UNROLL
Evening on a stone threshing floor in the hills: a heap of threshed grain, a tall clay jar of new wine and a smaller jar of oil beside it, a wooden fork at rest, a calm sky above.

’s marriage

Hosea 2

Who do you thank for the good things in your life?

23 verses≈ 5 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

  1. 1–3Hosea’s marriageA wife, three names, and love bought backChapter 2
  2. 4–6:3The LORD’s caseNo knowledge of God in the land
  3. 6–11Sowing the windMist, kings, calves, and a love that won’t let go
  4. 11–14Return, O IsraelJacob’s story, death undone, and the last call

Israel’s Adultery Rebuked

God

“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’

and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

God

Rebuke 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.

Otherwise, 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.

God

I will have no compassion on her children,

because they are the children of adultery.

For 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.’

God
Midday on a narrow stony path between terraces: a thick barrier of cut thorn branches piled across the path, a dry-stone wall rising beside it, the way beyond out of sight.

Therefore, behold,

I will hedge up her path with thorns;

I will enclose her with a wall,

so she cannot find her way.

God

She 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.’

God
God

For 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.

God

Therefore 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.

And then I will expose her lewdness

in the sight of her lovers,

and no one will deliver her

out of My hands.

God
God

I will put an end to all her exultation:

her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—

all her appointed feasts.

God
Gray morning on an abandoned terraced vineyard: vines run wild and choked with bramble, an old fig tree overgrown, a broken terrace wall, a jackal slipping through the tangle.

I 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.

God

I 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.

God

But Me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

Reflect

Reflect

Israel thanked the wrong giver for its grain and oil. Is there a good gift in your life that you have been thanking someone or something else for?

God’s Mercy to Israel

God
First light in a dry valley of tan hills near Jericho: a track runs down to a narrow gap between two rock walls, like a doorway, and through it a green valley with vines and light beyond.

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her

and lead her to the wilderness,

and speak to her tenderly.

There 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.

0:19

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

God

In that day,”

declares the LORD,

“you will call Me ‘my Husband,’

and no longer call Me ‘my Master.’

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

no longer will their names be invoked.

God
God

On 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.

God

So I will betroth you to Me forever;

I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,

in loving devotion and compassion.

Hosea 2:19

God

And I will betroth you in faithfulness,

and you will know the LORD.”

Question

Quick question

Achor was the valley near Jericho where Achan’s sin brought trouble on Israel as it first entered the land.

What will the LORD make of the Valley of Achor?

God

“On that day I will respond—” declares the LORD— “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth. And the earth will respond to the grain, to the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.

God
God

And 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.’”

From lawsuit to betrothal

thereforeThe charge2:2–5: IsraelfaithlessThe hedge2:6–8: the way blockedGifts takenback2:9–13: “But Me sheforgot”Into thewilderness2:14–15: a gateway ofhopeBetrothedforever2:19–20: you will knowthe LORDYou are Mypeople2:23: “You are myGod.”

Whiteboard

The same “Therefore” that brought judgment brings her home. The LORD ends the case with a wedding.

You’ve experienced

Hosea 2

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A verse to carry with you

So I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in loving devotion and compassion.

Hosea 2:19

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