Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 1:9

"And [Jehovah] said, Call his name Lo-ammi; for ye are not my people, and I will not be your [God]." — Hosea 1:9 (ASV)

Call his name Lo-ammi – that is, "not My people." The name of this third child expresses the last final degree of chastisement. As the "scattering by God" did not involve being wholly "unpitied," so neither did being wholly "unpitied" for the time involve being wholly rejected, so as to no longer be His people.

There were corresponding degrees in the actual history of the kingdom of Israel. God withdrew His protection by degrees. Under Jeroboam, in whose reign this beginning of Hosea’s prophecy occurred, the people were yet outwardly strong. This strength has been thought to be expressed by the sex of the first child, that he was a son.

After this, extreme weakness followed, full of mutual massacre and horrible cruelty—first, in a long anarchy, then under Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah, Pekah, and Hoshea from within, and through the invasions of Pul, Tiglath-Pileser, and Shalmaneser, kings of Assyria, from without. The sex of the daughter, "Lo-Ruhamah, Unpitied," corresponds with this increasing weakness and breaking of the spirit.

When she was weaned, that is, when the people were deprived of all consolation and all the spiritual food by which they had until now been supported—prophecy, teaching, promises, sacrifices, grace, favor, consolation—they then became wholly "Lo-ammi, not My people." As a distinct part of God’s people, they were cast off forever; and yet they became outwardly strong, as the Jews became powerful and often were the persecutors of Christians.

The same is seen in individuals. God often first chastens them lightly, then more heavily, and brings them down in their iniquities; but if they still harden themselves, He withdraws both His chastisements and His grace, so that the sinner even prospers in this world, but, remaining finally impenitent, is cast off forever.

I will not be your God – Literally, I will not be to you, or, for you; "for you," by providence; "to you," by love. The words say more through their silence. They do not say what God will not be to those who had been His people.

They do not say that He will not be their Defender, Nourisher, Saviour, Deliverer, Father, Hope, or Refuge; and so they say that He will be none of these, which are all included in the English, I will not be your God. For, as God, He is these, and all things, to us.

I will not be to you. God, by His love, vouchsafes to give all and to take all.

He gives Himself wholly to His own, in order to make them wholly His. He makes an exchange with them. As God the Son, by His Incarnation, took Manhood into God, so, by His Spirit dwelling in them, He makes human beings gods, partakers of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4). They, by His adoption, belong to Him; He, by His promise and gift, belongs to them.

He makes them His; He becomes theirs. This mutual exchange is so often expressed in Holy Scripture to show how God loves to give Himself to us and to make us His, and that where the one is, there is the other, nor can the one be without the other.

This was the original covenant with Israel: I will be your God, and you shall be My people (Leviticus 26:12; Exodus 6:7); and as such, it is often repeated in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 11:4–5; Jeremiah 24:7; Jeremiah 30:22; 31:1, 33; Jeremiah 32:38) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 11:20; Ezekiel 14:11; Ezekiel 36:28; 37:23, 27).

Afterward, this is expressed still more affectionately: I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters (2 Corinthians 6:18). And in Christ the Son, God says, I will be his Father, and he shall be My son (2 Samuel 7:14).

God, who does not say this to any outside of Christ, nor even to the holy Angels (as it is written, Unto which of the Angels said He at any time, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to Me a son?Hebrews 1:5), says it to us in Christ.

And so, in turn, the Church and each single soul which is His says (or rather, He says it in them): My beloved is mine, and I am His (Song of Solomon 2:16), and more boldly yet, I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine (Song of Solomon 6:3).

Hence also, at the Holy Communion, we say, "then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us;" and we pray that "we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us."