Reaching Bottom and Breaking the Cycle – Hos 2:6-7

Reaching Bottom
Hos 2:6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths.

A hedge is a barrier. God is going to put a barrier up to end Israel’s prosperity and thus its idolatry. Even today God blocks our way when we turn from Him so that we become miserable, sensing our loss, when we turn from righteousness to the ways of the world.

Reaching Bottom
Hos 2:6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths.

A hedge is a barrier. God is going to put a barrier up to end Israel’s prosperity and thus its idolatry. Even today God blocks our way when we turn from Him so that we become miserable, sensing our loss, when we turn from righteousness to the ways of the world.

Breaking the Cycle
Hos 2:7 She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’

Building on the previous verse, Israel’s greedy pursuits will come up short. Israel’s political collapse at the hands of the Chaldeans would cause those left behind from the exile to return to YHWH worship in Jerusalem in the time of Hezekiah. In much the same way when we take our eyes of Christ and begin to conform to the world, when we fall on our faces and realize our loss, God mercifully shows us the error of our way and draws us back to Himself.