Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 2:13

"And I will visit upon her the days of the Baalim, unto which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith Jehovah." — Hosea 2:13 (ASV)

I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, or Baals - When people leave the one true God, they make many idols for themselves. They act as if they could make up a god piecemeal from the many attributes of the One God, and create their Creator. His power of production becomes one God; His power of destroying, another; His providence, a third; and so on, down to the very smallest acts.

So they had many Baals or Lords: “Baal-berith” (Judges 8:33), Lord of covenants, who was to guard the sanctity of oaths; “Baal-zebub” (2 Kings 1:2), Lord of flies, who was to keep off the plague of flies; and “Baal-Peor” (Numbers 25:3), who presided over sin.

God threatens to visit upon them at once all their various idolatries and all the time of their idolatries. “The days of punishment shall equal the days of the wanderings, in which she burned incense to Baal.” God is patient for a long time. But when persevering impenitence draws down His anger, He punishes not only for the last sin, but for all.

Even to the penitent, God mostly makes the chastisement bear some proportion to the length and greatness of the sin.

Wherein she burned incense to them - Incense was that part of sacrifice which especially denoted thanksgiving and prayer ascending to God.

And she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels - Christ says to the bride, Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold (Song of Solomon 1:10). But what He gave her, she threw away on another and cast her pearls before swine.

She decked herself, that is, made God’s ornaments her own, used them not as He gave them, but artificially as an adulteress. And what else is it to use wit, or beauty, or any gift of God, for any purpose outside of God?

“The ornament of souls that choose to serve idols is to fulfill those things that seem good to the unclean spirits. Very beautiful to devils must be the sin-loving soul that chooses to think and to do whatever is sweet to and loved by them.”

Since sins of the flesh were a part of the worship of Baal, this garish trickery and effort to attract had an immediate offensiveness, beyond its connection to idols. He still pictures her as seeking her lovers, not being sought by them.

She went after her lovers, and forgat Me. The original text has great emphasis: She went after her lovers, and Me she forgat, saith the Lord. She went after vanities, and God, her All, she forgat.

Such is the character of all engrossing passion, and such is the course of sin to which the soul gives way, in avarice, ambition, worldliness, sensual sin, and godless science. The soul, at last, does not rebel against God; it forgets Him. It is taken up with other things, with itself, with the objects of its thoughts, the objects of its affections, and it has no time for God, because it has no love for Him.

So God complains of Judah by Jeremiah, their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal (Jeremiah 23:27; 1 Samuel 12:9–10; Jeremiah 2:32; Jeremiah 3:20; Jeremiah 13:25; Jeremiah 18:15; Ezekiel 22:12; Ezekiel 23:35; Isaiah 17:10; Psalms 9:17; Psalms 50:22; Psalms 78:11; Psalms 106:13; Psalms 106:21).