Hosea 2:6-7

The evil consequences and punishment of Israel’s faithlessness, Hosea 2:6-13.

6, 7. I will hedge up Israel will be like a wanderer whose progress is suddenly hindered by a thorn hedge.

Thy way The change to the second person might perhaps be explained as due to the intense emotion of the prophet; LXX. and Peshitto read the third person.

A wall Better, with R.V., “a wall against her”; is to accomplish the same thing as the hedge (Job 3:23; Job 19:8; Lamentations 3:7-9). Thus obstructed she cannot find her way to her paramours. How Jehovah will wall up the way is stated in 9ff. When Jehovah strikes the blow the Baalim will be helpless.

Follow… seek In both cases the intensive form of the verb: follow earnestly, seek diligently. She will leave no means untried to reach her paramours, that they may help her out of the distress and renew her prosperity.

Not overtake… find Her efforts will not produce the desired results.

Then When she becomes conscious of the hopelessness of the situation. She will be brought to her senses (Luke 15:17), and will decide to return to her first husband The God worshiped by the fathers.

Then Before Israel began the worship of the Baalim.

Now Not at the time of the prophet’s speaking, but in the future when Israel sees the awfulness of the calamity, when the distress described in Hosea 2:9 ff. becomes a reality. With this conception, that calamity and disloyalty to Jehovah are closely connected, compare 2 Kings 17:7 ff. The decision to return can hardly be regarded as expressive of repentance (Jeremiah 3:21 ff.); all that is implied is anxiety to escape the distress.

Hosea 2:5 describes the sin and its cause; Hosea 2:6-7 announce the judgment in figurative language; Hosea 2:9-13 expound the figurative announcement. The exposition is preceded by a restatement of the facts that make necessary the judgment. This arrangement of the thought is not unnatural; and there seems insufficient reason for rejecting Hosea 2:6-7 as a later interpolation, or for placing these verses after Hosea 2:13, so as to bring together Hosea 2:5; Hosea 2:8, though the latter would make a good continuation of the former. There is no good reason even for rejecting Hosea 2:7 b, to which Marti takes exception as interrupting the connection and emphasizing repentance and conversion concerning which 8ff. are silent. If the arrangement is interpreted as just suggested the connection is not broken, and, properly interpreted, nothing is said about repentance or conversion.