But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God. Thus the contrast expressed in this verse increases the painful feelings with which the threatened abandonment and consequent destruction of Israel would be regarded.
The promised mercy to the house of Judah is emphasized by the peculiar form of the expression. Instead of the pronoun, the proper name of Jehovah is employed; instead of saying, "I will save them by myself," he says in a specially emphatic manner, "I will save them by Jehovah," adding at the same time the important adjunct of "thy God," to remind them of that relationship to himself in virtue of which he interposes thus personally and powerfully on their behalf.
An expression somewhat similar in form occurs in Genesis 19:24, "Then the Lord [Jehovah] rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord [Jehovah] out of heaven." And will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle (literally, war), by horses, nor by horsemen.
This enumeration is quite in accordance with the prophet's style, as may be seen at a glance by comparing Hosea 2:5, Hosea 2:11, Hosea 2:22; Hosea 3:4; and Hosea 4:13. The manner of this deliverance is very peculiar and unusual; while prominence is given to the absence of those means of defense or deliverance on which the northern kingdom so much relied.
The deliverance would be accomplished without the ordinary weapons of war—bow and sword, in the use of the former of which Israel was so celebrated; also without war, that is, without its appliances and material of whatever kind—skilful commanders, brave soldiers, and numerous troops; likewise without horses and horsemen, a great source of strength in those days (parashim, equivalent to "riders on horses," as distinguished from rokebhim, riders on camels).
This deliverance, in fact, was to be entirely independent of all human resources. All this points plainly and positively to the deliverance of Judah from Sennacherib in the days of Hezekiah, when in one night the angel of the Lord smote a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the flower of the Assyrian host, and Jehovah thus by himself delivered Judah.
Thus, too, Judah is saved from that power before which Israel had previously and entirely succumbed. (Compare, on this miraculous deliverance, 2 Kings 19:1-37.