Pemikiran Yahudi Hosea 2:10: Duties & Guide for the Perplexed

A person should not behave like the one of whom it is said, "And silver I gave her in abundance and gold which they prepared for Baal (idols)" (Hosea 2:10). One who falls short in the special service which he has to render for the bounty with which he has been specially favored, will be induced to fall short in the service specially incumbent upon his tribe and afterwards in that incumbent upon his people, and at last he will renounce the Torah altogether. Not accepting the Torah, he will not even accept the obligation of the precepts that reason dictates.

You know how we condemn lowness of speech, and justly so, for speech is likewise peculiar to man and a boon which God granted to him that he may be distinguished from the rest of living creatures. Thus God says, “Who gave a mouth to man?” (Exod. 4:11); and the prophet declares, “The Lord God hath given me a learned tongue” (Isa. 50:4). This gift, therefore, which God gave us in order to enable us to perfect ourselves, to learn and to teach, must not be employed in doing that which is for us most degrading and perfectly disgraceful; we must not imitate the songs and tales of ignorant and lascivious people. It may be suitable to them, but is not fit for those who are told, “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6). Those who employ the faculty of thinking and speaking in the service of that sense which is no honour to us, who think more than necessary of drink and love, or even sing of these things: they employ and use the divine gift in acts of rebellion against the Giver, and in the transgression of His commandments. To them the following words may be applied: “And I multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal” (Hos. 2:10).