21 'Say ye to your brethren—Ammi, And to your sisters—Ruhamah. 2 Plead ye with your mother—plead, (For she 'is' not My wife, and I 'am' not her husband,) And she turneth her whoredoms from before her, And her adulteries from between her breasts, 3 Lest I strip her naked. And have set her up as 'in' the day of her birth, And have made her as a wilderness, And have set her as a dry land, And have put her to death with thirst. 4 And her sons I do not pity, For sons of whoredoms 'are' they, 5 For gone a-whoring hath their mother, Acted shamefully hath their conceiver, For she hath said, I go after my lovers, Those giving 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.