John Calvin Commentary Hosea 2

The Prophet having spoken of the people’s restoration, and promised that God would in time receive into favor those whom he had previously rejected, now exhorts the faithful to mutually stir up one another to receive this favor. He had previously mentioned a public proclamation, for it is not in the power of men to make themselves the children of God, but God himself freely adopts them. But now the mutual exhortation of which the Prophet speaks follows the proclamation, for God at the same time invites us to himself. After we are taught in common, it then remains that each one should extend his hand to his brothers, that we may thus with one consent be brought together to the Lord.

This then is what the Prophet means by saying, Say to your brothers, עמי omi, and to your sisters רוחמה ruchamah; that is, since I have promised to be propitious to you, you can now safely testify this to one another. We then see that this discourse is addressed to each of the faithful, that they may mutually confirm themselves in the faith, after the Lord will offer them favor and reconciliation.

The Prophet seems in this verse to contradict himself, for he promised reconciliation, and now he speaks of a new repudiation. These things do not seem to agree well together: that God should embrace, or be willing to embrace, again in His love those whom He had before rejected—and that He should at the same time send a bill of divorce and renounce the bond of marriage.

But if we weigh the design of the Prophet, we will see that the passage is very consistent, and that there is no contradiction in the words. He has indeed promised that at a future time God would be favorable to the Israelites; but as they had not yet repented, it was necessary to deal more severely with them again, so that they might return to their God truly and thoroughly subdued.

So we see that in Scripture, promises and threats are mingled together, and rightly so. For if the Lord were to spend a whole month reproving sinners, they might in that time fall away a hundred times. Hence God, after showing men their sins, adds some consolation and moderates severity, lest they should despair; He afterwards returns again to threatening, and does so from necessity, for though men may be terrified by the fear of punishment, they do not yet truly repent. It is then necessary for them to be reproved not only once or twice, but very often.

So now we perceive what the Prophet had in view: he had spoken of the people’s defection; afterwards, he proved that the people had been justly rejected by the Lord; and then he promised the hope of pardon. But now, seeing that they still continued obstinate in their vices, he again reproves those who needed such chastisement. In a word, he has their present state in view.

Almost all expound this verse as if the Prophet addressed the faithful; and those who say that the Prophet addresses the faithful who had fallen away from the synagogue expound it with even greater refinement. They have, I have no doubt, been much deceived; for the Prophet, on the contrary, shows here that God was justly punishing the Israelites, who were accustomed to excuse themselves in the same way as hypocrites are accustomed to do.

When the Lord treated them otherwise than according to their wishes, they expostulated and raised contention, asking, “What does this mean?” Thus we find them introduced as speaking in this way by Isaiah (Isaiah 58:1–3). There, indeed, they fiercely contend with God, as if the Lord dealt with them unjustly, for they seemed unconscious of having done any evil. Hence the Prophet, seeing the Israelites so senseless in their sins, says, Contend, contend with your mother. He speaks here in the person of God; and God, as has been stated, uses the likeness of a marriage. Let us now see what the words mean.

When a husband repudiates his wife, he brings disgrace upon the children born from that marriage: their mother has been divorced; then the children, on account of that divorce, are held in less esteem. When a husband repudiates his wife through waywardness, the children justly regard him with hatred.

Why? “Because he did not love our mother as he ought to have done; he has not honored the bond of marriage.” It is therefore usually the case that the children’s affections are alienated from their father when he treats their mother with too little humanity or with entire contempt. So the Israelites, when they saw themselves rejected, wished to throw the blame on God.

For the people are here called by the name “mother”; it is transferred to the whole body of the people, or the race of Abraham. God had espoused that people to Himself and wished them to be like a wife to Him. Since God was then a husband to the people, the Israelites were like sons born from that marriage.

But when they were repudiated, the Israelites said that God dealt cruelly with them, for He had cast them away for no fault of theirs. The Prophet now undertakes the defense of God’s cause and also speaks in His person, saying, Contend, contend with your mother. In a word, this passage agrees with what is said in the beginning of Isaiah 50:1:

Where is the bill of repudiation? Have I sold you to my creditors? But you have been sold for your sins, and your mother has been repudiated for her iniquity.

Husbands were accustomed to give a bill of divorce to their wives, so that they themselves might see it; for it freed them from all reproach, because the husband bore testimony to his wife: “I dismiss her, not because she has been unfaithful, not because she has violated the bond of marriage, but because her beauty does not please me, or because her manners are not agreeable to me.” The law compelled the husband to give such testimony.

God now says by His Prophet, “Show Me now the bill of repudiation: have I of My own accord cast away your mother? No, I have not done so. You cannot accuse Me of cruelty, as though her beauty did not please Me, and as though I had followed the common practice approved by you. I have not willingly rejected her, nor at My own pleasure, and I have not sold her to My creditors, as your fathers were sometimes accustomed to do with their children when they were in debt.”

In short, the Lord shows there that the Jews were to be blamed for being rejected together with their mother. So He also says in this place, Contend, contend with your mother; which means, “Your dispute is not with Me.” And by the repetition, He shows how inveterate their perverseness was, for they never ceased to clamor against God. We now see the real meaning of the Prophet.

Those who say that the mother was to be condemned by her own children philosophize in vain then, because, when they are converted to their former faith, they ought then to condemn the synagogue. The Prophet meant no such thing; but, on the contrary, he brings this charge against the Israelites: that they had been repudiated for the flagrant misconduct of their mother and had ceased to be counted the children of God.

For the comparison between husband and wife is to be understood here; and then the children are placed, as it were, in the middle. When the mother is dismissed, the children indignantly say that the father has been too inhuman if indeed he willfully divorces his wife; but when a wife becomes unfaithful to her husband or prostitutes herself through some shameful crime, the husband is then free from all blame, and there is no cause for the children to expostulate with him, for he ought to punish a shameless wife in this way.

God then shows that the Israelites were justly rejected, and that the blame for their rejection belonged to the whole race of Abraham, but that no blame could be imputed to Him.

And for this reason it is added, Let her then take away her fornication from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts. The Prophet, by saying, “Let her then take away her fornications” (for the conjunction ו, vau, should be regarded as an illative particle), confirms what we have just said: that is, that God had stood by His pledged faith, but that the people had become treacherous, and that the cause of the divorce or separation was that the Israelites did not persevere, as they ought to have done, in the obedience of faith.

Then God says, Let her take away her fornications. But the phrase, Let her take away from her face and from her breasts, seems peculiar; and what does it mean? For women do not commit fornication with the face or with the breasts. It is evident the Prophet alludes to a harlot’s finery; for harlots, so that they may entice men, sumptuously adorn themselves, and carefully paint their face and decorate their breasts. Wantonness then appears in the face as well as on the breasts. But interpreters do not address what the Prophet had in view.

The Prophet, no doubt, sets forth here the shamelessness of the people, for they had now so hardened themselves in their contempt of God, in their ungodly superstitions, and in all kinds of wickedness, that they were like harlots who do not conceal their baseness but openly prostitute themselves, yes, and exhibit tokens of their shamelessness in their eyes as well as in every part of their bodies. We see then that the people are here accused of disgraceful impudence, as they had grown so callous as to wish to be known for what they were. In the same way Ezekiel sets forth their reproachful conduct (Ezekiel 16:25):

Spread has the harlot her feet,
she called on all who passed by the way.

So now we understand why the Prophet expressly said, Let her take away from her face her fornication, and from her breasts her adulteries; for he teaches that the vices of the people were not hidden, and that they did not sin and cover their baseness as hypocrites do, but that they were so unrestrained in their contempt of God that they had become like common harlots.

This is a remarkable passage; for we first see that men complain in vain when the Lord seems to deal severely with them, for they will always find the fault to be in themselves and in their parents. Yes, when they look at everything impartially, they will confess that everyone throughout the whole community is included in one and the same guilt.

Let us learn from this, whenever the Lord may chastise us, to examine ourselves and confess that He is justly severe towards us. Yes, if we were apparently cast away, we ought yet to confess that it is through our own fault, and not through God’s immoderate severity. We also learn how frivolous their pretext is, who set up the authority of their fathers against God, as the Papists do; for they would, if they could, call or compel God to account, because He forsakes them and does not now own them as His Church.

“What! Has not God bound His faith to us? Is not the Church His spouse? Can He be unfaithful?” So say the Papists; but at the same time they do not consider that their mother has become utterly filthy through her many abominations; they do not consider that she has been repudiated because the Lord could no longer bear her great wickedness. Let us then know that it is in vain to bring the examples of men against God, for what is said here by the Prophet will always stand true: that God has not given a bill of divorce to His Church; that is, He has not divorced her of His own accord, as peevish and cruel husbands are accustomed to do, but He has been constrained to do so because He could no longer connive at so many abominations.

Although the Prophet in this verse severely threatens the Israelites, it appears from a full view of the whole passage that he mitigates the sentence we have explained. By declaring what sort of vengeance hung over them, unless they repented in time, he shows that there was some hope of pardon remaining, which, as we will see, he expresses more clearly later.

He now begins by saying, Lest I strip her naked, and set her as on the day of her nativity. This alone would have been dreadful. But we will see in the passage that God denounces punishment in such a way that he does not completely cut off the hope of mercy. At the same time, he reminds them that the divorce, for which they were inclined to contend with God, was such that God still shows indulgence to the divorced wife.

For when a husband dismisses an adulteress, he strips her entirely, and rightly so. But God shows here that although the Israelites had become wanton, and were like a shameless woman, he had still divorced them in such a way until now that he had left them their dowry, their ornaments, and marriage gifts.

We then see that God had not used his right as he could have rightly done. Therefore, he says, Lest I strip her naked: which means this, “I seem too rigid to you because I have declared that I am no longer a husband to your mother. And yet, see how kindly I have spared her, for she still remains almost untouched. Although she has lost the name of wife, I have not yet stripped her; she still lives in sufficient plenty.

From where does this come, if not from my indulgence? For I did not wish to exercise my right, as husbands do. But unless she learns to humble herself, I now prepare myself for the purpose of executing heavier punishments.” We now comprehend the whole meaning of the passage.

What the Prophet means by “the day of nativity,” we may easily learn from Ezekiel 16, for Ezekiel there treats the same subject as our Prophet, but much more extensively. He says that the Israelites were then born when God delivered them from the tyranny of Egypt. This, then, was the nativity of the people.

And yet it was a miserable sight when they fled with fear and trembling, when they were exposed to their enemies. After they entered the wilderness, lacking bread and water, their condition was very wretched. The Prophet now says, Lest I set her as on the day of her nativity, and set her as the desert.

Some regard the letter כ caph to be understood, as if it were written, כבמדבר, as in the desert; that is, I will set her as she was formerly in the desert. This interpretation is not unsuitable, for the Prophet undoubtedly calls “the day of nativity” that time when the people were brought out of Egypt. They immediately entered the desert, where there was a lack of everything.

They might then have soon perished there, consumed by famine and thirst, had not the Lord miraculously supported them. The sense then seems consistent with this rendering, Lest I set her as in the desert and as in a dry land. But another interpretation is more approved: Lest I set her like the desert and dry land.

Regarding what the Prophet had in view, it was necessary to remind the Israelites here of what they were at their beginning. For from where did their contempt of God come, from where did their obstinate pride come, if not from being intoxicated by their pleasures? For when an abundance of all good things flowed, they thought of themselves as if they had come from the clouds; for people commonly forget what they formerly were when the Lord has made them rich.

Since the benefits of God often blind us and make us think of ourselves as if we were half-gods, the Prophet here sets before the children of Abraham what their condition was when the Lord redeemed them. “I have redeemed you,” he says, “from the greatest miseries and extreme degradation.” Sons of kings are born kings and are brought up in the midst of pomp and pleasures; indeed, before they are born, great displays of wealth, we know, are prepared for them, which they enjoy from their mother’s womb.

But when someone is born of a humble and obscure mother, and fathered by an ordinary and poor man, and later rises to a different condition, if he is proud of his splendor and does not remember that he was once a commoner and of no standing, this may be justly thrown in his face: “Who were you formerly? What! Do you not know that you were a cowherd, or a mechanic, or one covered with filth? Fortune has smiled on you, or God has raised you to riches and honors; but you are so self-satisfied as if your condition had always been the same.”

This is the main point of what the Prophet says: I will set your mother, he says, as she was at her first nativity. For who are you? A holy race, a chosen nation, a people sacred to me? Granted; but free adoption has brought all this to you.

You were exiles in Egypt, strangers in the land of Canaan, and were no better than other people. Besides, Pharaoh reduced you to a degrading servitude; you were then the most abject slaves. How magnificent, regarding you, was your departure! Did you not flee tremblingly and in the night? And did you not later live in a miraculous way for forty years in the desert, when I rained manna on you from the clouds?

Since then your poverty and want have been so great, since there is nothing to cause you to become so proud, why do you not show more modesty? But if your present condition creates forgetfulness in you, I will set you as on the day of your nativity.”

The Lord now comes close to each individual, after having spoken in general of the whole people. Thus we see that what I have said is true: that the Prophet was far from supposing that God here teaches the faithful who had already repented that they ought to condemn their own mother.

The Prophet meant nothing of the kind; but, on the contrary, he wished to check the waywardness of the people, who did not cease to contend with God, as though God had been more severe than just towards their race. Now then, he reproves each of them. He says, your children I will not pity; for they are spurious children.

He had indeed said before that they had been born by adultery, but he afterwards received them into favor. This is true, but what I have said must be remembered: that the Prophet still continues in his reproofs. For though he has mixed in some consolation, he still saw that their hearts were not yet contrite and sufficiently humbled. We must bear in mind the difference between their present state and their future favor. God previously promised that he would be merciful to apostates who had departed from him, but now he shows that it was not yet the ripe time, for they had not ceased to sin. Hence he says, I will not pity your children.

Having spoken of the mother’s divorce, he now says that the children, born of adultery, were not his. And certainly, what the Prophet previously promised was not immediately fulfilled; for the people, we know, had been disowned, and when deprived of the land of Canaan, were rejected, as it were, by the Lord.

The Babylonian exile was a kind of death. Then when they returned from exile, only a small portion returned, not the whole people; and we know they were tossed by many calamities until Christ our Redeemer appeared. Since the Prophet then included this whole time, it is no wonder that he says that the children were to be repudiated by the Lord because they were born of adultery. For until they returned from captivity and Christ was finally revealed, this repudiation of which the Prophet speaks always continued. He says, Thy children I will not pity.

At first sight, it seems very dreadful that God takes away the hope of mercy; but we should confine this sentence to that time during which God was pleased to cast away His people. As long, then, as that temporary casting away lasted, God’s favor was hidden. To this the Prophet now refers: I will not then pity her children, for they are born by adultery.

At the same time, we must remember that this sentence specifically belonged to the reprobate, who boasted of being the children of Abraham while they were profane and unholy, while they impiously perverted the whole worship of God, and while they were wholly ungovernable. Then the Prophet justly pronounces such a severe judgment on obstinate men, who could not be reformed by any admonitions.

He afterwards declares how the children became spurious: Their mother, who conceived or bare them, has been wanton; with shameful acts has she defiled herself. בוש bush, means to be ashamed; but here the Prophet does not mean that the Israelites were touched with shame, for such a meaning would be inconsistent with the previous sentence, but that they were like a shameless and infamous woman, feeling no shame for her baseness.

Their mother, then, had been wanton, and she who bare them had become scandalous. Here the Prophet strips the Israelites of their foolish confidence, who were accustomed to profess the name of God while they were entirely alienated from him: for they had fallen away by their impiety from pure worship, they had rejected the law, yes, and every yoke.

Since they were then wild beasts, it was extreme stupidity always to set up the name of God as their shield and always to boast of the adoption of their father Abraham. But as the Jews were so perversely proud, the Prophet here answers them, “Your mother has been wanton, and with shameful acts has she defiled herself. I will not therefore count nor own you as my children, for you were born by adultery.”

This passage confirms what I have recently explained—that it is not enough that God should choose any people for Himself, unless the people themselves persevere in the obedience of faith; for this is the spiritual chastity that the Lord requires from all His people. But when is a wife, whom God has bound to Himself by a sacred marriage, said to become wanton?

When she falls away from pure and sound faith, as we will see more clearly later. Then it follows that the marriage between God and men endures as long as those who have been adopted continue in pure faith; and apostasy, in a way, frees God from us, so that He may justly repudiate us.

Since such apostasy prevails under the Papacy, and has prevailed for many ages, how senseless is their boasting, while they wish to be thought of as the holy Catholic Church and the elect people of God! For they are all born from wantonness; they are all spurious children. The incorruptible seed is the word of God, but what sort of doctrine do they have? It is a spurious seed. Therefore, as to God, all Papists are bastards. Then they boast in vain that they are the children of God and that they have the holy Mother Church, for they are born from filthy wantonness.

The Prophet still pursues the same subject: “She said, I will go after my lovers, the givers of my bread, of my waters, of my wool, and of my flax, and of my oil, and of my drink.” The Prophet here defines the whoredom of which he had spoken. This part is explanatory; the Prophet unfolds in several words what he had briefly touched when he said, your mother has been wanton. Now, if the Jews object and say, How has she become wanton?

Because, “she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my waters, etc.” The Prophet here compares false gods to lovers who seduce women from their marital fidelity, for he pursues the analogy he had introduced.

The Church, to whom God has pledged His faith, is represented as a wife. Just as a woman is, when enticed by gifts, and as many women pursue covetousness and become lascivious so that they may dress sumptuously and live luxuriously, so the Prophet now points out this vice in the Israelite Church: She said, I will go after my lovers.

Some understand lovers to mean either the Assyrians or the Egyptians, for when the Israelites formed connections with these heathen nations, we know they were drawn away from their God.

But the Prophet especially inveighs against false and corrupt modes of worship, and all kinds of superstitions; for the pure worship of God, we know, is always to have the first place, and that justly, for on this depend all the duties of life. I therefore do not doubt that he includes all false gods when he says, I will go after my lovers.

But by introducing the word said, he amplifies the shamelessness of the people, who deliberately forsook their God, who was to them as a legitimate husband. It indeed happens sometimes that a man is thoughtlessly drawn aside by a mistake or folly, but he soon repents; for we see many of the inexperienced are deceived for a short time. But the Prophet here shows that the Israelites premeditated their unfaithfulness, so that they willfully departed from God.

Hence she said; and we know that this said means so much. It is to be referred not to the outward word as pronounced, but to the inward purpose. She therefore said, that is, she made this resolution. It is as though he said, “Let no one make this frivolous excuse, that they were deceived, that they did it in their simplicity. You are, he says, avowedly perfidious; you have with a premeditated purpose sought this divorce.”

He, however, ascribes this to their mother, for defection began at the root when they were drawn away by Jeroboam into corrupt superstitions; and the promotion of this evil became, as it were, hereditary. He therefore intended to condemn the whole community here. Hence, she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my waters. But I cannot finish today; I must therefore break off the sentence.

Prayer:

Grant, Almighty God, that as You have not only recently adopted us as Your children, but before we were born, and as You have been pleased to sign us, as soon as we came out from our mother’s womb, with the symbol of that holy redemption, which has been obtained for us by the blood of Your only begotten Son, though we have by our ingratitude renounced so great a benefit—O grant that, being mindful of our defection and unfaithfulness, of which we are all guilty, and for which You have justly rejected us, we may now with true humility and obedience of faith embrace the grace of Your gospel now again offered to us, by which You reconcile Yourself to us; and grant that we may steadfastly persevere in pure faith, so as never to turn aside from the true obedience of faith, but to advance more and more in the knowledge of Your mercy, that having strong and deep roots, and being firmly grounded in the confidence of sure faith, we may never fall away from the true worship of You, until You at last receive us into that eternal kingdom, which has been procured for us by the blood of Your only Son. Amen.

[Exposition continues from previous day's lecture]

It remains for us to explain what the Prophet declares concerning the Israelites: that they boasted of their abundance of wine and oil, and all good things as having come to them through their superstitions. What, then, they should have ascribed to God alone, they absurdly transferred to their idols.

The Prophet here accuses them of this ingratitude in the person of God himself, and at the same time shows that the ungodly are so deluded by prosperity that they harden themselves more and more in their superstitions; and this is not the case only at one time, but almost universally in the world.

We see how full of pride the Papists are today because they hold power in the world and possess riches and honors. They think their services are acceptable to God because he does not show himself openly opposed to and angry with them; and so it has been from the beginning.

But the Prophet here condemns this foolish presumption, so that we may learn not to judge God’s love at all times by the prosperous outcome of events. There are then two things to be observed here:

1. That the superstitious falsely ascribe to their idols what comes from God alone.
2. And further, that they conclude that they are loved by God whenever he does not immediately take vengeance on them.

The Sodomites, we find, became obstinate in their sins for the same reason: when all kinds of pleasures abounded, they thought themselves to be approved by God. Let us now proceed to what follows.

The Prophet here continues with the subject we touched upon yesterday; for he shows how necessary chastisement is when people congratulate themselves in their vices. And God, when He sees that people do not immediately confess their sins, defends, as it were, His own cause, like one pleading before a judge. In short, God here shows that He could not do otherwise than punish such great obstinacy in the people, as there appeared no other remedy.

Therefore, He says, behold I — There is a special meaning in these words, for God testifies that He becomes the avenger of ungodliness when people are brought into difficulties. It is as though He said, “Though the Israelites are not ready to confess that they suffer justly, yet I now declare that to punish them will be My work, when they are deprived of their pleasures, and when the source of their pride is removed from them.”

And He intimates by the metaphorical words He uses that He would deal with them in such a way as to keep the people from wandering after their idols, as they had done until now; but He retains the comparison to a harlot. Now when an unfaithful wife goes after her lovers, the husband must either overlook her behavior or be unaware of her shameful conduct. However this may be, wives cannot violate the marriage vow in this way unless they are given freedom by their husbands. But when a husband understands that his wife is promiscuous, he watches her more closely, observing all her movements day and night. God now uses this comparison: I will close up, He says, her way with thorns, and surround her with a mound, so that no way of access may be open to adulterers.

But by this comparison, the Prophet means that the people would be reduced to such difficulties that they might not indulge excessively in their superstitions, as they had done. For while the Israelites enjoyed prosperity, they thought everything was permissible for them; hence their complacency, and hence their contempt for the word of the Lord. By hedge, then, and by thorns, God means those adversities by which He restrains the ungodly, so that they may cease to flatter themselves and may not thoughtlessly follow their own superstitions, as they were previously accustomed to do. She shall not then find her ways; that is, “I will constrain them so to groan under the burden of afflictions, that they shall no longer, as they have done until now, give themselves free rein.”