Hosea 2:23 And I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her that had not obtained mercy… All the brighter side of the prophetic message is summed up in the most wonderful way in this verse, and there are few verses even in the Bible itself, so crowded with significance. Hosea sums up all that he himself had said, all that he had been teaching for some seven years. It is God whom. he represents as speaking "these weighty" and matterful words: — And I will sow (an allusion, of course, to the meaning of Jezreel — 'God's sowing') her (the impersonated people of Israel) unto Me" (sow, and no longer scatter); and "I will have pity" upon, "not pitied"; and I will say unto "Not My people," "Thou art My people"; and she shall say to Me, "My God." Obviously, as soon as we can read the verse aright, we find in it the names of all Hosea's children, and the whole significance of this prophetic message. On the one hand, we are reminded of the time in which Israel was scattered for their guilt among the heathen, the time in which God refused to pity them, or to acknowledge them as His own; and on the other hand, we are reminded of the better time in which, instead of being God-scattered, unpitied, and not My people, they were called God-sown, pitied, and sons of the living God; when the heavens smiled upon them, and the earth gave them her increase, and all the forces of nature, once so hostile, were at peace with them. (S. Cox, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God. |
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