The Prophet Hosea

⭑ Catholic Public Domain Version 2009 ⭑

- Chapter 2 -

“Say to your brothers, ‘You are my people,’ and to your sister, ‘You have obtained mercy.’(a)

(b)

Judge your mother, judge: for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove her fornications from before her face and her adulteries from between her breasts.(c)

Otherwise, I may expose her nakedness and set her as on the day of her birth, and I may establish her as a wilderness and set her as an impassable land, and I may execute her with thirst.

And I will not have mercy on her sons, for they are the sons of fornications.

For their mother has been fornicating; she who conceived them has been brought to ruin. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’

Because of this, behold, I will fence in your way with thorns, and I will surround it with a wall, and she will not find her paths.

And she will pursue her lovers, but she will not obtain them, and she will seek them, but she will not find them, and she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, because it was to some extent better for me then, than it is now.’

And she did not know that I gave her grain and wine and oil, and that I increased her silver and gold, which they made into Baal.(d)

For this reason, I will turn back, and I will take away my grain in its time and my wine in its time, and I will set free my wool and my flax, which had covered her disgrace.

And now, I will reveal her foolishness by the eyes of her lovers, and no man will rescue her from my hand.

And I will cause all her joy to cease: her solemnities, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her feast dates.

And I will corrupt her vines and her fig trees, about which she said, ‘These rewards, they are mine, my lovers have given them to me.’ And I will place her in a narrow forest, and the beasts of the field will devour her.

And I will inflict on her the days of the Baals, for whom she burned incense, and ornamented herself with earrings and necklace, and went after her lovers, and forgot about me,” says the Lord.

God’s Mercy to Israel

“Because of this, behold, I will attract her, and I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart.(e)

(f)

And I will give to her, from the same place, her vinedressers, and the valley of Achor as a passage of hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the days of her ascension from the land of Egypt.

And it will be in that day,” says the Lord, “that she will call me, ‘My Husband,’ and she will no longer call me, ‘My Baal.’(g)

(h)

And I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and she will no longer remember their name.(i)

And in that day, I will strike a deal with them, with the beasts of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creatures of the earth. And I will crush the bow and the sword, and I will wipe away war from the earth. And I will let them sleep securely.(j)

(k)

And I will betroth you to me forever, and I will betroth you to me in justice and judgment, and in mercy and compassion.(l)

And I will wed you to me in faith, and you will know that I am the Lord.

And this will happen in that day: I will listen closely,” says the Lord. “I will hear the heavens, and they will hear the earth.(m)

And the land will pay attention to the grain, and the wine, and the oil; and these will hear Jezreel.

And I will plant her for me in the land, and I will have mercy on her, though she had been called Without Mercy.

And I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people,’ and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”(n)

Footnotes

(a)2:1 Or, ‘you have caught up with mercy,’ or, ‘you have overtaken mercy.’(Conte)

(b)2:1 Say to your brethren, etc:or, Call your brethren, My people: and your sister, Her that has obtained mercy. This is connected with the latter end of the foregoing chapter, and relates to the converts of Israel.(Challoner)

(d)2:8 They made silver and gold into a false god (Baal).(Conte)

(e)2:14 Or, ‘lead her into solitude.’(Conte)

(f)2:14 I will allure her, etc:After all her disloyalties, I will still allure her by my grace etc., and send her vinedressers, viz., the apostles: originally her own children, who shall open to her the gates of hope; as heretofore at her coming into the land of promise, she had all good success after she had satisfied the divine justice by the execution of Achan in the valley of Achor. Jos. 7.(Challoner)

(g)2:16 In Hebrew, ‘i’ at the end of a word can signify ‘my,’ as in ‘Eli, Eli,’ (my God, my God). Therefore, the translation is ‘My Baal.’(Conte)

(h)2:16 My husband:In Hebrew, Ishi. Baali, my lord. The meaning of this verse is: that whereas Ishi and Baali were used indifferently in those days by wives speaking to their husbands; the synagogue, whom God was pleased to consider as his spouse, should call him only Ishi, and abstain from the name of Baali, because of its affinity with the idol Baal.(Challoner)

(i)2:17 Baalim:It is the plural number of Baal: for there were divers idols of Baal.(Challoner)

(j)2:18 The phrase ‘in that day’ can also be translated as ‘on that day.’ The phrase can refer to one particular day, or to a general period of time (using the word ‘day’ metaphorically).(Conte)

(k)2:18 Also, the word ‘conteram’ occurs only once in this verse, but in translation it is repeated using two different English verbs: ‘to crush’ bows and swords, and ‘to wipe away’ war from the earth. The different context of destroying weapons and removing war itself calls for different English words to translate the same Latin verb.(Conte)

(l)2:19 I will espouse you, etc:This relates to the happy espousals of Christ with his church: which shall never be dissolved.(Challoner)

(m)2:21 Hear the heavens, etc:All shall conspire in favour of the church, which in the following verse is called Jezrahel, that is, the seed of God.(Challoner)

(n)2:24 That which was not my people, etc:This relates to the conversion of the Gentiles.(Challoner)