Hosea 2:3-5

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Read the passage here.

It's been a while since I've studied my Bible. We've been moving and it hasn't yet become a daily habit. I've found a source I can use at work as a study Bible, the Geneva Study Bible (see the resources on the right).

Verse 3 has interesting imagery, considering God is talking about Israel. It was my understanding that to "strip naked" was an embarassment; a punishment. However, Wesley states that the act of stripping a adulterous women was a common act performed by the husbands as a way of divorcing himself from her. In this light, it makes more sense. The Lord will divorce Israel if she keeps this up. The Geneva Study Bible (GSB) states this best:

For even though his people were as a harlot for their idolatries, yet he had left them with their dress and dowry and certain signs of his favour, but if they continued still, he would utterly destroy them.

The idea of "parching with thirst" also makes sense then; God's way of "divorcing" Israel is to take away the gifts, like fertile soil, He bestowed up Israel. (As a side note: Isn't Israel mostly desert now?) Then he goes on to say that Gomer/Israel openly speaks of her lovers and the gifts they give her, like food, clothes and drink. Israel's lovers are her idols, and the gifts she has received she is mistakenly attributing to these idols, and not to God, from whom they are given.