21 “Say to your brothers, ‘My people!’ [1]
and to your sisters, ‘My loved one!’ [2] 2 Contend with your mother!
Contend, for she is not my wife,
neither am I her husband;
and let her put away her prostitution from her face,
and her adulteries from between her breasts; 3 Lest I strip her naked,
and make her bare as in the day that she was born,
and make her like a wilderness,
and set her like a dry land,
and kill her with thirst. 4 Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy;
for they are children of unfaithfulness; 5 For their mother has played the prostitute.
She who conceived them has done shamefully;
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.’
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Hosea 2:1-5
Commentary on Hosea 2:1-5
(Read Hosea 2:1-5)
This chapter continues the figurative address to Israel, in reference to Hosea's wife and children. Let us own and love as brethren, all whom the Lord seems to put among his children, and encourage them in that they have received mercy. But every Christian, by his example and conduct, must protest against evil and abuses, even among those to whom he belongs and owes respect. Impenitent sinners will soon be stripped of the advantages they misuse, and which they consume upon their lusts.