Hosea 2:14-15

Hosea 2:14-15. Therefore, behold, I will allure her As there is a plain alteration of the style here from threatenings to promises, so the first word of this verse should be translated nevertheless, or notwithstanding. And bring her into the wilderness Or, after I have brought her into the wilderness. The state of the Jews in captivity is elsewhere expressed by a wilderness state: see note on Ezekiel 20:35. It probably means here the dispersion of the ten tribes, after their first captivity by Shalmaneser, 2 Kings 17:6. And speak comfortably to her In these words, and the preceding, I will allure her, there is an allusion to the practice of fond husbands, who, forgetting past offences, use all the arts of endearment to persuade their wives, who have parted from them, to return to them again. So God will use the most powerful persuasions to bring the Israelites to the acknowledgment of the truth, notwithstanding all their former abuses of the means of grace. The Hebrew here, דברתי על לבה , is literally, I will speak to her heart, that is, speak what shall touch her heart, in her outcast state in the wilderness of the Gentile world, by the proffers of mercy in the gospel. “For the doctrine of the gospels,” says Luther on this place, “is the true soothing speech, with which the minds of men are taken. For it terrifies not the soul, like the law, with severe denunciations of punishment; but although it reproves sin, it declares that God is ready to pardon sinners for the sake of his Son; and holds forth the sacrifice of the Son of God that the souls of sinners may be assured that satisfaction has been made by that to God.” And I will give her her vineyards from thence Or, from that time, as the word משׂם may be rendered: then I will restore her vineyards and fruitful fields which I had taken from her, Hosea 2:12: or, from that place; or, in consequence of these things; in which senses also the original word is used. God declares that from and through the wilderness lies the road to a rich, fruitful country; that is, that the calamities of the dispersion, together with the soothing intimations of the gospel, by bringing the Jewish race to a right mind, will be the means of reinstating them in that wealth and prosperity which God hath ordained for them in their own land. And the valley of Achor Or, of trouble, or tribulation, as the Hebrew word Achor signifies; for a door of hope The passage alludes to “the vale near Jericho, where the Israelites, first setting foot within the holy land, were thrown into trouble and consternation by the daring theft of Achan. In memory of which, and of the tragical scene exhibited in that spot, in the execution of the sacrilegious peculator and his whole family, the place was called the vale of Achor, Joshua 7:0. And this vale of Achor, though a scene of trouble and distress, was a door of hope to the Israelites under Joshua; for there, immediately after the execution of Achan, God said to Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed, (Joshua 8:1,) and promised to support him against Ai, her king, and her people. And from this time Joshua drove on his conquests with uninterrupted success. In like manner the tribulations of the Jews, in their present dispersion, shall open to them the door of hope.” And there That is, in the wilderness, and in the vale of tribulation, under those circumstances of present difficulty, mixed with cheering hope; she shall sing as in the days of her youth She shall express her joy in God, as her forefathers did after their deliverance at the Red sea; when God espoused them for his peculiar people, and entered into a covenant with them at mount Sinai, where they solemnly promised an entire obedience to him. And, or rather, even, as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt “This perpetual allusion to the exodus,” or coming out of Egypt, “to the circumstances of the march through the wilderness, and the first entrance into the holy land, plainly points the prophecy to a similar deliverance, by the immediate power of God, under that leader, of whom Moses was a type.” Horsley.