Hosea 3King James Version
Hosea buys his wife back, who has apparently been sold or has sold herself. Fifteen shekels of silver and some barley. So will God love Israel though they turn to other gods. She shall abide for me many days without the things of love. Then she will return and seek the Lord.
God tells Hosea to go love his adulterous wife again, mirroring God's love for Israel despite their turning to other gods. Hosea buys Gomer back for fifteen pieces of silver and half a homer of barley, the price of a slave. He tells her to stay faithful and wait. Israel will likewise sit many days without king or sacrifice before returning to seek God.
Hosea buys back the wife who left him, paying a slave's price to redeem what was already his, because God's love does not calculate what it has already lost.
verse: "So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley." (3:2): The price is deliberately low, a humiliating sum for a woman sold into prostitution or slavery, yet Hosea pays it without reported hesitation.
By the time Hosea goes to buy Gomer back, Israel's political situation has deteriorated sharply. Kings are being assassinated in coups every few years. The nation is already paying tribute to Assyria under Menahem. The 'many days without a king' Hosea predicts is almost visible on the horizon.
Hosea acts again as living parable, going back to a woman who has by now sunk to a price below a laborer's wage. Gomer is present but silent, her condition suggesting she has hit bottom. God stands behind every detail, identifying his own love for straying Israel in Hosea's act of buying her back.
This is one of the Bible's most direct images of redemptive love. Hosea pays for what is already his by covenant right, just as God will later redeem a people who had given themselves away. The chapter's brevity is part of its power: five verses, no drama, just the transaction and the waiting.
There is no triumphant homecoming here, only quiet instruction to stay and wait. The restraint is devastating, more tender than any speech.
1Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
2So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:
3And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.
4For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:
5Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.