Hosea 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD speaks about Israel the way a husband speaks about an unfaithful wife. He says he will strip her bare, block her paths, stop her festivals, and ruin her vines and fig trees, because she credited her food, wool, oil, silver and gold to her lovers and to the Baals. Then he says he will lead her into the desert, speak gently to her, give back her vineyards, remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and take her as his wife forever. The chapter closes by reversing the names given in chapter 1: "No Mercy" is shown mercy, and "Not My People" are called "My people."

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • The hearers are commanded to say to their brothers, "My people."
   • The hearers are commanded to say to their sisters, "She has obtained mercy."
2. 2:2
   • The hearers are told to bring a legal complaint against their mother.
   • She is not my wife.
   • I am not her husband.
   • She is told to remove her harlotries from her face.
   • She is told to remove her adulteries from between her breasts.
3. 2:3
   • Otherwise I will strip her naked.
   • I will set her out as on the day she was born.
   • I will make her like a wilderness.
   • I will make her like a parched land.
   • I will kill her with thirst.
4. 2:4
   • I will not show mercy to her children.
   • Her children are children of harlotry.
5. 2:5
   • Their mother has played the harlot.
   • The one who conceived them has acted shamefully.
   • She said she would go after her lovers.
   • She said her lovers give her her bread and her water, her wool and her flax, her oil and her drink.
6. 2:6
   • Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns.
   • I will build a wall against her.
   • She will not find her paths.
7. 2:7
   • She will pursue her lovers.
   • She will not overtake them.
   • She will seek them.
   • She will not find them.
   • Then she will say she will go back to her first husband.
   • She will say it was better with her then than now.
8. 2:8
   • She did not know that I was the one who gave her grain, new wine, and fresh oil.
   • I multiplied silver and gold for her.
   • They used the silver and gold for Baal.
9. 2:9
   • Therefore I will turn back and take away my grain at its time.
   • I will take away my new wine in its season.
   • I will take back my wool and my flax that were given to cover her nakedness.
10. 2:10
    • Now I will uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers.
    • No one will rescue her from my hand.
11. 2:11
    • I will put an end to all her rejoicing.
    • I will put an end to her festivals, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.
12. 2:12
    • I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees.
    • She said these were the payment her lovers gave her.
    • I will turn them into a thicket.
    • The wild animals will devour them.
13. 2:13
    • I will punish her for the days of the Baals.
    • During those days she burned incense to the Baals.
    • She adorned herself with her ring and her ornaments.
    • She went after her lovers.
    • She forgot me.
    • The LORD says this.
14. 2:14
    • Therefore I will entice her.
    • I will bring her into the wilderness.
    • I will speak to her heart.
15. 2:15
    • From there I will give her her vineyards.
    • I will make the valley of Achor a doorway of hope.
    • There she will answer, or sing, as in the days of her youth.
    • There she will answer as on the day she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16. 2:16
    • In that day she will call me "my husband."
    • In that day she will no longer call me "my master."
    • The LORD says this.
17. 2:17
    • I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth.
    • They will no longer be remembered by their name.
18. 2:18
    • In that day I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals.
    • The covenant will include the birds of the sky.
    • The covenant will include the creatures that crawl on the ground.
    • I will break bow, sword, and war from the land.
    • I will make them lie down in safety.
19. 2:19
    • I will betroth you to me forever.
    • I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice.
    • I will betroth you to me in steadfast love and compassion.
20. 2:20
    • I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.
    • You will know the LORD.
21. 2:21
    • In that day I will answer.
    • The LORD says this.
    • I will answer the heavens.
    • The heavens will answer the earth.
22. 2:22
    • The earth will answer the grain, the new wine, and the oil.
    • They will answer Jezreel.
23. 2:23
    • I will sow her for myself in the land.
    • I will show mercy to her who had not obtained mercy.
    • I will say to those who were not my people, "You are my people."
    • They will say, "You are my God."

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

Ammi and Ruhamah are Hebrew words left untranslated: Ammi means "my people," Ruhamah means "she has been shown mercy" (or "she is loved"). In chapter 1 Hosea's children were named Lo-Ammi, "not my people," and Lo-Ruhamah, "not shown mercy." Here the negative prefix is dropped from each name.

2:2

"Bring a charge" is courtroom language, what one party does against another in a legal dispute. "She is not my wife, and I am not her husband" echoes the formula a man spoke to divorce his wife. In the picture that runs through the chapter, the mother is the nation as a whole and the children are the individual people being addressed. What is on her face and between her breasts is probably jewelry or ornaments marking her out as available to her lovers.

2:3

Stripping a wife bare was a recognized penalty for adultery in the ancient Near East: the husband took back the clothing he had provided and sent her out with nothing, as she came into the world.

2:4

In the picture, the mother is the nation as a whole and the children are the individual Israelites who were raised inside its worship.

2:5

Food, water, clothing and oil were what a husband was legally obliged to provide for his wife; the wife here credits them to her lovers instead. Flax is the plant that linen is made from. The "lovers" are the Baals of verse 13, local gods thought to supply rain, crops and fertility.

2:6

Farmers fenced fields and sheepfolds with piled cut thorn branches to stop animals straying or breaking in. The image is of a woman penned like livestock.

2:8

Baal was the Canaanite storm god, believed to send the rain that made crops grow; his name means "lord," "master," or "husband." The silver and gold were worked into images of him or fittings for his shrines. "New wine" is the fresh juice of the season's grape harvest; grain, new wine and olive oil were the three staple products of the land, the standard shorthand for a good year.

2:9

Wool comes from the soft hair of sheep. Linen comes from a plant. Almost all clothes back then were made from one or the other.

2:10

"Discover" in the King James means uncover or expose, not find out.

2:11

These are Israel's own religious festivals, not Baal's. New Moon feasts marked the start of each month, since the calendar ran by the moon; the Sabbath was the weekly day of rest; the "appointed feasts" were the fixed annual festivals. Losing them means losing the whole festival calendar.

2:12

The word translated "pay" is the fee paid to a prostitute. Vines and fig trees took years to establish and were the mark of settled prosperity; letting them revert to scrub was ruin, not merely a bad harvest.

2:13

"The Baals" is plural because each town and shrine had its own local Baal. "The days she gave to them" are the festival days kept in their honor. Burning incense was a standard act of worship at a shrine. The rings and jewelry are the ornaments of verse 2.

2:14

The desert is where Israel traveled after leaving Egypt, before settling in the land, remembered as the time of first courtship, before there were any Baal shrines. "Speak gently" renders a Hebrew idiom, "speak to her heart," used of a man wooing a woman.

2:15

The Valley of Achor ran up from the Jordan near Jericho and was the route into the land from the east. Its name means "trouble" or "disaster": it was where Achan was executed after Israel's defeat at Ai (Joshua 7). The name is turned inside out here, the place named Trouble becomes the way in.

2:16

A pun English cannot carry. The Hebrew word baal means "husband," but also "master" or "owner", and it is the name of the god Baal. Ishi means "my husband"; Baali means "my master," or equally "my Baal." Even the ordinary Hebrew word for husband is to be dropped, because it is the god's name.

2:17

Having a god's name "in your mouth" meant swearing oaths by it, calling on it in trouble, and building the name into children's names. Taking the names away means the habit disappears from ordinary speech, not just from formal worship.

2:18

The "agreement" is a covenant, a formal, binding treaty of the kind made between kings or nations. It is made on the people's behalf with the animals, binding the creatures to keep the peace toward them.

2:19

"I will take you to be my wife" translates the word for betrothal, a legally binding contract far stronger than a modern engagement (once betrothed, the woman counted as the man's wife. A betrothal required a bride-price paid by the man to the woman's family; here the qualities listed) what is right, justice, faithful love, mercy, stand in the place of that payment.

2:20

"Know" in Hebrew covers recognition, acknowledgment and personal intimacy, including the intimacy of husband and wife. It is the same word used in verse 8 for what she "did not realize."

2:21

The verb means both "answer" and "respond to a request." A chain of responses runs downward: God answers the sky, the sky answers the earth with rain, the earth answers the crops, reversing the idea that Baal was the one who supplied the rain.

2:22

Jezreel was both a fertile valley in northern Israel and the name of Hosea's first son (chapter 1). The name means "God sows" or "God plants," which is why the next verse speaks of sowing.

2:23

The two names from chapter 1 come back and are reversed: Lo-Ruhamah, "not shown mercy," and Lo-Ammi, "not my people." "I will plant her" picks up the meaning of Jezreel in the previous verse, "God sows."