The beginning of the word of Jehovah through Hosea. And Jehovah said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms; for the land is entirely given up to whoredom, away from Jehovah.
God's first word through Hosea is not a sermon but a command that reaches into the prophet's own home. Why would God ask this of His servant, and what did the marriage mean?
Words alone had stopped working on Israel. One writer explains why.
Sometimes mild measures achieve nothing. Only extreme and drastic ones are of any use. In the days of the kings named at the start of this prophecy, Israel had sunk so low that mere words were useless. They would have fallen on ears that were completely deaf.
So the prophet's life carried the message. The command also worked on Hosea himself.
The first chapter mainly consists of symbolic action, which represents the course of God's purposes… God commanded the prophet to do something bound to be most painful in itself. As a man of God, he must have felt it to be humbling and repulsive. But this was Israel's attitude to their God. Jehovah would make the prophet, and those who paid attention to the prophecy, understand in some measure what He must feel about His people.
The word is not chosen loosely. A real marriage bond stands behind the charge.
The sad truth is that Israel was married to Jehovah, as the prophets remind the people (Isa. 54; Jer. 3). So their unfaithfulness is branded, not like the New Testament Babylon as prostitution, but as adultery (so in Hosea 3 and elsewhere). Yet in time His grace may deal with Israel not as a guilty widow but as a woman forsaken and a wife of youth.
Some think such an order is unworthy of God. One writer answers from God's rights as Creator.
We must not imagine things to be unworthy of God because they do not commend themselves to us. God does not set aside the moral law, because the moral law has its source in the mind of God Himself. To set it aside would mean to contradict Himself. But God is absolute Lord of all things He made. At His sovereign will He may dispose of the lives or the things He created… He who created marriage told Hosea whom he should marry. At God's bidding the prophet took a defiled woman as his lawful wife. This did not defile him, however hard a thing it was.
Commentators differ on whether Gomer was already immoral at the wedding. One writer answers from what the marriage was meant to picture.
The all-knowing Lord called Gomer "a wife of whoredom," in anticipation of her future conduct. She fell and became immoral after her union with Hosea, and not before. In this way she became a symbol of Israel, married to the Lord, but later becoming the unfaithful wife… Yet the prophet still loved her despite her unfaithfulness, and did not abandon her. This illustrates Jehovah's love for Israel.
Another writer leaves both readings open.
Another possibility would be that the word "prostitute" or "wife of whoredom" (chap. 1:2) anticipates what Gomer would do after her marriage. On the other hand, the wording may also mean that Gomer had led an immoral life before her marriage. Given how far the people had fallen, that would be quite understandable.
The marriage bears fruit, and that fruit is judgment.
In this action Hosea might say, in the words of another prophet, "Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel." All of this clearly sets out the apostasy and judgment of Israel. The marriage of the prophet with the wife of whoredom is Jehovah's covenant with faithless Israel. Its fruit is therefore judgment, until the children of Israel were found, as they now are, rejected silver, a "Lo-ammi" — a people disowned by their God.
The sentence is not the last word, and the opened door is wider than Israel.
God has now pronounced the judgment of the people briefly but clearly. At once He announces, with equal clearness, His sovereign grace towards them… But this grace opens the door to others besides the Jews. "In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' it shall be said to them, 'Children of the living God.'" The apostle applies this passage to the Gentiles in Romans 9:24-26.
- Cause. The land had left the Lord. Because Israel was married to Him, that departure counts as adultery.
- Command. Words fell on deaf ears, so God turned the prophet's marriage into the message — an acted sign no one could ignore.
- Cost. The order was humbling and repulsive to Hosea. That was the point — he felt a little of what God feels about His people.
- Question. Commentators differ over whether Gomer was immoral before the wedding or only after. Either way, God may dispose of what He made, without setting aside His own moral law.
- Consequence and grace. The children stand as signs of judgment, ending in "not my people." Yet in that very place comes the promise: children of the living God.
And he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived and bore him a son.
Hosea's first sermon was not preached but lived: God told him to marry, and he obeyed. That short verse still raises three questions: was this a real marriage, who was Gomer, and why did God ask it?
The verse records no protest and no delay. One writer weighs what the order cost, and why God gave it:
God commanded the prophet to do something bound to be most painful in itself. As a man of God, he must have felt it humbling as well as repulsive. But this was Israel's attitude towards their God. The Lord would make the prophet, and all who listened to the prophecy, understand in some measure what He Himself must feel about His people.
Commentators differ here. Some read a real marriage. Others read the whole scene as a picture:
The prophet was to unite himself to a corrupt woman (a prophetic picture, I have no doubt), whose conduct expressed that of the people.
The objection to a real marriage is moral: such a union seems beneath God. One writer answers that marriage belongs to God in the first place:
We must not imagine things to be unworthy of God simply because they do not appeal to us. God does not set aside the moral law, because the moral law has its source in the mind of God Himself. To set it aside would mean contradicting Himself. But God is absolute Lord of everything He made. He may at His sovereign will dispose of the lives or the things He created… He who created marriage told Hosea whom he should marry. At God's bidding the prophet took a defiled woman as his lawful wife, and this did not defile him — however hard a thing it was.
Was Gomer already immoral when Hosea married her, or did she fall later? Commentators differ. One reads God's words as naming in advance what she would become, and finds the same message in her name:
Gomer was called "a wife of whoredoms" by the all-knowing Lord, in anticipation of her future conduct. She fell and became immoral after her union with Hosea, not before. In this way she became a symbol of Israel: married to the Lord, but afterwards the unfaithful wife… The woman's name is also telling. Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, means "Completion — a double cake of figs." The name pictures Israel's wickedness as complete, and the double cake of figs stands for sensual pleasures. And despite her unfaithfulness, the prophet still loved her and did not abandon her. This shows the Lord's love for Israel.
Once you see who the wife stands for, the wedding itself becomes the prophecy. One writer follows it to its end — a people their God disowns:
In this action Hosea might say, in the words of another prophet, "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel." All this clearly sets out the apostasy and judgment of Israel. The prophet's marriage to the wife of whoredom is the Lord's covenant with faithless Israel. Its fruit is judgment, until the children of Israel were found, as they now are, rejected silver — a "Lo-ammi," a people disowned by their God.
One suggestion about the children runs straight into the wording of the verse:
Commentators have said, "The children were not the prophet's own, but born of adultery and presented to him as his." But that cannot be the meaning, in view of the plain statement that she conceived and bore him a son.
- Command. God tells Hosea to marry, and Hosea goes. The verse records the obedience, with no word of protest.
- Cost. The order was humbling and repulsive to a man of God — and that was the point. It let the prophet feel what God feels about His people.
- Covenant. The marriage stands for the Lord's bond with Israel. The wife falls after the wedding, as the nation did after God joined it to Himself.
- Completion. Her name and her father's name spell out the message: wickedness come to the full, fed on sensual pleasure.
- Constancy. Hosea kept loving the wife who betrayed him, and the son is his own. That love pictures the Lord's love for Israel.
And Jehovah said unto him, Call his name Jizreel; for yet a little, and I will visit the blood of Jizreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.
Hosea's son carries a name that works as a verdict on Jehu — the king God once rewarded for destroying the house of Ahab at Jezreel. So why does God now charge that blood against Jehu's own family, and why does the whole northern kingdom fall with him?
The child's name is not just a label for a baby. It is a message about the nation's future.
The son she gives birth to is a sign. The name the prophet is to give him points to the judgment of God on the house of Jehu, and on the kingdom of Israel, which would cease to exist. In fact, after Jehu's family died out there were several more kings, but all was confusion in the kingdom of Israel — the kingdom was lost.
Jezreel was a place with a history of murder for gain. Ahab wanted Naboth's vineyard there. Naboth refused to sell, and it cost him his life. God later raised Jehu up to settle that account.
Through the cunning of Jezebel, and by the hand of certain worthless men, Naboth's blood is shed in Jezreel (1 Kings 21:13). Ahab seizes his inheritance, the inheritance of his fathers. For this deed the Lord, through His prophet, announces judgment on Ahab and his house. Blow after blow, He makes a full end of them... God calls out Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi, to finish this judgment, to be the avenger of blood, and to cleanse the land that had been polluted with it (Num. 35:33). As his reward, God secures the throne of Israel to his family for four generations (2 Kings 10:30).
God had once told Jehu he had done well. But God's silence about the blood at Jezreel was not approval of everything Jehu did.
The Lord had kept silent about the blood Jehu shed at Jezreel; He had not spoken of it to anyone — not even to guilty Jehu. God had said to him, "You have done well in carrying out what is just in my eyes" (2 Kings 10:30), and had promised to reward him. So it might have seemed to Jehu that God approved everything he had done. Far from it! The Lord had indeed raised him up for judgment and approved him in that. But the time had come when this king's deceit and furious violence must be punished.
God weighed the deed, and He also weighed the heart behind it.
God, in His righteous judgment, used Jehu to deal with the wicked house of Ahab. But He did not overlook the mixed motives that drove Jehu. In carrying out the vengeance of the Lord, Jehu was indulging his own cruel heart for his own ends. If God has to deal in judgment, it is His strange work. If Jehu undertakes to deal with evil, it is to him a task he enjoys.
Darby puts the charge sharper still. Self-serving zeal is worse, not better, when it wears God's name.
In a word, nothing that comes from self is hidden from His eyes. It all gets exactly what it deserves — all the more because it hides behind the great name of the Lord.
The threat reaches past one family. Jehu's line ended with the murder of his descendant Zechariah, and the nation went down after it.
The murder of Zechariah ended the dynasty of Jehu — five generations in all, more than a hundred years. From the time of Jeroboam's death, decline set in, ending less than seventy years later in the kingdom's final overthrow. From this time on, prophetic ministry greatly increased. As an unknown writer says, "Such is the way of our gracious God: when judgment is near at hand, testimony is multiplied."
One sin Jehu left alone decided the outcome.
Jehu had no conscience about the sin of Jeroboam, so the Lord judged it in due time. God struck not only Jehu's house, but Israel. The kingdom was to pass away. It might linger a little while afterwards, but God had struck it. This is what is represented by Jezreel. God would scatter in due time.
The name itself holds two futures.
Jezreel is interpreted both as "God scatters" and "God sows." Hosea 1:4 refers to judgment on the house of Jehu and the house of Israel. Hosea 1:10-11 refers to blessing. Then it will be said of both Israel and Judah, "Children of the living God," and "great shall be the day of Jezreel."
- Name. The child is a sign: Jezreel announces judgment on Jehu's house and the end of the northern kingdom.
- Blood. Jezreel was where Naboth died for his vineyard — and where God recorded Jehu's own bloodshed against him.
- Motive. God approved the deed and still judged the heart. Zeal that serves self under God's name is judged all the more.
- End. Jehu's line closed with Zechariah. As judgment came near, God multiplied prophetic testimony.
- Sown. The same name means "God scatters" and "God sows." The place of heaviest judgment becomes the day of restoration.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jizreel.
Hosea's first son carries a name that is also a sentence of judgment: Jezreel. This verse says what that name will cost the northern kingdom. God will break its fighting strength in the same valley where its rulers had shed blood.
Writers explain why the bow, rather than the sword, stands for a nation's strength:
Throughout Scripture the bow is the symbol of strength to conquer the enemy. The sword fights hand to hand. The bow attacks from a distance and opposes the enemy's approach. The archer sees the enemy coming far off. He takes account of his movements and his plans. He brings him down before he has a chance to attack. The bow takes more skill than the sword. Above all it is the symbol of strength, because it takes strong arms and hands to draw a bow and use it well.
To break Israel's bow, then, is to end its ability to defend itself at all.
The valley has a history of battles, and a battle still to come:
The wide valley or plain in which the last-named city stood, in southern Galilee. People have called it the battlefield of Palestine. Barak won his victory there, and Josiah met his defeat there, Judges 5:19; 2 Chronicles 35:22. Megiddo is in the same area. It is also perhaps the place where the great battle of Armageddon will be fought. Revelation 16:16. It is a very fertile plain, and is now well cultivated (compare Hosea 2:22); Joshua 17:16; Judges 6:33; Hosea 1:5.
God names the plain where Israel had won its battles as the place where its strength will be broken.
The previous verse ties this to Jehu, the king who wiped out Ahab's house at Jezreel. Commentators read his zeal as self-serving, which is why the man God used is also the man God judges:
But in all this Jehu had himself in view. He pretended zeal for the Lord, while he was really satisfying his own desire. Ahab had coveted the vineyard of Naboth in Jezreel, close to his palace, and he shed the blood of the righteous to get it. In the same way Jehu loved power. For the sake of it — and not in the spirit of service to the Lord — he carried out God's judgment on the house of Ahab. And so in his turn, like Ahab, he is made to answer for the blood of Jezreel.
God had once approved this same king. That is what makes the sentence against him so striking:
The Lord had raised him up for judgment and approved him in that. Even so, the time had come when the deceit and the furious violence of this king must find their punishment... What a God is ours! Who else can weigh in the same balance both the acts He approves and those He condemns, and reward and punish them both?
Writers name whom God struck, and the power He used to do it:
God struck not only Jehu's house, but Israel. The kingdom was to pass, though it might linger for a little while afterwards; but God struck it. This is what Jezreel represents. God would scatter in due time. The Assyrian broke the power of Israel in the valley of Jezreel, later called Esdraelon. That valley was a scene of greed and blood from first to last.
The name Jezreel carries two meanings at once:
The Lord commands him to call this son "Jezreel." The name Jezreel also has a symbolic meaning. It means "God shall scatter" (Jeremiah 31:10); but it also means "God shall sow" (Zechariah 10:9). So Israel was to be scattered and sown among the nations.
By the end of the chapter the same name has changed direction:
"For great shall be the day of Jezreel." The name of Jezreel was once a term of reproach and the start of judgment. Now the grace of God turns it into a title of endless mercy. Then they will indeed be the seed of God — not for scattering only, but for the rich harvest of blessing that is to mark the coming day.
- Bow — the bow pictures a nation's strength to keep an enemy at a distance. God breaks it, and Israel can no longer defend itself.
- Blood — the judgment goes back to the blood Jehu shed at Jezreel. He claimed zeal for the Lord, but he served his own ambition.
- Balance — God weighs both in the same scales. He rewarded what He approved in Jehu, and punished the deceit and violence He condemned.
- Battlefield — the blow falls in the valley of Jezreel, the plain of Israel's battles. The Assyrian is the one who broke Israel's power there.
- Blessing — Jezreel means both "God shall scatter" and "God shall sow." The name that opens the judgment ends as the name of Israel's harvest of mercy.
And she conceived again, and bore a daughter. And he said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah; for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, so that I should pardon them.
Hosea's second child is a daughter, and God chooses her name. The name is the message. It raises two questions: has God finished with Israel for good, and why does Judah keep the mercy Israel loses?
The New Testament carries her name over, and gives it in two shades.
Next a daughter is born. Here "bore him," as found in verse 3, is left out. The prophet receives a name for her — Lo-ruhamah, which means "not having received mercy." The Holy Spirit renders this passage in two interesting ways in the New Testament. Romans 9:25 gives it as "not beloved." First Peter 2:10 gives it as "has not received mercy." Love and mercy were now to be withdrawn from Israel. They were to be taken away completely.
Another writer ties the name to what God was about to do, and names the one nation He spared.
A symbolic name given to Hosea's daughter. The context shows its meaning to be "not having received mercy," as in the margin. It was given to stress that God was going to punish the people of Israel and take them out of the land. Judah, though, still had His mercy for a time.
The first child's name, Jezreel, announced judgment on one royal house. This second name widens it to the whole northern kingdom.
Then a daughter appears. Her name was to be called Lo-ruhamah — a name that expresses the absence of pity toward the people. No more mercy was to be shown… Jezreel was only the beginning of the judgments of God. "I will utterly take them away." So it was not only the collapse of the house of Jehu. Israel as a whole was to be swept out of the land. It would never be restored again as a separate nation.
(Kelly quotes an older translation, "I will utterly take them away." The ESV reads "to forgive them at all.")
How final is this sentence? One writer answers with a single exception.
God commands the prophet to call her Lo-ruhamah (that is, "no more mercy"). God carried out judgment on Israel. And this judgment was final — apart from sovereign grace, which He kept back for the last days. There was no longer any room for God's patience toward the kingdom of Israel. God's power would still preserve Judah.
The next verse spares Judah, and says how God will do it. History soon proved it.
Then the house of Judah is mentioned. They will be saved by the Lord their God, because He has mercy on them. Their salvation was not by bow, by sword, or by battle, horses and horsemen. Only a little later the Assyrian came before the gates of Jerusalem. He was God's instrument in carrying out judgment on Israel. But Jerusalem was saved just as predicted here, not by bow or sword. The angel of the Lord struck down an army of 185,000 in one night.
Peter picks up this language and turns it around for people who now belong to God.
"Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy" (1 Peter 2:10). This is a word from Hosea 2. Because of their wickedness and sin, God had said that Israel should not get mercy and were not His people (Hosea 1:6)… Despite their sin, disobedience and unfaithfulness — and My judgment too — I will bring them into blessing later on, God says. In the very spot where they were judged, there they will be blessed. Judgment has gone by, and mercy triumphs over judgment, for even disobedience cannot frustrate the purposes of God in grace.
This sentence reaches further than Israel. Romans uses it to include Gentiles — people outside Israel.
The prophecies clearly apply only to Israel. Yet it is Israel at the same distance from God as though they had been Gentiles: "not My people." If God could have mercy on Israel after declaring them "not My people," it plainly follows that He could be merciful to Gentiles too. They were in exactly the same class.
- Named — Lo-ruhamah means "not having received mercy." The child's name is God's verdict, given later as "not beloved" and "has not received mercy."
- Removed — with mercy withdrawn, Israel was swept out of the land and never restored as a separate kingdom. Jezreel was only the start.
- Reserved — the judgment was final except for sovereign grace, which God kept back for the last days.
- Spared — Judah received the mercy Israel lost. God saved them without bow or sword, as the Assyrian army found out in a single night.
- Reversed — mercy triumphs over judgment. Those told "no mercy" receive mercy, and by the same logic God's mercy reaches Gentiles too.
But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God; and I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by battle, [or] by horses, or by horsemen.
God had just told Hosea to name a child "Lo-ruhamah," a sign that the northern kingdom of Israel would get no more pity. Verse 7 turns to the southern kingdom, Judah. The same God who has finished with one house promises to save the other — and says exactly how.
One commentator notes how close together the two announcements stand.
Jezreel was only the beginning of God's judgments. God would take Israel away completely. This was not just the fall of the house of Jehu. Israel as a whole would be swept from the land, never to return as a separate nation. "But," He says in the very same breath, "I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the LORD their God." God let the Assyrian king destroy the kingdom of Israel, but stopped him by divine power when he hoped to carry off Judah.
God names the weapons He will not use. One writer traces that promise through three rescues, the last still future.
Then the house of Judah is mentioned. They shall be saved by the Lord their God, because He has mercy on them. Their salvation was not by bow, by sword, or by battle, horses and horsemen. Only a little later the Assyrian army came before the gates of Jerusalem. Assyria was God's instrument for executing judgment on Israel. Yet God saved Jerusalem in the way predicted here. Not by bow or sword — the angel of the Lord struck down the army of 185,000 in one night. Later God saved Judah and brought a remnant back from Babylon. Then there is a future salvation for Judah at the end of the age.
Bow, sword, horses and horsemen were what a nation trusted in war. One writer explains what God teaches His people by refusing them.
All these things were symbols of human strength — what people rely on in battle. In that day His people will have to learn that God alone is their refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Even Christians are slow to grasp that lesson.
The rescue comes through God Himself. One writer links this to the name given to Jesus at His birth, which carries God's own name inside it.
What a wonderful name is His. It is His human and personal name — given to Him in the manger at His birth, and nailed to His cross as the charge against Him at His death. Men treated it as a name of shame, yet it carries divine glory, for its full meaning is "Jehovah the Saviour." Israel are His people. He came to save them, and He will yet do it. God had said to them, "I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour… I, I am the LORD, and besides Me there is no Saviour" (Isaiah 43); and again, "I will have mercy on the house of Judah and I will save them by the LORD their God."
So why Judah? One writer points back to God's purpose of grace and the throne of David.
God had a purpose of grace to carry out, so He delayed full judgment. God had set David on the throne, and that was a pledge that Christ must sit there also. For Christ on the throne of David is God's centre of blessing for this earthly sphere. So God preserves the tribe the King would come from, until the appointed time when Jesus is born in Bethlehem.
Judah's reprieve did not last. Hosea's next child is named Lo-ammi, which means "not my people."
Afterwards another child is born — a son… It was no longer only a case of breaking up Israel completely; Judah now comes into judgment. While the royal tribe stood, there was still a centre around which all the people might be gathered… But now the innermost circle has proved unfaithful, and God marks the solemn crisis by the birth of the son called Lo-ammi.
- Mercy — God ends His pity toward Israel and opens it toward Judah in the very same breath.
- Method — God names the weapons He will not use. Bow, sword, horses and horsemen stand for human strength, and God removes them so His people learn He alone is their refuge.
- Means — the Saviour is God Himself. The name Jesus means "Jehovah the Saviour," and God says there is no Saviour besides Him.
- Motive — Judah is spared for God's purpose of grace: the throne of David, kept until the King is born in Bethlehem.
- Measure — the reprieve was partial. Lo-ammi follows, and the full salvation of Judah waits for the end of the age.
And she weaned Lo-ruhamah; and she conceived and bore a son;
Each of Hosea's children carries a name God chose as a sign to Israel, and the second — No Mercy — is also called Lo-ruhamah. When that child is weaned, a third is born, and his name will cancel the tie that set Israel apart from every other nation.
The names run in order, and each one takes the sentence further than the last.
The first child is "Jezreel" — the sign of the doom of both the house of Jehu and the house of Israel. The second child is "Lo-ruhamah" — the sign that God would withdraw His mercy from the house of Israel. The third is "Lo-ammi" — the sign that He would disown Israel, so that they should be no more His people. But a promise of final re-gathering follows all this, called "the day of Jezreel," when that very same nation, now cast off, will be restored.
The gap between the second child and this son is not empty. Judah, the southern kingdom, still had quiet years left, and the house of David still stood.
Judah's time of quiet lasted longer. For the moment, at least, they showed faithfulness to the LORD in their own measure. Afterwards another child is born — a son… It was no longer simply a case of breaking Israel up completely. Now Judah comes into judgment. As long as the royal tribe stood, there was still a centre around which all the people could be gathered. As long as the house of David was true in any measure… God could, morally speaking, still work a recovery. But now, on the proved faithlessness of the innermost circle, God represents the solemn crisis by the birth of the son called Lo-ammi.
The birth announces a sentence that would take years to land. Commentators mark two points in the nation's history where the two names came true. Nebuchadnezzar, named below, was the king of Babylon.
There are two phases in the history of the Jewish people. First He owns them as the people of God; He disciplines them by Egypt and Assyria, yet still owns them. Later on He rejects them, and the people become Lo-ammi, Not-His-people. When Israel was carried away captive, it was Lo-ruhamah, but there was not yet an absolute cutting off as a people. When Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem, the people become Lo-ammi. Israel is rejected. God no more owns His people. He watches over them still for final restoration to their land, but "the times of the Gentiles" begin.
Israel had suffered defeats and deportations before without losing this. The third name removes something no earlier trouble had touched.
In all their previous calamities, they had still been owned of God as His people, and He had owned Himself to be their God. This was what constituted, in fact, the great distinction between them and other nations. But this was now in judgment set aside.
Writers apply this child's name to Israel today, not only to the ancient past. Stephen was the first follower of Jesus put to death, stoned after preaching to the nation's leaders.
For long centuries God had looked for fruit from Israel, but found none as a nation. After our Lord had been rejected and cast out, God gave Israel another chance in the testimony of the Holy Spirit. But the only answer to it was the murder of Stephen, and the defiant message sent with him, "We will not have this Man to reign over us." As a result the barren fig tree has been cut down. Israel as a nation has been set aside by God.
Once God writes that name on them, Israel has no claim left. That is what turns any future blessing into pure gift.
God, because of His people's sin and turning away, gave them the name, wrote the sentence upon them, of Lo-ammi (not my people). They have therefore forfeited all claim. So their restoration and blessing will be just as much a work of grace and mercy as the salvation of the Gentiles in the present time of God's favour… What they had lost under responsibility He will give back — and how much more! — in keeping with His own purposes of grace.
Commentators differ on emphasis. Some read the third name as falling mainly on Judah's later failure. Others take it as covering the whole nation.
- Sequence. Three children, three steps down: scattering, then mercy withdrawn, then the tie itself cut.
- Delay. The weaning is a pause of patience — Judah's extra quiet years — before God speaks the heaviest name.
- Reach. Earlier judgment fell on the northern kingdom. This one reaches the royal line — the place where any recovery had to begin.
- Loss. The name takes away the one thing defeat had never touched: God owning them as His people.
- Reversal. Israel forfeited every claim. Future blessing can only be mercy — the same grace that saves anyone outside — and God gives back more than was lost.
and he said, Call his name Lo-ammi; for ye are not my people, and I will not be for you.
Hosea's second son carries the heaviest name of all. God tells the nation He drew out of Egypt that it is no longer His. The verse raises two questions the rest of the book will answer — when did this sentence fall, and is it the last word?
The first two children announced judgment on the house of Jehu and the end of mercy toward the ten tribes. This third name widens the ruin to include the tribe that had so far been spared.
A second son is named Lo-ammi (that is, "not my people"), for now Jehovah no more acknowledged the people to be His. Judah held this position for a time, even though the ten tribes were lost. At last her unfaithfulness has plunged the whole nation under the terrible judgment of being no longer the people of God, with Jehovah no longer their God.
Israel had suffered defeats and invasions before. What made this different is that God had always claimed them through those disasters.
God has disowned them as His people. In all their previous troubles, they had still been owned by God as His people, and He had owned Himself to be their God. This was in fact what made the great distinction between them and other nations. But this was now set aside in judgment.
The verse ends, "I am not your God." Others render it, "I will not be for you." Here is what that meant in practice.
They rebelled against Jehovah again and again. So He separated Himself from them. He gave them the name "Lo-ammi," which means "You are not My people, and I will not be for you" (Hosea 1:9). From their rescue out of Egypt to their captivity under Gentile rule, the children of Israel had been His own special people. He no longer regarded them so. Jehovah hid His face of favour from them and withdrew His protecting arm. They were cast back into the sea of nations out of which He had drawn them.
Commentators differ over when the words landed. Some tie it to Nebuchadnezzar's capture of Jerusalem.
There are two phases in the history of the Jewish people. There is first the time when they are owned as the people of God, whom He disciplines by Egypt and Assyria, yet owns. Later He rejects them, and the people become Lo-ammi, Not-His-people... When Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem, the people become Lo-ammi. Israel is rejected. God no more owns His people. He watches over them still for final restoration to their land, but "the times of the Gentiles" begin.
Others date its full moral force to the death of Christ.
From this scripture we learn that a time was coming when God would disown His ancient people the Jews, and cast them off. And this took place at the death of their Messiah. Then the dreadful sentence "Lo-ammi" took effect morally, and they are no longer owned by God as His people. This suspension of relationship is clearly taught in Matthew 23:38-39... The Jews being thus rejected, room was left for the gathering in of the Gentiles.
The sentence touches how God governs His people. It does not touch what He has decided about them.
When God said to Israel, "not my people," it was not that God gave them up. He did not change His mind; no, never! They shall be His people at last, because He did not mean it in purpose when He said Lo-ammi — but now they are Lo-ammi still.
Paul takes up Hosea's words in Romans 9. Once God falls back on His own sovereignty, the ground is as open to a Gentile as to a Jew — and the promised title is higher than the one forfeited.
God drops the word "people" and uses "sons" instead. With perfect fitness He signals through His prophet that when He was going to work in grace, He would work worthily of His name. He would bring Gentiles not merely into the place of Israel, but into a better standing. Granted that they were the vilest of the vile: even so grace could and would raise them into the nearest relationship to God Himself.
Hosea 2 turns each name of judgment inside out, and the reply from the people's own mouth completes the exchange.
"And I will sow her to Me in the earth [this refers to the name Jezreel]. And I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy (Lo-ruhamah). And I will say to those who were not My people (Lo-ammi), You are My people; and they shall say, My God."
- Cause. Long rebellion, reaching at last into Judah, brought the whole nation under the name "not my people."
- Loss. God withdrew the one thing that marked Israel out from every other nation: He owned them as His, and owned Himself as theirs.
- Purpose. He disowned them, but He did not give them up. They are Lo-ammi still, and in His purpose they will be His people at last.
- Reach. Israel's rejection made room for the Gentiles. God calls them "sons" — a nearer place than the one Israel lost.
- Reversal. Hosea himself turns each name around: no mercy becomes mercy, not my people becomes "My people" — answered by "My God."