- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
In the sight of her lovers - Her idols, and her faithful or faithless allies.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
"And now will I uncover her shame before her lovers, and no one shall tear her out of my hand." The ἅπ. λεγ. נבלוּה, lit., a withered state, from נבל, to be withered or faded, probably denotes, as Hengstenberg says, corpus multa stupra passum, and is rendered freely in the lxx by ἀκαθαρσία. "Before the eyes of the lovers," i.e., not so that they shall be obliged to look at it, without being able to avoid it, but so that the woman shall become even to them an object of abhorrence, from which they will turn away (comp. Nah 3:5; Jer 13:26). In this concrete form the general truth is expressed, that "whoever forsakes God for the world, will be put to shame by God before the world itself; and that all the more, the nearer it stood to Him before" (Hengstenberg). By the addition of the words "no one," etc., all hope is cut off that the threatened punishment can be averted (cf. Hos 5:14).
This punishment is more minutely defined in Hos 2:11-13, in which the figurative drapery is thrown into the background by the actual fact. Hos 2:11. "And I make all her joy keep holiday (i.e., cease), her feast, and her new moon, and her sabbath, and all her festive time." The feast days and festive times were days of joy, in which Israel was to rejoice before the Lord its God. To bring into prominence this character of the feasts, כּל־משׂושׂהּ, "all her joy," is placed first, and the different festivals are mentioned afterwards. Châg stands for the three principal festivals of the year, the Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles, which had the character of châg, i.e., of feasts of joy par excellence, as being days of commemoration of the great acts of mercy which the Lord performed on behalf of His people. Then came the day of the new moon every month, and the Sabbath every week. Finally, these feasts are all summed up in כּל־מועדהּ; for מועד, מועדים is the general expression for all festive seasons and festive days (Lev 23:2, Lev 23:4). As a parallel, so far as the facts are concerned, comp. Amo 8:10; Jer 7:34, and Lam 1:4; Lam 5:15.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
lewdness--rather, "the shame of her nakedness"; laying aside the figure, "I will expose her in her state, bereft of every necessary, before her lovers," that is, the idols (personified, as if they could see), who, nevertheless, can give her no help. "Discover" is appropriate to stripping off the self-flatteries of her hypocrisy.
John Gill Bible Commentary
And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees,.... Which are mentioned for the rest, being the most fruitful and beneficial: this was done when Judea was invaded, overrun and wasted, by the Roman army; and when many were cut down, as Josephus observes, to build forts, and cast up mounts against Jerusalem; so that, he, says (l), the appearance of the earth was miserable, for what before was adorned with trees and gardens, looked now like a wilderness:
whereof she hath said, these are my rewards that my lovers have given me; alluding to the hire of harlots, given them by their gallants; these she ascribed, as she did before her bread, water, wool, flax; and oil, Hos 2:5, not to God, the author and giver of them, but to the people her lovers, as the Targum; or to her idols, or to her beloved tenets, and doing according to them; and which is here mentioned as a reason of the divine resentment, and why he destroyed these fruitful trees:
and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them; make the vines and fig trees like forest trees, barren and unfruitful; the fruitful land of Judea should be turned into a forest, or become like a desert or wilderness, and all the fruits of it should be eaten up by wild beasts; by their enemies, compared to the beasts of the field, particularly the Romans, the fourth beast; see Isa 56:9.
(l) De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 1. sect. 1.