Hosea 2:14

Therefore i.e. because, without Jehovah's help, Israel will never come to herself, and reform (comp. Isaiah 30:18). Her punishment has an educational object; the threat has a tinge of promise.

I will allure her The pronoun is expressed in the Hebrew. Ihave not forgotten her, though she has forgotten me. -Allure her" seems out of place in introducing the punishment; generally the exile is described as an expulsion (comp. Jeremiah 8:3). Either we must read differently; the LXX. has πλανῶ αὐτὴν (comp. Psalms 107:40), or we must suppose a violation of natural order such as occurs now and then in Hebrew, so that the -alluring" may refer to the cordial address of Jehovah spoken of afterwards. Kimchi explains, -I will put into her heart to return, while she is yet in exile." How beautifully the promise anticipates the great prophecy of Israel's restoration, which opens, remarkably enough, with the very phrase used by Hosea, -Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem" (Isaiah 40:2). [According to another explanation of the passage which goes back to St Jerome, the wilderness is not only a place of affliction, but one of hope. The latter sense seems to be opposed by a passage in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:33-38) which is evidently a reminiscence of our passage, and which refers to the wilderness exclusively as a place of punishment. Keil, on the other hand, thinks that Israel is to be led into the wilderness, not for punishment, but for deliverance from bondage. This certainly explains the -I will allureher," but is not consistent with the next verse, in which allusion is made to the punishment undergone in the wilderness. Comp. on. Hosea 13:10.]

into the wilderness By -wilderness" Hosea means not merely the desert which lay between Canaan and the land of captivity, but the captivity or exile itself. Sojourn in a heathen land appeared to pious Israelites like a wandering in the desert (comp. Isaiah 41:17).

speak comfortably unto her Lit., -speak unto her heart".