The Father's Wayward Bride
Our Father's case against an unfaithful wife, standing for Israel: strip her, block her path, take back the grain and wool she credited to her lovers. Then the tone turns completely. He will lead her into the wilderness, speak to her heart, and marry her again.
2 1Say to your brothers, "My People," and to your sisters, "Shown Mercy." 2Plead with your mother, plead—for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband—that she put away her whoring from her face and her unfaithfulness from between her breasts, 3or I will strip her bare and leave her as naked as the day she was born; I will make her like a wilderness, turn her into a parched land, and let her die of thirst. 4I will show her children no compassion, for they are the children of whoring. 5Their mother has prostituted herself; she who carried them acted in shame. She said, "I will chase after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink."
6Therefore I am about to block her path with thorns; I will wall her in so she cannot find her paths. 7She will chase her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, "I will go back to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now." 8She has not realized that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, I who lavished silver and gold on her—which they spent on Baal. a a v8 The shift to 'they' reflects the Hebrew — the people of Israel took the gifts given to her and used them to serve Baal.
9Therefore I will take back my grain when it ripens and my new wine in its season; I will reclaim my wool and my flax, given to cover her nakedness. 10Now I will expose her shame before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my hand. 11I will put an end to all her rejoicing—her festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbaths, all her appointed festivals. 12I will lay waste her vines and fig trees, of which she said, "These are my wages that my lovers gave me." I will turn them into a thicket, and the wild animals will devour them. 13I will hold her accountable for the days she burned offerings to the Baals, when she decked herself with rings and jewelry and chased after her lovers—but me she forgot, declares our Father.
14"Therefore, look, I am going to win her back: I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her heart. 15There I will give her back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a doorway of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as on the day she came up out of Egypt." b b v15 The Valley of Achor means "trouble"—the place of an old failure that our Father turns into the very doorway into hope and restoration.
16On that day, declares our Father, you will call me "my husband," and no longer will you call me "my Baal." c c v16 Our Father's goal is closeness, not control—to be called "my husband," not "my master." "Baal" was both the everyday word for "master" and the name of the idol Israel had chased; he will no longer share her heart with it. 17I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth; never again will they be invoked by name. 18On that day I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the sky, and the creatures that move along the ground; I will banish bow and sword and war from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. 19I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice, in covenant love and compassion. 20I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you will know your Father.
21On that day I will respond, declares our Father—I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth; 22and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. d d v22 Jezreel means "God sows." The name that once signaled scattering and judgment now becomes a promise—our Father planting his people back into the land as his own. 23I will plant her for myself in the land. I will show mercy to "No Mercy," and I will say to "Not My People," "You are my children"; and they will say, "You are my Father." e e v23 The reversal is complete: those once named "Not My People" are now his children, and they answer him not as a distant deity but as Father—the relationship the whole book has been reaching toward.
