Chapter 2

This chapter now makes use of the idea of whoredom and begins by pleading with "mother" to turn from her whoring ways.  It says she's whoring for the gains and the needs of this world, and forgetting her husband.  But at some point, she will turn back, realizing that the days with her husband were better than the days of whoring.  God says it was Him all along who provided things for her, despite her crediting whoredom for them, and she even offered what came from God to Baal in thanksgiving.  But God is about to stop providing. This is really about Israel worshiping other gods, idols, and so forth.  They left the worship of the true God under Jeroboam I, and have dedicated themselves to worshiping first the two calves, and then any and every other god they could find.  Any god but THE God.  But now...or sometime soon, in the face of the approaching Assyrians perhaps, Israel will try to return to God.  But their time for repentance has come and gone.  The whole country is to be laid waste, made desolate.  They are out of chances, just as each person eventually runs out of offers for salvation.  Sooner or later, there is a "last offer".

2023 - This verse:

6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. [Hos 2:6 ESV].  This most certainly looks like from that day to this, none of the 10 tribes will be able to find their way to salvation.  We will see in 21-23 that there will be reconciliation..."in that day".  The question is, then, when is "that day".

2023 - Oh my....were the 6 million that Hitler murdered all from the 10 tribes, and none from Judah???

Nevertheless, at some future time, God will attract the Jews back to Israel, and will give them peace, and will again be their God.  All this happens "in that day".  So perhaps this too is about the exile, the captivity that is about to come.  They will long for the days when they could worship God in their own land.

2022 - Look at this tie to Revelation:

""Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her." [Hos 2:14 ESV]

When Satan sends the flood after the Jews in Revelation, they flee into the desert, and there God protects them.  Preserves them really, against evil so powerful that were it not for the shortening, they would all be killed.  This is an amazing correlation.

2023 - This verse:

15 And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. [Hos 2:15 ESV].  For the significance of this reference to Achor, there are these verses:

24 And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. 25 And Joshua said, "Why did you bring trouble on us? The LORD brings trouble on you today." And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. 26 And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the LORD turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor. [Jos 7:24-26 ESV].  This is very profound...Look at how dire were the consequences of sin toward Achan.  And God says the same sort of "wrath", though that particular word is not used, will be required for any of the 10 to return.  Stoning and fire.  End times martyrdom and persecution by the MoL such as has never been seen in all the earth.  Yet this "threat", this "retribution" must first occur, and is labeled "a door of hope".  Who would ever see this kind of suffering as a cause for home????

2022 - Ishi is "my husband" in Hebrew.  I once read a book about a sort of feral Indian out in California to whom they gave this name.  It can also mean just "man".

These verses:

19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. 20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. [Hos 2:19-20 ESV]

If the church becomes the bride of Christ, how is there a betrothal to Judah and Israel?  This is the first verse I have noticed that makes a very strong case for the promises to Abraham being fulfilled in the church...Much of the language here from vs 16-20 seems to be about the Millennial...which is before the wedding feast.  But still, God does not break a betrothal.

Vss 21-23 are about a reconciliation of God with both Israel and Judah.  We see that they have been in apostasy for centuries, even millennia, but God has not forgotten them.  He knows each by name, He knows where they are, and He will bring them home.

2023 - Vss 16-23 seem to me to be about the Millennial, not about the GWT.  The reference to Jezreel seems more likely to be about Armageddon at Christ's return and not about that final battle.  That would mean this is before the Valley of Dry Bones.  This would mean the hope of Achor is about the trials and tribulations of tgt, the return of Israel - ALL Israel - to the land promised to Abraham.  And then during the Millennial, they will all live as in vs 23.