Hosea 2:2-23

APPLICATION OF THE SYMBOLIC ACTS AND NAMES IN Hosea 1:3 Hosea 2:2-23

Chapters 1-3 are not arranged in what appears to be the logical order: chapter 3 attaches itself to Hosea 1:9; Hosea 3:1, continues the story of Hosea’s domestic life. He is told to go and “love a woman beloved of her friend, and an adulteress.” Marti thinks, but without good reason, that this act is entirely independent of chapter 1. The symbolism would be destroyed if the woman of Hosea 3:1, were any other than Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim (Hosea 1:3). Lo-ammi (Hosea 1:9) suggests the step in the domestic drama which is left unrecorded. The woman had fled from her home to give herself more freely to her shameful practices; Hosea 3:2 seems to imply that she had become the slave concubine of another. Hosea, impelled by love and adivine impulse, buys her back, though for a while he does not restore her to the full privileges of wifehood (Hosea 3:3).

This entire history is presupposed in Hosea 2:2-23; Hosea 3:4-5, which sections contain the application of the prophet’s own experience to the history of Israel. The historical persons in Hosea 1:2-9, and Hosea 3:1-3. the prophet, his wife, his children, here become allegorical figures. Israel is the adulterous wife, Jehovah the deceived but still loving husband; the individual Israelites are the children. Some of the latter have remained free from the sins of their mother. To these Jehovah addresses himself, that they should attempt the restoration of the faithless wife and mother, Israel, to the wronged but yearning husband, Jehovah. The utterance opens with a description of Israel’s whoredom (Hosea 2:5), which is followed by an announcement of the evil consequences of the faithlessness (Hosea 2:6-13); it closes with a delineation of the efforts to be put forth by Jehovah to win back the faithless wife, and of the glories awaiting her when she comes to her senses (Hosea 2:14-23).