Hosea 2:8
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For she does not acknowledge that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, who lavished on her silver and gold— which they crafted for Baal.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The scope of this chapter seems to be much the same with that of the foregoing chapter, and to point at the same events, and the causes of them. As there, so here, I. God, by the prophet, discovers sin to them, and charges it home upon them, the sin of their idolatry, their spiritual whoredom, their serving idols and forgetting God and their obligations to him (Hos 2:1, Hos 2:2, Hos 2:5, Hos 2:8). II. He threatens to take away from them that plenty of all good things with which they had served their idols, and to abandon them to ruin without remedy (Hos 2:3, Hos 2:4, Hos 2:6, Hos 2:7, Hos 2:9-13). III. Yet he promises at last to return in ways of mercy to them for his own sake (Hos 2:14), to restore them to their former plenty (Hos 2:15), to cure them of their inclination to idolatry (Hos 2:16, Hos 2:17), to renew his covenant with them (Hos 2:18-20), and to bless them with all good things (Hos 2:21-23).
Open source ↗2:8 She doesn’t realize (literally she doesn’t know): Israel needs to know God personally and experientially. Had the Israelites known the Lord in this way, they would have realized that every good thing in their lives came from him, not from the baals.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”
They set up kings, but not by Me. They make princes, but without My approval. With their silver and gold they make themselves idols, to their own destruction.
Promiscuity, wine, and new wine take away understanding.
Now they sin more and more and make for themselves cast images, idols skillfully made from their silver, all of them the work of craftsmen. People say of them, “They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calves!”
Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
Therefore he sacrifices to his dragnet and burns incense to his fishing net, for by these things his portion is sumptuous and his food is rich.
And after they had gone out into the fields, gathered grapes from their vineyards, and trodden them, they held a festival and went into the house of their god; and as they ate and drank, they cursed Abimelech.
For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’
Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.
The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.