As this verse made clear, the affairs unfolding within Hosea’s household symbolize the events taking place in God’s household. This means that while the words in this passage speak primarily of Israel, we must understand something of how they were first enacted through Hosea’s family.
Tragically, Hosea’s wife Gomer has continued to seek illicit sexual encounters during her marriage and motherhood. Hosea asks his three children to confront their mother concerning her promiscuous ways. We cannot be sure why he sent his children, but one could certainly see how it would increase her shame, and hopefully have the desired effect of bringing her to her senses–that she put away her whoring
(Hosea 2:2).1 It might be something akin to what we would call an intervention.
A key difference is that the children are not guiltless either (Hosea 2:4) and do not, therefore, stand with their father on the moral high ground. Gomer and her children stand together in representing the faithless Israel.
2 “Plead with your mother, plead for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;