This is next described, with all plainness, under the figure of Israel's early wanderings in the wilderness, but is emphasised as happening only for the end of the people's penitence and restoration. The new hope is so melodious that it carries the language into metre.
Therefore, lo! I am to woo her, and I will bring her to the wilderness,
And I will speak home to her heart.
And from there I will give to her her vineyards,
And the Valley of Achor for a doorway of hope.
And there she shall answer Me as in the days of her youth,
And as the day when she came up from the land of Miṣraim.
To us the terms of this passage may seem formal and theological. But to every Israelite some of these terms must have brought back the days of his own wooing. I will speak home to her heart is a forcible expression, like the German "an das Herz" or the sweet Scottish "it cam' up roond my heart," and was used in Israel as from man to woman when he won her.[485] But the other terms have an equal charm. The prophet, of course, does not mean that Israel shall be literally taken back to the desert. But he describes her coming Exile under that ancient figure, in order to surround her penitence with the associations of her innocency and her youth. By the grace of God, everything shall begin again as at first. The old terms wilderness, the giving of vineyards, Valley of Achor, are, as it were, the wedding ring restored.
As a result of all this (whether the words be by Hosea or another),[486]
It shall be in that day—'tis Jehovah's oracle—that thou shalt call Me, My husband,
And thou shalt not again call Me, My Ba'al:
For I will take away the names of the Ba'alim from her mouth,
And they shall no more be remembered by their names.
There follows a picture of the ideal future, in which—how unlike the vision that now closes the Book of Amos!—moral and spiritual beauty, the peace of the land and the redemption of the people, are wonderfully mingled together, in a style so characteristic of Hosea's heart. It is hard to tell where the rhythmical prose passes into actual metre.
And I will make for them a covenant in that day with the wild beasts, and with the birds of the heavens, and with the creeping things of the ground; and the bow and the sword and battle will I break from the land, and I will make you to dwell in safety. And I will betroth thee to Me for ever, and I will betroth thee to Me in righteousness and in justice, in leal love and in tender mercies; and I will betroth thee to Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know Jehovah.
And it shall be on that day I will speak—'tis the oracle of Jehovah—I will speak to the heavens, and they shall speak to the earth; and the earth shall speak to the corn and the wine and the oil, and they shall speak to Jezreel, the scattered like seed across many lands; but I will sow him[487] for Myself in the land: and I will have a father's pity upon Un-Pitied; and to Not-My-People I will say. My people thou art! and he shall say, My God![488]
The circle is thus completed on the terms from which we started. The three names which Hosea gave to the children, evil omens of Israel's fate, are reversed, and the people restored to the favour and love of their God.
We might expect this glory to form the culmination of the prophecy. What fuller prospect could be imagined than that we see in the close of the second chapter? With a wonderful grace, however, the prophecy turns back from this sure vision of the restoration of the people as a whole, to pick up again the individual from whom it had started, and whose unclean rag of a life had fluttered out of sight before the national fortunes sweeping in upon the scene. This was needed to crown the story—this return to the individual.