Hosea 2
Dear RTB’ers,
Hosea, the middle chapter. As I read chapter 2, especially the beginning, I don’t think I agree with the STS authors in having chapters 1 and 3 yesterday and chapter 2 today. To me chapter 2 falls nicely after chapter 1 and provides a nice lead-in for chapter 3. Yesterday I posted that Gomer “bore him a son” in verse 1:3, but that the word “him” is absent in the birth of the other two children, suggesting possibly that Hosea was not their father, but that Gomer had resumed harlotry even while married to Hosea. Today’s first two verses seem to confirm that. The two children mentioned in 2:1 today are Gomer’s second and third children (with Hosea possibly not their father). Then we have his comment in verse 2, speaking to those two children: “Plead with your mother, plead—for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband—that she put away her whoring…” We see confirmation of that in verse 5: For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. All of that follows nicely into chapter 3, where Hosea must go out and buy back his wife. So why split chapter 2 off from 1 and 3? I disagree. But who am I to doubt the STS authors?
Verses 6-13 then continue this theme of Gomer’s harlotry, even making her sound like a “temple prostitute”: 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. (vv. 2:7b-8) Keep in mind that with this story of Hosea and Gomer and harlotry and buying her back that God is actually speaking to the Northern Kingdom and charging them with their harlotry for other gods, but that He loves them nonetheless!
Finally, the rest of the chapter, verses 14-23 is a foretelling of Hosea bringing Gomer back in chapter 3. Verse 23b is the summary verse for this foretelling: “And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God’”. Those names “No Mercy” and “Not My People” refer to the names of Hosea’s second and third children – Hosea bringing them back as his own. My Study Bible notes that the apostles Paul and Peter quote this verse (in part) in Romans 9:25 and I Peter 2:10, respectively, referring to the Gentiles coming into the church.
Blessings!
See also: June 6 (2023) / Hosea 1-5:7