John Calvin Commentary Hosea 2:4-5

"Yea, upon her children will I have no mercy; for they are children of whoredom; for their mother hath played the harlot; she that conceived them hath done shamefully; for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink." — Hosea 2:4-5 (ASV)

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.