Charles Ellicott Commentary Hosea 2:12

"And I will lay waste her vines and her fig-trees, whereof she hath said, These are my hire that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them." — Hosea 2:12 (ASV)

Destroy. — For this, read make desolate, as suggested in the margin. The vine and fig tree are used as the symbol of possession and peace (1 Kings 4:25; Isaiah 36:16, and elsewhere). The desolation may be by fire or drought.

Make them a forest.— The Septuagint translates this as make them a testimony, reading l’‘ed instead of l’ya‘ar in the Hebrew text. The latter certainly yields a more vivid sense. The rest of the verse in the Septuagint is amplified: “And the wild beasts of the field, and the birds of the heaven, and the creeping things of the earth shall devour them.” While no candid critic will deny the possibility that such words may have originally stood in the text, it is à priori more probable that it is a gloss from Hosea 2:18 (Hosea 2:20 in the Septuagint). Even as late as Hadrian’s time, wild beasts rushed in upon the blood-stained ruins of Jerusalem.