3:1 God posed the question to His people of what happens in a divorce. The answer to His rhetorical question is, no, a husband who divorces his wife, if she goes to live with another man, will not return to her.92The Mosaic Law forbade such a thing (cf. Deut. 24:1-4). If Judah was a wife and Yahweh was her husband, He would not normally "return"to her.93The Israelites believed that sin and evil in the people had repercussions on the land and polluted it (cf. vv. 2, 9; Lev. 18:25, 28; 19:29; Deut. 24:4; Hos. 4:2-3; Amos 4:6-10).
A second figure compares Israel to a harlot with many lovers. She was worse than a divorced wife. Would such a woman expect her husband to receive her back if she returned to him? No. The people of Judah had no reasonable expectation that Yahweh would receive her back even if she repented (cf. Hos. 2:14-3:3).94
3:2 Continuing the figure of Judah as a harlot, the Lord urged His people to look around. There was hardly a place they could see where they had not been unfaithful to Him by worshipping idols. They had pursued this evil as avidly as roadside harlots sought lovers (cf. Gen. 38:14-23; Prov. 7:12-15; Ezek. 16:25). Arabs of the desert waited along the wilderness routes and eagerly offered wares for sale to anyone who passed by. They also sometimes hid in ambush to rob passing caravans. The similarly eager Israelites had polluted the land spiritually with their wicked harlotry.
3:3 Consequently the Lord had withheld rain from the land, as He threatened to do if His people departed from Him (Lev. 26:19; Deut. 28:23-24). In the spring, when the people needed rain so their crops would mature, the heavens were dry. In spite of this punishment they refused to repent. They did not feel shame for their apostasy but behaved brazenly. To have a harlot's forehead was to be brazen-faced.95
"God's withholding of the rains should have indicated clearly enough to the people that their fertility rites ensured nothing; the God of covenant was as much Lord of the natural world as he was of the events of history."96
3:4 Instead of repenting they besought God to help them calling Him their Father, the friend who had guided them in their youth.
3:5 They also asked Him if He would always be angry with them. They acknowledged that He had spoken warnings in the past and had followed up His words with acts of judgment. He had had His way with them, but now, they implied, it was time for Him to relent. They failed to appreciate that the end of His punishment required repentance from them, not a change of heart from Him.
"Persistent, habitual sin can desensitize an individual to the nagging of one's conscience, the convicting work of God's Spirit, or the direct rebuke of God's Word."97
