Hosea 9:2

Shall not feed them. Though Israel exults over her harvest blessings, the people would be unable to enjoy the abundant produce of their fields, because they would be carried away captive to Assyria, as apparently is implied in v. 3. When God’s blessings are turned to the purposes of sin, in mercy He takes them away (see PK 21). In the Lord’s land. That is, in Palestine (see Ps. 85:1; Joel 2:18), which God intended should be His people’s permanent possession. Through their sin and apostasy, however, they were to lose it. It was theirs only on the basis of the covenant relationship. Now that they had renounced the covenant (Hosea 6:7; 8:1; 9:1), it was fitting that they should be removed from the land (see ch. 9:15, 17; cf. on ch. 2:5, 9). Return to Egypt. See on ch. 8:13. Eat unclean things. In the land of their captivity the people would eat that which was unclean, since they could not readily conform to the requirements of the law forbidding the eating of certain animals (see Lev. 11; Eze. 4:13). Bread of mourners. This was food eaten at a funeral meal by those mourning for the dead. Any such food was legally unclean because a corpse ceremonially defiled for seven days the dwelling where it was and all who entered therein (see on Num. 19:14). Therefore, those who ate this food would be ceremonially unclean. Thus it would be with the captives in the polluted land of their exile. Bread for their soul. The clause reads literally, “for their bread [is] for their soul”; that is, “for themselves” (see on Ps. 16:10). All their food would be needed to nourish their lives. It would not be brought to the house of the Lord as an offering.