Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 3:2

So I bought her to me for fifteen [pieces] of silver, and [for] a homer of barley, and a half homer of barley:

So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver – The fifteen shekels were half the price of a common slave Exo 21:32, and so may denote her worthlessness. The homer and half-homer of barley, or forty-five bushels, are nearly the allowance of food for a slave among the Romans, four bushels a month. Barley was the offering of one accused of adultery, and, being the food of animals, betokens that she was like horse and mule which have no understanding. The Jews gave dowries for their wives; but she was the prophets wife already. It was then perhaps an allowance, whereby he bought her back from her evil freedom, not to live as his wife, but to be honestly maintained, until it should be fit, completely to restore her.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Hos 3:2

And for an homer of barley.

Barley a mean food

Why an homer of barley? Because it was a mean food, and in those times rather the food of beasts than of men. God promised to feed His people with the finest of the wheat. Feeding with barley signifies the mean condition in which the Ten Tribes, and afterwards the Jews, should be, till Christ came to marry them to Himself.

1. They should be in a contemptible condition, they should be valued at but half the price of a slave.

2. They should be fed but meanly and basely, even as slaves, or rather as beasts; this homer and a half of barley should be for their sustenance. This not only referred to the time of their captivity before Christ, but to all their captivity ever since, and that which they shall endure until their calling.

Observe–

1. A people who have been high in outward glory, when they depart from God, make themselves vile and contemptible. God casts contempt on the wicked who corrupt His worship.

2. Though a people be under contempt, yet Gods heart may be towards them to do them good in the latter end. The love of Gods election is still on this people; God remembers them, and yet intends good to them. If there be any of you whom God has so depressed as to render you contemptible, humble yourselves before God, but do not despair. Who knows but this was the only way that God had to bow your hearts? God puts His own people under contempt, and yet it is all from love to them, and with an intent to do them good at the last.

3. After many promises of Gods mercy and of a glorious condition, which He intends for His people, He may yet hold a very hard hand over them for a great while. God takes supreme care that His people shall not grow wanton with His mercy.

4. Those who will delight their flesh to the full in a sensual use of the creature, it is just with God that they should be cut short, and made to live meanly and basely, made to feed on coarse fare.

5. If God will not utterly destroy a people, as He might, but reserve mercy for them at last, yet they have cause to bless God, though their subsistence for the present be most mean. It was wont to be a phrase, brown bread and the Gospel are good fare.

6. It is the way of God to humble those to whom He intends good, to prepare them for mercy by cutting them short of outward comforts. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)

Gods dominion over Israel

The prophets purchasing the adulteress for so much money is not to be strained to signify the Lords redeeming of His Church, for the price is given to herself for maintenance and to purchase her goodwill, though she be His own, in order to a second marriage but it teacheth that as a slave bought with money is at the buyers disposal, so however Israel followed many idols, yet the Lord would prove that He alone had dominion over her, to set her in what condition He pleased. The price given for her, being but half a servants worth, and half the estimation of a woman, may teach how little worth they are who despise the Lord and corrupt His worship. The small price, with the barley joined to it, being little and unfit food, may teach that sensuality provokes God to send pinching poverty, and that we must be stripped of all things before we become sensible, and are weaned from our idols. (George Hutcheson.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 2. Fifteen pieces of silver] If they were shekels, the price of this woman was about two pounds five shillings.

A homer of barley] As the homer was about eight bushels, or something more, the homer and half was about twelve or thirteen bushels.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

So I bought her; as I was commanded, I procured, or, as we read it, bought her: which exactly answers to the state of the Jews when in Egypt, tainted with Egyptian idolatry, and poor, without a portion; bought or redeemed to be affianced to God.

Fifteen pieces of silver; whatever was the exact quantity and value of these pieces we need not here curiously inquire; but note, it was half the value of a slave, Exo 21:32, and was some 37s. 6d.

An homer: this measure might be about fourteen bushels; so the whole will, for her diet, amount to twenty-one bushels, no great provision for her diet; and it is

barley in both places, the meanest kind of provision, and suited to a low condition, Jdg 7:13; Eze 4:9,12; all this the fuller to set forth Israels indigence and ingratitude to God, and Gods bounty to Israel.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

2. I bought herThe price paidis too small to be a probable dowry wherewith to buy a wifefrom her parents; but it is just half the price of a female slave,in money, the rest of the price being made up in grain (Ex21:32). Hosea pays this for the redemption of his wife, who hasbecome the slave of her paramour. The price being halfgrain was because the latter was the allowance of food for theslave, and of the coarsest kind, not wheat, but barley.Israel, as committing sin, was the slave of sin(Joh 8:34; Rom 6:16-20;2Pe 2:19). The low priceexpresses Israel’s worthlessness.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver,…. Or, “fifteen shekels”, which was about one pound seventeen shillings and six pence of our money, reckoning a shekel at two shillings and six pence; though some make it to be but two shillings and four pence; this was but half the price of a servant, Ex 21:32, and alludes to the dowry which men used to give to women at their marriage; see

1Sa 18:25. The word here used has the signification of digging; hence the Vulgate Latin version renders it, “I dug her”; and the abettors and defenders of it think it refers to the digging, or boring the ears of a servant that chose to continue with his master, Ex 21:6, but the word is used in the sense of buying, Ge 1:5, and so Jarchi says it has the sense of merchandise or bargaining; and in the sea coasts he observes, that they call , a purchase, . Perhaps the word is better rendered by the Septuagint and Arabic versions, “hired”; and

“cara” in the Arabic language signifies “to hire”; so it is used in Ac 28:30. So with the Turks, as Monsieur Thevenot f observes, a letter out of beasts to hire is called “moucre” or “moukir”, which comes from the Arabic word “kira”, he says, which signifies to let or hire; and is here fitly used of a harlot. The Jews have many whims and fancies about these fifteen pieces of silver. The Targum, and Pesikta in Jarchi, take them to respect the fifteenth day of Nisan, on which the Israelites were redeemed out of Egypt; according to Aben Ezra, they design the fifteen kings of Judah, from Rehoboam to the captivity, reckoning the sons of Josiah as one, being brethren; according to others, in Kimchi, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the twelve tribes; and, according to Abarbinel, the fifteen prophets that prophesied of the redemption:

and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley; a “homer” held ten “ephahs”, and a “lethec”, or “half homer”, five “ephahs”, or so many bushels, these making the number fifteen: again, according to Saadiah, they design Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, and the twelve tribes; and, according to Aben Ezra, the number of the high priests in the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem, a homer making thirty seahs, and a half homer fifteen, in all forty five; but according to others, in Kimchi, these design the forty five days between the coming of the Israelites out of Egypt and their receiving the law: but, leaving these fancies, as the number of shekels given for her was but a low price, and shows what an estimate was made of her; and barley being the coarsest of grain, and bread made of it, that of the worst sort, which the poorer people eat; may be expressive of the captive, servile, mean, and abject state of the people of Israel, from the time of their captivity to their conversion to Christ, as is after more fully explained.

f Travels, part 2. B. 1. ch. 3. p. 11.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

“And I acquired her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a lethech of barley.” , with dagesh lene or dirimens (Ewald, 28, b), from karah , to dig, to procure by digging, then generally to acquire (see at Deu 2:6), or obtain by trading (Job 6:27; 40:30). Fifteen keseph are fifteen shekels of silver; the word shekel being frequently omitted in statements as to amount (compare Ges. 120, 4, Anm. 2). According to Eze 45:11, the homer contained ten baths or ephahs, and a lethech ( , lxx) was a half homer. Consequently the prophet gave fifteen shekels of silver and fifteen ephahs of barley; and it is a very natural supposition, especially if we refer to 2Ki 7:1; 2Ki 16:18, that at that time an ephah of barley was worth a shekel, in which case the whole price would just amount to the sum for which, according to Exo 21:32, it was possible to purchase a slave, and was paid half in money and half in barley. The reason for the latter it is impossible to determine with certainty. The price generally, for which the prophet obtained the wife, was probably intended to indicate the servile condition out of which Jehovah purchased Israel to be His people; and the circumstance that the prophet gave no more for the wife than the amount at which a slave could be obtained, according to Ecc. 21:32 and Zec 11:12, and that this amount was not even paid in money, but half of it in barley – a kind of food so generally despised throughout antiquity ( vile hordeum; see at Num 5:15) – was intended to depict still more strikingly the deeply depressed condition of the woman. The price paid, moreover, is not to be regarded as purchase money, for which the wife was obtained from her parents; for it cannot be shown that the custom of purchasing a bride from her parents had any existence among the Israelites (see my Bibl. Archologie, ii. 109, 1). It was rather the marriage present ( mohar ), which a bridegroom gave, not to the parents, but to the bride herself, as soon as her consent had been obtained. If, therefore, the woman was satisfied with fifteen shekels and fifteen ephahs of barley, she must have been in a state of very deep distress.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

These verses have been read together, for in these four the Prophet explains the vision presented to him. He says, first, that he had done what had been enjoined him by God; which was conveyed to him by a vision, or in a typical form, that by such an exhibition he might impress the minds of the people: I bought, he says, a wife for fifteen silverings, and for a corus of barley and half a corus; that is, for a corus (12) and a half. He tells us in this verse that he had bought the wife whom he was to take for a small price. By the fifteen silverings and the corus and half of barley is set forth, I have no doubt, her abject and mean condition. Servants, we know, were valued at thirty shekels of silver when hurt by an ox, (Exo 21:32.) But the Prophet gives her for his wife fifteen silvering; which seemed a contemptible gift. But then the Lord shows, that though he would but scantily support his people in exile, they would still be dear to him, as when a husband loves his wife though he does not indulge her, when that would be inexpedient: overmuch indulgence, as it is well known, has indeed often corrupted those who have gone astray. When a husband immediately pardons an adulterous wife, and receives her with a smiling countenance, and fawningly humbles himself by laying aside his own right and authority, he acts foolishly, and by his levity ruins his wife: but when a husband forgives his wife, and yet strictly confines her within the range of duty, and restrains his own feelings, such a moderate course is very beneficial and shows no common prudence in the husband; who, though he is not cruel, is yet not carried away by foolish love. This, then is what the Prophet means, when he says, that he had given for his wife fifteen silverings and a corus and half of barley. Respectable women did not, indeed, live on barley. The Prophets then, gave to his wife, not wheat-flour, nor the fine flour of wheat, but black bread and coarse food; yea, he gave her barley as her allowance, and in a small quantity, that his wife might have but a scanty living. We now then understand the Prophet’s meaning.

Some elicit a contrary sense, that the Lord would splendidly and sumptuously support the wife who had been an adulteress; but this view by no means harmonizes with the Prophet’s design, as we have already seen. Besides, the words themselves lead us another way. Jerome, as his practice is, refines in allegorizing. He says, that the people were bought for fifteen silverings, because they came out of Egypt on the fifteenth day of the month; and then he says, that as the Hebrew homer contains thirty bushels, they were bought for a corus and half, which is forty-five bushels. because the law was promulgated forty-five days after. But these are puerile trifles. Let then the simple view which I have given be sufficient for us, — that God, though he favored her, not immediately with the honor of a wife and liberal support, yet ceased not to love her. Thus we see the minds of the faithful were sustained to bear patiently their calamities; for it is an untold consolation to know that God loves us. If a testimony respecting his love moderates not our sorrows, we are very ill-natured and ungrateful.

The Prophet then more clearly proves in these words, that God loved his people, though he seemed to be alienated from them. He might have wholly destroyed them: he yet supplied them with food in their exile. The people indeed lived in the greatest straits; and all delicacies were no doubt taken from them, and their fare was very sordid and very scanty: but the Prophet forbids them to measure God’s favor by the smallness of what was given them; for though God would not immediately receive into favor a wife who had been an adulteress, yet he wished her to continue his wife.

(12) A Hebrew measure, containing 30 bushels, the load of a camel. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(2) Pieces of silver.Shekels.

So I bought her.Gomer was treated as no longer a wife, but requiring to be restored to such a position. The purchase of wives is still a very common practice in the East (See Hendersons Commentary, and Deut. xxi 14.)

Half homer of barley.Half a homer is the translation given to the Hebrew word lethekh, which occurs only in this passage. This rendering is founded on the interpretation half a cor (cor = homer), which is given in all the Greek versions except the LXX. The latter read and a nbhel of wine, the nbhel being probably a skin bottle of a certain liquid capacity. This pre-supposes a different Hebrew text. From 2Ki. 7:1 we may infer that an ephah of barley at ordinary times would cost one shekel (comp. Amo. 8:5), and since a homer contains ten ephahs, the price paid by the prophet was thirty shekels altogether. Reckoning a shekel as = two drachms (so LXX.), or 2s. 6 d., the price paid by Hosea was about 3 15s. According to Exo. 21:32, this was the compensation enacted for a slave gored to death by a bull, and is a hint of the degradation to which Gomer had sunk.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2. The command is carried out.

I bought her The woman described in Hos 3:1. Why he had to buy her back is not stated, nor is it quite clear. It may have been simply to avoid an altercation with the paramour, or because she had become a slave. Pusey and others suggest that the verb does not imply purchase, but refers to some arrangement on the part of the prophet to provide for the temporary maintenance until he might restore her to wifehood of Gomer, whom he found in destitute circumstances, though not in the possession of another. This explanation would remove the necessity of assuming that Gomer had become a slave; it would make natural also the mention of barley, which would serve as food, while the money was to supply other necessities. It is doubtful, however, that such meaning can be assigned to the verb translated I bought; it is better to retain the common rendering.

Fifteen pieces (or, shekels) of silver A shekel of silver is equivalent to about sixty cents; the entire amount being about nine dollars.

Homer of barley According to Eze 45:11, the homer contains ten ephahs or baths (but compare Exo 16:36); of the bath two calculations have been handed down: that of the rabbis, ascribing to it a capacity of 21.26 quarts, and that of Josephus, who makes it equivalent to 40.62 quarts. The homer would contain ten times that amount.

Half homer Hebrews lethekh. A measure not otherwise known; Hebrew tradition makes it equivalent to a half homer. LXX. renders, “a bottle of wine,” which is accepted by some moderns as original.

Admitting the correctness of the Hebrew, Hosea would have paid one homer and a half of barley in addition to the fifteen shekels of silver. The money value of the barley it is difficult to determine. 2Ki 7:18, helps but little, since the price stated there is not the normal price. If we assume that the ordinary rate was three seahs for one shekel, one homer and a half forty-five seahs would cost approximately fifteen shekels; that added to fifteen shekels paid cash would make thirty shekels according to Exo 21:32, the value of a slave. Why Hosea paid partly in barley and partly in cash we do not know.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and a homer of barley, and a half-homer of barley,’

This may signify the bridal price. Or it may indicate that she was a bondslave and therefore had to be redeemed. Hosea’s treatment of her would suggest the latter. No father would have given his daughter on those terms, even if she had a bad reputation. Either way there is perhaps an indication here of Hosea’s relative poverty. He could only afford fifteen pieces of silver, and had to supplement it with quantities of barley. (The price of a female slave was thirty shekels – Exo 21:32; compare Lev 27:4). In this there is a reminder of the cost to YHWH of redeeming His people. It was not an easy price to pay, and in the end a price beyond telling.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

The Prophet’s purchase hath doubtless an allusion to the redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ. It was spoken of as a goodly price, the Redeemer was bought for, Zec 11:12 . Here the Prophet gave but half that sum. But it is remarkable, that the price of retribution to a man-servant, or maid-servant, hurt by an ox was double this sum. Precious Jesus! was thy precious blood so little set by! Exo 21:32 . And how graciously doth the Lord plead for the Church to be faithful. Jesus cannot admit a rival. If the heart be not given to him, there is nothing else he can accept. Reader! think of the graciousness of the Lord, as set forth under these figures. Fifteen piece of silver was but about the value of one pound seventeen shillings of our money. And as for the homer, and half homer of barley, the coarsest of grain, the value of it must have been inconsiderable indeed. And if the figure here used did refer to Christ, to the price given for him, what a gracious representation of the Redeemer’s unequalled humility? Some have thought, that beside this, it had another reference, namely, to the dowry of Christ’s Church, in her lost, ruined, and undone estate. Those who are of this opinion suppose, that an allusion was made to it by David. 1Sa 18:25 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Hos 3:2 So I bought her to me for fifteen [pieces] of silver, and [for] an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:

Ver. 2. So I bought her to me. ] God is to be obeyed, though it go never so much against the heart and the hair with us. ‘ E Y . Follow God, was a heathen but an honest precept (Epictet.). This he that would do, must first deny himself, and say, with that Dutch divine, Veniat, veniat, verbum Dei, &c., Let a word of command come forth from God, and we will submit thereto, though we had six hundred lives to lose, yea, though we can see no reason for it. Indeed, in human governments, where reason is shut out, there tyranny is thrust in. But where God commandeth, there to ask a reason is presumption; to oppose reason is flat rebellion.

I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver ] That is, fifteen shekels, or shillings, or thereabouts; no great price it was that he gave for her, whether for hire or dowry; probably it was in order to marrying her, and in reference to that law, Deu 21:11 . Israel was once a precious people, God’s peculiar treasure, such as comprehended all his gettings. The Jews have a saying, that those seventy souls that went down with Jacob into Egypt were more worth than all the seventy nations of the earth beside. But now, behold, how cheap they are grown; they are valued all of them at fifteen pieces of silver, a goodly price, Zec 11:12 Mat 27:9 . If the tongue of the righteous be as choice silver, yet the heart of the wicked is little worth, Pro 10:20 . There (as in the sea) is that leviathan (the king of all the children of pride), and there are creeping things innumerable, crawling lusts, and lawless passions; but for anything of worth, it is not there to be had. Hence, as at the last destruction of Jerusalem, thirty Jews were sold for one penny, so here the whole body of the nation are bought and sold for a small sum. “How weak is thine heart” (how light cheap), saith the Lord God to this light housewife, “seeing thou dost all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman?” Eze 16:30 . God and his people reckon of men by their righteousness. He looked down from heaven to see who sought after God, Psa 14:3 . As for others, he regards them no more than men do dross, draft, chaff, or such like refuse stuff, Psa 119:119 ; Psa 1:4 , &c., whatever great thoughts they take up of themselves, and however the world rates them. Antiochus Epiphanes, that great king of Syria, is called a vile person, Dan 11:21 . And the adversary is this wicked Haman, saith Esther: that was his true title, which he perhaps never heard till now.

And an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley ] God buys not this people (though for never so little) to starve them, but alloweth them alimony, though not so fine a food; barley, and not wheat. See Rev 6:6 , prisoners’ pittance, coarse fare, such as slaves and beasts are fed with; as she had been like horse and mule, Psa 32:9 , and lest she should wax fat and kick, she is held to strait allowance. Whereby is signified the mean and low condition that the ten tribes (and afterwards all the Jews) should be in, till Christ came to marry them to himself. First, they should be valued but at half the price of a slave. Secondly, they should be coarsely fed, as beasts, with barley, or, perhaps, not so well as the Jews’ beasts: for among them the mouth of the ox treading out their grain might not be muzzled. But the heathens were wont to put an engine (called ) about their servants’ necks, and it reached down to their hands, that they might not so much as lick of the wheat meal when they were sifting it. Now they were scattered among the heathen and sold to the nations for nought, Psa 44:11-12 . They that were wont to feed delicately were desolate in the streets; they that were brought up in scarlet embraced dunghils, Lam 4:5 , their flagons of wine were turned into tankards of water, and their bellaria, or junkets (so the Septuagint render it, and not flagons) into brown bread, horse bread: that so those whom pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness had undone, hardship and penury might reduce to duty, Eze 16:49 . God would seem for a time to have forgotten them, that they might at length remember themselves: he loves to chastise men’s insolvence with indigence, as he did Hagar’s, Gen 21:15 , and the prodigal’s, Luk 15:16 , who for his swinish life was brought to swine’s meat, and thereby brought home to his father. It is the way of God to humble those he intendeth good unto, to prepare them for mercy by cutting them short of these outward comforts. Though this be here a threatening, yet there is a promise in it, Hos 3:3 , that God will take oft the smarting plaister so soon as it hath eaten out the proud flesh. It is in very faithfulness that he afflicteth his people, because he will be true to their souls, and save them. And hence it is that he so diets them, and keeps them short, that he may do them good in the latter end, that he may change their bricks (made in their bondage) into sapphires and agates. See Exo 24:10 Isa 54:11 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

fifteen pieces of silver = fifteen shekels (App-51.) The price of the redemption of a slave.

homer. See App-61.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

I bought: Gen 31:41, Gen 34:12, Exo 22:17, 1Sa 18:25

an homer: Lev 27:16, Isa 5:10, Eze 45:11

half homer: Heb. lethech.

Reciprocal: Gen 29:18 – I will serve Num 5:15 – her offering for her Rth 4:10 – have I Jer 32:9 – seventeen shekels of silver

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Hos 3:2. Bought her to me. The Persians were not given any ransom for the release of the peopl# of God. but in this “buying” the Jews themselves were the other parties to the bargaining. They were encouraged to return to their former estate by the promise of good things in the home land.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Hos 3:2. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver That is, according to the ancient custom, I paid her dower. It was usual among the Hebrews for men to purchase, or pay a consideration for, their wives, either by money or labour; thus Jacob agreed to serve Laban seven years for Rachael. And for a homer of barley, &c. Sir John Chardin observed in the East, that, in their contracts for temporary wives, there is always the formality of a measure of corn mentioned, over and above the stipulated sum of money. Harmer, vol. 2:513. The low price at which the prophet purchased this woman, was significative how base and of little value the Israelites were, since their apostacy from the worship of God to idolatry. Or, according to Calvin, the parsimonious gift, a sum of money which was but half the price of a female slave, and a pittance of black barley bread, typified the hard fare which the Israelites were to expect at the hand of God in their state of exile.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

3:2 So {c} I bought her to me for fifteen [pieces] of silver, and [for] an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:

(c) Yet I loved her and paid a small portion for her, lest she would have perceived the greatness of my love, and abused me, and not been under duty: for fifteen pieces of silver was but half the price of a slave; Exo 21:32 .

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Hosea obeyed the Lord and sought out his wife. He had to pay 15 shekels of silver and an homer and a half of barley (about 9 bushels) since she had apparently become the property of someone else. Fifteen shekels of silver was half the price of a dead slave (Exo 21:32), and barley was cattle food. An homer and a half cost about 15 shekels of silver. [Note: Wolff, p. 61.] So Hosea evidently paid the price of a dead slave for his wife.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)