Hosea 2:1

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.

HOSEA CHAPTER 2 The people are exhorted to forsake idolatry, which is threatened with severe judgments, . God allureth them with promises of reconciliation, . In the two last verses of the former chapter, the prophet did from God promise marvellous mercy to Judah and Israel, to that remnant of the seed of Abraham who returned out of captivity, and to the converted Gentiles; now in this verse he calls upon them to acknowledge the mercy, and to excite one another to mutual love and esteem. Say; declare, own, or publish. Ye; who of no people are made a people, who were once unpitied and unregarded, but now have obtained mercy; you that are the sons of the living God, whether Jews or Gentiles. You Christians, as the apostle applies the words, ,25; and so in the ant, type no doubt they are to be understood; but in the letter and type, the persons here mentioned are those who among this people were pious, feared God, and kept his law; some such there were among them. Unto your brethren; to those of the ten tribes who are, and will be these forty years, your brethren. Ammi; let them know that yet they are the people of God, and repentance may remedy all; they are still within the covenant of their father Abraham; if they will, as their father. walk with God, all shall be well. And to your sisters, Ruhamah: in a decorum, to (what before was made an emblem of Israel) the prophet’ s daughter, Lo-ruhamah, some are here directed to reason with her, i.e. with Israel, whose name is yet Ruhamah, and it may be so still, if Israel will retain it by returning to God.

Hosea 2:1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.Ver. 1. Say unto your brethren, Ammi] Besides the public preaching of this gracious promise, Hosea 1:10, "There it shall be said unto them," &c., charge is here given that this be the subject of their more private discourse also: and that they that fear the Lord speak often one to another, We that were not a people, are now a people: we that had not obtained mercy, have now obtained mercy. Iubet per prophetam ne haec vox in ecclesia taceatur (Mercer). God commands by the prophet that these sweet words, Ammi, Ruhamah, be tossed and spoken of at every friendly meeting; I will not leave you fatherless: in me the fatherless findeth mercy: I will never leave thee, I will not, not, not forsake thee (ουδε, ουμη, Hebrews 13:5): so many "nots" there are in the original for more assurance. God would have such precious passages as these to be rehearsed (even in the "places of drawing water," Judges 5:11, where the maids met to fetch water, or do other ordinary chars) for mutual encouragement, and for the praise of his name. Oh, the matchless mercy of our God! Oh, the never enough adored depth of his free grace! who would not fear thee, O King of nations! Jeremiah 10:7; who would not be telling of thy goodness in the morning, and of thy faithfulness every night? Read that triumphant Psalms 114:1-8, and be you ever chanting out (as they of old at their daily employments), aliquid Davidicum; so building up one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Think but on these two words in the text, and you cannot want matter. Is it nothing to be in covenant with God, and to be under mercy? Oh, blessed are the people "that have the Lord for their God," saith David, Psalms 144:15. "But I obtained mercy," saith Paul, 1 Timothy 1:16, and that was his μεγαλαυχημα, his confident boasting, wherever he came, being a constant preacher of God’ s free grace: (as was likewise Augustine, which makes him hardly censured by the Semipelagian Papists and Arminians as an enemy to nature, because so high a friend to grace). Neither is he forgetful to tell his Ephesians and others to whom he writeth, that they were once dead in sins and trespasses, but now "quickened together with Christ," &c. They were foreigners, but now fellow citizens with saints: they were darkness, but now light in the the Lord, and should therefore "walk as children of light," Ephesians 5:8, and talk of his praises, who had drawn them out of dreadful darkness into marvellous light. Come, saith David, and I will tell you what God hath done for my soul, Psalms 66:16. The Lord hath done great things for us, saith the Church, whereat we are glad, Psalms 126:3. He which is mighty hath done to me great things: and holy is his name, saith the blessed Virgin, Luke 1:49.

CHAPTER II The prophet exhorts his people to speak and to act as became those who obtained mercy of God; and to remonstrate strongly against the conduct of their mother, (Samaria,) whose captivity is threatened on account of her forsaking God, and ascribing her prosperity to idols, 1-5. As an amplification of this threatening, the prophet ennumerates a series of afflictions which were to befall her to bring her to a sense of her duty to God; and of her folly in seeking after idols, and falsely ascribing to them the blessings of Providence, 6-13. After these corrections, however, God promises to conduct Israel safely to their own land; perhaps alluding to their restoration from the Babylonish captivity, for this prophecy is supposed to have been delivered about two hundred and fifty years prior to this event, 14, 15. He farther engages to deal with them as a tender husband, and not as a severe master, as were the idols which they served, 16, 17. The rest of the chapter promises the people of God, the true Israel, security from every evil, with the possession of every blessing, under a new covenant; and that in terms full of beauty, energy, and consolation. Heaven and earth, and whatever they contain; all nature, and the God of nature, are represented as uniting to make the people of God happy; so that if they only breathe a wish, one part of nature, animate or inanimate, echoes it to another, and all join in sweet harmony to transmit it to the ear of the Almighty. "I will hear, saith the LORD, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel." NOTES ON CHAP. II Verse 1. Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi] I prefer the interpretation of these proper names. Say ye unto your brethren, MY PEOPLE; and to your sisters, who have OBTAINED MERCY.

1. The parallel lines here seem misleading. Say ye …] Now that the storm-cloud has rolled away, those names of baleful import Lo-ammi and Lo-ruhamah have ceased to be admissible, and are altered into the direct opposites. The verse is best understood as the conclusion of chap. 2, just as ‘Call his name Lo-ammi’, &c. ought to form the conclusion of chap. 1. The persons addressed are perhaps the disciples of the prophet, who are directed to communicate the joyful news summed up in the names Ammi (‘my people’) and Ruhamah (‘she hath found compassion’) to the whole nation. 2–23, Hosea 1:10-11, Hosea 2:1. Hosea’s first discourse, slightly obscured by the dislocation of some of its verses (see above on Hosea 1:10-11). The prophet sets forth in more intelligible language what he has already suggested rather enigmatically. The finest part of the chapter is from Hosea 2:14 to Hosea 2:23, where Hosea shows how Israel will emerge purified from her captivity, and enjoy the love and favour of her Divine Bridegroom.

Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi - that is, “My people, and to your sisters, Ruhamah,” i. e., “beloved or tenderly pitied.” The words form a climax of the love of God.

1. With this triumph a new era opens, an era of prosperity and felicity. This transformation warrants the change of the names of ill omen into their direct opposites.