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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(12) Destroy.—For this read, with margin, make desolate. The vine and fig tree are employed as the symbol of possession and peace (1Kings 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.

Benson Commentary

Hosea 2:12-13. And I will destroy her vines — Those blessings, or fruits of the earth, which she has attributed to her false gods, I will give to the beasts of the field to eat, making the whole land only a wilderness for beasts. Among other objects of their false worship, the Israelites worshipped the celestial luminaries, and, it is likely, attributed the fruits of the earth to them, as self-sufficient, or producing them by their own power, and not as mere instruments in the hands of Jehovah. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim — I will punish her for all the idolatries she has committed from the days of Jeroboam, who first set up the worship of false gods: see chap. Hosea 13:1. The chief god of every country was called by the name of Baal, which means lord: so Baal-peor was the god of the Moabites, Baal-zebub was the god of Ekron, (2 Kings 1:2,) Baal-berith the god of the Phenicians, Jdg 8:33. These several deities are in the plural number called Baalim, lords; for they had lords many, 1 Corinthians 8:5. And she decked herself with her ear-rings — She put on the richest ornaments on their idolatrous festivals.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:6-13 God threatens what he would do with this treacherous, idolatrous people. They did not turn, therefore all this came upon them; and it is written for admonition to us. If lesser difficulties be got over, God will raise greater. The most resolute in sinful pursuits, are commonly most crossed in them. The way of God and duty is often hedged about with thorns, but we have reason to think it is a sinful way that is hedged up with thorns. Crosses and obstacles in an evil course are great blessings, and are to be so accounted; they are God's hedges, to keep us from transgressing, to make the way of sin difficult, and to keep us from it. We have reason to bless God for restraining grace, and for restraining providences; and even for sore pain, sickness, or calamity, if it keeps us from sin. The disappointments we meet with in seeking for satisfaction from the creature, should, if nothing else will do it, drive us to the Creator. When men forget, or consider not that their comforts come from God, he will often in mercy take them away, to bring them to think upon their folly and danger. Sin and mirth can never hold long together; but if men will not take away sin from their mirth, God will take away mirth from their sin. And if men destroy God's word and ordinances, it is just with him to destroy their vines and fig-trees. This shall be the ruin of their mirth. Taking away the solemn seasons and the sabbaths will not do it, they will readily part with them, and think it no loss; but He will take away their sensual pleasures. Days of sinful mirth must be visited with days of mourning.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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. "The vine is a symbol of joy, the fig of sweetness" (see Judges 9:11, Judges 9:13). It was the plague, which God in former times laid upon those, out of the midst of whom He took them to be His people (Psalm 105:33; see Jeremiah 5:17). "He smote their vines also and their fig trees, and brake the trees of their coasts." Now that they had become like the pagan, He dealt with them as with the pagan.

Of which she said, these are my rewards - Literally "my hire." It is the special word, used of the payment to the adulteress, or degraded woman, and so continues the likeness, by which he had set forth the foulness of her desertion of God.

And I will make them a forest - The vines and fig-trees which had aforetime been their wealth, and full of beauty, should, when neglected, run wild, and become the harbor of the wild beasts Which should prey upon them. So to the wicked God causes, "that the things which should have been for their wealth should be an occasion of falling" Psalm 69:22. They contain in themselves the sources of their own decay.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. my rewards—my hire as a harlot (Isa 23:17, 18).

lovers—idols.

destroy … vines … make … forest—(Isa 5:6; 7:23, 24). Fulfilled in the overthrow of Israel by Assyria (Ho 9:4, 5).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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 Hosea 2:5.

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.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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, Hosea 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 Isaiah 56:9.

(l) De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 1. sect. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. her vines and her fig trees] The Hebrew has ‘her vine and her fig-tree’. It would seem as if here, as in Joel 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. Song of Solomon 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.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - And I will destroy (make desolate) her vines and her fig trees, whereof she said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me. God had already threatened to deprive Israel of the means of support - the corn, wine, wool, and flax; he now threatens the removal of the very sources whence that support was derived. The vine and fig tree are usually conjoined, and by a common synecdoche convey the idea of all those sources that combine to support life and supply its luxuries. When the united kingdom of Judah and Israel, before the disruption, had obtained the zenith of prosperity in the reign of Solomon, it is thus expressed: Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon." Yet Israel knew not the time of her merciful visitation, and not only turned aside to idols, but most stupidly and most inexcusably attributed the many mercies she enjoyed to the idols which she worshipped. Like a foul adulteress despising the tokens of her husband's affection and delighting in the rewards of lewdness received from licentious paramours, Israel forfeited all her privileges, and forced the Lord to withdraw his bounties and destroy their very source. גֶפֶן rad. גפן, equivalent to תאן, to be bent, from the arch made by its drooping boughs, תְאֵנָה, rad. תאן, equivalent to תנן, to extend from its length. And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. The places where fig trees flourished and vines abounded shall be stripped of those trees, with their pleasant fruits - shall become a forest. The vineyards being no longer hedged or fenced, no longer cultivated or cared for, the beasts of the field shall, in consequence, find free ingress and roam there at large, devouring and devastating at pleasure. The Septuagint translates the first part of the above sentence by καὶ θήσομαι αὐτὰ εἰς μαρτύριον, "and I will make them a testimony," thus reading, according to Jerome, עֵד, instead of יעַרַ; while Cyril comments on the words so read as follows: "For these things being taken away shall testify as it were against Israel's depravity, and render their punishment more signal, and make the wrath conspicuous." The context, however, militates against the reading in question, for in time of war or general devastation places, through neglect, grow trees and brushwood, where wild beasts lair and lay waste. The explanation of the verse is well given by Kimchi in his commentary: "Because she said, 'These are the hire of my harlotry;' because she said that from the hand of her lovers came the corn and must and oil and all good things; - I will make them a desolation, that she may know whether she had those good things from me or from them. אתנה, because he has compared her to a harlot, he calls those good things אתנה, equivalent to אחנן וינה; while their signification is identical with חנאי, and their root, תנה [extend, reach, give], the aleph being prosthetic. But Jonathan renders אתנה by יְקַר, precious things. And he mentions the vine and the fig tree because grapes and figs are the best part of the food of man after the produce of the earth (i.e. corn); and already he had said, 'I will also take away my corn in its season.'" Hosea 2:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Lord will put an end to the festive rejoicing, by taking away the fruits of the land, which rejoice man's heart. Hosea 2:12. "And I lay waste her vine and her fig-tree, of which she said, They are lovers' wages to me, which my lovers gave me; and I make them a forest, and the beasts of the field devour them." Vine and fig-tree, the choicest productions of the land of Canaan, are mentioned as the representatives of the rich means of sustenance with which the Lord had blessed His people (cf. 1 Kings 5:5; Joel 2:22, etc.). The devastation of both of these denotes the withdrawal of the possessions and enjoyments of life (cf. Jeremiah 5:17; Joel 1:7, Joel 1:12), because Israel regarded them as a present from its idols. עתנה, softened down from אתנן (Hosea 9:1), like שׁריה, in Job 41:18, from שׁרין (1 Kings 22:34; cf. Ewald, 163, h), signifies the wages of prostitution (Deuteronomy 23:19). The derivation is disputed and uncertain, since the verb תּנה cannot be shown to have been used either in Hebrew or the other Semitic dialects in the sense of dedit, dona porrexit (Ges.), and the word cannot be traced to תּנן, to extend; whilst, on the other hand, the תּנה, התנה (Hosea 8:9-10) is most probably a denominative of אתנה. Consequently, Hengstenberg supposes it to be a bad word formed out of the question put by the prostitute, מה תתּן לי, and the answer given by the man, אתן לך (Genesis 38:16, Genesis 38:18), and used in the language of the brothel in connection with an evil deed. The vineyards and fig-orchards, so carefully hedged about and cultivated, are to be turned into a forest, i.e., to be deprived of their hedges and cultivation, so that the wild beasts may be able to devour them. The suffixes attached to שׂמתּים and אכלתם refer to גּפן וּתאנה (the vine and fig-tree), and not merely to the fruit. Comp. Isaiah 7:23. and Micah 3:12, where a similar figure is used to denote the complete devastation of the land.