Hosea 1:3

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim,.... In the course of prophesying he made mention of this person, who was a notorious common strumpet; and suggested hereby that they were just like

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.

So he went and took Gomer; as commanded, so he did, whether you take it parabolically or literally. If you take it literally, this Gomer will be some known harlot, and perhaps she was famous for her beauty, and skill in the courtesan’ s art, as her name may import. If you take it as a parable, we must take this name for a made name, assumed for its signification; both in the best sense Israel was perfect with the perfection which God did put upon her, , he made her Gomer; and in the worst sense she made herself Gomer, one who was drawing to her end, who had undone and consumed herself; thus the word, ; and so, in one word, God’ s bounty and mercy, and Israel’ s ingratitude and sin, is set forth, together with her punishment hastening upon her. The daughter of Diblaim: literally understood, this Diblaim must be either father or mother of this Gomer, or else the name of the place where she was born. Parabolically understood, Diblaim, bunches of dried figs, may imply the deliciousness of her provision made of God, such as was made for great feasts, ; so : thus it will suit ,9, and the places where the fig is mentioned as fruit with which God had blessed Israel. All which abused to luxury and sin, will now make her a daughter of Diblaim, of wilderness, desolate. Bare him a son: this seems to favour the literal acceptation of all this as really done, and not only as represented in vision, parable, or hieroglyphic. But while either way it will be well applied to the purpose in hand, I shall leave it to the choice of every judicious reader to interpret and apply as best likes him.

Hosea 1:3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.Ver. 3. So he went] He said not, "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" John 6:60. Dura mihi praecipit, et paene terret. He doth not reason but run, dispute but despatch. God must be obeyed, though we see no sense for it. And took Gomer] which signifieth both consummation and consumption, to show that she was consummata meretrix, a complete whore, had all the tricks of a whore; and brings her paramours to final consumption, utter extermination. The daughter of Diblaim] Not quasi de Belaim, a place so called, as Hugo dreameth: though there was a wilderness of this name, whereto some think the prophet here alludeth, to show the Church’ s wretched beginning in its own nature: as Son 3:6 Ezekiel 16:7. But Diblaim is by some taken for Gomer’ s father: by more, for her mother, which is also held to be a harlot, according to that, Ezekiel 16:44, "As is the mother, so is the daughter." Diblaim signifieth bunches of dried figs, that were the delicacies of those times. Gluttony is the gallery that lechery walketh through. Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus. Concupiscence (as Plato saith) hath the lowest places, and is alligata ventri, as one would tie a horse or an ass to the manger. Jeremiah 5:8 not unfitly compareth sensualists to fed horses, neighing after their neighbours’ wives. Saturity breeds security, which is the sure forerunner of destruction. Est ergo hic gnome, saith a Lapide, i.e. Here we have, then, an elegant sentence, Gomer is the daughter of Diblaim, that is, rottenness of sensuality: for as the worm that grows in the fruit, devoureth it; so doth grief, the pleasure of sin. This observation we have from the Cabalists.

(3) Gomer the daughter of Diblaim.—Gomer means complete, or perfect, but whether in external beauty or in wickedness of character is not easy to determine.

Verse 3. He went and took Gomer] All this appears to be a real transaction, though having a typical meaning. If he took an Israelite, he must necessarily have taken an idolatress; one who had worshipped the calves of Jeroboam at Dan or at Bethel.

3. Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim] Various attempts have been made to extract a meaning from these names, which by its appropriateness to the circumstances of the Israelites might favour the view that the events related are fictitious and not real. Gomer may plausibly be interpreted ‘perfection’ (i.e. consummate in wickedness), and Diblaim ‘cakes of figs’ (i.e. the sweetness of sin). Rahmer has pointed out this view in the Talmud (see Frankel’s Monatsschrift, xiv. 216 foll.), so that St Jerome’s similar explanation must have come from his Jewish teacher. But the fact that the children of Hosea (like those of Isaiah) have names which are obviously symbolic does not justify us in forcing an allusion out of the name of the mother. It has been suggested, but the view is not borne out by usage, that Diblaim is the name of Gomer’s birthplace; Diblathaim was a Moabitish town (see Jeremiah 48:22 and Moabite Stone l. 30). The termination is that of the dual. bare him a son] i.e. bare a son, whom for the mother’s sake he recognized.

So he went - He did not demur, nor excuse himself, as did even Moses Exodus 4:18, or Jeremiah Jeremiah 1:6, or Peter Acts 10:4, and were rebuked for it, although mercifully by the All-Merciful.

3. The prophet followed the command. Gomer — Various efforts have been made to find a symbolic meaning in this name as well as in that of the father, Diblaim, but without success. Both are to be understood literally.