Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and make a wall, so that she shall not find her paths.
All Commentaries on Hosea 2:6 Go To Hosea 2
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
The ways of the elect are hedged up with thorns when they find the pain of piercing in that which they desire in this world. He obstructs, as it were by interposing a wall, the ways of those whose desires the difficulty of attainment opposes. Their souls truly seek their lovers but do not find them. They follow malignant spirits but do not gain hold of those pleasures of this world that they desire. It is well added that she says immediately in consequence of this very difficulty: “I will go and return to my former husband, for then it was better with me than now.” For the Lord is the first husband, who united to himself the chaste soul by means of the love of the Holy Spirit. And the mind of each one then longs for him when it finds manifold bitternesses, as thorns in those delights that it desires in this world. For when the mind has begun to be stung by the adversities of the world that it loves, it then understands more fully how much better for it was its former husband. Those whom an evil will perverts, adversity frequently corrects. .
