Go, show your love to your wife again

Hosea 3:1-5

The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes. 

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”

For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

Gomer, now seemingly the slave of another man, is bought back and put on probation. Again, Hosea's action and his continuing love provide an object lesson. For a while, Israel too will be deprived of the things they counted on - their king and their religious emblems - but in time they will turn back to God.

A lethek of barley: about 10 bushels (about 330 liters)

Why?

The Lord asked Hosea to buy her wife back, she seemed the slave of another man. It means the Lord will bring his people back to Him. It cost God to pay for his people.

It is the people of Israelites who owe to the Lord, but God still forgives their sins and loves them again. So as Hosea loves his wife again.

The isolation period like the period of Israelites have no king or price, no sacrifice or sacred stone, and no ephod of household gods. Let Israelites be calm down with anything disturbing.

How?

God has an everlasting love for his people, so we should have to love for our neighbors.