Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
I will also cause her mirth to cease, her feast days ... - Israel had forsaken the temple of God; despised His priests; received from Jeroboam others whom God had not chosen; altered, at least, one of the festivals; celebrated all, where God had forbidden; and worshiped the Creator under the form of a brute creature (see Introduction). Yet they kept the great "feast-days," whereby they commemorated His mercies to their forefathers; the "new moons," whereby the first of every month was given to God; "the sabbaths," whereby they owned God as the Creator of all things; and all the other "solemn feasts," whereby they thanked God for acts of His special providence, or for His annual gifts of nature, and condemned themselves for trusting in false gods for those same gifts, and for associating His creatures with Himself. But man, even while he disobeys God, does not like to part with Him altogether, but would serve Him enough to soothe his own conscience, or as far as he can without parting with his sin which he loves better. Jeroboam retained all of God' s worship, which he could combine with his own political ends; and even in Ahab' s time Israel "halted between two opinions," and Judah "sware both by the Lord and by Malcham" Zephaniah 1:5, the true God and the false. All this their worship was vain, because contrary to the will of God. Yet since God says, "I will take away all her mirth," they had, what they supposed to be, religious "mirth" in their "feasts," fulfilling as they thought, the commandment of God, "Thou shalt rejoice in thy feasts" Deuteronomy 16:14. She could have no real joy, since true joy is "in the Lord" Philippians 4:4. So, in order that she might not deceive herself anymore, God says that he will take away that feigned formal service of Himself, which they blended with the real service of idols, and will remove the hollow outward joy, that, through repentance, they might come to the true joy in Him.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Hosea 2:11:
2 Kings 4:23
Isaiah 29:1
Hosea 9:5
Amos 8:10
Micah 2:9
Haggai 1:1
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