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Hosea 2

Chapter 2 in 30 seconds

God speaks like a heartbroken husband taking His unfaithful wife to court. She chased other lovers and thanked Baal for gifts God gave. But God will take her back to the wilderness, speak to her heart and marry her forever.

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In this chapterField Notes · ArchaeologyThe Samaria Ostraca · after verse 7 Field Notes · ArchaeologyThe Hosea Scrolls · after verse 23 Field Notes · ArchaeologyYahweh and His Asherah · after verse 17

Israel’s Adultery Rebuked

¹“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’

and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

²Rebuke your mother,

rebuke her,

for she is not My wife,

and I am not her husband.

Let her remove the adultery from her face

and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

HOS 2:2[NOTE]A COURT CASE IN THE FAMILY. God speaks like a husband taking his unfaithful wife to court. Her children are told to plead with their mother.

³Otherwise, I will strip her naked

and expose her like the day of her birth.

I will make her like a desert

and turn her into a parched land,

and I will let her die of thirst.

⁴I will have no compassion on her children,

because they are the children of adultery.

⁵For their mother has played the harlot

and has conceived them in disgrace.

For she thought,

‘I will go after my lovers,

who give me bread and water,

wool and linen, oil and drink.’

HOS 2:5[ARCHAEOLOGY]Shipping notes for wine and oil from Israel's capital in Hosea's century, with names built on Baal and on Yahweh, see The Samaria Ostraca Field Notes page

⁶Therefore, behold,

I will hedge up her path with thorns;

I will enclose her with a wall,

so she cannot find her way.

⁷She will pursue her lovers but not catch them;

she will seek them but not find them.

Then she will say,

‘I will return to my first husband,

for then I was better off than now.’

Field Notes · Archaeology

The Samaria Ostraca

Hosea 2:5 · 2:8 · 2:16 to 17 · 12:8

Five of the Samaria Ostraca, ink notes on broken pottery, as photographed for the Harvard dig report of 1924. Public domain.

WHAT THEY ARE: More than a hundred pieces of broken pottery with short notes written in ink, found in a storeroom building at Samaria, Israel's capital. More than sixty can still be read.
HOW OLD THEY ARE: Most scholars date them to the early 700s BC, many to the reign of Jeroboam II, the king of Israel in Hosea 1:1. They are dated by the year of a king they do not name. Some scholars date them a little earlier.
WHAT THEY SAY: They are shipping notes for jars of old wine and fine oil sent to Samaria from farms and clans around it. A typical note gives the year, the place or clan, the man who received it, and the jar.
THE NAMES: The notes name dozens of people. Many names are built on Yahweh, ending in yau, like Gaddiyau and Shemaryau. But others are built on Baal, like Abibaal, Baala and Meribaal.
BAAL OR MASTER?: Baal also means master or lord, so some parents may have used it as a title for Yahweh. That is just what God says He will stop in Hosea 2:16: you will no longer call Me my Baal.
WHERE AND WHEN FOUND: A Harvard team led by George Reisner dug them up in 1910, in a building next to the royal palace, now called the Ostraca House. The land was then ruled by the Ottoman Turks, so the ostraca went to the Istanbul Archaeology Museums.
WHY POTTERY?: Broken pottery was the scrap paper of the ancient world. It cost nothing, ink wrote on it well, and it lasts for thousands of years.
WHAT IT DOES NOT PROVE: The notes do not name Hosea or tell any event in the book.
WHAT IT SHOWS: Real records from Hosea's century: wine and oil flowing into the capital in the rich years, the same gifts Israel thanked Baal for, 2:5 and 2:8, and families naming children after both Yahweh and Baal.
SEE ALSO: The Samaria Ivories, 1 Kings, and The Fall of Samaria, 2 Kings.

CONFIDENCE: HIGH

⁸For she does not acknowledge

that it was I who gave her grain,

new wine, and oil,

who lavished on her silver and gold—

which they crafted for Baal.

HOS 2:8[DEMONIC]Israel used God's gifts of silver and gold to make Baal idols
HOS 2:8[NOTE]GRAIN, NEW WINE AND OIL. Baal was the storm god people thanked for rain and crops. God says the gifts were His all along.

⁹Therefore I will take back My grain in its time

and My new wine in its season;

I will take away My wool and linen,

which were given to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰And then I will expose her lewdness

in the sight of her lovers,

and no one will deliver her

out of My hands.

HOS 2:10[ARCHAEOLOGY]Hosea in three Qumran scrolls of the Twelve and two Qumran commentaries on Hosea, see The Hosea Scrolls Field Notes page

¹¹I will put an end to all her exultation:

her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—

all her appointed feasts.

¹²I will destroy her vines and fig trees,

which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers.

So I will make them into a thicket,

and the beasts of the field will devour them.

¹³I will punish her for the days of the Baals

when she burned incense to them,

when she adorned herself with rings and jewelry,

and went after her lovers.

But Me she forgot,”

declares Yahweh.

HOS 2:13[DEMONIC]God will punish Israel for burning incense to the Baals

God’s Mercy to Israel

¹⁴“Therefore, behold, I will allure her

and lead her to the wilderness,

and speak to her heart.

HOS 2:14[HEART]God will lead His unfaithful bride into the wilderness and speak to her heart. He wins her back with tenderness.
HOS 2:14[TEXT]SPEAK TO HER HEART. The Hebrew says I will speak to her heart. The KJV says speak comfortably unto her.
HOS 2:14[NOTE]BACK TO THE WILDERNESS. God will take her back to where their love began, the exodus, 2:15.

¹⁵There I will give back her vineyards

and make the Valley of Achor

into a gateway of hope.

There she will respond as she did

in the days of her youth,

as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

HOS 2:15[NOTE]THE VALLEY OF ACHOR. Achor means trouble. Achan was stoned there, Joshua 7:24 to 26. God turns the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope.

¹⁶In that day,”

declares Yahweh,

“you will call Me ‘my Husband,’

and no longer call Me ‘my Master.’

HOS 2:16[DEMONIC]God will remove the names of the Baals from Israel's lips
HOS 2:16[NOTE]MY HUSBAND, NOT MY MASTER. The Hebrew says you will call Me Ishi, my husband, and no longer Baali, my master. Baal was the false god's name too. See Yahweh and His Asherah.

¹⁷For I will remove from her lips the names of the Baals;

no longer will their names be invoked.

Field Notes · Archaeology

Yahweh and His Asherah

Hosea 2:16 to 17 · 4:12 to 13

A modern drawing of the paintings and writing on Jar A from Kuntillet Ajrud. Wikimedia Commons.

WHAT IT IS: Two big storage jars from Kuntillet Ajrud, a desert stopping place in the Sinai, painted with figures and written with blessings. One says, I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and by his asherah.
HOW OLD IT IS: About 800 BC, a generation before Hosea.
WHERE FOUND: Archaeologist Zeev Meshel dug the site in 1975 and 1976.
WHAT IT MEANS: Asherah was a goddess, and also the name for the wooden pole that stood for her. Either way, some Israelites worshiped Yahweh with something beside Him, and Yahweh of Samaria ties it to Hosea's own capital.
OTHER VIEWS: Some scholars think asherah here means only a sacred tree or pole, not a goddess. Some think the figures under the words show Yahweh and Asherah. Others say they are the Egyptian god Bes and may not go with the blessing at all.
WHAT IT SHOWS: Hosea was not exaggerating. God says, you will call Me my Husband, and I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips, 2:16 to 17.

CONFIDENCE: HIGH

¹⁸On that day I will make a covenant for them

with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air

and the creatures that crawl on the ground.

And I will abolish bow and sword

and battle in the land,

and will make them lie down in safety.

¹⁹So I will betroth you to Me forever;

I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,

in loving devotion and compassion.

HOS 2:19[NOTABLE]God's wedding vow to an unfaithful people. His love is not a contract that ends when we fail; it is a promise He keeps forever.
HOS 2:19[NOTE]BETROTHED FOREVER. Three times God says, I will betroth you. Many Jewish men say 2:19 to 20 each weekday morning as they wrap the strap of the tefillin three times around the middle finger, like a ring.

²⁰And I will betroth you in faithfulness,

and you will know Yahweh.”

²¹“On that day I will respond—”

declares Yahweh—“

I will respond to the heavens,

and they will respond to the earth.

²²And the earth will respond to the grain,

to the new wine and oil,

and they will respond to Jezreel.

²³And I will sow her as My own in the land,

and I will have compassion on ‘No Compassion.’

I will say to those called ‘Not My People,’

‘You are My people,’

and they will say,

‘You are my God.’”

HOS 2:23[PROPHECY]God would say to Not My People, You are My people → ROM 9:25; 1PE 2:10
HOS 2:23[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → ROM 9:25-26
HOS 2:23[ALLUDED TO]The New Testament refers to this → 1PE 2:10

Field Notes · Archaeology

The Hosea Scrolls

Hosea 1 to 14 · 2:6 to 12 · 5:13 to 15

4Q166, Pesher Hosea, a Qumran commentary on Hosea 2:6 to 12. Photo Shai Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority, Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library.

WHAT THEY ARE: Copies of Hosea and commentaries on it from the caves near Qumran. Hosea is in three scrolls of the Twelve Prophets from Cave 4, called 4QXII c, d and g. Two more scrolls, 4Q166 and 4Q167, are commentaries called Pesher Hosea.
HOW OLD THEY ARE: The copies of the Twelve were made in the hundred years before Jesus. The commentary in the photo, 4Q166, was copied in the Herodian period, between about 30 BC and the time of Jesus.
WHAT A PESHER IS: Pesher means interpretation. The writer quotes a few words of Scripture, then says, its interpretation is, and explains how the words fit his own day.
THE UNFAITHFUL WIFE: 4Q166 quotes Hosea 2:6 to 12, numbered 2:8 to 14 in Hebrew Bibles, the wife who chased her lovers, and reads her as the people of its own time who forgot God and followed the ways of the nations.
THE LION OF WRATH: 4Q167 comments on Hosea 5:14, I will be like a lion to Ephraim. It speaks of the Lion of Wrath and of a last priest who would strike Ephraim. Many scholars think the Lion of Wrath was the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus, who ruled about 103 to 76 BC.
HOW THEY WERE FOUND: Bedouin shepherds found Cave 4 in 1952, right beside the ruins of Qumran. They dug out most of its thousands of scroll pieces before archaeologists arrived and found more. Scholars spent years fitting them together.
A SCROLL OF TWELVE: The twelve shorter prophets fit on one scroll, so Jews counted them as one book, the Book of the Twelve. Hosea comes first, as it does in Bibles today.
WHAT THE COPIES SHOW: The Hosea text in the scrolls is very close to the Hebrew text used today, with small differences, mostly in spelling.
WHY IT MATTERS: Jews before Jesus already read Hosea as a living word for their own day. Matthew and Paul read it that way too, Matthew 2:15 and Romans 9:25 to 26.
WHERE THEY ARE TODAY: The Israel Antiquities Authority keeps the pieces in Jerusalem. Anyone can look at them online in the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library.

CONFIDENCE: HIGH

Hosea 2

Israel’s Adultery Rebuked

God’s Mercy to Israel

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