21 Say unto your brethren Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. 2 Plead with your mother, plead; for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: and let her put away her whoredoms from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her as a dry land, and slay her with thirst. 4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot; she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give [me] my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
6 Therefore behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns; and I will fence [her] in with a wall, that she shall not find her paths. 7 And she shall pursue after her lovers, and shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, and shall not find them: and she shall say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now. 8 And she did not know that I had given her the corn and the new wine and the oil, and had multiplied to her the silver and gold, which they employed for Baal. 9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my new wine in its season, and will withdraw my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness. 10 And now will I discover her impiety in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of my hand. 11 And I will cause all her mirth to cease: her feasts, her new moons, and her sabbaths! and all her solemnities. 12 And I will make desolate her vine and her fig-tree, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards which my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. 13 And I will visit upon her the days of the Baals, wherein she burned incense to them, and decked herself with her rings and jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, saith Jehovah.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Hosea 2:1-13
Commentary on Hosea 2:1-5
(Read Hosea 2:1-5)
This chapter continues the figurative address to Israel, in reference to Hosea's wife and children. Let us own and love as brethren, all whom the Lord seems to put among his children, and encourage them in that they have received mercy. But every Christian, by his example and conduct, must protest against evil and abuses, even among those to whom he belongs and owes respect. Impenitent sinners will soon be stripped of the advantages they misuse, and which they consume upon their lusts.
Commentary on Hosea 2:6-13
(Read Hosea 2:6-13)
God threatens what he would do with this treacherous, idolatrous people. They did not turn, therefore all this came upon them; and it is written for admonition to us. If lesser difficulties be got over, God will raise greater. The most resolute in sinful pursuits, are commonly most crossed in them. The way of God and duty is often hedged about with thorns, but we have reason to think it is a sinful way that is hedged up with thorns. Crosses and obstacles in an evil course are great blessings, and are to be so accounted; they are God's hedges, to keep us from transgressing, to make the way of sin difficult, and to keep us from it. We have reason to bless God for restraining grace, and for restraining providences; and even for sore pain, sickness, or calamity, if it keeps us from sin. The disappointments we meet with in seeking for satisfaction from the creature, should, if nothing else will do it, drive us to the Creator. When men forget, or consider not that their comforts come from God, he will often in mercy take them away, to bring them to think upon their folly and danger. Sin and mirth can never hold long together; but if men will not take away sin from their mirth, God will take away mirth from their sin. And if men destroy God's word and ordinances, it is just with him to destroy their vines and fig-trees. This shall be the ruin of their mirth. Taking away the solemn seasons and the sabbaths will not do it, they will readily part with them, and think it no loss; but He will take away their sensual pleasures. Days of sinful mirth must be visited with days of mourning.