I Will Speak to Her Heart

The second chapter of Hosea opens like a case in court. The children are told to plead with their mother, “for she is not my wife (ishah אִשָּׁה ish-shaw'), and I am not her husband (ish אִישׁ eesh).” The charges follow one after another. She said, “I will go after my lovers, who give my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” She did not know that it was the LORD who had given her the grain, the new wine and the oil, and the silver and gold that they made for Baal. The last charge sums up all the rest.

Hosea 2:15 And I will visit upon her the days of the Baalim, to whom she burned incense, and she adorned herself with her ring and her jewelry, and went after her lovers; and me she forgot — declaration of the LORD.

After the words “me she forgot,” the sentence seems certain. Yet the next verse begins with “Therefore,” and what follows is not immediate, crushing wrath.

Alluring Her

Hosea 2:16 Therefore, behold, I am alluring her, and I will lead her into the wilderness, and I will speak to her heart.

The verb translated “alluring” is patah (פָּתָה), to persuade, to win someone over. It draws a person’s heart rather than compelling it. The Husband who has every right to condemn sets out instead to win back his wife, and He does it by leading her into the wilderness and speaking to her heart.

Back to the Wilderness

Why the wilderness? Because that is where their love began. Through Jeremiah, the LORD remembered that time in words that sound like a husband remembering the first days of his marriage.

Jeremiah 2:2 Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the LORD: I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, your going after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

“The kindness of your youth” is chesed חֶסֶד kheh'-sed, the steady, loyal love of a covenant. “The love of your espousals” is ahavat kelulotayikh, the love of the bridal time, the season of betrothal and wedding. And what the LORD remembers is a bride “going after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” In the wilderness there were no fields and no harvests, no grain or wine or oil to confuse with the gifts of other lovers. There were no distractions there. There was only the Husband who fed her and the bride who followed Him.

It was also in the wilderness, at Sinai, that the covenant was made and the Torah was given. When Moses read the book of the covenant in the ears of the people, they answered, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will hear.” The bridal season that Jeremiah remembers is the season in which the bride received her Husband’s words and promised to keep them. To go back to the wilderness is to go back to that first answer.

Hosea promises that the LORD will take her back to that place, and the place itself will change.

Hosea 2:17 And I will give to her her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall answer there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day of her coming up from the land of Egypt.

The valley of Achor was where Achan was stoned after Israel’s first defeat in the land. Joshua said to him, “Why have you troubled us? The LORD will trouble you this day,” and the place was called the valley of Achor, a name that means trouble. Now the LORD says He will give that same valley as “a door of hope.” The place remembered for sin and judgment becomes the entrance to a new beginning, and there she will answer as she did when she came up from Egypt.

Speaking to the Heart

The speaking is in three Hebrew words, vedibbarti al libbah, “and I will speak to her heart.” Scripture uses this phrase for the words one person speaks to win another, or to comfort another.

After Shechem had taken Dinah and humbled her, the text says that he loved her and “spoke to the heart of the young woman (na'arah),” trying to win her. When Boaz showed kindness to Ruth in his field, she said that he had comforted her and had “spoken to the heart of your maidservant.” And when the LORD sent comfort to His people after judgment, the prophet was told:

Isaiah 40:2 Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and proclaim to her, that her warfare is fulfilled, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.

These are the words of a lover trying to win back a heart, not of a judge reading out a sentence. They are spoken close, to someone who needs to be won and to be consoled. That is how the LORD speaks to the bride who forgot Him.

“My Husband,” Not “My Baal”

And what will she call Him when she is won back?

Hosea 2:18-19 And it shall be in that day — declaration of the LORD — you shall call me "my husband (ish)," and you shall no more call me "my Baal (Baali)." And I will remove the names of the Baalim from her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

The word baal in Hebrew means owner or master, and it was also an ordinary word for a husband. It was the name of the Canaanite god whom Israel had served as well. The LORD says that she will no longer call Him “my Baal (Baali)” at all. She will call Him ishi, “my husband,” or more simply, “my man.”

Ish is the word of Genesis 2:23, where the man is called ish and the woman ishah because she was taken from him. The LORD does not want to be called by a name that means owner and that had been given to another god. He wants to be called by the name of the first husband, the name of one flesh. The bride who comes home will speak to Him not in the language of ownership but in the language of marriage. And He will go further and remove the names of the Baalim from her mouth, so that the names of the lovers she once went after “shall no more be remembered by their name.”

This is the same jealousy we heard in the Song. A love that will not share its beloved does not stop at bringing her home. It clears the other names out of her mouth.

Where the Speaking Leads

All this speaking to her heart does not end in a feeling; it ends in a covenant. A few verses later, in Hosea 2:21-22, the LORD betroths her to Himself “forever,” in righteousness and judgment, in mercy and compassion, and in faithfulness, and the sentence ends: “and you shall know the LORD.” The wilderness, the door of hope, the new name and the betrothal all lead to one place: a bride who knows her Husband.

In this way the chapter shows how God answers unfaithfulness. He names it fully and hides nothing, and then, where the sentence is expected, He draws her back, speaks to her heart, opens a door of hope in the valley of trouble, teaches her a new word to call Him by, and betroths her again.

But Israel did not come home at once. The years went on, and the people kept turning away. In the middle of those years, Hosea records the LORD speaking not to Israel’s heart but about His own, and the words He uses are some of the most tender in all of Scripture.