1. And the number of the Israelites shall be like the sand of the sea that cannot be measured. These words manifestly introduce a new prophecy, one of national restoration, after the doomsaying of the first chapter. They pointedly invoke the language of God’s grand promise to Abraham in Genesis.

2. And the people of Judah and the people of Israel shall gather together. Some scholars detect here the hand of the Judahite editor who envisages the reunification of the southern and the northern kingdoms (presumably, after the northern kingdom was destroyed), though it is certainly possible that Hosea could have imagined a reunited nation as part of his utopian vision of the future.

they shall go up from the lands. The received text shows “land,” but “to go up from the land” is a phrase that would imply leaving the country, as in Exodus 1:10. The New Jewish Publication Society’s rendering, “rise up from the ground” is philologically possible but strained. This translation assumes the original text had a plural, “lands,” implying return from the lands of exile.

4. Bring a case against your mother. The language of a court case is used because she has committed adultery and so deserves to be hauled before a judge.

Let her take off her whoring from her face. This expression is a metonymy: she has put kohl around her eyes, reddened her lips, and set a ring in her nose, to ply her whore’s trade.

and her adultery from between her breasts. This is a parallel metonymy: she has put a sachet of fragrance between her breasts (compare the Song of Songs 1:13) to make herself more alluring to her lovers.

5. And I will turn her into a desert. As often happens in biblical poetry, the prophet switches from one set of images—Israel as a promiscuous female body—to another—the barren desert as a representation of national ruin.

7. their mother . . . / she who conceived them. While these two terms are conventional in poetic parallelism, the second one, intimating the physical act in which conception takes place, underscores the wife’s sexual betrayal of her husband.

my bread and water, / my wool and my flax, / my oil and my unguents. Zeev Wisman aptly notes that there is a progression here from the basic elements of food and drink to the materials needed to clothe the body to the more luxurious substances used to gratify the body and make it attractive. The last word here, rendered by some as “drink,” means “balm” in Proverbs 3:8 and “unguents” seems right for this context.

8. your way . . . / for her. The switch in grammatical person is common in biblical usage.

9. And she shall run after her lovers / and shall not catch them. This line should be taken together with the preceding one: her way is blocked and bristles with thorns, and she cannot see where she should go; desperately running after her lovers, she finds herself lost and trapped. All this leads her to the realization expressed in the next line that she was better off with her husband.

10. it was I who gave her. The word for “I,” ʾanokhi, is placed before the verb for emphasis: she had thought that her lovers provided all her needs (verse 7), but it was actually God.

silver I showered upon her. The literal sense of the verb is “multiplied” or “made abundant.”

that they fashioned for Baal. God had bestowed national prosperity on Israel, including precious silver and gold, but these were then used by the Israelites to fashion idols for Baal.

12. her shame. This is an equivalent of “her nakedness” at the end of the preceding line.

13. festivals . . . new moons . . . sabbaths. All these nouns are singular in the Hebrew but with a collective sense.

15. the days of the Baalim. The probable reference is to festival days when the Baalim were worshipped.

16. Therefore. It should be noted that this word (lakhen) is used by Hosea as a transitional term rather than one of causation to mark the beginning of a new prophecy.

beguile. Although this Hebrew verb elsewhere means “to entice” or “to seduce,” here it clearly has a positive sense, suggesting tenderness.

17. the Valley of Achor an opening to hope. The Hebrew ʿakhor suggests “trouble,” but in the bright future this very place with its dark associations will become the entranceway to hope.

sing out. The Hebrew verb ʿanah also often means “to answer,” but a clearly attested sense is “to speak out” or “to sing out.” That is the compelling sense here. The third verset, which invokes the moment of exodus from Egypt, probably means to make us recall the Song of the Sea that Moses and Miriam sing to celebrate God’s triumph over Egypt.

18. she shall call Me “my Husband” / and no longer call Me “my Baal.” This line turns on an untranslatable pun: baʿal is one of two Hebrew words for “husband,” but it is also the name of the principal Canaanite deity; the Hebrew synonym, ʾish, is the word translated here as “husband.”

19. the names of the Baalim. What is referred to is invoking the name of the deity in worship or in vows. Plurals are used because Baalim (im is the masculine plural suffix) can refer not to Baal alone but to a plurality of Canaanite deities.

20. a pact . . . / with the beasts of the field. A kind of edenic harmony will be imposed on nature, so that even ravening beasts and birds of prey will be pacific. Peace in nature will be coordinated with peace among men, as the next line spells out.

21. I will betroth you to Me forever. The prophet now reverts to the marriage metaphor, forseeing that the wretchedness of adultery will be replaced by a faithful union. The triple repetition of “I will betroth you” sounds very much like a performative speech-act, God pronouncing the wedding vows.

23. I will answer for. “Answer for” is probably the best English equivalent here for the Hebrew verb that means “to answer” (in each instance followed by a direct object in the Hebrew). The idea is that all the constituents of nature will be harmoniously joined in mutual responsibility, giving each to each.

25. I will sow her. This declaration—a single Hebrew word—immediately follows “Jezreel” at the end of the previous line: yizrʿeʾel / uzerʿatiha and so is clearly a play on the etymology of the name, which means “God will sow.” The very valley that in the first chapter was associated with crimes because of all the blood that was shed there is now to live up to its name by becoming a place of fecund growth.

You are my God. The Hebrew has only “my God,” but the verb “to be,” according to standard usage, is implied, and “my God” by itself would sound like an exclamation rather than an affirmation.