imagination of the reader. If Gomer is to be taken back, it is clear that she must have left her husband, and the price at which (Hos_3:2) she has to be brought back shews that she had fallen into depths of misery.
beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress] Rather, beloved of a paramour, and an adulteress. As if Jehovah had said, Love her just as she is; the definition is added for the reader’s sake, to show how great an act was demanded of Hosea, like ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest’ (Gen_22:2). For the rendering ‘paramour’, comp. Jer_3:20; Lam_1:2.
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who look …] Rather, whereas they (on their side) turn.
flagons of wine] Rather, cakes of grapes. Cakes of dried grapes were common articles of food, mentioned with cakes of figs, bread, and wine, and parched corn (1Sa_25:18). The cakes here mentioned, however, must have been of a superior kind; they bear a different name, and appear from Isa_16:7 (corrected translation) to have been considered as luxuries. They formed part of David’s royal bounty on the removal of the ark to Jerusalem (2Sa_6:19), or more correctly of the sacrificial feast implied by the context. This latter point is interesting as it suggests that Baal-worship was closely related to the festivities of the vintage (Prof. Robertson Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, p. 434). Hosea too seems to refer to these cakes in connexion with the sacrificial feasts, not without a touch of sarcasm.
I bought her to me] Why Hosea had to buy his wife back from her paramour, does not appear; had he lost his rights over her by her flight and adultery? Perhaps it was simply to avoid an altercation with the adulterer, or we may imagine such a scene as is depicted by Dean Plumptre in his poem Gomer’ (Lazarus p. 87). The view of Pococke and Pusey that Hosea means to explain how he undertook to allow his wife just sufficient for a decent maintenance till she should be reinstated in her full position, accounts no doubt for grain being given as well as money, but does violence to the letter of the text, as there is no sufficient proof of the rendering ‘I provided her with food’.
for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley] In 2Ki_7:18 two seahs of barley are rated at a shekel. This however was immediately after the siege of Samaria had been raised; the normal rate would probably have been lower, say three seahs at a shekel, so that a homer (= 30 seahs) would have cost ten shekels and a homer and a half fifteen. The total price paid by Hosea would therefore be thirty shekels (about £ 3. 15s.) the average value of a slave (see Exo_21:32). Why it was paid partly in money, partly in kind, cannot be determined. Hosea only tells us enough to make the allegory intelligible. Gomer in her misery is a type of Israel in her unhappy alienation from her God.
a half-homer] Strictly, a lethech. The Sept. has ‘a bottle of wine’ (νέβελ οἴνου). Probably the translator was unacquainted with the ‘lethech’, which was apparently not a primitive measure. Its precise relation to the homer is uncertain; A.V. however is borne out by the Jewish tradition. There is nothing analogous to it in the Egyptian dry measure, which in other details agrees exactly with the Hebrew (Révillout, Revue égyptologique 11. 190).
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 On vv1–4 (1) Adulteress.—The woman described here is the daughter of…
(1) Adulteress.—The woman described here is the daughter of Diblaim—beloved of her friend; better rendered, loved by another. This is preferable to the LXX., “a lover of evil,” which is based on a different reading of the same original text. Gomer is now the concubine slave of another—possibly in poor and destitute condition. And yet the prophet’s love for her is like Jehovah’s love for “the children of Israel, even when they are turned to other gods, and love grape-cakes”—the luscious sacrificial cakes used in idolatrous worship: a term generally descriptive of the licentious accompaniments of the Ashtoreth worship. (Comp. Jer_7:18.)
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 On vv1–4 This short chapter contains two sections, of which the…
This short chapter contains two sections, of which the first, comprising vers. 1-3, is a symbolic representation; and the second, consisting of vers. 4 and 5, gives the explanation. The prophet bestows his affections on a worthless wife, who, notwithstanding his tender love to her, proves utterly unfaithful and lives in adultery. He does not cast her off, but, in order to reclaim her and bring her to repentance, he places her in a position of restraint, where she is obliged to renounce all intercourse with her paramours. Thus it was with Israel. They had had multiplied experience of God"s loving-kindness and tender mercies, but in spite of all his benefits, great and manifold, they were alike ungrateful and unfaithful. The remainder of the chapter foretells the long and sorrowful abandonment of Israel, as though forgotten by God and forsaken by man; and closes with an outlook into the far-off future, when Israel"s correction would issue in their conversion, so that they would return to the Lord their God and David their king in the latter days.
The general meaning of this verse is well given in the Chaldee Targum: "Go, utter a prophecy against the house of Israel, who are like a woman very dear to her husband, and who, though she is unfaithful to him, is nevertheless so greatly loved by him that he is unwilling to put her away. Such is the love of the Lord towards Israel; but they turn aside to the idols of the nations." The word mr is in contrast with techillath, as the second part of Jehovah"s continued discourse. It is erroneously and, contrary to the accents, constructed with "said" by Kimchi and others (Ewald considers it admissible, Umbreit preferable). Kimchi"s comment on this verse is: "After the prophet finished his words of consolation, he returns to words of censure, turning to the men of his own time. And it is the custom of the prophets to intermingle reproofs with consolations in their discourses. But he says yet (again), because he had already commanded him to marry a wife of whoredoms, and now he speaks to him another parable." This time he does not employ the ordinary and usual word "take," but "love." plainly implying that he had already married her, so that her unfaithfulness took place in wedlock; or rather indicating the object of the union. Beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress. Her friend or companion is
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(1) her lawful husband, but contemporaneously and continuously with her husband"s love to her are her adulteries with others, as is implied by the participles.
(2) re, being indefinite as not having article or suffix, is understood by some to be an acquaintance or lover, and preferred, as a milder term, to bheam. The contrast was realized in Jehovah"s love for Israel, notwithstanding their spiritual adultery in worshipping other gods. According to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel who look (turn) to other gods. Two expressions in this clause recall, if they do not actually reflect, the words of two older Scriptures; thus in Deu_7:8 we read, "Because the Lord loved you;" and in Deu_31:18, "They are turned unto ether gods.
(3) The LXX has gunaika agapwsan ponhra , having probably read r tbhao. And love flagons of wine (margin, grapes). The term ashishe, according to Rashi and Aben Ezra, means "bowls," that is, "bowls of wine" (literally, "of grapes"). They probably connected the word with the root shesh, six, a sextorius, and hence any other wine-vessel. The Septuagint, however, renders the word pemmata meta stafidov , "cakes with dried grapes." This meaning is to be preferred, whether we derive the word from vvai, to press together, or from vae, fire; according to the former and correct derivation, the sense being cakes of grapes pressed together; according to the latter, cakes baked with fire. Gesenius differentiates the word from qWMxi, dried grapes, but not pressed together into a cake, and from hlbeD, figs pressed together into a cake. These raisin-cakes were regarded as luxuries and used as delicacies; hence a fondness for such indicated a proneness to sensual indulgence, and figuratively the sensuous service belonging to idol-worship.
Vers. 1-3. God"s mercifulness and Israel"s sinfulness are brought into contrast.
Some are disposed to regard the woman mentioned in this chapter as identical with Gomer, whom the prophet had previously made his wife; and that she had in the mean time forsaken her husband the prophet, and had formed an adulterous connection with another man: while others regard the command of God to the prophet and his conduct in compliance therewith in the light of a new transaction with a different individual. In either case the whole is not an actual occurrence, but only a symbolical representation.
I THE LESSONS OF THIS CHAPTER ARE MIDWAY BETWEEN THE PUNISHMENT THREATENED AND THE PROMISE VOUCHSAFED. Calvin has plainly pointed out the position of this chapter in the series of God"s dealings with Israel. "It was God"s purpose," he says, "to keep in firm hope the minds of the faithful during the exile, lest, being overwhelmed with despair, they should wholly faint. This prediction occupies a middle place between the denunciation of the prophet previously pronounced, and the promise of pardon. It was a dreadful thing that God should divorce his people and cast away the Israelites as spurious children; yet a consolation was afterwards added. But lest the Israelites should think that God would immediately, as on the first day, be so propitious to them as to visit them with no chastisement, it was the prophet"s design expressly to correct this mistake; as though he said, "God will indeed receive you again, but in the mean time a chastisement is prepared for you, which by its intenseness would break down your spirits, were it not that this comfort will ease you, and that is that God, although he punishes you for your sins, yet continues to provide for your salvation, and to be as it were your Husband.
II GOD"S LOVE TO ISRAEL UNMERITED AS WELL AS UNREQUITED. The prophet"s treatment of the woman whom he was to take or had taken to be his wife evinced extreme forbearance and exceeding tenderness. He loved her before her fall, this was natural enough; he loved her during and notwithstanding her fall, this was not to be expected; he continued to love her after her fall, this is contrary to all the ordinary feelings and instincts of humanity. This continued affection was designed, as it was calculated, to win her back from the error and evil of her ways. But where is the man who under ordinary circumstances would act so? Where is the husband that would treat a worthless wife with such mildness and compassion? But what man cannot find in his heart to do, what man cannot bring himself to do, God does in his treatment of Israel and in his dealings with sinners in general; For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Notwithstanding all God"s love to his people Israel, from the very commencement of their national existence they showed a special proneness to apostasy, readily and recklessly turning aside to idolatrous worship; yet God"s love continued through it all, and outlived it all. It was love to the unlovable and unloving, to the undeserving and ungrateful; the current of his love runs on like the river broad and deep, which never ceases in its course till its waters form part of" the shining levels of the sea.
III THE ACCOMPANIMENTS OF IDOLATRY HAVE A SEDUCTIVE TENDENCY. Idolatry was usually associated with voluptuousness and sensuality; and indulgences of this sort tended, no doubt, to attract many votaries, and served as inducements to idol-worship. Whether we" take flagons of wine" to be the right rendering of the original, as the Authorized Version does, or rather "raisin-cakes," the nature of the attraction will be much the same fondness for self-indulgence. The Levitical priests were forbidden the use of wine when they ministered before the Lord; the Nazarites were total abstainers all the time of their vow; but the worshippers of idols priests and people alike am represented as drinking bowls or flagons of wine. Raisin-cakes, sweet and luscious, formed parts of idolatrous repasts, and served as appetizing morsels in idol-feasts and for idol-worshippers. How like the seductive pleasures of sin in general! But they neither last long nor satisfy while they do last. The meat offerings of Mosaic ritual were of a severer sort, and less calculated to gratify the taste and please the palate.
IV THE MERCIFUL PROVISION MADE FOR ISRAEL IN THE SEASON OF HER SEPARATION. If the prophet had already espoused the woman whom he is directed to love, the pieces of silver and measures of barley could neither be dowry, nor purchase, nor present in any proper sense. How, then, are we to understand the matter? Probably we may regard the expenditure here indicated as a suitable allowance for her support a sufficient maintenance for her during the period of her separation from her husband. She may now be conceived as living apart from her husband shut out a mensa eta thoro, as it is said, and so deprived of her proper means of subsistence. During this sad state of things, which her own guilt has brought about, she is still the prophet"s wife, and neither forgotten nor forsaken by him. True, in one way she is unpitied and undeserving of pity, because of her vileness, yet in another she is not entirely bereft of her husband"s affection; in spite of her grievous departure from the path of rectitude and virtue, his love follows her, still striving for her reformation and yearning for her restoration. Meantime he provides her with nearly fifty bushels of barley for food, and with nearly two pounds sterling in cash for raiment and other necessaries of life. The money and grain together would afford a sufficient, though not very sumptuous, support. Thus God"s treatment of his Israel is symbolized. Though they were separated by sin from his immediate presence, and though they had forfeited his favors and proved themselves unworthy of his love, yet he has not entirely and finally cast them off. His eye still rests upon them; his mercy provides for them in their state of isolation; they are deprived indeed of the honor and dignity they once enjoyed and might still have retained, and they possess no longer the means of living in luxury and splendor as aforetime, yet they are allowed the necessary means of subsistence and a humble maintenance, with the prospect and for the purpose of their ultimate restoration to full favor, and unstinted possession of all the benefits and blessings still in store for them.
V ISRAEL"S SOLITARY AND SEQUESTERED STATE. She is doomed to sit in solitary widowhood. Restrained from all licentious intercourse on the one hand, she is not restored to conjugal rights on the other. She was not to be a harlot, neither was she to be a husband"s. That husband, however, still regards himself bound to her, and while she abides for him he promises her a like return: "So will I likewise be to thee-ward." He would stilt have regard to her and respect for her; feelings of kindness would animate him towards her; his guardian care and watchful providence would still be exercised on her behalf and for her benefit. The meaning and application of ver. 3 is well given in the following comment: "He, his affections, interest, thoughts, would be directed towards her. The word "towards" expresses regard, yet distance also. Just so would God, in those times, withhold all special tokens of his favor, covenant, providence; yet would he secretly uphold and maintain them as a people, and withhold them from failing wholly from him into the gulf of irreligion and infidelity." Sin is the cloud that darkens our sky and shuts out the bright light of our heavenly Father"s countenance; yet behind the dark cloud of afflictive providences he hides a shining face.
VI THE CONDITIONS OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD MAKES WITH HIS PEOPLE.
1. We see here the Divine considerateness. God might have made out a bill of divorce, and dismissed them at once and forever. He does not deal with us with the rigor of law or in the strictness of justice, but according to the multitude of his tender mercies and loving-kindnesses.
2. The condition he proposes to us is that we be to him a people, and he will be to us a God. When punished for sin it is wise and well to justify God"s ways with us; we must wait with patience, and that perhaps for many days, until God again lift on us the light of his countenance. But besides all this, we must not turn again to folly, as Israel was strictly enjoined to eschew harlotry in the future; in other words, to shun every form of idolatry in all time to come. So, in dependence on Divine grace, we must resolve to follow the Lord fully, not wandering in the wilderness, not worshipping the idols of our own pride, or passion, or sensuality, or sin of any sort, and never more to go a-whoring from our God.
3. Another condition of the covenant between the sovereign and his once rebel but now repentant subjects is implied in this passage, and well stated in the following words: If they will be for God to serve him, he will be for them to save them. Let them renounce and abjure all rivals with God for the throne in the heart and devote themselves entirely to him, and him only, and he will be to them a God all-sufficient. If we be faithful and constant to God in a way of duty, and will never leave nor forsake him, he will be so to us in a way of mercy, and will never leave nor forsake us.
HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN Vers. 1-5. Hosea detains Gomer in seclusion.
This chapter, like Ho 1, is written in prose; all the other twelve being rhythmical. It deals, as Hosea 1. does, with the personal life of Hosea, giving one further glimpse of the bitter domestic sorrow by which God made him a prophet. The same wonderful providence which had led him to marry Gomer at the first now impelled him to rescue her from the wretchedness into which she had fallen. And his own quenchless love for his erring wife became a parable to him of Jehovah"s infinite compassion towards Israel.
I HOSEA"S NEW RELATION TO GOMER. (Vers. 1-3) For we take the "woman" here to be Gomer, and "her friend" to be the prophet, her husband. After she had borne him three children, (Hos_1:3-9) she fell into adultery and forsook him. It would seem, too, that she by-and-by became the slave of her paramour. But Hosea, as he sat in his blighted home, thought of poor Gomer with compassionate tenderness. She was still "beloved of her friend." He felt that he must seek her out, and say to her (as King Arthur said to Guinevere), "I loathe thee, yet I love thee." He resolved to buy her back. Her ransom cost him in money only one-half of the ordinary price of a female slave; the rest of the payment being made in barley the usual coarse food of the class to which she now belonged. The inexpensiveness of the ransom shows to what a depth of degradation Gomer had fallen. This was so great, indeed, that the prophet could not at once restore her to her place at his table, or to the other rights of a dutiful wife. He will bring her home at first only as his ward. He will protect her from her sins. He will test her penitence by a lengthened probation, looking forward, however, to the time when the "receiving" of her again shall be as "life from the dead" to his long-widowed heart. It is pleasant to think of Gomer as not only rescued from her sinful courses, and by-and-by restored to her earthly husband, but as eventually also won back to the love of Jehovah. It is delightful to cherish the hope that the three children too became God"s; their original names being purged of their vile associations, and becoming suggestive of spiritual blessing (Jezreel, Ruhamah, Ammi), so that "When soon or late they reached that coast, O"er life"s rough ocean driven, They would rejoice no wanderer lost A family in heaven! (Burns.)
II THE SYMBOLIC MEANING OF THIS NEW RELATION. (Vers. 1, 4, 5) Generally, it is a sign of Jehovah"s love towards Israel, notwithstanding her idolatry and sensuality (ver. 1). It reflects the debasement, to which sin leads, the discipline which God metes out to the penitent, and the irrevocable covenant of love which he makes with those who return to him. Hosea"s family history stands out as a picture and a prediction. In particular, his new relation to Gomer foreshadowed:
1. Israel"s long seclusion. (Ver. 4) Although the primary reference of the passage is to the ten tribes, the prophecy really embraces the whole Hebrew nation. God has not utterly rejected Israel; she is still "a people near unto him;" but he does not meantime dwell with her as of old. The specific features of her seclusion are noted in the six "withouts" of the verse, and these arrange themselves naturally into three pairs. The whole representation strikingly describes what has been the actual condition of the Jewish nation during the last eighteen hundred years.
(1) Without civil polity. It had been a passion with Israel to have a king. But within three generations after the Lord gave Hosea this oracle, the tea northern tribes were "without a king, and without a prince." And when at last "Shiloh" came, "the scepter" finally "departed from Judah" also. That was a memorable day on which the spiritual leaders of the nation professed so emphatically their willing subjection to the world-power: "We have no king but Caesar"; (Joh_19:15) but during all the subsequent centuries Jerusalem has "sat solitary," and "is become as a widow.
(2) Without temple service. The temple was the center of the Hebrew religious system. When it was destroyed the Mosaic ritual collapsed. Such worship as the Jews now offer is conducted "with maimed rites." How sad that they should be "without a sacrifice"! Sacrifice was the very soul of the Hebrew worship. Every sinner needs a sacrifice of atonement before he can stand in God"s gracious presence; but the poor Jew, who still clings to the old covenant, has none. It follows that he is also "without an ephod." The ephod was part of the dress of the high priest. In the breast of it were the Urim and Thummim, by which Jehovah gave responses. But now, alas! to the Jew the oracles are dumb." He has no altar, no priest, no access!
(3) Without gross idolatry. In Hosea"s time the nation was attempting to combine the worship of Jehovah and of the Baalim; but the Lord tells him that for "many days" the people shall be without any god, true or false. They shall be "without an image," i.e. any public monument of idolatry such as the two golden calves were. And "without teraphim," i.e. those portable household gods which were sometimes kept as tutelary deities, and worshipped as the givers of earthly prosperity. It is a fact that ever since the Assyrian exile the Hebrew nation have not been able to endure any gross idolatry. They doubtless break the first commandment after the more refined fashion of civilized peoples; many Jews, e.g., are money-lovers, and "covetousness is idolatry." But they have been at least free from the guilt of setting up an image" or of worshipping "teraphim." Israel was to abide many days" in this long seclusion; and it has already lasted for two millenniums. During all that period the Jewish nation has been the miracle of history. Its situation since Christ came is one of the most convincing of the external evidences of Christianity. And that situation shall continue until Messiah, the Prince of the house of David, shall assemble all the children of Jacob under his spiritual scepter.
2. Israel"s final restoration. (Ver. 5) This is to take place "afterward the latter days," i.e. in gospel times, and as one of "the last things" of the Christian dispensation. Both Jewish and Christian commentators understand by "the latter days" the Messianic economy, which was to be ushered in by the advent of the Messiah himself. The restoration shall be characterized by:
(1) Religious earnestness. They shall "seek Jehovah their God," and make the most assiduous efforts to find him. The Jews as a nation are not yet doing this. It is true, doubtless, that there are many devout families among them many who cherish the deep piety which Sir Walter Scott has expressed so beautifully in his Hymn of the Hebrew Maid," in " Ivanhoe." But among the cultured Jews much skepticism prevails. Many are pantheists, like the eminent Jew Spinoza. And among the mercantile Jews there is often an excessive devotion to wealth, together with indifference to all religion. "In the latter days," however, the Hebrew nation shall diligently "seek Jehovah their God.
(2) Loyalty to King Jesus. They shall resume also the allegiance to the royal line of David which the ten tribes renounced when they apostatized from Jehovah under Jeroboam I The Jewish rabbis themselves acknowledge that "David" in this verse means the Messiah. But Christendom is persuaded that he began to reign eighteen hundred years ago, and that he is reigning still. Jesus of Nazareth is "the Root and the Branch of David." His birth Gabriel announced beforehand to his mother; (Luk_1:32, Luk_1:33) and Israel, at the time of her restoration, shall accept that angelic oracle and rejoice in it.
(3) Holy reverence for her Divine Husband. Israel "shall fear Jehovah and his goodness." She shall have such a grateful remembrance of his loving-kindness in forgiving her adultery as shall constrain her to the most vigilant obedience. In the latter days" her heart shall say Amen" to the devout sentiment of the ancient psalm, There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared". (Psa_130:4) She shall find that to know the Lord (Hos_2:20) and to partake of "his goodness" are blessings inseparable from each other.
CONCLUSION. The threatened isolation of Israel has been abundantly fulfilled; and shall not also the promised restoration? If ver. 4 has already become matter of history, and so very marvelously, may we not expect that ver. 5 shall also, in the Lord"s time? We are sure that it shall. Jehovah"s promise must be fulfilled. Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! C.J.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Ver. 1. "The love of the Lord toward the children of Israel.
This exquisitely beautiful phrase comes in the midst of a passage of the most painful and distressing character. As a fend husband may tenderly love his wife, even though she abandon herself to a course of infidelity and profligacy, so the God of Israel is represented as cherishing towards his people, even in their defection and apostasy, the sincerest compassion, the most invincible affection.
I. HOW THE LOVE OF THE LORD TO ISRAEL WAS FIRST DISPLAYED.
1. In their selection from amongst the nations of the earth as the object of his special favor and calling.
2. In the communication to them of peculiar advantages and privileges. They were the depositaries of his truth, the conservators of his worship.
II How THE LOVE OF THE LORD TO ISRAEL WAS TRIED AND TESTED.
1. By their forgetfulness of him.
2. By their neglect of his ordinances.
3. By their rejection of his messengers and prophets.
4. By their addictedness to idolatry.
5. By their violation of his commandments.
6. By their blasphemy of his Name.
III HOW THE LOVE OF GOD ENDURED AND TRIUMPHED IN THE TEST TO WHICH IT WAS SUBJECTED.
1. Israel was spared, although deserving abandonment to destruction.
2. Promises of grace were addressed, when threats of desertion were to be expected.
3. Opportunity of repentance and reconciliation was afforded, and Israel was entreated not to abuse it. T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR Vers. 1-5. Love to the adulteress.
It has been shown in Hosea 2 that the punishment of Israel is designed to work for the nation"s moral recovery. A new symbol is accordingly employed to set forth this aspect of the truth; as formerly the punitive aspects of God"s dealing with the nation had been exhibited in the symbols of Ho 1. The symbol is again drawn from the prophet"s relations to his wife.
I THE PROPHET"S CONTINUED LOVE FOR HIS UNFAITHFUL WIFE. (Ver. 1) Gomer, adhering to her adulterous courses, had apparently left her husband, and had sunk to a condition of great wretchedness. The prophet, however, had not lost his love for her. She was still a woman "beloved of her friend," i.e. her husband. His love was the more remarkable that it is rarely a husband retains his love for an adulterous wife. Hosea, it may be inferred, felt that there was something uncommon in his relations with this woman. He did not, therefore, renounce her when she abandoned him. He still cherished towards her a husband"s affection; retained his love for her, though unworthy; followed her in her devious ways with a pure, steadfast, unalterable, and wholly disinterested regard. In this his love became a fit image of Jehovah"s love "toward the children of Israel." It was the image of it then, while the kingdom of Israel stood, and the people were zealous in their pursuit of" other gods;" and it would be still more the image of it when the threatenings of the previous chapter had taken effect, and the people were eating the bitter fruits of their sins. Is it not also the image of God"s love to the sinful world as a whole? We had departed from him, and had bestowed our affections adulterously on the creature; but he did not on this account cease to love us, he saw us lost, sinful, and degraded; but he still looked on us with pity, and sought opportunity for our recovery. He so loved us that he gave his Son as the price of our salvation. This love of God to sinners finds no explanation in the nature of its objects. It is love to the unworthy, to the wicked, to the ungrateful; a love, therefore, entirely pure, self-caused, unbought, and disinterested. How warmly should our love go back to him who has thus loved us!
II THE PROPHET"S TREATMENT OF HIS WIFE. (Vers. 2-4) Consider here:
1. The condition in which he found her. It was a very deplorable one. She had sunk so low that it became necessary to "buy" her. The price paid fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley seems the equivalent of the price of a slave. If so, it is an additional token of her deeply humbled state. Either
(1) she had sunk to the condition of a slave, and required to be redeemed out of it; or
(2) "it was perhaps an allowance, whereby he brought her back from her evil freedom, not to live as his wife, but to be honestly maintained, until it should be fit completely to restore her" (Pusey). Barley was the coarsest food, so that, if maintenance was the object, her condition was still a hard and unenviable one. In this see a picture of the state to which sin reduces those who follow after it. It is a picture true to the life as respects the state to which sin reduced Israel But it is surely not less true in the representation it gives of the results of a life of sin generally. The sinner, in beginning his career, promises himself liberty and happiness. He cheats himself with the belief that he is taking the true way to obtain these objects of universal desire. How soon he finds out his mistake! He obtains neither of the things he wishes. The pleasure he found in his vices soon dies out. His means are squandered. Friends desert him. His character, reputation, influence, are gone. He finds himself the victim of evil habits, perhaps of disease. He has lost his own self-respect. He feels that he has forfeited the respect of others. What remains for him but poverty and disgrace; or perhaps a life of crime? The whole history is depicted in the memorable parable of the prodigal the beginning, waste of substance in riotous living; the end, snatching a morsel at the swine-trough. (Luk_15:11-32) "The way of transgressors is hard". (Pro_13:15) The prophet"s wife should be a warning to every female tempted to go astray.
2. The restraint under which he placed her. He did not admit her at once to full conjugal rights. He put her under trial. He bound her, in the mean time, to refrain from further immoral conduct. She was not to play the harlot. He, on his part, would abide in separation from her. This was to continue many days." It would take a long time to wean her from her immoral ways, and thoroughly to test her disposition. The intention was that she might be trained to be again a faithful wife to him. Analogous to this would be God"s method of dealing with Israel. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king," etc. In the light of the subsequent history this prophecy is very striking. There is involved in it:
(1) Long exile. The people were to abide "many days" without king or prince (civil government), without sacrifice or pillar (religious worship), without ephod or teraphim (means of inquiring into the future). This implies expulsion from their own land. The objects of Jehovah and idol worship are mixed up in this description to indicate the then mixed state of the nation"s religion, and to show that in exile "the Lord would take away both the Jehovah-worship and also the worship of the idols, along with independent civil government" (Keil).
(2) Continued preservation. The nation, it is further implied, though east off, was not to be destroyed. It would still be the object of a Divine care. It would preserve its identity and distinctness through the" many days." "God would, in those times, withhold all special tokens of his favor, covenant, providence; yet would he secretly uphold and maintain them as a people, and withhold them from falling wholly from him into the gulf of irreligion and infidelity" (Pusey).
(3) Ultimate recovery. God"s end in his treatment of the nation was its salvation. Its banishment was not to be perpetual. A day of recovery was set for it (ver. 5). It will be admitted that the prophecy has had, in its first two parts, a singular fulfillment. The tribes remnants both of the ten and of the two are at this hour precisely in the condition of the prophet"s wife. They are in a manner "waiting on God, as the wife waited for her husband, kept apart under his care, yet not acknowledged by him;" not following after idolatries, yet cut off through unbelief in Christ from full covenant privilege. They have been in this condition "many days," "praying to God, yet without sacrifice for sin; not owned by God, yet kept distinct and apart by his providence for a future yet to be revealed" (Pusey).
The object of the present exile is
(1) to wean Israel entirely from idols, this end may be said to be effectually accomplished;
(2) to train her to value lost privileges;
(3) to educate her to constancy;
(4) to create a longing for reconciliation and restoration. These ends attained, restoration will follow. In a similar way God often deals with sinners for their good, cutting them off from the objects of their sinful desire, trying them by experiences of privation, leaving them without the comforts of his presence and the privileges of his worship, so teaching them the vanity of past pursuits, inciting them to seek him, and preparing them to receive his mercy when it is at length proposed to them.
III THE RESULT OF GOD"S TREATMENT OF ISRAEL. (Ver. 5) "Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king," etc.; that is, Israel, when recovered to God, would return to its allegiance to the Davidic house, and specially to him whom prophecy pointed to as the Messiah. It is to be noticed:
1. Return to God is the designed end of moral discipline.
2. Return to God is connected with submission to his Son.
3. The result of return to God is experience of his goodness." "They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.
4. God is to be served by those who return to him in holy "fear." This fear is awakened by the experience of his "goodness," as well as by the remembrance of his chastisements. It is a holy, filial fear, born of reverence and love, and dreading to displease One so good. It has nothing in common with the slavish fear which combines love of sin with dread of the Punisher of it. J.O.
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 On vv1, 2, 4 According to the love of the Lord toward the…
Hos_3:1
According to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel.
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Love in chastisement
The substance of this chapter is, that it was Gods purpose to keep in firm hope the minds of the faithful during the Exile, lest being overwhelmed with despair they should wholly faint. The prophet had before spoken of Gods reconciliation with His people; and He magnificently extolled that favour when He said, Ye shall be as in the valley of Achor, I will restore to you the abundance of all blessings; in a word, ye shall be in all respects happy. But, in the meantime, the daily misery of the people continued. God had indeed determined to remove them into Babylon. They might therefore have despaired under that calamity, as though every hope of deliverance were wholly taken from them. Hence the prophet now shows that God would so restore the people to favour, as not immediately to blot out every remembrance of His wrath, but that His purpose was to continue for a time some measure of His severity. We hence see that this prediction occupies a middle place between the denunciation the prophet previously pronounced and the promise of pardon. It was a dreadful thing that God should divorce His people, and cast away the Israelites as spurious children; but a consolation was afterwards added. But lest the Israelites should think that God would immediately, as on the first day, be so propitious to them as to visit them with no chastisement, it was the prophets design expressly to correct the mistake, as though he had said, God will indeed receive you again, but in the meantime a chastisement is prepared for you, which by its intenseness would break down your spirits, were it not that this comfort will case you, and that is, that God, though He punishes you for your sins, yet continues to provide for your salvation, and to be, as it were, your husband. When God humbles us by adversities, when He shows to us some tokens of severity and wrath, we cannot but instantly fail, were not this thought to occur to us, that God loves us, even when He is severe towards us, and that though He seems to east us away, we are not yet altogether aliens, for He retains some affection, even in the midst of His wrath; so that He is to us as a husband, though He admits us not immediately into conjugal honour, nor restores us to our former rank. So we see how the doctrine is to be applied to ourselves. (John Calvin.)
Gods forgiving love
I once visited the ruins of a noble city on a desert oasis. Mighty columns of roofless temples stood in file. Gateways of carved stone led to a paradise of bats and owls. All was ruin. But past the dismantled city, brooks, which had once flowed through gorgeous flower gardens, still swept on in undying music and freshness. The waters were just as sweet as when queens quaffed them two thousand years ago. And so Gods forgiving love flows in ever-renewed form through the wreck of the past. (T. G. Selby.)
The love of God
The dark sad story which Hosea pathetically shadows forth in his first three chapters taught him the chief lesson of his life. For he accepted Gods dealings with him, and found that though the chastening was grievous, it brought forth the peaceable fruit of righteousness in his soul. By virtue of his holy sub missiveness he became one of the greatest of the prophets, and in the fall, the punishment, and the amendment of an adulterous wife, he saw a symbol of Gods ways with sinful men. For the lesson which he learnt was this. If the love of man can be so deep, how unfathomable, how eternal must be the love of God! First of all the prophets he rises to the sublime height of calling the affection with which Jehovah regards His people love. In Amos God is beneficent, and knows Israel; in Joel God is glorious and merciful; but Hosea introduces a new theological idea into Hebrew prophecy when he ventures to name the love of God. Hence, Prof. Davidson, referring to Duhm, says: Amos is the prophet of morality, of human right, of the ethical order in human life; but Hosea is a prophet of religion. And to what unknown depths cannot Gods love pierce! Agonising experience had taught him that human love, so poor, so frail, so mixed with selfishness--human love, whose wings are torn and soiled so easily, and which droops before wrong like a flower at the breath of a sirocco,--even human love, though disgraced by faithlessness, though dragged through the mire of shame, can still survive. Must not this then be so with the unchangeable love of God? If Hosea could still love the guilty and thankless woman, would not God still love the guilty and thankless nation, and by analogy the guilty and thankless soul? That is why, again and again, the voice of menace breaks into sobs, and the funeral anthem is drowned, as it were, in angel melodies. He saw the decadence and doom of Ephraim; he saw king after king perish by war and murder; he heard the thundering march of the Assyrian shake the ground from far; he knew that the fate of Samaria should be the fate of Beth-arbel; and yet, in spite of all, in his last chapter his style ceases to be obscure, rugged, enigmatical, oppressed with heavy thoughts; and to this doomed people he still can say, as the message of Jehovah, I will love them freely, for Mine anger is turned away. It is so intolerable to the prophet to regard Gods alienation from His people as final, that from the first he intimates the belief that they would repent and be forgiven, and become numberless as the sands of the sea, and that Judah--of whom at first he thought more favourably than at a later time--shall be joined with them under a single king. (Dean Farrar, D. D.)
Who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
Idolatry and self-indulgence
The connection here pointed out between the idolatry of heart that seeks after other gods, and the self-indulgence in life that seeks after flagons--large quantities--of wine, is so truly universal, through all the ages it has been in evidence, and even now it constantly reappears, so that it may be regarded as necessary and essential. All nature religions, all pagan religions, all heathen religions are sensuous and sensual. All philosophical religions are, though in more subtle forms, sensuous, as may be illustrated in the personal history of Comte the positivist. It would be possible very widely to illustrate this fact. But when it is established, and the strongly marked contrast of the Jehovah and the Christian religions is pointed out, it remains to be considered why this connection between two apparently unrelated things should have become established. Two reasons may be suggested.
I. All other religions save the Jehovah religion are human inventions. They therefore tend to foster the pride of man, to strengthen his self-will, and encourage him in doing what he likes. Jehovah religion, being authoritative revelation, brings mans will into subjection and obedience.
II. All other religions are, in one form or another, nature religions. And the root idea of nature religions is the glorifying of sexual relations. The worship is virtual sensual indulgence, and thus all forms of sensual indulgence are encouraged. The Jehovah religion alone requires righteousness and purity. (Robert Tuck, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Hos_3:1.] The significant pair is introduced again with a…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Hos_3:1.] The significant pair is introduced again with a fresh application. In a second symbolic marriage, the faithful, chastening love of God is set forth to adulterous Israel. Love] Not take, as ch. Hos_1:2. Woman] Many think another person, not his former wife; others, that she was his former wife, but unfaithful and living with another man, an adulteress. This love greater, higher than the former. One proved disturbed relation, and the other restoration to God. Friend] Heb. neighbour, and husband (Jer_3:20; Son_5:16); the prophet himself intended. Accord] Hos. must frame his life to represent the ingratitude of men and the wonderful love of God. Who look] Lit. they are looking; a continuous act and a contemporary circumstance. God was loving them while they were looking to idols. Flagons of wine] Lit. of grapes, used in idolatry (Jer_7:18; Jer_44:19); or drunkenness and vice sanctioned by it—a figurative representation of service, which appeals to sense, gratifies carnal desire and sensual indulgence (cf. Job_20:12).
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Hos_3:2. Bought her] with money and grain. Money half the price of a common slave (Exo_21:32); the grain of the coarsest kind, not wheat, but barley, the food of animals, and the offering of one accused of idolatry, an expression of worthlessness and degradation.
Hos_3:3. Abide for me] Lit. “many days wilt thou sit for me;” in a state of solitude and widowhood, debarred from intercourse with any man, and detained until restored to God himself (Deu_21:13). Now God will have no more conjugal intercourse with Israel than any other people. He will cut off idolatry and suspend his relation to them for an indefinite time.
Hos_3:4. Without a king] Without civil polity. Sao.] Without national worship and religion. Image] Lit. monument, consecrated to Baal (Exo_23:24); pillars forbidden to be reared (Lev_26:1; Deu_16:22); widely spread in Israel (2Ki_3:2; 2Ki_17:10) and in Judah (1Ki_14:23; 2Ch_16:2). Ephod] Shoulder-dress of the high priest, to which the Urim and Thummim were attached, and the medium of revelation between God and his people. Teraphim] Penates worshipped as the givers of earthly prosperity and revealers of future events. This threat fulfilled in the ten tribes, in Assyrian captivity, and in the present time they are without monarchy, priesthood, and the worship of Jehovah. Judah after her captivity had a government, but not an independent king; she rejected Christ, and then she was doomed to the judgment of God, and efforts to restore her have yet failed.
Hos_3:5. Seek] Heb. a diligent, intensive search, a religious search used in regard to God [Pusey]. David their king] i.e. the Seed, the Son of D., the Messiah (Eze_34:23; Amo_9:11). Fear the Lord] Lit. “will tremble towards Jehovah and towards his goodness;” stronger than seeking one upon whom they depend. Tremble with distress and anguish, conscious of guilt and unworthiness, and utterly unable to help themselves. Goodness] In gifts of which they had been deprived. This fulfilled in the gathering round David’s greater Son, and in the universal conversion of Israel to God.
HOMILETICS
THE WONDROUS LOVE.—Hos_3:1-5
In this chapter God’s grace is marvellously set forth to his ancient people. Though fallen and unfaithful, the prophet is commanded to love. “Go yet,” give them line upon line, precept upon precept, sign after sign, and act after act, to remind them of this truth. Not only must the disposition exist to love, but an attestation of it. Hosea must again represent the conduct of God in displaying his love and urging to penitence. Men are repeatedly urged to believe the gospel and welcome the Saviour. God multiplies mercies when judgments are richly deserved. The grand truth of these verses is the lesson which John taught so affectionately afterwards, “God is love.”
I. Love in its highest form. Israel had fallen into idolatry, and was guilty of adultery. Lust and sensuality were mixed with illicit worship. God, their chief good, was forsaken and lovers trusted.
1. Love to the guilty sinner. Men have gone astray from God, and live having no hope, and without God in the world. Alienated from God by wicked works, they do not seek nor serve God. God is not in all their thoughts. They are given to pleasure, gratification, and shame. Some men are not even moral. They are corrupted by their worldly, selfish principles. Loving sin, and rendering homage to improper, unholy objects, they have become like the gods they worship. Man is lost, spiritually lost; lost to God and to his highest interests—unholy in character, helpless in condition, and unlike God in everything. “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone (aside) out of the way,” apostatized from God, from his laws, and from principles of truth and right; “they are together become (filthy) unprofitable,” in their conduct and practice. They are depraved in heart and defiled in life (Psa_14:2-3; cf. Rom_3:12-13). Yet man thus lost and depraved is the object of Christ’s care. God loves us, even in our weakness and worldliness, in our “crimes and carnality.” “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Christ seeks to bring us back to God, to deliver us from our sins, to correct the sinful and selfish principles of our nature, and to make us sons of God. The most distant and degraded, the most wretched and licentious, all who are conscious of their lost and ruined condition, may come to God. Poor Joseph, with a parcel of yarn hanging over his shoulders, heard the message of joy from the text: “This is a faithful,” &c. John Newton in preaching to the prisoners at Newgate wept, and they wept with him, as he enlarged on “this faithful saying.” “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came into the world to save sinners.”
2. Love to the unfaithful professor. God’s love is not simply to the wretched and perishing. To love the distressed is comparatively easy; but to love the unfaithful and the adulteress, those who add guilt to unworthiness, idolatry to apostasy, and provocation to ingratitude, is more than humanity can do. Men respect the just and love the good; but God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners. We may even love when immorality is allied to woe, and hatred to personal offensiveness; but love in its purest, freest form, love in God, passes over demerit and offence, withstands provocation and insult, and blesses those that curse. The unworthy servant is sent away from our employ. The unfaithful friend is forsaken and condemned. But what shall we say of unfaithful Israel? What shall be done to those who have loved and forsaken their love, sworn allegiance, yet broken off and are guilty of fornication? “Go yet, love a woman” most guilty and most unworthy; love with a definite and Divine love, “according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel;” a love without a parallel and beyond expression. “I know that the mercy of God is infinite,” said a brother of Whitfield, the great preacher, to Lady Huntingdon; “but, my lady, there is no mercy for me, a backslider, a wretch, entirely lost.” “I am glad to hear it, Mr Whitfield,” said she. “I am glad that you are a lost man.” “What! glad that I am a lost man, my lady!” “Yes, truly glad; for Jesus came into the world to save the lost.” He blessed God for his love, and the same evening died in peace. God still yearns over those who have fallen a second time. The backslider and unfaithful professor may yet return. God remembers his covenant and will ever fulfil his word. “Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep mine anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God.”
II. Love in its active operation. All feeling, all emotion in the heart demands and seeks an outward expression. Feeling will not slumber in the soul any more than ignited gunpowder will smoulder away without explosion. Man is not a mere block, to move and be moved by attraction and force. Nor is he a mere physical structure; but a being of sympathy and emotion. Love is one of the strongest passions, and on whatever object it is fixed, will lead to intense energy and activity. There may be pity without help; benevolence which merely wishes good to be done. We may feel for the sufferer and not interpose; retain our sentiment and say, “Be ye warmed, be ye clothed,” without giving “the things needful for the body.” Love is deeds, not desires, nor words. Its objects are out of itself, and according to its strength and opportunity it reaches others. “God so loved the world,” that “he gave” something, he did something. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us.” “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us.” Measure the love by the gift and the deed. Things may represent feeling and value, desire and delight, but persons are the greatest sacrifice. In giving a person, God gave the greatest of all persons—“his only begotten Son.” Christ shed his precious blood to redeem men from sin and death. Damon had great affection for his friend Pythias. When Shelley gave Leigh Hunt a thousand pounds to liberate him, the act was a proof of no common friendship, and showed that he valued his friend more than his gold. God’s love excels all other, seeks to restore the fallen and most degraded to himself. He is not satisfied with anything less than complete restoration, complete salvation. The prophet bought the “woman beloved,” redeemed her from slavery and idolatry, and eventually took her to himself. Life must be supported, a bridal gift bestowed, and she must be re-instated in his heart and home. “If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?”
III. Love in its necessary discipline. According to Scripture, all suffering under God’s administration has a moral end, and must not be viewed by itself, without any reference to results. In some cases it is judicial, penal, and exemplary in solemn terms. But in its bearing upon God’s people, it is corrective, given for a gracious purpose and a blessed experience, progressive sanctification and final perfection. “God chastens us not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.” This design should help us to bear it even most frequent and severe. “My son, thank God for me,” said Dr Arnold on his death-bed. “Thank God, Tom, for giving me this pain. I have suffered so little pain in my life, that I feel it is very good for me now God has given it me, and I do so thank him for it.” That man should be capable of Divine holiness and fellowship with God, proves the capacity of his mental and the dignity of his moral nature. Affliction is chosen as a suitable and sovereign remedy to cure our evils. We are estranged from God and given to the creature. Our attachments to wealth, power, and ambition, to pleasure and sensual indulgence, are not easily broken. God’s method of weaning from the world, and breaking up unhallowed and degrading attachment to sin, is by removing the object from us, visiting us with sickness, or smiting with a curse, what we love instead of him. Israel, like a captive woman remaining in the house, separated from her master, bewailing her captivity, was to sit for many days in solitary discipline (Deu_21:13; Exo_24:14; Jer_3:2); weaned or free from idolatry, yet not immediately received into friendship and favour with God. They were also to abide many days without prince or priest, temple or sacrifice. Hence—
1. Love disciplines by solitude. “Thou shalt abide (remain quiet) for me many days.” God often withdraws us from scenes of pleasure and mirth, deprives us of friends and means of grace, and confines us to beds of sickness and solitude. Sequestered from the excitements of life, cut off from the objects of our love, we should “be still and know that I am God.” Murmur not, nor complain; but submit in patience and hope. “So will I also be for thee.” Our deepest experience, our spiritual discipline, must be in solitude. We must suffer alone, and get wisdom alone. We must learn the evil of our ways and God’s displeasure against sin, not in the friction of society, but in the lonely chamber and the closet. This is the experience of all good men. Our affections are kindled, our resolutions fortified, and our hearts prepared, in solitude. Christ began public life with forty days in the wilderness, was made perfect through suffering, and had to tread the wine-press alone. Solitude and suffering alone are means of education; designed by God to chasten and refine, to awaken, convert, and restore the sinner and the backslider to himself. Afflictions are not messengers of his avenging wrath, but tokens of parental love; and in sending them he acts not as an angry judge, but a kind and forgiving father; correcting in love, and designing to bring forth “the peaceable fruit of righteousness in them which are exercised thereby.”
2. Love disciplines by deprivation. First, By depriving of the supports of life. “Without a king and without a prince.” A king was Israel’s special choice, and a king was Israel’s support. The court of Solomon was the glory of Israel, and Solomon’s son was the favourite king. Kings and princes were commanders and leaders of the people. When these were slain, when civil governments were overturned, they were left without support and defence. God not only gives, but takes away. Kings, princes, magistrates, and judges, are ordained of God, and are often taken away by his providence for the sins of the people. Individuals are often bereft of bread, friendship, and support, and families of honour and prosperity, that they may know that Jehovah alone can deliver and save. Second, By depriving of the enjoyments of life. “And without sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod.” Sacrifice was the distinctive feature in the Jewish religion. To take away sacrifice was to rob them of their prestige and religion, their enjoyments and freedom. They had no legal priesthood, no liberty of public worship, and no oracle to guide them in duty and distress. To be deprived of religious teachers and religious ordinances is sad indeed. But comforts die, riches fly away, friends forsake us, and our enjoyments often decay. Our lovers disappoint us, and we are compelled to “return and seek the Lord our God,” who afflicts in mercy and draws in love.
IV. Love in its blessed results. After a time of Divine chastisement and discipline, Israel will “turn and seek Jehovah their God, and David their king, and will go trembling to Jehovah and to his goodness.” Jehovah will be found of them that seek him with solicitude. He is our only hope and dependence. If we abandon idols and turn to him, we shall again taste his goodness and rejoice in the light of his countenance.
1. Love draws the penitent. When the sinner discovers his folly, and repents of his sin; when he feels his helplessness, and cries for mercy; he needs some encouragement and hope. The Bible reveals a God of love. God in Christ upholds the law in love, atones for sin, and loves the sinner. Mercy invites, and the weary and heavy laden come and find rest in Jesus. Hope beams upon the soul. The love of God warms and breaks up the heart, like the spring breaking up frozen waters. This love reaches and draws the contrite sinner, and he resolves to return to his home and his rest. “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.”
2. Love turns the backslider. Professing Christians are often unfaithful to their vows and their God. They fall into error and backslide from God. “Israel slideth back as a backsliding heifer.” “My people are bent to backslide from me.” But God still watches over them, seeks to chastise and correct them, and restore them to his favour. Peter denied his Master, but was overcome by the look of love, and went out and wept bitterly. He felt his guilt and was despairing of mercy, but the message of joy encouraged him—“Go and tell Peter.” The description of the world without God, is the personal experience, the humble confession, of God’s people—“All we, like sheep, have gone astray.” They are led away by open sins or “secret faults;” by sense, fancy, or appetite; and are found in crooked paths of sin and shame. Strange tendency to wander from a God so good, and privileges so great! What can induce men to turn their backs upon their best friend, and sin against the most precious love that was ever known? There is no enjoyment in distance from God. The child of God cannot be happy separated from God, and will not entirely lose remembrance of forsaken blessing. God seeks his own. Christ, the good shepherd, goes after that which is lost, until he finds and restores it. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep: seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandment.”
3. Love begets loyalty. Israel shall not only seek the Lord their God, but “David their king.” A prince shall rule over them again, and they shall be a loving, loyal people. Love subdues the haughtiest, brings back the most distant, and wins all favours. Love overcomes apathy and antipathy. Severity creates hatred; mercy, love, kindness; “a kiss for a blow” will ever be found the best antidote to crime. Enmity to God is the nature, the very essence, of the carnal mind. Destroy its enmity, and you destroy its life and power. God destroys by his love, disarms all opposition, and begets love in return. “Truth is light, but love is life.” “Love is power.” Knowledge does not impart power to obey. Nothing but love, an appreciation of the Divine character and goodness, can beget true loyalty in the heart. We have the manifestation and method of love in the gospel. New life is quickened within us, and God speaks with power to our hearts. New affections expel meaner ones; moral activity is guided by faith. We love and labour most earnestly for God, who has blessed us. “We love him because he first loved us.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Truly the prophet in two respects has set forth great things. For, in the first place, he could not describe sin as being more dreadful than he here pictures it in the sin of the adulteress. And, again, he extols highly the love of God by this image, when he says that he is animated by love toward the adulteress [Luther].
Looking unto other gods. Placing our affections and confidence in other things—preference for the creature instead of the Creator, who is infinite in goodness and resources.
Flagons of wine.
1. A type of sin—sweet, sensual, and unwholesome food.
2. An image of idol worship—fleshly in its nature, poor in its consequences. “The solemn and strict religion of Jehovah is plain but wholesome food; whereas idolatry is relaxing food, which is only sought after by epicures and men of depraved tastes” [Hengstenberg]. Compare Job_20:12, where sin is figuratively described as food which is sweet as new honey in the mouth, but turns into gall in the belly.
Hos_3:4. In this condition Jews have ever since remained: free from idolatry, and in a state of waiting for God, yet looking in vain for a Messiah, since they had not and would not receive him who came unto them; praying to God, yet without sacrifice for sin; not owned by God, yet kept distinct and apart by his providence, for a future yet to be revealed. God has been towards them. He has preserved them from mingling with idolaters and Mohammedans. Oppression has not extinguished them, favour has not bribed them. He has kept them from abandoning their mangled worship, or the Scriptures which they understand not, and whose true meaning they believe not; they have fed on the raisin-husks of a barren ritual and unspiritual legalism, since the Holy Spirit they have grieved away. Yet they exist still, a monument to us of God’s abiding wrath on sin, as Lot’s wife was to them, encrusted, stiff, lifeless, only that we know that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live [Pusey].
1. Cutting short of outward mercies, should cut off from sin and humble us that we may be ripe for mercy; and whatever our frame and carriage may be, yet by affliction God will cut short occasions of sin, as the adulteress is shut up and dieted, is secluded from her lovers.
2. The Lord may intend much good to them whom he brings into contempt, and to a low condition; for he sequesters and shuts up Israel with an eye to marry her [Hutcheson].
HOMILETICS
“FEAR THE LORD AND HIS GOODNESS”
This is the drift of the discourse, the right and proper result of the goodness of God upon our hearts. I address myself first of all to God’s people; secondly, to such as are yet unreconciled to him.
I. First, to God’s people. You have received of this goodness two ways; the first and the higher is his spiritual goodness; the second form is the providential bounty of God toward you. First survey the spiritual goodness of God to you. It was no small goodness to choose you at first—no slight goodness which ordained a covenant on your behalf with Christ Jesus, and which fulfilled that covenant. Think of God’s goodness to you when unconverted: what long-suffering! what tenderness! You have been filled with joy and peace in believing; led first into one truth and then other, and God has outdone all you asked or thought. All this should constrain you to fear the Lord. First, there should be a fear of admiration. Saints who have tasted the Lord’s goodness should fear him with worshipful fear of adoration. The goodness of God to us should suggest aspiration. The greatness of it should suggest to us great service; the continuance of it should move us to persevere in honouring him; the disinterestedness of the love of God should make us ready for any self-denials; and above all, the singularity and speciality of his goodness should determine us to be singular and remarkable in our consecration to him. We should also fear the Lord and his goodness in the sense of affection. We must fear him with humiliation. The goodness of God ought to make us fear him with a sacred anxiety, an anxiety of a double character. Am I really his? or if I be his, and have such goodness bestowed upon me, am I rendering to him what he may expect? We should fear the Lord, lastly, with the fear of resignation. Now for the goodness of God in providential matters. Fear God much more than ever before, lest these temporals should become your god. Fear God, lest you should undervalue your responsibilities. Fear God and his goodness, lest he turn his hand and make you poor. You should fear the Lord now, especially while you have your children about you, and you are in health, because you will have to leave all these things very soon. Fear God and his goodness, because he is better than all his gifts of providence.
II. A few solemn words to such as are not God’s people, but enemies to God, careless and yet prosperous. You have provoked God, and if justice had been done, where would you have been? Will you not fear and serve him out of gratitude? Do you not feel ashamed that so good a God should be so ill repaid? Ought you not also to fear God out of hope? If he has dealt so mercifully with you in temporals, have you not every reason to expect that he will do as well for you in spirituals? Should you not fear the Lord and his goodness out of great admiration? for how well, how kindly, how strangely well has he dealt with you! Lastly, let me say you may well fear God out of apprehension concerning his goodness, for the goodness which he now renders to you will pass away ere long. There is trouble for you in store except you turn and repent; first one rod—sickness to the child; then others—such as loss in business, sickness to yourself, death to your wife, &c. Woe to that man whom neither goodness nor severity can move; whom neither loving-kindness can draw, nor justice drive. For such there remaineth nothing but cast away for ever, from God whom he would not love, from Christ whom he would not accept, from mercy which he despised, from love which he rejected [Spurgeon].
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Affliction a discipline. This sorrow comes not from the ground, nor yet affliction from the dust. It has been beautifully said, that sorrow is the river of God’s love flowing through shaded scenery. In all sorrow there is a limit—namely, that fixed by considerations for our own good. God is encompassing our path with thorns, lest we should wander into regions that chill or scorch us to the death. By some high method he overrules our narrow wishes and petty aims, and subordinates them to his own vast and beneficent designs. Misfortunes have been angels’ visits unawares. Amid the changes and the chances of this mortal life let us walk humbly with God and fix our hearts and hopes in him.
The power of love. Is there not an invincible power in tenderness? The old fable tells us of the sun and the wind which strove to see which could first remove the traveller’s cloak. The wind blustered, but the traveller only wrapped his cloak more tightly about him, but when the sun shone warm and soft upon his head, the traveller speedily cast off his cloak. If God had dealt roughly with you, I should not have wondered if you had said—“I will not serve him;” but after his being so kind with you, off with that cloak of indifference and be his servant. Will not the warmth of God’s love thaw your soul? The chilling frost of threatenings might have hardened you into a rock of ice, but this sunshine of prosperity and love which the Lord has given you, will it not melt you, will it not bring you to Jesus? [Spurgeon].
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Attempts to Reclaim the erring Wife
The Attempts to Reclaim the erring Wife
In an episode in the life of Hosea and his relations with Gomer (cp. Hos_2:14) the prophet finds a parable of Jehovah's punishment of Israel. Having bought back his erring wife, as though she were a slave, he subjects her to gentle restraint, depriving her for a time of conjugal rights, in hope of securing her love (1-3). So Israel, deprived in exile of forms of government and of outward worship, would be ready to receive her true king and spouse (4, 5).
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1. Her friend] rather, 'neighbour,' i.e. a guilty lover. To refer it to Hosea involves a clumsy tautology. Yet, etc.] RV 'and an adulteress, even as the Lord loveth.' The love of the prophet for his adulterous wife, here as before spoken of as a direct inspiration of God, is a symbol of the love of Jehovah for Israel, who nevertheless coquets with idols.
Flagons of wine] RV 'cakes of raisins,' such as were offered to idols.
2. Bought her] She appears to have become the voluntary slave-concubine of her paramour. Fifteen.. silver] presumably the ordinary price for a female slave. Joseph was sold for twenty (Gen_37:28).
3. For me] i.e. as my property. For another man] RV 'any man's wife.' For awhile Gomer was to live as though unmarried.
4. Gomer's isolation is the symbol of that of exiled Israel, deprived of political organisation and religious services. Sacrifice, etc.] cp. Hos_2:11. All forms of religious symbolism are included in this v. Image] RV 'pillar.' A religious symbol, probably borrowed from the Canaanites. Ephod] The word is most frequently used of the high priest's dress, but in Jdg_8:27 of a golden or gold-plated image set up by Gideon, and that would appear to be the meaning here. Teraphim] small household images, probably something like Roman Lares: see Gen_31:34. Jer_17:5, etc. Their use was probably general in early times. Even David did not discard them in his early life (1Sa_19:13.), and they were in use at the time of Josiah's reformation in Judah (2Ki_23:24).
5. Return] often used of a new line of action or change of life: cp. Hos_14:7. David their king] The idolatrous worship of Israel was closely connected with their political schism: see 1Ki_12:27-29. Hosea contemplates once more a united kingdom under the Davidic monarchy. It is quite possible, however, that by David is here meant the Messiah; cp. Jer_30:9; Eze_34:24; Eze_37:24. In the latter days] lit. 'In the after part of the days,' i.e. at the end of time, used of the Messianic age: cp. Isa_2:2; Mic_4:1.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 3 Israel’s Past, Present, and Future
CHAPTER 3 Israel’s Past, Present, and Future
1. The past (Hos 3:1-3)
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2. The present (Hos 3:4)
3. The future (Hos 3:5)
Hos 3:1-3. The command here is not that the Prophet should enter into relation with another woman, but it concerns the same Gomer, the unfaithful wife. It seems she left the prophet and lived in adultery with another man. “And Jehovah said unto me, Go again, love a wife, who is beloved of her friend and who is an adulteress; just as Jehovah loves the children of Israel, who have turned towards other gods, and love raisin cakes” (correct translation; used in the idolatrous worship). She is not called “thy wife,” simply “a wife”; yet the prophet is told to love the adulterous wife. This woman, whom the Lord commands Hosea to love, he had loved before her fall; he was now to love her after her fall, and while in that condition, in order to save her from abiding in it. It was for her sake that she might be won back to him. Such is the love of Jehovah for Israel.
He bought the adulteress for half of the price of a common slave Exo 21:32; it denotes her worthlessness. The measure of barley mentioned reminds of the offering of one accused of adultery, and, being the food of animals, shows her degradation likewise. He thus was to buy her back, not to live with him as his wife, but that she might sit as a widow, not running after others, but wait for him during an undefined, but long season, until he would come and take her to himself. While she was not to belong to another man, he, her legitimate husband, would be her guardian. Israel’s spiritual adultery is in view in all this.
Hos 3:4. Here we have direct prophecy, a very remarkable one, as to Israel’s present condition. It is to be their state for “many days.” These “many days,” unreckoned, are the days of this present age, in which Israel is in the predicted condition, while God visits the Gentiles, to gather through the preaching of the gospel a people for His Name, that is, the church. Their condition is to be threefold: Without a civil polity, without king or prince; without the appointed Levitical worship, no sacrifice; without the practice of idolatry, to which they had been given, without image, ephod and teraphim-- the distinctly priestly garment, the ephod; the teraphim, the tutelary divinities, which they used before the captivity. Before the captivity they had kings; now they have none, would have none; after the captivity Judah had princes; no princes during the “many days.” The real approach to God according to the Levitical service was to cease, for during the “many days” there would be no sacrifice. This has been Israel’s condition for nineteen hundred years. What a wonderful forecast of the present we have here! Clearly then, this describes the present condition of Israel--the most anomalous spectacle the world has ever seen--a people who go on generation after generation without any of those things which are supposed to be essential for keeping a people in existence. They have lost their king, their prince; they have neither the true worship nor the worship of idols. They are unable to present a sacrifice, because they have no temple and no more priesthood. Here is an evidence of the supernaturalness of the Bible, one which no Jew nor destructive critic can deny.
Hos 3:5. Afterward--in the latter days. These two statements open and end the prophecy concerning their future. The “afterward” is not yet; the latter days are still to come. Their future is returning and seeking the Lord, their God and David their king. This is Christ. Nearly all the rabbinical writers and expositors explain it in this way. David himself this could not be. It is He who is David’s Son and David’s Lord, our Lord Eze 37:23-28. Here we have the prediction of the future conversion of Israel to the Lord, in the latter days, the days of His coming again.
(The Targum of Jonathan says on Hos 3:5: “This is the King Messiah; whether he be from among the living or from the dead. His name is Messiah. The same explanation is given by the mystical books Zohar, Midrash Shemuel and Tanchuma. The greatest authorities among the Jews are one in declaring that ‘the last days’ mean the days of the Messiah; we have reference to Kirnchi, Abarbanel, Moses Ben Nacham and many others.)
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The New Marriage of the Adulteress.
The New Marriage of the Adulteress.
In a second symbolical marriage the faithful love of God, which for that very reason is also jealous and intends to lead to repentance, is pictured.
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v. 1. Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, that is, once more, again, in a second venture, love a woman beloved of her friend, the word being used often for husband, yet an adulteress, one still regarded and surrounded with conjugal love by her lawful husband, though estranged from him on account of her adulterous acts, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine, rather, raisin-cakes, such as were used in idol-worship. Cf Jer 7:18. Just as Jehovah loves the children of Israel, although they turn to other gods, so the prophet should love this woman, who would become guilty of adultery.
v. 2. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, a shekel being worth about 62 cents, and for an homer of barley and an half homer of barley, a total of some twelve bushels of grain. This was dowry-money, but the amount was that paid for a slave, Cf Exo 21:32; Zec 11:12. The transaction undoubtedly pointed to the fact that the Lord had chosen Israel as His people while they were still in bondage in the land of Egypt, and the fact that half of the amount was paid in common grain indicated the lowly condition of the bride at this time.
v. 3. And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days, in a faithful union with him alone; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man, in an adulterous union; so will I also be for thee, not taking any other consort, loyal in wedded love. The reference is undoubtedly to the time of the exile, when Israel was estranged from the public worship of Jehovah and yet was to remain faithful to Him until the time of the restoration.
v. 4. For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king and without a prince, without a government of their own, and without a sacrifice, namely, those of public worship in the Temple, and without an image, pillars as used in connection with their worship, and without an ephod, the beautiful vest of the high priest which was used in determining the will of God and uncovering the future, Exo 28:6-12, and without teraphim, household gods which had been retained from the earliest days of Israel’s history. The exile brought to an end not only the public worship of Jehovah, but also the remnants of idol-worship as practiced as a matter of tradition. During the captivity the children of God realized the vanity of all idol-worship and were ready to accept the true God.
v. 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord, their God, the Jewish Church after the exile being the organization in which the belief in the true God was still taught, and David, their King, namely, the Son of David, the Messiah, who is called so also in other Messianic prophecies, Cf Jer 30:9; Eze 34:23-24; and shall fear the Lord and His goodness, as shown in His manifold blessings, in the latter days, in the Messianic period, which is always designated in this manner. In the midst of the sternest reproofs the light of God’s mercy shines forth like a beacon directing the believers to heaven.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4 Go again, love a woman, loved by her husband,…
Go again, love a woman, loved by her husband, but who is an adulteress
This refers back to Hosea 1:2. Yahweh again tells Hosea to love an adulterous woman.
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Love her just as I, Yahweh, love the people of Israel
By loving the adulterous woman, Hosea will be an example of Yahweh's love for Israel. (See: Symbolic Action)
they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes
People ate raisin or fig cakes during festivals where they worshiped false gods.
fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a lethek of barley
This was the price to buy a slave.
fifteen pieces
"15 pieces" (See: Numbers)
a homer and a lethek of barley
This can be stated in modern units. AT: "330 liters of barley" (See: Biblical Volume)
translationWords
Yahweh
love
adultery
Israel
silver
barley
life
prostitute
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 3:1 Go and love your wife again, even though…
3:1 Go and love your wife again, even though she: The Lord commanded Hosea to restore his marriage as testimony that the Lord had promised to restore wayward Israel. • love to worship them: Literally love their raisin cakes. The worship of Asherah, a Canaanite fertility goddess, often included offerings of raisin cakes.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.