Hosea 2:7

"And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now."

"Shall seek them, but shall not find them ..." The seeking of any effective "god" through the devices of idolatry was a futile quest indeed. "She would seek after the Baalim but would not be able to find them, for a nonentity cannot be found."[29]

"I will go and return to my first husband ..." "She recalls the better days, the happier times, the more prosperous circumstances of the days of her fidelity to her first and lawful husband."[30] The primary application of this is to the repentance that came to Israel during the Babylonian captivity, after which Israel never again fell into the worship of any other than the one true and Almighty God, until their final apostasy evidenced in the crucifixion of Christ and the official declaration of the rulers of the nation that, "We have no king but Caesar!" (John 19:15). That was the final repudiation of God, in which event they slew God in the person of His Son, making their separation from Him irrevocable. Within a generation, their temple was destroyed, their city ruined, and their state terminated for at least 1,900 years! But not all of Israel (as individuals) followed the ways of the whore. Countless tens of thousands did indeed return to their first and lawful husband, but as a portion of that innumerable multitude who would become the new bride! These are they who, in this passage, resolved to return to God.

In the larger, worldwide theater embracing all mankind, one sees the identical pattern. In days of affluence and prosperity, people turn away from the Lord and openly indulge in all kinds of sins and departures from God's will; but in times of drought, famine, the devastations of war, and all other types of calamities and deprivations, countless thousands of the human race again become diligent to seek comfort and consolation through the pursuit of holy religion.

In the historical perspective, the echo of this verse surely appears in the haunting dream of "Paradise Lost" which has never vanished from the conscience of humanity throughout its long and stubborn rebellion against the will of God.