โฮเชยา 2:10 วิจารณ์

The scope of this chapter seems to be much the same with that of the foregoing chapter, and to point at the same events, and the causes of them. As there, so here, I. God, by the prophet, discovers sin to them, and charges it home upon them, the sin of their idolatry, their spiritual whoredom, their serving idols and forgetting God and their obligations to him (Hos 2:1, Hos 2:2, Hos 2:5, Hos 2:8). II. He threatens to take away from them that plenty of all good things with which they had served their idols, and to abandon them to ruin without remedy (Hos 2:3, Hos 2:4, Hos 2:6, Hos 2:7, Hos 2:9-13). III. Yet he promises at last to return in ways of mercy to them for his own sake (Hos 2:14), to restore them to their former plenty (Hos 2:15), to cure them of their inclination to idolatry (Hos 2:16, Hos 2:17), to renew his covenant with them (Hos 2:18-20), and to bless them with all good things (Hos 2:21-23).

INTRODUCTION TO HOSEA 2 This chapter is an explanation of the former, proceeding upon the same argument in more express words. The godly Israelites are here called upon to lay before the body of the people their idolatry, ingratitude, obstinacy, and ignorance of the God of their mercies; and to exhort them to repentance, lest they should be stripped of all their good things, and be brought into great distress and difficulties; all their joy and comfort cease, and be exposed to shame and contempt, Hos 2:1, yet, notwithstanding, many gracious promises are made unto them, of their having the alluring and comfortable word of the Gospel; of a door of hope; of salvation being opened to them; of faith in the Lord, and affection to him as their husband; of the removal of all idolatry from them; of safety from all enemies; of their open espousal to Christ; of his hearing of their prayers, and giving them plenty of all good things; and of their multiplication, conversion, and covenant relation to God, Hos 2:14.

And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,.... Which are mentioned for the rest, being the most fruitful and beneficial: this was done when Judea was invaded, overrun and wasted, by the Roman army; and when many were cut down, as Josephus observes, to build forts, and cast up mounts against Jerusalem; so that, he, says (l), the appearance of the earth was miserable, for what before was adorned with trees and gardens, looked now like a wilderness: whereof she hath said, these are my rewards that my lovers have given me; alluding to the hire of harlots, given them by their gallants; these she ascribed, as she did before her bread, water, wool, flax; and oil, Hos 2:5, not to God, the author and giver of them, but to the people her lovers, as the Targum; or to her idols, or to her beloved tenets, and doing according to them; and which is here mentioned as a reason of the divine resentment, and why he destroyed these fruitful trees: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them; make the vines and fig trees like forest trees, barren and unfruitful; the fruitful land of Judea should be turned into a forest, or become like a desert or wilderness, and all the fruits of it should be eaten up by wild beasts; by their enemies, compared to the beasts of the field, particularly the Romans, the fourth beast; see Isa 56:9. (l) De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 1. sect. 1.

"And now I will reveal her folly in the eyes of her lovers: and no man shall deliver her out of my hand: and I will cause all her mirth to cease, her solemnities, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her festival times. And I will destroy her vines, and her fig-trees, of which she said: These are my rewards, which my lovers have given me: and I will make her a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour her." LXX: "And now I will reveal her uncleanness in the sight of her lovers; and no one shall take her out of my hand. And I will turn away all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her sabbaths, and all her solemnities. And I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees, of which she said: These are my rewards, which my lovers have given me. And I will make her a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour her." What follows: "The birds of the sky and the reptiles of the earth," must be marked with an obelus. Also, concerning the place that is called Jar in Hebrew, and from which comes the name of the city Cariath Jarim, which means "the city of the forests," the LXX translated it "testimony." The similarity of the letters Res and Daleth are false. For if the Res is read as Daleth, it is said "testimony," given that Jod letter does not precede. Therefore, having been freed from clothing and underwear, lest they should no longer cover the shame of the whore, all the foulness of Jerusalem, or the foolishness through which the foulness had been performed, will be revealed in the sight of her lovers, so that they may scorn openly that which they covertly desired. And when she is handed over to her lovers, the Assyrians or demons, to whom both she and the Assyrians serve, no one, he says, will be able to take her from my hand because of her proven demonic weakness, namely that they who had received all good things are not able to liberate those oppressed by evils. But being handed over to the servitude of Babylon, she will not be able to celebrate the three solemnities of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. She will not observe the new moons, that is, the kalends, nor the Sabbaths with joy, nor all the festivals which are comprehended in one name. The vineyard, fig, and abundance of all things will also be corrupted: understand joy in the vineyard, sweetness and pleasantness in the fig, which are taken away by the evils of the most difficult servitude: and they will be taken away for this reason, because they were not given to themselves by God as a spouse, but they were considered as a prostitute by their lovers for the payment of lust. Then it will by no means have fruiting trees, but all will turn into a wooded thicket. And because it had once taken a metaphor from the forests, it ends in the rest, calling enemies, from whom all things are being devoured, beasts. Unhappy Judea suffered this both in history and metaphor; all of its ugliness was revealed to the eyes of the gentiles, and no one was able to rescue it from the hands of God. All ceremonies ceased, festivity was turned to mourning: everything which it thought would be given to it by demons, it now recognizes was taken away on account of the offense to God. First, Assyrians and Chaldeans devoured it, then the Medes and Persians and Macedonians; at the end, the most savage beast, the Roman Empire, tore it to pieces, whose name is hushed in Daniel so that greater fear may be increased for those who are to be devoured. Refer what we have said about Judaea to the heretics, who promising doctrines and knowledge at first, are abandoned by God after leaving the Church, and all their shame is placed in front of those whom they had previously deceived, and given to beasts which the prophet avoids, saying: "Do not give the soul confessing to you to beasts" (Psalm 73, 19), and by their bites they are abandoned.

The prophet sounds the alarm of a dreadful calamity, the description of which is most terribly worked up, Joe 2:1-11. Exhortation to repentance, fasting, and prayer, that the Divine judgments may be averted, Joe 2:12-17. God will in due time take vengeance on all the enemies of pure and undefiled religion, Joe 2:18-20. Great prosperity of the Jews subsequent to their return from the Babylonish captivity, Joe 2:21-27. Joel then makes an elegant transition to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, Joe 2:28-30; for so these verses are explained by one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. See Act 2:16-21. Prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, which was shortly to follow the opening of the Gospel dispensation, Act 2:31. Promises of safety to the faithful and penitent; promises afterwards remarkably fulfilled to the Christians in their escape to Pella from the desolating sword of the Roman army, Act 2:32.

In the sight of her lovers - Her idols, and her faithful or faithless allies.

APPLICATION OF THE SYMBOLS IN THE FIRST CHAPTER. (Hos. 2:1-23) Israel's spiritual fornication, and her threatened punishment: yet a promise of God's restored favor, when chastisements have produced their designed effect. Say . . . unto . . . brethren, Ammi, &c.--that is, When the prediction (Hos 1:11) shall be accomplished, then ye will call one another, as brothers and sisters in the family of God, Ammi and Ruhamah.

lewdness--rather, "the shame of her nakedness"; laying aside the figure, "I will expose her in her state, bereft of every necessary, before her lovers," that is, the idols (personified, as if they could see), who, nevertheless, can give her no help. "Discover" is appropriate to stripping off the self-flatteries of her hypocrisy.

"And now will I uncover her shame before her lovers, and no one shall tear her out of my hand." The ἅπ. λεγ. נבלוּה, lit., a withered state, from נבל, to be withered or faded, probably denotes, as Hengstenberg says, corpus multa stupra passum, and is rendered freely in the lxx by ἀκαθαρσία. "Before the eyes of the lovers," i.e., not so that they shall be obliged to look at it, without being able to avoid it, but so that the woman shall become even to them an object of abhorrence, from which they will turn away (comp. Nah 3:5; Jer 13:26). In this concrete form the general truth is expressed, that "whoever forsakes God for the world, will be put to shame by God before the world itself; and that all the more, the nearer it stood to Him before" (Hengstenberg). By the addition of the words "no one," etc., all hope is cut off that the threatened punishment can be averted (cf. Hos 5:14). This punishment is more minutely defined in Hos 2:11-13, in which the figurative drapery is thrown into the background by the actual fact. Hos 2:11. "And I make all her joy keep holiday (i.e., cease), her feast, and her new moon, and her sabbath, and all her festive time." The feast days and festive times were days of joy, in which Israel was to rejoice before the Lord its God. To bring into prominence this character of the feasts, כּל־משׂושׂהּ, "all her joy," is placed first, and the different festivals are mentioned afterwards. Châg stands for the three principal festivals of the year, the Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles, which had the character of châg, i.e., of feasts of joy par excellence, as being days of commemoration of the great acts of mercy which the Lord performed on behalf of His people. Then came the day of the new moon every month, and the Sabbath every week. Finally, these feasts are all summed up in כּל־מועדהּ; for מועד, מועדים is the general expression for all festive seasons and festive days (Lev 23:2, Lev 23:4). As a parallel, so far as the facts are concerned, comp. Amo 8:10; Jer 7:34, and Lam 1:4; Lam 5:15.