Hosea 9:17

My God. See on v. 8. God is not the God of those who, by their disobedience, depart from Him. God never forsakes men unless they first forsake Him for ways of their own choosing (see on v. 12). Wanderers. Centuries before, God had forewarned Israel that this would be their fate if they departed from the Lord (see Deut. 28:63-65). The ten tribes, as a nation, were not to return, but would be “wanderers among the nations” until the end of time (see PK 298). How strikingly this divine prediction has been fulfilled is amply seen in the history of the Jews from Hosea’s day to the present. They have gone from nation to nation, a people without a country. However, this prophecy does not say that members of the ten tribes could not return from captivity as individuals, for they could, and some of them did, with the returning captives of Judah, after Judah’s term of exile (see on Hosea 1:11).