Hosea 3:3

"And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be any man's wife: so will I also be toward thee."

"Thou shalt not be any man's wife ..." This verse is the end of all thought that Gomer again became Hosea's wife, or that Israel (in the sense of the old Israel) was again welcomed back into the fold of God as his "chosen people."

"So will I also be toward thee ..." The meaning of this was forcefully stated thus:

"These words cannot have any other meaning, than that the prophet would act in the same way toward the wife as the wife toward every other man, he would have no conjugal intercourse with her."[18]

"Thou shalt abide for me many days ..." The Jerusalem Bible, the LXX, Harper and others have rendered this sit still for me,"[19] which points up the fact that Israel made no progress of any kind during the long pre-Christian centuries following the divorcement of the two kingdoms, called the "children of Israel" in the next verse. When, at last, the Son of God Himself appeared, the whole nation was still blinded by the carnal and malignant secularism which had been their undoing to start with.

"Many days ..." here stands for a very long and indefinite period of time. "For Israel as a whole, (in the material and secular sense) the many days are still unended."[20]

The figure requires it to be understood that Israel is still estranged from God. "Hosea keeps the (former) wife apart from every man (including himself), and waits."[21] In exactly the same manner, Israel is kept back from idolatrous worship, but through her rejection of Christ is likewise kept from properly worshipping the true God; but God still waits! There is, of course, the possibility, although no certainty exists with reference to it, that there may yet come a time when old Israel will come to their senses and truly turn to God. The "until" of Romans 11:25 cannot be alleged as teaching either the proposition of the old Israel's ultimate repentance, or the promise of its occurrence after "the fullness of the Gentiles" has come into the family of God.