Hosea 1:6

Hosea 1:6. And she conceived again It has been observed, that the children which the prophet’s wife bore represent certain distinct parts, or descriptions, of the Jewish nation, of the whole of which the mother was the emblem. Of her three children here mentioned, the eldest and the youngest were sons, the intermediate child was a daughter. “The eldest,” says Bishop Horsley, “I think, was the prophet’s son; but the last two were both bastards. In this I have the concurrence of Dr. Wells, acutely remarking, that whereas it is said, Hosea 1:3, that the prophet’s wife conceived and bare a son to him, it is said of the other two children, only that she conceived and bare them; implying that the children she then bare, not being born, like the first, to the prophet, were not begotten by him.” Now, as the name imposed, by God’s direction, upon the eldest child, the prophet’s own son, typified the true children of God, and heirs of the promises among the Israelites; so the two bastard children, the bishop thinks, typified those parts of the Jewish people that were not Jezreel, or the seed of God. The first of these, the daughter, whose sex was the emblem of weakness, was called Lo-ruhamah, which signifies, unbeloved, or unpitied, or, as it is in the margin, in conformity with all the ancient visions, not having obtained mercy. “This daughter typified the people of the ten tribes, in the enfeebled state of their declining monarchy, torn by their intestine commotions and perpetual revolutions, harassed by powerful invaders, empoverished by their tyrannical exactions, and condemned by the just sentence of God to utter excision as a distinct kingdom, without hope of restoration: for so the type is explained by God himself,” declaring, I will utterly take them away That is, I will cause them to be carried into captivity, never to return again in a body; and will utterly put an end to them, considered as a kingdom, or people distinct from Judah.