Albert Barnes Commentary Hosea 5:15

"I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me earnestly." — Hosea 5:15 (ASV)

I will go and return to My place - As the wild beast, when it has taken its prey, returns to its hiding place, so God, when He had fulfilled His will, would, for the time, withdraw all tokens of His presence. God, who is wholly everywhere, is said to dwell “there,” relatively to us, where He manifests Himself, as in former times, in the tabernacle, the temple, Zion, Jerusalem. He is said to “go and return,” when He withdraws all tokens of His presence, His help, care, and providence.

This is worse than any affliction on God’s part, “a state like theirs who, in the lowest part of hell, are “delivered into chains of darkness,” shut out from His presence, and so from all hope of comfort; and this must necessarily be their condition, so long as He shall be absent from them; and so perpetually, unless there is a way for regaining His favorable presence.”

Till they acknowledge their offence - “He who has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live, withdraws Himself from them, not to cast them off altogether, but that they might know and acknowledge their folly and wickedness, and, seeing there is no comfort apart from Him, prefer His presence to those vain things that they had preferred to Him.” To say that God would hide His Face from them, “until they should acknowledge their offence,” holds out in itself a gleam of hope, that in the future they would turn to Him, and would find Him.

And seek My Face - The first step in repentance is confession of sin; the second, turning to God. For admitting sin without turning to God is the despair of Judas.

In their affliction they shall seek Me early - God does not only leave them hopes that He would manifest His presence when they sought Him, but He promises that they shall seek Him; that is, He would give them His grace by which alone they could seek Him, and that grace should be effectual. Of itself, affliction drives to despair and more obdurate rebellion and final impenitence. Through the grace of God, “evil brings forth good; fear, love; chastisement, repentance.” “They shall seek Me early,” originally, “in the morning,” that is, with all diligence and earnestness, as a man rises early to do what he is very determined to do. So these shall “shake off the sleep of sin and the torpor of listlessness, when the light of repentance shall shine upon them.”

This was fulfilled in the two tribes, towards the end of the seventy years, when many doubtless, together with Daniel, set their face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes (Daniel 9:2–3); and again in those who waited for redemption in Jerusalem (Luke 2:25, Luke 2:38), when our Lord came; and it will be fulfilled in all at the end of the world. “The first flash of thought on the power and goodness of the true Deliverer is like the morning streaks of a new day. At the sight of that light, Israel shall arise early to seek his God; he shall rise quickly like the Prodigal, out of his wanderings and his poverty.”