chose to love you, and "because I would keep the oath which I had sworn unto your fathers," which oath and promise was also wholly of grace and not of merit.
But let us proceed to the second stage of the prophet's relation and attitude to this woman.
After she became his wedded wife she forsook him and went to another man, but in spite of the intensity of her guilt and her ingratitude, the prophet did not cease to love her. This is touchingly expressed by the words, "beloved by her mate, yet an adulteress"; and in this, too, it resembles God's dealings with and attitude to Israel. Wonderful was the relationship into which the stiff-necked nation was brought. Well might Moses in his last words exclaim, "Happy art thou, O Israel, who is a people like unto thee!" "For thy Maker is thy husband: Jehovah of Sabbaoth is His name." But instead of entering into the blessedness of this relationship with Jehovah, Israel "looked to other gods," and committed spiritual adultery with idols; and instead of finding all their joy in fellowship with Him, they became sensual, and "loved flagons of wine" or "cakes of raisins." And yet, although the condition of Israel is well illustrated by this poor adulteress, the blessed truth which this transaction is meant to teach, and which Christians are so slow to learn, is that Jehovah still loves Israel. Yes, even now, while righteously given over into the hands of her enemies, a proverb and a byword among the nations, Israel is, and remains, "the dearly beloved of His soul" (Jer. xii. 7), and God narrowly and jealously watches the conduct of the nations toward them (Zech. i. 14, 15); for, although fellowship is broken off, and "in a little wrath He has hid His face from them for a moment," the marriage bond between Jehovah and the nation He has betrothed unto Him for ever (Hosea ii. 19) is indissoluble, and His "gifts and
