Hosea 2:1-22 JPS (1:9-2:20 ESV)

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Hosea 2:1-22 JPS (1:9-2:20 ESV)

For ease of use scriptural designation will be that of the ESV; however we should note that the Tenakh delineates both chapter and verse differently here.

The time that Hosheah prophesied was in the mid eighth century BCE, about the time of the destruction of Israel by Assyria (722 BCE). His writings are of the northern kingdom, its apostasy and vile leadership, as well as its moral decay. However the book was actually meant as a warning for Judah to turn from the same path.

Hosheah prophesied against the religious, social, political and sexual transgressions of Yisro’el. Therefore his writing contains graphic imagery of not only destruction and exile, but of a moral and sexual nature as well. He portrays Elohim as a husband who has been wronged by an unfaithful wife, and makes ample use of family metaphors.

Chapter two contains both condemnation and promises, and prophecy of future restoration. This gives us hope, that no matter how sinful we are God can and will restore us if we only repent and follow His commandments.

Hosea 1:9-10 (ESV) And the Lord said, “Call his name Not My People, [loammi] for you are not my people, and I am not your God.” Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And in the place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,” it shall be said to them, “Children [sons] of the living God.”

So from the start of this haftarah we see the reversal of fate for the nation of Yisro’el. The language here is a reflection of the promises Elohim made to the patriarchs:

Genesis 22:17 (ESV) I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his [their] enemies,

Hosea 1:11 (ESV) And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head. And they shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

Jezreel, a place of violence and divine punishment will one day become a place of redemption. This verse is a prophecy of the future reunification of the northern and southern tribes. It occurs elsewhere in prophecy as well:

Ezekiel 37:16-19 (ESV) “Son of man, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the people of Israel associated with him’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.’ And join them one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not tell us what you mean by these?’ say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am about to take the stick of Joseph (that is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with him. And I will join with it the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, that they may be one in my hand.

Today we have seen the fulfillment of this prophecy in the modern state of Israel.

Hosea 2:1 (ESV) Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”

In Hebrew the terms ammi and ruhama are used, meaning a [my] people, and to love or show mercy. So God, who still loves His people will show mercy on them in the end. Again, this continues the motif of both condemnation and hope comingled in the same prophetic warning.

Hosea 2:2 (ESV) “Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;

The JPS says “rebuke your mother.” The Hebrew word “rib” has connotations of grappling with, or an adversarial relationship; to convince, as well as legal connotations as opposing in court. It implies a serious attempt to change her behavior. The godly remnant is here exhorted to plead with the faithless wife Israel (their mother) to return to God, else she is disowned.

Hosea 2:3 (ESV) lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.

Let the punishment fit the crime- the punishment for sexual deviancy is sexual shaming. There is a double metaphor at play here, as the punishment of the woman, Israel, also becomes the punishment of the land of Israel.

Hosea 2:4-5 (ESV) Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom. For their mother has played the sleeper; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Her (Israel’s) lovers are the rulers and gods of the nations Israel relied upon instead of their own Elohim.

Hosea 2:6-7a (ESV) Therefore I will hedge up her [your] way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them.

Israel cannot depend on the other nations for her security or commerce. She must depend on the God of Israel to supply her needs.

Hosea 2:7b-9 (ESV) Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’ And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.

The wife, Israel, tried to find her sustenance and pleasures in the arms of other men (kings) and their gods. She did not see it was her own God who gave her all these things. She used the provision of God to worship Ba'al; therefore He would now withdraw His blessings. He would also punish her:

Hosea 2:10-12 (ESV) Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand. And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts. And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.’ I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them.

Israel was to be shamed before the nations she had run to for support, the people would no longer know the joy of keeping the moedim, and the land would lie waste.

Hosea 2:13 (ESV) And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord.

Ba'al means lord, god or owner. Ba'ali implies ownership. Ba'alim is the plural, so the Israelites had been worshiping other gods, professing loyalty to them and submitting to their control. Ba'al can also mean husband or it can refer to marriage, so there is another double metaphor here, as Israel is depicted as being married to other gods.

Hosea 2:14-15 (ESV) “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

God as the husband will win back His wife, Israel. Achor is a valley SW of Jericho; the name means trouble, and this valley has been associated with trouble from the time of the conquest:

Joshua 7:24-26 (ESV) And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.

Hosea 2:16-17 (ESV) “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.

Here the word ishi is used for husband. Both ba'ali and ishi can mean husband, however ba'ali implies ownership. In the Hebrew there is a wordplay at work wherein Israel will reject the cult of Ba'al, accepting the Lord as “her ishi.”

Hosea 2:18-20 (ESV) And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish [break] the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

These are the verses quoted when observant Jewish men wind the tefillin straps; some sects when winding them on the fingers, hands and arms, others just on their hands and arms. All nature- “the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground”; the land and the people will participate in this covenant of marriage between God and Israel.

Dan C

Resources: JPS TNK, W Wiersbe, Unger, my father and others.