Hosea 1:8

Now when she had weaned Loruhamah,.... That is, when Gomer had weaned her daughter of this name, Hosea 1:6.

Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son. Now, when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah - said to complete the symbolical picture, not having any special signification as to Israel (Henderson).

Though some wrest the words to an allegorical sense, I think the prophet keeps the decorum in the similitude, and therefore, as women ordinarily conceive not whilst they give suck, so this Gomer weaned her daughter ere she conceived the son which is to be an emblem of the final rejection of the ten tribes. Bare a son, to be a third sign to this incorrigible and self-undoing kingdom.

Hosea 1:8 Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son.Ver. 8. Now when she had weaned Loruhamah] That is, after that the patience of God had waited and long looked for their conversion; but all in vain, he resolved upon their utter rejection. And first he sent for his love tokens back again: he weans them and takes them off from those "breasts of consolation," Isaiah 66:11, the holy ordinances, deprived them of those dugs (better than wine, Son 1:4) that they had despised, carried them far away from that good land that abounded with milk and honey: the men of the East should be sent in upon them "to eat their fruit and drink their milk," Ezekiel 25:4. "This nation" (saith a divine) "is sick with a spiritual pleurisy: we begin to surfeit on the bread of life, the unadulterated milk of God’ s word, and to spill it. Now when God seeth his mercies lying under the table, it is just with him to call to the enemy to take away." Say not here, with those in the Gospel threatened with this judgment, "God forbid," Luke 20:16. Think it not a thing impossible that England should be thus visited. The sea is not so calm in summer, but it may be troubled with a storm: the mountain so firm, but may be moved with an earthquake. We have seen as fair suns as ours fall from the midst of heaven, for our instance, Lege historiam, ne fias historia. Read history lest you become history! Surely, except we repent and reform a little better than we have done yet, a removal of our candlestick, a total eclipse of our sun, may be as certainly foreseen and foretold, as if visions and letters were sent us from heaven, as once to the seven Churches of Asia, who sinned away their light, &c. And bare a son] Not a daughter, as before, but a son, because under Hosea, the last king of Israel, that kingdom began a little to lift up the head, and to stand it out against the Assyrian. But this was but extremus nisus regni, the last sprunting of that dying state. For soon after, Samaria, the chief city, was closely besieged: and although it held out three whole years, with a masculine resolution, yet at length it was sacked, and all the people of the land carried captive, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, &c., as it is said of their confederates the Egyptians, Isaiah 20:4, and as it shall be done at length to that purple whore of Rome, who shall be stripped naked, broiled, and eaten, Revelation 17:16. A cold sweat stands already upon her limbs: and, for a presage of her future ruin, it is observed that Rome, since it became Papal, was never besieged by any but it was taken.

8, 9. The birth of a Son Lo-ammi] i.e. not my people. Observe the climax in the names. ‘Jezreel’ announces the judgement; Lo-ruhamah, the withdrawal of Jehovah’s affection; Lo-ammi, the treatment of Israel as a foreign people. I will not be your God] Lit., ‘I will not be for (or, to) you’, i.e. perhaps, ‘on your side’ (comp. Psalms 56:10; Psalms 118:6; Psalms 124:1-2), or, as Prof. Robertson Smith[54], ‘I am no longer Ehyeh’, alluding to Exodus 3:14, ‘And God said unto Moses, I will be that which I will be (viz. what I have promised and you look for); and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I will be (Ehyeh) hath sent me unto you’. According to this view, Ehyeh is equivalent to Yihyeh or whatever is a more correct form of the name miswritten Jehovah—the revealed name of Israel’s God, and Hosea 1:9 is the earliest witness to the true meaning of Exo 3:14. ‘I am no longer Ehyeh for you’ will thus be a contrast to ‘I will save Judah as the Lord (Yahveh = Yihyeh) their God’ (Hosea 1:7). It is however doubtful whether Hosea shews acquaintance elsewhere with the document to which Exodus 3:14 belongs, and at any rate it is more natural to suppose, as A. V. (after Yefet the Karaite) has done that lçlôhîm ‘(for) God’ has dropped out of the text. [54] British and Foreign Evangelical Review, Jan. 1876, pp. 153–165.

Now when she had weaned ... - Eastern women very commonly nursed their children two, or even three (2 Macc. 7:27) years.

8, 9. Birth of Lo-ammi. 8. The third child was a son. When she had weaned — After two or three years, the length of time allowed to elapse in Palestine even now before children are weaned. 9. Lo-ammi — That is, Not my people.