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2. Israel Punished and Restored

¹ In Hebrew texts 2:1-23 is numbered 2:3-25.“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

Israel Punished and Restored

    ² “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
   for she is not my wife,
   and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
   and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
³ Otherwise I will strip her naked
   and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
   turn her into a parched land,
   and slay her with thirst.
⁴ I will not show my love to her children,
   because they are the children of adultery.
⁵ Their mother has been unfaithful
   and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
   who give me my food and my water,
   my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’
⁶ Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
   I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
⁷ She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
   she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
   ‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
   for then I was better off than now.’
⁸ She has not acknowledged that I was the one
   who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
   which they used for Baal.

    ⁹ “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens,
   and my new wine when it is ready.
I will take back my wool and my linen,
   intended to cover her naked body.
¹⁰ So now I will expose her lewdness
   before the eyes of her lovers;
   no one will take her out of my hands.
¹¹ I will stop all her celebrations:
   her yearly festivals, her New Moons,
   her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals.
¹² I will ruin her vines and her fig trees,
   which she said were her pay from her lovers;
I will make them a thicket,
   and wild animals will devour them.
¹³ I will punish her for the days
   she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
   and went after her lovers,
   but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.

    ¹⁴ “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
   I will lead her into the wilderness
   and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ There I will give her back her vineyards,
   and will make the Valley of Achor Achor means trouble. a door of hope.
There she will respond Or sing as in the days of her youth,
   as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

    ¹⁶ “In that day,” declares the LORD,
   “you will call me ‘my husband’;
   you will no longer call me ‘my master. Hebrew baal’
¹⁷ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips;
   no longer will their names be invoked.
¹⁸ In that day I will make a covenant for them
   with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
   and the creatures that move along the ground.
Bow and sword and battle
   I will abolish from the land,
   so that all may lie down in safety.
¹⁹ I will betroth you to me forever;
   I will betroth you in Or with righteousness and justice,
   in Or with love and compassion.
²⁰ I will betroth you in Or with faithfulness,
   and you will acknowledge the LORD.

    ²¹ “In that day I will respond,”
   declares the LORD—
“I will respond to the skies,
   and they will respond to the earth;
²² and the earth will respond to the grain,
   the new wine and the olive oil,
   and they will respond to Jezreel. Jezreel means God plants.
²³ I will plant her for myself in the land;
   I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one. Hebrew Lo-Ruhamah (see 1:6)’
I will say to those called ‘Not my people, Hebrew Lo-Ammi (see 1:9)’ ‘You are my people’;
   and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”

The Lord promises again that he will not be wanting to the people, when they shall be reconciled to him. We must, indeed, in the first place, seek that God may be propitious to us; for they are very foolish who desire to live well and happily, and in the meantime care nothing for God’s favor. The Prophet shows when the happiness of men begins; it begins when God adopts them for his people, and when, having abolished their sins, he espouses them to himself. It is therefore necessary, in the first place, to seek this; for as we have said, the desire of being happy is preposterous, when we first seek the blessings of an earthly life, when we first seek ease, abundance of good things, health of body, and similar things. Hence the Prophet now shows, that we are then only happy when the Lord is reconciled to us, and not only so, but when he in his love embraces us, and contracts a holy marriage with us, and on this condition, that he will be a father and preserver to us, and that we shall be safe and secure under his protection and defense.

But at the same time he comes down to things of the second rank. Our happiness is, indeed, as we have said, in the enjoyment of God’s love; but there are accessions which afterwards follow; for the Lord provides for us, and exercises a care over us, so that he supplies whatever is needful for the support of life. Of this later part the Prophet now treats: he says, In that day. We see that he reminds us of the covenant, lest we be content with worldly abundance; for as it has been said, men are commonly devoted to their present advantages. Hence the Prophet sets here before our eyes the Lord’s covenant; he afterwards adds, that God’s favor would reach to the corn, and to the wine, and the oil.

But we must notice the Prophet’s words, I will hear, he says, or I will answer, (ענה, one, means to answer, but it is here equivalent to hear,) I will hear then, I will hear the heavens, and they will hear the earth. The repetition is not superfluous; for the Israelites had been for some time consumed by famine, before they were led away into exile; as though the heavens were iron, no drop of rain came down. They might hence have thought that there was now no hope; but God here raises them up, I will hear, I will hear, he says; as though he said, “There is no reason for the miserable condition in which I have suffered you long to languish as your sins deserved, to discourage you; for I will hereafter hear the heavens.” As the Prophet before reminded them that when the beasts were cruel to them, it was a token of God’s wrath; so also he teaches by these words that the heavens are not dry through any hidden influence; but that when God withholds his favor, there is no rain by which the heavens irrigate the earth. Then God here plainly shows that the whole order of nature, as they say, is in his hand, that no drop of rain descends from heaven except by his bidding, nor can the earth produce any grass; in short, that all nature would be barren were he not to fructify it by his blessing. And this is the reason why he says, I will hear the heavens and they will hear the earth, and the earth will hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and all these will hear Jezreel