6 She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, "Call her name Lo-Ruhamah{Lo-Ruhamah means "not loved."}; for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them.
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; For they are children of unfaithfulness;
who in time past were no people, but now are God's people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he spoke by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day. The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and lived in the cities of it. So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn't fear Yahweh: therefore Yahweh sent lions among them, which killed some of them. Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which you have carried away, and placed in the cities of Samaria, don't know the law of the god of the land: therefore he has sent lions among them, and, behold, they kill them, because they don't know the law of the god of the land. Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the law of the god of the land. So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear Yahweh. However every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burnt their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. So they feared Yahweh, and made to them from among themselves priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. They feared Yahweh, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they do after the former manner: they don't fear Yahweh, neither do they after their statutes, or after their ordinances, or after the law or after the commandment which Yahweh commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel; with whom Yahweh had made a covenant, and charged them, saying, You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them: but Yahweh, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, him shall you fear, and to him shall you bow yourselves, and to him shall you sacrifice: and the statutes and the ordinances, and the law and the commandment, which he wrote for you, you shall observe to do forevermore; and you shall not fear other gods: and the covenant that I have made with you you shall not forget; neither shall you fear other gods: but Yahweh your God shall you fear; and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. However they did not listen, but they did after their former manner. So these nations feared Yahweh, and served their engraved images; their children likewise, and their children's children, as did their fathers, so do they to this day.
When the boughs of it are withered, they shall be broken off; the women shall come, and set them on fire; for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.
"All their wickedness is in Gilgal; For there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will love them no more. All their princes are rebels. Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they bring forth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb." My God will cast them away, because they did not listen to him; And they will be wanderers among the nations.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Hosea 1
Commentary on Hosea 1 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 1
Ho 1:1-11. Inscription.
Spiritual whoredom of Israel set forth by symbolical acts; Gomer taken to wife at God's command: Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-Ammi, the children. Yet a promise of Judah and Israel's restoration.
1. The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea—See Introduction.
Jeroboam—the second; who died in the fifteenth year of Uzziah's forty-one years' reign. From his time forth all Israel's kings worshipped false gods: Zachariah (2Ki 15:9), Menahem (2Ki 15:18), Pekahiah (2Ki 15:24), Pekah (2Ki 15:28), Hoshea (2Ki 17:2). As Israel was most flourishing externally under Jeroboam II, who recovered the possessions seized on by Syria, Hosea's prophecy of its downfall at that time was the more striking as it could not have been foreseen by mere human sagacity. Jonah the prophet had promised success to Jeroboam II from God, not for the king's merit, but from God's mercy to Israel; so the coast of Israel was restored by Jeroboam II from the entering of Hamath to the sea of the plain (2Ki 14:23-27).
2. beginning—not of the prophet's predictions generally, but of those spoken by Hosea.
take … wife of whoredoms—not externally acted, but internally and in vision, as a pictorial illustration of Israel's unfaithfulness [Hengstenberg]. Compare Eze 16:8, 15, &c. Besides the loathsomeness of such a marriage, if an external act, it would require years for the birth of three children, which would weaken the symbol (compare Eze 4:4). Henderson objects that there is no hint of the transaction being fictitious: Gomer fell into lewdness after her union with Hosea, not before; for thus only she was a fit symbol of Israel, who lapsed into spiritual whoredom after the marriage contract with God on Sinai, and made even before at the call of the patriarchs of Israel. Gomer is called "a wife of whoredoms," anticipatively.
children of whoredoms—The kingdom collectively is viewed as a mother; the individual subjects of it are spoken of as her children. "Take" being applied to both implies that they refer to the same thing viewed under different aspects. The "children" were not the prophet's own, but born of adultery, and presented to him as his [Kitto, Biblical Cyclopædia]. Rather, "children of whoredoms" means that the children, like their mother, fell into spiritual fornication. Compare "bare him a son" (see Ho 2:4, 5). Being children of a spiritual whore, they naturally fell into her whorish ways.
3. Gomer … daughter of Diblaim—symbolical names; literally, "completion, daughter of grape cakes"; the dual expressing the double layers in which these dainties were baked. So, one completely given up to sensuality. Maurer explains "Gomer" as literally, "a burning coal." Compare Pr 6:27, 29, as to an adulteress; Job 31:9, 12.
4. Jezreel—that is, "God will scatter" (compare Zec 10:9). It was the royal city of Ahab and his successors, in the tribe of Issachar. Here Jehu exercised his greatest cruelties (2Ki 9:16, 25, 33; 10:11, 14, 17). There is in the name an allusion to "Israel" by a play of letters and sounds.
5. bow—the prowess (Jer 49:35; compare Ge 49:24).
valley of Jezreel—afterwards called Esdraelon, extending ten miles in breadth, and in length from Jordan to the Mediterranean near Mount Carmel, the great battlefield of Palestine (Jud 6:33; 1Sa 29:1).
6. Lo-ruhamah—that is, "not an object of mercy or gracious favor."
take … away—Israel, as a kingdom, was never restored from Assyria, as Judah was from Babylon after seventy years. Maurer translates according to the primary meaning, "No more will I have mercy on the house of Israel, so as to pardon them."
7. Judah is only incidentally mentioned to form a contrast to Israel.
by the Lord their God—more emphatic than "by Myself"; by that Jehovah (Me) whom they worship as their God, whereas ye despise Him.
not … by bow—on which ye Israelites rely (Ho 1:5, "the bow of Israel"); Jeroboam II was famous as a warrior (2Ki 14:25). Yet it was not by their warlike power Jehovah would save Judah (1Sa 17:47; Ps 20:7). The deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib (2Ki 19:35), and the restoration from Babylon, are herein predicted.
8. weaned—said to complete the symbolical picture, not having any special signification as to Israel [Henderson]. Israel was bereft of all the privileges which were as needful to them as milk is to infants (compare Ps 131:2; 1Pe 2:2) [Vatablus]. Israel was not suddenly, but gradually cast off; God bore with them with long-suffering, until they were incurable [Calvin]. But as it is not God, but Gomer who weans Lo-ruhamah, the weaning may imply the lust of Gomer, who was hardly weaned when she is again pregnant [Manger].
9. Lo-Ammi—once "My people," but henceforth not so (Eze 16:8). The intervals between the marriage and the successive births of the three children, imply that three successive generations are intended. Jezreel, the first child, represents the dynasty of Jeroboam I and his successors, ending with Jehu's shedding the blood of Jeroboam's line in Jezreel; it was there that Jezebel was slain, in vengeance for Naboth's blood shed in the same Jezreel (1Ki 16:1; 2Ki 9:21, 30). The scenes of Jezreel were to be enacted over again on Jehu's degenerate race. At Jezreel Assyria routed Israel [Jerome]. The child's name associates past sins, intermediate punishments, and final overthrow. Lo-ruhamah ("not pitied"), the second child, is a daughter, representing the effeminate period which followed the overthrow of the first dynasty, when Israel was at once abject and impious. Lo-Ammi ("not my people"), the third child, a son, represents the vigorous dynasty (2Ki 14:25) of Jeroboam II; but, as prosperity did not bring with it revived piety, they were still not God's people.
10. Literally fulfilled in part at the return from Babylon, in which many Israelites joined with Judah. Spiritually, the believing seed of Jacob or Israel, Gentiles as well as Jews, numerous "as the sand" (Ge 32:12); the Gentiles, once not God's people, becoming His "sons" (Joh 1:12; Ro 9:25, 26; 1Pe 2:10; 1Jo 3:1). To be fulfilled in its literal fulness hereafter in Israel's restoration (Ro 11:26).
the living God—opposed to their dead idols.
11. Judah … Israel … together—(Isa 11:12, 13; Jer 3:18; Eze 34:23; 37:16-24).
one head—Zerubbabel typically; Christ antitypically, under whom alone Israel and Judah are joined, the "Head" of the Church (Eph 1:22; 5:23), and of the hereafter united kingdom of Judah and Israel (Jer 34:5, 6; Eze 34:23). Though "appointed" by the Father (Ps 2:6), Christ is in another sense "appointed" as their Head by His people, when they accept and embrace Him as such.
out of the land—of the Gentiles among whom they sojourn.
the day of Jezreel—"The day of one" is the time of God's special visitation of him, either in wrath or in mercy. Here "Jezreel" is in a different sense from that in Ho 1:4, "God will sow," not "God will scatter"; they shall be the seed of God, planted by God again in their own land (Jer 24:6; 31:28; 32:41; Am 9:15).