2:5 For their mother has committed adultery;
she who conceived them has acted shamefully.
For she said, “I will seek out 1 my lovers; 2
they are the ones who give me my bread and my water,
my wool, my flax, my olive oil, and my wine. 3
2:7 Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch 4 them;
she will seek them, but she will not find them. 5
Then she will say,
“I will go back 6 to my husband, 7
because I was better off then than I am now.” 8
2:10 Soon 9 I will expose her lewd nakedness 10 in front of her lovers,
and no one will be able to rescue her from me! 11
2:13 “I will punish her for the festival days
when she burned incense to the Baal idols; 12
she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but 13 she forgot me!” 14 says the Lord.
1 tn Heb “I will go after” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
2 sn This statement alludes to the practice of sexual rites in the Canaanite fertility cult which attempted to secure agricultural fertility from the Canaanite gods (note the following reference to wool, flax, olive oil, and wine).
3 tn Heb “my drinks.” Many English versions use the singular “drink” here, but cf. NCV, TEV, CEV “wine.”
4 tn Heb “overtake” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NLT “be able to catch up with.”
5 tn In the Hebrew text the accusative direct object pronoun אֹתָם (’otam, “them”) is omitted/elided for balanced poetic parallelism. The LXX supplies αὐτους (autous, “them”); but it is not necessary to emend the MT because this is a poetic literary convention rather than a textual problem.
6 tn Heb “I will go and return” (so NRSV). The two verbs joined with vav form a verbal hendiadys. Normally, the first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense (GKC 386-87 §120.d, h). The Hebrew phrase אֵלְכָה וְאָשׁוּבָה (’elkhah vÿ’ashuvah, “I will go and I will return”) connotes, “I will return again.” As cohortatives, both verbs emphasize the resolution of the speaker.
7 tn Heb “to my man, the first.” Many English translations (e.g., KJV, NAB, NRSV, TEV) take this as “my first husband,” although this implies that there was more than one husband involved. The text refers to multiple lovers, but these were not necessarily husbands.
8 tn Or “because it was better for me then than now” (cf. NCV).
9 tn The particle עַתָּה (’attah) often refers to the imminent or the impending future: “very soon” (BDB 774 s.v. עַתָּה 1.b). In Hosea it normally introduces imminent judgment (Hos 2:12; 4:16; 5:7; 8:8, 13; 10:2).
10 tn Heb “her lewdness” (so KJV, NIV); NAB, NRSV “her shame.”
11 tn Heb “out of my hand” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV); TEV “save her from my power.”
12 tn Heb “the days of the Baals, to whom she burned incense.” The word “festival” is supplied to clarify the referent of “days,” and the word “idols” is supplied in light of the plural “Baals” (cf. NLT “her images of Baal”).
13 tn The vav prefixed to a nonverb (וְאֹתִי, vé’oti) introduces a disjunctive contrastive clause, which is rhetorically powerful.
14 tn The accusative direct object pronoun וְאֹתִי (vé’oti, “me”) is emphatic in the word order of this clause (cf. NIV “but me she forgot”), emphasizing the heinous inappropriateness of Israel’s departure from the