This message stresses the renewed fertility and restored favor that Israel could anticipate because Yahweh would reach out and save her in the future.
2:21-22 In that coming day of blessing the Lord would restore agricultural productivity to the land. He would respond to the heavens, personified as crying to Him to send rain. The cry of the heavens would be in response to an appeal that the earth made to it to send rain. The earth would ask for rain because the grain, new wine, and oil had told the earth they needed rain. These crops would appeal to the earth because Jezreel had appealed to it. Jezreel ("God sows") here personifies the nation of Israel as a whole, though it was also the traditional "breadbasket"of the Northern Kingdom. Israel in the past had cried to Baal, the Canaanite god of rain and fertility, but he had not helped. Having returned to the Lord, the Israelites would now appeal to Him as the true God of fertility, and He would respond by sending rain.
2:23 The Lord would also sow Israel in the Promised Land; He would plant her there securely where she would grow under His care and blessing. He would show compassion to the people whom He formerly said were "not loved,"and He would reclaim as His own the people whom He formerly called "not my people"(cf. 1:6, 9).35They would then acknowledge Yahweh as their God, not Baal.
"Hosea 2:23, along with 1:10, is quoted in Romans 9:25-26 and 1 Peter 2:10. Paul quoted those Hosea passages to say that both Jews and Gentiles will be converted during the Church Age (cf. Rom. 9:24). This does notmean, however, that he equated the Gentiles with Israel and regarded the conversion of Gentiles as a direct fulfillment of Hosea's prophecy. Paul clearly taught that national Israel would be saved as well (Rom. 11). Rather, Paul extracted from Hosea's prophecy a principle concerning God's gracious activity . . ."36
