Hosea 2:12

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

And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

God will do it either by blasting, or by the Assyrians, who, as other invaders, shall spoil all. Destroy; make very desolate, or lay waste. Her vines and her fig trees: these two were mentioned, but all other fruit trees are meant. Whereof she hath said, These are my rewards: this was in peculiar manner the sin for which Israel was punished thus, they gave the praise of the fruitfulness of these trees, and the abundance of them, to idols, robbed God of the praise due for them, therefore God will take them away. That my lovers have given me: their false gods are here made the givers of all outward blessings to Israel: see . I will make them; their vineyards and oliveyards, and places where they planted and fenced in their fig trees, and other fruitful trees. A forest; wild and uncultivated, the hedges and fences shall be thrown up, and all run into the wildness of a forest, as it came to pass in the Assyrian invasion. The beasts of the field; savage men, such as the Assyrians were; or rather in the letter, the beasts of the field should break down their branches, and devour them, and pull off the fruit, as foxes pull the grapes, or wild boars of the wood root up and eat the tender and sappy branches and springles. Shall eat them; the trees and their fruits.

Hosea 2:12 And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These [are] my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.Ver. 12. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees] Not her wine and her figs only, i.e. her delicious drinks and deserts (even all her plenty), sed vineta ipsa et ficeta, as Rivet observeth: which shows a great deal of anger (for fruit trees were not to be destroyed in an enemies’ country), like as he discovered a great deal of fear of the Spanish Inquisitors, that brought one of them his pears (which he had sent for), tree, and all by the roots. It is wisdom to meet God by repentance, lest he stub up root and branch together, lest he "overturn, overturn, overturn, so as it shall be no more," Ezekiel 21:27; lest he cry, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" since it is not for fruit, let it be for the fire, Luke 13:7. Whereof she hath said, These are my rewards] The wages of my wickedness, the hire of my harlotry, Deuteronomy 23:18 Ezekiel 16:34, pretium meritorium. Adultery is costly. Whores must have their rewards, they lie in wait for a prey, Proverbs 23:21, and will soon bring a rich man to beggary, Proverbs 6:26. Solomon himself was so exhausted by such she sinners (so they call them, Cruces et crumenimulgas, suck purses the poet calleth them) that he was forced to oppress his subjects to supply his coffers: which occasioned the loss of ten tribes. Harlots know no other language but that of the horse leech, Give, give; and may fitly be compared to the ravens of Arabia, that fully gorged, have a tunable sweet voice; but empty, they screech horribly. “ Corpus, opes, animum, famam, vim, lumina, scortum, Debilitat, perdit, necat, aufert, eripit, orbat. ” Idolatry also is no less costly: witness this harlot’ s habit, Hosea 2:13, and the purple whore of Rome, with all her trinkets, and those masses of money that she drains out of many parts of Christendom for the support of her state. Otto (one of her mice catchers, muscipulata res, as the story calleth him), sent hither into England by Gregory IX, after three years’ raking together of money for pardons, and other palterments, at last departing, he left not so much money in the whole kingdom, as he either carried with him or sent to Rome before him. What will not men part with to purchase heaven? Now they persuaded the poor people (and still they do) that good works (and what so good as to gratify the pope with great sums?) were mercatura regni coelestis, the price to be given for heaven (Bellarm.). Idolaters are all merit mongers: they will have heaven as a purchase; they lay claim to it, as wages for their work.

(12) Destroy.—For this read, with margin, make desolate. The vine and fig tree are employed as the symbol of possession and peace (1 Kings 4:25; Isaiah 36:16, &c.). The desolation may be by fire or drought. Make them a forest.—The LXX. render make them a testimony, reading in the Hebrew text l’‘ed instead of l’ya‘ar. The latter certainly yields a more vivid sense. The rest of the verse in the LXX. is amplified: “And the wild beasts of the field, and the birds of the heaven, and the creeping things of the earth shall devour them.” While no candid critic will deny the possibility that such words may have originally stood in the text, it is à priori more probable that it is a gloss from Hosea 2:18 (Hosea 2:20 in LXX.). Even so late as in Hadrian’s days wild beasts rushed in upon the blood-stained ruins of Jerusalem.

Verse 12. These are my rewards] They attributed all the blessings of Providence as rewards received from the idols which they worshipped.

12. her vines and her fig trees] The Hebrew has ‘her vine and her fig-tree’. It would seem as if here, as in Joe 1:7, Israel personified were represented with a vine and a fig-tree, like any individual Israelite (1 Kings 4:25). But A. V. gives the right sense. my rewards] The ‘hire’ or ‘reward’ of a prostitute is meant (comp. Hosea 9:1, and see on Hosea 2:5). a forest] A frequent feature in descriptions of desolation (comp. Isaiah 5:6; Isaiah 7:23; Isaiah 32:13; Micah 3:12). ‘A forest’ however is misleading; the word (ya‘ar) often means low, tangled brushwood (e.g. Son 2:3; Isaiah 21:13; 1 Samuel 14:25-26). The idea in the prophet’s mind is inaccessibility, not stateliness (like that of forest-trees). the beasts of the field] ‘Field’ = open country. The enemies of Israel are compared to wild beasts in Isaiah 56:9; Ezekiel 34:25.

And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees - Before, God had threatened to take away the fruits in their seasons; now He says, that he will take away all hope for the future; not the fruit only, but the trees which bare it.

11. An inevitable result of the calamity will be the cessation of mirth — As the context shows, the merrymaking in connection with religious celebrations.