Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 2:7

"And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now." — Hosea 2:7 (ASV)

And she will follow after - The words translated “follow after and seek” (רדך, בקשׁ) are intensive and express “eager, vehement pursuit,” and “diligent search.” They express, together, a pursuit whose minuteness is not hindered by its vehemence, nor its extent and wideness by its exactness. She will seek far and wide, minutely and carefully, everywhere and in all things, and will fail in all.

For eighteen hundred years the Jews have chased after a phantom, a Christ, triumphing after the manner of the kings of the earth, and it has ever escaped them. The sinful soul will too often struggle on, in pursuit of what God is withdrawing, and will not give up, until, through God’s persevering mercy, the fruitless pursuit exhausts her, and she finds it hopeless. Oh, the willfulness of man, and the unwearied patience of God!

Then she will say, I will go and return - She encourages herself tremblingly to return to God. The words express a mixture of purpose and wish. Before, she said, “Come, let me go after my lovers;” now, she says, “Come let me go and return,” as the prodigal in the Gospel, I will arise and go to my Father.

To my first husband -

“God is the first Husband of the soul, which, while still pure, He, through the love of the Holy Spirit, united with Himself. Him the soul longs for, when it finds manifold bitternesses, as thorns, in those delights of time and sense which it coveted. For when the soul begins to be gnawed by the sorrows of the world which she loves, then she understands more fully how it was better with her, with her former husband.

Those whom a perverse will led astray, distress mostly converts.”

“Mostly, when we cannot obtain in this world what we wish, when we have been wearied with the impossibility of our search of earthly desires, then the thought of God returns to the soul; then, what was before distasteful, becomes pleasant to us; He whose commands had been bitter to the soul, suddenly in memory grows sweet to her, and the sinful soul determines to be a faithful wife.”

And God still graciously consents to be, on her return, the Husband even of the adulterous soul, however far she had strayed from Him.

For then it was better with me than now - It is the voice of the prodigal son in the Gospel, which the Father hears, How many hired servants of my Father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

“I will serve,” Israel would say, “the living and true God, not the pride of people, or of evil spirits, for even in this life it is much sweeter to bear the yoke of the Lord, than to be the servant of men.”

In regard to the ten tribes, the “then” must mean the time before the apostasy under Jeroboam. God, in these words, softens the severity of His upbraiding and of His sentences of coming woe, by the sweetness of promised mercy.

Israel was so impatient of God’s threats, that their kings and princes killed those whom He sent to them. God wins her attention to His accusations by this brief tempering of sweetness.