Hosea 2

v.5

Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.‘

v.7

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’

Mostly, when we cannot obtain in this world what we wish, when we have been wearied with the impossibility of our search of earthly desires, then the thought of God returns to the soul; then, what was before distasteful, becomes pleasant to us; He whose commands had been bitter to the soul, suddenly in memory grows sweet to her, and the sinful soul determines to be a faithful wife.” And God still vouchsafes to be, on her return, the Husband even of the adulterous soul, however far she had strayed from Him.

AlbertBarnes edward

v.8

She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold - which they used for Baal.

What love that God still provides when we go astray to commune with other lovers! But his mercies do not persist everywhere for He is a righteous God whose judgements are righteous and true.

jj

v.12

I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.

v14.

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.”

Extreme misery and degradation revolt man; man’s miseries invite God’s mercies. God therefore has mercy, not because we deserve it, but because we need it. He therefore draws us, because we are so deeply sunken.

As Satan had enticed the soul to sin, so would God, by holy enticements and persuasiveness, allure her to Himself. God too hath sweetnesses for the penitent soul, far above all the sweetnesses of present earthly joys; much more, above the bitter sweetnesses of sin.

God speaks to the heart, so as to reach it, soften it, comfort it, tranquilize it, and, at the last, assure it. He shall speak to her, not as in Sinai, amid “blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more Hebrews 12:18-19, but to the heart.”

AlbertBarnes

v.17

I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.

He does not only promise the ceasing of idolatry, but that it shall be the fruit of His converting grace, the gift of Him from whom “is both to will and to do.

AlbertBarnes

It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me. This means turning away from idols is not just something we do. It’s what Christ does within us out of His grace.

jj

v.19

I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.

v.20

I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.

v.23

I will plant her for myself in the land: I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”

This is the mystery found in Ephesians 3:6.