Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 14:7

"They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive [as] the grain, and blossom as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon." — Hosea 14:7 (ASV)

They that dwell under his shadow - that is, the shadow of the restored Israel, who had just been described under the image of a magnificent tree uniting in itself all perfections. “They that are under the shadow of the Church are together under the shadow of Christ the Head of it, and also of God the Father.” The Jews, in ancient times, explained it, “they shall dwell under the shadow of their Messiah.” These, he says, “shall return,” that is, they shall turn to be quite different from what they had been, even back to Him, to whom they belonged, whose creatures they were, God. “They shall revive as the corn.” The words may be differently rendered, with the same general meaning. The simple words, “They shall revive” (literally, “give life” to, or “preserve in life,”) “corn,” have been completed differently.

Some in ancient times (from which our own version is derived) understood it as, “they shall revive” themselves, and thus, “shall live,” and that either “as corn” (as it is said, “shall grow as the vine”); or “by corn,” which is also quite natural, since “bread is the staff of life,” and our spiritual Bread is the support of our spiritual life.

Or lastly (of which the grammar is easier, yet the idiom less natural), it has been rendered “they shall give life to corn,” meaning to make corn live by cultivating it. In all these interpretations, the meaning is perfect. If we render “shall revive” as “corn,” it means that, being, as it were, dead, they shall not only live again with renewed life, but shall even increase. Corn first dies in its outward form, and thus is multiplied; the fruit-bearing branches of the vine are pruned and cut, and thus they bear richer fruit. So through suffering, chastisement, or the heavy hand of God or man, the Church, being purified, yields more abundant fruits of grace.

Or if rendered, “shall make corn to grow,” since the prophet, throughout this passage, is using figures of God’s workings in nature to speak of His workings of grace, then it is the same image as when our Lord speaks of those “who receive the seed in an honest and true heart and bring forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:23). Or if we were to render, “shall produce life through wheat,” what would this be, but that seed-corn, which, for us and for our salvation, was sown in the earth, and died, and “brought forth much fruit;” the Bread of life, of which our Lord says, “I am the Bread of life, whoso eateth of this bread shall live forever, and the bread which I will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world?” (John 6:48, John 6:51).

The scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon - The grapes of Lebanon have been the size of plums; its wine has been spoken of as the best in the East or even in the world. Formerly Israel was as a luxuriant, but empty, vine, bringing forth no fruit to God (Hosea 10:1). God “looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes” (Isaiah 5:2). Now its glory and luxuriance should not hinder its bearing fruit, and “that,” the noblest of its kind. Rich and fragrant is the odor of graces, the inspiration of the Spirit of God, and not fleeting, but abiding.