Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 2:5

"for their mother hath played the harlot; she that conceived them hath done shamefully; for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink." — Hosea 2:5 (ASV)

She that conceived them has done shamefully, literally, has made shameful - The silence as to “what” she “made shameful” is more emphatic than any words. She “made shameful” everything which she could “make shameful”: her acts, her children, and herself.

I will go after my lovers - (literally, let me go, I would go). The Hebrew word “Meahabim” denotes intense passionate love; the plural form implies that they were sinful loves. Every word aggravates the shamelessness. Amid God’s chastisements, she encourages herself, “Come, let me go,” as people harden and embolden themselves, and, as it were, lash themselves into further sin, lest they should shrink back or stop short in it.

“Let me go after.” She does not wait, as it were, to be enticed, allured, or seduced. She herself, uninvited, unbidden, unsought, contrary to the accustomed and natural feeling of woman, follows after those by whom she is not drawn, and refuses to follow God who would draw her . The “lovers” are whatever a man loves and courts apart from God.

They were the idols and false gods whom the Jews, like the pagans, took to themselves in addition to God. But in truth, they were devils. Devils she sought; the will of devils she followed; their pleasure she fulfilled, abandoning herself to sin, shamefully filled with all wickedness, and laboring with all kinds of impurity. These she professed that she loved, and that they, not God, loved her.

For whoever receives the gifts of God, except from God and in God’s way, receives them from devils. Whoever seeks what God forbids, seeks it from Satan, and holds that Satan, not God, loves him; since God refuses it, Satan encourages him to possess himself of it. Satan, then, is his lover.

That gave me my bread and my water - The sense of human weakness abides, even when divine love is gone. The whole history of human superstitions is evidence of this, whether they have been the mere instincts of nature, or whether they have attached themselves to religion or irreligion—Jewish, Pagan, or Muslim—or have been practiced by half-Christians.

“She is conscious that she does not have these things by her own power but is indebted to some other for them; but not remembering Him (as was commanded) who had given her power to get wealth, and richly all things to enjoy,” she professes them to be the gifts of her lovers. “Bread and water, wool and flax,” express the necessities of life—food and clothing; “mine oil and my drink” (Hebrew, drinks), its luxuries.

Oil also includes ointments, and so served for health, food, and medicine, for anointing the body, and for perfume. In perfumes and choice drinks, the rich people of Israel were guilty of great profusion; therefore it is said, He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich (Proverbs 21:17). For such things alone—the things of the body—did Israel care. Ascribing them to her false gods, she loved these gods and held that they loved her.

In the same way, the Jewish women shamelessly told Jeremiah, we will certainly do whatsoever thing goes out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine (Jeremiah 44:17–18).