Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 2:9

"Therefore will I take back my grain in the time thereof, and my new wine in the season thereof, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness." — Hosea 2:9 (ASV)

Therefore I will return - God is, as it were, absent from men when He lets them go on in their abuse of His gifts. His judgments are far above out of their sight. He returns to them, and His presence is felt in chastisements, as it might have been in mercies. He is not out of sight or out of mind, then. Others render it, “I will turn, that is, I will do other than before; I will turn” from love to displeasure, from pouring out benefits to the infliction of chastisements, from giving abundance of all things to punishing them with the want of all things.

I will take away My corn in the time of it - God shows us that His gifts come from Him, either by giving them when we almost despair of them, or taking them away, when they are all but ours. It can seem no chance when He so does. The chastisement is severer also, when the good things, long looked-for, are, at last, taken out of our very hands, and that, when there is no remedy. If in harvest-time there is dearth, what afterward! “God takes away all, that they who did not know the Giver through abundance, might know Him through want.”

And will recover My wool - God “recovers,” and, as it were, “delivers” the works of His Hands from serving the ungodly. While He leaves His creatures in the possession of the wicked, they are held, as it were, in captivity, being kept back from their proper uses, and made the servants and instruments and tempters to sin. God made His creatures on earth to serve man, that man, through them, might glorify Him. It is against the order of nature to use God’s gifts to any other end short of God’s glory; much more, to turn God’s gifts against Himself and make them serve pride or luxury or sensual sin.

It is a bondage, as it were, to them. Concerning them, Paul also says, The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly; and, all creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now (Romans 8:20, 22).

Penitents have felt this. They have felt that they no longer deserve for the sun to shine on them, or the earth to sustain them, or the air to support them, or wine to refresh them, or food to nourish them, since all these are the creatures and servants of the God whom they themselves have offended. They themselves no longer deserve to be served by God’s servants, since they have rebelled against their common Master, or even to rightly use what they have abused against the will of their Creator.

My flax - Given to cover her nakedness, that is, which God had given for that end. It was a shame that, covered with the garments which God had given her to hide her shame, she did deeds of shame. The white linen garments of her priests also were symbols of that purity which the Great High Priest should have and give. Now, withdrawing those gifts, He gave them up to the greatest visible shame, such as insolent conquerors often inflicted upon them in leading a people into captivity. Thereby, in this act, was symbolized that loss of the robe of righteousness, heavenly grace, with which God beautifies the soul; when stripped of it, the soul is indeed foul.