Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 2:1

"Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah." — Hosea 2:1 (ASV)

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi — that is, “My people”; and to your sisters, Ruhamah — that is, “beloved or tenderly pitied.” The words form a climax of the love of God. First, the people scattered, unpitied, and disowned by God, are reborn of God; then they are declared to be in continued relation to God, “My people”; then to be the object of His yearning love. The words, “My people,” may be similarly filled up: “ye are My people,” and “be ye My people.” They are words of hope in prophecy, “ye shall be My people again”; they become words of joy in each stage of fulfillment.

They are words of mutual joy and rejoicing when obeyed; they are words of encouragement until obeyed. God is reconciled to us, and wills that we be reconciled to Him. Among those who already are God’s people, they are the voice of the joy of mutual love in the oneness of the Spirit of adoption: “we are His people”; to those without (whether the ten tribes, or the Jews of heretics) they are the voice of those who know in whom they have believed: “Be ye also His people.” Despair of no one's salvation, but, with brotherly love, call them to repentance and salvation.”

This verse closes what went before, as God’s reversal of His own sentence, and anticipates what is to come (Hosea 5:14 and following). God commands the prophets and all those who love Him to appeal to those who forget Him, holding out to them the mercy in store for them also, if they will return to Him. He instructs them not to despise those still alien from Him, “but to treat as brothers and sisters those whom God wills to introduce into His house, and to call to the riches of His inheritance.”