Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart.
God has just announced judgment on a nation that behaves like an unfaithful wife. Then the whole passage turns on one word — "Therefore" — and what follows is not more punishment but courtship.
Notice who receives this promise. God speaks it to a people He has already judged.
In this passage from the prophet, Israel is not just guilty. She has already gone through judgment. God had declared that He would no longer show mercy... and that Israel was no longer His people. But afterwards, once the judgment had fallen, He returns to His unchangeable purposes of grace. He allures Israel as a forsaken wife, and gives her the valley of Achor for a door of hope. That was the valley of trouble, where Achan was stoned — the first judgment on unfaithful Israel after they entered the promised land. For judgment is changed into grace, and God begins everything again on a new principle. It was as though Israel had come up out of Egypt again, but on an entirely new principle. He betroths her to Himself for ever — in righteousness, in judgment, in grace, in mercy — and all is blessing. Then He calls her "Ruhama," that is, "the object of mercy," and "Ammi," "my people."
God does not order her back, and He does not drag her back. This is how a dishonoured Husband speaks when He still means to win His wife back.
The prophet speaks of Israel as an unfaithful wife. He shows the unmatched love with which her dishonoured Lord not only receives her, but woos her to return to Him. He says: "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her."
God does not speak to her heart in the comfortable city. He takes her out where nothing competes with His voice. One writer, using an older wording — "speak to her heart" — sees Him still working this way.
Long centuries before, the Lord had said to the prophet, "Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart" (Hosea 2:14). As one has said, "There was no talking to her heart... in the fair and flourishing city... but out in the cold, hungry, empty wilderness, He allured her," there to speak to the conscience and win the heart. And today how often He takes this way with sinners, and, indeed, with saints. We seek comfort and ease, and too often our hearts grow cold and careless. Then the Lord breaks in on our ease with sorrow and trial, to speak to our hearts and draw us to Himself.
God's promise is to speak to her heart. What opens a heart is love, not threat. The same writer points to the look that recovered Peter, and to the word Joseph spoke to the brothers who sold him.
Was it not a look of love that recovered Peter?... Peter discovered by that look that his denial of the Lord had not altered the Lord's love to him. And Peter went out and wept bitterly. Love broke him down. Our sins broke His heart, but His love breaks our hearts. How did Joseph dispel the lingering doubts in his erring brothers, who had treated him so shamefully? We read "he comforted them and spoke to their hearts" (Gen. 50:21, margin). He confirmed his love to them.
The next verse names the place He leads her to: the Valley of Achor, where Achan was judged in Joshua's day. Watch what the relationship becomes when it starts again there. (The quote below uses an older translation, which reads "sing" where the ESV reads "answer.")
Still, Jehovah remembers mercy. Right after this He announces that He will allure her. Though He leads her into the wilderness, He will speak soothingly to her... The very place that was once a door of judgment under Joshua becomes a door of hope in the prophetic vision. "And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." And this freshness of renewed youth will not fade away as it did then. "And it shall be at that day, says Jehovah, that you shall call me Ishi, and shall no longer call me Baali" — that is, "husband" in love, not just "lord".
- Therefore. The promise comes after the judgment, not instead of it. Only when the sentence has fallen does God return to grace and begin again on a new principle.
- Allure. The dishonoured Husband does not just take His wife back. He wins her, and the winning is His work, not hers.
- Wilderness. He could not reach her heart in the comfortable city. In the desert nothing competes with His voice.
- Heart. Love does the breaking, not threats. Joseph spoke to the hearts of the brothers who wronged him; God speaks to hers.
- Hope. The valley of judgment becomes the door of hope. God calls her "my people" again, and she calls Him "my husband," not "my lord." This renewed youth will not fade.
And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
God has just described this nation as an unfaithful wife. Yet instead of ending her story, He promises her vineyards back and names Achor — a valley remembered for judgment — as her door of hope.
The valley got its name from a failure in Israel's first days in the land. One man secretly kept treasure for himself, and the whole nation lost its next battle.
It is possible for us to find ourselves in "valley" circumstances as the result of our own failures, an experience involving sorrow of heart. In Joshua 7, the people of God are found in the "valley of Achor" — the valley of sorrow, following their defeat by the men of Ai. Achan (which means "troubler") had coveted "a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels." It seems the cloak from Shinar — that is, Babylon — attracted him first, something that would make him stand out and give him prominence before others. If failure has come in, with the sorrow that follows it, the remedy is to seek the Lord. He alone can make such circumstances yield blessing and substance to truly repentant hearts.
The whole force of the promise lies in the reversal. God uses the same ground twice, for opposite purposes.
The very place that was once a door of judgment under Joshua becomes a door of hope in the prophetic vision.
That reversal is not God overlooking what happened. It is God outdoing it.
The judgment of God began to fall there, on the unfaithful people, after they entered the land. God was acting according to their responsibility. In that same place He would now show that grace abounded over all their sin. The joy of their first deliverance and redemption would be restored to them. It would be a fresh start of their history in grace, only now it would be an assured blessing.
Achor means trouble, and the promise does not remove the trouble — it makes it the route. Writers apply this both to the nation's future and to any believer who has drifted.
That is, the very scene of judgment will be the very starting-point of recovery. It must be out of "Achor" — that is, out of trouble — that the deliverance comes; it cannot come in any other way. That is the way He will work with Israel by and by, and similarly now in the souls of any who have wandered from Him.
The trouble is specific. Israel had to drag the hidden thing out of Achan's tent and destroy it before the nation could move on.
Their final clearance will only come when they enter the valley of Achor again as a nation. In other words, they must come to whole-hearted self-judgment. They must utterly and radically give up and destroy the accursed thing.
The verse hands back two things: fruitfulness and voice. Older translations read the second half as "she shall sing there"; the ESV renders it "she shall answer." Commentators dwell on the singing, and on the word there.
"She shall sing THERE." Where? In the valley of Achor. Not literally and physically of course, but morally and spiritually she will be there.
Both comparisons in the verse look back to one morning: the day Israel came out of Egypt and stood on the far side of the Red Sea.
How amazing the grace that shines in these promises! To think that at the end of Israel's disastrous history there will yet be a moment when she sings the praises of Jehovah! She will sing with the sweetness of her youth, and with the strength of that moment on the far bank of the Red Sea, when she saw all her enemies dead on the shore!
Writers place the vineyards and the song in Israel's future, tied to a coming time of national distress.
Then she will get her vineyards, her place of blessing, promised to Israel as His earthly people... When Israel is in that great trouble — the great tribulation — the valley of trouble will become the door of hope. For then the Lord will forgive them their sins, cover them with His grace and redeem them by His power. Then the singing times begin again for Israel.
- Trouble. Achor means trouble. The valley took its name from a judgment that fell on Israel at the very start of their life in the land.
- Turn. The place that was once a door of judgment is the place God names as a door of hope — the same ground, the opposite outcome.
- Through. Deliverance comes out of Achor, not around it. Israel must drag the hidden thing out and destroy it before there is a way forward.
- Gift. God gives back what she lost: her vineyards, her place of blessing. The gift is assured this time, not a repeat of the old history.
- Song. She sings there, in the valley itself, with the freshness of the Red Sea morning — grace abounding over all her sin.