I will destroy her grapevines and fig trees, things she claims her lovers gave her. I will let them grow into tangled thickets, where only wild animals will eat the fruit.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,’ and the animals of the field shall eat them.
- KJV And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.
- BSB I will destroy her vines and fig trees, which she thinks are the wages paid by her lovers. So I will make them into a thicket, and the beasts of the field will devour them.
- NKJV “And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, Of which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.’ So I will make them a forest, And the beasts of the field shall eat them.
- NASB “And I will destroy her vines and fig trees, Of which she said, ‘They are my wages for prostitution Which my lovers have given me.’ And I will turn them into a forest, And the animals of the field will devour them.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God will destroy the vines and fig trees that Israel falsely claimed were wages from her idols. The supposed rewards of idolatry will be ruined.
Overview
Israel viewed her agricultural bounty as payment from her lovers, the Baals, so God lays waste the very things she boasted in. Turning vineyards into a wild forest reverses cultivation into desolation. The judgment dismantles the false economy of idolatry, proving that what the idols seemed to give, the Lord can swiftly take away, leaving only the One who truly provides.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Isa 7:23It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver shekels, shall be for briers and thorns.
- Isa 5:5Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down.
- Hos 13:8I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them.
- Hos 2:5For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
- Mic 3:12Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
- Hos 9:1Don’t rejoice, Israel, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your God. You love the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor.
- Isa 32:13–15Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.
- Isa 29:17Isn’t it yet a very little while, and Lebanon will be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field will be regarded as a forest?
- Jer 8:13“‘I will utterly consume them, says Yahweh: no grapes shall be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.’”
- Jer 26:18“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’
- Ps 80:12Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?
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Christ at the center
God's relentless love for an unfaithful bride dramatizes the gospel: 'Out of Egypt I called my son' is fulfilled in Jesus, who redeems an adulterous people at his own cost.
How Hosea 2:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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