The wife of whoredoms.
We cannot doubt but that real incidents in the prophet's history underlie the representations of this chapter. Hosea, in obedience to what he recognized to be a word of God, took to wife Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. The names (Gomer, "completion;" Diblaim, "fig-cakes") may possibly be symbolical, the real name of the prophet's wife being concealed (cf. Hosea 3:1, "The children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love grape-cakes"). We need not suppose Gomer to have been unchaste at the time of her marriage, though she soon afterwards fell into light ways. Verse 2 is not to be pressed too literally. The prophet, in the light of his later knowledge, reads back into the beginning of his relations with Gomer a meaning which could hardly have been obvious to him at the time. Children were born of the marriage, to whom, by Divine command, the character of the mother having by this time revealed itself, Hosea gave prophetic names. These, as they grew up, appear to have followed only too faithfully in their mother's footsteps. "Wife of whoredoms," "children of whoredoms." Hosea did all he could to reclaim his wife from her sinful ways, but without success. The sequel of the story is given in Hosea 3:1-5. The present section yields the following lessons:—
I. A DIVINE LEANING IS TO BE RECOGNIZED IN THE EVENTS OF LIFE. In what befell Hosea there was, as the prophet came afterwards to see, a clear Divine purpose. He was bidden take Gomer, for "the land hath committed grievous whoredom, departing from the Lord." The object of the union was to afford a symbol of the unhappy relations subsisting between Jehovah and his people. The prophet, further, was to be trained through his own great personal sorrow to sympathy with God in his. The human heart was to be made an interpreter of the Divine. Life is shaped for us by a power higher than our own. Its events embody words of God. The meaning hidden in them is often not manifest till afterwards. They are shaped for our instruction. They are parables to us and to others of Divine things. The teaching of the Spirit should be sought to aid us in understanding them.
II. THERE IS A NATURAL ANALOGY BETWEEN EARTHLY MARRIAGE AND THE AFFIANCE OF THE SOUL WITH GOD. It is tiffs analogy which underlies the representation of Israel's apostasy from God as whoredom. "The whole Jewish Scriptures," says R. H. Hutton, "insist with a strange and almost mystical monotony on the close connection between the constancy required in marriage and the constancy which God demands in the spiritual relation of worship to himself. Sometimes there appears to be almost a confusion between sins against the one kind of fidelity and sins against the other, as if it were implied that he who is incapable of appreciating duly the sacredness of the human tie, will necessarily be incapable of appreciating the sacredness of that which is at once more awful and more intimate. It is clear that the Jewish prophets regarded constancy in the most intimate of human relations, as a sort of initiation into the infinite constancy of God." God claims our heart-whole love. The least wandering of desire from him is sin. Paul warns against the slightest deviation from perfect simplicity of affection towards Christ as a species of unchastity (2 Corinthians 11:1).
III. THE BEST-GUARDED HOMES ARE NOT SAFE FROM THE INFECTION OF SURROUNDING EVIL. No home would be more jealously guarded than Hosea's. Yet the infection entered it. In a dissolute state of society it is almost impossible to exclude the pestiferous germs with which the moral atmosphere is loaded. They find insidious lodgment in places and hearts where we would least suspect their presence. Our safety lies in vigilance, and in doing our utmost to resist the spread of moral corruption.
IV. CHILDREN TEND TO FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE PARENTS. Especially of the mother. A mother's influence is greater than a father's. A pious mother is the best of blessings, as a wicked mother is the worst of curses.—J.O.