‘Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them. ” So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. Then I said to her, “You must live in my house for many days and stop your prostitution. During this time, you will not have sexual relations with anyone, not even with me. ” This shows that Israel will go a long time without a king or prince, and without sacrifices, sacred pillars, priests, or even idols! But afterward the people will return and devote themselves to the Lord their God and to David’s descendant, their king. In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and of his goodness.’ Hosea 3:1-5(NLT)
After recording how judgment and hope were revealed in his earlier family experiences and in God’s first lawsuit, Hosea turned to an account of his later family experiences in chapter 3:1-5.
Hosea 3 begins with an autobiographical family narrative in verses 1 through 3. Gomer, we learn, had returned to worship prostitution. But God commanded Hosea in verse 1 to “Go again to Gomer, love a woman who is … an adulteress.” Hosea obeyed, but in verse 3, he told Gomer that she was to be without a man “for many days.” Still, Hosea was careful to balance these words of judgment with a second set of divinely inspired hopeful prophetic reflections.
In chapter 3 verses 4 and 5 we read this:
For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel … shall come in fear to the Lord and to his goodness.
As this passage indicates, Gomer’s time without a man symbolized that Israel would have to endure a long period of devastation, “without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods.” But once again, Hosea stressed the hopeful outlook that after this judgment ended, Israel would receive God’s “goodness” or blessings.
from The Prophetic Wisdom Of Hosea