Hosea 2 begins like the end of the first. In the rest of the chapter we have God carrying out a part but not the whole of the wonderful principles that are so compressed in the first chapter. We begin with the message: “Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Plead with your mother” (vss. 1-2). It is a call to those who like Hosea could feel, speak, and act according to the Spirit of Christ, with the courage inspired by the certainty of such relationships, though for the present the state of the people was as far from comforting as could well be conceived, as indeed is plain from the next and following verses. “Brethren” and “sisters” look at the Jews (I think) individually. “Your mother” looks at them corporately as a body. “Plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight” (vs. 2). Here then we behold a most painful picture—Jehovah threatening to put Israel to shame, and to have no mercy upon her children, because their mother had behaved shamelessly towards Himself, “For she is not my wife, nor am I her husband.” She must put away her scandalous unfaithfulness, “lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and cause her to die of thirst. On her children I will have no mercy; for they are lewd children, because their mother hath committed lewdness, their parent hath acted shamefully; for she said, I will follow my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my wine” (vss. 3-5).
Compunction and Revival in Israel of Old, but No Repentance
Accordingly, Jehovah threatens to hedge up her way with thorns. “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and raise a wall, that she may not find her paths. 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” (vss. 6-7). There was compunction occasionally, a little revival from time to time even in Israel; but the people never really repented or consequently abandoned their course of sin. Their good resolutions were the proof of God’s goodness and the fruit of His testimony, but they never effected a thorough repentance of Israel. “For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they made into images of gold” (vs. 8). Thus all was perverted to the service, and it was imputed to the favor of false gods, “Therefore,” says He, “I will take My corn in its time, and My new wine in its season; and I will recover My wool and My flax designed to cover her nakedness. And I will expose her vileness before her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of My hand” (vss. 9-10). Then He threatens that all her mirth shall cease, “her feast-days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies. And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees” (vss. 11-12). Even her natural blessings must be cut off, which her unbelief made an excuse for the idols she set up. “And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them” (v. 13). All her luxurious and idolatrous sins therefore would come up in remembrance for judgment.
The Valley of Achor
Nevertheless, Jehovah remembers mercy, and immediately after announces that He will allure her, and, though leading her into the wilderness, speak soothingly to her. But it should not be the past renewed, the old and sad history of Israel rehearsed once more; for to her He would grant her vineyards thence, the valley of Achor for a door of hope. The very place which of old was a door of judgment under Joshua becomes a door of hope in the prophetic vision. “And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt” (vs. 15). Nor shall this freshness of renewed youth fade away as then. “And it shall be at that day, saith Jehovah, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali” (vs. 16), (that is, “husband” in love instead of mere “lord,” were it in the best and truest sense of dominion and possession from her mouth); also the many and false lords should no more be remembered by their names. “And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; and I will break the bow and the sword” (vs. 18).
Thus we see that, coincident with the return of Israel to Jehovah and this flowing out of His grace towards them, there shall follow universal blessedness. God will make all the earth to feel to its own joy the gracious restoration of His long-estranged people. With the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and the reptiles of the earth, Jehovah declares He will make a covenant for them in that day. It is infatuation to think that all this was fully accomplished at the return from the Babylonish captivity. The result is that even Christians, misled by this miserable error, are drawn away into the rationalistic impiety of counting God’s word here mere hyperbole to heighten the effect, as if the Holy Spirit deigned to be a verbal trickster or a prophet were as vain as a litterateur. No; it is a brighter day when the power of God will make a complete clearance from the world of disorder, misrule, man’s violence and corruption, as well as reduce to harmless and happy subjection the animal kingdom at large.
Neither the Return From Babylon, nor the Incarnation, nor the Gospel Is “That Day”
On the other hand, it is not the epoch of the Incarnation, as some pious men say; though how they can venture on it is marvelous. “That day” is still future, and awaits the appearing and the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. It is distressing to confound such a prophecy with Peter’s vision in order to apply all to the church, now. “The bow and the sword and the battle I will break and remove out of the earth or land; and will make them to lie down safely” (vs. 18). But, better than all, “I will also betroth thee to Myself forever”; for what is the worth of every other mercy compared with this nearest association with Jehovah Himself? “Yea, I will betroth thee to Myself in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness; and in mercies,” says He for the third time, “I will betroth thee to Myself in faithfulness; and thou shalt know Jehovah” (vss. 19-20).
Creation Then to Be Blessed
Then comes a final and still fuller assurance. “And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith Jehovah, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel” (vss. 21-22). What an uninterrupted line of blessing, from the heavens down to every earthly blessing in the land of Israel! Every creature of God shall then reap in full enjoyment the fruits of the restored and consummated union of Jehovah with His ancient people. “And I will sow her unto Me in the earth [referring to the name of Jezreel]; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy (or Lo-ruhamah); and I will say to them which were not My people (or Lo-ammi), My people thou; and they shall say, My God” (vs. 23).
Alas! the heavens had been severed, necessarily and long severed, from the earth by the sin of man, and Satan had gained power not merely on the earth, but above could claim a seeming title of righteousness as accuser before God. Thus the heavens were turned into brass against His people, whom the same enemy so often deceived, perverting that which ought to have been the constant governing power and symbol of all that influenced men in relation to God into his main Spring of corruption. For instead of looking up to God in adoration, man adored the heavens and their host rather than God as the highest object of his worship. Such was the earliest form of idolatry. It was there that Satan’s power particularly developed itself, in the turning of the highest creatures of God, the most significant parts and signs of His blessing to man, into instruments of the worst corruption. In that day Jehovah will show His power and goodness in destroying and reversing the work of Satan.
Satan Gone, and the Second Man Governing
Instead therefore of longer hearing his accusation in the heavens who had only sought to dishonor God and involve man in his own ruin, Jehovah will clear the heavens. There will be restored freedom between the Creator and the higher creation, which speaks to Him as it were on behalf of the thirsty earth, Satan being then expelled, and his power and corrupting influence broken, never more to enter there again. Then, as it is said here, “the heavens ... shall hear the earth, and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil” (vs. 21-22). That is, instead of the old and complete breach between the creation and God, and consequently therefore, through the serpent’s wiles, desolation justly inflicted by God because of its fallen head, Satan will be effectually gone and all the effects of his power effaced. For the Second man will establish peace on a righteous ground forever between God and Israel, and all the creatures of God, from the highest down to the lowest, enter into rest and joy.
All Things to Be Headed up in Him
Thus, there is a total reversal of what Satan had done by sin throughout the universe, but especially in view of Israel; so that the names of the first chapter, which then betokened divine judgment, are now converted into mercy and blessing. “The earth [or land] shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel” (vs. 22), as Israel is styled, the seed of God. Lo-ruhamah God calls Ruhamah; and to Lo-ammi He says, “Ammi thou.” No doubt there is an allusion in Jezreel to their antecedent dispersion; in no way to anything Israel has been during their days of shame and sorrow, but rather to a fresh sowing of them in the land by Jehovah’s grace to His glory. The proper fulfillment of this (whatever be the verification of its principle in the Christian remnant, as we see in 1 Peter 2) awaits the future and manifest kingdom of Jehovah and His Anointed. Then, not in pledge but in fullness, will it be seen by all the world that Hosea has not written in vain: “I will sow her unto me in the earth” (vs. 23). It is granted that Jehovah intends to take all the earth under His manifest sway (Psa. 2; Zech. 14), but a great mistake that “the land” will not have a central place in this vast scheme of earthly blessing. The church will be the New Jerusalem, the heavenly metropolis, coming down from God out of heaven, to which she properly belongs as the bride of the Lamb. But the earth is to be blessed, and pre-eminently the land of Israel under Christ’s glorious reign; for the divine purpose is to sum up all things in Him in whom we have obtained an inheritance—all things, whether they be things in heaven or things on earth. He, the Son in a way quite unique, is Heir of all in the truest and fullest sense, and the kingdom at His coming will display what faith believes while it is unseen.