Thoughts on Hosea 1:2-10
The three children of the prophet by Gomer symbolize at once a degree of
sin and a period of suffering. The forefathers of Israel had been idolaters in
their native laud and in Egypt, as we learn from the admonition of Joshua
(Joshua 24:14), “Put away the gods which your fathers served on the
other side of the flood, and in Egypt.” But God took them into covenant
with himself at Sinai; this new relation may be represented by the prophet’s
espousing at the Divine command Gomer, notwithstanding her previous
impurity and lewdness. But though God took the people of Israel into such
a close and endearing relation to himself, yet their posterity, instead of
proving themselves children of God, often forsook God and fell into
idolatry, this apostasy of the descendants through succeeding generations is
embodied by the children of immorality which the prophet had by a wife of
immorality. So with ourselves tainted by original sin; we are stained by
many actual transgressions. “Sin,” it has been well said, “is contagious,
and, unless it is cut off by grace, hereditary.”