הלכה על הושע 3:2

From deep within the people’s terrible troubles, after their turbulent national life with all its destructive turmoil had been taken away from them, their spiritual light and strength began gradually to return to the levels from which it had declined. The people’s spirit began to soar again, the longer they were separated from politics and statecraft—which are poisonous to a broken society. “I stipulated with her: in return, you will go a long time without either fornicating or marrying; even I shall not cohabit with you. For the Israelites shall go a long time without king and without officials, without sacrifice and without cult pillars and without ephod and teraphim.”⁴⁸Hosea 3:2. In this passage, the betrayed husband takes back his previously unfaithful wife, giving her merely “fifteen pieces of silver, a ḥomer of barley, and a letekh of barley.” Similarly, God resumes his intimacy with the Jewish people but removes from them the trappings of national sovereignty, which had aided their betrayal. “In that day, I will destroy the horses in your midst and wreck your chariots. I will destroy the cities of your land and demolish all your fortresses. I will destroy the sorcery you practice, and you shall have no more soothsayers. I will destroy your idols and the sacred pillars in your midst; and no more shall you bow down to the work of your hands.”⁴⁹Mic. 5:9–12.