Love to the adulteress.
It has been shown in Hosea 2:1-23. that the punishment of Israel is designed to work for the nation's moral recovery. A new symbol is accordingly employed to set forth this aspect of the truth; as formerly the punitive aspects of God's dealing with the nation had been exhibited in the symbols of Hosea 1:1-11. The symbol is again drawn from the prophet's relations to his wife.
I. THE PROPHET'S CONTINUED LOVE FOR HIS UNFAITHFUL WIFE. (Hosea 1:1) Gomer, adhering to her adulterous courses, had apparently left her husband, and had sunk to a condition of great wretchedness. The prophet, however, had not lost his love for her. She was still a woman "beloved of her friend," i.e. her husband. His love was the more remarkable that it is rarely a husband retains his love for an adulterous wife. Hosea, it may be inferred, felt that there was something uncommon in his relations with this woman. He did not, therefore, renounce her when she abandoned him. He still cherished towards her a husband's affection; retained his love for her, though unworthy; followed her in her devious ways with a pure, steadfast, unalterable, and wholly disinterested regard. In this his love became a fit image of Jehovah's love "toward the children of Israel." It was the image of it then, while the kingdom of Israel stood, and the people were zealous in their pursuit of" other gods;" and it would be still more the image of it when the threatenings of the previous chapter had taken effect, and the people were eating the bitter fruits of their sins. Is it not also the image of God's love to the sinful world as a whole? We had departed from him, and had bestowed our affections adulterously on the creature; but he did not on this account cease to love us, he saw us lost, sinful, and degraded; but he still looked on us with pity, and sought opportunity for our recovery. He so loved us that he gave his Son as the price of our salvation. This love of God to sinners finds no explanation in the nature of its objects. It is love to the unworthy, to the wicked, to the ungrateful; a love, therefore, entirely pure, self-caused, unbought, and disinterested. How warmly should our love go back to him who has thus loved us!
II. THE PROPHET'S TREATMENT OF HIS WIFE. (Verses 2-4) Consider here:
1. The condition in which he found her. It was a very deplorable one. She had sunk so low that it became necessary to "buy" her. The price paid—fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley—seems the equivalent of the price of a slave. If so, it is an additional token of her deeply humbled state. Either
2. The restraint under which he placed her. He did not admit her at once to full conjugal rights. He put her under trial. He bound her, in the mean time, to refrain from further immoral conduct. She was not to play the harlot. He, on his part, would abide in separation from her. This was to continue "many days." It would take a long time to wean her from her immoral ways, and thoroughly to test her disposition. The intention was that she might be trained to be again a faithful wife to him. Analogous to this would be God's method of dealing with Israel. "For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king," etc. In the light of the subsequent history this prophecy is very striking. There is involved in it:
The object of the present exile is
III. THE RESULT OF GOD'S TREATMENT OF ISRAEL. (Verse 5) "Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king," etc.; that is, Israel, when recovered to God, would return to its allegiance to the Davidic house, and specially to him whom prophecy pointed to as the Messiah. It is to be noticed:
1. Return to God is the designed end of moral discipline.
2. Return to God is connected with submission to his Son.
3. The result of return to God is experience of his goodness." "They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days."
4. God is to be served by those who return to him in holy "fear." This fear is awakened by the experience of his "goodness," as well as by the remembrance of his chastisements. It is a holy, filial fear, born of reverence and love, and dreading to displease One so good. It has nothing in common with the slavish fear which combines love of sin with dread of the Punisher of it.—J.O.
Hosea
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