God's Unfaithful People under Condemnation

Hosea 2:2-13 

2 "Bring charges against your mother, bring charges;
For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband!
Let her put away her harlotries from her sight,
And her adulteries from between her breasts;
3 Lest I strip her naked
And expose her, as in the day she was born,
And make her like a wilderness,
And set her like a dry land,
And slay her with thirst.

4 "I will not have mercy on her children,
For they are the children of harlotry.
5 For their mother has played the harlot;
She who conceived them has behaved shamefully.
For she said, 'I will go after my lovers,
Who give me my bread and my water,
My wool and my linen,
My oil and my drink.'

6 "Therefore, behold,
I will hedge up your way with thorns,
And wall her in,
So that she cannot find her paths.
7 She will chase her lovers,
But not overtake them;
Yes, she will seek them, but not find them.
Then she will say,
I will go and return to my first husband,
For then it was better for me than now.'
8 For she did not know
That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil,
And multiplied her silver and gold—
Which they prepared for Baal.

9 "Therefore I will return and take away
My grain in its time
And My new wine in its season,
And will take back My wool and My linen,
Given to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers,
And no one shall deliver her from My hand.
11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease,
Her feast days,
Her New Moons,
Her Sabbaths—
All her appointed feasts.

12 "And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,
Of which she has said,
'These are my wages that my lovers have given me.'
So I will make them a forest,
And the beasts of the field shall eat them.
13 I will punish her
For the days of the Baals to which she burned incense.
She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry,
And went after her lovers;
But Me she forgot," says the LORD.

After Hosea spoke of how sin separates but mercy saves, he turned to describe just how God’s people were unfaithful and described their sins to hold them accountable and without excuse (Romans 1:20-23, 3:10-12, 23).  Israel was described as an unfaithful wife exposed by God’s word and judged if she did not repent from such sins and turn back to Him as husband.  Otherwise, He would show no mercy on her shamefully conceived children born of idolatry and immortality of body and spirit.  She looked to her physical wants and satisfied her needs by seeking them from idols instead of the living God which she was joined to by promise and covenant.  God protected and corrected her by setting thorns of circumstances as a hedge to block her from straying further from Him that she might be unable to pursue those idolatrous lovers and run to Him again.  Then she would appreciate all His provision instead of throwing the food and wealth to false and lifeless gods.  Because she did not consider and continue to return in repentance, God took away the provisions and prosperity, leaving her once again naked and ashamed before those she ran after as her lovers.  God took away her laughter and joy which she had in celebrating the feasts given to worship and thank God for all His provision and providence of His love.  He took away the fruitful trees and handed them over to the animals to graze on instead.  He punished her for burning incense to idols like Baal in direct disobedience to the first commandment to have no other gods and no images to worship in place of Him.  God’s people had forgotten Him as she committed spiritual adultery with dead gods which she chose instead to pursue.  Such disregard for the holy covenant as of marriage with their LORD led to the consequences of sin’s price to pay which is death (Romans 6:23).  God’s unfaithful people who were under condemnation were offered mercy if only they turned back to Him in a renewed commitment to their restored relationship.  Such is the call to all in Christ to receive Him by faith in turning from sin to Him, admitting the false worship and misdirected affections in the idolatry and immortality of body and soul.  Hope follows as we will see in the rest of this chapter for them as an example for us all.